Looking to deliver more granular insights to CPG marketers, Nielsen Catalina Solutions and set-top box TV researcher FourthWall Media announced a deal on Monday -- further pushing the use of more precision TV data among media researchers and agencies. Nielsen Catalina gets shopper data from more than 70 million households and over 90% of the U.S. online population (41 million), which offers critical insights to consumer-packaged-goods advertisers. FourthWall says it is the biggest single source of panel of TV set-top-box data, with 1.4 million homes, getting second-by-second viewing data across participating TV distributors reaching 4.7 million viewers across three million devices. FourthWall says it will greatly expand the size of its single-source data set — delivering more granular insights to CPG marketers. The larger footprint hopes to deliver greater precision for smaller TV networks and programming as well as more niche brands. "The buyer-graphic approach to media has quickly gained favor with advertisers that seek to drive revenue and improve the return of each and every dollar spent on advertising," stated Mike Nazzaro, chief executive officer of Nielsen Catalina Solutions. "Being able to anonymously match set-top viewing data in a privacy-compliant fashion is changing how advertisers plan and buy television media,” says Bill Feininger, president, MassiveData, a division of FourthWall Media. “Now, our viewership data and patent-pending matching technology is being used by product marketers to zero in on specific audience segments.” In addition to other business pacts, FourthWall continues to make major deals with major agency groups, including one with WPP Group’s The Data Alliance, to jointly develop new TV audience measurement products utilizing data from set-top boxes.
Advertisers are increasingly turning to video content to engage consumers, yet executives have had a hard time answering many simple questions about this usage, such as what factors increase views and are the ads even being watched? Now, comScore can provide some detailed answers. The company's Digital Analytix video publishing system is integrating with thePlatform, a video publishing company, to offer what the companies believe is a better understanding of video metrics. This alliance will provide insights about the quality of service viewers are experiencing, and will provide data about video startup times, successful and failed start attempts. In addition, companies can now receive detailed analysis on what factors improve conversion, such as time of day and platform; the level of consumption happening across different devices on a per-user basis; factors that both increase retention and loyalty; and engagement: and features and events that drive engagement at launch and over time. "Before we didn't have the depth of understanding," says Ade Adeosun, VP Digital Enterprise Analytics, comScore. "A big challenge in the video space is consuming on multiple platforms. Is the same person watching on the laptop, phone, and connected TV? Now, clients can learn and if it is the same person, they can create compelling stories to keep them engaged." This integration allows all clients of thePlatform to receive comScore's dynamic video analytics and reporting through the mpx console at no additional cost, and comScore's subscribers will now also receive additional analytics in video user behaviors thanks to thePlatform's enhanced tracking metrics. ThePlatform sought this deal with comScore because its services were unable to provide the in-depth analysis that clients increasingly. For instance, it was previously unable to analyze cross-platform usage. At the same time, this deal provides comScore with yet another level of analysis and tracking to differentiates the company from competitors. Ultimately, this alliance helps publishers and advertisers better understand how, when and on what device viewers are engaging with their content and advertisements. "Take someone like Fox or NBC who both use our platform," says Adeosun. "They want to monetize these videos, but don't know where to place the ads so they don't impact the user experience or causes them to abandon the video. Now, they will be able to see exactly where users are turning away or how long they are watching."
