Tag: media

Google Names Programmatic Video Marketplace Partners: HGTV, Food Network and Travel Channel On Board

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Last summer Google introduced Google Partner Select, a service allowing marketers to buy ads in “premium” online video content.

Now some big-name partners are signing on. Google on Tuesday said 30 media companies and 20 brand advertisers had agreed to transact via the exchange, including CBS Interactive, Fox News, Discovery Communications and Scripps Networks.

Google’s pitch to marketers is that with Google Partner Select they can buy inventory from a host of top video sites, using data for targeting purposes. Implicit in that pitch is that these marketers will avoid the low-quality and fraudulent inventory on other exchanges.

Marketers are rapidly embracing buying Web video advertising using more automated, data-driven tactics, according to Neal Mohan, Google’s vice president of video and display advertising,

“What we are seeing is the power of premium with programmatic buying,” Mr. Mohan said. “That’s something that [brands have] been very excited about.”

Of course, Google is also going after the TV advertising marketplace by directly selling Web video ad packages on YouTube via a more traditional TV-like approach (that isn’t entirely automated)–a program called Google Preferred. Mr. Mohan doesn’t see any conflict between those two trends.

“I don’t think they are mutually exclusive,” he said. “We’ve seen incredibly strong demand for Google Preferred, with brands buying in an upfront mode, and incredibly strong demand on the programmatic side. Brands are going to be looking to do both.”

As for the ad space available on the exchange, Google doesn’t offer many specifics but claims the inventory comes from a variety of content types, including everything from Web video news clips to live sports to full episodes of shows. (YouTube is not part of Partner Select.)

“We’ve gone after brand name, household name media partners on an exclusive basis,” Mr. Mohan said. “You have to remember the reason why this is attractive for publishers. They are trying to create incremental, high quality demand. Our publisher partners have not viewed this as a way to sell stuff they couldn’t sell upfront. In some cases, you are seeing this as a way for publishers to create pseudo private exchanges. We are not giving away keys to the kingdom.”

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Interpublic takes big step towards Programmatic TV buying

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Interpublic Group, one of the largest media agency conglomerates, is taking a big leap toward automated buying in a development that could have a huge impact on the current media ecosystem.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Interpublic has begun building a new system that will allow it to automatically buy TV and radio ads and has partnered with Clear Channel, A&E Networks, Tribune Co. and Cablevision to test the new system.

The idea is to use existing technology to better target ad buys, and to get rid of some of the more cumbersome parts of making a TV ad buy, which can take weeks or months to iron out under the current system.

TV networks are cautious as there’s speculation that an automatic system could have an impact on media rates, as it has for online search display ads.

Im a firm believer that anything that can be sold programmatic, will eventually move to programmatic and Interpublic has just taken the first step.

Programmatic Buying makes a play for TV

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Programmatic buying is a hot topic in the digital media world, but recently a new “audience-buying” platform called AudienceXpress has been making the headlines on Madison Avenue as it rolls out an automated system enabling agencies and their trading desks to serve ads into the most premium network television inventory.

Because of its implications for the overall media marketplace, the rapid rise of programmatic trading in online display advertising has been one of the most closely watched developments of the past couple of years, splitting Madison Avenue and its media supply chain into two philosophical camps: Those that want to preserve the world of old-school media-buying based on relationships and person-to-person negotiations; and those who want to shift to a new world of “audience-buying” based on scientific, real-time, transparent programmatic technology enabling brands to reach the audiences they are seeking with their precision at that exact moment they need to reach them.

The fear of losing control over the value of advertising inventory has been the major impediment to programmatic exchanges in the online business, but that hasn’t stopped the online display market from developing a marketplace based on sell-side machines trading with buy-side ones.

While supply was a big factor in the success of programmatic trading online, other big factors including the needs for agencies to improve their margins by utilizing technology to automate the way they buy in an increasingly fragmented media marketplace, as well as their philosophical shift from old school “media-buying” based on the seller’s inventory to the new world of “audience-buying” based on reaching the consumers that their clients’ brands want to reach with their ad messages.

According to the most recent estimates from Interpublic’s Magna unit, programmatic buying of media currently represents about 25% of online display buys, and is growing fast.

Since it went live in January with a beta being used by the trading desks of at least two of the biggest agency holding companies, AudienceXpress has already served nearly 2 billion ad impressions to network TV viewers nationwide — all below the radar of most of the TV advertising industry

One of the first adopters of AudienceXpress are cable operators because the platform gives them an incredibly efficient means of selling their TV advertising inventory to national advertisers in a way that does not cannibalize on the local and regional buys sold by their direct, in-house sales organizations.

The system essentially enables local cable operators to efficiently and automatically pool the local TV advertising avails they split with their cable network partners into an audience trading platform that taps the budgets of national advertisers. In other words, it enables local cable TV operators to compete directly for ad budgets with the national advertising sales organizations of their network affiliates. Generally, national cable TV networks give two minutes per hour to cable systems to sell as part of their distribution agreements.

Programmatic trading has quickly matured on Madison Avenue, and every major agency now has its own trading desk, or works with an array of independents. Almost all of them claim to be either currently buying or close to developing a solution for buying TV advertising inventory through their systems. At least two are doing so already.

In the minds of most TV folks, real-time bidding means devaluing your inventory, The AudienceXpress value proposition is to provide liquidity — largely for the sell-side — by applying
technology on the back-end and the front end, and then layering on audience data that increases the value of that inventory to advertisers.

New study shows Moms prefer iPads over iPhone

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A new report from mobile-analytics firm Flurry.com, The Who, What, and When of iPad and iPhone Usage, reveals that moms and home-design enthusiasts, are using iPads more than iPhones.

Meanwhile, health and fitness, music lovers, and video enthusiasts are all over the iPhone.

The heaviest period of use for the iPad during the day is from 6 pm to 11 pm; iPhone app usage also peaks during these hours.

Multi-screen marketing requires a new marketing approach

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Now more than ever, consumers want content at their fingertips and they can obtain it across multiple screen platforms whether it’s by a television, computer, tablet or mobile phone.

The use of non-screen media has declined by 22% since 2008 while television, computer internet and mobile have increased by one hour and twenty minutes during the same time frame.

Consumers have also become more efficient in multitasking since they can retrieve information various ways. About 40% of consumers use their smart phones or tablets while watching TV.

Video advertisers in the past had only one screen to target: the television. However, the rise of computers and mobile devices has boosted video viewing consumption across devices.

Yet, while the TV is no longer the sole video option for consumers, no single alternative has replaced television as the clear top choice for media consumption. According to a new report from ad network YuMe, 49 percent of all media consumption still comes from a television, 16 percent from the internet.

In addition, the report found that the average American owns close to four devices, and total figures show that there are more than 37 million tablets, more than 86 million PCs and close to 287 million TV sets owned in the United States.

So while the television is still the dominant media consumption option for many Americans, the proliferation of internet-enabled devices has cut into TV’s lead. As a result, consumers see video ads more than ever, which can make one spot appearing on only a TV or a computer less effective. YuMe’s report found that TV ads were only recalled about 27 percent of the time. In comparison internet video ads were remembered 43 percent of the time and mobile video ads had a 35 percent recall rate.

While the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and PCs may seem like it would hurt brands, but the key, is to think outside of traditional siloed efforts and focus on a new approach that reaches consumers across screens.

While TV is still the dominant platform for video, we are rapidly moving from a 100m+ household TV market to a billion+ screen based market. Now is the time for marketers to start thinking differently.