MediaPost | Future of Media

Why the Digital Advertising Industry Needs to Stop Complaining

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:27:02 -0400

For far too long, the digital advertising industry has been griping about how it’s an afterthought for brand marketers. I think I’ve heard it all. “We deserve brand budgets.” “We should be getting television dollars,” and “We’re not getting our fair share based on time spent…” The reality is we haven’t earned brand dollars.

As an industry, we’ve spent the last 10 years creating a direct response focused, non-brand friendly ad eco-system. From the creative formats, to the measurement, to the pricing structure – we’ve consistently valued all the wrong things for brands.

The good news is that a paradigm shift in media consumption can give us a fresh start. Social and mobile apps—the fastest growing segment of media consumption— offer marketers exactly what they’re looking for when it comes to brand advertising. Within apps, we can deliver 100% viewable, relevant and impactful ads. No more buttons. No more text links. No more auto-play, in-banner video ads. No more below-the-fold remnant inventory bought through ad exchanges.

Most of us aren’t in this business to service direct response marketers. So let’s stop acting like it. Below are some ideas that will help us all get a shot at those highly coveted brand advertising dollars.

Ads must be 100% viewable.

I’m calling for us all to adopt viewable impressions, which will force the industry to stop commoditizing digital ads. I can still hear Wenda Harris Millard’s words from 2008 when she said, “We must educate one and all about the value our digital offerings provide marketers and not trade our advertising space like pork bellies.” Amen. But this is still an issue today, some four years later, with a glut of premium and remnant inventory running through ad exchanges.

The rise of social and mobile apps can fix this issue and ensure all ad placements are viewable. Think about it. Have you ever seen below-the-fold ads on a social game or mobile app? That’s because they don’t exist.

High-impact, cross-platform ad placements are a must.

Apps (particularly games) also deliver a new canvas for marketing messages where brands get 100% share of voice. According to a recent Harris Interactive survey, 60 percent of smartphone owners and 72 percent of Facebook app users prefer to see immersive and integrated ads versus static banner ads. These results unveil that consumers are asking for ad formats in apps and games. As an industry, we must deliver.

What’s more, consumers are increasing their app and game usage cross-platform, all the while delivering a massive and engaged audience to marketers. Since people are consuming media this way, a brand’s ad campaigns must also run cross-platform and across devices.

Let’s (finally) ditch the click.

With viewable, high-impact creative ad placements available via apps and games, we need to develop new standardized brand metrics. The industry must take the emphasis off of impressions and clicks (true direct response metrics) and find other ways to measure how brands translate value through digital advertising. Let’s standardize our own tangible metrics for brands such as the GRP, reach/ frequency and other top-of-the-funnel metrics including time spent, engagement and viewability.

Ari Brandt is Co-founder and CEO of MediaBrix

Frictionless Sharing 2.0

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:18:06 -0400

We focus on multiplatform convergence, fragmented attention, and precise audience targeting when we talk about the future of media, but frictionless sharing is quietly becoming one of the biggest forces dictating the future creation, consumption and spreading of content.We’re seeing the beginnings of frictionless, passive sharing on Facebook apps like Spotify and The Washington Post Social Reader. We cede control of curating our content feed, and anything we consume on these sites is automatically broadcast to our social network. Rather than choosing and sharing the best song we listened to on any given day, we’re passively sharing the hundreds of songs that we heard instead. While it’s beginning to grow in popularity as other media sites adopt it en masse, it’s the next wave of frictionless sharing – harnessing mobile, geolocation and multi-device technologies – that will really change the game.

For one, imagine a frictionless Foursquare, where every restaurant, bar, event or lecture you experience is automatically logged and broadcast. No longer do you need to manually write a recommendation for a good tapas joint – the fact that you’ve been to one thrice speaks for itself. Once TVs and eReaders get in on the action, we’ll be passively broadcasting everything we watch, read and listen to, everywhere we go – not just content, but our behaviors. Ultimately this means a lot more noise and clutter that marketers are going to have to pierce through. How to choose from the dozens of videos or hundreds of articles my friends consumed today? We’re starting to see the reaction from content creators, in the form of conflated, sensationalist titles tacked onto every piece of content, desperately clamoring for our attention. “The One Thing You Must Know Right Now” or “This Is the Best Photo of All Time”.

