Glam Media May Seek Q2 IPO; J.P. Morgan Sees 20% 2012 Display Growth; Reviewing DSPs

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

Glam IPO

On Ad Age, sources tell Cotton Delo that Glam Media will try to go public in Q2 of this year. Delo writes, “Glam’s offering will also demonstrate Wall Street’s appetite for a true digital-media IPO. Vertical properties such as Zillow or WebMD typically trade at a premium compared with broad-based portals or ad networks.” Read more. Glam has ad tech, too, such as GlamAdapt (Q&A 2010) and GlamAdapt Automate (Q&A 2010), which came out of the 2010 AdPortal acquisition.

Online Ads Driven By Display

On Friday, J.P. Morgan analyst Dough Anmuth let loose with his positive thoughts on digital for 2012 saying in particular, “We believe display advertising will grow faster than search each year through 2016, driven by the increasing interest in online advertising by brand advertisers. Allocation of branded budgets online increased in 2010, and we expect this to continue going forward. We think brand advertisers are increasingly becoming aware of the effectiveness of engaging customers online. (…) We believe there is still significant potential to increase online spending going forward.” And not to be forgotten: “We project online video to grow 30% in 2012 to $2.4B, banner ads to grow 21% to $9.3B, and search to grow 14% to $16.4B.” Read a bit more from MediaPost’s Joe Mandese.

Video Over Display

During an interview at a recent streaming video confernce, Adap.tv head of product, Teg Grenager, said it was time for display to step aside. He tells Streaming Media Magazine, “Digital video actually is, in some ways, a replacement for some of what display was trying to achieve. It’s trying to achieve branding on the Web, and digital video’s just much better at that.” And Grenager thinks 2012 is the year that brands will make digital video their choice for ad delivery. Read more. Brands might like that to a large degree – but is there enough “premium” inventory?

Targeting Ads During Events

On the [Adobe] Efficient Frontier blog, biz analyst Dr Wing Lee provides tips on how to manage an events driven ad campaign. Even though his piece has search as its focus, other channels such as display seem applicable as Lee writes, “The strategy many advertisers employ when managing event-based campaigns may simply be chasing the impression volume. When they can foresee there will be a rise in search interest they plan to spend more, by raising bids, to gain more clicks. However, we will argue that the value of a click is the key factor at play here instead.” Read it.

DSPs 2012

On the company blog, [x+1]’s Eric Simon’s pulls no punches with predictions for the DSP-related space in 2012. For example, he sees no chance of success in 2012 for the Aol/Microsoft/Yahoo! non-guaranteed, display ad deal. I mean NONE. Simon writes, “Just ask any sales rep from any of the three organizations if they are willing to cede exclusive relationships in the name of efficiency. And while you’re at it, ask someone at any of these organizations who is going to provide the technology platform for the proposed venture. If they tell you a combination of Yahoo’s Right Media Exchange and AppNexus, then you know for sure it will never launch.” Read more.

Aol Will Build

There will be no more acquisitions by Aol any time soon. So said Aol CEO Tim Armstrong late last week at a Citi analyst conference. Dow Jones Newswire quotes Armstrong, “In 2012 we’ll go back to being a build company. (…) We were candidly less focused on the creation aspect [last year. We will] execute and be a stand-alone company.” Read more (subscription). Smoke screen? Sounds like Aol will be acquiring somebody! How about drawing from my predictions from last August where Aol could buy PubMatic or DoubleVerify? DoubleVerify’s embedded agency relationships remain a tasty treat. PubMatic could bring ADTECH up to RTB speed and provide new inventory relationships as well as their private marketplace/exchange solution. The downside for Aol here is that these ideas would sap a lot of Aol’s valuable cash.

Infographic Monday

Nielsen unleashes an infographic using statistics on consumers’ favorite media devices that show TV’s continued lead and formidable competition from mobile devices. See it now.

New Website!

Along with readers, Brian Morrissey and his editorial team at Digiday have a new website to enjoy. See it now!

New Restaurant!

Former Right Media CEO Mike Walrath, who guided the company’s sale to Yahoo! for an astronomical $680 million in 2007… has opened a restaurant. Read a bit more on his Tumblog.

But Wait. There’s More!