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A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Automating Sales News Corp. platforms exec Cameron King tells AdNews in Australia that his company aims to “move programmatic into the mainstream sales effort.” King has sipped from the cup of programmatic Kool-Aid. AdNews says, “[King] would not hang a number around the organisation’s […]

Israel-based performance network Matomy has scrapped plans to raise about $100 million in a London Stock Exchange public offering that would have valued the company at around $400 million. The withdrawal was motivated in part by a “technicality” of London IPOs that requires at least a quarter of shares to be claimed by investors in the […]

CPG giant Kimberly-Clark embraced programmatic buying in 2011, setting up a “trading desk” that combines in-house oversight with execution through its demand-side platform (DSP), Turn, and its media agency of record, WPP Group’s Mindshare. Mark Kaline, Kimberly-Clark’s global media, licensing and consumer services director, detailed the company’s specific approach and its learnings in a presentation this […]

Jelli, a programmatic ad platform for radio, and radio ad software provider Marketron are partnering up on an automated supply-side service for radio stations, the companies said Thursday. “Billions of dollars in radio inventory are still being traded in an analog way,” said Marketron CEO Jeff Haley. “We’re taking the innovation that happened on the […]

Supply-side platform (SSP) AdsNative received Thursday a $2 million injection of funding led by Interwest Partners, raising about $750K in convertible debt prior to this series. The company also released a mechanism called Mediation/SSP, designed to maximize publisher fill rates for in-stream native ads. AdsNative will devote the majority of the funds to getting more publishers […]

Update: Dunnhumby CEO Simon Hay tells AdExchanger the acquisition of retail retargeter Sociomantic Labs and its demand-side platform (DSP) technology came from a realization that “we were a media player without really knowing it at all.” “I think we saw the opportunity with everything becoming more programmatic and more of an opportunity to use data […]

Are Twitter and Pinterest on their way out and is there room for other social networks? These were among the topics that advertising and marketing executives tackled on a panel discussion on day two of Ad Age’s Digital Conference. The panelists included Bob Lord, CEO of AOL Platforms; Scott Galloway of L2ThinkTank; Kelly Mooney, CEO […]

“Brand Aware” explores the data-driven digital ad ecosystem from the marketer’s point of view. Today’s column is written by Mayur Gupta, global head of marketing, technology and operations at Kimberly-Clark. Brands have as much of a chance of driving frictionless omnichannel consumer experiences as a Formula One race car driver trying to win a race […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. More Social Consolidation Social marketing startups Spredfast and Mass Relevance are merging. Spredfast CEO Rod Favaron will head the combined company, which will operate under Spredfast’s name. The deal combines Mass Relevance’s social curation tools for TV with Spredfast’s social media management and analytics. […]

As the digital video ecosystem gets more crowded, players that plan for cross-device content delivery and who can partner with multiple platforms will win. Both Amazon and Yahoo have been working toward this by mastering their respective delivery methods, increasing audience scale and developing premium inventory. Consider Amazon’s Wednesday launch of its Fire TV set-top […]

Merkle keeps piling on agency services. The CRM and database marketing company has acquired Chicago-based New Control, a “digital and direct” agency with a focus on financial industry clients including Chase, Fifth Third Bank, PNC Bank and Visa. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Merkle EVP and digital agency lead Craig Dempster told AdExchanger the […]

Rubicon Project began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday at $15, the low end of its previously stated $15 to $17 range range. Updated: As of 10:45 a.m. EDT, the stock was trading up 34% at $2o.10 per share. CEO Frank Addante and fellow C-Suite founders Greg Raifman (president) and Todd Tappin (COO/CFO) were […]

Walmart.com VP of Marketing Brian Monahan provided a glimpse into the retail giant’s strategy for bridging online and offline commerce Tuesday at Ad Age’s Digital Conference. More than 240 million people in the United States visit Walmart’s stores, clubs, sites and apps on a weekly basis, Monahan said. And as consumers increasingly move across digital […]

