To the dismay of resistant publishers and marketers, real-time bidding will account for 13% of all U.S. display ad spending this year -- more than tripling since 2010. That’s according to new estimates from eMarketer, which only expects RTB to gain momentum in the coming years as more media buyers and publishers warm to its efficiencies. This year, the overall U.S. display ad market will grow 21.5% to $15 billion from $12.3 billion in 2011, eMarketer projected in September. Growth in RTB display ad spending, by comparison, is expected to reach 98% in 2012. As such, eMarketer forecasts that RTB ad spending will reach $1.9 billion in 2012 as both publishers and media buyers continue to adopt RTB technology. Beyond 2013, those growth rates will likely slow as the programmatic buying landscape settles and matures, and awareness and general understanding of RTB technology becomes ubiquitous. Still, by 2016, U.S. RTB ad spending will climb to $7.1 billion, according to eMarketer. Meanwhile, the media researcher said it is confident that programmatic buying for mobile and video will contribute significantly to future RTB ad-spending growth -- but for now, those ad types will account for relatively small shares of overall RTB dollars. As media buyers increasingly invest in RTB and major publishers like Facebook continue to enter the market, eMarketer forecasts 72.4% growth in U.S. RTB ad spending for 2013. According to the research firm, there are four key influences that will determine the growth of RTB: the maturation of Facebook’s ad exchange, FBX; an expected influx of video and mobile inventory; an anticipated greater availability of premium ad inventory; and an overarching demand for better transparency for all of digital display. FBX only came out of beta testing in September 2012, and although Facebook spoke positively about the exchange’s performance in its third-quarter earnings call, company COO Sheryl Sandberg described FBX’s current revenue impact as “small.” Even slight adoption on the part of Facebook advertisers could yield significant growth for the real-time buying market, according to eMarketer, considering that Facebook will have an estimated 15% share of total U.S. display ad spending in 2013.The firm develops its forecast through an analysis of estimates from other research firms, along with survey results from brands, agencies and media publishers, and digital and mobile ad-spending trends.
Census-based online audience giant Quantcast is continuing to expand and diversify with new audience analytics products aimed at the burgeoning programmatic, “audience-buying” marketplace (a.k.a. RTB, or real-time bidding). Its latest development, which is being released today, is dubbed Quantcast Advertise for Branding (QAB), and it is a self-serve platform enabling advertisers, agencies and publishers to connect “big data” with discrete brand targets. The new system, the company says in a blog post, will establish “a new level of transparency for participating publishers and advertisers and allows them to transact directly based on specified audiences.” QAB is part of a progression of developments by Quantcast to make its audience measurement data more actionable in the transactional marketplace, not just as a media planning tool, but for real-time buying. Quantcast’s systems combine both census-based tracking of publishers’ audiences with advanced predictive modeling techniques to identify and match audience segments to specific brand targets. QAB effectively enables advertiser, agency and publisher users to tap directly into those data and analytics in real-time. The system, for example, can help advertisers or agencies identify which sub-segment of a publisher’s total audience most directly matches their own audience targets, or it enables a publisher to carve out the portion of its audience that matches those targets so there is little waste, duplication or irrelevant audience reach. The system can express these targets either as a brand’s own custom audience segments, conventional demographics, or so-called “spendographics,” a term developed with consumer packaged goods sales data modeler SymphonyIRI for linking brand targets to actual product purchasing behavior. Quantcast says several major publishers, including Warner Bros., AccuWeather, SAY Media, and Adap.tv, have already begun using QAB to fine-tune the way they sell their audiences to advertisers and agencies.
