Mondelēz Targeting Offline; Pass The Tech

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Mondelēz Targeting Offline

Impulse snack buys are a data opportunity for Mondelēz International, which is working on “smart shelves” that will use sensors to gather basic information, such as age and gender. The Raw Story’s Travis Gettys reports that information could be used to serve targeted ads and coupons depending on how long people linger and what types of snacks they pick up. According to CIO Mark Dajani, the sensors won’t collect photos, videos or other personal information. “When people walk by, it’s a missed opportunity,” Dajani said. “We must know how the consumer behaves in the store.” Read more.

Pass The Tech

Doug Weaver looks at agencies and ad tech in a post on his company’s blog. He says agencies have made some mistakes in implementing new, automated technologies. But, he thinks someone inevitably had to take the lead given the complex nature of advertising technology. He writes, “It’s possible that no matter how the agency holding companies (creators and sustainers of the main trading desks) handled themselves, the current dynamic would have played out anyway: digital technology always ends up disempowering the middlemen.” Read more.

Akamai On The Internet

Akamai released its Q2 2013 State of The Internet report detailing the traffic it saw running across its IP-based content-delivery network. Among the highlights: “Year-over-year, average connection speeds were up 9.2%, with nine of the top 10 countries/regions demonstrating positive growth of more than 10%. Worldwide, 127 qualifying countries/regions saw a year-over-year increase in average connection speeds…” Read the release. And download the report (.zip).

Tracking In-Store

Nomi, an in-store analytics firm, raised $10 million in a Series A round of funding, according to Mashable’s Lauren Indvik. Nomi tracks users’ mobile devices to see how long they were in a store, the type of device they were using and the percentage of users who walked by a store and went in. Although the company hasn’t given any client names, CEO and co-founder Marc Ferrentino says they are working with some “pretty substantial” retailers and restaurant chains. Read more.

eBay Q3 Earnings Snapshot

eBay posted net earnings of $3.9 billion for the third quarter, up 14% year-over-year; net income was $689 million. In a breakdown of business units, payments, unsurprisingly, saw a strong growth with net revenues that totaled $1.6 billion, a 19% increase from Q3 2012. eBay’s PayPal acquired payments platform Braintree for $800 million in the third quarter. Bob Swan, eBay’s CRO, noted during an earnings call, however, that the company sold $485 million of equity in flash sale site RueLaLa and ShopRunner to partially finance the that deal. eBay’s Marketplaces recorded $2 billion in revenues, up 12% year over year, while its Enterprise division experienced a meager 5% increase to $238 million in the third quarter, offset by a reduced take rate. Swan noted that marketing services were impacted by eBay’s recent efforts to consolidate nine business units within the enterprise division. Mobile was a keyword for the quarter, with eBay CEO John Donahoe calling it “transformative” for commerce. PayPal has 137 million active accounts globally and this quarter brought “significant updates” to the mobile app. Donahoe said he expects the Braintree acquisition to “significantly accelerate” PayPal’s scope in Q4.