Google said Tuesday that it has acquired video and special-effects startup Zync Render to build on its video production and cloud-computing services. Zync provided the video and special-effects rendering technology behind "Star Trek Into Darkness" and "Looper." The service -- which supports movie studios with a cloud infrastructure to store large files for full-length tracks -- operates on Amazon cloud-based servers, but the Mountain View, Calif. company plans to move Zync to its own cloud platform. It would require Zync's Hollywood clients to switch from Amazon to Google, and puts one more wedge between the two companies. Zync's software and Google's Cloud Platform will offer studios the rendering performance and capacity required to process huge amounts of data required for special effects. Cloud computing remains one of several competitive challenges that Amazon and Google face. Earlier this week, news organizations reported Amazon's focus on building out an advertising platform to leverage the massive data stores built from its millions of customers and businesses selling merchandise in its online marketplace. Amazon will build a self-service ad platform similar to Google's AdWords that allows brands to target consumers with messages through sponsored links, per reports. Based on search, the queries would return results related to specific keywords. Google and Amazon are not the only companies touting cloud services. Dropbox on Wednesday released new sharing controls and more data storage to 1 terabyte for its Pro service. The passwords for shared links create an additional layer of security so only people with the password can access the link. Users can set an expiration day for shared links to safeguard sensitive files, and list view-only permissions for shared folders to determine whether recipients can edit or simply view files within the shared folder. Another feature allows users to remotely delete files through a feature called Dropbox Remote, which deletes files from a lost or stolen device while keeping them safely backed up in Dropbox.
Across the spectrum of mobile advertising, smartphones handily beat out tablets and in-app advertising outpaced the mobile Web in impression volume in the first half of 2014, according to mobile ad firm Medialets' Mobile & Tablet Advertising Benchmarks report. The vast majority (88.3%) of mobile ads served from January through June, 2014 were served to handsets, with the remaining 11.7% begin served to tablets. In-app inventory accounted for 58.2% of all ads, while the mobile Web made up 41.8% of impressions. For its Mobile & Tablet Advertising Benchmarks report, the company analyzed over 300 billion mobile ad impressions from January 1 through June 30, 2014. A company representative said it’s “all mostly programmatic traffic … analyzed from publishers, networks, DSPs and exchanges.” While smartphones have a big head start, the data suggests that, looking ahead, tablets will command more attention. The click-through rate on tablets was 0.59%. While that is a meager number on its own, it’s 44% higher than the click-through rate on handsets (0.41%). Going deeper, in-app advertising is set to become even more of a focus for advertisers. The click-through rate for in-app ads was 0.56%, compared to just 0.23% for the mobile Web. Retail accounted for 37.9% of all mobile impressions over the first half of the year -- data that is in line with a recent Smaato report that says retail is now the number one vertical when it comes to spend in mobile RTB. Combined, networks and exchanges accounted for less than one-fourth (22.4%) of all impressions. The full breakdown: Network (48.3%), publishers (29.3%), DSPs (18%) and exchanges (4.4%). However, ad exchanges and DSPs are the two fastest-growing mobile inventory sources -- and it’s not even close. Networks saw their inventory growth increase by 84.9% from Q1 to Q2, 2014, while publishers saw 71.7% growth. On the other hand, exchanges saw over 500% growth quarter-over-quarter, and DSPs saw 455.6% growth. The click-through rates from exchanges (0.11%) and DSPs (0.30%), however, are abysmal. Networks (0.60%) and publishers (0.47%) still boast significantly better click rates.
