Ari Merkin, the well-regarded creative agency veteran, is teaming with Richard Lent to relaunch the agency that Lent founded 18 years ago -- AgencyNet. The independent digital shop, with a staff of nearly 40, is being renamed TEN and will focus on brand development using the latest digital tools and techniques. Merkin, a nearly 20-year veteran of the ad industry, has been named chief brand officer and partner at the Fort Lauderdale-based TEN. The shop also has an office in New York. The repositioning of the agency comes amid what Lent and Merkin have termed “the era of the Do Brand,” a period when brands are more active in creating content and experiences for consumers and engaging with their customer bases in ways only recently enabled by a plethora of new digital platforms and channels. “We’ve seen powerful things happen with the partnership of brand-building and digital innovation at the core of what we do,” said Lent. “It’s a creative team structure that we’re applying to every piece of business within the agency.” Previously, Merkin held executive creative director positions at MDC Partners’ Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Fallon. Earlier he was chief creative officer and co-founder of Toy, the now defunct New York-based boutique agency. He is credited with leading the work for the launch of the Mini Cooper as well Truth’s “body bags” anti-tobacco campaign. “We're a digital agency that can solve those big brand problems,” Merkin said of his new agency’s repositioning. TEN’s client roster includes Bacardi, US Air Force, Pencils of Promise, Citizen Watches, and Universal Music Group.
A new AdReaction study on mobile marketing from Millward Brown units Dynamic Logic and Firefly presents a paradox: People don’t like mobile advertising but research suggests it’s more effective than online advertising. The report concludes that mobile represents an opportunity for marketers but that mobile sites, apps and ads too often fail to meet user expectations. "That's the most interesting dichotomy of this study -- the lack of satisfaction with mobile advertising, but the desire for it to succeed,” said Joline McGoldrick, research director, Dynamic Logic. “Consumers want mobile ads to target them effectively." According to the AdReaction study, only 9% of Americans surveyed view mobile advertising very or somewhat favorably, putting it on par with non-opt-in emails. It lands at the bottom of a list of eight online ad segments, including opt-in display (28%), online display (22%) and online video (16%). Attitudes toward mobile advertising have hardly improved since 2009, when 7% expressed a favorable view of the ad category. When asked about specific ad formats on smartphones and tablets, the figures were somewhat better, especially for tablets. Mobile display ads on smartphones, for example, were viewed favorably by 13%, and by 16% on tablets. Similarly, 12% approved of in-app ads on smartphones and 18% on tablets. Brand posts in social news feeds had the highest favorability rating, at 18% on smartphones and 22% on tablets. Younger people, men and iPhone and iPad users were generally more receptive to mobile ads than other demos. Americans as a whole take a dimmer view of mobile advertising than those in other countries. In the U.S., the disconnect stems from users' assumptions that mobile will work as well as the desktop Web, will target messages accurately and will offer an exchange of tangible value. “Consumers are asked for too much personal information, mobile apps and sites aren't working as expected or desired, and mobile marketers are not targeting effectively, which leads to unfavorable attitudes toward mobile advertising," said McGoldrick. Still, prior research by Dynamic Logic’s AdIndex brand metrics system has shown that mobile ads are approximately four times more effective than online ads at increasing brand awareness, message association and purchase intent. The new AdReaction study also found that a third of study participants had taken action in response to mobile advertising and a third said receiving deals or promotions on mobile improves their opinion of a brand. Based on its findings, Dynamic Logic and Firefly put together a set of seven “principles,” for marketers to follow in mobile. These include recommendations such as making messages contextually relevant, focusing on engagement, playing to mobile’s strengths as a personal and portable medium, and providing value in return for access to consumers’ mobile phones. In that vein, deals and coupons were the types of things people wanted to see most (44%) from brands on their mobile devices. The AdReaction 2012 study was based on online surveys of more than 6,000 smartphone or tablet users in Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, UK and the U.S. It also included qualitative research (online forums and in-depth interviews) in most of those countries, including the U.S.
