Adobe will attempt to capture more of the publishing market by appealing to small companies and individuals creating content in apps for iPads. The platform, Creative Cloud publishing, now supports a folio feature, allowing content creators to build single pieces of the marketing material, brochure and publication into an iPad app, rather than a dashboard filled with a library of publications. Marketers point to stand-alone self-publishing as the next phase for branded content. Mascord Living Spaces created a free app allowing consumers to view photography from some of the publisher's favorite homes. It allows viewers to search the latest designs and take a 360-degree spin to get an inside look at design philosophies of Alan Mascord Design Associates, a company that remodels and designs custom homes. Today, Adobe's publishing tool remains available only for Macs, but Adobe plans to add Windows 8 support for App Builder on its product roadmap. While the design process can occur in a Windows operating system, the platform does not submit the content for publishing. The designer must submit apps on a Mac to the Apple iTunes store. The content is built into an iOS tablet application, rather than made available on the Web. All content is automatically optimized based on the iPad the content is viewed on. Designers can insert still images, videos, or interactive ads into the apps, but the platform does not provide the insertion of dynamic ads or geographic targeting. It does allow designers to plug in their iPad and preview the content during the design process, explains Annmarie Beliard, product marketing manager at Adobe. Designers produce the creative in one platform and then submit the final application to Apple in the Digital Publishing suite. Single Edition is the latest feature of Adobe's digital publishing tool Creative Cloud, a membership-based hub for making, sharing and delivering creative work.
With billions of ad dollars at stake, online video networks are fighting hard for a bigger piece of the pie. To that end, Adap.tv on Tuesday debuted a new tool, which it believes is the best way yet for advertisers to plan their online video buys. “In minutes, an optimal digital video media plan can be created, leveraging the best data sources available, such as Nielsen,” said Toby Gabriner, President of Adap.tv. “Planners can then easily buy the recommended inventory, automatically optimize the campaign once it launches, and measure its effectiveness using both TV- and online-based metrics.” Pulling out all the stops, Gabriner made the announcement at the first annual “Adapt Conference” in New York.The so-called “Unified Planner" comes fully integrated into the Adap.tv Platform, which is an automated system to plan, buy and measure video ads.At the company's conference on Tuesday, Gabriner touted the suite’s ability to specify target audiences and campaign goals, including parameters such as reach, frequency and TRPs. The solution will also recommend specific sites, which Adapt.tv says will more effectively deliver advertisers’ target audiences. Planners have long complained that planning, buying and managing video ads is a less-than-elegant experience. Whether Adapt.tv’s new service can change this perception only time will tell. Earlier this year, Forrester estimated that domestic digital video ad spending will explode by over 250% by 2016 -- from $2 billion in 2011 to $5.4 billion. The estimate was largely attributed to a renaissance in quality, brand-safe video content, a proliferation in video-friendly devices and the maturing of younger online adept consumers.
As merchants sift through their back-to-school receipts, it looks like the season’s two best sellers were social and mobile sales. IBM’s Benchmark reports that social sales, or online sales that happen as a result of a referral from a social media site, accounted for 1.6% of July sales, a jump of 25% from the prior year, and 2.2% of all August sales, a 69.7% increase. M-commerce increased by 15.7% in July, and 15.4% in August. Overall, online sales gained 11% in July, then slowed to a 3.9% advance in August. Surprisingly, though, while consumers may have been spending up a storm during the back-to-school season, it wasn’t on school-related items. In fact, home goods had the biggest growth, with purchases climbing 30% in July and 25% in August. The IBM Benchmark study also uncovered impressive growth in department stores, where online sales grew 22.1% in July and 28.7% in August, with mobile sales in that channel gaining 19.2% and 18.9%, respectively. Gains in apparel were more subdued, with online sales advancing 9.2% in July and 9.8% in August, with m-commerce climbing 15.1% and 16.4%. Social referrals were strongest in this sector, up 113% in the two-month period, more than in any other industry. And in electronics, online sales managed to gain 6.3% in July, but then fell 0.9% in August. Mobile sales made up just 5.7% of those transactions in July, and stayed at that level in August. “Back-to-school season is proving to be a trigger event that spans across categories beyond just notebooks and backpacks,” notes Jill Puleri, Global Retail Leader, IBM, in its release. “Retailers that are cashing in are those who understand how this trigger drives sales for home furnishings, as well as for apparel, and can target their inventory levels and promotions accordingly. This year's winners were companies that successfully connected consumers with the right products, at the right price, and through the right medium–whether in a store, a mobile device or through popular social media channels."