As we continue moving towards a future even more saturated with media, the way we package and promote our content becomes even more important. Content curation, either from algorithms or from brands we trust, is going to play an even larger role. Consuming content will be more and more about finding the best filters.

Victor Pineiro, Senior Strategist, Big Spaceship

The world's gone mobile; it's time advertisers followed

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 15:26:52 -0400

For the last two years, there have been more mobile phones shipped in America than there were desktops and laptops combined. And yet, the mobile ad industry has struggled keep up. In 2012, the mobile ad spend is projected to be only 4% of the total digital ad spend.

There’s a clear disconnect here. Consumers love their smartphones and tablets. As for mobile advertising – not so much. People are not interacting with mobile advertising. Advertisers are not seeing returns from their mobile advertising dollars.

This is because most mobile advertising models have directly been borrowed from the online world. Click-based banners that take up prime real estate on a small mobile screen and lend themselves for accidental clicks are an example of mobile ads that don’t work.

If mobile advertising has to grow and keep pace with the consumer adoption of smartphone and tablets, the ad industry has to develop ads that are native to the mobile user experience. There has been a lot of innovation in the mobile space in recent months. The next year will see us arrive at advertising models
that are native to the mobile space. Here are three characteristics that they will share:

1. They will be local: A report released by Google recently said that 94% of people in US use smartphones to search for local information, whether it be for a coffee shop, local attractions, a nearby movie theater. In addition, 66% actually visit the business they’re searching for. New local ad extensions for search ads that allow users to call a business or see how far away they
are from a business. Local businesses like BrownHub and SalonDeals use mobile signup ads to connect with consumers in their areas.
2. They will be in-app: Consumers use apps to consume content on mobile media – as opposed to computers where they browse for content. Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the iPhone 5 keynote that the average iOS user has more than hundred apps on their smartphone. Mobile ads that work in the future will deliver a seamless and non-disruptive experience within apps.
3. They will be integrated with email and social media: More people check Facebook and Twitter from mobile devices than they do with online media. A study by ExactTarget found that 88% of American check emails on their mobile device at least once a day. A good mobile ad will extend the conversation with the customer beyond the first point of contact into email and social media.

It’s still relatively early days in mobile advertising. There’s a lot of dust in the air. I look forward to watching it settle in 2013.

Zephrin Lasker, CEO of Pontiflex

You Say You Want A Revolution

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 13:38:16 -0400

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

In 1968, John Lennon wrote this anthem, Revolution, as the world was changing around him. Today, I reflect on his words and think they apply perfectly to the radical digital transformation of the media industry and how it impacts our communication.

This radical digital transformation is changing the way we communicate and can launch a movement, influence our discussions, and educate a community.

Launch A Movement:

The “Arab Spring” in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East heavily relied on the internet, and social media and technologies such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in the early stages to accelerate social protest.

In 2011, Wael Ghonim, the head of marketing in the Middle East for Google, became internationally recognized by energizing the pro-democracy revolution through a Facebook page, "We are all Khaled Saeed.”

This digital media movement was probably the most explosive example of the power of social media changing the world…and being radical.

This is just the beginning of digital media transforming the way the world works. New technologies are going to make the world a better place and allow voices to be heard. Digital technology can bring us together and help us transform. More movements will be enabled, and discovered, thought digital and social media. And the impact will be earth shattering.

Influence Our Discussions:

Digital media is driving the conversation. It can be serious or funny, or a little bit of both. And digital media will continue to evolve our discussions with the new technologies being developed from Silicon Alley to Silicon Valley.

Think about it, in less than a few hours, the chair, or @InvisibleObama, had more than 60K followers after Clint Eastwood talked to him at the Republican National Convention.

Even Obama himself got involved tweeting a photo of his chair, saying, “This seat’s taken.”

Our discussions are mobile, and digital, and will only get more so with the new technologies coming. They will be more niche, or more global, but they will most strikingly be digital.