Katz 360 Sales, the digital sales division of Katz Media Group, is expanding its digital advertising offerings to become a full-service interactive ad network, the company announced Wednesday. The expansion includes new social, local, mobile location-based, and social advertising services. It will be led by Mort Greenberg, who was recently named president of Katz 360 Sales. The transition entails a greater focus on online ad reporting, analytics and optimization, as part of a push to offer more precise cross-platform targeting and greater accountability. Katz 360 also plans to draw on more third-party sources of digital ad inventory. As part of the transformation, Katz will get a new (as-yet-unrevealed) brand name and corporate structure, including a new international sales team. The company also plans to launch a new creative lab to develop campaigns customized to take advantage of brands’ unique identities and market strengths. Katz currently operates four main digital platforms: online digital audio, mobile, database and display. The strategic overhaul aims to help Katz and its affiliates capture more digital advertising dollars. While Internet radio and online and mobile advertising in general are all booming, radio broadcasters have only managed to secure a fairly small slice of this business. According to the Radio Advertising Bureau, the radio industry’s total digital advertising revenues came to $356 million in the first half of 2012, or just 4.5% of total revenues of about $7.9 billion. The growth rate for radio’s digital ad revenues in the first half -- 7% year-over-year -- also lags behind the growth rate for online advertising overall, which increased 14% to $17 billion in the first half of the year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. "Radio photo from Shutterstock"
In its latest step to be more than a social newsreader, Flipboard has added a book section that allows readers to browse and buy titles directly from Apple’s iBookstore. The new section -- spanning 25 categories including literature, travel guides, biographies and cookbooks -- lets users flip through catalog-like pages of books, with brief descriptions and cover art images. Each title has a link to the book’s page on the iBookstore to streamline purchases from the Flipboard app on the iPhone, iPad, iPad mini and iPod touch. The new books section is available in 10 countries at launch: The U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, and Spain. As part of the iBookstore affiliate program, Flipboard takes a 5% cut of book sales. Flipboard’s addition of books highlights its ongoing shift from personalized magazine to broader media and entertainment source. In May, the company introduced an audio section with NPR, PRI (Public Radio International) and social sound platform SoundCloud. In August, it launched a curated video offering powered by popular YouTube channels. More recently, Flipboard pushed into e-commerce with the rollout of a new advertising format called a “brand magazine,” combining all a brand’s relevant social media and other digital content in a single channel in the app. The program kicked off in September with a custom channel for Levi’s that let users shop directly through a “social catalog.” Among the latest brand magazines on Flipboard is one started by Merrill Lynch Wealth Management with articles by its economists and other experts on topics like taxes and the fiscal cliff. Overall, the company says more than 50 brands now advertise in publications featured in the app, such as Forbes, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Fast Company.
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Wal-Mart violated a consumer protection law by sending unwanted text messages to a customer who filled a prescription at the retailer's pharmacy. U.S. District Court Judge C. Lynwood Smith in the Northern District of Alabama ruled last week that Wal-Mart didn't violate the law because the customer, Stephanie Pinkard, gave the pharmacy her cell phone number. Pinkard's disclosure of that information amounted to consent to receive texts, Smith ruled. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act prohibits companies from using automatic telephone dialing systems to make calls to cell phones without consumers' consent. The statute calls for up to $1,500 in damages per violation. Pinkard alleged in her court papers that she provided her cell phone number because a Wal-Mart employee said the store might need to contact her if there were problems with the prescription. Instead, Wal-Mart allegedly enrolled her in a text-message program that automatically sent messages to everyone who filled a prescription at the company's pharmacy. Pinkard contended in a potential class-action lawsuit, filed in July, that those texts were unlawful. But Smith ruled that Pinkard's decision to disclose her phone number precludes her from suing. "Once she voluntarily provided defendant with her telephone number (i.e., generally consented), it was her responsibility to explicitly state the limited scope of her consent," Smith wrote. Pinkard's lawyer says he is still considering whether to appeal.