A coalition of television broadcasters is asking a judge to prohibit Aereo from operating its streaming video service anywhere in the country. The broadcasters say the Supreme Court's recent decision against Aereo requires the company to shut down. The Supreme Court ruled that Aereo infringes copyright by streaming over-the-air programs to subscribers' smartphones and tablets. “Aereo is an adjudicated infringer. It has been trampling on Plaintiffs’ copyrights for over two years and has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in subscriber fees while doing so,” the broadcasters say in papers filed late Friday with U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan. “Plaintiffs are entitled to an injunction protecting their rights.” Aereo voluntarily suspended operations after that decision came out. But the company says it hopes to soon resume operations -- this time as a cable operator. Until it suspended service this summer, Aereo streamed over-the-air television programs to paying subscribers' smartphones, tablets and other devices. The company also allowed people to record shows and watch them later. Between 2012 and this year, Aereo rolled out its service to 11 markets; the company only let people stream shows that were available over-the-air in their current geographic locations. Aereo argued that its service didn't infringe copyright due to its technological architecture, which relied on thousands of mini-antennas to capture and stream shows. Aereo argued that each stream was a “private” performance, because it was made on an antenna-to-user basis. But the Supreme Court ruled that Aereo's service publicly performed programs regardless of its back-end technology. The court said in its decision that Aereo resembled a cable system, which can't retransmit programs without paying fees. Aereo now takes the position that the Supreme Court's rationale supports the company's argument that it's entitled to a compulsory cable license under Section 111 of the Copyright Act. But the broadcasters counter that Aereo isn't a cable system, even if it's “similar” to one. “Aereo now claims, based on a misreading of the Supreme Court’s opinion, that it is a 'cable system,'” the broadcasters say in their papers. “Aereo is wrong. The Supreme Court did not hold that Aereo is a 'cable system' under Section 111 of the Copyright Act or that it is entitled to a Section 111 license.” The television companies point out in their papers that satellite providers -- which also resemble cable systems -- weren't eligible for compulsory licenses until Congress passed new laws. The Supreme Court ruling only addressed Aereo's real-time streams, and not its cloud-based DVR service. But the broadcasters are now seeking an order prohibiting Aereo from operating its DVR service as well as its live streams. “Even with a time delay, Aereo’s service still involves retransmitting contemporaneously-perceptible images and sounds of plaintiffs’ programs to the public without authorization,” the broadcasters argue. Aereo is expected to submit a response by Aug. 29.
MiTú, a digital video production company and network targeting Hispanic millennials, has entered into a multiyear collaboration with Televisa, a Mexican media company based in Mexico City, for joint production and distribution of digital video across a variety of formats and platforms, the partners announced last week. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal gives Televisa access to MiTú’s network of YouTube producers and young Hispanic video personalities, who in return will receive expanded distribution with strategic support from Televisa. It also opens up the possibility of MiTú’s producers creating branded content for Televisa advertisers. Launched in May 2012 with backing from The Chernin Group, the MiTú network brings together around 1,300 digital video creators catering to English- and Spanish-speaking millennials, with roughly 43 million subscribers collectively generating around 450 million video views per month. Video producers create content in a range of categories, including comedy, DIY, beauty, cooking shows, fashion and technology. This is the latest in a series of strategic moves by MiTú, aiming to expand its production and distribution capabilities. In June, the company announced that it had raised $10 million from a group of investors, including Allen DeBevoise and Upfront Ventures. The funds are being used to expand MiTú’s engineering and sales organizations and build new production facilities in Los Angeles and Mexico City. Back in January, MiTú struck a content licensing deal with AOL, giving the latter access to MiTú content across all AOL properties, including The Huffington Post, AOL On and AOL's Hispanic content network, Voces. In December, MiTú announced a content deal with Univision, calling on MiTú to create short-form Spanish-language content for syndication on Univision's digital platforms, including UVideos among other channels. Televisa already has an exclusive distribution deal with Univision covering the U.S., so there is no conflict between the deals.
Tumblr is partnering with Ditto Labs to help the photo-analytics start-up track brand logos that show up in user posts. At the moment, Tumblr is positioning the deal as purely research-based. “At this time, there are no advertising implications for Tumblr,” a company spokeswoman said on Monday. Rather, she described the tie-up as a Tumblr “firehose partnership,” which gives Ditto access to the roughly 130 million photos that Tumblr users upload every day. The point is “to help [Ditto’s] clients understand visual conversations happening around their brands,” she said. The partnership represents a coup for Cambridge, Mass.-based Ditto Labs, which recently raised about $2 million from Cue Ball Capital, Stage 1 Ventures, and a number of industry notables, like John Battelle and Mike Sheehan, CEO of The Boston Globe. Built by a team of MIT-trained computer scientists, Ditto’s visual search engine attempts to make sense of the millions of photos posted to social-media sites. “We’re able to find brand logos and patterns inside of public photos shared on social media,” David Rose, Ditto’s CEO, said on Monday. “We can also tell if people are smiling or not in a picture, as well as the type of environment a person is in.” Ditto also helps clients identify top brand affinities and relevant influencers in the photo-dominated social media ecosystem. Since dropping about a $1 billion on Tumblr, last year, Yahoo has made a number of efforts to start monetizing the social network. This past June, Yahoo announced plans to begin pulling ads from Tumblr directly into the portal’s own properties. The plan was to run Tumblr’s sponsored post ads on Yahoo’s owned-and-operated sites, including Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Beauty and Yahoo Tech. The Tumblr ads are being sold through the Gemini ad marketplace -- Yahoo’s main platform for buying search and native ads. Despite such efforts, however, analysts remain skeptical about Tumblr’s own revenue-generating potential “Monetization on Tumblr seems mostly elusive … so far,” Brian Wieser, senior analyst at Pivotal Research Group, wrote in a note released just before Yahoo reported second-quarter earnings, last month. More troubling still, Tumblr doesn’t appear to be growing, according to recent comScore figures. While its mobile monthly visitors increased from 19.8 million in June 2013 to 25.7 million in June 2014, desktop traffic declined from 36.1 million to 23.3 million, year-over-year. As such, according to comScore, Tumblr’s unduplicated, cross-platform audience fell from 46.6 million in June 2013 to 43 million in June 2014.
