Yahoo on Tuesday said it has fully integrated comScore’s audience verification service into its ad buying and reporting platforms. The two companies first announced their partnership at Yahoo’s NewFronts event in April The Web giant will use comScore’s validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) solution for measuring audience delivery across display and video campaigns, whether bought directly or programmatically. The deal is aimed at giving media buyers unified campaign data and analytics, including viewability, brand safety and whether an ad was seen by the desired target audience. “Integrating comScore vCE with Yahoo ad platforms provides advertisers with one place to buy, measure and analyze campaigns against all available data,” stated Eric Lange, vice president of product at Yahoo. The companies plan to extend the ratings service to mobile campaigns and expand the offering internationally in the next several months. In June, Yahoo announced the rollout of its Media Rating Council (MRC)-accredited viewability measurement solution called Prime View. Through the new service, advertisers can ensure that they only pay for display ads people can actually see. Through such steps, Yahoo aims to keep up with rivals like Google -- which integrated comScore’s vCE into DoubleClick earlier this year--and entice big brands to spend more on its platforms. In the second quarter, the company reported an 8% decline in display ad revenue, which CEO Marissa Mayer blamed on softness in the PC-based display market, and its transition to new ad systems internally.
ChoiceStream, a demand-side platform (DSP), on Tuesday announced the launch of an analytics and reporting dashboard, dubbed cs.Console. The company announced the console at VentureBeat’s GrowthBeat event. ChoiceStream built the dashboard's underlying measurement technology, according to CEO Eric Bosco. The data is available in real-time, and Bosco said it also includes data from campaigns that advertisers ran with ChoiceStream in the past. Real-time analytics have been hot in 2014, as advertisers look to keep pace with the media they are buying. While ChoiceStream's new console is for analysis and reporting only -- meaning that advertisers can’t adjust campaigns based on the analytics straight from the cs.Console -- Bosco said in an earlier statement that the company’s algorithms already adjust campaigns in real-time. In other words, the new analytics hub is intended to give marketers a deeper look into campaign performance, rather than blindly trusting what algorithms do behind closed doors. In one sense, it's putting more power into the hands of the people.
To promote its new $5 Fill-Ups menu offering, KFC recently had an actor dressed as Colonel Sanders surprise motorists at a Louisville, Ky. service station. On July 29, "The Colonel" approached cars stopping for gas at the full-service station Pruitt’s Service Island, gave them $5 KFC gift checks, and filled up their cars for free. Motorists' reactions were captured in a video, posted on YouTube on Aug. 1, now showing nearly 500 views. The brand also surprised Twitter fans during Aug. 1 by giving away gas cards and KFC gift checks in values ranging from $10 to $300; the brand used the hashtag #5buckfillup to promote the giveaway. The promotion generated nearly 800 "favorites" and more than 800 retweets. The $5 Fill-Ups meals, in five combinations, include a choice of entrée, a medium drink and a chocolate chip cookie; some also include a biscuit.
This weekend, just a few weeks after New York State legalized marijuana for medical use on July 7, The New York Times carried its first advertisement for a marijuana-related service. The full-page print ad for Leafly -- an online platform that provides information about marijuana strains, products and legal sellers -- depicts ordinary New Yorkers who used Leafly to find marijuana strains suited to their medical conditions, along with text congratulating New York on becoming the 23rd state to legalize marijuana for medical use. In an ironic nod to anti-drug campaigns of years past, the ad bears the tagline “Just Say Know” and also features the hashtag #JustSayKnow, directing readers to more marijuana information online. Under the terms of the Compassionate Care Act, signed by Governor Cuomo on July 7, marijuana will be legally available to people with a number of medical conditions, including cancer, AIDS, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis, among others. Supporters of the law cited polls from Quinnipiac University and Siena Research Institute showing that over 80% of New Yorkers supported legalization for medical purposes. Leafly CEO Brendan Kennedy stated: “Our advertisement in The New York Times is a responsible, mainstream message that elevates the conversation about cannabis in the U.S. With cannabis now legal for patients in 23 states, Americans need professional, educational resources to help them navigate the changing legal, medical and social landscape.” Meanwhile, The New York Times has run a spate of editorials praising the decision to legalize marijuana and criticizing the social and financial costs of prohibition. In the most recent editorial, published August 4, the NYT’s Vikas Bajaj addressed the need for regulation of the production and sale of the drug, including pricing and taxation strategies to ensure legal sellers are able to effectively undercut the black market.