When it comes to incorporating technology -- including mobile -- into marketing, Puma takes inspiration from Willy Wonka. According to Adam Petrick, senior global head of brand management at Puma, the fictional chocolatier showed that using technology should flow from a company’s brand, which in the case of both Puma and Wonka, is about providing “surprise” and “joy.” In short, Puma employs technology that reflects its brand identity as a fun, style-savvy challenger to heavyweight sports gear rivals Nike and Adidas. “We do make technology items, whether soccer boots or running shoes, but utilizing the mobile channel in a bleeding-edge capacity, it’s not necessarily right for our brand,” Petrick told the audience at the ANA Mobile conference in New York on Wednesday. During his presentation, he highlighted a few of the ways Puma is embracing mobile and other technologies at retail to engage customers and extend its brand message. The best known is the wall of iPads, or “Puma Joy Pad,” which the company unveiled last year at select stores globally. It consists of 32-interconnected iPads mounted on a wall to offer an immersive media experience. The iPad wall’s touch display allow shoppers to interact with the screens including play games. Another novelty item is what Puma calls its “peep show,” wall-mounted boxes in dressing rooms that show various video images -- a hamster, a disco ball, a person -- when the door is opened. The company has also begun using iPads to let consumers customize their own shoes. “Why do we do this stuff? It is our responsibility as a brand to be a challenger brand, to be irreverent, to be different from everybody else out there,” said Petrick. Maybe that's why Puma hasn’t jumped on the QR code bandwagon. While the company has experimented with QR codes in stores, mainly in Europe, Petrick didn’t voice much support for the technology as a direct shopping tool. “You want to go in and feel the piece you’re buying, and want to have the tactile experience and pleasure of getting to purchase something and take it home,” he said. “For Puma as a brand, that wasn’t the right kind of use of technology for us.” But he suggested it could just take more time to determine how best to use QR codes. In the social media realm, Petrick said Puma has found particular success with Instagram, simply by taking pictures of new Puma shoes he and others are wearing and posting them to the photo-sharing app. He noted that when the company posts images or information about new products on social properties, engagement is much higher than posts about new marketing campaigns. “That’s why I think we’ve had success with Instagram, with this low-tech way of using the platform,” he said. That’s also a low-cost approach. Petrick noted that Puma does almost no tech development in-house and has no specific budget allocation for mobile. Spending level “depends on the project and what the context is,” he said.
Havas Health, the French holding company’s healthcare marketing unit, has launched a new global agency group called Havas Lynx. The new shop is comprised of what was formerly known as Euro RSCG Life 4D and Creative Lynx, which was acquired by Havas earlier this year. The new digitally focused operation is tasked with helping clients connect consumers, health care professionals and brands with information, services and influence to drive new relationships and better results, the company said. Clients include Johnson & Johnson, GSK, GE and AstraZeneca. Havas Lynx has offices in New York, Manchester and London. In the U.S., Larry Mickelberg, chief digital officer, partner, Havas Health, will also serve as president of Havas Lynx. In Europe, Havas Lynx will be led by four directors: Neil Martin, David Hunt, Dave Whittingham and Steve Nicholas.The launch marks the formation of the third agency group within the Havas Health division, alongside sister agencies Havas Life and Health4Brands (H4B). The company views health care as a significant and growing part of its business. Last year, it accounted for nearly 13% of revenue, or more than $270 million.When Havas acquired Creative Lynx back in May, Havas CEO David Jones said the agency was positioned at the intersection of the digital and health care disciplines. The purchase, he said, “will further strengthen our capabilities” in the two areas.“Technology is completely changing the health and wellness landscape,” stated Mickelberg. He added that the formation of the new group is designed to “help create and connect the new health ecosystem through which all future consumer, patient and health care professional journeys will happen.”
Expedia has introduced an updated version of its app for the iPhone and Android devices that includes flight information along with expanded hotel listings. The redesigned app offers the ability to sort and book flights from more than 200 airlines and entries from 140,000 hotel properties, with accompanying images and details. The aim is to make the user experience as comprehensive as Expedia on desktop. The new app includes mobile-only deals of up to 60% off hotel bookings. Featured mobile offers will appear on the app’s home screen, as well as in search results for cities throughout the U.S. Expedia says its flagship app has been downloaded about 5 million times to date; 10% of its customers have engaged with the brand via its mobile properties overall. Jeremy Xavier, vice president of marketing for mobile products at Expedia, told MediaPost in late August that the company is seeing mobile used especially for on-the-go bookings. For example, 70% of hotel bookings via mobile are made for the same night, in-market. Expedia also offers the FlightTrack app, providing flight information for 1,400 airlines, as well as TripAssist for trip planning. An iPad version of the revamped Expedia app is expected soon. Separately on Wednesday, Expedia released findings from custom research it commissioned from comScore showing that nearly half (44%) of frequent travelers used a tablet or smartphone to plan their last trip, and 48% are using mobile devices to plan their next trip. Of that group, 44% use an app for travel planning, and about six in 10 who book flights and hotels via mobile do so through apps. Of travelers with mobile devices, 61% have made a purchase on a tablet in the last six months, while 51% have done so on a smartphone. The majority of U.S. travel-related Internet traffic -- 88% -- still takes place on a PC. Smartphones account for 8% and tablets, 4%. A separate eMarketer study this summer also showed that mobile is still used primarily to research rather than book travel.
