Although the jury is out whether consumers will completely cut the cord on traditional TV consumption and migrate en masse to Web streaming, publishers are preparing for the cross-platform possibilities presented by shifting viewer habits. “We’re moving toward consistent measurement,” commented Sarah Baehr, SVP of digital for independent media buying agency Carat, citing the cross-platform […]
FreeWheel, a technology and services company cofounded seven years ago by Jonathan Heller, Doug Knopper and Diane Yu, helps media companies like NBCUniversal and Viacom connect TV buyers with premium digital video inventory. It also worked with Amazon to help power video ad content for the ecommerce giant. Knopper, who also serves as FreeWheel’s co-CEO, […]
Despite the ballyhoo over cord cutting, data from Forrester Research shows there’s no widespread move by consumers to cut television services in favor of Internet streaming, at least for now. The reprieve is certainly good news for broadcasters, and also gives marketers some breathing room to straighten out their digital video strategies. Forrester’s report showed […]
Google’s shift of ads and commerce chief Susan Wojcicki Wednesday to SVP of YouTube, which has 20.5% stake in the US video ad market, and which eMarketer estimated had $5.6 billion in gross ad revenue last year, comes at a critical time for the online video platform. With Wojcicki’s appointment, Salar Kamangar, SVP of YouTube […]
Video demand-side platform provider TubeMogul is adding a viewability-reporting feature within its dashboard today, promising to give marketers a record of where their video ads are seen and tools designed to improve ad avoidance. “By integrating viewability reporting into our ad-buying software, we can provide metrics at the site level,” said TubeMogul CEO Brett Wilson. […]
An expanded partnership between Simulmedia and set-top box data company Fourth Wall is part of a larger effort to replace traditional demographic targeting as the basis for ad placement. Instead, Simulmedia is proposing to target TV audiences based on their purchase history, instead of using broad categories like gender and age to determine where and […]
It’s been more than a year since video music platform Vevo opened its private marketplace with Adap.tv. While the talks with brand advertisers about using programmatic direct are beyond the experimental stage, ad sales automation is still evolving, said Jonathan Carson, Vevo’s chief revenue officer. Carson joined Vevo in September after serving as CEO of […]
Video ad platform Jun Group has raised its second venture debt round of $2.5 million as the company turns its focus to its growing mobile ad-serving business. When the New York-based company began offering mobile advertising services in 2009, mobile traffic constituted about 30% of its business. It roughly stayed at that level, rising to […]
Networking technology provider Cisco’s direct movements into the marketing tech space have been relatively deliberate. In recent weeks, Cisco has sharpened its focus on digital video ad delivery and analytics as highlighted by two deals it unveiled at CES. The main focus right now, as part of an arrangement with interactive video ad-serving company Innovid, […]
The proliferation of DVR services, set-top boxes and IPTV services has created a wealth of data marketers can mine. But the process by which one can purchase these targeted, data-driven ads is still in its infancy. For instance, extending programmatic buying concepts to “advanced television” (a custom system that algorithmically optimizes media against an advertiser’s […]
Set-top boxes enable television advertisers to select more narrow audience segments than traditional demographic targeting. “[Demographic targeting] is no better than statistically random when trying to hit actual consumers/potential consumers for most brands,” said PrecisionDemand CEO Jon Mandel, when asked about the limitations of demo targeting. “That is why we use first party data, target […]
Given the advanced stage of cloud technology and the race for digital video ad dollars, constantly retooling an existing cloud system, or building a new one from scratch, can be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming. That’s the reasoning behind this week’s $49 million acquisition of digital ad insertion provider Unicorn Media by online video player and […]
Most of the advancements that have fueled online video’s recent growth over the last few years tend to revolve around the technical aspects of targeting and placement. But Rapt Media CEO and co-founder Erika Trautman finds placing online video’s value in “sight, sound and motion” overlooks the true power of new media. “What surprised us […]
Late last year, we asked a handful of senior execs at platform companies to answer the question, “What will happen next year in marketing and advertising that hasn’t happened before?” This year we invited some of those same contributors to evaluate their earlier forecasts and update them for 2014. The below is from Mark Grether, chief […]
The big problem advertisers have assessing the value of video viewability is that the metric means something different every time it’s used. Publicis Groupe digital buying hub VivaKi hopes it can promise clients across its media-agency siblings a single definition for viewability by using video ad server Vindico’s verification tool, AdTricity, for all video ad […]