AOL Video promoted Nate Hayden to vice president of originals and Naomi Yasuda to senior director of AOL Studios.
There is good news and bad news when it comes to multi-screen ad campaigns. The good news: Most marketers are on board, with 75% of advertisers now running multi-screen campaigns, according to a study of ad agency executives conducted by rich media ad provider Jivox in the second quarter. What’s more, of those that don’t run multi-screen campaigns, most are planning to do so. About 83% of those that don’t say they will fire up multi-screen campaigns this year. In addition, advertisers are spending more on those campaigns, with about two-thirds saying their budget for multi-screen campaigns is up this year compared to prior years. Much of that stems from the massive growth in mobile, since 91% said they plan to spend more on mobile ads. While not surprising, the mobile growth numbers should be a solid reminder that as the mobile platform skyrockets, marketers will be wise to tailor campaigns and ads for the medium. The bad news when it comes to multi-screen ads? More than 60% of marketers say they aren’t getting the insights they want and need from the campaigns. More data that provides deeper information on targeting would be helpful for them to fine-tune their targeting and thus, their ad effectiveness, the study said. That means marketers want to know if their pre-roll ads, for instance, are reaching the right audiences and specifically how those audiences are responding to various types of ads. This sort of deeper data can lead to more refined video ads buys. Almost half of respondents said they don’t even know which channels in a multi-screen campaign perform best, suggesting there is a huge opportunity for platforms to deliver much better analytics to marketers. Jivox surveyed executives at agencies including Digitas, MEC Global, Mindshare, MediaCom, Omicom Group, Starcom MediaVest, Zenith Optimedia and more.
Apparently it’s now a thing for teenagers to set themselves on fire and share it on social media -- it’s called the “fire challenge,” although “natural selection” might be a better term for it. Thankfully most teens probably won’t feel compelled to self-immolate online, but there’s still plenty of reason to worry about social media’s broader impact on young people, as a whole series of depressing studies and reports have recently illustrated. The results of a new survey by We Heart It, first reported by Time, reveal widespread cruelty in teen girls’ and young women’s online communities, driven by unhealthy group dynamics and personal rivalries. We Heart It surveyed 5,000 female social media users, ages 13-24, and found that 66% had experienced bullying on Facebook, while 19% said they had been bullied on Twitter, and 9% were bullied on Instagram. Meanwhile fully 59% of respondents said they feel like they don’t fit in on Facebook -- a paradoxical result (the majority of people don’t fit in?) which would be funny if it weren’t so sad -- while 32% said they same thing about Twitter, and 30% on Instagram. Another study by researchers at Australian National University’s National Institute for Mental Health Research, analyzed from Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, and determined that people who use social media late at night are much more likely to suffer from depression. The study looked at Chinese users who were more active than average between 11 pm and 3 am at night, and found that late-night were more likely to use words such as “death, depression, life, pain and suicide,” suggesting they were dealing with major depressive disorder. Concerns about “Internet addiction,” and especially social media, have given rise to a new industry in China and India, in the form of Internet detox camps for teenagers whose parents are concerned about flagging academic performance and social dysfunction. According to news reports this week, there are over 250 such camps in China, which tend to emphasize physical exercise and a “cold turkey” approach, totally banishing Internet from kids’ lives for up to six months. In June, India’s first “Internet de-addiction center” opened in Bangalore, the center of India’s dotcom boom. As in China, most patients seem to be young middle-class people whose parents have tried, unsuccessfully to get them to cut back on Internet use because of poor academic performance. According to the report one patient, an 18-year-old girl who had been using the Internet for up to eight hours a day, began stealing money and visiting cyber-cafes to get her daily fix.
