eBureau Targets With TruSignal; Specfic Media's MySpace TV Plans; The Corporate VC | AdExchanger

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

eBureau Spins Out TruSignal

On Tuesday, offline lead gen data aggregator eBureau announced that its spinning off its online ad data unit and calling it TruSignal. Focused on the direct response world, the new company provides audience segments derived from a host of offline data sources and makes them available to marketers through partners such as data management and demand-side platforms as well as exchanges. TruSignal President David Dowhan told AdExchanger.com that his company’s data provides access to anonymous users with a “lifetime value” history versus the more ephemeral intenders or “hand raisers.” So, think “automotive owners,” for example – they could be a target audience available through True Signal. Read more. eBureau’s spin out echoes AlmondNet’s spinout of Datonics as offline or more traditional data sources look to re-brand with online audience offerings.

Specific Adds TV To Myspace

Specific Media, the media company/ad network, announced at CES that it’s bringing Web television to its Myspace property. Since acquiring Myspace in July and announcing that cool dude Justin Timberlake would be involved, it hasn’t been clear what the next steps are from a strategy perspective. CBS describes thusly: “The idea is to integrate the experience of watching TV with social media, so that you can invite friends to view the same show and make comments using a combination of the social network, TV sets and mobile apps. One way to think of it would be like Hulu and Netflix with social networking.” It’s MySpace TV. Read more. And Panasonic is involved on the device side. From a data perspective, it’s about a multi-device login similar to what Fox discussed earlier this week. The “cross-channel” data strategy should be something marketers will enjoy for targeting purposes if there’s scale. See Timberlake and Specific CEO Tim Vanderhook on the same stage together (YouTube). The exact content for the MySpace offering remains unknown as SF Weekly’s Dan Mitchell writes, “Specific CEO Tim Vanderhook reportedly said he’s in discussions with programmers, but didn’t name any. Also, no pricing for “MySpace TV” has been announced, even though the service will supposedly launch this spring.” Read it.

Service With A Smile

On ClickZ, Trainingcraft chief training technologist Rob Graham discusses “The Future of Media Buying” with Adconion’s Ben Fox. Fox seems to stress that service will still be key: “Just because you have a budget and can set up an automatic media buying system doesn’t mean that the job is being done right. You still need to closely monitor what’s happening. You still need to know who is seeing your message and, perhaps most importantly, what is taking place after the message is seen?” Read more.

Corporate Venturing

Offering insights on what it’s like to provide venture capital when you’re representing a corporation, Aol Ventures’ Mike Brown offers a few tips to corporate VC (CVC) on his “Silicon Bowery” personal blog. He begins, “The most important thing that drove us from the outset when starting AOLV was ‘what is the distinct product we are offering in the corporate venture market and why should an entrepreneur take our money?’ You will need to think about this or join the sea of sameness.” Read it.

Yahoo! Adds Politics

Cox is continuing to leverage its feet-in-the-street for local advertising in a new deal with Yahoo!. According to Adweek, Cox will be “the exclusive national seller of political, issue and advocacy advertising across Yahoo properties for the upcoming election year.” Yahoo! has also partnered with CampaignGrid to sell against Yahoo! audience on political topics. Read more. Political ad spend is expected to be as much as 30% higher for 2012 compared to four years ago in the U.S.

DSPs, Marketers And Publishers

On ExchangeWire, MediaMath CEO Joe Zawadzki argues “Why An Independent Buy-Side And A Sell-Side Makes Sense… For Both Sides.” In fact, Zawadzki argues several points including why publishers should love demand-side platforms: “DSPs help publishers by letting marketers accurately bid based on true value – everyone finds their best 5% and pays for it, as opposed to having to buy everyone and factoring in the lossiness of the 95% out-of-market in their average price.” DSPs amp up the predictive power. Read more.

Search And Intent

From the Adchemy blog, Adchemy’s Ben Russo recounts his company’s participation in a recent Search Insider Summit and says “intent” may not be something some search folks quite understand. He writes, “[Adchemy’s] Thi Thumasathit participated on a panel discussing interest- and intent-based search. The subject matter seemed to be an enigma to many present, but the key take-away (at least from Adchemy’s perspective) was not lost on the audience: focusing on intent beyond keywords – for the search industry as a whole – will lead to growth.” Read more and view the panel.

The Truth Sells

On his Upstream Group blog, Doug Weaver dissects another aspect of the seller life – knowing your client(s). He writes, “The truth is that when you call on an ad agency, you are really selling to two businesses. Yes, it’s ultimately the client’s money that’s being spent, but it’s foolish to overlook the business objectives of the customer’s agent – the agency. Read it.

Yield For House Ads

On Digiday, AudienceFuel’s Al Silverstein talks house ads and concludes, “If you spend the first quarter of 2012 using your inventory to grow your audience [such as via house ads], rather than making that inventory available to low-paying advertisers, then when the fourth quarter rolls around, you’ll have a larger and more valuable audience available for premium advertisers.” Read more.

Coleman Adds Marketing

Criteo’s Greg Coleman announces the hiring of its new Head of Marketing and Communications Tom Burg, formerly CMO for Solve Media, and trumpets, “Criteo is poised to generate significant growth in the US Market in 2012.” Read the press release. The hiring continues at Criteo as it preps to go public, get sold or just keep on trucking privately. I’ll guess “public”. Many retailers are just catching on to the retargeting magic and, it would seem, marketers pushing more and more trade dollars will be another channel to attack. Criteo and several other ecommerce media/tech companies appear well-positioned.

You’re Hired!