Video demand-side platform (DSP) TubeMogul will manage computer-manufacturer Lenovo’s global programmatic activity, an expansion of an existing partnership that reflects both cost-savings from automated ad sales and a greater interest in audience buying. For Lenovo, this increased focused on online video comes after two years of digital marketing expansion that remains largely concentrated on search […]
The next time you see a video advertisement on Yahoo, it will most likely be tied to search data and other information that Yahoo has about you through a new partnership with Starcom USA. Yahoo and Starcom have struck a deal to deliver video ads across Yahoo’s properties that are targeted at viewers based on […]
Like most of its video ad-tech rivals, Tremor Video has vied for TV-like brand dollars by offering a pitch based on online’s strength in performance with the branding appeal of “sight, sound and motion.” The problem, as Tremor’s Q3 earnings make clear, is that, as CEO Bill Day put it, TV buyers still value the […]
Nearly three months after DG decided to sell its linear TV ad-delivery business to video ad-management company Extreme Reach for $485 million, it is enjoying revenue momentum from its online platforms. Among the key results from DG’s Q3: Online revenues were up 13% to $38.2 million. The online segment’s margins improved to 25% from 13% […]
SpotXchange, a video-marketplace operator focused on the supply side, is the latest private marketplace provider to add Deal ID functions to its offerings. Deal IDs, still mostly associated with general display, are an attempt to make exchange buying friendlier to publishers that want to set reserved inventory aside for specific buyers (or categories of marketers). […]
TV is still the king of media, but the social “back channel” is now an indispensable part of its ambience. No surprise then that advertisers are hungry for media vehicles that bridge the two. A number of companies are positioned to feed that appetite, but Twitter is the frontrunner. Its Amplify program lets broadcasters sell […]
Video ad-tech companies are trying to show programmatic methods can be used for long-form, linear-style ad breaks. LiveRail, which counts the primetime TV digital units at CBS Interactive, Major League Baseball and A&E networks as customers, has debuted a product that supports the sale of such ad pods as slices of real-time bidded inventory. The […]
Jeff Lanctot, who stepped down as global chief media officer at Razorfish in August, has a new gig. The seasoned digital-agency (and briefly, Microsoft) exec will take the reins at Mixpo. A longtime board member at the Seattle-based video ad server, Lanctot was immediately sought as a candidate to run Mixpo when CEO Anupam Gupta […]
This morning NBC Universal entered a strategic partnership with Comcast and Twitter to engineer a “See It” feature allowing Xfinity TV viewers to take action around a TV show from their Twitter stream. The integration allows Xfinity TV viewers to take actions such as starting a show on-demand or setting a DVR to record. Executives […]
One reason the TV upfront market exists is that it takes a long time between planning an ad buy and actually delivering it. A partnership between TV ad targeter Simulmedia and TiVo’s TRA, which tracks TV viewing with consumer purchase data, to guarantee ad buys on preset audience targets has the potential to shake up […]
Video demand side platform TubeMogul and IPG Mediabrands have expanded their work together in the UK, Australia and Japan as the two seek to build up their programmatic video operations in those countries. Their agreement also aims to deliver more seamless campaign tools to globally-minded US marketers. TubeMogul’s non-exclusive partnership with Mediabrands, which has largely […]
As other video ad firms lay the groundwork for programmatic online video, Harris Broadcast is working with Placemedia to administer exchange-based sales for TV spots first. Then, maybe they’ll take on online video. After nearly a year of collaboration, Placemedia, which has deals with broadcast stations, cable operators and satellite providers covering 50 million households, […]
Video is a big part of the programmatic ad discussion taking place at New York’s Advertising Week. A recent look at the landscape by Jeffries & Co. finds that early players like Tremor and YuMe have certain advantages in the short term. But the time is nearing when the majority of video advertising will be […]
Rovio is no longer just a game developer. The maker of the hugely successful Angry Birds franchise is swiftly moving in to the video space with its ToonsTV mobile video platform. Originally only Angry Birds cartoons were shown on the network, but the company announced today it is now working with third-party content providers. The […]
While online video continues to grow, it’s becoming less certain that media buyers are ready to shift their focus demonstrably away from primetime TV. That’s not to say companies in the video space aren’t trying to make the movement between PC, mobile and TV screens more seamless. “We’re seeing single-digit ad dollars starting to move […]
