In the battle of media format dominance, video still commands much of Madison Avenue's attention, as well as its highest CPMs, but audio is ascending again, thanks to the ad world's obsession with emerging voice-activated technologies, especially smart speakers and the ilk.

Big startup ideas sometimes emerge before the marketplace is ready to embrace them, or miss the market altogether. Simulmedia's new direct-to-consumer media-buying platform is just right, and here's why.

A powerful new DMP providing "second-party" data from thousands of retailers and brands revealing the journey of how, what, when, where and why consumers make their purchases online has just rolled out. And best of all, it's completely free to use.

A startling new analysis from third-party ad server Flashtalking confirms what many have long suspected: that click-throughs are a poor digital campaign performance metric. The analysis, which is published in a Creative Analytics Report that Flashtalking began circulated last week, uses a proprietary metric -- the Creative Performance Index (CPI) -- which measures the relative effectiveness of each campaign's delivery of its campaign objectives.

Two big studies being released this week indicate programmatic is having a profound effect on media planning and buying.

Programmatic is projected to expand 26.3% to $46.55 billion, according to updated estimates released by eMarketer on the eve of Advertising Week in New York City this week. That's a slightly faster rate of expansion than the overall digital display market, which eMarketer projects will grow 25.4% to $57.42 billion. The only digital segment growing faster this year, is essentially a form of programmatic advertising -- search -- which will expand 27.7% to $48.49 billion.

For all the ways marketers target people -- demos, etc. -- character has rarely had a role on Madison Avenue. Until now.

One of the most interesting, refined startups I've seen in the "rewarded, opt-in" ad marketplace is Dabbl, an app that pays users a 5 cents credit per completed engagement. When users accrue $5 worth of value, they can redeem it for a gift card. Dabbl is all about testing, learning and delivering the best ROI possible for both sides of the marketplace: consumer and brands.

New scientific research indicates video may be less effective than standard or animated banner ads in terms of actually seeing or experiencing an ad's exposure. The research, conducted by Media Science for a study commissioned by Kargo, utilized neuroscientific methods to measure the biometric responses of 218 smartphone users to three ad formats: standard banners (300x50 and 300x250), animated units, and video units (various sizes). It should be noted that Kargo markets custom-animated units to the ad industry.

A real-time video dial-test of nearly 2,000 American viewers shows a polarization of responses to Nike's controversial Colin Kaepernick ad.