David Kaplan

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Contact this author at david@adexchanger.com

Ad Op Partners In Place, Pandora Makes A Grab For Local Radio Dollars

Friday, May 17th, 2013

Streaming audio player Pandora has increasingly focused on building ad revenues from the local level up but has met with some hurdles in trying to pry ad dollars from the $15 billion terrestrial radio market.

This week it struck deals with two media buying and planning software providers, Mediaocean and STRATA , which Pandora hopes will simplify the process of buying local audio ads.

"We knew that a substantial portion of the $15 billion radio market is bought through automated systems," Doug Sterne, VP of audio sales at Pandora, told AdExchanger. "About 70% of all spot radio is transacted through those systems. So we're trying to duplicate the workflow associated with buying radio. Using Mediaocean and STRATA will allow us to directly tap that pipeline of spending."

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For ESPN's Live Video, 'Real-Time' Advertising Is A Real Focus

Friday, May 17th, 2013

ESPN unveiled results of its first advertising "hackathon" at its cable network upfront presentation this week. The hackathon event divided ESPN staffers into groups and charged them with developing new ad solutions that would be presented to six judges and 250 other employees.

Marketers and media buyers were given a preview of some of the two digital ads to emerge from the experiment: GameBreak, a video ad unit paired with the online GameCast scoreboard, and ESPN Alerts, which will connect marketers with the roughly 80 million alerts ESPN says it sends to smartphones every month.

If this seems unusual for an upfront, that's the point, says Lisa Valentino, SVP for ESPN's Multimedia Sales, who tells AdExchanger that instead of doing a TV upfront and a "NewFront" this year, the sports franchise rolled its "multimedia" sensibility into just one big show.

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For Priceline, TV Is For Branding, Programmatic For Conversions

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

There's been no shortage of talk about "programmatic direct," which involves using automated buying tools to support negotiated ad deals with presumably branding-oriented campaign goals. But for Priceline.com CMO Brett Keller, the idea is an illusion.

"We've been using TV as our branding vehicle from very the beginning of this company 14 years ago and we've had a commercial running practically every day since," Keller told attendees at Aol's Thought Leadership summit.

He said that while some spend has migrated to online video, the goal with the digital channel is conversion: "We've tried to move upstream and we'd love to get 'programmatic premium' – but we don't think it exists. For us, it's all about conversions, and that doesn't happen in online branding campaigns."

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IPG's David Bell Sounds Off: Ad Tech Complexity Unsustainable

Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

David Bell, the chairman emeritus for Interpublic Group, offered his take on some barriers to growth in digital advertising today at Aol's Thought Leadership Summit on programmatic advertising.

Number one on his hit list was the clutter of ad tech startups. He also took aim at the power wielded by procurement officers and bashed the ad industry for being meek in the face of legal and regulatory challenges around privacy.

Ad Tech Complexity. "The dollars flowing into ad tech have slowed," Bell said in his keynote address. "Those companies that haven't gone public and are generating less than $10 million will have trouble getting funding. There will be a wave of consolidation and some companies will just close up. That said, the benefits of simplification are huge. And that's what's coming."

Procurement. Given the number and range of vendors and tools advertisers have had to work with, it's no surprise that marketers' procurement officers have taken control of ad budgets. But with all the focus on ROI and demands for greater accountability, the process of advertising has gained more science and lost much of its art, Bell said.

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Heineken And Tremor See TV And Web Video Ads As 'Friends With Benefits'

Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

As Heineken continues its discussions with ad sellers from broadcast, cable and digital for those outlets' respective "upfronts," the beer marketer is looking to tie its campaigns more closely among TV and the web. While there's nothing unusual about that, the company, which also owns the Newcastle and Dos Equis beer brands, is working with video ad analytics and ad serving provider Tremor Video on crafting more original content for online channels.

In addition to ramping up production on original video ads, Heineken is also ready to support more long-form digital programming, said Senior Media Director Ron Amram in an interview with AdExchanger. It's a recognition that online video has matured and that improvements in analytics have given major marketers confidence to shift resources to the web in ways that go beyond repurposing a TV spot.

"It's one thing to talk about matching media investment with consumer behavior," Amram said. "Everyone realizes how much activity and engagement is happening online, especially with video. But it's harder to change brand behavior without real consumer insight. But as we've seen quarter after quarter that lines between TV viewing and web video are converging on the charts and spreadsheets, it's become easier to put more money on the web. It's also paved the way for more coordination among marketers, agencies and ad tech companies."

