Facebook’s IPO filing has focused much attention on its lack of mobile advertising to date, despite the social network boasting a mobile audience of 425 million -- almost half its total user base. The company flagged the absence of mobile advertising so far -- and its unproven ability to monetize its mobile inventory -- among the risk factors in its offering. As Facebook now scrambles to launch its mobile ad business before going public this spring, Twitter could find itself under similar scrutiny if it decides to follow suit a year from now. More than half of its traffic comes from mobile, and that proportion is likely to grow as smartphones continue to proliferate. By the nature of its 140-character limit, Twitter has always been more naturally suited to mobile than Facebook. With the rollout of ad formats like Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends, the company has bet on sponsored, in-stream posts that translate more easily to the mobile screen than standard banners. Still, Twitter isn’t much further ahead of Facebook when it comes to mobile advertising. “Twitter's advertising on mobile to date has been largely experimental,” noted Jed Williams, an analyst at BIA/Kelsey. “In fact, it just rolled ads into mobile apps for the first time late last year. Much like Facebook, it's in a nascent stage of monetization.” Twitter’s ad business overall is in a more nascent stage than Facebook’s, with paid advertising on the site having been introduced less than two years ago. Facebook reported ad revenue of about $3.2 billion last year. While Twitter doesn’t yet publicly disclose financial figures, eMarketer estimates its 2011 ad revenue at $150 million. But the unexploited mobile landscape provides something of an even playing field for Twitter to compete with Facebook. “In one sense, it is better positioned than Facebook to succeed with mobile advertising. Users will be accustomed to promoted tweets and the units will essentially be the same in a mobile context,” said Greg Sterling, senior analyst at Opus Research. If recent reports are accurate, Facebook aims to ensure a smooth transition to mobile advertising by offering its own in-stream ad unit. The Financial Times reported Facebook is pitching agencies on “featured stories,” or promotions that run in mobile users’ news feeds. The company suggested as much in its IPO filing, floating the possibility of including “sponsored stories in users’ mobile News Feeds.” But Facebook had only begun to run sponsored stories -- which typically appear on the right side of the page -- within desktop users’ news feeds last month. It hasn’t had much time to acclimate users to the new ad placement on the traditional Web before launching it in mobile. User backlashes to changes on Facebook are common. For its part, Twitter in December debuted upgraded versions of its apps for the iPhone, and Android and Windows Phone devices as part of its broader redesign. That opened the door to advertising within its apps and a more brand-friendly mobile presence for marketers. Since Twitter acts like a real-time, location-aware news wire, mobile ads on the service can be targeted to reach the right audience at just the right time, according to BIA/Kelsey’s Williams. “In particular, you can imagine Twitter operating effectively in deals and flash sales,” he said. Twitter’s deep integration with iOS 5 should also help the company accelerate its mobile audience growth. Consider that Apple sold a record 37 million iPhones and 15 million iPads in the last quarter of 2011. As it is, Facebook’s mobile audience of 425 million is still larger than Twitter’s more than 300 million users overall. “I’m surprised Twitter has taken its time [rolling out mobile ads], but Facebook surprises me even more,” said David Berkowitz, vice president, emerging media, at digital agency 360i. “Has there ever been a media property with more than 400 million consumers that hasn’t been monetized?”
McClatchy Co. said digital ad sales declined 2% during the fourth quarter. The publisher, however, attributed the year-over-year decline to the fact that it bundles digital sales with print advertising. Year-over-year, McClatchy said digital-only sales increased 7.5% during the fourth quarter. “We continue to see good results from digital-only revenue initiatives, including our dealsaver group-buying product,” Gary Pruitt, McClatchy CEO, said Tuesday. According to Pruitt, digital-only revenues were helped by strong growth in retail digital-only sales, which rose 9.9%, and automotive digital-only sales, up 17.7%. That said, total digital advertising still only represents 19.9% of the company’s total advertising revenue -- compared to 18.1% in 2010. During the quarter, Classified Ventures -- a Web company in which McClatchy own a 25.6% stake -- paid out a dividend of $17.4 million in December. Classified Ventures owns the auto Web site Cars.com, and the rental site Apartments.com. Also, CareerBuilder -- in which McClatchy holds a 15% stake -- paid out a dividend of $7.5 million. “We are especially pleased with the performance of our Internet investments,” Pruitt said on Tuesday. “These companies provide important products to our newspaper Web sites and are strategic partners in our digital success.” To date, Dealsaver has been launched in every McClatchy market. More broadly, McClatchy said ad revenues declined 5.7% in the fourth quarter -- an improvement on the first three quarters of 2011, when ad revenues consistently decreased in the 10% range. Pruitt attributed the improvement to strong growth in digital-only advertising, as well as retail, direct marketing and national advertising. "Much of the improvement in the ad revenue trend occurred in November, but each of the months in the fourth quarter of 2011 was better than the trends through the first nine months of the year,” Pruitt said. “Advertising revenues were down 8.7% in October, 2.4% in November and 5.9% in December.”
