Hold The (Mobile) Phone; TripleLift Automates Native

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Hold The Phone

The industry is pouring on the mobile-first Kool-Aid with a heavy hand, but new data from Chartbeat suggests some healthy restraint. Mobile web traffic is not usurping desktop consumption, according to the analytics service – it’s complementing it. Chartbeat found that mobile usage surges after 6 p.m., and surpasses desktop traffic through the evening until 9 a.m. “In general, it seems like each medium is strong while the others are weak,” said Chartbeat’s chief data scientist, Josh Schwartz. “People are using phones while they wouldn’t be using desktops anyway.” So, make new friends but keep the old? Read on at Digiday.

Automating Native

For efficient native advertising, the question of scale remains. MediaPost reports that TripleLift is on a mission to unlock premium programmatic native advertising and the solution, as they see it, is computer vision rendering technology. Simply put, the tech offers a way to format brand content to match publisher sites automatically and in real time. It works by first scanning a publisher’s site for format and design parameters, and applies those guidelines to native ad units. Advertisers are then given the option to adjust the look of the native content, to make it more or less camouflaged. This is, potentially, a way to weave native into the programmatic wave, according to MediaPost. For a bit of comic relief on the native craze (if you missed it on Monday), watch John Oliver weigh in.

Programmatic Service

Martin Kelly of UK-based Infectious Media says in an op-ed on Campaign Live that programmatic is unlocking new opportunity in the service layer of marketing and media. He writes, “The trade press is full of stories citing big brands who do not believe their agency can do the job required in programmatic, and with that comes opportunity to disrupt the agency landscape, just like search did ten years ago.” Read it.

Creative Adds Video

On Tuesday, uStudio revealed a new partnership with creative and media agency R/GA. Through the partnership, uStudio will integrate its video platform into R/GA’s Software Platform Lab, extending uStudio’s video management tools to all R/GA clients. In a blog post debuting the partnership, uStudio explained, “With the overall usage of video growing rapidly, along with the expectation that video will deliver a high ROI, the technology used to manage all this video is as much of a strategic decision, if not more so, than the content itself.” Read it.

Selling The Second Screen

Your Shazam app on your smartphone is broadening its appeal to media companies. Variety’s Todd Spangler reports that A+E Networks, AMC, Dick Clark Productions and Fuse will partner with the app platform to extend their second-screen initiatives. Spangler explains, “Shazam’s Resonate sales platform lets networks offer advertisers enhanced content in the app, such as media to drive brand intent and awareness, and partners also can use the app to drive network tune-in. In addition, Shazam can track users who have ID’d specific programming and can retarget those consumers after a show’s broadcast on Facebook and in the Shazam app.” Read it.