In the classic movie “Network,” Albert Finney, yelled out of a window, “I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.” If that movie took place today, Finney’s character would have tweeted that line. And then everyone would have joined in on Twitter, not yelling out the window. Perhaps, if you will, the screaming out the window was an early beta of Twitter.

Educate a Community:

Cities are using digital media to communicate with their constituents. In Santa Monica, they text and tweet the weekly street closings.

After a mild earthquake in Beverly Hills, the Los Angeles Fire Department, tweeted that there was no significant damage.

Even traditional media, such as the local NBC, CBS and ABC affiliates, provided primers of how to use social media for Hurricane Irene. It educated the community on how to reach FEMA, and the Red Cross, as well as teaching newbies how to use Twitter, Facebook and SMS to stay in the know during this emergency. In this case, digital media and traditional media worked hand-in-
hand.

And in 2011, Mayor Bloomberg, created NYC Digital to “realize New York City’s potential as the world’s leading digital city.” NYC Digital focuses on initiatives including Access to Technology, Education, Open Government, Engagement and Industry. This is all detailed in a Road Map to the Digital City. A road map—is there anything that says digital media development, more than a
road map. Love it and love what it brings to the city, as a community.

So back to the song, Revolution. Lennon wrote that “Don’t you know you can count me out (in).” Well, just count me in, and let’s make this world a better place. Let’s create radical change, and develop better, bigger and bolder digital media platforms and technology for the good of the universe and for the greater good.

Brendan Condon, the CEO of REVSHare, is an industry-leading executive who has specialized in all aspects of media including Video, Web Display, Mobile, and Ad Serving, - across portals, 3rd party ad networks, vertical publishing houses, social networks and emerging technologies. Prior to REVShare, he spent 25 years at Time Warner in a variety of global executive roles working in
digital at AOL, in national print with Time Inc., and cross-platform media for Time Warner Cable. He can be reach at Brendan.Condon@Revshare.com.

The Future of Radio

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:47:18 -0400

If the past can be helpful in predicting the future, then there’s one thing we can expect from radio: consistency.

Since the early days of crackling static and living room theaters, radio has heard audio challengers come and go. Yet throughout all of these technological advancements and innovations, radio remains one of the most powerful and yet intimate ways to reach mass audiences—a truly unique combination. And radio has proven time and again its resiliency and transformational power to deliver itself as a marketing solution that advertisers demand.

To ensure its continued vibrancy and significance, the future of broadcast radio will rely on growth in several areas.

In the sales arena, radio is already evaluating Shazam-like technology, which will greatly enhance radio’s accountability. This will allow radio to close the “performance” loop and enable advertisers to distribute additional “bonus” programming, coupons, video and other messaging to smartphones while providing key performance metrics. Radio is gearing up to compete in two new areas of revenue, mobile and display dollars, through its growing cache of registration data and larger streaming audiences. In addition, multi- and crossplatform campaigns will become the norm, drawing from radio’s 13 channel offerings to produce truly customized, comprehensive and cohesively integrated marketing solutions.

And to better quantify AM/FM’s impact, new technology is currently being developed by Arbitron that will allow Audio Beacons to be deployed throughout leading retail locations and automotive dealerships.

With these tools, radio will be able to empirically demonstrate its impact on increased foot traffic and sales to advertisers and agencies.

Looking ahead, radio will continue to focus on enhancing the one quality that truly sets it apart from all other audio options—live on-air talent. Radio personalities will play a larger and more important role at many stations as educators, entertainers and trusted guides in the daily lives of listeners. As we move into an increasingly digital world, the power of one-to-one personal connections will become even more valuable and important. In addition, it’s likely that Talk programming options will multiply in the coming years.

Finally, radio will expand its focus on leveraging its exclusive onsite, feet-on-street capabilities in every metropolitan area throughout the U.S. Radio stations possess the unique ability to offer advertisers the opportunity to have consumers directly touch, sample and interact with their products. And to a greater extent, broadcasters will work to enhance and bolster their event and promotional capabilities to execute complex, local, multi-market event, “experiential” and “sampling” efforts.

