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Native Display Advertising Delivers the Knockout Punch to the Banner

Posted by Chris Cunningham on December 14th, 2012 at 11:58 am

The year 2013 will mark the 20th anniversary of the banner ad. Round after round, we’ve jabbed, bobbed and weaved looking to deliver a knockout punch for the limited canvas it and other display advertising offers, and what the alternatives are. The fight has gone the distance and there’s no doubt the judges’ decision is clear: display advertising, both on the web and mobile, needs to progress beyond the standard boxes where it has been contained and native display advertising delivers a clear contender to move ad dollars.
Native advertising is throwing the knockout punch to the banner and with it, the ability for big, beautiful advertising well outside the constraints of the boxes making up display advertising. Just as important, native is delivering advertising at a time that is natural to the user flow and behaviors during natural breaks in the activities performed, which provides a better experience for users, less disruption from the publisher and better performance for the advertiser.
Today, web advertising is built around content. The emerging category of native advertising is part of content and the experience, and, most importantly, what people are doing. Thanks to next generation publishers, such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Tumblr, to... Read more

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Huh? What? And, Ah-Ha Moments from a Long Traveled Road

Posted by Chris Cunningham on September 30th, 2009 at 12:00 am

I can't imagine working in any other industry but the Internet. As we head into Q4 and look forward to 2010, the buzz and discussions around social media are deafening.
As someone that crisscrosses the country meeting with agencies and brands, I've had some pretty interesting conversations and experiences recently and thought I'd share. Here goes…
Recently, I met with an agency that said, "We don't do apps." Wow, was I surprised to hear that! Saying you don't do apps is like saying you don't understand all the inventory opportunities available. For example, CaféMom was recently passed by Circle of Moms (a community on Facebook) by millions of women. Another example, NBC's Access Hollywood just launched an app on iGoogle, one of the newest third-party platforms available, and it is already gaining traction. So don't consider apps an object or a banner that goes away but rather a bonafide community that is growing each day. If you are a CPG company looking to sell diapers you may want to reach a highly engaged and targeted community of moms. If you educate yourself on what moms are doing you could possibly provide content, coupons around existing conversations on Facebook and soon via... Read more

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Brand Summit Day 2: Observations and Thoughts

Posted by Chris Cunningham on February 9th, 2009 at 12:00 am

I’m at the iMedia Connection Brand Summit taking place this week and wanted to share some thoughts and observations on my second day here.  First and most important it’s warm.  It’s amazing after spending a few months in the cold back in New York City how well your body and soul responds to 70 degrees.
Okay, had to share and rub that in to the readers. It’s certainly light on the brand side.  I’ve been to over 15 iMedia events and I’m a huge ambassador and fan of everything about it, but this is the smallest group I have seen. I know the iMedia team did everything humanely possibly, but the recession has most companies watching their money for good reason.
I was also very happy to see a very common theme from the three speakers this morning Jeff Glueck, CMO of Travelocity, Nick Denton, president of Gawker Media and Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer and that is: engagement matters! We need better creative, buying contextual in social media is vital and banners are not the wave of the future. Jeff went even further in saying the following: People ignore and don’t notice banners, buying tonnage on social networking sites... Read more

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A Trip Down Social Media's Memory Lane

Posted by Chris Cunningham on January 12th, 2009 at 12:00 am

Ok, show of hands. How many of you have been working in online media for 8-10 years? Ok, now how many of you have been in media for 8-10 years and how many of you have worked closely with social platforms on the either the publisher or brand side?  For those of you (including me) who have been lucky enough to be a part of this incredible journey, I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane and look back at the evolution of social media and discuss how brands have played a significant role.
 
Even today, online advertising outside of search has been about one thing: Building an ad and placing it in a contextually-relevant place and hoping a user clicks on the ad and goes to Web site that the brand has built. Ultimately the goal is to keep the user on the Web site so that he or she will engage or maybe buy something then or at a later time. So, how effective is this process? 
 
Roughly four years ago we saw the first movement of brands going to where the “party” was, rather than planning their own site with the rise of MySpace profile pages. Every company... Read more

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