• Do CMOs Need To Double As Data Scientists?
    Several weeks ago, I spoke with Claudia Perlich, Media6Degrees' chief data scientist, and asked her to define "data scientist." Her definition spanned four paragraphs, but it boiled down to this: "Data science lives in the intersection of understanding not just the results of the algorithms, but also the subtle caveats of their applicability and the problem that should be solved." With that definition in mind, consider this: Graham Cooke, an ex-Googler and current CEO of Qubit, believes CMOs should become effective data scientists. He believes that's the only way to keep pace with what he calls "real-time retail."
  • Grocery Store = Exchange, Phone Screen = Inventory
    Digital media company Catalina has created a mobile commerce app featuring real-time coupon offers for grocery shoppers. I've had the idea of an ad exchange of grocery stores in pop into my head in the past. In reality, the physical grocery store is the exchange, and ad tech like Catalina is tapping into the available inventory -- the shopper's phone screens -- to serve ads, or in this case, coupons, in real-time. I recently spoke with Patrick Moorhead, Catalina's VP of mobile brand development, about the company's m-commerce offering.
  • Stop Mentioning The Big 'O' Moment
    I noticed something during Ad Week. You probably noticed the same thing. People still can't help but mention the "O" word -- or brand, I guess -- when the topic of real-time marketing comes up. But at the same time, people are ready for it to stop. So ready, in fact, that Kinetic Social's Chief Strategy Officer Carree Syrek tabooed its mention while moderating a panel at OMMA Global at Advertising Week this week. In case you don't know what the "O" is, see below:
  • AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft Walk Into A Bar...And Talk Programmatic? Real-Time With Microsoft's Daniel Sheinberg
    Yesterday's news of Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL coming together to create a common set of API specifications for programmatic direct sales marked what some (with some meaning people with a horse in the race) have called a "watershed moment" for programmatic direct. I'm not yet ready to call it a watershed moment, but the pieces are certainly in place for programmatic direct to take off like, well, programmatic has. I spoke with Daniel Sheinberg, Microsoft's senior director of display marketplaces, about the news.
  • Real-Time With Isocket CEO John Ramey On Programmatic Direct's Huge Stamp Of Approval
    Three of the largest digital premium Web portals -- AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo -- this morning announced an agreement to work together in adopting "programmatic premium," or "programmatic direct," as their sales method of choice. Essentially, AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo have put their collective stamp of approval on programmatic direct and are ready to lead the charge. Programmatic direct is using technology to speed up and automate the process of direct deals. It eliminates Excel spreadsheets, fax machines, RFPs, and IOs from the buying and selling process of inventory. It deals with direct, guaranteed campaigns, and fills "the manual gap …
  • Real-Time With Madison Ave: Choose Your RTM Battles
    What's the biggest challenge in real-time marketing? The question was posed to a panel of all stars at OMMA Global this morning: Val DiFebo, CEO of Deutsh NY; Colin Kinsella, CEO of Mindshare NA; Amanda Richman, president, investment & activation of Starcom USA; and Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i. I've called it brand-jacking in the past, but culture jacking is the same idea: Something happens during something that lots of people are watching/a part of, and a brand then tries to squeeze their way into relevance. Should marketers do real-time marketing simply to be there? To be a part of …
  • Where There's FUEL, There's Fire
    Normally, Tyler Loechner and I use this blog to express our own point-of-view about real-time media and marketing technologies, or to show the viewpoints of others (via "Real-Time With..."). Today, I'd like to ask your opinion about something. Actually, I'd like your advice. Given the number of public offerings taking place with some of the key players in our sector, especially today's skyrocketing IPO of RocketFuel, we were wondering whether there would be any value in us launching a stock market composite for the "real-time" sector. And if so, what companies should we include in that. Obviously, FUEL (that's stock …
  • Real-Time With... Casale Media's Andrew Casale
    Toronto-based Casale Media has launched a new website featuring a real-time media-trading index streaming live bids and benchmarking wins by specific industries and categories. The index also features an eye-popping heat map of real-time bidding activity, viewable across to North American options -- the U.S. and, you guess it, Canada. Casale's Index Exchange is actually an enhancement of an earlier version the ad trading tech firm previously hosted, but it comes as others are beginning to release indices and dashboards that are more reminiscent of Wall Street than Madison Avenue, reflecting the rapid shift from old school media haggling to …
  • MMXamined: Is A Pure-Play Enough To Make A Mobile Marketplace?
    In a report outlining the impact of Millennial Media's MMX mobile advertising exchange, Wall Street analyst Brian Wieser warned investors to curb their enthusiasm. "Yesterday's announcement by Millennial Media was a net positive for the company in our view, although probably limited in impact versus pre-existing expectations among many investors," Wieser wrote. Those "pre-existing expectations" include the fact that the exchange was already expected. A month ago, the company announced plans to acquire mobile ad network Jumptap and said then that it would build out the MMX exchange. Mobile Marketing Daily reported last night that the launch of the exchange …
  • Forget Pubs, Isn't It Time For An AdConnect?
    PubMatic's move to create a marketplace for publishers to partner and collaborate on their own re-aggregated audience-selling represents another surprising, yet inevitable, development in Madison Avenue's exchange-based media marketplace. My only question is: When will the buy-side capitulate? By that, I mean when will someone -- maybe a demand-side platform (DSP), or an independent agency trading desk, or some other as-yet-uncoined ad technology acronym -- create an exchange for brands to pool and collaborate on their own audience networks? Sound strange? It shouldn't. I mean, who could have foreseen the myriad of relationships, configurations and machinations of the current exchange-based …
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