Looking to get into the digital ad network game, Gannett Co. announced the formation of the Gannett Digital Media Network. The company said it will tie together more than 100 digital communities with a combined reach of approximately 25 million people. This includes its big USAToday.com site from the USA Today national newspaper, as well as a number of local TV/newspaper-based sites, such as AZCentral.com and IndyStar.com. In addition, Gannett will include MomsLikeMe.com, a new local social network for moms in 80 markets across the country, and HighSchoolSports.net, which Gannett says is the largest prep sports site in the country, reaching teens and parents. Also included in the network group: Metromix.com, a local entertainment and nightlife destination, and BNQT.com, an action sports network. Gannett says its sites rank higher on metrics that advertisers want most -- including education and household income, according to a recent Jupiter Research study. In a statement, Josh Resnik, vice president and general manager of the Gannett Digital Media Network, said national advertisers would be "thrilled by the opportunities" the network presents. "We can combine the broad reach of our network with the engagement and affinity found on local sites to help marketers effectively reach their target customers." Gannett says it will offer advertising PointRoll technology, where messaging can be exposed in many directions when a user rolls a mouse over digital ads. It will also utilize ShopLocal, a suite of retail marketing solutions, and Ripple6, a social media platform for users and publishers.
After some delay, AT&T may finally be making strides with what it hoped it do with the launch of its U-verse TV service: challenge cable's successful triple play. The company said Wednesday it added 284,000 U-Verse TV subscribers in the January-March period, pushing its total number to 1.3 million. The number of new customers was 20,000 more than the new additions in the fourth quarter of 2008. AT&T CFO Rick Lindner said there is evidence U-verse is prompting customers to turn to AT&T for a bundle of TV, broadband and phone service -- what cable has marketed as a triple play. "It is coming into its own as an integrated platform," he said on a conference call to discuss 1Q results, adding: "We're seeing the kinds of benefits that we hoped to see ... not just sales of video, but bringing both broadband and voice with it." The U-verse brand's TV offering is the most closely watched by investors, since it marks new turf for AT&T and brings the most significant threat to the cable business. But broadband and phone service also carry a U-verse moniker, traveling over the same internet protocol (IP) wires. Lindner said among U-verse TV customers, 90% are also taking the broadband service, and 60% are subscribing to the phone offering. He said phone service is up and running in 86% of the markets where TV is available, including in parts of Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas. "The potential of U-verse is not just in video but in a set of integrated, interactive services made possible by an all IP platform," Lindner said. Where the TV service has been marketed for 18 months, it has a 15% penetration rate, the percentage of customers who could subscribe that do so, the executive said. AT&T also said Wednesday it added 1.6 million iPhone 3G activations in 1Q, 40% from new customers. Overall in 1Q, AT&T saw revenue drop .6% to $30.57 billion, with net income down nearly 10% to $3.13 billion. U-verse now has as many TV customers as a top-10 cable provider. Verizon's telco TV service, FiOS, had 1.9 million customers as of Dec. 31.
If nothing else, we live in interesting times. In his keynote at MediaPost's Digital Out-of-Home Forum and Expo, Trevor Kaufman, CEO of Schematic, stressed that digital out-of-home was in its early, inchoate stages -- and anything could happen. Kaufman, a new media expert, prefers the nomenclature Interactive Out-of-Home, or IOH -- if only to avoid the Homer Simpson-esque DOH, and far worse DOOH.) Kaufman likens the current state of DOH to the Web, circa 1995. "That's the year I stopped having to explain to people what the Web was," he says. It was when AOL, Salon and Slate were being hailed as the future. And while they are still here, the online world has taken some unexpected twists and turns. "When a new interactive platform with its own behaviors comes along," says Kaufman, "it destabilizes the existing economics for the parent medium." He points to recent projections from Carmel Group that DOH is expected to grow an estimated $2.5 billion in revenue by 2010. And it's an additive medium; it doesn't take dollars away from anywhere; it just generates new (and by some predictions, limitless) possibilities. "Interactive media have the potential to be social, useful and transactional," Kaufman says. And they are also highly measurable -- which is why DOH may run afoul of privacy watchdogs." Imagine how those who get apoplectic about behavioral targeting will get worked up when they learn of facial recognition. Kaufman calls facial recognition "the most evil cookie." And the name might be fitting; if mobile is DOH's clickthrough, then facial recognition is its evil cookie. The technology could allow the tracking of specific individuals, where they live, work and relax and how much attention they pay to ads. Is it starting to sound like "Minority Report" again? Remember in the film "Medium Cool" when the crowd outside the 1969 Democratic Convention in Chicago chanted: "The whole world is watching" as the frame zoomed in on a camera lens? Well, we've leaped from that to "The whole world is interactive." Kaufman says Schematic has proposed interactive out-of-home screens to Blockbuster that could change the company's business model. In this model, touchscreens in malls or train stations aren't merely ads for the store -- they are the actual store, allowing passersby to browse Blockbuster's entire collection and download what they want to a mobile device right there. "We're extremely excited about the creative possibilities that come out of DOH," Kaufman says. "But we're not there yet. People are still a little afraid of it." Developers still need to include cues to the user that the screen can be played with, the way display ads on Web pages once needed to instruct "click here." Kaufman recounted an instance where the Schematic team, which had been developing touchscreens, walked into a client's office for a meeting. They saw a big back-lit screen in the lobby, and they went straight up to it and started tapping -- to no avail. "We'll get to a place where people walk up to a screen and assume they can touch it," he says. "It's hard to imagine how people are going to be using Digital Out-of-Home a few years from now."
