AUTHOR ARCHIVE FOR:

Kelly Liyakasa

Kelly Liyakasa

Senior Editor

Kelly Liyakasa is a senior editor covering commerce, video, TV and marketing tech for AdExchanger. Previously she was an associate editor for Information Today, where she reported on enterprise technology and strategy for its flagship publication, CRM magazine. Prior to that, she was a reporter for a New York metro Business Journal and luxury lifestyle magazine, profiling as diverse a set of individuals as a pre-election Donald Trump and Academy Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges. Kelly holds a BA in Multimedia Journalism from Florida Atlantic University.

Articles By Kelly

  • Investment

    Kantar Continues WPP’s Tech Blitz With BIScience Investment

    BY //

    WPP-owned Kantar Media revealed Tuesday its strategic investment in digital media intelligence firm BIScience. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Kantar and WPP clients will have access to BIScience’s platform, AdClarity, which lets advertisers run competitive benchmarking across 500,000 unique publishers and mobile apps to identify high-performing traffic sources. “Our footprint as […]

  • Investment

    Nielsen Q2: eXelate Acquisition Already Making Its Mark

    BY //

    Nielsen’s acquisition in March of data-management platform and exchange eXelate is already proving its value, the measurement company said during its Q2 earnings call Tuesday. EXelate is part of Nielsen’s marketing effectiveness suite and has been instrumental in securing client buy-in of marketing analytics. Recent wins include Walmart and major consumer packaged-goods companies, said Nielsen CEO Mitch Barns. “An increasingly programmatic […]

  • Ecommerce

    MyWebGrocer Links Digital Video Ads To In-Store Sales For CPGs

    BY //

    Consumer packaged goods companies, historically big TV spenders, are moving money to digital video. MyWebGrocer, an ecommerce platform and ad network for grocers and CPGs, is witnessing this shift. The company, which manages $40 million in digital media spend and which helps CPG advertisers target ads based on its retail partners’ first-party data, has built […]

  • Digital TV and Video

    AwesomenessTV: ‘We Were Born Because Audiences Were Leaving Traditional Platforms’

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    AwesomenessTV, which was purchased by DreamWorks Animation in 2013 for $33 million, is racing to reach teen audiences and capture more brand dollars in the Gen-Z gold rush. Those born in the mid ’90s-early 2000s, that is. With more than 2 million followers and 1 billion video views per month, AwesomenessTV is generally regarded as […]

  • Ecommerce

    How Alibaba Helps CPGs Like Unilever Grow Globally

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    During his first US appearance, Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang pledged the commerce giant wanted to help brands with cross-border commerce, not that it planned to expand into the US market. It appears he is making good on this strategy. Alibaba on Monday formed a strategic partnership with consumer packaged goods brand Unilever in order to […]

  • Digital TV and Video

    YouTube Courts Brands, But Broadcasters Like Sky Prefer Facebook

    BY //

    YouTube has sparked a brand fire, but can it ignite the same flame with content owners? “YouTube invented short-form video and took the category from zero to 4 billion views over a period of five years, but then it flat-lined and nothing happened,” said Hilary Perchard, head of US investments for European broadcaster and pay-TV operator […]

  • Advertiser

    SodaStream Bubbles Up Digital, Out-Of-Home Activations

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    SodaStream, a manufacturer of home carbonators, is letting some fizz out of its mass media activations to focus on increasing reach and frequency across digital and out-of-home. SodaStream is repositioning from its reputation as purely a soda maker to a company that supplies naturally flavored and low-calorie drink mixes and products like its new Power […]

  • Digital Marketing

    Media Vet David Karnstedt Says Audience Development Is As Important As Sales Execution

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    David Karnstedt, who headed performance-marketing engine Efficient Frontier during its $400 million sale to Adobe in 2011, is taking the reins yet again as CEO of a data startup called Quantifind. He will lead a 60-person team seeking to scale quickly. Quantifind, which has raised $12 million, is among a handful of startups that act […]

  • Ecommerce

    Google Parades New Shopping Ads Products, Testing Mobile Buy Button

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    Google wants to prove it’s on retailers’ sides – big time. During a Google Shopping presentation for press at the company’s New York headquarters Wednesday, the search behemoth rolled out a slate of new mobile shopping features. They include: Shopping Ads for Best Queries, which lists results for products based on online reviews; Google Now Price Drop […]

  • Ad Exchange News

    Adobe Index: Marketers Pay Google More For Mobile Clicks – But Don’t Get Great Traffic Results