There are two things I’m wildly attracted to: smarts and celebrity gossip. I attribute the latter to my lacking awareness of cultural happenings. Reading People magazine happens primarily at O’Hare and I’ve failed miserably at my New Year’s resolution to watch more television. So, when I know anything at all, especially something involving real Hollywood, I get giddy. And I know something now that you may not! One of the activities that stands between me and reality TV is reading, and I found “Gone Girl” to be un-put-downable. At our neighborhood block party, I chatted with an old friend who turns out to be related by marriage to the author, and guess what I learned?! [spoiler alert] The book is already being adapted for the big screen, and Reese Witherspoon is slated to star as Amy. IKR?! OK, does this road have a search tunnel? Well, sort of. If you posed the question “Gone Girl” to Google, the “answers” about the big screen adaptation and Witherspoon’s role are available below the fold, if at all. Unfortunately, with most searchers unaware of the movie plans, Google does not autocomplete this thought today, seemingly unaware of a movie in the works. Also interesting -- on page 1 under “News for gone girl” was, “Jury adds $20M punitive damages to slander verdict against ‘Girls Gone Wild’ founder…” Tough times for Joe Francis apparently, but I digress. What about Bing? Any insights gained via the Social sidebar featuring Facebook/Twitter on either the book or movie? Not for me. Lack of awareness about the movie is one thing, because not everyone is actually six degrees from Kevin Bacon, but the book also commands minimal online chatter as compared with the latest trilogy to sweep the nation, “Fifty Shades of Grey.” This may be due to its relative newness but the delta in social signals is staggering. On Facebook, for example, “Gone Girl” has 444 Likes, while “50 Shades of Grey” has more than 200,000, and 6X the number of reviews on Amazon. Different publishers may account for a percentage of the discrepancy, and at 450x the likes, someone from Random House should sneak into Knopf’s next marketing meeting! It seems a tie on online author presence – for, as a friend harshly commented, “both are terrible. I'd blame the website but third rate indie rockstars have better webpages than Flynn and James.” Well, we can’t all be the American Judge. This is the type of information traditionally considered news; curated news. The Search box yields a list of sites with the most linked to (relevant) information for your search, regardless of date. Oddly, Google News has no information on the film, and my “Gone Girl movie” query resulted in more “Girls Gone Wild” fodder. Years ago, I was told of a friend’s challenge to give up Google OR Facebook for a month. The friend to whom the gauntlet was thrown was a habitual Facebook user -- BUT, while she was able to forego her posting habit, living without Google was not an option. This speaks to me not simply because the channel consumes my 9-5 (a.k.a. 7-10:) but because Google is efficient, and efficiency is smart! Still, when I enter “Gone Girl” into my search box today, Google suggests I search for “gone girl book,” “gone girl Gillian Flynn,” “gone girl spoiler” and “gone girl ending,” with no auto-complete mention of the movie or Ms. Witherspoon. This reminds us all that as much as the engines help us, we and our searches make the engines smarter. Bottom line: sometimes we can learn faster than the engines. Unless we get out from behind the computer once in a while, we may not be able to scoop our friends on the important issues of the day. So talk to real people about what’s on your nightstand (I’m old school) or Kindle. You never know what you might learn at your next cocktail party that will ultimately inform the engines.
A recent Forrester report found 30% of online shopping trips start with Amazon—compared to only 19% with Google. Amazon’s long march to be “the Google of Retail” seems to have come to a successful end. Add the fact that Amazon now allows third parties to advertise within its search results, and it starts to feel a lot like a search engine—and that a profound shift in "SEM" will follow.The phenomenon isn’t limited to Amazon. More and more companies are opening up their on-site search results to third party marketers. It’s already the norm for most online travel agencies. Facebook has extended its ad offerings to encompass its own search results. Twitter is rumored to be following suit. eBay’s renewed investment in its on-site search is also likely to feature 3rd party ads – particularly in the context of its push into offline retail via Milo and PayPal. The list goes on.For search engine marketers, the growing variety of options adds complexity. These new sources of inventory are in many cases fundamentally different from what’s on offer from Google and Bing. More granular, more urgent, more geo-specific, more visual, more flexible.But with this added complexity comes valuable scale and scope. The sheer volume of searches occurring within these new sources of inventory dwarfs anything an earlier generation of would-be Davids were able to put up against the Google Goliath. And scale provides a sufficient return on effort. It’s worth marketers’ time to invest in these new channels.Some of this will be at the expense of the search engines: a retail search on Amazon very likely replaces one otherwise done on Google. But in other cases it will be net new opportunities for marketers, such as when a consumer taps into mobile to find offline options for her needs.Don’t believe SEM is moving beyond the search engines? Earlier this year, Business Insider reported than Amazon’s ad business is already approaching $1b. The future is already here. Rob Schmults, SVP Strategic Partnerships, Intent Media
There are multiple reasons why advertisers are drawn to the 18-to-49 demographic. The least interesting is the potential for a more efficient buy. As one longtime industry observer put it: you pay for the 18-to-49 viewers and anyone 50-plus watching, you get for free. The more intriguing reasons fall within suggestions that younger viewers come with more discretionary income; marketers want to reach them early to develop longtime brand loyalty. But there is new research suggesting that older folks might actually decide to go from Brawny to Bounty. Or, accept that the Callaway driver that worked so well as a 45-year-old no longer brings the distance of a Ping. Nielsen’s NeuroFocus, which studies neuroscience, says that recent work “refutes the traditional belief that the older brain cannot learn and adapt. Current research shows how the older brain retains plasticity, or the ability to change as a result of experience, even at late stages of life.” NeuroFocus offered up some insight into the creative process advertisers might employ in looking to appeal to those over 60 to take advantage of their malleability. As opposed to all those cynical younger folks, “mature brains” tend to be more positive in general and open to more upbeat messaging. Baby boomers would prefer ads that don't show older people or “vacuously smiling couples.” (Pharma marketers might pay particular attention here). And, boomers don’t like rapid-fire, jumbled-up messaging. “While the messaging can be complex, the delivery and format should be simpler than for the young brain,” NeuroFocus said. Scanning the research, it has one wondering how effective those Dos Equis beer ads featuring “The Most Interesting Man In The World” are among older males. Apparently well over 60, he would seem to be a boomer idol, with his appeal to the opposite sex and continuing vitality to engage in global adventures. He says he doesn't often drink beer, but when he does he prefers Dos Equis. Older men might think a little Dos Equis once in a while might be more effective than prune juice.