So far “native advertising” has been an inside baseball argument. Few ordinary citizens know the term, even if almost all of them get tricked regularly into clicking content they think is an informative “article” but turns out to be a shameless pitch to close a sale. My wife complains about this regularly. A denizen of health articles and all of the latest studies on vitamin benefits (our kitchen cabinet runneth over), she resents bring misled by pieces that appear to open with objective research and only over time reveal themselves to be coming out of the mouths of supplement manufacturers who are just peddling pills. She is a computer scientist who is fond of doing the math and finding the right sum of this equation that adds editorial stylings to advertising. “I don’t know who is talking to me and why,” she sums up eloquently. The sum total of blurring these lines is the diminished credibility of any and all content. But now people like my wife will be able to put a name to the blame as the “native” moniker starts creeping outside of industry parlance and into the mainstream. John Oliver of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” delivered an epic takedown of the practice this weekend that not only spoke from example but named names and called out media. Oliver began by pointing out the privileged position he occupies as a member of HBO, an ad-free “business model, which no one has been able to adequately explain to me yet.” He characterized the business and editorial sides of the standard media model as the difference between “Twizzlers and guacamole,” because each is tasty on their own, but when mixed together ”you make something really gross.” Oliver had great fun with the ineffectiveness of traditional banner ads. Did you know, for instance, that if you mistakenly do click on an online ad (and mistake is the only rational explanation), you will land on a page that asks if you are all right and if they should call for help? This notorious ad invisibility, of course, is what leads us to “native advertising.” To Oliver’s credit, he chose his targets well in calling out two of the key figures in the rise of the “natives.” After showing a clip of BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, he then described the young entrepreneur’s face as embodying Buzzfeed itself: youthful, appealing “and yet somehow you want to punch it.” Mocking Buzzfeed’s sponsored listicles, Oliver admitted that his own show used the format to promote itself before its premiere. But Oliver saved the most direct call-outs for the big old media. Of Time Inc. CEO Joe Ripp’s claim he sees no problem with native advertising that is clearly labeled, Oliver responded with an IAB study showing most visitors “cannot tell the difference” between ads and editorial. Oliver stated the obvious that only media kingpins in deep denial can’t admit: “Of course they can’t, because it is supposed to blend in. It is like a camouflage manufacturer saying that only an idiot cannot tell the difference between that man and foliage.” Anyway, deer are too smart to be deceived: “You have to respect deer.” He sealed the deal with a clip I had never seen before, in which Ripp pretty much disavows any understanding of what “church and state” even meant in the first place. Yikes. New York Times ad chief Meredith Levien got called out for denying any diminished consumer trust as a result of sponsored articles. “It is not meant to be trickery,” she was shown saying. “It is meant to be publishers sharing its storytelling tools with marketers.” “And that’s not bulls**t,” Oliver mocked. “It is recycled bovine waste.” Admitting that part of the problem is that we consumers are unwilling to fund directly independent newsgathering, Oliver’s epic takedown ended with a modest proposal: Put news into the ads. After all, if the advertising is creeping into the editorial, isn’t it only fair that the news should take a place in the ads? The clip, which has already garnered nearly a quarter of a million YouTube views, is worth all 12 minutes of your time, if only for the mock Coke/News spot.