    BY //

    Google’s recent push to prioritize mobile-friendly sites in organic search results is straining the advertising ecosystem, according to Adobe Digital Index’s Q2 2015 Digital Advertising and Social Intelligence report, released Wednesday. The Adobe Digital Index for Q2 2015 noted a 10% decrease in organic traffic on Google among sites that weren’t optimized for mobile. The […]

  • Investment

    AnyClip Raises $21 Million To Add A Higher Dosage Of Data To Video Ads

    BY //

    AnyClip Media, which helps studios like Universal Studios and Warner Brothers distribute video content, has raised $21 million to beef up its product road map. AnyClip will also hire about 100 people globally this year to support growth in Europe and Asia. It also intends to examine non-organic growth opportunities for companies that fit its […]

  • Digital TV and Video

    Discovery Channel Sells Shark Week Using Twitter’s ‘Buy Now’

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    Despite the doom and gloom around declining linear TV viewerships, networks like Discovery Channel still score on popular annual programming events like Shark Week. The network claimed 2014’s Shark Week was its biggest ever, drawing 42 million viewers in the course of the week, which spurred its decision to expand the weeklong summer event, which […]

  • Mobile

    Verizon Will Boost Convertro’s Cross-Device, Connected TV Attribution Chops

    BY //

    AOL is giving its multitouch attribution system, Convertro, a little extra juice by adding contextual data that measures the impact of ZIP code-level weather data within marketing mix models. Other forthcoming additions to Convertro will include conditions around the local and national economy and gas prices. Convertro claimed, even before it was acquired, that it […]

  • Digital Marketing

    Private Equity Firm HGGC Plants Stake In Marketing Platform Selligent

    BY //

    The data and mar-tech deals march on. Midmarket private equity firm HGGC, which groomed hybris into a $1 billion-plus acquisition target for SAP, is the latest. The firm revealed Friday it has invested an undisclosed amount in European marketing-automation and data-management solution Selligent. Investment bank The Jordan Edmiston Group advised Selligent on the transaction. As […]

  • Digital TV and Video

    YouTube MCNs Grow Legs, But Can They Sustain Their Own Ecosystems?

    BY //

    YouTube multichannel networks (MCN) – and their influencers and fan bases – keep whetting investors’ appetites. Media research firm Ampere Analysis values the entire MCN business at approximately $20 billion in a study of three years’ worth of MCN investments released this week. German media giant ProSiebenSat.1 is the latest to jump in, acquiring on […]

  • OPINION: On TV & Video

    A Programmatic TV Standard Takes Shape

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    The Programmatic TV Standards Group is drafting a standard designed to set baseline parameters for national and locally distributed inventory. The organization is championed by a few industry vets, agencies (Magna Global, Starcom MediaVest), one third-party measurer (Management Science Associates, or MSA) and vendors (AudienceXpress). “The first standard we’ll be defining is [what constitutes] national […]

  • Social Media

    StumbleUpon Makes Personalized Email, Video Strides

    BY //

    Remember StumbleUpon? The content discovery and social bookmarking site born in 2001 wants to go beyond its bread and butter, driving social shares and referrals to publisher sites. That means StumbleUpon is expanding into new channels – and with good reason. StumbleUpon had 30 million monthly active users in 2014, but that number pales in […]

  • Advertiser

    CPG Upstart Hello Moves Toothpaste Off Shelves With TV

    BY //

    Consumer packaged-goods startup Hello Products is combining TV with offline activations to create a competitive edge for its oral care products. As a challenger to household names like Crest and Colgate, Hello aims to differentiate its ethos through natural formulas and bright and alluring packaging. The brand is now activating digital video and TV with […]

  • Digital TV and Video

    Marketers Prep For An Autoplay Video Onslaught

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    Autoplay is here to stay, especially in light of Facebook’s and Twitter’s latest video launches. Two weeks after Twitter offered marketers a 100% in-view guarantee on autoplay video ads for three seconds, Facebook came out swinging with a cost-per-view model and a revenue-sharing agreement for ads sold against Suggested Videos. With unique pricing models emerging for […]

  • Digital TV and Video

    Turner Broadcasting: TV Companies Can Have Data Clouds Too

    BY //

    Time Warner subsidiary Turner Broadcasting revealed during its May upfront a centralized data-management platform to power its ad products. That system is the Turner Data Cloud, which the network souped up on Tuesday with data integrations to Epsilon, Krux and Oracle. Using Turner’s Data Cloud, a marketer can apply first-party audience data as well as […]

