Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Brand Dollars Coming
Brand dollars are coming online in a big way if Unilever CMO Keith Weed is to be believed. ClickZ’s Zach Rodgers covered the conference and says Weed suggested digital budgets will double in the coming year. Rodgers writes, “In some countries, the shift could mean interactive channels will command 25 to 30 percent of spending.” Read more.
Right Media Open Coming July 19
Yahoo! has lit the fires in the Right Media Open furnace as it will host Right Media Exchange’s popular invitation-only conference in Chicago from July 19-21. The agenda (see it here) is chock full of demand-side platform, data, ad network and agency trading desk luminaries – and GCA Savvian’s Terence Kawaja provides one of the keynotes. Even Invite Media makes an appearance as IM’s CEO Nat Turner will share the stage with Yahoo!’s Ramsey McGrory on a panel called, “The Truth About RTB.” Sounds salacious! Visit the conference’s website.
WPP Group Sees Turnaround
In an interview with Ruth Bender of The Wall Street Journal during the Cannes Lions festival, WPP Group CEO Sir Martin Sorrell saw a rosy ad future saying, “Organic revenue growth continued to accelerate in the second quarter, with April revenue up around 4% on year and May revenue up over 5% organically.” Read more – including his view on strength in the U.S. market after a tough 2009.
White House Abolishes Cookie Ban
According to government tech news site Nextgov, The White House has dropped its 10-year old cookie ban, which was “a policy that online experts said prevented agencies from personalizing online services to engage the public.” Is this a signal that Washington may be seeing the light on cookie tracking? Read more.
Boston Globe writer Scott Kirsner writes that there may be no clear winner between the thriving startup environments of New York and Boston, though some in the article definitely have their opinions. DataXu CEO Mike Baker chimes in saying about his company’s products, “The technology comes from MIT, ‘but New York is where most of the major buyers of advertising are. We as Bostonians are on better footing than our competitors in California because we’ve got Acela.'” Read more.
Audience Standards
Mediaweek’s Lucia Moses notes that the IAB is looking at better ways of counting online audience as the industry organization is full-steam-ahead with looking for new standards. The IAB’s Sherrill Mane tells Moses that there “was no timeline for an RFP and that the IAB wasn’t out to force its will on the big measurement companies like Nielsen and comScore. But she stressed that the IAB’s initiative was broader than previous efforts to improve media measurement.” Read it.
The $1 Million Challenge
Ad holding company MDC Partners CEO Miles Nadal told an audience at last week’s Cannes Lions ad festival that he was ready to fund up to 5 new startups focusing on agency models in marketing communications. Stuart Elliott covered it for the NY Times, “Would-be entrepreneurs will be invited to submit business plans for agencies in any area of marketing communications. MDC will review the submissions, choose at least one plan from among 10 finalists and invest $1 million in starting it up in exchange for a 51 percent stake in the new shop.” Read more.
Ad Networks Need To Partner
Jim Nichols of Catalyst: SF gives his take on the 7 new interactive trends that you need to know. Privacy, couponing, mobile and demand-side platforms make his list. Ad networks make an appearance, too, as Nichols writes, “Too many networks offer me-too technology, take too long to respond to requests, and aren’t bringing ideas to their clients. Those that focus on being partners instead of talking about being partners are doing just fine.” Read more. (source: @JamieBernheim)
Apps Are Media
Last week, mobile app store company GetJar announced that it had raised $11 million in second round funding from Accel Partners – the same sole investors in the first round. According to Joseph Tartakoff of PaidContent, GetJar is the “WalMart of apps” where all apps are free and app developers can pay to have their apps promoted higher in the store. CEO Ilja Laurs of GetJar tells Tartakoff, “In the industry, applications are perceived as content, (but) we see applications as media just like website and televisions. We believe media can only take off it it’s free for consumers. You don’t pay to visit websites.” Read it.
Apple: The Creative Agency
Ad Age’s Michael Learmonth’s prepares the ad industry masses for the formal launch of the iAd platform on July 1. It appears not all previously declared advertisers will be there at the starting line. Learmonth adds that Apple is knee deep in the creative, “The company (Apple) is handling all the technical production of iAds, and telling agencies it will take six to eight weeks to produce an ad after the creative is produced.” Read more.
LBS And WOM
Ben Allen of the location-based services news blog, LocationAwhere, looks at Xtify which looks to exploit word-of-mouth mobile-ly: “If you’re developing a mobile application and want to send location relevant messages directly to the users of your application, (…) the Xtify platform will implement and manage this for you.” Read more. Allen adds, “The sort of stuff that happens by hyper local word of mouth now, could certainly use its mobile and digital equivalent, and something like Xtify may be able to help make it happen.”
ScanScout Boosting Transparency
Video ad network ScanScout (AdExchanger.com Q&A) announced that it will let advertisers pick and choose from a list of sites on its publisher network and thereby offer another level of transparency on the ad network’s inventory. Read more on AdWeek.
Mobile Ad Case Study
AdMob offers up a recent case study for a campaign run by Armani Exchange. CTR remains a key success metric (Average CTR: 1.22% in Armani’s case), but there is other data in the case study that speaks to mobile ad effectiveness with “Interaction rates as high as 14.5% on the mobile site.” Read more on the Mobile Marketing Association website. And, download the AdMob case study (PDF).
