Retailegence Offers Showroom To Brick-And-Mortar; The Power Of Habit; IAB Chair Carrigan On Everything

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Showrooming Wars

Here’s an interesting twist to “Showrooming” which has recently come to light as brick-and-mortar retailers have tired of potential customers viewing products in-store and buying elsewhere – usually via online retailers. Retailigence says in a press release that it wants to help your local retailer be “everywhere consumers are” as the company announced partnerships with two local shopping apps. Retailigence CEO Jeremy Geiger says in the release, “Mobile consumers use a variety of apps; retailers that get in front of shoppers demonstrating an immediate need benefit from greater awareness and proven boosts in local sales.” Read more. Corner stores fulfill the “immediate need….” Google and Amazon are just getting started with their own “immediate need” initiatives, while Apple is a machine with stores for its own branded products.

The Predictive World

The New York Times has published an excerpt of Charles Duhigg‘s “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business” for The New York Times Magazine. In the excerpt, the story of Target statistician Andrew Pole is the lead as the retailer’s marketers ask him to help predict – through the use of the retailer’s consumer data – when a woman is pregnant “even if she didn’t want us to know,” and therefore provide her offers for relevant products. Duhigg quotes Andreas Weigend, the former chief scientist at Amazon.com, who notes the importance of data to many companies these days, “It’s like an arms race to hire statisticians nowadays. Mathematicians are suddenly sexy.” At its core, this article is about privacy, predictability, human habits, the power of retargeting – and that the “data cat” is out of the bag. Read it. Felix Salmon comments on the article from his Reuters blog, “If you’re pessimistically inclined, the breathtaking implications are negative. On the other hand, there are lots of positive potential implications, too.” Read it.

Carrigan Speaks

On strategy+business, Bob Carrigan, CEO of IDG Communications and the U.S. IAB’s Chairman, submits to a detailed interview regarding his thoughts on … strategy and business! Among other talking points, Carrigan dons his IAB cape and comments on whether there is a need to standardize mobile ad units – the idea being that publishers, who are looking to attract mobile ad dollars, can offer standardization and thus scale to marketers. He tells s+b, “It’s going to be challenging for publishers to figure out where to invest their resources. The IAB has not moved too rapidly to freeze advertising standards for mobile devices, because it’s still early days. We want to let things percolate.” Read it all.

Owning Advertising

On iMedia Connection, TRAFFIQ’s Eric Picard wonders aloud if Facebook can put various silos of ad dollars to work in an opinion piece. Picard is very positive on Facebook’s opportunity overall. As it relates to brand ads, he writes, “So Facebook could own brand advertising online, could own a role as the authoritative data provider for brand advertising, could own the way that the big brand content platform of TV makes its way into a more modern and effective ad model, and could very well be the winner of the online advertising (nay the entire advertising) space for brands.” Read more.

$100 Million In Local Ads

ReachLocal which is targeting SMBs with local ads solutions says that it made $100 million in the 4th quarter -essentially breaking even and meeting Wall Street estimates. Read the release. Citi analyst Mark Mahaney reviews the results for investors and is positive, “Long Thesis remains: 1) Local ‘Net Advertising is as a material hyper-growth market opportunity ($60B); 2) ReachLocal is one of the leaders in addressing this segment; 3) ReachLocal’s salesforce-intensive approach actually makes the model moaty; & 4) Modest but consistent EBITDA ramp supports long-term margin expansion. Biggest risks are competition, high churn, and execution.”

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From Creators To Haters; BidSwitch Says ‘No More Free Scrapes’

Get Your HTML 5 On

Aol rolled out a new iPad version of Aol.com. The new design has a 300×250-like ad unit in the upper right. You’ll have to find out what ad unit(s), if any, lie behind the “play” button on the videos yourself. See a screenshot on the Aol.com blog. Undertone VP of mobile, Michael Nevins, tweeted, “AOL in HTML5 for iPad. Pubs are beginning to embrace the inevitable. #tablet.” Read more from Aol’s press release.

Digital Upfront

Online content providers Google, Yahoo, Hulu, AOL and Microsoft, among others, are taking the proverbial bull by the horns and producing their own “Upfront” in April says The Wall Street Journal’s Suzanne Vranica. “The event is dubbed ‘Digital Content New Fronts,’ a not-so-subtle reference to the ‘upfront’ name for television’s week of glitzy presentations and lavish parties. The upfront is a prelude to weeks of negotiations with advertisers about purchase of ad time for the coming fall season.” Read it (subscription).

When Attending A Show

Doug Weaver delivers recommendations for the seller crowd on his company’s “Get The Drift” blog. With the trade show business in full-tilt from now until July, Weaver’s recommendations resonate – including #5 (of 6): “Ask Questions that Mean Something. When meeting someone at a trade event, be prepared with a question that will spark a real conversation. “What’s on the agenda you don’t want to miss?” And, don’t ask “Are you a DSP?” because of course they are! Read more.

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