Adobe has integrated video ad server Auditude with analytics platform SiteCatalyst and data management platform AudienceManager as part of Project Primetime, the company's integrated video technology platform that publishes and monetizes broadcast TV content. The move aims to help video publishers optimize professional content across devices, giving consumers a TV-like content experience, buffer-free, across Web-connected devices. Ashley Still, director of product management at media and Advertisers solutions at Adobe, said the integration with SiteCatalyst should supply publishers with a common view of engagement and ad data, such as revenue generated. Americans viewed 9.4 billion video ads in September 2012, with each of the top five video ad properties -- such as Google, BrightRoll and Hulu -- delivering more than 1 billion video ads, according to comScore. The data firm estimates 3.4 billion minutes of online video ads viewed across more than 50% of the U.S. population in the same month. All impression, campaign and revenue data from Auditude becomes part of SiteCatalyst. Adobe can now provide marketers with a chart showing the engagement rates with a video, along with ad breaks to determine revenue and where viewers might have closed the browser. Marketers can now do A/B testing, for example, between shorter pre-rolls or fewer mid-rolls to determine whether that increases or reduces the audience. The integration between Auditude and AudienceManager gives publishers the ability to bring in CRM and other first-party data and join it with third- or second-party data to create audience segments, such as gender, age, purchase intent or other data the company doesn't have. For example, a company with a segment aimed at techies can bring the data into Auditude and traffic all the ad campaigns based on the segments, Still said. Adobe also will launch the PrimeTime tool MediaWeaver that allows publishers to replace broadcast TV commercials with digital ads for content running on the publisher's Web site. The company also will launch MediaPlayer, a way for Adobe to support digital TV content that goes into tablets.
Somewhat in line with lackluster economic projections, estimates are that overall local media revenues are expected to rise only at a 2.1% rate over the next four years. But newer local digital media -- part of that overall pie -- will grow by double-digit percentages. BIA/Kelsey forecasts that U.S. local media advertising revenues will rise to $147.1 billion by 2016.But newer local media -- online/interactive/digital -- will grow more quickly than the overall local media -- rising at a 12.4% compounded annual growth rate to $38.1 billion in 2016. It had been at $21.2 billion in 2011.Local search will also move up more rapidly than the overall local media category -- increasing at a 12.1% growth rate to $10.2 billion in four years. It had been at $5.7 billion a year ago. Local display will grow even more rapidly than other local digital categories, with a 16.2% growth rate to $5.1 billion -- double the level it reached in 2011, when it pulled in $2.4 billion.Matt Booth, chief strategy officer and program director, Interactive Local Media, BIA/Kelsey, stated that he remains "very bullish on interactive spending, and especially on new mobile monetization methods, like point-of-sale offerings, that are showing performance improvements. In fact, we expect mobile growth to offset some of the slowing in core search and display in the outer years of the forecast."Earlier, BIA/Kelsey estimated that overall local mobile revenues would hit $5.8 billion by 2016 -- up from $664 million in 2011. "Watching TV photo from Shutterstock"
Other than the adolescent titillation over the title of the book “All In,” why am I obsessed with the Paula Broadwell/Gen. David Petraeus scandal? For one thing, it’s a continuing powder keg on the highest level, with so many plot twists that even one of the writers on “Law & Order: SVU” complained on Twitter that he’s having a hard time keeping up. Others on Twitter are already casting the movie. And the woman who complained about the anonymous emails -- Jill Kelley, the “Honorary Consul General” in Tampa and "Real Housewife" wannabe -- has hired Judy Smith, the fixer behind the TV show “Scandal,” whose former client was Monica Lewinsky. Yeah, it’s a giant embarrassment. And two of the things that got Petraeus in trouble were his attachments to email and the limelight. Most people were amazed to read that the G-man and his Broadwell-Boswell used a regular old Gmail account as a dropbox, leaving their sexy time notes in the “draft” folder for the other to pick up, so as to leave less of a trail. That’s a trick used by Al Qaeda as well as many American teenagers, the AP pointed out. (You have to wonder what kinds of ads ran next to their posts.) Even weirder was the fact that Broadwell, now playing the part of the paranoid shrew, sent her reported “Back off, hussy -- who do you think you are?”