AppNexus, a programmatic ad platform, on Monday received a $60 million investment from a Boston-based public equity and asset management firm. The investment could reach up to $100 million, pending interest from other parties, per a release. The investment values AppNexus at $1.2 billion. “We’re in the very fortunate position to have a variety of strategic options that we could pursue,” Brian O’Kelley, CEO of Appnexus, said to Real-Time Daily when asked whether or not an IPO was on the horizon. “It’s always been something we aspire to, but regardless of whether we decide to go public when the time is right, we’re in this for the long run and are committed to being the world’s absolute best technology company for digital advertising. "We are, of course, thrilled to have eclipsed the $1 billion-mark and are proud of everything that represents as a global, New York-based technology company," he added. AppNexus was founded in 2007 and transacted over $500 million in ad spend on its platform in 2012, over $1 billion in 2013, and expects to handle over $2 billion in 2014. The company plans to use the money to expand its team, particularly in global markets. AppNexus recently opened offices in Sydney and Singapore to strengthen its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. The company also hints in the release that it will eye more acquisitions. In June, AppNexus acquired Alenty, a Paris-based viewability measurement firm. AppNexus has raised over $200 million to date. It has also increased its debt facility via Silicon Valley Bank to $75 million, with a potential to increase it to $100 million. JP Morgan was AppNexus’ “exclusive financial advisor,” per a release. The name of the firm that invested in AppNexus was not revealed. “The firm, as a rule, doesn't disclose its name when it invests in private companies,” explained an AppNexus rep.
Some 63% of marketers plan to improve marketing strategies through customer segmentation and targeting, but only 6% see themselves as leaders in Big Data management compared with 62% who view themselves as keeping pace or lagging behind competitors, per the CMO Council's annual State of Marketing global benchmark study released Monday. It's a little unclear how the 525 senior marketing executives worldwide participating in the survey will accomplish the task, although 54% expect overall budgets to increase. Some 27% believe their budgets will remain the same. The funds are not being allocated to technology. When asked to identify where marketers will allocate marketing budget across operational and process areas in the next 12 months, 12% plan to invest in product marketing, another 12% in strategy and branding, about 7% in marketing and planning, 7% in sales and lead management, and 5% in market research, among other areas. Down at the bottom of the list at 1% sits advertising technology systems and platforms like programmatic buying, and marketing tools, and another 1% to collaboration and workflow systems. Despite these limited planned tech investments during the coming year, the need to understand data puts analytics skills that can identify customer behavior at the top of the list. Marketers said they would look for new hires skilled in analytics during the next 12 months. Most marketers struggle with an increasing number of digital marketing platforms requiring knowledge of marketing cloud middleware that connects data silos. Some 55% of marketers plan headcount additions compared with 22% who expect reductions. Search engine optimization and Web site search remain important marketing strategies. This stems from paying more attention to consumer needs, an "all-encompassing theme" in 2014. Nearly 50% of survey respondents listed optimizing search for Web site marketing, as well as events and trade shows rank the most effective ways to brand and generate demand in their market. Another 42% admit the most value lies in social media interaction and engagement. These areas surpassed traditional print and broadcast media, and well ahead of mobile search and mobile advertising. Get ready for a slight shakeup of agency partners. While 63% of marketers rate agency partner contributions extremely valuable or pretty good, 66% plan to make one or more changes to their agency rosters in the next 12 months. A lack of business results, value-added thinking, and uninspired creative advertisements and messages top the list of reasons for changes in agency partners, per the study. Brand marketers are looking for something new, even if they recycle an old strategy with a twist. This year survey respondents clearly point to the brand as a center of everything from content creation and digital engagement to business growth and drive. Among the top mandates that senior management outlines for marketers for this year, 56% said driving business growth remains at the top of the list. Some 52% follow business growth with retaining market share and 44% admit to defining a better definition of brand value in the eyes of consumers. The drive for better customer service comes from consumers on digital channels with new insights that amplify the consumer's voice. Some 54% said new products or program launches will continue to revenue the most funds in the next 12 months, followed by 53% who cite corporate branding and identify building.
