WPP Beats Estimates With First Half 2011 Results; Apple CEO Jobs Resigns; Brightcove Files For IPO

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WPP Looking Good

WPP Group reported its 2011 first-half earnings yesterday and things are looking good as the ad holding company beat financial analyst estimates and profits grew to 517.9 million pounds ($848 million). In reviewing the earnings report, Sanford Bernstein analyst Claudio Aspesi told Bloomberg, “Growth in the next couple of years will have to come from emerging markets, so the bigger the reliance on emerging markets, the better.” The company remains cautious about 2012 given current economic and market turmoil – no mention of the Mayan calendar. Read more.

Steve Jobs Resigns

In a press release, CEO Steve Jobs informed the Apple faithful that he is leaving the CEO role but will continue to act as Chairman. COO Paul Cook will take over as CEO. Read the release. In his letter to the Board and the Apple community-at-large, he wrote, “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.” Read it.

Some SaaS Is Good

On All Things D, columnist Peter Kafka is impressed with video SaaS provider Brightcove’s prospectus for its upcoming IPO. He writes, “Brightcove’s business is easy to understand. It generates sales by helping Web publishers put video online. That ‘software as a service’ model has let the company boost sales, along with the Web video boom. In 2006, it posted revenues of $1.4 million. Last year, it pulled in $43.7 million.” Read more. And, on paidContent.

The First N.A. Audience Ad

On the Epsilon blog, Kerry Morris recounts what he says is the first audience-based ad in North America. “In 1704, William Bradford placed what is widely considered the first advertisement ever published in North America. His ad, placed in the Boston News-Letter, attempted to sell a farm in the impossibly rural Long Island. Mr. Bradford knew many of the readers where not likely to buy his ‘twenty acres…and a very good Fulling-Mill’. But he knew at least some of the readers would be good prospects.” Read more about “The Age Of Audience.”

OBA Spend

Here are some numbers for your next PowerPoint presentation aimed at Audience non-believers. Quoting data from Parks Associates, MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan writes, “Online behavioral advertising revenue in the U.S. will reach $4.9 billion by December 2011, and grow at a 9.6% compounded annual growth rate to reach $7.1 billion by 2015.” Everyone’s doing it! Read more.

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Always Be Closing; ‘Sadsung’ Fridges

The Addressable Car

A post on the WSJ’s Venture Capital Dispatch blog reveals that Ford has its own software platform (with Microsoft’s help) for its cars and VC have taken notice by funding companies to take advantage of it. One such example: “Working under an engineering services contract and using Ford’s intellectual property, Cumulux built a system that University of Michigan students used to connect vehicles to services like Twitter and Yelp and to take information from the vehicle and do mash-ups with Wikipedia and other websites.” Great – how about some ads? Read more about the addressable car (subscriptioin).

Ad Verification Debate

AdSafe Media CEO Scott Knoll takes issue with Peer39 CEO Andy Ellenthal’s recent think piece on DIGIDAY. Knoll begins, “Recently, [Ellenthal] wrote that ad verification is no cure-all in the wild and untamed online advertising space. And while it’s certainly true that ad verification is too often a reactive system, there is technology that allows for a more proactive strategy.” Read more.

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