The Audience Insights platform seeks to simplify the process of traditional "tagging" by using information that is already available. Audience Insights takes an accretive approach as it merges data from campaigns on DoubleClick and Atlas via the VivaKi Cookie Syncing Process, with the ultimate goal of providing a more robust and scaled view of audience insights and profiles.

"It has been very rewarding to see this initiative turn into an industry offering that can scale," said Kurt Unkel, president of the VivaKi Nerve Center. "This was a collaborative effort in which BlueKai and the Nerve Center brought forth ideas and technology that could truly make this a game-changing offering."

"We are thrilled to partner with VivaKi to bring this best-in-class platform to the marketplace," said BlueKai CEO Omar Tawakol. "Put simply, this partnership is furthering our mission to enable the ecosystem to not only have access to good data, but to also have the ability to drive ROI, make it actionable and integrate data in every platform."

Rumors of Facebook’s advertising fall from grace are greatly exaggerated.

We could throw some bricks at GM—claim that their announcement yanking $10 million in advertising from Facebook is a pure publicity stunt from its CMO, telling the ad industry it can’t be swayed by anyone.

But the more likely story is this.

Digital Advertising Measurement Is A Lie & GM Believes It
GM has failed to be the truly analytical advertiser it should be.  It has believed the lie of online advertising followed by a herd of advertisers.  The lie isn’t that Facebook ads don’t work.

The lie is that measurement of online advertising uses woefully flawed systems built 15 years ago.  90% of top advertisers are still falling victim to this lie.  GM is using antiquated measurement equivalent to a yardstick only 2 inches long.

It’s called the last ad problem.

Even the smartest Silicon Valley technologists and Madison Avenue experts are barely familiar with the chasm of the last ad problem, so it’s worth illustrating:

Last Ad In Wins is For Losers
Imagine an Internet purchase on Zappos.  A consumer sees a contextual display ad for a jacket on Facebook because their friend just liked or commented on it.  They open a different browser tab to surf Zappos.com.  Time goes by and they order the $300 jacket by typing the brand term “Zappos” into search and make a purchase.  100% of the success with current ad tracking systems goes to that last clicked ad, merely a navigational endpoint before purchase, not what got the consumer going.

So if 5, 15 or 25 ads were involved from the top of the conversion funnel to the bottom, the bottom one gets all credit.

You’ve heard of line cutters; these are funnel cutters—stealing all the credit by jumping in at the end.  Facebook, however, typically resides at the top and middle of the funnel.

All those legacy tracking systems, they have just one slot for which online ad is credited with success (display/search/ facebook/affiliate, etc).   Just one?

GM Failed Advertising 101
Are we to believe that college-educated media buyers on the GM account pouring many hours on optimization should accept there’s only one ad responsible for a conversion?  Only one?  Even though the advertiser may be investing in five channels…there’s only one ad responsible for a conversion?  There are never two, three, or perhaps 17?  Never?

Are we to believe that even though the purchase funnel was created in 1898 by E. Lewis there’s no purchase funnel online…beginning with Awareness, Intent, Desire, and action.  None?

It’s a lie, and this is the reason why Facebook got decapitated by $10 million, but GM obviously doesn’t realize it.

Ford Gets an A+
I spoke to a senior executive at Ford’s ad agency this week.  And although they are not fully engaging attribution modeling which solves the last ad problem, Ford understands that a team of ads contribute to conversions.  Intuitively, Ford knows that Facebook is in the top and middle part of the purchase funnel.

But being cut by a huge brand, ignorant of the biggest problem in online advertising, is also a wake-up call to Facebook.

Facebook Needs Attribution
Facebook has mostly been a closed system when it comes to analytics and technology like view-through pixels and viewable impression measurement.  In some respects, who can blame Facebook for being a little closed in its platform when tracking systems cut out everything except the bottom of the funnel?  But if Facebook continues to allow its advertisers to operate by measuring with yardstick that’s 2 inches long, it’s not helping advertisers or itself.

In the meantime, though, a Facebook intern may take this article, and post it on a Facebook page with a title of “Got Measurement?”  I can think of 10 million reasons to get measurement.

Mark Hughes is CEO of C3 Metrics

For those of you that track analytics or keyword reports, either on your own or through your agency, (not provided) should be old news. The not-so-recent search encryption update from Google has had a larger impact on analytics than expected, as (not provided) is polluting top keyword reports regardless of your industry. The update allows users that are logged into Google to encrypt their searches so that the keyword they used to find your site is not revealed in analytics and is instead (not provided). While this is a step forward for privacy – in theory (see below) – it has made the job of the Data Analysts and SEOs a bit harder. After all, if you don’t know which words your consumers are using to find your site, how can you properly target them online?

Now Firefox is getting in on the search encryption fun, if something like search encryption can really be considered fun. Their most recent browser update defaults to a private search, regardless of the search engine you’re using. In other words, if you’ve recently updated Firefox and have not changed your default settings, your search keyword is (not set) for Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. Search marketers are not seeing which keyword search led you to their site when they check their Google Analytics.

Alone, these two updates may not have amounted to much, but together they are hiding a fairly large portion of data, enough to force consideration of what analytics does for you and how you can replace the lost information. While some articles are providing specific examples of the damage (not provided) can do, even anecdotally it is clear that marketers needed to take notice of this update. However, having less than 10% of your data affected is not usually enough to cause real damage or a change in approach. But what if over 20%, or up to 40% of your data is hidden? With (not set) being triggered by Firefox in addition to Google’s (not provided), that is just what is happening to some site owners. Needless to say, if you have full data for 1,000 keyword searches you’re going to be more effective targeting users than if you have the data for just 600 such searches.

Why isn’t (not provided) Showing Up in AdWords Data?