Shopping in categories like jewelry and watches and apparel helped boost online retail spending 14% in July from a year ago, according to a new analysis by RBC Capital Markets, citing comScore data. That rate was faster than the 10% growth in the second quarter overall, and the 8% increase the prior month. Jewelry led the way with online sales up 18%, followed by clothing and accessories (17%), and packaged goods (16%). The only non-travel category with single-digit growth was books and magazines, up 7%. Online travel, separately, had a spending increase of 10% in July year-over-year -- slightly above the 9% level for the quarter -- and 9% in June. Looking at specific segments, online revenue for hotels grew 12%, airlines (11%) and car rentals (6%), while sales travel packages were also up 6%. “All in, we view these trends to imply that summer travel trends remain stable,” stated the report by RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney, benefiting online travel companies such as Expedia, Priceline and TripAdvisor. Overall, the investment bank projects U.S. online retail sales will grow 16% to $305 billion this year, with online travel increasing 8% to $149 billion. Separate monthly data that comScore released on Monday showed e-commerce powerhouses Amazon and eBay both picked up traffic in July over June. Amazon increased to 95.4 million monthly visitors from 92.5 million in June, while eBay saw a more modest gain, to 59.3 million from 58.5 million. Overall, Google widened its lead over Yahoo last month, with its U.S. traffic reaching 191.2 million, compared to Yahoo’s 165.1 million, and Microsoft’s 164.8 million. Facebook came in at 144 million, and AOL at 105 million. Yahoo had the biggest drop from June, when it had 171.2 million visitors. "Tablet User" photo from Shutterstock.
Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud has new data via a joint study with Forrester Research. The new work looks at how personalized communication affects loyalty and retention, and where marketers are spending money to keep up with their customers’ own expectations on how brands should reach out to them. Forty-eight percent of marketers queried reported that they face challenges in personalizing each customer interaction, and 42% of marketers reported they face challenges with analyzing customer interaction data. The study, “Refresh Your Approach to 1:1 Marketing,” via Forrester Consulting on behalf of ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, reports that over three-quarters of digital marketers feel loyalty is affected directly by how well they do personalization. Marketers also see value in predictive intelligence, with 86% reporting they use broad segmentation and simple clustering for personalized marketing. About half concede personalizing each customer interaction is the challenge because of the mindset of always-connected customers. And about 42% also say analyzing the constant flow of customer interaction data is difficult. Said Woodson Martin, CMO of ExactTarget, in a statement, "Today’s hyper-connected consumer requires companies to create personalized experiences and deliver value at each touch point to increase brand loyalty and drive sales." The study says marketers will spend more money on tolls falling into four predictive and data analytic buckets. Nearly 60% of marketers say they will increase spending in site optimization. A little over half say they will increase spending in real-time interaction management. Fifty-one of marketers say they plan to increase spending in predictive algorithms and the same percentage has guided selling as a spend target. Even with these beefed-up marketing and research tools, customers hold the reins because as social technology becomes more sophisticated, their expectations follow suit, per the report. "They have instantaneous access to information across multiple devices and want to interact with brands on their terms — across channels and whenever they want.” "Watching TV on mobile" photo from Shutterstock.
