U.K.-based digital media shop Essence Digital is expanding its footprint in the U.S. marketplace, announcing a deal this morning to acquire San Francisco-based Black Bag Advertising, which will give it a major presence in the critical Bay Area community. Terms were not disclosed, but Black Bag will be re-branded as Essence San Francisco, and its 30-person organization will boost Essence’s U.S. workforce to about 80, with the balance working out of Essence’s East Coast operations in New York’s Flatiron District. The deal brings Essence’s global workforce up to 215 people. More important than size, Essence Digital Founding Partner Andrew Shebbeare says the deal was based on Black Bag’s cultural fit with Essence. “It’s uncanny,” he said, “It’s really like being [at] Essence,” Shebbeare said of his meetings with the Black Bag team. Aside from the cultural synergy, he said Black Bag gives Essence feet on the street in a crucial market for the agency, whose major clients include Google, eBay and Expedia, and that the deal is mostly complementary, not a diversification play. He said Essence does plan on making additional acquisitions to diversify its services in North America later this year. Both Essence and Black Bag count technology and analytics as their core areas of expertise, Black Bag was founded in 2004 by Eric Yang to provide media strategy, planning and buying, campaign management and analysis to clients in the automotive, banking, insurance, retail, and consumer packaged goods industries. Black Bag Advertising is an analytics and results driven media agency co-founded in 2004 by Eric Yang to provide media strategy, planning and buying, campaign management and analysis to clients in the automotive, banking, insurance, retail, and consumer packaged goods industries. Its clients include VSP, Art.com, Sungevity, Wantful.com and Kapitall.
Razorfish mobile lead Paul Gelb has left the agency to become head of strategy for San Francisco-based MoPub, a startup that helps publishers and developers monetize their smartphone apps. In his new role, Gelb is charged with leading the startup’s efforts to strengthen its presence among ad agencies and brand advertisers in connection with in-app advertising. “As MoPub’s Head of Strategy, we’ll be able to leverage his insights on the advertiser side to help publishers drive more revenue. His contributions to building MoPub’s footprint with agencies and brand advertisers will be impactful to our publishers,” said MoPub CEO Jim Payne, in announcing the hiring Tuesday. Started by a team of AdMob and Google veterans two years ago, MoPub has raised $6.5 million to date and last year launched a real-time bidded (RTB) exchange managing mobile inventory for iOS and Android. The company says it now serves 15 billion ads per month across 10,000 apps and 5,000 publishers. MoPub recently announced that average bids per ad request in the second quarter increased 300% from the prior quarter. “MoPub is cracking the problem of monetization for publishers with their exclusive focus on mobile,” said Gelb, in a statement. “It is clear that the industry has reached a point where a platform exclusively focused on mobile is needed to maximize the opportunities in this dynamic, high growth channel. Gelb is credited with founding the mobile practice at Razorfish, which a Forrester Wave report earlier this year ranked as one of the four digital agencies for mobile along with AKQA, Ogilvy and TribalDDB. Razorfish’s mobile practice generated $45 million in annual revenue and added over 70 mobile clients including Unilever, Kellogg’s, Citibank and JPMorgan under Gelb’s leadership, according to his LinkedIn bio.
With billions of ad dollars at stake, online video networks are fighting hard for a bigger piece of the pie. To that end, San Francisco-based Adap.tv on Tuesday debuted a new tool, which it believes is the best way yet for advertisers to plan their online video buys. “In minutes, an optimal digital video media plan can be created, leveraging the best data sources available, such as Nielsen,” said Toby Gabriner, President of Adap.tv. “Planners can then easily buy the recommended inventory, automatically optimize the campaign once it launches, and measure its effectiveness using both TV- and online-based metrics.” Putting out all the stops, Gabriner made the announcement at the first annual “Adapt Conference” in New York.The so-called “Unified Planner" comes fully integrated into the Adap.tv Platform, which is an automated system to plan, buy and measure video ads.At the company's conference on Tuesday, Gabriner touted the suite’s ability to specify target audiences and campaign goals, including parameters, such as reach, frequency and TRPs. The solution will also recommend specific sites, which Adapt.tv says will more effectively deliver advertisers’ target audiences. Planners have long complained that planning, buying and managing video ads is a less-than-elegant experience. Whether Adapt.tv’s new service can change this perception, only time will tell. Earlier this year, Forrester estimated that domestic digital video ad spending will explode by over 250% by 2016 -- from $2 billion in 2011 to $5.4 billion. The estimate was largely attributed to a renaissance in quality, brand-safe video content, a proliferation in video-friendly devices and the maturing of younger online adept consumers.
As initially reported in OnlineMediaDaily on September 14, San Francisco-based Flipboard, the social magazine app, has struck a deal with two of Japan’s largest ad agencies, Dentsu and ADK, to help it market the service in Japan, the companies said Friday.Flipboard launched in Japan in May and has been working with the agencies since then, but now has entered into a formal partnership with the two shops.The agencies will assist in expanding the number of media companies that share content via the app and also help popularize the service among consumers in Japan and promote the platform as an advertising medium.Among the media companies recently agreeing to share content with Flipboard in Japan are GQ Japan, Wired, AOL Celebrity, the Japanese edition of National Geographic and Autocar Japan.Flipboard bills itself as a social network aggregator that offers a magazine-type format for Android and Apple devices. It presents images, stories and links from various online social media, RSS feeds and blogs in a magazine-type presentation that users can “flip” through.The app was unveiled in December 2010 and was available at first for Apple iPads and phones. Android versions were introduced earlier this year.Earlier this month, Levi's confirmed it was adding a Flipboard component to its “Go Forth” campaign this fall. The effort introduces a new ad format that Flipboard calls a “brand magazine,” which combines all the images, content and social elements tied to a campaign into a single channel in the iPad app. That campaign, orchestrated by Levi's media shop OMD, runs through October.