Havas Worldwide has promoted Sarita Bhatt to director of global strategy, a new post at the agency. She will work with the network’s global clients to help shape their digital and social-marketing strategies and creative approaches. Those clients include chocolatier Hershey’s and yogurt marketer Danone.She will report to Andrew Benett, global president of Havas Worldwide. Benett said the move would “further bolster our strong digital offering to our largest clients.” Previously, Bhatt was managing director of social platforms at Havas Worldwide New York, where she oversaw the development of implementation of digital and social programs for clients such as General Electric, Dos Equis, Live Nation, Johnnie Walker, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck Consumer Care. She also led new business efforts within the digital and social space at the New York office. Bhatt first joined Havas Worldwide three years ago as director of digital planning for Tonic, the agency’s health and wellness consultancy. Havas Global CEO David Jones said the creation of the new role and Bhatt’s appointment to it “underscores our commitment to a digital-at-the-core strategy.” He credited that strategy with a recent streak of new business wins in the digital sector, including the global digital agency-of-record assignment from Hershey’s, and the shop’s appointment by Unilever in November to manage its global data business. Expedia, Ibis, Lego, Nokia and Sony Playstation have also recently awarded the agency new digital assignments. With her promotion, Bhatt joins the global strategy team at Havas Worldwide that is led by Marianne Hurstel, who holds the titles of global chief strategy officer at the agency and vice president of BETC, a creative unit within Havas Worldwide.
Independent agency trading desk Accordant Media this morning unveiled a platform for buying mobile audiences via a real-time bidding. The platform, dubbed Accordant Mobile, enables advertisers and media buyers to trade mobile as part of an integrated RTB process, including targeting, tracking, reporting and machine-based optimization. Accordant said it had been developing the mobile platform over the past year, and made it active with a number of clients in August. The platform enables users to bid for real-time impressions on both mobile Web and in-app mobile inventory. Accordant VP-Platforms James Rooney said the platform utilizes audience-targeting data derived from “the device ID” and the IP source to create a “short-lived” user impression. One of the major obstacles in developing a robust programmatic marketplace for mobile ad inventory has been the inability to effectively target mobile users with cookie-based audience profile data. Rooney said Accordant will “build” on the rudimentary targeting features of its mobile platform, and that in-app inventory will enable advertisers to utilize a “permanent ID” associated with mobile users.
Back in August, Facebook began testing its page post ad unit in the newsfeed. The format, which turns any post on a brand page into a Facebook ad, is intended to reach anyone -- not just fans of a page. Previously, a page could only advertise in the newsfeed if users already “liked” it or had a friend who did, as with Sponsored Stories. The ads -- like a regular post from a page that someone is a fan of -- will include a “Like Page” button in the top right corner and be labeled as "sponsored" at the bottom. How are page posts in the newsfeed working? A new study by Facebook ad partner Nanigans suggests the unit is outperforming the social network’s standard displays ads in the right column. The company based its findings on campaigns run on behalf of multiple retailers, delivering a total of 975 million impressions from December through January. It found that page post ads in the feed had, on average, 14% higher ROI than standard marketplace ads on Facebook and generated a 45 times higher click-through rate, with average CTR across some campaigns of more than 3.3%. Page post ads also generated, on average, 68% lower cost-per-click (CPCs) and 48% lower cost-per-action, with the action being registering for the retailer’s site. CPCs for page post ad campaigns ranged from 14 cents to 26 cents. The study also compared page post ads on mobile devices versus the desktop. The mobile ads had 1.9 higher click rates and 46% lower CPCs than those on the PC. Facebook itself has previously highlighted higher engagement rates for Sponsored Stories in the newsfeed than on the right side of pages, so page post ads would appear to follow the same pattern. That also means page post ads could become more common in users’ feeds. “The compelling performance results in this study -- most notably the 14% lift in ROI -- suggest that retailers will spend portions of their advertising budgets on News Feed placements in combination with other Facebook ad buys,” said Marc Grabowski, COO at Nanigans, a Facebook strategic preferred marketing developer. Facebook could shed more light on the performance of page post and other ad formats when it reports fourth-quarter financial results on Wednesday.