  • Digital TV and Video

    Vivendi Gains YouTube Competitor With Dailymotion Acquisition

    BY //

    French media holding company Vivendi revealed Monday it had acquired an 80% stake in French carrier Orange’s video-streaming site Dailymotion, in a deal worth about $241 million. Negotiations had been underway since April, according to several reports. The owner of Universal Music Group and pay-TV company Canal+ Group swooped in where Yahoo left off – Marissa […]

  • Ad Exchange News

    Microsoft-AOL Deal Affirms Verizon’s Interest In Cross-Platform Media

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    While AOL’s absorption of Microsoft’s display, search and video ads business is indicative of Verizon’s digital media interests, industry insiders aren’t quite convinced the flagship publications it inherited through the AOL acquisition will stick around for the long haul. An early Huffington Post exec said Verizon will need to treat the media group like “a […]

  • Digital TV and Video

    Ooyala Acquires Interactive Platform Nativ To Solve Video Ad Creative Complexities

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    Video content management and distribution platform Ooyala revealed on Monday it had acquired Nativ, a London-based interactive video ad platform that helps brands and media companies manage TV and video content and ad creative. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The purchase comes after Ooyala’s acquisition of European video supply-side platform Videoplaza and the […]

  • Investment

    Mediaocean Acquired By Private Equity Firm Vista

    BY //

    Updated with comments from CEO Bill Wise. Continuing the trend of private equity investment in ad tech, Vista Equity Partners revealed Monday it had acquired a majority stake in Mediaocean, a company most commonly known for automating trafficking and billing software for ad agencies. The deal values Mediaocean at about $720 million, the company confirmed. Mediaocean was the result of […]

  • Digital TV and Video

    As Viewers Migrate To Mobile And Connected TV, Data Helps ESPN Gauge ‘Total Audience’

    BY //

    As video views shift from desktop and linear to mobile and over-the-top – Hulu, for instance, just revealed more than 58% of streams now happen on OTT devices – programmers like ESPN are using data to track total audience viewing and satiate advertiser demands. ESPN hired its first global data officer last week, The Weather Company’s […]

  • Advertiser

    Johnson & Johnson CMO Rallies The Brand Around Consumer 'Need States'

    BY //

    When Alison Lewis joined Johnson & Johnson as its first-ever consumer marketing chief in 2013, the purveyor of popular baby-care products like No More Tears and the ubiquitous Band-Aid, was at a crossroads as a company. “We had really great marketers and agency partners, but we realized we needed a unified approach to brand-building for […]

  • Ad Exchange News

    Nielsen Picks A Pack Of ‘Preferred Platform Partners,’ Pushes Toward ‘Total Audience’

    BY //

    Nielsen has a new program designed to give advertisers and agencies a clearer lens into the digital audience activation process, the company announced Wednesday at its Consumer 360 conference in Washington, DC. The inaugural set of “Preferred Platform Partners” includes BrightRoll, DoubleClick, FreeWheel, Moat, RocketFuel, TubeMogul, Tremor Video, Viant and Videology. Other ad tech platforms […]

  • Ecommerce

    Alibaba CEO: ‘We’re Not Just An Ecommerce Company – We’re A Data Company’

    BY //

    Alibaba’s sale of its US shopping site 11 Main on Tuesday may have looked like it was waving the white flag in surrender to Amazon and eBay, but CEO Daniel Zhang reaffirmed the Chinese commerce giant’s pursuit of cross-border commerce in his first onstage appearance in the United States. “Yes, we are strong in ecommerce, […]

  • Advertiser

    For 7UP, Pre-Roll's Only Part Of The Video Experience

    BY //

    7UP is giving the thumbs up to live-streamed video. For the second year in a row, the carbonated beverage brand is sponsoring Yahoo’s live stream of the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC), an annual electronic dance music mecca sponsored by entertainment company Insomniac in Las Vegas this month. Music has been on Yahoo’s mind since the […]

  • Agencies

    Razorfish, Omnicom Heavyweights Make The Leap To Merkle

    BY //

    Merkle is bulking up in the talent department. The CRM agency snagged Razorfish COO Michael Komasinski to serve in a similar role within its digital agency services group, along with Gerry Bavaro, outgoing chief strategy officer for Omnicom’s Resolution Media, to serve as SVP of its enterprise solutions group. Merkle’s revenue grew 20% to $382 […]

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