Snapchat is said to be rounding up more capital at a valuation of $10 billion, but Alibaba Group Holding appears to be out of the mix. In its place, Kleiner Perkins is reportedly placing a big bet on Snapchat. The highly visible venture capital firm has already committed upwards of $20 million to the messaging service, according to multiplereports. Snapchat representatives did not return requests for comment, on Wednesday. To date, Snapchat has raised roughly $100 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Benchmark and Institutional Venture Partners, among others. Some notable investors have said they expect the anonymous social networking trend to be short-lived. Yet, the numbers tell a different story. Beating out its social rivals, Snapchat experienced the highest growth in time spent, in July, with total minutes up 114% year-over-year -- from 2.6 billion to 5.5 billion minutes -- according to a recent note from JPMorgan, citing comScore data. (To put those numbers into perspective, Facebook saw its time spend rise from 137 billion to 178 billion minutes, during the same period.) The Wall Street Journal also reported this week that Snapchat has hit 100 million active monthly users. Some industry watchers say Snapchat’s popularity is bad news for advertisers, because it represents a turn toward personal privacy and digital anonymity. Snapchat, however, has every intention of making its network a friendly place for brands. Among other efforts, the company is reportedly developing a new service, dubbed Snapchat Discovery, which will “show content and ads to Snapchat users,” The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month. Sources told WSJ to expect Discovery to debut by November. The company also recently added location-based filters to its growing list of personalization features, which hinted at some big opportunities for brands. Indeed, a video demonstrating the “geofilters” featured users snapping selfies in front of a SoulCycle, a Groundwork coffee shop and Disneyworld. Suggesting a clear path to promotional initiatives, each location offered visitors branded images to include in their snaps. Upon its launch in July, agencies and social media pros said they saw dollar signs in the new feature. “For brands, while it's still a fairly shallow way to engage with the program … the opportunity to position a logo on snaps taking place at a retail or event location is of course an attractive prospect,” said Grace Gordon, strategy director at social agency We Are Social. Many on Madison Avenue have been happy to experiment with Snapchat. Following Taco Bell’s lead, McDonald's joined the service earlier this year, while Heineken recently relied on Snapchat to connect with festival goers at Coachella. Among brands, other early adopters include Juicy Couture, Seventeen, NPR and HBO's "Girls." To bolster its business side, Snapchat also recently poached the global director of Facebook’s Preferred Marketing Developer program, Mike Randall. Randall officially serves as vice president of business and marketing partnerships at Snapchat. For a while, vanishing pictures helped Snapchat stand out in a messaging market dominated by giants like Facebook and Apple. Yet, the company has been pushing into other areas, such as live-event coverage and more mainstream mobile messaging services. For example, the company recently hitched its “Our Story” feature to FIFA’s World Cup final. The service’s entire community was given access to a stream of curated content created by those lucky enough to attend the big game between Argentina and Germany. Snapchat debuted “Stories” late last year -- a feature that lets users save and share photos for up to 24 hours. Adding a collaborative component to the service, the start-up more recently unveiled “Our Story,” so people at the same events can combine their own “snaps” into a single “story.” Snapchat also recently rolled out a text- and video-messaging feature named Chat, while making it easier for users to save their exchanges with friends.
Guitar Center is playing a new tune. The music equipment retailer has named Publicis Groupe's media agency Starcom USA to oversee its U.S. planning, buying, analytics, and "human experience" strategy business. The assignment will be run out of Starcom's Los Angeles office. Eddie Combs, SVP of Marketing at Guitar Center, cited Starcom’s blend of classic media approaches and grasp of analytics as key factors in landing this account. Others participating in the review included incumbent Horizon Media, as well as UM, the IPG Mediabrands shop and Los Angeles-based independent Palisades Media, according to sources. “We are thrilled to begin our partnership with Guitar Center,” said Starcom USA CEO Lisa Donohue. “Coupling our team’s passion for designing meaningful consumer experiences with our rigorous data-led approach, we look forward to evolving the Guitar Center brand into the future." The company spent nearly $22 million on ads in the past year, according to Kantar. The agency shift originally began in September 2013 after its agency KSL Media filed for bankruptcy. Horizon Media assumed duties with the understanding that the company would launch a formal review in the coming months. Starcom will now handle Guitar Center's s "All we sell is the Greatest Feeling on Earth" campaign. Last week, Guitar Center announced DJ and producer Steve Aoki as the latest artist ambassador, following appearances by Questlove (The Roots) and James Hetfield (Metallica). Aoki’s spot will debut nationwide on August 18, 2014. The campaign – which runs across print, broadcast, digital and online – was created by Guitar Center with each artist sharing their personal experience about the joy that music brings to their lives. Guitar Center is continuing to roll out new commercial spots and additional artist ambassadors on a quarterly basis. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Guitar Center, which continues to evolve its Vision 2020 initiative, whose broad goal is to grow revenue to $3 billion by 2020. Based in Westlake Village, CA, Guitar Center has over 260 retail stores across the U.S.