Google product listing ad (PLA) share, as a percent of total search clicks, rose 210% in 2012, according to Marin Software, but the real insight will come through a deeper understanding of intent from the clicks. The percent of PLA impressions vs. text ads rose 60%, leading advertisers to increase their share of search budgets directed toward the image ads by nearly 600% in Q4. Google transitioned Google Shopping from a free to paid model in October. The transition to a paid from a free service made advertisers pay more attention to clicks and what they pay, according to Marin SVP Matt Lawson. Consumers clicking on image ads reveal much more information about themselves than those clicking on text ads. Intent and interest in specific products or brands become clearer. For example, image ads support long-tail marketing strategies because they are specific to a product or services. Text-based ads are typically more generic and based on quality, price, and selection, Lawson said. "Both try to capture a slightly different intent," he said. Marketers could collect the data from PLA clicks to build specific audience segments for retargeting. It's not clear whether Google uses the PLA click data to get smarter about ads it serves cross-device: desktop, tablets and smartphones. Similarly, Rimm-Kafmann's Group's Q4 2012 report notes that PLAs generated 28% of Google non-brand clicks for the quarter. PLA cost per clicks came in at 26% lower than CPCs for competitive text ads. The research shows a larger-than-average gap between bids and CPCs paid for PLAs, suggesting light competition for the new format during the quarter. Marin drives $4 billion in annual ad spend through its tech platform. The company claims to manage about $1 in every $10 spent on Google AdWords.
As image recognition gains momentum from consumers switching to a picture-based Web experience, Pinfluencer will show brands how to identify the images driving the most traffic from Pinterest and eventually the Web. The marketing-and-analytics company officially launched a parse engine Tuesday. The image recognition technology analyzes raw data based on URL patterns and SEO tags to help marketers identify images and products that are generating engagement for their brand on Pinterest and driving traffic back to their company sites. The technology supports Sephora, Etsy, Z Gallerie, Orbitz and others tracking hundreds of results from contests and sweepstakes on Pinterest, some of which averaged $0.64 in revenue per pin in December 2012. "We found images might appear on multiple pages and needed a technology that reports much more accurate analytics," said Sharad Verma, Pinfluencer CEO. Verma called the technology "image duplicate detection," described as "a multilevel negative selection algorithm" that filters images, not duplicates. Marketers want to identify the most visually stimulating images that will prompt consumers to share across the Web. Verma said Pinfluencer plans to expand its offering to collect visual data beyond Pinterest. It will monetize traffic to landing pages from social visits powered by pins, comments, recommendations and thumbs up on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and newer ecommerce platforms and shopping apps, such as wanelo, gojie, fab, and thefancy. Pinfluencer has powered more than 100 Pinterest contests and sweepstakes. Brands using the Pinfluencer Promotions platform saw their follower acquisition growth rate increase by 156%, while pins per day rose 125%. The company also supports integration with analytics providers Adobe, Coremetrics, and Google.
