Pandora is enjoying rising ad prices aided by its SMB sales efforts, CEO Brian McAndrews told investors during the company’s second quarter earnings call. “Our advertising investments, particularly in local, are paying off,” McAndrews said, adding, “RPMs were up 25% year over year, to a record $49.94.” According to McAndrews, Pandora’s success with local advertisers […]
Advertiser agency reviews took center stage during Omnicom’s Q2 call. Chief John Wren claimed the holding company is well positioned to weather the storm of media reviews, which have spurred the reevaluation of nearly $30 billion in media billings, according to estimates from Pivotal Research, because of Omnicom’s investments in its data-management platform, Annalect, and its programmatic […]
When Ellen Pao stepped down from her post as CEO of Reddit on Friday – ceding the spot to Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman – it left Reddit’s monetization situation murkier than ever. In a question and answer session on Reddit’s popular AMA (Ask Me Anything) section, Huffman wrote, “Reddit has a lot of cash. Monetization […]
“Marketer’s Note” is a regular column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. This week it is written by Catherine Oddenino, Analyst, AdExchanger Research. I’m currently finalizing a report focused on the state of programmatic media from the publisher perspective. As part of the research I’ve been asking publishers what they see […]
The auto industry, ever competitive when it comes to traditional advertising, has brought that competition to programmatic buying. By leveraging data from car makers and dealers, brands are able to target and optimize their digital advertising through data-driven programmatic, and the competition is heating up in that space. According to data released by DSP and DMP Turn, price […]
Marketron wants to help the 6,500 or so broadcast radio stations that use its revenue management software to transact spot radio in a programmatic fashion. The company has rolled out an offering, dubbed Mediascape, allowing stations to see their sell rates and inventory avails, and then select those avails and publish them to Marketron’s cloud-based […]
When French holding company Publicis Groupe decentralized the programmatic capabilities of its agency trading desk VivaKi in February, it did so to capitalize on the increasing performance of programmatic, said VivaKi CEO Stephan Beringer. While Beringer didn’t pinpoint the exact drivers for the restructuring, “It was the culmination of insights that led to the need […]
Nestlé found its sweet spot through a recently executed branding campaign for its Nescafé Dolce Gusto brand. For its first-ever wholly programmatic ad campaign, the European java vendor tapped UK-based online marketing firm Jellyfish to drive sales of its coffee machines. The goal was to maximize the efficiency of its display advertising, without compromising on […]
Compared to other digital audio content, podcast advertising has unique measurement challenges. But the medium is growing quickly. Edison Research claims nearly 46 million Americans, or 15-17% of the US population, listen to a podcast every month. It’s roughly double the size of podcast listeners in 2008. AdsWizz, which provides radio listening metrics for broadcasters and […]
When holding companies Publicis Groupe and Omnicom reported their respective 2015 first quarter earnings on Tuesday, each had to field investor inquiries about agency rebates and kickbacks. Omnicom outwardly denied participating in the controversial activity, at least in the US. “Our media agencies in the US don’t seek rebates,” Daryl Simm, CEO of Omnicom Media […]
With digital audio consumption on the rise, advertiser expectations about targeting and buying advertisements are also growing fast. These concerns surfaced Thursday during Mediaocean’s “Radio Reinvented” panel in Manhattan. Panelists included executives from Pandora, Spotify and Triton Digital. The panelists revealed there are 143 million monthly online radio listeners in the US, representing 53% of […]
Is traditional advertising dying in the US? Not for midsize advertisers, according to research from Kantar Media. However, while smaller and midsize advertisers are spending more on “traditional linear media,” the largest US advertisers are redirecting those budgets to digital forums. “The growth of the ad market is on two different tracks right now,” said […]
Podcast consumption swelled from 29 million monthly users in 2014 to 46 million in 2015, according to findings from an ongoing study by Edison Research and Triton Digital. The popular podcast “WTF? With Marc Maron” is happily riding the wave. “We’re benefiting from the shifting media landscape,” said the podcast’s producer, Brendan McDonald. “There is […]
So-called marketing clouds have commonly focused on enabling outreach to known customers, which is why they lean heavily on email marketing, CRM and campaign management – while paid media remains an afterthought. But Adobe, whose annual summit began Monday in Salt Lake City, is diving into ad tech with an upgrade to its Media Optimizer […]
Metamarkets has raised $15 million in a round led by Data Collective, a VC firm in which Metamarkets CEO Mike Driscoll is a partner. Other new investors include John Battelle, LiveRamp founder Auren Hoffman and City National Bank. Existing investors Khosla, IA, True and Village Ventures also joined in. The company’s total funding to date […]