-type emails to the CentCom-centered-Kelley from a joint account that she kept with her husband. More seriously, this scandal has led several military writers to reassess the General’s general ease with the press, and his penchant for career (rather than nation) building. Military writers formerly drawn into his circle now feel betrayed. Instead of myth building, they will no doubt take the gloves off and offer newly frank views of The Surge, and whether the General’s signature idea of counterinsurgency actually succeeded. In that context, it’s more understandable that the General, despite his immense influence and august place in history, chose a fellow fitness freak and worshipful West Point graduate with no journalistic experience to be his official biographer. That way, he could ensure that it would be a hagiography. There’s unintended comedy in the photo promoting “All In.” Staged and awkward, the two aggressively face the camera and smile. Petraeus is in camo fatigues, Broadwell in a tight, shiny blouse, with a tight, shiny forehead. And while the couple are nominally shaking hands, she appears to be crushing his mitt. On her media tour promoting the book last January, Broadwell dressed the vamp. She appeared on “The Daily Show,” where Jon Stewart (now famously) asked her whether the takeaway of her book was “Is he awesome? Or incredibly awesome?” And it was brought up that in high school, the General was called “Peaches.” She wore a sleeveless black silk top that emphasized her awesome, triathlon-toned guns and shoulders; thus, Stewart’s interview was mostly clavicle-based. Certainly, for a first-time author appearing on such an important show, she strong-armed Stewart, and didn’t seem nervous at all. Au contraire, she repeatedly gave him two thumbs-up, as if he needed her approval. The interview includes a moment that in hindsight seems painful, when Stewart asks Broadwell if Petraeus will run for president. Broadwell: “He isn’t. My husband wants me to say he is, because it’ll sell more books. Sorry, honey,” she says to her radiologist husband, Scott, who is in the audience. Could she have made a more public showing of her intimate knowledge of the General -- and choosing him over her hubby? In the extra Internet-only part of the interview, Broadwell takes part in a push-up competition with Stewart and her husband, with the loser donating to her charity for wounded veterans. The double emasculation was effortless. Stewart purposely played the asthmatic nebbish to Broadwell’s disciplined Olympian -- but managed to grind out 30-something pushups, and then faux-collapsed and got up, as did Scott Broadwell. Without breaking a sweat on her satin blouse, Broadwell did 60, and then looked up and asked, “Should I stop now?” On “Charlie Rose,” she wore a pink silk top with one side slipping off her shoulder the entire time. Guests normally appear on this show in business wear, and her gossamer top was very distracting, making it hard not to stare at her shoulder and neck while she was speaking. Was this her M.O. -- to blind her admirers with an unexpected mix of come-hitherishness and military precision? It hardly seemed business as usual for Charlie, who had invited a CBS reporter who had interviewed Petraeus to join them, as if he needed a wingman. It didn’t matter -- neither of them got to say much. Broadwell had a never-ending stream of robo-speak, stuff like “So I began to write an intellectual history exploring how he'd developed his role as a maverick who galvanized organizational innovation." This young woman spoke for him, a commander of 150,000 troops, as calmly and fluidly as if she were discussing what her kindergartner likes to eat for breakfast. Both men seemed stunned, afraid to break her spell. It wasn’t about his leadership in two long and deadly wars -- it was about her shoulder. What will happen next is anyone’s guess. Conspiracy theories about Benghazi abound. In the end, they are just two charming, competitive, careerist-narcissists on their own private power trip. Viewed as a clandestine love affair, Petwell (the Brangelina-like moniker my friend Lisa Birnbach has given it) is the oldest story in the book. Except now the book is digital, and the world is one big angry interweb.