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As Sellers Take Their Data More Seriously, BlueKai Expanding Publisher Push

Monday, May 13th, 2013

Last month, BlueKai signed a deal to build a data management platform for MLB Advanced Media, the interactive business division of Major League Baseball, designed to connect the company's 30 team websites for advertisers.

MLBAM was the fifth publisher BlueKai has added to its client list this year. CEO Omar Tawakol tells AdExchanger that while the company has always worked with publishers, he's now seeing more activity from the sell side. And that has him thinking about the differing needs of sellers and buyers, though there is a plenty of intersection in the tools that both sides require to understand and package audience data.

"Publishers obviously use data differently than agencies," Tawakol says. "If you think about how they viewed the digital ad landscape just two years ago, publishers saw data management in a very defensive manner. The fear was that advertisers are armed with all this audience data that's allowing them to buy inventory more cheaply. But they've gotten more strategic about it and are not taking the defensive crouch any more."

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As NBCU Preps TV Upfront Showcase, Emphasis Is On Cross-Platform

Thursday, May 9th, 2013

About seven days ahead of last week's NewFronts digital content showcases held by Yahoo, Aol, The Weather Company, Blip, Digitas and others, NBC Universal tried to get a jump on things with its own interactive presentation, which it dubbed "Digital.Amplified." Although it was a participant in the NewFronts last year, the feeling this year was that as an established media company that still has its primary business centered in the worlds of broadcast and cable TV, Comcast-owned NBCU would go its own way to highlight those connections.

Besides, it provided a bit more room between its digital event and its main content event, the network upfront, which will be held on Monday. AdExchanger spoke with Peter Naylor, EVP Digital Media Sales at NBCU, about the different ways online ad methods – including programmatic and the rise of mobile – have factored into the network's strategy for selling its fall programming lineup to marketers and media buyers.

AdExchanger: How important is cross-platform ad sales to this year's upfront?

PETER NAYLOR: Cross-platform selling is important in the upfront because consumers are embracing our content on all the platforms where we make it available. Many years of NBCU research looking at cross-platform consumption from our full episode player at nbc.com to the London Olympics tell us that those marketers whose message reaches a consumer on more than one platform enjoy outsized response rates for message association, ad awareness and purchase intent.

So we not only go to market during the upfront talking about GRPs, but we also talk about digital, sponsorships, branded content, innovation and marketing franchises with our customers. NBCU’s Digital.Amplified event was a great way to elevate the awareness and demand for all of the possibilities we want marketers to be aware of as we bring them to market.

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Aol's Barbell Strategy Shows Uneven Lift For Display Dollars

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013

Aol was able to maintain its hard-won profitability and ad sales gains Q1. But just as Aol was finally able to turn US display around with a decent growth of 6%, the usual powerhouse of third-party network revenues showed signs of slowing down. Read the earnings release.

The company's third-party network revenues growth slowed to a 10% gain in Q1 from a 22% rise in Q4, a deceleration that can't easily be dismissed as typical seasonality. That's something of a surprise, considering the emphasis on building Aol's ad tech stack with its AdLearn demand side platform and the recent introduction of its Marketplace supply side platform.

Incidentally, the slowdown occurred just a few weeks after the executive who had done so much to rebuild Aol's third-party ad strategy, Ned Brody, resigned as CEO of Aol Networks, the unit that houses Advertising.com, ad serving tool ADTECH, the year-old demand side platform AdLearn, and the recently launched supply side platform known as Marketplace.

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Comcast Taps Mediaocean To Manage Broadcast Partners' Ad Sales Workflow

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

Mediaocean, fresh from striking a collaboration with digital video rights manager FreeWheel for handling Aol's ad inventory across TV and online, has just netted an even bigger assignment – Comcast.

The media buying workflow software company will be in charge of processing ad buys for Comcast AdDelivery, the cable operator's cloud-based tool for distributing spot TV. It's unclear how much this will add to Mediaocean's claim that it processes more than $130 billion globally across holding companies and agencies, but Comcast says its Spotlight ad sales unit generated $2.3 billion in revenue last year. Mediaocean has partnered with Comcast to develop a dedicated software for the cable operator that promises fully integrated ad management under the title Mediaocean Optica.

Mediaocean Optica goes beyond Comcast Spotlight and is designed to work with all broadcasters on the Comcast Cable network, SVP/GM of Comcast Wholesale Matt McConnell told AdExchanger through a Mediaocean representative.

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