The Federal Trade Commission has warned three online data brokers that their mobile apps must comply with the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. "If you have reason to believe that your background reports are being used for employment or other FCRA purposes, you and your customers who are using your reports for such purposes must comply with the FCRA," FTC associate director Maneesha Mithal says in the letters, which were sent to Everify, InfoPay and Intelligator. Mithal doesn't allege that those companies have violated the fair credit law, but says the FTC reserves the right to bring charges in the future. The federal fair credit law provides that reporting agencies must take steps to ensure the accuracy of background reports used for employment, housing and credit. The law also gives consumers the right to challenge information in those reports. The FTC's letters focus specifically on mobile apps that provide information about whether people have criminal records. "Employers are likely to use such criminal histories when screening job applicants," the letter states. The companies appear to gather information about people from a broad array of sources, including social networking sites. One of the companies to receive a letter, Everify, says it offers a "Social Media Check" tool, which scours the Web for photos, videos, blogs, profiles and other information. Mithal warns the companies that they must comply with the law's requirements if they have reason to believe the reports are being used for employment, housing, credit or credit decisions -- even if their Web sites have disclaimers saying that the reports shouldn't be used for those purposes. "We would evaluate many factors to determine if you had a reason to believe that a product is used for employment or other FCRA purposes, such as advertising placement and customer lists." The FTC's recent letters deal with mobile apps, but numerous companies sell data about consumers through Web sites. One of those companies, Spokeo, was sued for violating federal fair credit laws by allegedly failing to allow consumers to correct inaccuracies in its reports. U.S. District Court Judge Otis Wright II in the Central District of California dismissed the lawsuit on the ground that the user who sued didn't show he was injured. The user appealed and the case is currently pending in the 9th Circuit. The digital rights group Center for Democracy & Technology also complained about Spokeo to the FTC. Regulators haven't yet said whether they intend to bring charges against Spokeo.
Strangers or friends can become the most successful brand advocates through online word-of-mouth marketing. Shasta Ventures thinks so highly of the idea that the venture capital firm -- along with existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Trident Capital -- sank $10 million in Series C funding into San Francisco-based Extole, a consumer-to-consumer social-marketing platform. Jim Barnett funded a seed round in the company in 2009, joined as chairman of the board, and then became a partner at Shasta Ventures in November. Extole marks the first Shasta investment for Barnett. "A bunch of companies help brands build advocates through technology, but Extole builds it through consumer referrals," he said. Extole's technology helps to identify social advocates -- for example, women ages 18 to 34 in urban areas. Companies determine the value of the customer and the types of message they will respond to more often through analytics. Extole's 70-person team grew revenue 400% in 2011, while supporting more than 200 customers, brands such as Kate Spade and AAA, as well as agencies, across retail, eCommerce, and media. The funding round will assist build out the company's product development, customer acquisition and team. Folica, an online retailer of hair care and hair styling tools, launched a social referral program offering $10 to the referrer and $10 to the friend. Customers were incentivized to share content via Facebook, Twitter, email and URLs. The promotion identified more than 6,000 brand advocates, each averaging 4 shares per advocate. It generated more than 21,000 social shares via Facebook, Twitter and Email, and drove a 93% email open rate and a 16% conversion rate.
