As a staff reporter at AdExchanger, Alison covers advertising agencies and the digital audio landscape. Previously a copywriter at MarketSmiths, she has written digital marketing copy and produced campaigns across multiple verticals. Prior to that Alison worked in editorial at award-winning travel journalism site Fathom. She has a B.A. in International Studies and Spanish from the University of Michigan.
Baskin-Robbins launched a standalone app to help modernize its 70-year-old brand and connect with consumers via personalized messaging and offers. In the two weeks since its launch, more than 10,000 customers have downloaded the app, which was created by DigitasLBi. The app is part of a larger effort for more personalized, one-to-one marketing and enhanced […]
Dentsu Aegis’ Isobar will launch a new unit by merging its consulting capabilities with those of two corporate siblings at Dentsu, the agency announced on Thursday. Copernicus Marketing and Forbes Consulting, both subsidiaries of Dentsu, will be merged as an integrated division under the Isobar agency network. David Forbes, founder of Forbes Consulting, and Peter […]
While media bartering isn’t commonly discussed, the ANA’s two reports on agency transparency referenced the practice 49 times. Here’s how it works: A barter agency might agree to buy an advertiser’s surplus product, such as an airline’s unsold flight tickets at full price, which it would give to employees for business travel. In return, the […]
If Dentsu Aegis Network’s majority investment in Merkle goes through, the CRM and performance marketing agency will support Dentsu’s media-buying agencies. Those media agencies will gain access to Merkle’s proprietary tools, including a cross-device identity management system, a CRM-matching database for publishers and, most notably, the M1 audience platform. “The intent is that every agency […]
Spotify made its big debut of programmatic audio, but Pandora’s recent ad products focus on the visual. While the highest engagement is with its audio ads, Pandora is investing heavily in visual ads. Reason being: It wants to be more than a listening platform. Sponsored Listening, launched last year, allows brands to sponsor one hour […]
K2 Intelligence spent eight months investigating questionable agency business practices for the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), culminating in a critical, groundbreaking report. Now the firm will help advertisers enforce and monitor transparency with their media-buying agencies through a new business unit. The practice, first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, will use […]
Podcast platform Art19 has taken a step to address the targeting and measurement problem standing between advertisers and a ripe audience of podcast listeners. The company’s platform hosts and distributes podcasts while letting advertisers better target and monetize their audiences through an API integration and an ad server. It launched with hundreds of shows from […]
Mary Hennen will speak at AdExchanger’s Omni.Digital conference in Chicago on September 8. At home design retailer The Tile Shop, “The very foundation of everything we’ve done is understand who our customers are, and who they’re not,” said Mary Hennen, VP of marketing and ecommerce. Minneapolis-based The Tile Shop has 117 locations in 31 states, and first-party data is […]
When Spotify partnered with AppNexus, The Trade Desk and Rubicon Project to execute private marketplace (PMP) deals on mobile audio inventory last week, it became the first digital audio company to open its audio inventory to programmatic exchanges. To recap: Rubicon Project will be Spotify’s SSP partner, The Trade Desk its DSP partner and AppNexus […]
WPP’s GroupM upended the industry’s mutual viewability standard back in 2014, when it promised to buy only 100% in-view ads for clients. Now it’s created an executive position to enforce that standard in all of its markets as well as to shield clients from a slew of other brand safety issues presented by digital advertising. […]
To maintain transparent relationships with their agencies, brands must consider significantly investing in things like staffing, continuing media education and legal counsel, according to ANA and Ebiquity. In their most recent report, ANA and Ebiquity issued a long list of recommendations that also included hiring a “chief media officer” to manage agency relationships. It’s a […]
The Association of National Advertisers’ crusade for greater agency transparency entered phase two on Monday, when marketing analytics firm Ebiquity and its subsidiary, FirmDecisions, released an anticipated set of guidelines for advertisers on how to maintain transparent relationships with their agencies. The overarching message: Agencies may have crossed a few lines, but the onus is […]
Advertisers’ concerns around viewability and fraud are slowing down spend on digital advertising, said Daryl Simm, chairman and CEO of Omnicom Media Group during the holding company’s Q2 2016 earnings call on Thursday morning. “While [advertisers] are continuing to grow their digital budgets, there is a tap at the brakes in that space as some […]
Social listening data is often used only to influence social campaigns. Siloes within agencies can keep it from informing media campaigns in other channels. IPG Mediabrands, for instance, has multiple media buying agencies, including a search and social unit called Reprise Media as well as its trading desk, Cadreon. Reprise and Cadreon made a good […]