Digital out-of-home video is on the horns of a dilemma, or maybe it has trouble seeing the forest for the trees (choose your metaphor) when it comes to measurement methods. On the one hand, digital out-of-home video networks have sought to present advertisers and media buyers with a uniform metric that allows them to compare audiences for DO networks to each other -- and, importantly, to television -- in the hopes of siphoning off some of the latter's tens of billions of ad revenues. On the other, the real value of most DO networks lies in their unique context, including location and their place in the consumer's day. At MediaPost's Digital Outsider Forum on Wednesday, panelists agreed with varying degrees of vehemence on the importance and utility of the new DO metrics released by the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau earlier this year. Tony Jarvis, formerly the executive vice president of global research for Clear Channel Outdoor, averred that "the OVAB metric was a giant step forward" because it makes the medium more accessible and scalable for big advertisers who might move dollars from TV. But he added that the OVAB metric should be comparable with the new metric for outdoor advertising in general -- mostly static billboards -- formulated by the Traffic Audit Bureau; this will allow broader integration with other media under the aegis of the TAB metric. "Any of these media are going to be part of an integrated equation, but if the metrics are not comparable, there's going to be a real issue," Jarvis said. "Advertisers might ask for comparability with TV, magazines, newspapers." Regarding the OVAB metric, Paul Lindstrom, senior vice president of the Nielsen Co., said that creating a consistent metric was the first step. "The second piece is how to get this data into media-mix modeling and creating software that will allow these kinds of cross-media evaluations." Lindstrom dismissed the concern that the OVAB metric might strip DO networks of their individuality: "We aren't trying to be in a position where every one is different," because the very idea of a metric soon becomes unfeasible. "What we're saying is, as our baseline, there are X millions of people who are exposed to this medium." Once that number is produced, "you have a basic comparison with other networks, and then you have to bring in other kinds of measurement. It becomes the question of, 'why you?'" Connie Garrido, the president of Chrysalis, confirmed that the value of the OVAB metric is "really in them being adapted, because a lot of what makes digital networks different is also what makes them effective." But she also warned: "You'll also have to deal with networks who aren't OVAB members," making comparison and competition more complicated.
Looking to jump-start sales on its Web platforms, Univision is turning to a service that allows advertisers with limited budgets to place banner ads online -- by doing little more than uploading a logo and typing in a credit card number to pay. Similar to what SpotRunner has done with TV and CBS Outdoor with billboards, advertisers can visit a site and select from a library of ready Spanish-language creative that's germane to their business -- be it used-car sales or sushi delivery. They can then customize a template by adding contact info, altering text or changing coloration. Next would be selecting banner sizes and entering a daily budget to place the media buy. Advertisers can geo-target ads to run only in certain DMAs. And the service provides them with reports, allowing them to track results and modify buys. The ads can run just on Univision.com, or an assortment of other sites owned or affiliated with Univision, such as a Spanish-language NFL online locale. Univision also operates sites for its Galavision and TeleFutura networks and its string of owned-and-operated local stations. The CPM for a national run-of-site buy on Univision.com is $12. Ads running on the site in just New York, Los Angeles or Miami -- areas with heavy Hispanic concentrations -- carry $16 CPMs. Univision has branded the self-serve opportunity Univision Interactive Self-Service, powered by Seattle-based AdReady, which provides a similar opportunity to a range of other well-known sites. Kevin Conroy, who heads Univision's interactive business, said the new offering "will accelerate Univision's ability to bring new advertisers online and serve them more efficiently." In 2008, Univision reported $42.5 million in net revenue for its interactive media operations -- a figure that was down slightly from $46.3 million in 2007. Those figures include dollars from mobile businesses.