I have no quarrel with Firefox offering an update that could appeal to users and help to differentiate itself from other browsers (read: Explorer), but here is where I pick a bone with the change. Those paying for ad placement within the Google search network can see which keywords led to a user clicking on their ad. So if you’re paying Google, they are providing you with the keyword search of their logged in users; it is just for organic search, the type for which marketers can’t pay for top placement, that the privacy implementation is coming into play.

It is worth repeating that if you click on an ad, and Google gets money for that ad, they will “unblock” your private search. That is because it has already been sold to marketers at an arranged cost – the cost of the ad placement. But if you click on a natural result, and Google gets no money, you can keep your privacy. So that begs the question: Why update privacy now? While I can’t get inside Google’s head (if I could, I’d be rich) and say for sure “why now,” I can say that marketers should be looking at other ways to collect data if they want the complete picture.

What this all means is that SEOs and other online search marketers for small business, the types that can’t afford an Omniture or a Webtrends analytics platform, must ponder a day when Google’s free analytics goes away or is diluted. While Google Analytics is currently the most cost-effective option for site performance measurement for most businesses, the day when Google makes you pay for the best, most actionable data seems a bit closer now than it had been a few months ago.

Given that, it might be time to consider your options for replacing the lost information, though there is no impetus act on those ideas immediately (or as long as GA remains free). While solutions will vary with site data needs, some options include more in up-front data collection such as User Experience studies, or perhaps generating an e-mail database and CRM campaign to collect user information. There are a lot of ways to collect data, and if Google has any additional plans to shift the access to data, you need to be ready with other solutions.

Twitter verified accounts are used to denote the authenticity of certain pages on Twitter. The verified badge helps users identify that a legitimate source is authoring the account’s Tweets (or at least officially ghost-tweeting on behalf of a legitimate source).

Beginning primarily with the rise of celebrities’/politician’s use of Twitter, verified accounts then spread to other categories such as news outlets, companies and more. Confirmation that the account is being run by who it says it is.

Digital Trends recently reported (highlighted? exposed? uncovered?) that the verification process is tied to a monthly advertising fee. While this policy and the manner of its implementation are stirring up some debate, what does this mean for your brand?

I doubt that Twitter is going to make The White House account, or a celebrity like Kim Kardashian, pay $5,000/month…they create a draw for others to use Twitter. But for companies and brands on Twitter? That now seems to be another story.

A verified account may not be necessary for every business, but if your company feels it’s important to have verification, yet doesn’t have the budget for that monthly charge, the best things we recommend you can do is:

• Update your posts often
• Stay consistent with messaging
• Interact with your followers regularly
• Monitor your name and keywords, both in account names and in post messages (You should be doing this anyway, whether you run a Twitter page or not)

By making sure that your social media efforts are forging connections and conversationswith your audience, the verification will be inherent with or without a checkmark badge. Otherwise your brand is at risk of having someone literally take over how others perceive your Twitter presence.

That said, the demise of all other digital-based advertising at the emergence of this social channel is poppycock. I have often noticed that the digital experts in our space lack a historical view of advertising. The digital VC community—which has zero media and advertising expertise, but that invests heavily in digital companies—exacerbates this.

Dynamic new media and emerging communication channels often see meteoric growth. A leveling off always follows growth, as the channel finds its rightful place within the media mix of any advertisers’ plans. All you have to do is look back at the emergence of search marketing and you can see the parallel. It was not so long ago that it was proclaimed that display, at the hands of search, was dead. That proclamation was nullified, of course, when Google re-invested in display with the purchase of DoubleClick.

We can delve into history and find countless examples of new media coming of age, such as: broadcast television, cable television, etc. We can track their meteoric rises and their plateauing as they find their rightful place in the media mix. That’s not to say some media channels don’t suffer—changes in content distribution models do create disruptions beyond maturation, as we have seen with digital content vs. print and satellite radio vs. terrestrial.

In the case of social media, we are bound to see continued growth as marketers find new ways to leverage the channel. Does that mean the death of all other forms of digital advertising? Highly unlikely.

It’s obvious, but sometimes it takes a mother to show us that the well-worn path is not always the right path. And this is why your mother can actually buy media better than you.

Some Historical Perspective

See, here’s what she knew that can help online marketers right now. All online ad tracking systems used today are legacy systems built 15 years ago.  They erroneously give all credit for a conversion to the very last ad in line.  So if 10 ads were involved from the top of the conversion funnel to the bottom, the bottom one gets all credit.  You’ve heard of line cutters (folks who cut in line), these are funnel cutters—stealing all the credit by jumping in at the end. Why do we still measure everything this way?  Because that’s the way it was done, and we’re following everyone right off the media cliff.

We Are To Believe What?
Today, all those tracking systems have just one slot for which an online ad is credited with success (display/search social media/affiliate, etc).  Just one?  Are we to believe that college-educated media buyers pouring many hours over optimization should accept there’s only one ad responsible for a conversion?  Only one?  Even though the advertiser may be investing in five channels…there’s only one ad responsible for a conversion?  There are never two, three, or perhaps 17?

Are we to believe that even though the purchase funnel was created in 1898 by E. Lewis there’s no purchase funnel online…beginning with Awareness, Intent, Desire, and Action.  None?

Committing Media Suicide
Of course, anyone who looked at this situation with some perspective (like your mom) would  draw some parallels.  Your mom knows it takes many dates before you get married in the real world--and in the online world, it takes many impressions and clicks to convert.  Not just one.

What would your mom say?  In a slightly surprised and slightly irritated tone, she’d say, “What are you doing?  Just because everyone else is doing it that way, why would you do that!!  If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?  Of course not; you’re smarter than that!”

Your mom is or was smarter than every online advertiser who’s not using an attribution model.  And if your mom can see it, your client and your boss are going to see it very soon.