In its effort to increase the relevance of Ck one fragrance for Gen Y, Coty says its digital #ckmeforme effort, powered by Snapchat, Tumblr and Twitter, is providing plenty of lessons in how to drive digital engagement. The Ck one brand — which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year — already has a strong millennial following, which relies heavily on social channels as well as such celebs as Korean pop star Taeyang, singer/songwriter Dev Hynes, and such models as Edie Campbell and Lucky Blue. “But when we went into TV production for the new campaign, we wanted to develop a true 360-degree campaign — one that had digital at its core,” Kristen D’Arcy, VP, global digital at Coty, tells Marketing Daily. Coty then created a room it called the Self Exploration Lab, and during production asked all the talent connected with the shoot to use their smartphones to take pictures, selfies and video. “We then used that exclusive content — about 200 pieces — to seed the new campaign,” she says, “asking users to take their turn.” (Some fans found the Ck one Snapchat account via Tumblr, while others found it via high-profile models and influencers, including Taeyang.) The results of the effort, launched back in June, have been “fantastic,” she says. In Snapchat, where it claims to be the first fragrance campaign, “we have seen more than 1 million views in just a month and a half.” She adds that its engagement scores on the platform, which reportedly has a median user age of 18 and is said to be tapped daily by some 77% of college students, “are also really strong, even compared to other categories.” D’Arcy says the brand has achieved 15% engagement on Snapchat, and some 150,000 views on Tumblr. And the effort’s Twitter exposure has reached 10 million. “We’re really happy,” she says, “and we’re now figuring out how we can create these social results sooner and better for other brand campaigns.” In addition to seeing changes in other upcoming Calvin Klein fragrance efforts, she says Coty has also been stepping up digital efforts among such brands as Sally Hansen and Rimmel. In its most recent quarterly results, Coty reported a 4% increase in sales of all its fragrances, to $508.1 million.
Hulu says in new court papers that it's entitled to prevail in a lawsuit accusing the company of violating a federal privacy law by allegedly sharing users' personal information with Facebook. The lawsuit centers on allegations that Hulu wrongly shared information with Facebook via the “Like” button, which loads automatically when users watch video on Hulu.com. Between April of 2010 and June of 2012, the “Like” button was configured so that it transmitted titles of the videos that people watched to Facebook's server -- regardless of whether users clicked the button to indicate that they “liked” the clips. Hulu argues in its newest court papers that there's no evidence it knew that adding Facebook's “Like” button to the site would result in the transmission of information about users to Facebook -- which was accomplished via cookies. “Nothing in this comprehensive record shows a knowing disclosure of [personally identifiable information] by Hulu,” the company argues in a motion for summary judgment filed on Tuesday with U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in the Northern District of California. “In fact, the evidence shows the opposite: Hulu did not know that Facebook’s cookies contained the Facebook User ID, or what Facebook did, if anything, with any such data.” Hulu adds that it placed the “Like” button on the site in order to enable users to promote content. “It was not done at the request of Facebook or as a result of any negotiations with Facebook,” Hulu says. The consumers who are suing allege that Hulu ran afoul of the federal Video Privacy Protection Act, a 1988 law that prohibits movie rental companies from disclosing information about which videos people watch. Congress passed the law after a newspaper in Washington obtained and published the video rental records of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. Hulu argues in its latest motion that placing a social widget on its pages isn't comparable to disclosing a consumers' movie-viewing history to the media. The company specifically says it isn't “in the same position as a video store owner who purposefully hands a newspaper reporter a piece of paper containing the name of a Supreme Court nominee and the titles of 100 videos that he rented.” Beeler recently narrowed the case against Hulu by dismissing allegations that it violated the law by also transmitting data about users to comScore. She also ruled that the consumers weren't entitled to class-action status -- though lawyers for the consumers have said in court papers that they intend to renew their request to proceed as a class. But the company lost a critical battle in this lawsuit two years ago, when Beeler ruled that the federal video law applies to companies that stream video on the Web. She said in her decision that the law aims protect the privacy of people who watch video regardless of technical format.