Mobile app install ads have proven to be lucrative for Facebook, and sources say Twitter is close to releasing its own version of such ads along with a new mobile app install partner program. “Given the prevalence of Twitter app usage in mobile, which has an even higher percentage of mobile vs. desktop than Facebook, […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Eli Portnoy, general manager at Thinknear. Mobile exchange inventory has gotten a bad rap. The age of programmatic and RTB had brought tremendous improvements and advantages to exchanges. Publishers can […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. ComScore’s Global Metrics ComScore released Tuesday a new audience metric designed to measure global audiences of unique individuals across multiple platforms. “With a huge and growing proportion of our traffic coming from non-PC devices such as smartphones and tablets, it is commercially vital to […]

The brand-agency relationship used to be relatively simple. True, brands would have multiple agencies – social, digital, media-buying, for instance – but most of the spend would focus on a single area, usually television. But as other digital channels become more important to consumers, brands are beginning to realize that stuffing too much money in […]

Google Plus is often compared unfavorably to Facebook when it comes to drawing up a social media advertising strategy. But a recent study by Forrester concludes that when compared to other social media outlets, notably Twitter, Google Plus promotes stronger brand engagement. Forrester tracked 284 profile pages of 50 top brands and more than 3 […]

Are programmatic media companies about to hit the wall? Ken Sena, managing director and Internet analyst at investment banking analyst firm Evercore Partners, is wary. Despite the exuberant expectations around companies like Criteo and Rocket Fuel, Sena sees a possible multifront threat on the horizon. In an Evercore report called “Questioning Competitive Barriers In Programmatic,” […]

During his three years at Kellogg Company, Bob Arnold became a poster child for programmatic buying at the brand marketer level. Arnold, who recently quit cereal to join Google, presented his rules for programmatic at the Association of National Advertisers’ Media Leadership Conference in Boca Raton, Fla., on Tuesday. His key message: Don’t let complexity […]

One week after unveiling AOL Platforms and ONE by AOL, the company on Tuesday solidified its division leadership and rolled out its first series of long-form video content for premium video platform AOL On. Platforms CEO Bob Lord appointed Adap.tv co-founder and CEO Amir Ashkenazi as president of AOL Platforms and Adap.tv president Toby Gabriner […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Andrew Casale, vice president of strategy at Casale Media Inc. One of programmatic’s key promises has always been that it would disrupt the ad networks’ lock on inventory supply in […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Eric Picard, CEO at Rare Crowds. I had the great fortune to moderate a panel called “Programmatic Guaranteed” at AdExchanger’s recent Programmatic.io conference in San Francisco. The prep conversations for […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Wunderman Buys Commerce Tech Agency network Wunderman has acquired FusePump, whose technology is designed to make product information from ecommerce sites and other sources available to marketers and advertisers. According to the release, “Wunderman will gain access to FusePump technology and platforms such as […]

Right in time for opening day, agency Sapient and The Fenway Sports Group (parent company of the Boston Red Sox) have entered a multi-year partnership to improve fan engagement. This alliance marks the first time that Fenway has worked on a digital ad campaign of this nature, and will explore how best to leverage multi-channel […]

Programmatic buying is on marketers’ radar, with new survey data from the Association of National Advertisers  finding strong adoption of platform-driven buying across a range of media types. But familiar barriers continue to hinder adoption, including a lack of understanding about what programmatic is. Thirty-nine percent of respondents to the ANA survey – which was conducted […]

As consumer apps companies ramp up efforts in geo-targeted ads and hyper-local search, Foursquare has responded by turning check-in data into marketing services opportunities. Following a February announcement that Microsoft would invest $15 million in the location-savvy startup after its $35 million Series D in December, Foursquare’s revenue stream – and data reach – may get […]

Target’s December data breach, which exposed the credit card and other personal information of as many as 110 million customers in late 2013, was calamitous for Target, scary for its customers, and an “early Christmas present” for identity protection brand LifeLock Inc., according to the company’s head of media. But rather than sit back and […]

The Media Rating Council (MRC) on Monday lifted its advisory against buying and selling display ads based on viewability metrics. “The state of viewability measurements is much better than it was 16 months ago and viewability vendors have greater insight into the range of ads that are served in campaigns,” said David Gunzerath, SVP and […]