MDC Partners had a record-high number of client wins in 2014, includeing Diageo’s Johnnie Walker, Unilever’s Magnum Ice Cream and InBev’s Corona in Brazil. As a result, its Q4 revenue increased 17.5% YoY (from $289.2 million to $339.9 million). Organic revenue also increased $12.5%, with new business wins totaling $56.7 million. FY 2014 revenue increased […]
During Interpublic Group’s (IPG) Q4 and year-end earnings call on Friday, chief Michael Roth emphasized – as he did after Q3 – the holding company’s barter-based programmatic model that discloses margins. This isn’t the only difference from the black-box models of IPG’s competitors, which deploy programmatic on an agency-by-agency basis. “We continue to believe that […]
If you happen to have $4.5 million burning a hole in your pocket, congratulations! You can afford a 30-second Super Bowl TV spot. Of course, for most big game advertisers it’s not enough to have 30 seconds of spectacular creative – you also have to support it via online and social channels. “Social is huge […]
DC-based XAPPmedia builds voice-activated mobile ads, and the company wants to use these units to bridge traditional and digital broadcasting. To advance that goal, XAPPmedia on Wednesday debuted a mobile audience ad service called JAX in partnership with mobile app developer jacAPPS. JAX is designed to let commercial and public radio stations monetize their mobile […]
With all the recent talk about automating the ad-buying process, it’s easy to forget about content. But Drew Panayiotou, president and CEO of BBDO’s Atlanta division, thinks agencies will sink or swim depending on their ability to produce the “next generation of content.” “Content is dramatically changing as media is changing,” Panayiotou told AdExchanger. Panayiotou […]
Agency and ad tech vet Alan Schanzer landed at Pandora as SVP of Agency Relations on Jan. 13, and his goal is to broaden the streaming radio company’s relationship with advertisers. “I’ll be helping to develop Pandora’s strategy with holding companies, major advertisers and agencies, and, at the very top level, help them understand the […]
Programmatic has been gaining steam in the Asia-Pacific region, but the industry still lacks awareness and understanding, according to a new study from Singapore-based MediaQuark. Of the 108 respondents to the company’s survey, 62% said that a lack of industry understanding was one of the biggest challenges for programmatic in the APAC market. Looking at […]
A new report from Interpublic Group’s MAGNA Global media research and buying arm reinforces earlier predictions that consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands would invest as much as $7 billion in digital advertising by 2018. According to MAGNA’s 2015 Global Advertising Revenue Forecast, released Monday, verticals like CPG and pharmaceuticals, which once invested more heavily in […]
As more advertising happens programmatically, it’s increasingly difficult to blend automation and creative design. And though Brooklyn-based digital agency Huge doesn’t buy media, it feels the influence of automation in advertising and doesn’t necessarily feel it’s for the better, at least from a creative standpoint. With roughly 1,000 employees, Huge operates offices in Atlanta, Washington, […]
Mozilla, which makes the Firefox web browser, officially released on Thursday its in-browser ad product, which the company first announced in February. Early adopters include media agency Mindshare North America, online booking site Booking.com, and The Weinstein Company’s video-on-demand portal Radius-TWC. How it works: Individuals opening Firefox for the first time will see tiles filled […]
Interpublic Group’s (IPG) integrated agency Hill Holliday has launched its own programmatic unit, headed up by EVP and Chief Media Officer Cindy Stockwell. Faithful followers of the agency will recall this isn’t the first time Hill Holliday has offered programmatic-type services. But changing client demands spurred the agency’s decision two months ago to move away […]
Publicis Groupe reported a meager 1% organic growth rate for 2014’s Q3 on Thursday, with the displeased CEO Maurice Lévy blaming key account losses at Razorfish and lingering “distraction” on the failed Omnicom fusion. Publicis’ revenue in Q3 grew 4% YoY to reach $2.21 billion. “We have been too much focused on [the merger] and […]
Interpublic Group (IPG) reported Q3 revenue of $1.84 billion, an 8.3% increase YoY and an organic increase of 6.3%. IPG Chairman and CEO Michael Roth attributed the solid quarter to strategic digital developments and to the competitiveness of its agencies. IPG’s media agencies are housed in its Mediabrands entity and include Initiative, BPN, ID Media […]
Omnicom Group’s programmatic buying discipline is still in its early days, the agency holding company emphasized during its Q3 2014 earnings call Tuesday. Programmatic buying constitutes just south of 2% of the company’s overall revenue, which reached $3.75 billion during the quarter, up 7.4% YoY. Most of the growth came from the North America region, […]
In a reprise of their recent startup adventure, former Sociomantic CEO and Admeld exec Jason Kelly will become “President of the Company’s Managed Media” as Millennial CEO Michael Barrett looks to re-create the programmatic magic of his Admeld days which led to an eventual acquisition by Google. From today’s release (see it): “Reporting to CEO and President Michael Barrett, Kelly will […]