Now What?
What moms do is take a very complex problem and make it simple.  Same thing with attribution. It involves millions of views and clicks and thousands of transactions and attribution when used with a two-way communication platform, makes it easy enough that even your mom could buy media better than you (if you continue using legacy ad tracking systems).

Here’s how.  In a fractional attribution model, 100% of revenue, say from a Zappos transaction, is split and attributed among Originators, Assists, Converters plus what we call a Roster.  This can be done so that all four pieces of the pie equal 100%, and each of these four has a very different pie percentage--by industry, and by client.

Each ad player deemed worthy of attribution credit is tied to purchase funnel chronology with algorithms, like skipping brand term search credit when in last position and skipping credit for non-viewable impressions.  The fractional revenue is apportioned to the ad players on the team, which become the numerator of a fraction--and the cost of the ad player becomes the denominator of the fraction.  Divide them, and you have a trademark number called attributed value-to-spend-ratio.  A ratio of 2.0 means:  for every $1 you spent on a certain ad you get $2 in attributed revenue back.

With this one number, attribution modeling takes complex, big data and simplifies it.  You just gave birth to a new way of measurement:  an accurate way of measurement.

Growing Up
But as your fractional attribution baby grows up, its capabilities grow, too.  You might want to run sensitivity analyses or even conjoint analyses in C3 Metrics’ attribution sandbox as your data set gets more robust--or have our team of award-winning marketing scientists and Ph.D.s validate and adjust weights at finer levels with transaction-stream detail.  But for now, by not jumping off the media cliff with everyone else, your mom can buy media better than most.

You’re smarter than that.  Your mom knows it, too.

Mark Hughes is CEO of C3 Metrics

For those that have not come across it yet (and there are plenty), AR is considered the next phase of Virtual Reality (VR). Where VR is a completely virtual space not bound by physical reality, AR combines the real world with the virtual world. It is a live, view of a real-world environment with elements that are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics etc.

Still confused? Well, that might be part of the problem.

Tesco in the UK recently launched an Augmented Reality (AR) program on their website that allows you to view items in their catalogue in your real world. So if you want to see how a TV would look in your living room before you buy it – this can be done. The practical application of this sort of technology is endless.

However, the technology being in its infancy, it is still rather clunky. For the Tesco AR to work, you first need to print out a “marker” so the AR program knows where to place the product. You need to place the marker on your TV cabinet. You then need to position your webcam so it sees the marker within the environment you want to view. Then, you can only rotate the marker – which is great if you want to see the back of the TV, but not much good if you want to look at the whole environment from a different angle.

So, we are back to the question – is it great technology that is just too complicated, or is it the beginning of something incredible?

To be fair, those of us who have been frustrated with the user experience to date, realise it is probably because we can see the real potential.

Imagine staring down 5th Avenue in NY or Covent Garden in London and wondering where to start. You grab your phone, aim your mobile camera at the street and as you walk down, signs on your mobile screen let you know what is on special at which store and what the items look like. Maybe it will even be able to show what the clothes look like on. Pretty amazing.

Some of my generation might say “won’t your arm get tired?” or “wouldn’t it be easier to walk down the street and see the sign in the shop window that says 40% off or just search online for the cheapest TV?” But remember what the chairman of IBM said in 1943: “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Sometimes we cannot even imaging where advances in technology will take us, but surely any step that enhances the consumer experience and makes relevant information more accessible is a positive one.

Full disclosure: We’re in the travel business. But it’s not our only business. We saw substantial increases month-to-month for our audience-targeting platform over the past 12 months. In fact, we have almost 250 million individual customer data profiles. But this not an individual success story. This is a vertical success story. The success of the travel ad vertical can be duplicated, and should be duplicated as brands like P&G, Unliever and GM increase the acceleration of their overall budgets from offline to online spend. Kantar Media reported in November, “the display spending gain of 12.9 percent and 8.6 percent spike in search (for 2011) were driven by travel, local service and insurance categories.”

We know from other data that offline spending for travel was flat. The conclusion: the migration rate for travel from offline to online spending is more rapid than most any other category, from the best data we can gather. Now, think about other verticals. Automotive is coming on but is still TV focused. Pharma is ready to start a vertical migration, but privacy concerns continue to hold it. There are other ways in which the success of the travel ad vertical can be duplicated.  A closer look shows the following five market conditions and marketing activities that have made travel an effective vertical to copy:

Loyalty culture: Ever since the debut of the first frequent flyer program 30 years ago, travel marketing has centered around loyalty programs. Loyalty programs live and breathe on the effective collection and usage of customer data. This loyalty culture has migrated very easily online. Example: Starwood enhanced its loyalty program on Feb. 1 for its top tier customers. It recently reported that just 2 percent of travelers drive 30 percent of Starwood’s profits. With that in mind, the company spent the last three years building a customized online service to better understand the needs and desires of these guests. It is built into the DNA of every travel company. Other verticals can learn from this. Loyalty programs at the very least generate more useful customer  data if they don’t generate incremental sales. Data can drive digital marketing.

Partnerships: Travel companies partner very effectively and cooperate on many levels. It goes beyond the car rental company that partners with the airline, or the hotel chains that partner with the restaurant franchise. They learn from each other at conferences and through other partnerships. Now, other verticals have approached this. In fact, the entertainment business has pulled off many effective CPG partnerships. But none of them share information at the depth that the travel industry does.

Retention: Travel companies use digital marketing to keep and grow customer activity. It’s the laser focus of their efforts online. They have a handle on what it takes from an offer, discount and partner perspective to keep a customer coming back. Branding is a secondary focus for travel companies. Customer retention is job one, and they continue to commit to improvements. Seems to me that the automotive and retail business could take a lesson here.