What could be a blow to Google will likely turn solid gold for Apple. General Motors introduced the first two cars that will integrate voice assist search technology Siri and search engine Safari. The next version of the Chevrolet Spark and Sonic LTZ and RS, which will roll into dealerships in 2013, were showcased at the Los Angeles International Auto Show Tuesday. Siri will allow consumers to make voice-activated, hands-free calls to Contacts on their iPhone, play songs in the iTunes library and switch between music sources automatically from AM/FM/XM radio to iPod, send email or text messages, and access calendars and add appointments through what GM calls the "Eye Free Mode." Scott Fosgard, technology and product development communications manager at GM, makes it clear the technology will not provide answers to complex questions that require displaying a Web page. The Eyes Free mode will block more complex activities that might create a distraction and cause a motorist to look at the phone or the car’s video screen. "A button on the steering wheel will allow consumers to access Siri," Fosgard said. No word on the future of advertising in the Siri app, but audio ads seem likely with Siri Vice President Bill Stasior at the helm since October. Stasior once ran Amazon's A9 search and advertising business unit. Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Honda and Toyota also are working with Apple to add Siri capability. The intent to integrate the technology was originally announced in June. The feature competes with Ford Motor Co.'s Sync feature from Microsoft. Siri will connect to MyLink through the vehicles' Bluetooth technology. The three models aim to appeal to tech-savvy youth, but Siri could integrate later into other models. GM estimates as much as 90% of their buyers have smartphones. Both model cars, Spark and Sonic, will come with six months of OnStar’s premium directions and connections service.
Dividing the country down the middle, half of U.S. consumers now view over-the-top (OTT) video through broadband connections on their TVs, in addition to the content they traditionally watch via cable or satellite. Consumers are also viewing content on mobile devices, creating video playlists, posting videos on social media, and learning about new TV programs and video offerings through social networks, the consulting firm found. “We are seeing a seismic shift in consumer viewing habits,” said Robin Murdoch, a managing director in Accenture’s Media & Entertainment industry group. “The connected consumer is now comfortable viewing TV shows and video on a variety of screens, as well as sharing opinions of that content via social channels or recommendation engines.” The survey found that younger viewers are leading the way in using these new technologies to view video content. Domestically, 82% of consumers between the ages of 18 and 24 watch some OTT video, with 60% watching at least a quarter of their video over-the-top compared to 32% of U.S. consumers overall. Younger consumers are also more likely to discover new content through social networks, as opposed to learning about it through commercials or programming guides. The survey showed that 35% of 18-to-24 viewers are interested in social newsfeeds of videos that friends have watched, compared with 11% of consumers age 45+. Today, 49% of consumers between the United States and the United Kingdom subscribe to a range of video delivery services, indicating that OTT video consumption has grown at a remarkable rate since last measured by Accenture in March 2011 at 8%. The industry is now witnessing subscription and access levels similar to those for satellite among the online group surveyed. In the U.S., 27% of those surveyed subscribe to OTT services such as Netflix Instant Streaming, compared with 28% who subscribe to satellite. What’s more, 16% of U.S. consumers subscribe to gaming console-based video delivery services, and 4% subscribe to set-top subscription services such as Apple TV, Boxee or Google TV. Based on a weighted average, respondents who use social media had, on average, over three friends who posted videos at least once per day, while 38% of respondents had posted or re-posted video online via social media. Most often, this involved consumers sharing videos posted by friends -- 51% overall -- reinforcing the viral nature of video-sharing online.
Three advertising trade groups are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to agree to hear an appeal by tobacco companies that is challenging restrictions on cigarette marketing.The ad industry groups argue that the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act violates cigarette companies' free speech rights. Among other provisions, the law bans companies from using color and images in most tobacco advertising, prohibits tobacco purveyors from sponsoring sporting or entertainment events, restricts statements about "modified risk" products and requires companies to use graphic warnings in ads."These restrictions and requirements strike at the heart of advertiser rights to convey truthful information about legal products to adults," the Association of National Advertisers, American Advertising Federation and American Association of Advertising Agencies argue in a friend-of-the-court brief. "Moreover, the Tobacco Control Act could serve as a template for regulations aimed at disfavored products that would impair commercial speech far beyond tobacco-related issues."A coalition of tobacco companies challenged the law in court. In March, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld most of the law, including provisions banning tobacco companies from sponsoring sporting or entertainment events, and prohibiting cigarette makers from distributing free gifts with purchases. The appeals court also upheld requirements that graphic warnings must account for at least the top 20% of ads. But the court also ruled that some portions of the law are unconstitutional, including the ban on color and images in tobacco ads.Earlier this month, the tobacco companies asked the Supreme Court to take the case. The ad groups are backing that request, arguing that the regulations in the Tobacco Control Act could spread to other industries. "A paternalistic rule that forces companies to devote space on their packaging and in ads for government-mandated images that 'inflame' and attempt to dissuade consumers from purchasing lawful products leaves no product safe from such regulation."The ad organizations also contend that prohibiting tobacco companies from sponsoring events "reflects an expansive view of government authority to decide what commercial speech is 'unfit' for children."
