Mohan On Viewability; FTC Warns On Native Ads

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

The V-Word

Neal Mohan takes to the pages of Ad Age to champion viewability in an op-ed piece. He concludes, “Our brand, agency and publisher partners, like Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi, Kellogg’s and The Wall Street Journal, have been valuable collaborators in understanding this issue and have helped shape our perspective. We look forward to working with them, and the industry, towards an actionable and transparent viewability currency.” Read more.

Native Warning

Hey now. At the FTC’s open meeting about native ads, according to Reuters, FTC chair Edith Ramirez said in a speech, “While native advertising may certainly bring some benefits to consumers, it has to be done lawfully. By presenting ads that resemble editorial content, an advertiser risks implying, deceptively, that the information comes from a non-biased source.” And that’s where the problem may begin. Read it.

Richer RTB

Honda and eOne are testing VivaKi’s new “premium” programmatic offering, which supports rich media through RTB, reports The Drum. “This is to attract ‘premium’ advertisers, some of whom think this [RTB) space isn’t really a route for them,” VivaKi’s Marco Bertozzi said. Read more. The “premium” part appears to be associated with formats, too: “Advertisers can choose from homepage skins, large formats, rich media and video, with all campaigns optimised against viewability…

There’s No Crying In Publishing

Despite online revenue gains for some publishers, print declines have still left a bitter taste. Harvard Business Review’s Sarah Green is having none of it. “Rather than blaming their bad ads, they blame the technology and ask for a discount. That is a challenge for publishers, but let’s be clear: The challenge is not fickle consumers, the latest mobile game or that “kids today don’t read.” Read more. Her adversary here is New York Times media critic David Carr and his “needlessly dismayed” profile of New York Magazine. Read that.

Go Champ

With a rumored IPO on the horizon for 2014, TubeMogul announced clients have spent $100 million on the platform so far. Bloomberg spoke to Brett Wilson, CEO of TubeMogul, who wouldn’t comment on a potential IPO, but did say, “You’re starting to see the winners in the ad-tech market.” Read more.

Native Win

BuzzFeed aims to bank $120 million in revenue next year, according to Ad Age, and if the numbers are correct, that would be double their revenue from this year. A spokeswoman declined to comment but told Ad Age the company is profitable. BuzzFeed has raised $46 million to date, and relies on revenue solely from native ads. Read more.

India Ad Market

India has the third largest “Internet population,” according to comScore, which has new analysis of the growing market. The auto and finance ad categories are seeing dramatic growth, with retail and consumer goods also surging. As with the United States, Amazon, Google and Microsoft are among the top advertisers in the country. OLX has the top spot. Read more.

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