Automating Local TV Sales; Salesforce's New Analytics Tool

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Automating Local TV Sales

WideOrbit is supporting a new “live environment” for trading locally sold, linear TV. The offering was created in partnership with IPG’s MAGNA GLOBAL and Tribune Media and includes “linear television station inventory across customized geographic areas ranging from specific DMA footprints to total US coverage,” according to a press release. WideOrbit acquired Admeta in July and put two of its top executives in charge of programmatic sales and product.

Salesforce Cloudburst

CRM stalwart Salesforce.com will unveil an analytics product dubbed Wave during its Dreamforce show this week in San Francisco. The offering builds on Salesforce.com’s earlier acquisitions of data visualization and BI tools RelateIQ and EdgeSpring. Salesforce.com has a habit of buying companies and rebranding them into new “clouds.” With its latest, it’s inviting stronger comparison to SAP and IBM on business intelligence. “With Wave, companies can spot links between business units,” according to Bloomberg. But what about its implications for marketers? More details on the ground at Dreamforce.

Valuing Big Data

How much is that big data that’s swirling in your enterprise worth? A lot, a whole heckuva lot – or nothing. It all depends on what you’re doing with it, says The Wall Street Journal. Companies such as Kroger, no doubt with help from its partner Dunnhumby, are highlighted among those making money off of big data (related comic). Gartner analyst Douglas Laney estimates Kroger makes $100 million a year in data sales alone. Read it (subscription).

Pub, Agency Cozy Up

In a tie-up between The Huffington Post and Leo Burnett, HuffPo’s in-house creative team (called HuffPost Partner Studio) will strategize with the Leo Burnett guys. Leo Burnett also gets first dibs on The Huffington Post’s social media data. So far, only a “select group” of Leo Burnett clients are participating. Those that do get to distribute their advertising content across both The Huffington Post and other publishing assets owned by its parent company, AOL. Read the release.

Online Sports Videos Grow with WWE Network

Advertisers in search of premium online video, like Pepsi, Mattel and Kmart, have signed on to stream ads on the WWE network. The wrestling-focused content gives advertisers the opportunity to reach young males, a demographic that can be difficult for advertisers to find. The ads will appear between content, not interrupt it. Users pay for the live, pay-per-view and archived wrestling videos, to the tune of $9.99 a month. By comparison, Hulu Plus’ limited advertising model has attracted 6 million subscribers who pay $7.99 a month. The WWE network says it signed up 700,000 subscribers in the first four months of launch and expects a million by the end of the year. Read more.

Apple Pay, Attribution Hub?

Apple is moving fast with plans to replace cash and credit card transaction with its own solution baked into the iPhone. MacRumors reports that Walgreens support for Apple Pay kicks off on Saturday. Flash your iPhone 6 device with Apple Pay at a Walgreen’s register and walk out with that bag of Three Musketeers bars. Read it. Is there an attribution use case? Time will tell!

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