Affectiva Nets Cash To Target Emotions; RTB For Video

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Target Emotions

Facial recognition ad tech-ish company Affectiva has raised $12 million more from VC Kleiner Perkins and Horizons Ventures. VentureBeat’s Rebecca Grant notes the data capture: “Based on a large repository of naturally recurring emotion, Affectiva offers a deep glimpse into the way audiences react to what they see online.” Imagine someday targeting an audience with a good sense of humor, or a shy audience. Read more. It would seem clever look-alike modeling could address scale.

RTB for Video

On MediaPost, BrightRoll Exchange’s Dan Mosher says that real-time bidding for video has arrived – of course, RTB for video is an important part of BRX’s business. Nevertheless, he looks to quell premium publisher fears, “The case BRX makes to premium publishers is that RTB buys are an additional source of demand that they are not seeing today. If buyers are enabled to access inventory through this method, it is not competitive with direct sales efforts because RTB is a different product since buyers are seeking audiences, not sites.” Read it.

Showrooming For Brands

On Biz Report, ChoiceStream COO Eric Bosco discusses “showrooming” and – never mind the retailer – how can brands benefit. He says, “A smart brand would respect each consumer’s choice to explore other options. A really smart brand would go even further to learn from the signal and discover the profile of consumers who are showrooming (and what they’re looking for), then target towards other outlets with their ads.” Read more.

Tablet Studies

VivaKi’s The Pool initiative announced that it would leverage the ad serving capabilities of MediaLets for its U.S. tablet studies -a.k.a. “tablet lane.” The release explains, “The Pool’s tablet lane, which launched in October 2011, includes a combination of publishers and advertisers working together to uncover higher performing, engaging, and scalable ad models.” Read more. And, here’s a nice PPT download with tablet stats and Pool results.
For you tablet stats junkies, more here from comScore courtesy of Internet Retailer.

‘Bout Those Bot Clicks

Optim.al CEO Rob Leathern takes to his personal blog in order to address recent coverage of “bots” clicking on ads on Facebook. Leathern sees red, “I am amazed and saddened by how broadly this has been covered without most doing so asking some (to me) pretty obvious questions and ultimately dismissing this as the crap it obviously is. What made me want to write this post was NOT the allegation itself, and I think the guy(s) who made it originally probably wanted a bit of PR out of it but didn’t really expect all the attention it got them (from their blog saying as much) but much more it is the unthinking, low-data, zero-information content coverage / regurgitation thereof.” Read more. And, read about media manipulation on Ad Age.

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Hold On, Holdcos; Rags To Riches

The Smoking Turd

In a piece on his personal blog titled “The Turd on The Table,” VivaKi’s Rishad Tobaccowalla relates details from a conversation he had with a CEO recently – they were competitors “on the fringes.” It was time to just admit it. He thinks we all need to do more “turd slaying.” Tip #1 from Tobaccowalla: “Say what you think. In business we care what is between your ears. If you cannot say what you think (hey if its wrong you will be told so, in fact even if you are right you will be told you are wrong….). Truth eventually has a habit of breaking in. Why not open the door and save time and damage ?” Read more.

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