Reddit Goes After Video; Krux Teams Up With JUICE Mobile

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Reddit’s O&O

The Verge reports that Reddit is dipping into original video, where it can “control the conversation around the marketing and also tap into more lucrative advertising formats.” The videos will initially focus on the company’s AMA brand, the best loved of Reddit’s offerings, but “after that it will look to bring stories from users and forums to life.” This comes after last year’s $50 million investment and push to mature into a company with monetizable services. Reddit reaches some 170 million monthly users and generated 6.7 billion page views in January.

Krux Of the Matter

Krux announced Wednesday that it’s hooking up with mobile ad platform JUICE Mobile to bring publisher audience segments into Nectar, JUICE’s mobile programmatic direct platform. The partnership solves what Neil Sweeney, JUICE Mobile’s CEO, called a “structural challenge” in mobile programmatic today – the prevalence of ad fraud and the lack of guaranteed impressions. The offering is currently in closed beta with several unnamed publishers and trading desks. It’s DMP meets mobile programmatic direct.

Local Programmatic

As programmatic and mobile separately command more attention and spend from local advertisers, the two are likely to converge. Referencing April data from Borrell Associates and BIA/Kelsey, eMarketer sees some problems. They include a lack of experience in “local programmatic” as well as a risk of undermining direct sales relationships. But mobile will be key to local advertisers, according to BIA/Kelsey, whose data forecasts that local mobile ad spend will rise 55.8% in the US this year and grow to $18.2 billion in 2019.

Havas Q1

Havas reported $525 million in revenue for Q1 2015, a 20.6% increase YoY. “We start all our pitches with digital, but classic media are still quite strong,” CFO François Laroze told analysts. “The paradox is that we spend more time discussing digital media and spend more money on traditional media.” On Wednesday, the holding company also unveiled the assembly of a Greater China cluster to be led by Accenture’s former China managing director, Christophe Cases. Havas posted organic revenue growth of 7.1%, beating out French competitor Publicis’ organic growth rate of 0.9%, and also above the organic growth rates of Omnicom (5.1%), IPG (5.7%) and WPP (5.2%). More via Ad Age.

Advantage Europe

The EU released a 16-point plan taking aim at large US tech firms. The Digital Single Market Strategy aims to level the competitive playing field for homegrown telco, commerce and “platform” companies. It goes without saying that ad-supported giants like Facebook and Google are in the crosshairs. These companies “enable consumers to find online information and businesses to exploit the advantages of e-commerce,” reads the European Commission’s final draft. US tech giants took little time firing back. “Imposing regulatory barriers would be a grave mistake for Europe, and would have harmful effects on trans-Atlantic trade and investment,” Dean Garfield, head of the Information Technology Industry Council, told the WSJ. Looming setback or bluster?