It’s surprising how long it has taken the industry to get to shoppable mobile video ads. Mobile, after all, has advanced to service the on-the-go consumer. Mobile marketers have strategized to take advantage of those decisive, targetable moments that take place in any given day, but they’ve lacked this technical capability to fulfill on the promise. Automotive, CPG, and consumer electronics brands — as well as any direct-response advertisers — would benefit from a mobile interface that supported easier shopping and instantaneous purchases. It has taken time, but we’re finally inching toward making this convenience a standard, especially in light of YouTube’s launch of shoppable ads for mobile. As data continues to demonstrate that the path to purchase increasingly runs through smartphones and tablets, how do we optimize visuals, message and conversion mechanics within mobile video to make the environment ultra-shoppable? The challenge is using compelling creative formats to enable the purchase-inclined consumer to take action with a seamless user interface. Gone are the days when viewers were exposed to a product and then asked to patiently click through a bunch of pages to get to execute the purchase. Thanks to wider implementation of more direct paths to purchase, a consumer now can hover over an item and click or tap through to the purchase page. Ubiquitous options like PayPal help also. As a result, video ads, always great for branding, now often lead directly to sales transactions. Practical thinking and technical innovation have successfully eliminated the cumbersome barriers between viewing and purchasing. So, what are the best approaches for publishers and marketers to take to fully realize the potential? There are a few practices that are yielding quantifiable results:
I'm a big fan of spy shows like “The Americans,” “Homeland” and the “Bourne” movie series. The top operatives in these programs have one common thread in that they are able to assassinate somebody plus make it look like it was an accident. That is what truly makes them a rare pro. Native advertising done right also takes a pro. Anyone can write a basic infomercial or advertorial. Only a true professional can elevate branded content to another level so that it blends in with the actual editorial content of the site. Instead of promoting to a user the best native ads provide value to the user in the form of entertainment or education. It is still evolving but native advertising put simply is advertising that blends into the look and feel of a site including articles, photos, videos and infographics. According to Sharethrough, consumers looked at native ads 53% more frequently than display ads. That is a reason right there to try native advertising. From that same report, native ads led to a 52% bump in purchase intent which is 18% higher than banner ads. That stat speaks for itself. You can get in-depth info about custom content and native advertising from a previous post I did for MediaPost. Mobile is helping to pave the way for native as smaller screens have led many mobile publishers to adapt their advertising strategy and ad units. Social is also contributing to the rapid growth of native as Facebook and Twitter now generate a large chunk of their revenue from sponsored stories, promoted tweets and similar integrated ads. All of us in the native advertising arena owe a big thank you to Westjet for creating such an amazing Xmas promotion last December which was part PR genius and part native. They reaped massive benefits from the viral sharing of the video as well which is another interesting aspect to native. The video has over 36 million views on YouTube and counting. Other travel brands embracing native include Marriott and JetBlue. Native seems perfect for destinations who all need to tell their own story. Every brand is constantly on the lookout for brand ambassadors and native done well brings you those ambassadors for free. When your branded content gets shared it speaks to the utility it provided to the end user. If the user accepts and enjoys the content, then you know it was a success. Perhaps brands will place more emphasis on quality in order to drive more sharing and higher engagement levels. That is why publishers and brands are hiring journalists and building out newsroom capabilities. You cannot do native advertising justice without interesting content. The time is now to get involved with native. It is widely known that only about half of your banner impressions are even seen by a human. If you are still spending most of your money on display, it might be worth putting some dollars into media that offers higher engagement and greater viewability. Native advertising offers you both. No spy experience necessary.
According to a recent study from the Shullman Pulse, marketers and their agencies should review strategies focusing on a largely overlooked group, the Gen-X'ers, and even more important for those targeting the affluent market. Upscale Gen-X'ers have different interests, goals, and concerns compared with the other generations. One of the main goals for half of them, says the report, is to provide for their children's college expenses, and almost as many are focused on having enough income for retirement. Also on their minds are their own health, recession, crime, and climate change. But, at the same time, more than half are optimistic about the U.S. economy and two-thirds are "very satisfied" or "satisfied" with life today. The report focuses on the entire Gen-X generation, currently 34 to 48 years old, both those who are upscale and either millionaires or with a household income of $250,000 or more, and the balance of Gen-X'ers, who do not have high net worth or household income and identified as mass-market Gen-X'ers. Millionaires are defined as consumers with a personalnet worth of $1 million or more. Based on an estimated total adult population of 236.9 million according to the Current Population Survey of the Bureau of the Census published in the fall of 2013, the Generation Age Range is, in number of adults and percent of adults: