Technology

Tom Edwards is different from most of the other people flowing through the halls of the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose at Facebook’s F8 developers conference this week. Because Edwards isn’t a developer. He’s the chief digital officer at marketing services firm Epsilon. “There aren’t a lot of agency folks here,” Edwards said. “I’m […]

Oracle will acquire digital measurement firm Moat extending its marketing and data clouds’ abilities to provide digital advertising analytics to advertising clients and publishers, the company revealed Tuesday. [Read the release]. Deal terms were not disclosed. Moat will join the Oracle Data Cloud, which houses its Datalogix and BlueKai acquisitions. “Moat has grown its attention […]

Marketing may be a trillion-dollar industry, but its supply chain needs a makeover, says Microsoft’s CMO. “What makes marketing such a unique case is that the labor component is much higher than any other industry,” said CMO Grad Conn. “I think there’s a lot of opportunity to optimize the way we’re working in marketing and […]

When it comes to how buyers perceive the data management platform (DMP) market, it’s Oracle BlueKai’s game to lose, according to a new Advertiser Perceptions report. The research firm’s Programmatic Intelligence Report for Q1 2017 surveyed more than 1,000 decision-makers from agencies, advertisers, publishers and tech providers. Oracle BlueKai led the pack in brand recognition: […]

Dr. Martens, the iconic British boot maker popularized in ’80s and ’90s subculture, is adding a new sheen to its customer data strategy. Although each of Dr. Martens’ regional businesses in the UK, Americas, Europe/Africa and Asia is responsible for its own marketing, development and IP, the company’s digital efforts are converging as it eyes […]

On the heels of Google’s ongoing brand safety headache, MediaMath is trying to add a few safety bumpers to the sharp edges of the digital ad ecosystem. The programmatic buying platform took the wraps off a product on Thursday that aims to help advertisers find addressable audiences on brand-safe sites at scale. MediaMath vets a […]

Burger King’s stunt to activate Google’s Home device with a 15-second TV spot is the first deliberate attempt by a brand to tie paid media with voice-activated search, raising questions about how brands should approach advertising on smart home devices. On Wednesday, the quick-serve restaurant ran a commercial in which an employee asks, “Okay, Google, […]

As consumers went mobile, cookie-based data management platforms (DMP) like BlueKai – now Oracle Data Cloud – had to figure out a new data strategy. Oracle Data Cloud, which employs 1,000 people, hooks into multiple digital and TV platforms to differentiate its DMP offering. “We’ve really worked to have reach and meaningful scale through partnerships […]

The Digital Place Based Advertising Association (DPAA), an industry trade group spanning out-of-home media and advertising technology, on Monday released its first programmatic standards for digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaigns. The DPAA hopes these standards, which are like existing openRTB guidelines from the IAB, will facilitate digital out-of-home buys. The DPAA’s standards outline video ad formats […]

The agency-client relationship is ailing, and fixing what’s broken will involve deep organizational changes on both sides of the table – starting with the marketer. “The brand has to start with itself,” said Brigitte Majewski, Forrester analyst and author of a report released Thursday calling for a new agency operating model. “If you aren’t asking […]

After its merger with Starwood, Marriott is doubling down on paid media to drive awareness for some of its new portfolio brands. One ad campaign, “Go Beyond,” which launched this week, commemorates Sheraton Hotels’ 80th year in business. “We are trying a lot of new things in digital including people-based marketing and sequential messaging with […]

Last year, American Express’ B2B division – a unit that delivers 40% of the company’s total billings – saw serious results from its programmatic advertising strategy. On Wednesday at the Programmatic I/O conference in San Francisco, American Express VP Tatyana Zlotsky revealed that the financial services company had quadrupled programmatic media spend in 2016. The move […]

With early-stage ad tech venture capital (VC) dwindling in recent years, some ad tech entrepreneurs stepped in to fill that funding gap, forming an angel investor ecosystem. While institutional investors are disenchanted with ad tech, insiders are more optimistic. AppNexus founder and CEO Brian O’Kelley said he hopes to invest “in a space I understand […]

Trading desk CEOs want to change the narrative around programmatic to one of quality rather than cost efficiency. For Amnet co-CEO Art Muldoon, who joined Dentsu Aegis Network when it acquired his programmatic shop, Accordant Media, in August, the ability to tap into a network of creative and data assets helps push that narrative to […]