Eyeview, an online video ad platform, on Wednesday announced a partnership with LiveRamp, a data on-boarder. LiveRamp lets advertisers bring offline CRM data online to add to and/or create new audience segments. Eyeview claims the partnership will make it easier for clients to connect digital interactions to in-store purchases. “CRM data, especially offline data related to in-store sales, is often underutilized in advertising,” explained Gabi Peles, SVP of client services at Eyeview. “By partnering with LiveRamp and integrating their data, we're able to, for instance, avoid serving an ad for a product that a consumer may have already purchased. Without that knowledge, an irrelevant ad would be served and money would be wasted."
Marketers are keen to move deeper into cross-channel marketing, but they also want more from their campaigns. Namely, they want to better understand the impact of each medium and the path to purchase, according to a report from eMarketer drawing on a survey by the National Advertisers and Forrester Consulting of U.S advertisers. The report also stated that cross-device marketing is the topic that marketers are most eager to learn more about this year. Many marketers are already investing plenty of dollars in multi-screen campaigns as they follow consumer behavior, but now they want to better quantify the results. The current rush to develop content marketing campaigns is also driving the desire for better measurement, the report found. “Marketers risk missing consumers for broad chunks of time if they cannot push content to a digital device,” the report said. “eMarketer estimates that for 2014, those with access to the mobile internet will spend, on average, 2 hours 14 minutes on a smartphone, 2 hours 43 minutes on a tablet, and 2 hours 39 minutes on a desktop." Better cross-screen measurement can illuminate which aspects of a campaign work best and whether brands are effectively moving consumers through the “customer journey.” Nielsen agency solutions EVP David Hohman said in an interview with Beet.TV that one of the big areas for marketing this year lies in attribution. Brands want to analyze the impact of a campaign across screens and measure on which device they’re connecting with their audiences and driving the desired reaction, he has said. That sort of measurement can help marketers deliver the right message on the right device, since screens can be effective in different ways. Some are better at awareness, some at intent and some at purchase.
Spectator sports and social media are a natural pairing, and over the last year quite a few new social networks for sports fans have launched, built around the idea of giving fans more access to their favorite players. Following is a quick round up of some of the new platforms. First up is BreatheSport, a new mobile platform in the U.K. founded by Barry Houlihan, the founder of Mobile Interactive Group. Currently in beta with a public rollout scheduled for later this year, BreatheSport has several different sections, including a more broadcast style area called the “lockerroom,” where players and pundits can post their responses to breaking news and live events, and a more social area, the “fan zone,” where fans and players can engage. Fans can gain more access to their favorite stars by earning rewards on BreatheSport. So far the platform has attracted $1.5 million in investments. Another newish sports-focused social network, Fancred, recently announced that it has raised another $3 million, bringing its total funding so far to $4.5 million. Currently available as an iOS app with an Android app on the way, Fancred allows fans to share memorable moments from sporting events via pictures, gifs, and text. Fans can also follow their team’s feeds, check into venues, plan social TV watching, and post articles for their own followers to read. Along the way they build up their Fancred rating based on their activity on the platform, with various incentives to earn a higher rating and get more engaged. Then there’s Sportlobster, another online social platform and app with several different components. There’s a “Fanzones” section with news functions, which aims to keep fans up to date with scores and blogs from teams, players, and pundits. Users can also write blogs and compete for top spots on the Sportlobster leaderboard by making predictions about matches, sometimes with the chance to win prizes as well. Back in April I wrote about Locker, a Pinterest-style social network where professional and amateur athletes can share the exact details of their gear so other users can outfit themselves in similar fashion. Ultimately Locker aims to facilitate e-commerce by including links to products posted on the network, and will monetize the network by collecting commissions on these sales. Of course there is also plenty of sports fandom going down on established social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Earlier this week I wrote about a partnership between USA Today and Degree deodorant and antiperspirant, which are joining forces to create a new College Football Fan Index, combining social media activity and online voting to determine which football teams have the most committed followings.