• Amazon Goes Hollywood
    Amazon's getting into the movie making business with the launch Amazon Studios -- a new website that lets users upload scripts and sample movies and then use tools to evaluate and even edit each others' work. As the Los Angels Times reports, "Work judged the best by a panel of experts and company executives will be brought to Warner Bros, where Amazon has signed a first-look deal, in hopes of ultimately producing feature films under the Amazon Studios production label." The goal is to apply digital technology to the still arcane process of submitting and developing movie projects for …
  • For Agencies, Data Is But A Means
    Why shouldn't agencies just be allowed to buy data by itself? Because they'll most likely fail, because they'll lack the proper strategy to make proper use of the data. That's what Joanna O'Connell, Senior Analyst at Forrester, said she was told by Paul Knegten, Head of Marketing at online ad tech company Dapper. (Knegten, sitting next to O'Connell on an afternoon panel, didn't say she was wrong.) Meanwhile, Knegten, interpreting comments from the rest of the panel, thinks they (as marketers) wish there was some giant machine that would let them test various online marketing strategies -- from social …
  • Harsh! Exec Calls BlueKai Data "Pedestrian"
    Sorry BlueKai, but Anurag Harsh, SVP of Strategy and Business Development at Ziff Davis, thinks your data is “pedestrian at best.” Harsh landed the blow after being asked on a panel whether or not Ziff Davis uses data from third-party aggregators. We’ll assume BlueKai, which aggregates shopping and research activities across the Web, disagrees with Harsh’s statement. For Harsh's part, he says Ziff Davis collects and dissects its data in house, though it does have working relationships with unnamed research labs. In house or not, says Harsh, data has to have volume; value; it has to have some relationship with …
  • Know What Ad Nets Are Measuring!
    Though it may seem obvious, marketers had better understand the metrics that ad networks are using to measure campaign success -- both short-term and long-term -- according to Anne Hunter, Vice President, Advertising Effectiveness Products, comScore. “If the network thinks that clicks are the goal, it’s going to miss the ultimate objective” -- if clicks are not the ultimate goal -- Hunter explained during an afternoon keynote at OMMA Ad Nets. That doesn’t mean that a network isn’t capable of measuring success in other ways; they’re just not often used properly, according to Hunter. “The network needs to know what …
  • Clickers Become Smaller Clique
    That's what Anne Hunter, vice president-advertising effectiveness products at comScore just revealed at OMMA Ad Nets. She says the percentage of online users who never click on an ad during a given month is actually increasing, not decreasing. In July 2007, she says, the percentage was 68%. Currently, it's about 84%. The problem for ad network folks, she says, is they still base their audience value largely on whether people click, or not.
  • What Ad Nets Need To Survive
    What do an ad networks need to succeed amid intense competition, and what some see as industry consolidation? “Good technology,” and "exclusive relationships,” according to Brendan Moorcroft, CEO of Cadreon, an ad network launched by IPG's Mediabrands in mid-2009. “If an ad network doesn’t have a unique set of [assets],” they’re not going to be around much longer, Moorcroft said during an afternoon panel at OMMA Ad Nets. “The Space is growing,” he added, “but simply filling orders,” is not going to cut it.
  • Is Social Changing The Ad Nets Game?
    Linda Gridley, President and CEO, Gridley & Company, just said something important on the OMMA Ad Nets "brand" panel. She said that the big game changer that some people in the online ad network biz may not be considering, is the impact social media is going to have. "I am a believer that social is changing the game," she said, noting that social marketing tools are going to be the "key for going forward." That's something that was highlighted by the Center for Media Research's just-released Ad Nets study, which found that social media networks are among the …
  • Media Mix, Or Mixed Metaphors
    Whatever you want to call it, Ronald Shamah, vice president at SapientNitro, gave a pretty easy-to-get illustration of what's going on with the online display advertising marketplace, and ad networks in particular. The infrastructure surrounding the online display marketplace grew up at of a direct response mentality, and now the industry is attempting to use it to optimize brand metrics. "The mouse trap was very well defined, but now we are trying to catch grizzly bears and the best mouse trap is not going to cut it," Shamah said.
  • So How Do You Optimize People
    Actually, you do it with people – not systems, platforms and algorithms. That's right. That's what Vivaki's Sean Kegelman told the OMMA Ad Nets attendees. Even though the human factor seems like a "simple concept," he said it continues to vex the industry, because providers tend to be so focused on keeping things proprietary, and decidedly unhuman. Kegelman said Vivaki was built on this open source spirit of cooperation and collaboration, and on putting people in touch with other people to build partnerships that are more human than they are systematic. "Human relationships matter," he said.
  • Optimizing What?
    That's right, what's all this technology and data about after all? That's what Sean Kegelman, the senior vice president-partnerships at Publici's Vivaki unit is telling OMMA Ad Nets during a morning keynote. What's it really about? The consumer, stupid. "We spend a lot of time talking about platforms. We spend a lot of time talking about platforms, Kegelman noted, adding, "but one thing we don't talk about, that is at the top line of our business. Is the consumer." Invoking a favorite theme of Vivaki digital guru Rishad Tobaccowala's famous "data, data everywhere" speech, Kegelman suggested that, …
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