Accordant Media, a New York-based ad technology firm specializing in creating “white labeled” trading desks for long-, mid-tail, and big independent agencies not affiliated with the major agency holding companies, has marked an important milestone -- serving its 3,000th campaign -- and named two key executives to its team this week. While Accordant wasn’t able to put that number into the context of the overall marketplace it serves -- independent agencies and advertisers who use trading desks to execute online display campaigns in the so-called “real-time bidding” marketplace sold by third-party intermediaries such as ad networks and exchanges -- it said the number represented “fully managed” campaigns and represented a critical mass for Accordant as a player in an industry that is perceived as being dominated by the big agency holding companies, and so-called demand- and sell-side platforms. “We think that this is significant as the leading independent -- non-holding company -- trading desk,” said Art Muldoon, co-founder and CEO. He said it is especially significant because the trading volume proves that Accordant is overcoming key obstacles for agencies and marketers seeking to buy “biddable” online ad inventory, which should help accelerate that overall marketplace in 2012. “Our longer-term clients are growing their RTB budgets four times to six times this year,” he said, noting that Accordant’s roster currently includes independent agencies such as Lbi, Media Experts, BeebyClarkMeyler and Red Bricks Media. Muldoon said he could not disclose all of Accordant’s clients, but said they also include a “roster of direct marketers.” He said the appeal of Accordant is its simplicity and the fact that it enables independent players to scale their exchange-based media buys across display, video and mobile channels with the same resources of Madison Avenue’s biggest players. To help spread that word and accelerate its adoption across the buy-side of the industry, Accordant also named two key rainmakers to its team, Garret Vreeland, and Chris Cloney, who will serve as Chief Revenue Officer and vice president-sales, respectively. A long-time digital ad industry vet, Vreeland most recently was senior director-advertising sales and account management at Akamai, and previously had top sales roles at Right Media/Yahoo and 24/7 Real Media. Cloney joins from stints at MediaMind and the Bluestreak division of Aegis Media.
One could argue that Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook now control the fate of online commerce, per a new Forrester report. Online retailers’ success rests largely on the skill with which they can navigate this new reality. Indeed, the Big 4 are “increasingly viewed as the gateways to Internet traffic,” according to Forrester principal analyst Sucharita Mulpuru. Nearly half of all online shoppers start their research process on Amazon or a search engine, i.e., Google; 47% and 43% of the world’s Web traffic visits Google and Facebook daily; 21% of iPhone owners and 49% of iPad owners purchase physical products on these devices. Plus, 47% of online shoppers agree that friends’ social media (i.e., Facebook) posts and “likes” are helpful in discovering new brands, trends, and retailers. Given such omnipotence, “their impact on eBusiness ranges from interesting and innocuous forays into commerce to disruptive forces that must be approached with circumspection,” Mulpuru says of Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook. Likely falling into the latter category, the Big 4 have steadily reached beyond their core businesses of technology products and services to other verticals, such as travel (as with Google’s acquisition of ITA Software); financial services (Google, Facebook, Apple); retail (illustrated by Apple’s iTunes music store and its physical retail stores); and consumer electronics manufacturing (as with Amazon’s e-readers and tablets). Regarding Google, Mulpuru warns: “EBusiness professionals will need to keep the company top of mind because it maintains a majority share of online marketing spend but promises to transform every industry from financial services to travel to health care and retail.” Amazon -- despite possessing the smallest market cap of the four players -- is completely changing the dynamics of manufacturers and distributors, according to Mulpuru. Facebook, meanwhile, is seen as more akin to television than to traditional interactive marketing, and seems to work best when building awareness and driving “top of funnel” activity, much of which is not where interactive marketers focus their budgets. Moreover, “these companies are also the gateways to other companies’ Web sites and are therefore critical in the product research and sales funnel,” Mulpuru notes. That said, Mulpuru is confident that savvy e-business professionals can learn from The Big 4, anticipate their strategies, and ultimately thrive in the ecosystems they shape. Going forward, she suggests “cautious observation of the moves of the four players and carefully thought-through partnerships. At the very least, every eBusiness executive should have an in-house expert or agency that is intimately familiar with the road maps and investments of these players.”
