Dutch Stick It To The EU Cookie; Google Still Acquiring In Display -How About Aol?; American Express On DSPs

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Dutch Gov’t Sticks It To The EU Cookie

It appears that the wheels may be in motion in the EU towards stricter cookie laws which require opt-in for third-party (ad network-like) cookies. John W. Miller of The Wall Street Journal reports, “The Dutch Parliament passed a law Wednesday that forces websites to get explicit consumer consent before they place small text files known as cookies on a computer. The new law was opposed by the online-advertising industry, which fears the legislation will pave the way for similar moves across Europe.” Read more (subscription).

Google Buys Aol?

Is that so far away? Google is getting into the content game whether it likes it or not as content becomes the proprietary technology of a commoditized ad tech world of the future. According to Reuters’ Kate Holdon, “Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said [Google] would continue to snap up companies that specialised in handling display ads such as banners and video.” Bottom line – Google likes leaders and Aol is leading the way into the premium ad and ad network space with its Pictela and Portrait ad strategy. Like Admeld which had key, large publisher relationships, Aol is solidifying key, “big ad” placements with publishers that could potentially be sold by its Advertising.com unit. Could Google bring home favorite son Tim Armstrong and other key exec sellers like Jeff Levick and drives the Google display business through the cross-channel roof? Aol is relatively cheap, too ($2.2 billion) – especially when you compare it to the $3.1 billion it spent in 2007 dollars on DoubleClick. Read more from Reuters.

Search And Display Differences

The Trade Desk’s CEO Jeff Green does one better than revealing the 7 deadly sins in an opinion piece on ClickZ as he offers, “The 7 Primary Differences Between Search and Display.” Green offers many details including the fact that search and display are a “different type of auction.” He explains, “Marketers specify in advance what they are willing to pay for a given keyword and that bid sits on the search engine’s server. This means that Google (or other) controls the optimization via smart pricing and other means. In display and the emerging RTB auctions, the optimization is maintained by the buying technology. This gives buyers more control in display – although with more variables and more unknowns to manage, the channel needs it.” Good post. Read more.

AMEX On DSP Performance

At a recent Direct Marketing Association event, American Express’ Marleta Ross revealed some of the performance she’s seen from her demand-side platform vendor, MediaMath. Quoting from DM News, Ross said, “In the beginning of the campaign, we heavied up on the awareness media to drive people through the funnel. As the MediaMath algorithm started to learn who people of interest would be, we shifted the plan where we could drive more of the media and engagement in the lower and middle funnel.” And then… Read more.

A Crowd-Sourced Ad Network

TechCrunch reports that a Denmark-based company called InfluAds has been financed as it hopes to leverage “the crowd” to determine what display ad works best for ad placements. TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher writes, “The idea is that publishers (blogs, news sites, anything) work together to develop curated ad networks around their niche. The idea is to drive premium revenue per ad unit and matching multiple ad units per page.” Read more. And, visit their pink site.

Gannett Whacks 700

The newspaper business is done writhing in pain as it continue to shrink. Gannett announced that it was laying off 700 employees as Gannett’s Robert J. Dickey, president of the Community Publishing division is quoted in The New York Times: “As we reach the midpoint of the year, the economic recovery is not happening as quickly or favorably as we had hoped and continues to impact our U.S. community media organizations. With many of our local advertisers reducing their overall budgets, we need to take further steps to align our costs with the current revenue trends.”Read more.

Agencies Charging Fees

It appears that performance models still have a ways to go if a new survey by the Association of National Advertisers is to be believed. MediaPost’s Joe Mandese quotes David Beals, who helped with the research and is also president and CEO of R3:JLB:, “The use of performance incentives with digital agencies has lagged compared to traditional ad agencies, which is surprising, given the inherent measurability of digital media.” Read more.

Rumors Swirling At Yahoo!

TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington reports that in advance of Yahoo!’s investor meeting later this week, rumors swirl that Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz may be on the way out. Arrington writes about who may be next for Yahoo!’s top job, “Fox Digital Chief Jon Miller has had ‘early and unofficial’ discussions with the Yahoo board of directors about taking over as CEO. It’s thought that Yahoo board member [and Akamai’s President] David Kenny, who’s long wanted the job, is also a current candidate. Other names have been whispered.” Read more.

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