Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Viacom Reports Q3
Media master of the universe, Viacom, reported Q3 2009 earnings on Tuesday as the company reported an increase of 15% in net profits. According to Sam Schechner of the WSJ, Philippe Dauman, Viacom’s chief executive, said in regards to the advertising market, “There is demand out there at the moment.” Read more. Call transcript from Seeking Alpha here.
AdECN Speaks
Jed Nahum speaks to Kate Kate of ClickZ about Microsoft’s advertising exchange, AdECN. Nahum confirms that the “pre-determined” version 1.0 of AdECN will be amped up to a real-time biddable version in 2010. Nahum calls the RTB feature “AdECN’s Federated system” in the interview. Read more.
OMMA AdNets
A packed house filled the main conference room at the Crown Plaza Times Square Hotel in New York City yesterday for the OMMA AdNets show. MediaPost has all the coverage as the MediaPost Raw blog delivers the blow by blow here. Mark Walsh covers ThinkEquity’s Robert Coolbrith’s keynote presentation on audience aggregation trends in digital advertising here.
Self-Serve Direct For Long Tail
Fat Tail has release a new ad management system that will allow publishers and advertisers to sell and buy future/reserved inventory through a transparent marketplace system. According to an article by MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan, this is made with the smaller advertiser in mind who can’t afford the minimum budget requirements of ad networks. Fat Tail says the new service also functions like an automated direct sales channel for publishers and will yield higher CPMs than going to an exchange as, among other things, all impressions are guaranteed. From here, this sounds a bit like the offering from TRAFFIQ but targeted to long tail advertisers. Read more.
Optimizing Display Ads
RAMP Digital’s Jonathan Mendez (AdExchanger.com Q&A) looks at display advertising optimization through creative and clickthrough rates. Mendez says about the creative, “In many tests, including multivariate tests across elements of both the ads and landing pages, the ad elements have the highest factor of influence on conversion.” Read more.
Google Announces Ad Sitelinks
Google formerly announced a new display ad product it will offer through its search engine called “Ad Sitelinks.” According to the Inside AdWords blog, “rather than sending all users to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks will display up to 4 additional Destination URLs on your search-based text ad for users to choose from.” Read more.
Click Forensics Adds Verification
Click Forensics announced that it’s offering a new verification platform for content aggregators and comparison shopping engines. According to the company, the new service allows “comparison shopping engines to match the revenue they receive from merchants to the investments they make in SEM campaigns in order to maximize profits.” Read the release.
Ad Agency Ka-put
In a sign of how tenuous the agency business can be these days, creative agency Cliff Freeman & Partners has closed after years of success as the visionaries behind campaigns for Wendy’s (Where’s the Beef?) and Little Caesars. Stuart Elliot notes on the NY Times’ Media Decoder blog that the recession has made it harder for agencies to re-invent themselves and get back in the game – sometimes they simply have to close their doors. Read more.
Shah Leaves Time Inc.
Has anyone else noticed the recent trend to leave one’s job for a job yet-to-be-named? VivaKi’s Tim Hanlon, Yahoo!’s Antony Taylor, AdECN’s Jeff Green and now Vivek Shah of Time Inc. have all left or will be – maybe they’re starting their own company?
Shah is stepping down from Time Inc. to pursue a yet-to-be-named entrepreneurial interest according to Mike Shields of MediaWeek. Shields says that Time.com general manager John Cantarella will take over Shah’s responsibilities. Read more.
AdBrite Offering RTB
AdBrite says that it has become the first fully transparent ad exchange to provide real-time bidding on an impression-level basis, which AdBrite CEO Iggy Fanlo originally discussed in an AdExchanger.com Q&A in early September. MediaMath CTO Roland Cozzolino says in the release that MediaMath is the first to offer a real-time bid on AdBrite’s exchange. Read the release.
More Brand Tools
Moxie Interactive and OpenAmplify announced a new partnership that will give Moxie use of OpenAmplify’s semantic technology to discover intent from consumers engaged in conversations on social media sites. According to the release, this will give Moxie’s brand clients a better idea on how to connect with consumers. This doesn’t appear to be a competitor to Media6Degrees or 33Across. But, if Moxie starts dropping on users with OpenAmplify’s technology to re-target them later based on advertiser goals and consumer insights, then it will be competitive. Read the release.
Media Planning Tools For DOOH
Digital Out-Of-Home (DOOH) provider Argo Digital Solutions (AdExchanger.com Q&A) has released a media planning tool for its rVue search/buying platform which aggregates 1000s of digital out-of-home screens through DOOH ad network relationships as addressable audience reaches into gas stations, supermarkets and highway, digital billboards near you. Read the release. Or, see more on rVue.com.
Microsoft Layoffs
Todd Bishop of Seattle-based Tech Flash reports that Microsoft is about to layoff up to 1,000 employees. Bishop says that there is no indication as to which departments will be affected but that reliable sources say the third round of layoff’s at Microsoft are imminent. Read more.
Display Ad Tips
Rebecca Bell Ellis, SVP at Acceleration gives her tips for a successful display ad campaign including the use of ad exchanges. She suggests to those to exchanges to make a test buy and set the maximum CPM “lower than your normal CPM and measure your results carefully.” Read more.