Efficiency: Economic pressure and media efficiencies have forced travel companies to digital media. Gas prices are up, business travelers can connect virtually and they have to fight for their business. So digital media is not only more efficient and effective, it is a necessity to maintain mind share.

Targeting: Travel companies don’t want everybody.  Emirates Air doesn’t want the discount traveler for its high-priced first class section. Holiday Inn isn’t going after the billionaire that wants a luxury suite. They have an informed profile of the customers they want and digital has proven to be the natural platform for accessing them.

Loyalty, partnerships, retention, efficiency and targeting are well within the control of any company. Some larger economic forces have played into the travel budget move. But the big airlines and hotel chains in particular have raised their stake in digital marketing. As other verticals look for a blueprint to follow, travel has a good flight plan.

The Wrap’s Lucas Shaw reports that this move by Conde Nast is a major step for publishers and advertisers alike in setting the digital business model. Additional publishers are likely to follow suite in providing advertisers with tablet user metrics.

At the OPA, we believe this new development further feeds the optimism the industry has felt surrounding the tablet as a welcomed new publishing platform. Its also exemplifies how publishers are helping brands further realize the valuable environment premium publishers provide them. As audiences grow and publishers are increasingly able to demonstrate the impact these ads are having, the dollars will follow.

This post originally ran on the OPA Blog.

As the price of oil rises, it’s become economical to invest in new technologies thatrecover previously expensive sources of natural gas and oil. Two techniques - natural gas 'fracking' and shale oil extraction –have emerged as viable alternatives that.Both approaches require new technology, place a premium on available inventory and are disruptive to existing producers. These are not methods you use when oil is cheap and plentiful.

Oil isn’t cheap and plentiful like it used to be. 30 years ago China and India weren’t growing at 10% a year and the internet was nothing more than an academic and military communications tool.

The parallels between the energyeconomy to the current ad technology ecosystem are not obvious at first. But when you take a look at the ad ecosystem - and Terry Kawaja’sLumascape - the parallels are stunning. As demand for more has risen over the last two decades, more companies and more technologies have arrived to fill the gaps and create new sources of inventory to satisfy new demand.

When oil was first 'discovered', in western Pennsylvania in the middle of the 19th century, it was very close to the surface. This madeextraction simple, but messy and inefficient. John D Rockefeller's consolidation of the early oil industry into Standard Oil introduced efficiency. As worldwide exchange for trading oil and its derivatives developed, the US dollar was standardized as the Reserve Currency to stabilize the market. Since thattime all oil, even internationally, is bought and sold only in US dollars.

The development of this complex system for extracting, trading, transporting and refining oil took  nearly a century to develop. By comparison, the same process took the online ad industry less than 15 years.

Within the ad tech ecosystem, Doubleclick was Standard Oil. Overture would have been British Petroleum, but they ceded this mantle to Google.  24/7 Real Media became Dutch Shell. Various other ad networks became versions of Philips, Citgo, Getty, Chesapeake Energy and Lukoil.

A barrel of Oil? In today’s ad world, the standard measure is CPM.

Over time, vertical control of oil field operations left the control of the 'oil' companies and became separate businesses. The rise of the SSPs echo this development, as companies like AdMeld, The Rubicon Project and Pubmatic became the Halliburtons of the ad world and helped manage yield. Their plumbing provided the raw material for Google AdX and other exchanges to monetize. Media companies like Yahoo, seeing the value of their own fields, sought to buy technologies like Right Media to better monetize their own inventory and then applied this technology to other companies’ fields. DSPs like Turnand Invite developed ways for buyers to target the fields that best met their needs.

Still, during all this time, these companies were recovering most of the easy stuff: web display ads on the best publishers' pages. Using a standard set of recovery tools - iFrames, JavaScript, and Flash - these OPEC-like players competed for the ad inventoryby bidding for the highest quality impressions, or the best crude oil, that they could find. Like wildcatters of the old days, Publishers realized that more home page inventory meant more revenue and created new editorial products to be sold. As long as the users visited and occasionally engaged, all was good. Publishers even started to monetize impossibly tiny audiences on impossibly small screens via mobile apps and companies like AdMobwere created overnight to pursue and exploit this market.

However, throughout this flowering of ad technology innovation, one humongous source of potential inventory has stubbornly avoided profitable exploitation:  the real estate residing within email newsletters, alerts and notifications. Breaking news. Friend and game requests. Transactional messaging. Status Updates and reminders.

Email, the universal tool of communication - the number one way for publishers to remind you to visit their site, for social media services to notify you of a post, and for etailers to send you your confirm – has until recently relatively untouched by the ad tech revolution. Unmonetized except by retail email marketers. While retailers have long appreciated email as an effective marketing tool, the issue is that, in the hands of a publisher, email has long been underutilized and has remained a loss leader. Big time.

Why is that?

Cost. The hassle factor of buying and selling email inventory. It’s been too hard to sell, and too hard to buy. Everyone else has been selling impressions and clicks while email has been selling sends. And selling them asynchronously. The time has come for a change.

The amount of premium display inventory available in email dwarfs that of display. There are approximately three billion email addresses in existence today, four times the number of Facebook users. Much of that email volume, estimated at 170 million messages a minute, is being read using HTML readers, which, similar to display, are capable of serving images. As more users move to smartphones, the number of HTML5-enabled readers grows by the minute. All of this is for a solution to recover the valuable latent ad inventory locked within it.

The reason email inventory hasn’t been exploited is very simple: without flash, javascript and iFrames – the drilling tools of the ad tech ecosystem –advertisers and agencies couldn’t buy it the way they can buy display. And publishers couldn’t sell it like they could sell display.  So it just sat there. Until now.