AgilOne has secured a $10 million Series B investment round led by Mayfield Fund, with participation from Sequoia Capital. The company said Wednesday it will use the funding to strengthen its sales, marketing, and engineering departments. The Series A round led by Sequoia Capital in 2011 brings the total investment to $16 million. The Mountain View, Calif. cloud-based predictive marketing intelligence firm has worked to support Bosch, ideeli, Moosejaw, PetCareRx, and Shazam reduce customer turnover and increase marketing effectiveness. Managing and integrating data from multiple sources and retaining data quality remain the biggest challenges. Along with the funding, AgilOne has released its flagship platform. The collection of predictive marketing tools based on an intelligent platform provides insight into customer data across all channels, from the Web and social sites to mobile and in-store purchase. The platform processes the data and recommends the actions that marketers should take. AgilOne CEO Omer Artun, a Ph.D. in computational neuroscience and physics, said he started the company based on his own experience as a "frustrated marketer." He said digital marketing technology lacks the complete view of customers, their behavior, and the ability to predict interests. One feature of the product aims to help marketers understand different interests by grouping consumers into cluster or audience segments that behavior similarly. It helps marketers understand that these clusters represent different personas that might change as their interests change. "We've seen click and engagement rates rise 100%, as marketers better understand the process," Artun said. For one catalog marketer, an understanding of online behavior, email engagement, and purchase behavior can help to recommend who and when should get a catalog. AgilOne managed to reduce about 20 to 25% of their marketing spend, Artun explains, pointing to the platform's calculation and predictive engine.
Siding with Miami Heat minority owner Raanan Katz, a judge in Florida has taken the rare step of issuing an injunction banning a blogger from making defamatory posts about Katz. The blogger's lawyer, Marc Randazza, says the order is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. "There is almost nothing clearer, under American law, than the lack of availability of a preliminary injunction to stop allegedly defamatory speech," Randazza says. The ruling grows out of a dispute between Katz -- owner of the real estate development company R.K. Associates -- and the author of the blog located at Rkassociatesusa.blogspot.com, which criticizes Katz as a landlord. Katz sued the blog authors in state court in Florida for defamation. He also filed a separate lawsuit in federal court in Florida, alleging that the bloggers infringed copyright by posting a photo of Katz on the blog. When Katz sued, he didn't know the identity of the blog authors. But after filing the case, he identified one of the blog creators as Irina Chevaldina, a former tenant. (Another defendant was identified in court papers as Dmitri Chevaldine.) Last week Ellen Leesfield, a state court judge in Miami-Dade County, issued a preliminary injunction that included a provision banning Chevaldina and others connected to the blog from "directly or indirectly publishing any blogs or any other written or spoken matter calculated to defame (Katz)." The libel case hasn't yet gone to trial, and Leesfield hasn't ruled on whether any of the blog posts actually were defamatory. But legal experts say it's almost always unconstitutional to issue pre-trial rulings banning defendants in libel lawsuits from speaking. "I don't see how this order complies with the First Amendment," says Jeff Hermes, Director of the Citizen Media Law Project, hosted by Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He adds that preliminary injunctions banning future speech are considered prior restraints -- which are almost always unconstitutional. He says that another problem with the order is that it aims to prohibit the bloggers from defaming Katz, but figuring out whether particular speech is defamatory is a legal question that bloggers aren't always in a position to answer. "Somebody who's trying to comply with those orders doesn't know whether what they write would violate them," Hermes says. In general, only assertions of fact -- and not opinions -- can be defamatory. But questions about whether a particular statement is meant to be taken as fact, or is just hyperbole, aren't easily resolved. Almost as soon as the order was signed, Katz moved to hold Chevaldina and others in contempt for three posts issued in November. Those posts discussed litigation against Katz. But Florida law generally says that discussions about court proceedings can't be the basis of defamation findings. For that reason, combined with the other problems posed by the injunction, legal experts don't think that a contempt order would hold up, should Leesfield issue one. "Only an extraordinarily broad reading of the injunction would support a contempt finding, and it would be on shaky grounds if appealed," says Internet legal expert Venkat Balasubramani.
As conservatives regroup following the Republican defeat in the 2012 presidential election, attention is turning once again to the role of news media, which many conservatives have accused of left-wing bias. Cox Media Group, which owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is planning to launch a national news Web site targeting conservative audiences, according to recruitment ads posted on Mediabistro and other media Web sites. While the as-yet-unnamed Web site aims for national coverage, it will apparently come with a decided regional slant. The Cox ads describe it as “rooted in the South, away from the right and left coasts” and targeting “heartland conservatives.” According to one job posting: “The editor must establish a strong ideological narrative and lead the editorial team to find stories that mirror or magnify it.” At the same time, the site is described as “independent (nonpartisan)” and “anti-propaganda.” Despite the alleged left-wing media charge, the news site will have some stiff competition. Over the past decade, Fox News has made itself into the country’s most popular cable news network, with a combination of conservative opinion and right-leaning news reporting. Talk radio is dominated by right-wing hosts; Rush Limbaugh is still the most popular American radio talk show host. On the Web, there are scores of right-wing political blogs, some of which are now venturing beyond commentary into primary news creation, including The Druge Report, Breitbart.com and hotair.com. In print media, veteran conservative stalwarts like The National Review and The Weekly Standard have been joined by some newer publications in recent years, including the print edition of Newsmax, which had 215,000 paying subscribers in 2011.
For anyone surveying the modest but expanding landscape of online video providers, such as Netflix, the point at which we start to see meaningful competition between suppliers is approaching.To date, it’s all been about finding and building an audience and seeing all boats rise together, but the data now suggests that this phase of the sector’s development is coming to an end. The prospect of a more competitive environment looms large.After all, there is only a certain pace at which the sector can expect to cream off a percentage of cable and satellite viewers (whether through cord-cutting or as additional services). The number of prospective customers is likely to be finite for the foreseeable future also.Just last week in MediaPost’s "Video Daily News," Daisy Whitney penned an article based on findings from a survey of 1,100 people, which pointed to this fact. The dominance of Netflix, while still intact, is being eroded by Amazon in total numbers and also in the number of people using both services.As Whitney notes in her article, the big question for Netflix is whether the growing number of people trying Amazon will opt to switch or choose to maintain both services.In my mind, Amazon has a clear advantage. Quite apart from an incredibly well-regarded, trusted and transaction-based brand, it has one major and very tangible asset in the competition for online video customers that Netflix cannot hope to match: Free delivery.For the many who already subscribe to Amazon Prime, the addition of the video service is a no-cost addition to the highly appealing guarantee of no-cost delivery of everything from books and electronics to garden furniture. For that group, it is difficult to see what Netflix has to offer in a straight comparison.I have access to both and have been a user of Amazon Prime, due to my pre-existing membership, but in trying out my free month of membership to Netflix, I’m finding it hard to see enough different content to justify the cost. My family and I frequently spend nothing on Amazon Prime video in a month, but will still watch our fill. The free content is fine for us, barring the occasional movie.The result is that the fixed monthly fee for Netflix feels like an additional payment for not much additional benefit (if any). This is compounded by the fact that the access to videos doesn’t feel like there’s any cost involved, as I pay for a year’s unlimited “free” delivery. To my mind -– and no doubt many others -– the video component is a nice added extra.My consumption patterns may well change over time, but my bet is that if Amazon continues to successfully market Prime as a means of obtaining fixed cost delivery for anything bought on the site, as well as the streaming video service, then Netflix will continue to see erosion of its dominance until it resembles the position of the major broadcast networks.
Black Friday is like the “annual report” for mobile advertising – a yearly snapshot of how mobile ads are progressing and evolving. The big challenges are perennial – the gap between time spent on mobile and ad dollars allocated, consumer perception of mobile ads as annoying and intrusive, and low click rates. But every Black Friday, innovations and learnings from the past year move the needle on these challenges. I asked John Shomaker, the CEO of AdJuggler, a digital ad management technology and media services company, for five trends we’re likely to see during this year’s shopping season: 1. Smart, hyper-local mobile campaigns will create a new shopping experience. Mobile advertisers are figuring out more effective hyper-local, geo-targeting campaigns that reflect the way consumers want to combine in-store shopping with product research on their smartphones. According to Shomaker: “Consumers want to find deals on their mobile devices they can use in physical stores they’re out visiting. Smart mobile advertisers are geo-targeting the perimeter of their physical store locations, and those of their competitors, with ads that offer special in-store promotions. Layer on top of that contextual relevance like keyword targeting and you can serve a product-specific creative that links to a relevant product page and promotion on the store’s mobile website or app, enhancing the in-store experience. The mobile ad and its click-through becomes an extension of the path the user is on; it’s no longer annoying and intrusive.” 2. Behavioral relevance will scale to reach holiday shoppers. “Targeting mobile users by behavioral segments and executing these campaigns at scale using real-time bidding [RTB] is making us better at being relevant,” according to Shomaker. Pulling in social “likes” and shares and adding those to the audience segmentation model further improve the relevance of behavioral targeting. As mobile ads become less annoying and more relevant, clicks increase, thus creating an empirical basis for more mobile ad spend. 3. Successes are likely to occur in social, local and mobile. John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers coined “SoLoMo,” to predict huge business value as social, local and mobile converge. Doerr’s view is that on Black Friday, we’re going to see SoLoMo become reality. The Wall Street Journal reported that this past year, P.F. Chang’s “Lunar New Year” promotion saw 1 million people in one hour click, retweet or otherwise interact with a promoted tweet offering dining rewards to users, including those who searched on “Chinese New Year.” Shomaker says: “We saw that 70 percent of the audience response to this SoLoMo campaign was via a mobile device. P.F. Chang immediately shifted the entire campaign budget to mobile.” 4. Consumers will overcome the “fear factor.” The IAB Rising Stars Program keeps user context and teaches audiences that it’s “awesome” to click mobile ads. Users fear the unknown, and this likely plays a role in today’s low response to mobile ads. Will clicking a mobile ad take you out of your app and lose your context? Not so, according to Shomaker. “The ads aren’t designed like that, because no one wants an ad to take them away from the place they want to be. The ‘IAB Rising Star’ ad units will allay those fears.” The Mobile Filmstrip unit, Pull unit, Adhesion Banner, Full-Page Flex unit, and the Slider unit take great care to bring brand assets into the ad rather than requiring a jump outside the app or a loss of context. It also all leverages touch, to keep mobile users engaged and in control. 5. Integration of mobile ads into multichannel campaigns will result in better lift. It’s widely believed that Black Friday will be a “multichannel holiday” because advertisers have learned to improve lift by integrating smartphone ads, tablet ads, Web, TV, even earned media/owned media/paid media campaigns to improve lift. “This last one is especially worth watching,” states Shomaker. “Display campaigns [i.e., paid media] now can feature a call to action in the social experience – for example, preference sharing or a social game. The interstitial page of the ad links to a social media marketing application, which is located at a deep link within the brand’s Facebook page [owned media]. Users ‘like’ the brand and socially share their preferences with all users in their social graph [earned media].” This lift in social sharing, or earned-media lift, has proved important to marketers. The odds of a Facebook fan purchasing something from a brand are 5.3 times higher than for non-fans, according to Forrester Research’s report “The Facebook Factor.” All told, mobile promises to become a much larger part of the marketing mix this holiday shopping season. It will also provide a window into how quickly the third screen gets adopted into commerce as a whole. Happy shopping.