Apple CEO Steve Jobs Passes Away; Tremor Rolls Out Video Ad Platforms; Influencer In The Auction

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Steve Jobs Dies

Yesterday, Apple announced that its co-Founder and long-time CEO, Steve Jobs, had passed away from cancer after battling it for years. The New York Times’ John Markoff says Jobs “helped usher in the era of personal computers and then did nothing less than lead a cultural transformation in the way music, movies and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age.” Read more about Jobs’ life.

Tremor Rolling Out

In a press release, Tremor Video announced the wider roll-out of its small advertiser (VideoHub Marketplace) and large advertiser (VideoHub for Advertisers) video advertising platforms. Describing the self-service platform for the little guy as targeting “early stage” advertisers, it will be interesting to see how long-tail advertisers use the video channel – especially considering additional complexity around creative. Geo-targeting would likely be a popular targeting parameter as the long tail tests and learns using the self-serve model. Read the release. Retargeting would seem to be a good, low risk feature for long tail’ers, too, if Tremor offers it.

Nurture And Retarget

Email solutions company Responsys is making its move in display. Thought leadership is on the docket this week as Responsys’ Mike Hotz offers the display ad retargeting basics for email marketers on ClickZ. Hotz is a context proponent: “As a B2B marketer, consider using content that reinforces your brand as a source of authority in the industry and reinforces your brand pillars rather than persistent and pushy ads focused on specific products.” Read it.

Tablet Audience

The tablet audience loves its tablet. New research from KN Dimestore claims “tablet-owning consumers (ages 18 to 64) spend 4 hours, 19 minutes with the Internet daily, compared to 2 hours 55 minutes for all consumers 18-to-64.” By spending more time, tablet audience might be more willing to watch a rich media ad. Then again, maybe not. You’ll have to test and find out. Read the release.

Ad Networks In The Blind

Mr. Cogmap and former prolific blogger (will he ride again?), Brent Halliburton takes back his personal blog with a missive railing against certain ad networks’ behavior around publishers who don’t want to be revealed to the ad network buyer. Put another way, he writes, “One of the amazing things about networks that don’t respect blind status is how the desperate sales guy – who may indeed close that one sale – thinks that it doesn’t get back to the publisher. OF COURSE IT GETS BACK TO THE PUBLISHER.” Read it.

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What’s The Endgame For Gaming Ads?; Panning Gold From Sludge

The Media Planner Future

“With so much attention in the digital display landscape currently focused on ad exchanges and RTB, there has been a great deal of speculation about what the future of media planning will look like.” And so begins a think piece by comScore’s Josh Chasin who offers a complete toolkit for the media planner of the future. Ripple dissolve….

Mediabrands Buys Agency

Mediabrands announced the acquisition of a social agency, Spring Creek Group, as holding companies – in this case, Interpublic Group – are continuing to respond to the marketer’s desire to target the social channel. Publicis bought a majority stake in Big Fuel in July. PaidContent’s David Kaplan adds, “The deal is reflective of two major trends changing the traditional methods of media buying: the focus on ‘audience buying,’ as opposed to relying on media properties to connect ads with consumers, and on the increased engagement that social media has versus traditional content companies.” Can you get “programmatic” with the social channel? These agencies will be interested in programmatic buying for social, if they aren’t already. Read more. The big brand marketer of today likes to hire agencies in silos – hence the agency need to create or acquire social agencies, for example.

Quality Content And CPM Love

In a feature article, DIGIDAY’s Mike Shields begins, “Here’s a shocker: Yahoo and AOL are bigger players in Web video than Hulu. Really.” As he points out, that’s true if you’re going by number of impressions and uniques. But when it comes to CPMs, Hulu is the clear winner with its TV-on-the-web ad placements. Across multiple pundits, Shields reviews what Yahoo! and Aol can or should do to change things. Read more.

Burning GRPs

On his personal blog, kbs+p’s Darren Herman reviews “viewability” across marketing channels and he notes digital’s below-the-fold impression as a trip wire for brands. He sees the television measurement device for reach and frequency – GRPs (Gross Rating Points) – in the future. Herman says, “Viewability is going to become increasingly important if the iGRP becomes a common trading currency in digital media. (…) If you aren’t measuring viewability for your iGRP’s, then as an agency or marketer, you are likely to get burned.” Feel the fire.

Influencer In The Auction

Forrester analyst Ari Osur looks at every venture capitalist’s favorite social influencer scoring system, Klout – and its competitors. Is there value there for brands? He thinks so: “Off-the-shelf influence scores can be helpful inputs. The scoring providers have made strong advancements in how they understand and define influence. The scores can serve as components of a larger identification process and also help marketers looking to scale their influencer programs.” Imagine the Klout score affecting whether an advertiser bids or not. Seems to me that some smart ad targeters are likely mapping cookies to Klout scores, and building out look-alikes, today. Is it YOU??!! Read more from Osur.

The New Data Onslaught

Real-time may not always be the right time for advertising as MediaCom UK’s Chief Strategy Officer Sue Unerman thinks there’s value in what she calls “slow media.” She writes, “Slow media is about taking time to come up with a really good idea that’s exactly right for the brand and sticking to it despite the vicissitudes of the new data onslaught. There must be a balance between reacting to new information and sticking to what you first developed.” Read it. A contrarian view to the real-time frenzy.

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