LiveIntent has ‘fracked’ the latent inventory lying dormant within email newsletters, alerts and notifications and has made it available for buyers and sellers just like every other form of interactive inventory that’s been created.

With this revolutionary extraction method – no flash or javascript required - email advertising finally has developed the real-time technology to unlock the high-attention, opted-in ad inventory of the newsletter, which allows it to be bought and sold as efficiently as display. Publishers can now fully monetize inventory, something that had been nearly impossible and cost-prohibitive prior to this innovation. Advertisers can now target, bid and buy impressions within emails where users are routinely spending 20 or more seconds - impression quality that approaches billboards or television.

This is a really big deal. With the growth of the smartphone, people are spending increasing amounts of time reading email. Where before it was a desk-bound activity, now people – for good or bad – can read email anywhere they want, and on devices that render in HTML5, often a better platform than what they have on their desktop computer.

Advertisers can now buy email ad inventory that can truly be called local and mobile. Publishers can now make money sending email like their counterparts within the retail sector.

What’s most exciting? People click ads in email at a rate 10x in traditional display. People spend almost 30 seconds in an email when they open it.  Why? Because unlike in display, with it’s high bounce rate and short time on page, readers of opt-in newsletters have asked to receive the content, and there is high trust factor when requested content is paired with an ad.

So if you were deciding whether you were going to create another subsection on your website, another page four clicks down, think twice. There is another property that you own, another property that you can sell, and you push it to your best customers – it’s your email newsletters, alerts and notifications. Use this inventory and you’ve ‘fracked’ your way to some new revenue that technological innovation has created for you.

Definitely worth a read on some of the major issues, Namely’s CEO, Matt Straz pointed out in a bold MediaPost article, “People who work at agencies are frustrated because RFPs are still largely managed through email. A single RFP sent to a dozen publishers can result in hundreds of emails going back and forth among the parties.” Clearly, the process is tedious and lets be honest – it can be maddening.

A special poll recently conducted by STRATA (with agencies of varying sizes that are on a wide spectrum of buying systems) turned up some alarming information, mainly that many people have thrown their hands in the air when it comes to the Digital RFP process. While 27% say they plan to purchase a platform to handle the process – a more surprising 58% said that they will not buy a system to handle this increasingly important media process.

So what are they left to do? Here is the shocking part for all of us in the media buying software industry – only 25% say they will use their media system. Ouch. Nearly half said they will use Excel to handle the process. A process that Straz labeled in his article is a pain in the neck for literally everyone, including the sellers, buyers and publishers.

I’m not saying that STRATA removed the Digital RFP sword from the stone when no one else could, but we have recently launched a Digital RFP module to our buying system that boils the request/response workflow process down to a couple of clicks while expediting negotiations and inventory selection.  I’d be lying if I didn’t say that we are pretty excited about it. BUT, there remains a problem. It is a problem of a mindset that is stuck in a traditional process. It is a mindset that as we have noticed for years – where Digital is great but Traditional remains the bread and butter. Well over a third of STRATA Survey participants say that they don’t ever see Digital ad spend being greater than Traditional.

What does the industry need to do? Educate. We as system providers need to educate the agencies on what is needed to streamline the process that includes Digital RFP. Yes, it is different than Spot TV or Print. But they can be equally or even more effective (sorry, Excel isn’t efficient). If agencies feel comfortable leveraging these tools, that will come across to their clients and demonstrating the value of Digital will be simple. I know for us at STRATA, we have the tools in place and it is up to us to educate agencies to help push this ever-changing advertising avenue forward.

OK, Google...I am trying. Really I am. So #WTH- Why This Hard?

I don’t know about you, but I am finding it difficult to adopt and adapt to Google’s social platform. The main reason? To me, it’s still just another social tool and not yet an intuitive behavior. I’m not running to upload pictures of my recent afternoon with the girls, or post the location and a picture of the amazing burger I’m enjoying. With G+, I am still trying to figure out where my friends are, and apparently, I didn’t get the invite to the cool kids “hangout.”

Last night in a Facebook exchange with an industry peer, my friend echoed what the vast majority of users are saying about Google Plus: “It’s like going to a playground, where no one is playing.”

“Yeah,” I responded, “...and hopping on the seesaw by yourself.”

Last week during a chat at #SXSW, Guy Kawasaki pressed Vic Gundotra (Google’s VP for Engineering), on the perception that, right now; G+ is a virtual ghost town. Gundotra, in his now famous response, defended the giant.

“Make sure you’re using it correctly,” he responded with a laugh. I’m not sure how many laughed.

While I found his statement amusing, I think it gets to the heart of the problem. I don’t want to have to learn how to use it correctly. If was intuitive, it would become an ingrained social behavior for me and countless others. Like with Facebook, everyone would be on the playground, and playing, not just hanging by the fence.

Gundotra was also quoted in a recent New York Times interview. “Not only is Google Plus not a ghost town,” he said, “…we have never seen anything grow this fast. Ever.”

The company recently shared its Google Plus user numbers, citing that nearly 50 million people have created a Google Plus account and use Google+ optimized services daily, totaling about 100 million active users in a 30-day period.

Hmm...let’s break this down. “Google+ optimized services” include Google.com, the Android Marketplace, and YouTube, so in reality the hard numbers can’t be attributed strictly to Google+. In a view from outside the company, a report released last month by ComScore, says Google Plus users spend about three minutes a month on the social network. By comparison, ComScore says that people spend an average 405 minutes a month on Facebook, the service Google Plus is trying to displace.

So to what does Gundotra attribute to Google Plus's success? Advertising. He says that Google ads, where someone has clicked the +1 button, currently yield a 5 to 10 percent click-through-rate uplift on any ad for a company that has the “social annotation” on their websites.

Ok, how many of you are actually clicking on that fun little +1 button? Rarely? Yeah, me either.