M&A reports released in the past week show digital media and ad tech acquisitions continuing at a healthy clip. The trend is driven by increasing exit opportunities. Internet giants, commerce and retail businesses, media companies, agencies, enterprise clouds, private equity firms and telcos are all active M&A parties for data-driven digital startups, said John Prunier, […]

The Weather Co.’s recently appointed chief revenue officer, Carrie Seifer, will oversee more than media sales in her new role. Responsible for B2B and B2C sales efforts across The Weather Co.’s properties, Seifer will tap Weather’s robust location and weather data sets to help clients streamline business processes like supply chain logistics. Parent company IBM’s […]

“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 Ramsey McGrory, chief revenue officer at Mediaocean. 2016 may well be remembered as the year of mistrust. Around the world and here in America, populist movements were fueled by a rising […]

Chris Turley used to spend his mornings elbow deep in Excel. As a programmatic operations analyst at Scripps Networks Interactive, it was Turley’s daily task to pull information from 13 separate programmatic platforms, mainly data related to paid impressions, CPMs and revenue, and to organize that mess of information into a single spreadsheet for every […]

All telcos acquire ad tech to drive revenue, but not all telcos think alike on how to make that happen. Operators divide into four primary schools of thought when it comes to activating their ad tech assets: open ecosystem, closed ecosystem, internal promotion and content distribution. Singaporean SingTel, for example, is willing to partner with […]

The “last-look” advantage Google’s ad server gave to Google’s ad exchange so bothered publishers and exchanges that it gave rise to header bidding. As of this week, that advantage is no more, AdExchanger has learned. Google just reworked its auction so it no longer favors itself in the allocation of bids. A support document this […]

Apple’s big iOS update last year created large amounts of new media inventory, which the company is monetizing through a big ad deal with NBCUniversal and direct relationships with publishers. Now the mobile platform giant is opening the gates to outside measurement of its ad impressions, AdExchanger has learned. Through its sales agreement with NBCUniversal, Apple […]

The demand-side platform (DSP) category underwent expected consolidation in the past year, with The Trade Desk’s IPO and formerly independent players like TubeMogul, Turn and Adelphic gobbled up by Adobe, Singtel and Time Inc., respectively. But just because the DSP space has matured doesn’t mean it can’t surprise you. This year, that surprise comes from […]

Intuit CMO Lucas Watson wants to give the financial services software company more name recognition among the Googles, Facebooks and Apples of the world. And he’s well positioned to do so, considering he last served as Google’s VP of global brand solutions and innovations before he joined Intuit last July. “As we start to stitch […]

Discovery Communications wants to prove out the value of its digital properties – both the ones they own and the ones where they’ve invested. “How do we create [intellectual property] on every device, not just linear?” said Discovery CEO and president David Zaslav during the media company’s Tuesday upfront. “As a cable channel, it’s all […]

Dish’s streaming TV service, Sling TV, which reportedly topped 1 million subscribers last fall, is now focused on monetizing its audience cross-platform. Connecting the pipes for programmatic monetization across Sling TV, Dish and Dish Anywhere didn’t happen overnight, but Adam Lowy, GM of advanced TV, said years of work are paying off. Dish has been “quietly […]

By now, Google’s brand safety issue has been covered across a broad spectrum of media outlets, ranging from The Washington Post to Recode to (naturally) AdExchanger. Below we bring you the latest in the fast-moving story. Back Story. In February and March, The Times of London described how advertisers found their brands placed next to […]

While Nordstrom’s digital subsidiaries include Trunk Club, HauteLook, Nordstrom.com and NordstromRack.com, the retailer is trying to align around the concept of “one Nordstrom.” Initially, each property had its own data stash, which kept Nordstrom from doing cross-device targeting and comprehensive attribution. “We also didn’t have a good way to connect our online data to our […]

Ad-supported brand-unsafe content is on the rise. DoubleVerify, which validates tens of billions of advertiser impressions per month, has blocked 8 million ads from appearing on content pages classified as hate speech – up threefold since January. And according to keyword targeting tech platform Grapeshot, the amount of terrorism-related content it sees flowing through its systems […]

Digital agencies aren’t shrugging off management consultancies as competition anymore. Some are even promoting their consulting chops as they compete in an increasingly crowded market. “Until this year, traditional agencies had their heads in the sand about the threat management consultancies were bringing to the market,” said Jay Wilson, director at Gartner and author of […]

Until late 2016, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group had partnered with an agency to manage most of its programmatic and data capabilities. But like many marketers, the beverage brand sees value in making media its own remit. “It made more sense to pull that in-house so we’d have more transparency into how everything was working, what […]