Yahoo’s fourth-quarter financial results showed Marissa Mayer still has plenty of work to do to reignite growth at Web giant, especially on the display ad side. Search advertising, however, was again a bright spot in the quarter. The company on Monday reported adjusted earnings of 32 cents a share, compared to 25 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue -- minus payments to partner sites -- was $1.2 billion, up 4% from a year ago. Analysts, on average, had expected Yahoo to post a profit of 28 cents share and revenue of $1.2 billion. Since taking over as Yahoo CEO six months ago, Mayer has laid out broad plans to revitalize the company by upgrading the user experience and focusing on mobile development as Web consumers increasingly shift to handheld devices. But the ex-Google executive has acknowledged that the task of restoring Yahoo to its former glory could take years. In the earnings announcement, she noted that Yahoo's revenue growth in 2012 was up for the first time in four years, with a 2% gain. “We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we’re seeing early positive trends,” Mayer said during the conference call. She added the company has identified a dozen key properties it will focus on overhauling after relaunching Yahoo Mail and a new Flickr app in the quarter. Search is one of the core areas at Yahoo that Mayer aims to revamp, expressing disappointment with the company’s long-term search agreement with Microsoft. Revenue from search advertising, minus payments to ad partners, in the fourth quarter rose 14% from a year ago to $427 million. That’s up even from the 11% gain in the third quarter. Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan stated in a Monday report that channel checks have shown Yahoo has maintained relative strength in monetization, or revenue per search. With this quarter, Yahoo introduced new metrics for both search and display, reflecting the volume and pricing of ads. The number of paid clicks in the fourth quarter increased 11%, for example, while the price per click went up 1%. Mayer said that holiday shopping likely boosted paid clicks in the fourth quarter, with users clicking on multiple ads in the same search. She also sounded a more positive note on the search alliance with Microsoft during the conference call, suggesting the companies’ teams were working well together. Even so, Yahoo continues to trail Google and Bing in search market share. According to comScore, Yahoo’s search share was roughly flat at 12% in the U.S. in December, with overall query volume falling 21% in the U.S. and 22% worldwide. Yahoo’s other key business -- display advertising -- continued to sputter. Sales fell 5% from a year ago to $520 million. Under COO Henrique De Castro, who joined Yahoo from Google in October, the company’s ad sales operation is shifting to one organized by industry vertical rather than region or type of advertising. “This transitional period, along with some macro softness in Europe continues to be a factor,” wrote JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth in a Yahoo earnings preview. He had projected that display revenue would fall just 1.2% in the fourth quarter to $539 million. Yahoo said the total number of display ads sold fell 10% in the quarter, while the price per ad increased only 7%. According to an eMarketer forecast, Yahoo’s share of the U.S. display ad market is expected to fall to 9.3% this year from 11%, while Google’s will rise to 15% and Facebook’s will remain roughly the same, at 14%. Yahoo’s stock has recently been trading at $20 a share for the first time since 2008 on optimism about Mayer’s ability to revive its status as an online innovator. Its shares were up almost 5% in after-hours trading to more than $21 a share immediately following its earnings announcement. Looking ahead, Yahoo projects net revenue of $1.07 billion to 1.1 billion for the first quarter of 2013, and $4.5 billion to $4.6 billion for the full year.
Payvment, which powers 200,000 Facebook storefronts, said Monday it was shutting down its e-commerce platform and referring its merchant customers to a competing service. Payvment and companion site Lish.com will close down on Feb. 28 and transfer its accounts to Ecwid, a rival social commerce platform with more than 250,000 merchants worldwide. The companies say the partnership is aimed at insuring that customers have a smooth transition to the new service. “F-commerce” pioneer Payvment opened a virtual mall on Facebook in 2011 allowing users to shop at its thousands of stores without having to leave the site. Last year, it added Lish.com, an off-Facebook marketplace offering products that are trending across the social Web. Jim Stoneham, Payvment’s CEO, told AllThingsD, which first reported the service’s planned shutdown, that the company technically wasn’t going out of business. In a letter posted on its Web site, the company stated that its management team was joining another company, which is apparently not Ecwid. Stoneham declined to comment further. Former Payvment CEO Christian Taylor left the company last summer. Despite its enormous user base and high engagement levels, Facebook has yet proven to be a thriving platform for e-commerce. The underlying question is how interested people are in buying products when they’re going on the social network mainly to hang out with friends. In September, the company launched Facebook Gifts as a way for users to easily buy smaller-scale items for friends directly from the newsfeed from scores of retailers. For its part, Ecwid says purchases made through Ecwid-powered storefronts on Facebook increased 65% during the fourth quarter. It adds that inbound links from Facebook to its stores accounted for as much as 8.5% of their holiday-season purchases. The company offers an e-commerce app that it says can be embedded into any Web, blog or Facebook page in a matter of minutes. Its online store-building software is free for stores with 10 or fewer products, with monthly plans for larger stores starting at $15 for 100 products. “Payvment has helped Facebook commerce mature and become a productive marketplace for retailers, particularly small businesses,” stated Jim O’Hara, president of Ecwid, on Monday. “We are excited to partner with Payvment, and are anxious to support their sellers as they begin doing business through their Facebook stores using Ecwid’s platform.” San Diego-based Ecwid currently powers more than 40,000 Facebook storefronts through its shopping cart application geared to the social network. Started in Russia in 2009, the company has received $1.5 million in venture funding from Runa Capital. Financial terms of the deal with Payvment were not disclosed.