Another Tuesday, another "American Idol" win. Fox was down almost half a rating point for the night to a Nielsen preliminary 6.0/16 among 18-49 viewers, from a 6.4/16 the week before. It was also down some in 18-34 viewers -- a 4.4/13 from a 4.8/14. The minor rating slippage resulted from "Idol" dipping to an 8.0/22 from an 8.2/23 from the week before. Still, "Idol" easily dominated the competition, as it always does. One sliver of good news comes from NBC, where "The Biggest Loser: Couples" continues some solid numbers, averaging a 3.8/9 for its two-hour episode. NBC was the only network up week-to-week, with a 3.4/9 from a 3.3/9. ABC didn't have a good time of it. "Dancing with the Stars: Results" was down to a 3.0/8 from a 3.4/8 the week before. Then its new drama-comedy "The Unusuals" went lower, to a 1.8/5 from its previous outing. All this brought ABC to a 1.9/5, off its 2.2/6 from the week before. CBS didn't have much to cheer about either, earning a 2.4/6 -- down some from a week ago. But again, the repeats of its dramas, "The Mentalist" and "NCIS," scored well -- both earned around a 2.8/7. CW witnessed slightly better results for "Reaper" -- up 10% to a 1.0/3 among 18-49 viewers. But its "90210" was off 10% to a 1.1/3 versus the week before. In its more core audience, the 18-34 demos, "Reaper" came in at 0.9/3, while "90210" earned a 1.4/4. CW averaged a 1.0/3 for 18-49 viewers and a 1.1/3 for 18-34 viewers. Univision was at a 1.6/4 for 18-49 viewers and a 1.7/5 among 18-34 viewers.
Inwindow Outdoor took "Best in Show" during MediaPost's first Digital Out-of-Home Media Awards ceremony Wednesday evening in New York. Inwindow, which took top honors for an imaginative campaign developed for client Laika Studios' equally imaginative movie "Coraline," also won two of the awards program's 17 categories - "Best National Campaign;" and "Best Use Of Interactive Technology" - for the campaign, which took over vacant storefronts in highly trafficked locations in key markets utilizing digital screens, motion-detection and virtual reality technologies that superimposed "Coraline's" distinctive button eyes over the reflected images of the real eyes of pedestrians passing by. n2's "Team Fox" campaign for The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research also nabbed two of the 17 categories - "Best Branding Campaign" and "Best integration of Multiple Digital Out-of-Home Networks/Platforms." Complete write-ups describing all of the winners can be found on the Digital Out-of-Home Awards site. The winners in the remaining categories included: *"Best Campaign: Local" - Adcentricity for Barack Obama's Presidential Election Campaign 2009, Ohio Primary *"Best Point-of-Sale Campaign" - Teehan+Lax for TELUS Communications' HTC Diamond Campaign *"Best Integration of Content and Short-Form Advertising (most effective :15-or-less ad) - Premier Retail Networks" for Walmart's Canon Camera campaign *"Best Integration With a Mobile Device" - Scanbuy for the Citysearch, Discovery Communications' mobile barcodes and Interactive City campaign *"Best Integration with Experiential/Activity" - R/GA for Nokia's Club Nokia Timeline *"Best Integration with Online Media" - MediaVest for Coca-Cola/Diet Coke's Diet Coke Style Series campaign *"Best Integration With Original Content" - NBC Digital Health for Kimberly-Clark/Huggies' "Diapering 101" *"Best Integration With Traditional Media e.g., Print, TV, Radio, Static Out-of-Home" -Reuters Times Square2 for Time magazine campaign *"Best Pairing of Advertising and Venue" - Adspace Networks for Sony Pictures' "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" campaign *"Most Innovative Content/Advertising Integration" - Hyperspace for Acura's TSX Live Traffic Update @ The Honda Center campaign *"Most Innovative Research/Metrics/Planning System" - Peoplecount for the TAB Eyes On Ratings-based Peoplecount Pedestrian Model *"Most Innovative Technology/Platform" - Media Storm for Big Ten Network's virtual Eddie George & The Quad campaign *"Most Innovative Use Of A Digital Out-of-Home Platform" - Gilmore Group for Walgreens' One Times Square Digital Display System