The AM/FM and audio landscape of tomorrow is not necessarily a linear extension of today. But as a medium, radio has weathered decades of competition and has evolved with the times to remain current and relevant for today’s advertisers and, more importantly, today’s consumers. It’s a safe bet that radio will continue to be the most important audio source, regardless of how its content is distributed, for most Americans for years to come.

Bob McCurdy is the president of Katz Marketing Solutions, the national marketing unit of the Katz Media Group, a division of Clear Channel Communications

Consumers Not Technology

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:44:04 -0400

A common belief is that technology will shape the future of media. I’d argue that the consumer, and how consumers harness that technology, is what really drives the future of media. Take, for example, geo-location services created in the early 00s. It was years before consumers adopted the technology – because they weren’t ready. Now look at Foursquare and its 10 million-strong community of users. The takeway? It’s all about how a technology satisfies consumer desires that make it hit.

Our relentless research into our audiences’ attitudes and behaviors makes one thing abundantly clear: there has never been a better time to be a fan – be it of Snooki, SpongeBob or Stephen Colbert. Viewers have a powerful desire to have relationships with their favorite shows and brands – to interact, to share and to make their voices heard. Because they can.

Today’s fans follow shows and characters 24/7 on Twitter, watch clips online, download apps to play games, “like” talent on Facebook…and the list will only get longer. The velocity of change in consumer behavior is keeping us on our toes, driving us to create richer, seamless cross-platform experiences. At this moment in time, we’re seeing our viewers turn to smartphones and tablets for more of their favorite content – and we’re meeting them there with apps like MTV’s WatchWith. While this means that TVs have to share eyeballs, mobile devices are actually providing a complementary experience through these apps and second-screen experiences, bringing our fans closer to their favorite brands than ever before.

The future will bring even more appetite to personalize and expand the relationship fans have with their favorite shows. And we’ll keep listening to them to build those relationships. That’s where it all starts – by knowing our audiences inside and out – kids, guys, millennials, adultsters, boomers, moms. Our consumer insights drive everything we do -- the programs we make, the tone we take and the experiences we create. So what is the future of media? Just ask your audiences – they’re more than happy to tell you.

Colleen Fahey Rush, EVP and Chief Research Officer, Viacom Media Networks

A New Balance of Power

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:39:50 -0400

With new technological possibilities and new habits of media engagement entering consumers’ lives, we are seeing no shortage of new ways for media and marketers to insult, annoy or impose on an audience. From the blaring gas-pump video to the popover ad, they grate and frustrate with seeming impunity.

The fact that nearly all forms of content now have brand messages attached or integrated in some way may not seem to bode well for audiences to expect respectful treatment to be part of the bargain, whether formal or implied. But will future consumers really have no choice but to accept whatever hassles they are put through in the delivery of content or brand messages?

Should we resign ourselves to a dystopia where marketers and media need show no consideration for audiences and customers?

I submit that the time is coming when marketers and media will no longer have the luxury of denial about all the ways the communication process irritates people. They will not be able to ignore the need for user-friendliness or redefine it to reflect their own convenience.

In evaluating the balance of power, remember that despite transient effects thrown off by the pace of innovation, there remain certain perennial forces which will eventually be felt.

A new magic box can get away with some impolite behavior, if it has that “wow” factor and delivers content free of charge. In the early days of TV, people obeyed it and bent their lives around it, but to them it was a true medium: It carried content, it carried ads, but praise or blame for the inherent irritations didn’t attach to any specific entity. Yet, over time, people aided by
technology found ways to assert control, accommodate their convenience and avoid content or messages they don’t enjoy. They demanded more, and got it.

Newer and shinier boxes may experience initial protection from the consequences of taking users for granted, but fascination with novelty will not balance the equation beyond the short run. People wise up; there arise competitors willing to give higher priority to providing a better experience.

In more interactive channels, being allowed to participate in content generation or the brand conversation won’t be enough to compensate for lack of courtesy. Active audiences aren’t less sensitive to unfriendly design, they’re more aware—and more likely to perceive it as intentional.