What I do find compelling is that Gundotra went on to explain in that NYT interview that G+ ads differ from other social competitors ads, (such as Facebook and LinkedIn), as the Google+ ads serve up a “socially enhanced ad at the time of intent” rather than a randomly placed ad that pops up in your social feed after you mention a particular topic. If I am searching for a new #iPad case and people in my Google Plus Circles have +1’ed a particular one, Google will serve me the ad for that case. The current flaw with that theory? I’m not utilizing my Google Plus Circles, and no one I know is sitting around clicking +1 buttons. #FAIL.

At the end of the day, like all good things, use and appreciation of Google Plus is going to take some time. And if that doesn’t happen soon, it seems Google will continue to be content with politely bullying us around the playground until we all hop on the seesaw.

I'm interested in what you think.  Are you using or do you plan to start using G+? You can get me @saminj58 or info@r2integrated.com. Want to learn more about @R2integrated? Click here.

In terms of pricing, Oscar TV ad spots outrank most award shows. But the actual “worth” of these spots have come into question in recent years, as viewership of the awards show has waned, especially among younger demographics. The Hollywood Reporter published a report in their February 17 issue that showed how hosts and best picture nominees affect overall viewership. After pulling together additional data for review, there is some truth to the analysis.

The chart proves that during years with big pictures such as the “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” in 2004 won, viewership was at a high of 44 Million.  But when critic darling, “No Country for Old Men” won in 2008, viewership was at only 31 Million.  This year may also be difficult for viewers to get behind since “The Help” is the only box office hit among the nine best-picture nominees.  Other networks are also competing heavily as multiple programming options are set to distract viewers such as TNT airing the NBA All-Star Game against the Oscars, likely peeling away male audiences.

However, with viewership in question, digital efforts are being put in place to build interest in this year’s festivities.  The Academy is hoping to attract younger viewers by streaming the show live online this year, including a pay wall for viewers to get exclusive high level content. ABC also increased its online advertising efforts, placing rich media and display ads on targeted web sites in the 3-4 weeks leading up to the Academy Awards to build interest in the TV broadcast*.

Also announced this week, ABC and the Academy are working to boost viewer engagement before, during and after the live telecast through an all-access application for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.  The official application is part of the new Oscar Digital Experience, which includes increasing Facebook, Twitter and overall social media engagement.

Big brands that notoriously spend large budgets on TV ad spots are also increasing social media efforts to help bolster advertising campaigns. Hyundai, Diet Coke and JC Penney have all tripled social media efforts and are working to coordinate messages with digital platforms.

Are our big TV events of the year becoming more and more digital? Even the Academy is “going digital” in their own way – they’ve announced plans to incorporate electronic voting in 2013. The Academy and advertisers are staging a new way to keep the Oscars relevant with broader demographics. Balanced with perhaps another look at the format of the show, Digital could set the stage for our next award winning performances.

*Source - Kantar

So many companies have developed sophisticated technology to automate campaign performance.  The problem is that no matter how good your technology, you still need statistical relevance to make decisions.  Statistical relevance requires volume, and volume costs money.  Asking an advertiser to spend a lot of money to “see” if something works is just not a proposition that goes over well.  On the other side, companies that take display deals on a CPA basis have to decide how much to spend to find that sweet spot.

That’s where the art comes in.  If technology can rapidly adjust your landscape and offer visibility, the human mind can determine how to jump to the next level without wasting a lot of money.  Sites, creative, frequency capping—all levers that can be played with to find that balance of volume and performance.

There are so many variables that it becomes a tangled web.  Take the “transition impression” concept.  When you first enter a site, you have yet to engage in the content, which means that an ad has a much better chance of making an impact on you.  Once you have engaged with the site, you are less likely to be distracted by extraneous content, such as advertising.

The analogy we use here at Underdog Media is one about driving a car. Consider these two scenarios: making a turn vs. driving straight ahead.  If you are making a turn, you are very engaged in your surroundings and more likely to notice things, like a pedestrian, that might effect your actions.  While driving straight, you are less likely to notice things going on around you.

Optimization is art and science.  Transition impressions—and their impact on performance—are just one example of the multitude of variables that must be considered to maximize ROI.

The data speaks for itself. Mobile web usage continues to increase dramatically; more people are buying smartphones and tablets, and taking them online. They’re changing the way we watch TV, experience advertising, and make purchase decisions, both online and in-store.

Thanks to this burgeoning mobile shift, scenarios that seemed futuristic not so long ago are becoming our here-and-now reality. Try this one on for size:

You are woken up by the alarm on your smartphone. As you brush your teeth (with your Bluetooth-connected toothbrush), perhaps you attend to a screen or two that’s integrated into your home – maybe via a smart mirror or smart window. Your screens present you with relevant, custom-curated news and information, tailored to your needs and interests based on the preferences you’ve opted to share with media companies. You grab a 10-Hour Energy – in the future, five hours doesn’t cut it – and you’re out the door on your way to work. All you carry is a smartphone and a tablet. When your cab drops you at your office, you wave your phone to pay. At your desk you place your tablet and smartphone in docks, via which they sync instantly with your office’s information systems. A laser virtual keyboard and Kinect interface allow you to input text and control your computing world with gestures.

Sound crazy? Well, pending a few processor upgrades and an uptick in mobile bandwidth, everything here is entirely plausible using technology that’s widely available right now. That same technology is about to dramatically alter how we shop – online, on Main Street, and at the mall.

Our mobile future is, if not already here, fast approaching. So how can smart marketers make the most of the mobile shift to capture new opportunities for consumer engagement?