As fraudsters get smarter, anti-fraud players must evolve to put up a worthy fight. To scale its fraud detection capabilities, viewability and verification measurement vendor Integral Ad Science (IAS) has acquired bot detection company Swarm. Terms of the deal, which was announced Friday, were not disclosed. “Fraud is not going away, it’s getting more sophisticated,” […]
Through a growing number of API partnerships, car service companies like Uber and Lyft are broadening their reach across the app ecosystem. “With the proliferation of companies in the rideshare space, we’ve [seen] huge demand for people to want to move around,” said Vishay Nihalani, senior product manager at Lyft. “It’s like a basic human need at this point.” […]
Advertisers are waking up to the popularity of podcasts among their consumers. PodWave, the first programmatic marketplace created exclusively for podcast advertisers, was launched Wednesday by digital audio vendor AdsWizz and National Public Media (NPM), National Public Radio’s sponsorship sales arm. Despite the growing popularity of podcasts in recent years (Edison Research said in January […]
It’s a tale of the haves and the have-nots. Deal values for mar tech are exploding, according to M&A activity surveys from Jordan Edmiston Group (JEGI) and Petsky Prunier, highlighting the first half of 2016. By contrast, ad tech, despite heavy consolidation speculation, is still in a slump. JEGI noted $13.3 billion in deal value […]
IHeartMedia relies heavily on listeners to inform its online marketing efforts. When advertising its stations, the digital audio giant has found its biggest influencers aren’t celebs with millions of followers, but music fans who write quality social media posts, said Chris Williams, iHeartMedia’s chief product officer. “If you can find the five or six Justin Bieber […]
The fallout from the Association of National Advertisers’ report on media agency transparency has taken an unexpected twist. WPP’s media buying unit, GroupM, is suing Ebiquity’s media auditing arm, FirmDecisions, claiming it violated an NDA and misused classified information that GroupM accidentally sent to FirmDecisions. Campaign first reported the story. According to the complaint, GroupM […]
If the UK follows through with its decision to leave the European Union, industry experts say London won’t lose its throne as the epicenter of European advertising. It will, however, have to adjust as the world transacts differently with the British media market. The country is expected to invest twice as much in digital media […]
Hours after the United Kingdom voted to quit the European Union, its most prominent ad industry employee is feeling… well, in his own words: “Very disappointed, but the electorate has spoken.” WPP Group CEO Sir Martin Sorrell told AdExchanger in a statement that “The resulting uncertainty, which will be considerable, will obviously slow decision-making and […]
Neustar is splitting its business into two independent, publicly traded companies. The divide, announced Tuesday, is an effort to boost motivation in the capital markets by clearing up confusion around Neustar’s company story and the various services it provides, said Neustar president and CEO Lisa Hook. One company will retain the Neustar name and provide […]
Overall ad spend will enjoy its strongest growth in six years – 5.4%, reaching $480 billion this year – largely driven by double-digit gains in digital media. The fast-growing sector shows no sign of a slowdown: The interplay of programmatic, online video, social media and mobile will drive digital ad spend growth through 2018, according to […]
Agency buyers believe Snapchat’s partner program, which allows third parties to buy inventory, will help the messaging service migrate from a bespoke buy to a more central part of a media plan. “If you look at the scale and daily time spent, especially among millennials, you have to consider Snapchat a core reach vehicle,” said […]
In its critical agency report, The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) didnt touch on the complexities of the modern media-buying landscape, said Rob Norman, chief digital officer of WPP’s media-buying arm GroupM, in a blog post Tuesday. Norman’s response comes after the ANA mic-dropped its investigative report into agency transparency, criticizing agencies for taking rebates and a […]
On Tuesday, Pandora revealed it would be introducing two visual ad units at the end of the year: a mobile ad unit delivered within the same space that has the album art, and that adjusts based on the phone’s screen size; and muted video in a responsive display unit. Both are in beta with Express […]
Intent data for a hotel might look very different than it does for a shampoo manufacturer. Whereas luxury and travel marketers have direct access to transaction data that can be used to target and upsell customers, CPG manufacturers often sell at the SKU level through retailers, which retain the purchase data. CPG advertisers need granular […]
Agencies may come under tougher scrutiny soon as a result of an Association of National Advertisers (ANA) report due out this month. The report on agency rebate practices is the result of a monthslong investigation by K2 Intelligence and Ebiquity and is likely to bring into focus how advertisers conduct audits of their agency partners. […]
Advertisers don’t have a strong enough grip on the technological ecosystem to make informed buying decisions, agreed leaders of several leading ad organizations at AdExchanger’s Clean Ads IO conference. Panelists from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) got on stage in New […]