In a recent MTV study entitled “Generation Innovation,” we set off to look at the resiliency of a Millennial generation that is pushing back against a system in need of repair… whether the economy, the environment, the education system and more. What we found was counter to the often-charged caricature of today’s youth as “entitled” and “coddled.” Instead, we found a vibrant and strong fixer/maker/builder culture where nearly 3 in 4 Millennials believe “our generation is starting a movement to change old, outdated systems.” Put more broadly, if the American Dream isn't working as promised, Millennials will take it upon themselves to create the next “version” of America. The heady mix of forces driving this generation is only partly due to their sense of needing to fix something broken. The other, even more potent, side of the coin is the primacy they place on their own power of creativity. When asked "what word best defines the DNA of your generation?” the number one response was "Creative" and number two “Self-expressive.” A full 70% of Millennials in the study agreed "Creativity will save us!” One of the first places we checked on our journey was Detroit. We were fascinated by the dynamics at work with a younger generation busy appropriating, fixing and remixing the American Dream – transforming abandoned factories into hack spaces, disused cycle tracks into playgrounds, distressed storefronts into galleries for emerging artists and untangling arcane local government departments. Millennials have the motivation and DNA to run wild with innovation, but they also have access to the tools, technologies and platforms to make a real difference. In fact, 92% of Millennials feel “empowered” by technology (versus just 11% who feel overwhelmed by it). What the generation is busy fixing and making is interesting to watch, for sure. But perhaps most fascinating is how Millennials are going about innovation and how the next version of the American Dream may manifest. Here are the big takeaways: We do the “chill-hustle” Far from the stereotypes of an entitled, over-trophied generation who lack resilience, we encountered Millennials doing what they call the "chill hustle." Multi-tasking, working five side projects at once, placing a portfolio of project bets, and making it all "look easy." Fifty-five percent of Millennials in our study said, “My hustle is more important than my MBA,” while 78% said “even if I have a job it’s important to have a side project that could become a different career.” They have got what we dubbed “Slashitude,” as in, “I’m a retail associate/CEO/ Techno DJ /food stylist.” Everyone, these days it seems, is a potpourri of evolving and overlapping skills. We HackHacking has jumped from a niche, tech-specific behavior implying something like breaking into someone's database to being a meta-concept approach to problem solving and even business as a whole. To hack is to collectively piece together rapid-fire lateral solutions and workarounds to problems using available resources, creativity and crackling energy. We heard about storyhacks (team solutions to building narrative structures for movies, short films, etc.) and even lifehacks (easy short cuts to those bothersome speed bumps of everyday life like picking up the dry cleaning). And by the way, heads up, The Friday night hackathon is fast replacing the dance club or party for legions of the young creative class. We BetaIn the language of the lean start-up movement, you start with an MVP (minimum viable product), get it into the hands of some users, focus intently on feedback, and then iterate like crazy. For 72% of Millennials, “Life’s like an App. There’s always another version around the corner.” We SwarmWe already know Millennials are essentially a communal generation, and that they move together through social media to leverage change on small and even large scales (think of the social media dimension to the Occupy movement). But what we saw in the Generation Innovation study was the desire for physical proximity around projects - the thrill of sitting together, huddling around a problem, reveling in the serendipity of what Steven Johnson calls “the tangled bank.” We BubbleThe simplest way to describe this is to say that Millennials have an imaginary sign above their imaginary door that says “Haters not welcome.” Using their diverse but like-minded network, seeking environments that promote creativity, and tapping good old-fashioned intuition, the young people we studied built a kind of safety bubble around their projects. A semi-permeable membrane that allowed ideas, influences and constructive criticism through, but kept out the haters, as they believe nothing kills a good nascent idea faster than a certain kind of nay-saying energy. In some of the writing on generational theory, each generation is said to conform to an archetype... the rebel, the magician, the loner and so on. And these archetypes repeat in a cyclical pattern over time. The Millennials, like the post-war "Greatest Generation," were predicted to conform to the Hero archetype. To hear the early stereotypes of this generation, one might have wondered where that Hero was hiding. But if “Generation Innovation” is any indication – with the economy as their battle, technology as their arsenal, and innovation/creativity as their rallying cry – Millennials’ ultimate victory will be, we have absolutely no doubt, quite something to celebrate. Nick Shore is senior vice president of MTV Insights & Innovations.