Here are a few emerging technologies to keep an eye on:

• Near-Field Communications: This technology, which enables devices in close proximity to communicate, promises to have enormous impact on how we market to consumers. Right now it’s discussed mostly as a mobile-payment platform, which it will be, but it also has great potential to deliver hyper-relevancy and drive engagement. Chris Silva of Altimeter warns, however, that privacy issues will need to be top of mind where near-field communications (NFC) are concerned. And I have to agree with Silva on this point: “I don’t necessarily want a ‘Minority Report’ experience where I’m walking down the street and getting marketed to by name because I passed by a sensor.”

• Digital Bridges: QR codes and other offline triggers often get a bad rap, but along with apps like Viggle and Shazam, they’re invaluable as “bridging” technologies that connect the online and offline worlds via users’ mobile devices. What’s more, they deliver highly qualified ‘clicks’ to marketers – the QR-scanning customer has gone out of her way to engage with you. Now how will you return the favor?

• Device Fingerprinting: Still in its infancy, “device fingerprinting” will allow targeting in a way similar to what a cookie does online. This and other standards will emerge to allow consumers to decide what data they want to share with marketers in exchange for a new level of convenience and relevance. Google and others are looking at new frontiers to integrate data across devices and make mobile even more useful to consumers and brands.

• Showrooming: Brick-and-mortar retailers are likely to suffer the most from the new phenomenon of “showrooming,” where people use their phones to comparison shop online while in retail stores. During the holidays, 52% of shoppers used their phones to conduct research in stores, after which many of them chose to make their purchases online. It’s easy to see how this could escalate into a headache for businesses. Marketers can fight back by building apps or working with companies such as Milo that use offers and recommendations to incentivize store visits and purchases.

• Real-Time Dialogue: Customers aren’t waiting until they get home to review your shop, restaurant, or salon anymore – with geo-enabled apps like Foursquare and Yelp at their fingertips, they don’t have to. Next time you’re in a restaurant, look around. That’s right, look up from your own smartphone and notice how many of your fellow diners are engaged with their phones – looking up a Groupon offer, letting friends know where they are, checking reviews on crowd-sourced – or even (gasp) traditional – media sites. Mobile consumers are social, and they are going with the crowd. Tap into the ratings, feedback, and check-in data your customers so readily provide to open a two-way dialogue. It’ll add up to better consumer engagement, and better business performance.

There’s no question that our transformation to a mobile society is already underway. Broader adoption and better integration of mobile technologies will permanently alter the ways we interact with our customers and with each other. Marketers who understand and embrace this change will remain relevant long into the future.

Moderator Jeffrey Rayport, Operating Partner, Castanea Partners asked the participants to crystallize their paid content business strategies.

Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, Financial Times, said the FT was essentially trying to create a business that generates more and more revenue from its content, and settled on a metered model that charged users when they hit a threshold of articles.

He also discussed how switching its mobile experience from applications to HTML5 was a risk, but it has ultimately paid off handsomely. Since the FT launched the app, its traffic from Apple devices is up more than 50%, he said.

“We feel although it was a gamble, we’ve put ourselves in a much better position,” Grimshaw said.

Paul Smurl, Vice President, Paid Products, The New York Times Company, told the attendees that they need to research the tolerance of their audience to pay for content. He echoed Grimshaw’s previous comments that the Times found that people were more than willing to pay for premium content.

Unveiling a metered system has not impacted traffic to the New York Times, remaining at 44 million global unique visitors, which is flat year-over-year.

Another interesting aspect to the unveiling of digital subscriptions is that it gives publishers greater analytics to understand what type of content their users prefer.
“You want to know where the oil is on your site better than others,” Smurl said. “It allows you to think [deeper] about average revenue per user.”

LinkedIn, as a social media company, took a slightly different approach. They made sure they weren’t impacting the experience of those who use the site for general networking, while locating a paid model for recruiters and other power users.

“We [looked to] creating paid opportunities that didn’t overall negatively impact the ecosystem,” Sutherland-Wong said.

And because a majority of users spend time on LinkedIn in a free capacity, that active audience provides an effective ROI for those who use the paid services

The panel served up plenty of evidence that online subscriptions have a bright future, with the key takeaway that publishers will find success with paid models by putting resources towards understanding their customers and paying attention to their needs.

This post originally ran on the OPA Blog.

Leading off, Rishad Tobaccowala, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, VivaKi, identified audience, brand, content, data and enterprise as the key components for ongoing success for marketers.

He focused on marketers needing to understand their audience, but not just the people who buy the most of their products.

“Most marketers focus on heavy users, but we also have to focus on the heavy voice, or influencer,” Tobaccowala said. “If you don’t defang your detractors, it doesn’t matter what you do with your advocates.”

The three most important forces guiding the next phase in marketing are the Internet as “connection engine”; “digital leakage”, or how the digital spaces makes unlikely competitors of key brands; and D.A.D. (disaggregated, accelerated, distributed content).

“The next 10 years will be fantastic for the [publishing] industry if it lives up to its potential,” Tobaccowala said.

Tobaccowala, however, pointed out that there will always be unforeseen challenges and opportunities, or “black holes” when looking to the future. In 2002, he reminded the audience that Facebook didn’t exist, Google was just a search company, and Apple was given up for dead.

Matt Freeman, Vice Chairman/Chief Innovation Officer of McCann Erickson, highlighted how online publishers and advertising agencies have shared goals.

“The agency business and online publishing are not that dissimilar,” Freeman said. Adding that the goal is to determine “how we can work together to create new ideas in partnership with online publishers.”

Linda Descano, CFA and Chief Administrative Officer of Global Marketing & Corporate Affairs at Citi, talked about how her company is taking a stronger approach to content, from holding Twitter parties to launching social media sites.

The company asked itself: “How do we thrive in a conversation economy?”

Descano said that Citi’s previous marketing efforts lacked cohesion and a singularity of message, so they needed to alter their approach.

Citi has subsequently transformed its content strategy from the sort of formulaic “About Us” approach to identifying what information is relevant for its customers.

This post originally ran on the OPA Blog.

AD SPEND RISING

The STRATA Survey found that 81% expect their client's approach to advertising and marketing to either increase or stay the same.  This is up 14% based on the same figures reported third quarter 2011. Adding to this positive economic surge, nearly half of respondents said they project the 1^st half of 2012 to be better than the last half of 2011 with increases in business compared to the same time last year. The impact shows 31% of agencies noted they plan on hiring in 2012, which is up 29% over third quarter 2011 and up 28% over the same time last year.

DIGITAL

Digital advertising dollars were nearly unchanged during the fourth quarter 2011 compared to the previous quarter. When agencies were asked about their client's focus on digital, 81% said it was more than it was a year ago, which is actually down 4% from the previous quarter. There is also significant confusion around Digital due to the fact that agencies still say clients don't understand the value (54%). On the social front, Facebook continues its dominance in ad campaigns with 89% of agencies planning to utilize the medium for clients (followed by Twitter (39%), YouTube (36%), LinkedIn (21%) and Google Plus (18% - up 28% over 3Q 2011).

MOBILE

Agencies reported Mobile advertising during the fourth quarter 2011 was up 39%. The iPhone remains the top choice as reported by 83% of agencies surveyed, though Android continues to close the gap, up 32% over third quarter 2011 and up 50% over the fourth quarter 2010. Although the iPad is still third for Mobile advertising, 76% do say that with Apple and Amazon continuing to focus on building tablet content, there will be an increase in interest in advertising on the newer medium.

TOP MEDIUM OF CHOICE

The STRATA Survey reveals that the top medium of choice for clients in the fourth quarter was Spot TV (Broadcast and Cable) as reported by 51% of agencies surveyed. Digital was second at 31%, which is down 9% from third quarter 2011, followed by Spot Radio (8%). Spot TV (Broadcast) continues to be an area of interest as 28% of respondents said that they are more focused on it than a year ago, up 12% over fourth quarter 2010. As for Spot Cable, 26% say they are more focused on it than they were a year ago, which is up 66% over last year.

About the Data: STRATA conducted the survey of advertising agency respondents online and via telephone in Q4 2011, and had about 90 respondents.

Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi discussed the economic outlook for the next couple of years in opening comments.

While he says full recovery is a few years away, he is optimistic and predicts that 2012 will be better than 2011, and 2013 will see additional improvement.

Mark indicated that the next big opportunity for US companies is in China, but that products and services must be re-imagined in order to succeed in that very unique and different culture. This holds true for content as well.

Our next speaker Peter Francese, Demographic Trends Analyst for the MetLife Mature Market Institute, noted that the state of the union for publishers is strong, considering how limitless the demand for content has become.

He broke down the various demographics that will be consuming the most content. He focused on both the young–noting that children are starting to access content online at around 5 and 6 years old–and grandparents, of which there are 65 million in the US alone.

For the latter, he said that when users encounter a new life stage, e.g. becoming grandparents or seniors, the need for content that explains the new worldview increases.

Genevieve Bell, Intel Fellow and Director of Interactions and Experience Research, Intel Labs, INTEL, spoke next about how Intel uses anthropology to better understand how its products fit into this changing landscape.

She highlighted the fact that the world is not just more connected, but that the US is no longer the center of the web-driven world.

“17% of the world’s Internet users were based in the US in 2010 vs. 65% 10 years ago,” she said.

“You need to be clear about who you are targeting, not just creating a fantasy of who your user is,” Bell said. “It is essential that technology providers and content providers make things that cut through the clutter.”

She highlighted a number of trends that impact the publishing space. For example: the proliferation of devices. While consumers are struggling with what devices are relevant to their lives, they have decided that no one device will do it all.

But not everything is changing; Bell is quick to point out that Americans still watch five times more TV in a month than spend hours on the Internet.

Plenty more to come tomorrow and don’t forget to tune in at 9:15 am ET and 9:50 am ET for the next two live streamed sessions from the summit.

This post originally ran on the OPA Blog.

TV Everywhere could be a big moneymaker for advertisers and networks. Viewers now have the option of watching their favorite shows on TV at home, on their laptop or even on their mobile device at no additional cost, which will change the way TV is purchased from a media standpoint.

Gone are the days when the family would gather in the family room to watch their favorite primetime TV shows. The VCR dabbled in changing this habit, but the DVR completely mastered this concept. Now viewers have the option of watching their favorite shows on TV at home, on their laptop or even on their mobile device at no additional cost. This concept is known as TV Everywhere.

The growing demand for TV Everywhere has transitioned TV from a platform device to an experience, which is beneficial to both the viewers and advertisers.  With TV Everywhere, cable operators are allowing mobile access to customers who pay for TV service, improving customer satisfaction and creating new revenue opportunities. And one of the main perks is that unlike DVR, consumers do not have to plan ahead to use it.

TV Everywhere could be a big moneymaker in the future for advertisers and networks. According to Needham & Co’s Laura Martin, TV Everywhere could bring an additional $5.6 billion into the ad market each year.  Since commercials will be the same as television, revenues will not be lost from ad skipping if the fast-forward button is disabled. This will also change the way TV is purchased from a media standpoint. Companies will be able to buy packages, which allow them to advertise across multiple platforms, and purchases will be focused more on impressions rather than ratings.

David Verklin, one of the cable industry's most influential executives, explains in this video why he's bullish on the future of television, and why the reasons have as much to do with new media as old.

In a world where technology is rapidly advancing, service providers will need to produce a consistent viewing experience across multiple devices in order to keep up. How do you think TV Everywhere will influence a shifting approach to advertising?