P&G Going Programmatic; Adobe On Streaming TV

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

P&G Programmatic

Sources tell Ad Age’s Jack Neff that “Procter & Gamble wants to buy 70% to 75% of its U.S. digital media programmatically by the end of this year.” Neff notes that this is significant for several reasons, not the least of which is this is a brand advertiser rather than a direct-response advertiser (like American Express, which also made similar programmatic proclamations). Read more. The P&G shift is likely good news for AudienceScience, which has been a programmatic platform of choice for the CPG giant. See AdExchanger’s 2013 interview with CEO Mike Peralta. AudienceScience offered AdExchanger “no comment” on Wednesday.

TV Streaming Explodes

Online TV consumption is booming, and recent findings from Adobe’s Digital Benchmark Report quantify the trend. In 2014’s first quarter, the US market saw a 246% spike YoY, with iOS apps responsible for pulling 43% market share. The figure for TV Everywhere streaming saw a similar jump, increasing 133% YoY, according to the report. One-fifth of all pay-TV American households are streaming TV across multiple screens, says Adobe’s VP for prime time, Jeremy Helfand, and the industry is transforming rapidly to meet consumer demands. Go here for Adobe’s report and read more at The Next Web.

Programmatic TV

TV measurement and analytics firm Rentrak said on its earnings conference call Tuesday that “programmatic” has become its third-largest source of revenue. CEO Bill Live explained to analysts that when “software platform clients want to automate processes so they can buy … inventory, they are using Rentrak (data).” Read more on Seeking Alpha.

Targeting Tablet-top

Bidding for ad placements on tablets or PCs? Microsoft says it’s the same experience and has decided to package both into one targeting category for its search ads offering on Bing. A Bing Ads blog post from exec David Pann explains the combination of desktop/tablet, saying, “Studies show that consumers search on PCs and tablets in very similar ways, resulting in only a 15-20 percent variance in performance between them.“ Hmm. Read it.

Mobile’s OOH Impact

“Mobile data is one of the OOH industry’s biggest game-changers in a decade,” says James Davies, Posterscope’s chief strategy officer. On Wednesday, the company released results from a trial campaign for Lenovo, which showed that OOH ads are 200% more effective when mobile devices are used in campaigning. “We can now accurately identify which outdoor sites are seen by users of particular websites or apps and what they are doing on their mobile devices at the time,” explained Davies. “For example, we now know Surbiton and London’s Caledonian Road stations both deliver major peaks in visits to fashion-related websites, so placing relevant OOH adverts in those areas will increase ad effectiveness.” Read on via The Drum.

Anti-Trust Is Real

The PowerReviews and Bazaarvoice denouement arrived yesterday after the FTC ruled the two companies’ 2012 combination would create a monopoly around online ratings and reviews. No, really! Yesterday, Bazaarvoice announced the divestiture to its newest competitor, Viewpoints, which is part of Wavetable Labs. The price was $30 million (PowerReviews had been acquired by Bazaarvoice for $168 million). Read the release. More in the Bazaarvoice Q4 earnings reported Wednesday.

Enhancing Engine

On Wednesday, Criteo announced updates to its prediction and recommendation engine known as “The Criteo Engine.” The updates aim to inform Criteo’s ad-buying strategy based on the likelihood that users with both click on an ad and the user’s likelihood to purchase. Read the release.

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