by Mark Walsh on Sep 28, 9:32 AM
Mobile ad network Verve Wireless has closed $7 million in a financing round led by BlueRun Ventures and including prior investor the Associated Press. The new funding brings its total raised to date to $9.5 million. Verve, whose mobile ad network counts 750 newspapers and other local media publishers, plans to use the capital to expand its advertising and technology operations, adding a half dozen positions in the coming weeks and months. Besides the AP, other large publishers working with San Diego-based Verve include McClatchy and Belo Interactive. The company says it served 150 million mobile news pages in …
by Karl Greenberg on Sep 28, 9:24 AM
The woman who is giving the keynote on trust at the Times Center this morning is wearing the most outrageous pair of high heeled shoes that I have ever seen. The result of this is that I cannot hear a single word that she is saying, which is probably a good thing because she has the kind of monochromatic droning voice that convinces me I ought to have stayed in bed. The shoes: the heels are a good four inches, spikes. black S&M themed stompers that do not inspire, well, trust. She is also enshrouded in a kind of …
by Joe Mandese on Sep 28, 9:11 AM
PubMatic this morning unveiled a new "data firewall" system, giving online publishers the ability to manage third-parties that are tracking their audience via pixels or cookies and, in many cases, causing "data leakage." In an announcement, Pubmatic said, "Data leakage occurs when third-parties track a publisher's audience without the knowledge of the publisher, a problem that has grown considerably in the past year." PubMatic estimates that data leakage costs publishers up to $ 1 billion annually in lost revenues.
by Karl Greenberg on Sep 28, 8:48 AM
I am attending the Blogojevich (sp) thing today at the Trust conference. Waiting for coffee, but it's not set up yet. oh, the pain, the pain. I am here to listen to Rod B. former governor of Illinois. talk about trust. That should be interesting. That will be followed by Ahmedinejad (sp)lecturing on the wisdom of the Talmud. Now my only consideration is whether to miss the presentation because I'm so desperate for coffee that I'm willing to sit here until it's ready, merely on principle. The coffee bar here is the AOL Buzz Bar (Times Center), and they are …
by Joe Mandese on Sep 27, 5:34 PM
Havas is taking online audience-buying platform Adnetik global, and has tapped Edward Montes, former managing director of Havas Digital North America, as CEO. Adnetik, which has been operating in five countries to date (the U.S., U.K., Mexico, the Netherlands and Brazil) will expand into Europe via a new Madrid, Spain-based office launching next month. In a related move, Nathan Woodman also is moving from Havas Digital to COO and managing director of Adnetik, overseeing a global team from Havas offices in key regional markets.
by Joe Mandese on Sep 27, 4:57 PM
Media industry guru Jack Myers has taken a stake in, and is becoming chairman of the advisory board of privately-held experiential marketing firm Rally Marketing Group. Rally also announced that it is forming a new entertainment and media division focused on TV programming and other entertainment assets.
by Joe Mandese on Sep 27, 4:25 PM
That's more or less how Jeff Charney, senior vice president and CMO of Alfac U.S. characterized the health insurance marketer's brand story over the past 10 years. It began 10 years ago, with a simple TV commercial, dubbed "Park Bench," showing two men sitting on a bench and discussing health insurance and struggling to remember the company's brand name, while the mascot duck quacked Aflac, Aflac, Aflac in the background. That campaign – and 46 commercials later – Charney told OMMA Global New York attendees, Aflac's brand recognition has jumped from 11% to 91%. "One of the …
by Karl Greenberg on Sep 27, 3:14 PM
Gerard Babbits, social media marketing manager, global interactive marketing at Coca-Cola said that Twitter is a conduit for managing social issues globally that might impinge on the brand's standing. "We have account teams that monitor global tweets in five languages," he said. "They listen and red-light trends that are problematic, such as political issues, part of consumer affairs which is on duty 18 hours a day, 7 days per week. They respond either on the fly or they have canned responses to hot topics that continuously come up for us."
by Karl Greenberg on Sep 27, 2:38 PM
Panelists said look to your own company for social media management but make sure they aren't merely looking for a means of self aggrandizement. Josh Karpf of Pepsi says passionate both about the space and the brand. "The First thing we do in interview is ask 'what are you reading?' The space is moving so fast, with location based, customer service, so much is changing in the space you need someone who craves that. The PepsiCo 10 lets us do that. Someone who follows brand innovations that are going on is a great way to start." Marcy Cohen, …
by Sarah Mahoney on Sep 27, 1:25 PM
Procter & Gamble has unveiled a new--and aggressive--sustainability strategy. The company is vowing to reduce packaging by 20%, replace 25% of petroleum-based products with sustainably sourced materials, and get consumers so inspired that cold water accounts for 70% of washing machine loads--all within 10 years. "We are dedicated to reaching 5 billion consumers over the next five years," CEO Bob McDonald said in the company's webcast, "or 1 billion more than we reach today. It does us no good to grow our business today at the expense of tomorrow." Many of the Cincinnati-based company's goals, developed in partnership with …