Twitter has attracted an investment fund from BlackRock to the tune of $80 million. The investment firm will buy shares from early Twitter employees seeking to liquidate stock options and holdings. The move values the company at more than $9 billion, slightly higher than an investment by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, which pushed the valuation more than a year ago to $8.4 billion. BlackRock, which declined to comment, had to contact employees to provide the means for the investment firm to make an offer, according to sources. Several hundred Twitter employees become eligible to sell their shares as part of the transaction, and some joined the company before 2009. Twitter is rumored to take the company through an IPO later this year. Facebook and Groupon are two other companies that took a similar path, using transactions and secondary markets to cash out existing employees. Estimates put daily Twitter searches at more than 1 billion daily. In fact, WordStream Founder Larry Kim puts that number at roughly two times more than Yahoo and Bing combined. Kim estimates Google searches at around 3 billion daily, worth around $250 billion. Marketers would agree that no other site like Twitter exists. "A $9 billion Twitter valuation is roughly one-twenty-seventh of the Google valuation, which seems about right if you consider their search volume and the work they need to do to more effectively monetize that," Kim said. "It’s roughly one-ninth versus the Facebook valuation." Twitter launched a mobile strategy virtually since day one. Google and Facebook continue to try to make mobile work. Advertising and marketing come naturally on the Twitter platform. "There’s no inherent expectation of privacy on Twitter," Kim said. "So, they don't run into the privacy uproars and EU probes that Facebook runs into every time they try to make data available to advertisers and third parties for monetization and advertising purposes." Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.
Popular texting service WhatsApp violated foreign privacy laws by requiring users to share their contacts' mobile phone numbers, Dutch and Canadian officials said on Monday. "Users of WhatsApp -- apart from iPhone users who have iOS 6 software -- do not have a choice to use the app without granting access to their entire address book," Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Dutch Data Protection Authority, said in a report issued on Monday. "The address book contains phone numbers of both users and non-users. This lack of choice contravenes (Dutch and Canadian) privacy law." The app allows smartphone users to send text messages without incurring SMS fees from their carriers. When mobile users first install WhatsApp, the service asks for permission to upload the phone numbers of their contacts, in order to determine if they also use the app. The company then enables messages between people who have installed WhatsApp, while anonymizing the numbers of the contacts that have not installed the app. But the Canadian and EU officials say that WhatsApp didn't need users' entire address books to function. Instead, WhatsApp could give users the option to upload contacts individually, the authorities said. (The company now offers that ability to iPhone users running iOS 6 software.) The officials also criticize WhatsApp for anonymizing the numbers of non-users instead of deleting them. Privacy laws in Canada and the EU are broader than in the U.S. In general, the EU and Canada require companies to follow fair information principles, which provide that businesses can't collect more information than necessary for a service to function. WhatsApp doesn't appear to violate U.S. laws by asking users for permission to access their address books or by retaining that data for longer than necessary. But the app still might have to cut back on its data collection in order to comply with other countries' laws, says Jules Polonetsky, co-chair and director of the think tank Future of Privacy Forum. "The global success of apps means that the standard for many U.S. apps may increasingly be set by international data authorities," he says. Dutch and Canadian officials, who conducted a joint probe of the app, also criticized WhatsApp for sending unencrypted messages over WiFi and other questionable security practices. After the investigation began, WhatsApp started encrypting messages and beefed up other security features. Polonetsky says that some of those security issues came to light last year. Kohnstamm and Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, said in their report that WhatsApp has only addressed some of their concerns. Dutch officials will decide whether to launch an enforcement action, while Canadian officials intend to continue to monitor WhatsApp. "In most cases, companies are cooperative in meeting their obligations, and WhatsApp has demonstrated a willingness to fully comply with the OPC [Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada] recommendations," the report says. Several years ago, Stoddart criticized Facebook for allowing third-party developers to access information about members and their friends. After that report came out, Facebook introduced new privacy controls. WhatsApp has not yet responded to requests for comment from Online Media Daily.
As with other industries, the app-driven mobile Web is presenting new opportunities and challenges for food brands. In fact, half of media-savvy mobile users now have at least one restaurant-specific app on their devices, according to new survey-based research from the Interactive Advertising Bureau in partnership with social TV rewards startup Viggle. Like an online bookmark on steroids, apps are attractive to brands because they create a direct link between their services and consumers’ smartphones. Fortunately for food brands with fewer app users, however, mobile consumers show a strong taste for discovery. Indeed, 55% of survey respondents say they have at least one “multi-restaurant” app on their phones -- with Yelp the most popular at 37%, followed by Urbanspoon (24%) and Zagat (9%). What’s more, 44% of survey respondents report regularly using their smartphones or tablets to search for restaurant phone numbers; 39% do so to check out menus; while 38% use their gadgets to search for restaurant locations. “This research highlights the fact that the mobile Internet is increasingly becoming a vital tool to help consumers navigate their everyday lives -- even when it comes to simple tasks, such as ordering a pizza,” said Anna Bager, VP and general manager of Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence at the IAB. “Restaurant and fast-food chain marketers should pay close attention to this trend and take advantage of the opportunities that mobile offers, making it a key part of their ad-buying strategy,” Bager added. How can brands attract the attention of mobile users? According to the IAB and Viggle, financial or other rewards were the best ways to drive short-term adoption of mobile online ordering. A clear majority of respondents (78%) said discounts would make them more likely to order, while nearly two-thirds (64%) said loyalty points would have a similarly positive impact. As we approach one of the nation’s top days for food inhalation, what do consumers have planned for this coming Super Bowl Sunday? Beyond mobile users, 26% already have plans to order takeout or delivery on the big day, the IAB found. Among that group, a full 72% favor pizza, while shockingly, just 24% plan to place orders for Buffalo wings.
In an uncharacteristic move for launching incremental updates to its mobile OS, Apple formally announced Monday afternoon that iOS version 6.1 is now available. The first major update to the OS Apple launched last fall, 6.1, most notably adds LTE high-speed cellular network compatibility for 36 additional iPhone carriers and 23 additional iPad carriers globally. High-speed or 4G access is relevant to Apple’s other emerging services like the cloud-based iCloud and music Match platforms that give users ubiquitous access to their content. The iOS mobile wallet app Passbook gains a promotional element. A card in the app links to featured apps that are Passbook-enabled. On the fun side, iOS 6.1 also upgrades the voice command feature Siri, now integrating the interface with Fandango movie ticketing. Siri can order your movie reservations. Apple continues to promote the power of voice activation and search on its mobile platforms. It makes sense, since Siri searches are channeled into a range of search partners other than company archrival Google. When Siri finds nearby movies, the results include movie times and links that create a ticket ordering screen in the Fandango app. Apple also announced that the OS upgrade allows Match subscribers to download individual tracks to their devices. iOS 6.1 also adds a new ability for users to reset the Advertising Identifier that Apple introduced with 6.0 as a more private replacement for the controversial unique device identifier system. The Advertising Identifier is supposed to be a non-permanent and non-personal system for tracking usage patterns on the phone for better targeting. The new reset option enables the user to force the phone to drop the current identifier for a new one.
Micro-blog Twitter has acquired the year-old startup Crashlytics, a crash detection tool used by a number of iOS app brands, including Twitter itself, Kayak, Yelp, Walmart and Groupon. The company helps developers troubleshoot and find errant code in their apps. Crashlytics works with a number of companies that use Twitter posting and login connectivity but also may provide some competing services like local mobile advertising, offers and search. But Crashlytics assures customers in a company blog post that it will continue to serve its clients. Founders Jeff Siebert and Wayne Chang write: “With today's announcement, much will remain the same. Development of Crashlytics will continue unabated and we remain dedicated to working with all of our customers -- current and new, big and small -- to deliver the key app performance insights they need.” They also say that like Twitter they “share a passion for innovating on mobile and building world-class applications.” The acquisition gives Twitter a revenue stream coming from app development tools. But it also puts the company in direct contact with many major brands using apps and potentially tying into the Twitter ecosystem.
adBrite, an online ad exchange founded in 2002, Monday informed advertisers that it would cease operations on Feb. 1. The San Francisco-based company attributed the decision to “market conditions” and “certain liabilities.”
Aegis Group this morning confirmed it has acquired a majority stake in its affiliate in Bogotá, Colombia. The affiliate, known as Carat Colombia, has served Carat’s global clients in Colombia for more than six years. Terms were not disclosed, but Aegis said it has the option to acquire the remaining shares in five years.
LinkedIn’s stock opened at $45 a year and a half ago. It now sells for $120 per share. Unlike Facebook, one of the primary reasons it has done so well is that LinkedIn found its “killer app” early on and built a business model around it. For recruiters, LinkedIn is the largest (now 200 million members) and most current database of business professionals in the world. For job seekers, it’s a portal into new opportunities, connections and references. To learn more about its capabilities as a recruiting tool, we posted an open account supervisor position for our D.C. office on LinkedIn. The resumes have been coming directly to me for the past month. The applicants are unfiltered by a recruiter or the HR department, so that means I felt the direct shot of the power of LinkedIn. As the hiring manager, I learned a good deal about using the online tool and how job candidates can better marketing themselves for posted positions. Because of the volume generated by LinkedIn, hiring managers have the luxury of trying to find exactly what they are looking for without having to dig too hard to find it. We quickly scan the email summary and the attachments. As a result, candidates need to pay close attention to these six areas: 1. Actually read the job description – Hiring managers and HR personnel spend a great deal of time defining the requirements of open positions. Adapt your resume to highlight those areas that best match what companies are looking for. Don’t make them connect the dots, because they won’t. They’ve already moved on to the next candidate. 2. Customize your cover letter – Tell us why you’re the right candidate for the position in the cover letter, especially if you can’t link it on your resume. Make a compelling case as to why we should spend additional time looking at your resume and background. A generic cover letter is a waste of time -- a sure way to take yourself out of the race. 3. Know that we will check you out – If we find someone we like, we’ll spend time checking that person’s LinkedIn profile, the current and former employers, as well as the candidate’s social profile. For example, a resume that caught my attention was eliminated from the process because I couldn’t find his last two employers on the Web. The takeaway? Companies go out of business or are acquired all the time. Make sure your resume reflects or notes that change. Know that we will “Google” you. 4. Boost your brand mentions – Recruiting firms use keyword searches to pull resumes. I scan resumes also looking for them, too. Again, because of the need for speed, certain words pop. Brand-name companies caught my attention -- whether the candidate worked for them or had them as a client. Schools you attended, the types of skills you have, and your accomplishments, especially if they were award-winning, are all key. I notice the number of LinkedIn connections and references. It does matter, particularly because I’m looking for a good marketer. 5. Using a connection or connections works – Leverage your LinkedIn connections to find a common link to the hiring manager or job poster for an introduction. I trust the recommendations of people I’ve worked with in the past. Do your homework. The closer the connection to the hiring manager or recruiter, the better chance it will get you noticed. 6. Get to the point quickly – I have found executive education programs to be confusing. It took too much of my time to figure out if you graduated or took only a class. Consider moving the latter under skills or experience rather than under education. I also found resumes that were more than two pages too long to read. A summary is good to have upfront, but don’t go beyond more than a third of the page. Highlight experience quickly. Talent is the lifeblood of an agency and, for that matter, most companies. What you think, say and produce grows our business. We need you, and we have jobs. Help make it easier for us to find you by linking your experience and expertise to our needs. Hurry, I need someone, like yesterday.