NBC is putting a lot of marketing resources -- and money -- behind “The Blacklist” for next season. The big-rated drama was a key piece in lifting the network to the top spot among all broadcast networks -- the second-best-rated drama next to ABC’s “Scandal” last season among 18-49 viewers. The network will use heavy messaging of on-air, print, outdoor and digital marketing platforms to tout the show, and in particular the big-time criminal character -- Raymond “Red” Reddington -- played by James Spader. For its on-air NBC TV promos, messaging will including Reddington’s favorite one-liners set to AC/DC’s classic rock song “Back in Black.” It will play in all of NBC’s dayparts — daytime, prime time and late night — as well as the cable networks of NBCUniversal. In print, top magazine titles will have a “faux facelift” -- specially created “Blacklist”’s covers in Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, Us Weekly, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Playboy. Outdoor marketing campaigns in New York, will include heavy bus and subway presence, as well as billboards in Times Square, Penn Station and outside the Lincoln Tunnel. Heavy bus ads will also be in Los Angeles - including wallscapes on Sunset Boulevard, the 101 Freeway and the busy intersection of Highland and Franklin Avenues. There will also be a big digital and social media presence -- “cover campaigns” by promoting the show editorially.In addition, NBC will commission six artists creating six giant murals in high-traffic metropolitan cities. Google Maps will allow consumers worldwide to view the murals online. Last season, “The Blacklist” averaged a Nielsen 2.9 rating among 18-49 viewers looking at the live-plus-same-day viewing metric. (ABC’s “Scandal” averaged a 3.0 rating). “The Blacklist” pulled in a 4.5 rating in the (L7) live plus seven days of time-shifting metric. Total viewership averaged 10.8 million in the live plus same time metric and 16.9 million in L7 -- garnering the best results in time-shifting over the seven-day period. The show’s 2014-2015 debut’s September 22 at 10 p.m.
Shift, a marketing software company with a focus on social, on Monday announced the appointment of Andrea Wolinetz as VP of agency partnerships, a new position at the company. “We work with many of the top global agencies and as this ecosystem becomes more complex, success requires a combination of innovative technology and strategic guidance, Andrea will help accelerate adoption and develop senior-level relationships with our current agency and future agency customers,” James Borow, co-founder and CEO of Shift, said to Real-Time Daily. Borow noted that marketers face increasing pressure “to be nimble and plug into events in real-time to engage with their audience and keep the brand top of mind, while also making sure to reach their business goals.” He said that Wolinetz will be responsible for “helping agencies navigate this real-time environment and identify the most strategic use of [Shift's] technology, based on their objectives.” Wolinetz was most recently managing director of connected platforms at media agency PHD, giving Shift an exec that's in tune with the agency points-of-view. “We’re thrilled to have her on the team,” said Borow.
Nancy Mullahy, CEO of IMS, is on the cutting edge of today’s media transformation as agencies grapple with understanding the ever-expanding consumer choices of platforms and the evolution of programmatic buying. Mullahy’s background includes research, and her acumen in data lends well to this changeable media environment. Asked to describe her “average day,” she talks about meeting with those who are exploring new ways of looking at data and its applications. Videos for my interview with her can be viewed here. Below is an edited excerpt: CW: Nancy, what exactly is programmatic? NM: Despite what we have heard in the industry, programmatic is not the opposite of premium. Programmatic is just automated buying. What’s exciting is that it’s an automated level of buying that is really enhanced by data, especially audience data. Interestingly, when you really dig down deep to find out how many people are actually involved in understanding what programmatic is and what all the opportunities are, [you find] a surprisingly limited group of people. Many times, that skills set is centered around managed services. So currently, as an industry, we hand off a certain amount of our media allocation to a managed services programmatic partner, if you will, and it is their intention to do the best job possible against our objectives. But I think that alone definitely misses the point, because we haven’t trained the people who are actually making that allocation to be any smarter about what the process is, [and] what takes place. And that is a critical component of really advancing data and its application toward targeting, going forward. We are going to see more programmatic across more channels as we see media evolve in the next couple of years. I am shocked at how fast it has moved into the marketplace to date, and to what degree it has been executed. It’s not just here in the United States -- it is also on a global basis. So it is exciting. We have our own trading desk here at IMS. We did that intentionally because we wanted to be sure that everyone here who is actually involved on our team truly understands the intricacies and the opportunities within programmatic. And we are using programmatic not just for digital applications today. CW: Do you think there will ever be a new standard metric that will enable us to measure across platforms? NM: I have two thoughts on this question. One is that the industry will always want what I call “interim metrics”: things that are less interesting, such as impressions. My second thought is that we are moving toward business performance where every business has its different set of metrics. It is something we really believe in at IMS. We believe in getting as close as absolutely possible to revenue, and making sure that you have a healthy brand. When you start to get close into revenue, as close as you can possibly get, it makes the idea of impressions or view-throughs or whatever metric it may be, slightly less interesting. I truly believe that as an industry, little by little, we are moving into a space of measured business results that is going to take us down the path toward really being a partner with clients.