The first-ever webcast of the Super Bowl pulled in more than two million users -- about 2% of the traditional TV viewing on the NBC network. Total online numbers came to 2,105,441 users, according to data from Omniture and mDialog. NBC said the Super Bowl webcast became the most-watched, single game sports event ever. In the fall, NBC's "Sunday Night Football" had been pulling in around 200,000 to 300,000 digital viewers for its webcasts per game. In total, NBC says the online Super Bowl XLVI event pulled in 78 million minutes that were streamed. Kevin Monaghan, senior vp of business development and managing director, digital media of the NBC Sports Group, said in a release: “The record traffic that grew throughout the event, as well as the record high engagement numbers, underscores the complementary aspect of digital as an enhancement to our exceptional television coverage.” Media executives say NBC was charging advertisers a $55 cost-per-thousand viewers (CPMs), which would be a unit price of $115,775 for a 30-second commercial exposure. One story suggested NBC had a difficult time in selling the event to advertisers. But another report stated that an NBC executive said the event was sold out. One major sponsor online was General Motors' Chevrolet brand. The live game stream was available on NBCSports.com, NFL.com, and available on NFL Mobile from Verizon.
Lead-generation firm Pontiflex has added Spanish-language capability for its mobile sign-up ad platform, which allows consumers to choose the types of ads and offers they get. The move comes as part of its recent step to extend its sign-up ads internationally so U.S. developers can run country-specific ads in local languages to broaden their audiences. The company’s international SDK (software development kit), released late last year, allows developers to initially target app users in Asia, Western Europe, Latin America and Canada. Publishers can now also create Spanish-language ads to reach the Hispanic audience in the U.S. Overall, Pontiflex CEO Zephrin Lasker says the firm serves ads into 220 countries, with roughly one-third of its business coming from outside the U.S. He estimates about 20% of its audience are Spanish-speakers -- the second-most common language after English. “The Hispanic market within the U.S. is a big piece too, so we’re trying to extend our outreach to Spanish-language advertisers,” said Lasker. Numerous studies have shown that U.S. Hispanics are over-indexed in mobile usage. A 2010 Pew study, for instance, found more than 87% of English-speaking U.S. Latinos owned a phone compared to 80% of non-Hispanic whites. Another Pew study found that compared to the general population, Hispanics use their cell phones more often, and they use more features on their phones. To tap that mobile-centric audience, Pontiflex has already run test campaigns on behalf of advertisers including the nonprofit Hunger Project, the Mexico Tourism Board and Club Coupon. As long as a smartphone is set to Spanish-language, users will see the Spanish-language version of the ads, according to Lasker. “We’ve seen much higher take rates and much higher engagement with the ads,” he said, compared to the average for English-language ads served to international markets. The Hunger Project effort garnered 5,000 sign-ups, while the “Visit Mexico” campaign attracted 25,000, through the ads ran on iOS and Android apps across all categories. Lasker said some of Pontiflex’s large CPG clients are rolling out campaigns in Spanish parallel to their English-language ones. The agency is also trying to connect with Hispanic-focused agencies in New York to bring on more clients for its Spanish-language offering. Regardless of language, Pontiflex enables developers to insert ads in their mobile apps that ask consumers to sign up to learn more from relevant advertisers. And marketers pay for ads on a cost-per-lead (CPL) basis.
New findings from a study by mobile advertising network Greystripe suggest that smartphone and iPad owners rely heavily on their devices for movie-related information and advertising. A majority on both devices use them to watch movie trailers. More than half of smartphone owners (53%) and roughly a quarter (27%) of iPad users search for movie listings, times and locations through the respective platforms. The results are based on data collected during November from 546 people served ads via Greystripe’s network on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, as well as on Android phones. The study found yjsy iPad and touch smartphone users in particular are films enthusiasts, with 39% and 41%, respectively, watching movies over four times a year. About two-thirds of smartphone and iPad users said they find out about new movies through advertising, and half of smartphone owners and 44% of iPad user decided which films to see based on movie ads. When it comes to m-commerce, 15% of smartphone users and 13% of iPad users have purchased movie tickets on their mobile device. Some 10% and 13%, respectively, have used their devices to buy DVDs. But the numbers may skew even higher because Greystripe’s audience is built largely around gaming and entertainment-related apps. Those users are more likely to be interested in watching trailers and learning about upcoming movie releases. People 25-34 make up the the biggest age bracket (27%) on its network reaching more than 40 million a month. Separately, a Macquarie Research report on ValueClick’s fourth-quarter results suggested its $70 million acquisition of Greystripe last year is paying off. It estimates Greystripe’s fourth-quarter revenue at least $9 million and notes that the ad network has been a major provider of in-game ads for Zynga’s hit game “Words with Friends.”
