Facebook earlier this year finally announced it had had started testing long-rumored video ads with a small set of brands initially. An OMMA Video panel on Thursday suggested Facebook’s new Premium Video Ads are meant for reaching big audiences as  part of broader cross-media campaigns. “It’s not a highly targeted product at all,” said Mike Walker of Blinq Media. Rather, it takes advantage of Facebook’s massive reach. But with buys starting at $1 million, video doesn't come cheap. For that reason, Josh Bochner of Pantomime Creative Group said he only plans to work with clients on large-scale budgets after extreme …

OMMA Video got off on an existential note during Internet Week in New York this morning. First during the "Is Online Video-Specific Creative Worth It" panel I moderated, where panelists like Protagonist's Tom Cotton, asking the most fundamental question of, what the heck is online video -- and equally important, how is it different than the previous video medium (TV) that the ad industry historically has created for.

People share to create status, define a collective identify, and strengthen a bond. Some people will share to create a relationship with a brand, but very few, said Mike Monello, Partner, Chief Creative Officer, Campfire.

Florida businesses create experiences that immerse people, drawing millions of people to the state. Those businesses are a story generating machine focused on creating experiences, said Mike Monello, Partner, Chief Creative Officer,Campfire in his opening remarks at OMMA Video. Approach video as an experience to tell the story, Monello said. He walked through four principals. For starters, put the audience at the center. Don't surround people, but architect the story so people are at the center.

The Internet of Things (IoT) often conjures images of a Jetsons-like lifestyle where everything at home happens automatically from setting the thermostat to adjusting the lighting to knowing when you’re running low on milk or other staples. But if you have to manage a bunch of apps to do all these things, how much easier is it than doing these things directly? Sitting on a panel on IoT at OMMA Mobile, Peter Taylor, director of product management for Smart Home, NA, Belkin International, said that for now, it would be too unwieldy to cram a variety of functions into a …

Apu Gupta, founder and CEO of Curalate, which provides analytics for visual social networks like Pinterest and Instagram, isn’t a big fan of brands culture-hijacking to gain currency. He says it typically comes off as forced and Millennial see right through it. So much for the brand news room! Speaking on the same panel at OMMA Mobile, Eleni Tavantzis, senior manager of digital + social Communications at Lilly Pulitzer, agreed, saying the apparel retailer doesn’t try to hope on hot stories or memes for more visibility, sticking to its own branding instead. But Gupta suggested there’s room for inviting UGC …

At least one OMMA Mobile speaker had said earlier that marketers had “no place” in mobile messaging apps. But obviously “these panelists have a different point of view,” said MediaPost’s Steve Smith, introducing “Butting In? Do Marketers Have A Welcome Place In The Messaging App Space?” -- which included representatives from both Tango and Skype. When we think of messaging apps, “we don’t think first of marketers, we think of audiences,” said David Rosenberg, Managing Partner at IPG Media Lab. "We look at, what behaviors are going on there?"  Noticing that music was one of the top five things …

Focusing on big numbers -- such as millions of “likes” --  is “how a new emerging technology establishes itself. But now that we [in social media] have our seat at the table, how can we start talking” about our value? asked moderator Tania Yuki, founder and CEO of Shareablee, setting the stage for the “Social ROI” panel at OMMA Social. One big question the panel grappled with: Do likes still matter? “I can’t remember a presentation I put together that had number of ‘fans’ or ‘likes,’” said Stephen DiMarco, CMO, Millward Brown Digital. “The C-level suite doesn’t care …

Sounds simple: You need to understand your brand, as well as giving users what their data says they want. Speaking at OMMA Mobile, Annie Trombatore, director of product for Thrillist Media Group, says while it’s important to let users' data get to what they see and want, there’s is the other side: Pushing inherent brand equity.For example, give users suggestions such as curating expert recommendations of products and services. A major conclusion: “Don’t let data drive the brand.”

A decade into the emergence of mobile marketing, and the question still lingers: Do ads even work on phones? That’s the core question addressed by a panel of agency experts today at OMMA Mobile. The banner has long been dismissed as a mobile format, but what other approaches are effective? Barry Lowenthal of The Media Kitchen points to click-to-call as the best mobile ad type because it’s geared to the medium. Ian Schafer of Deep Focus suggests brands in mobile should focus more on CRM—providing help to people when they need it on the go. What about native …