Key performance indicators will become far more proprietary as calculations and analytics continue to integrate into everything from search engine marketing to baseball, Billy Beane, general manager for the Oakland Athletics Major League baseball team, told MediaPost. Through analytics, Beane built a template for profitability, turning the league's lowest-salary budget team -- Oakland A's -- into a winning organization. The team just wanted to survive, Beane said. His business model took into consideration a player's contribution to scoring runs, base hits and batting averages, as well as geographic location, demographics and more. Beane views the strategy as myopic, but credits "Moneyball" author Michael Lewis for tying together the A's business model with other industries, such as search engine marketing. "The genius is not what we did, but rather Michael's ability to turn it into something to which others could relate," he told MediaPost at the Covario INFLECTIONpoint 2012 conference in Huntington Beach, Calif. on Tuesday. "It was more serendipitous than anything else." There's a correlation between what Beane is doing with the Oakland A's and search marketing, according to Neil Doshi, Citigroup analyst. "There's a huge push for the use of data and analytics to drive business decisions," he said."Billy proved baseball is not just a game. It's a business, and he's running the Oakland A's as a profitable business. Similarly, in the early days of online marketing it was all about the creative, but now that has shifted to analytics." The A's just wanted to make sure the team got a return on investment, Beane said. So the team's strategy in 2002 turned toward basing decisions on information rather than experience. Demographics had a major impact on whether a player achieved success. Players from Dallas, Los Angeles or Atlanta had a better chance of getting into the major leagues by virtue of the location and the competition. This strategy might sound a bit familiar to most marketers, as more companies use analytics to base marketing decisions.
We are living through the most exciting time ever. A paradoxical era of spectacular technology and puzzling inability. An era in which anything is not possible but everything is within reach. Technology has not yet afforded us the ability to create anything we can imagine, but it has planted the seed with which we can imagine anything. At the cross section of art, copy, technology and the human body and brain lies the dawn of a new era—a new age in which storytellers of every order are armed with the ability to make magic. My friends, this is indeed a renaissance of creativity. This is the post-PC creative era. What exactly does this mean? At the risk of moving too far into academia, post-PC creativity finds its roots in both technology and thought. From a technology and product perspective we find the origin of “post-PC” defined in the prophetic words of Steve jobs (excerpt here and full video here), “Technology is not enough…it’s technology married with liberal arts…married with the humanities that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.” As evidenced in this statement, and the total body of what we know of Steve Jobs, his vision was not wholly rooted in technology—Jobs was interested in technology as extensions of ourselves. The technology world has already put forth an organized definition of post-PC, but those of us working in the creative services world require a distinctive definition to make this notion actionable. For the purposes of the creative services professional, the post-PC creative era cannot be defined by technology alone. It must also be outlined by thought. One can look to postmodernist theory, or more specifically, Martin Heidegger’sHermeneutic circle, “…the idea that one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one's understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole." At the cross section of Jobs’ and Heidegger’s we find post-PC creativity. Consider the following as a working definition of post-PC creativity: “Storytelling in which the sum total of technologies, (past and present) arts and empathy fueled user experience design converge in a non-linear, holistic perception of a given entity” When using this definition as a springboard for brand communications, all of the following must be included; social media, mobile marketing, web design, search marketing, tablet marketing, augmented reality, sensor technology (RFID and NFC) and every other vehicle employed to deliver a branded message. It is only when one comes to the realization that creativity can include a mesh of what was, is and will be that they can truly become a post-PC creative. When this realization is unencumbered by the political separation of strategic management over various media, the true magic of our current condition can truly manifest.