For brands seeking to create an owned media space, they will find that the experience tends to stick to the brand, as it won’t be attributable to someone else. They will have to take ownership of every interaction and recognize how it helps or hurts their relationship with the audience members—their potential or actual customers.

In the end, attention will have to be paid to keeping the process of consuming media attractive and friendly in every way. It will become the responsibility of the brand marketer, who knows (or should know) their customers best.

Cece Forrester is a media planning veteran and occasional pundit.

The Impact of Mobile on Healthcare

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:36:37 -0400

A few months back, I was sitting in the emergency room with my parents when the ER doctor asked my mother, “what other medications is he on?” referring to my father. As she scrambled to search for the lengthy list, I wondered, two things: why aren’t all his multiple medical records linked digitally yet? and why rely on a piece of paper, when her phone is in her lap? This experience was a personal reminder of the impact and opportunities presented by mHealth (Mobile Health) which is becoming a central focus for
the health care industry.

Widespread adoption of mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) among patients, caregivers and Health Care Professionals (HCPs) presents a unique opportunity to impact patient care and influence positive outcomes. The technical power, potential and the intimacy attached to this screen demands
new rules, solutions and thinking from brands as to how they view their roles in developing solutions and applications for healthcare.

Mobile devices are obviously used for entertainment, connection and education. They are increasingly being used to track health-related behavior, such as exercise, weight loss, blood pressure and calorie intake. Significantly, they are also being used by HCPs for professional purposes – in between or during patient consultations for information and diagnoses.

The mHealth (Mobile Health) industry is exploding with developers and publishers proposing solutions for patients and caregivers utilizing the power and personalization of mobile. Yet many marketers are in the early stages of developing purpose-built solutions for these devices, or just dipping their toes
into advertising on mobile. It is time for pharma marketers to start keeping up with our customers! The content being consumed, search behavior, and app interactions are unique to each device. So, a “one size fits all digital” really doesn’t apply.

Think New Media Opportunities

We should be cautious to think of it as another, smaller ad opportunity.

As media buyers, we have to (re)invent. We have to be bold in approaches and test engagement and invent new pricing models. We have to work with publishers on pricing and inventory. When looking at channel mix, how do we justify time spent on a device vs. media spend when the creative is not optimal?

Think New Creative - The implications on creative is significant. Many marketers have moved quickly from mobile friendly, to mobile optimized. Responsive design can be used to deliver better information but we can’t just transfer all content or solution to mobile unless it is truly designed for mobile. Resizing existing creative to fit a tablet or smartphone isn’t exactly the answer due to both the smaller size and regulatory limitations in our industry. Just like the web itself, we should think of our creative in terms of providing tangible value for mobile, not only in terms of messaging. The opportunities for engagement are incredible.

Think Integration. Don’t think of yet another separate strategy for mobile. These platforms need to quickly be integrated into a broader communication plan, not as one-offs. Fit the pieces together and have them support one another. For example, creating content to specifically influence point-of-care
conversations that end up in a real dialogue about care between a patient and a physician.

The opportunities to improve healthcare through mobile are immense. They will add great value to healthcare marketers’ relationships with our customers. But we have to invent, integrate and think specifically for these devices. Hopefully one day soon my mother will download that note app for her smartphone.

Christopher Andrew, Senior Vice President – Media, Digitas Health

To Engage with Consumer, Brands Stop Following Them

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:24:18 -0400

We’ve watched consumers pave the way for brands on the Internet for years.

First, wherever eyeballs flocked online, brands followed with banner and display ads. Web hits were virtual dollar signs. In the 2.0 era, as internet users migrated to Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, brands quickly tried to join the conversation. Content creation vehicles and blogging platforms gave birth to new media titles like Mashable, BoingBoing, and TechCrunch that were
the precursors to corporate blogs.

YouTube discovered Justin Bieber, Soulja Boy, and even found a new lead singer for Journey. Somewhere along the way, The Old Spice Man and Roller Babies were streaming their way to the Viral Video Hall of Fame. The dependency on Google for everyday decisions has given birth to a thriving SEO/SEM industry in which marketers labor over endless search data to gain a
competitive advantage.

To date, brands’ efforts to engage consumers online have hinged on presence and accessibility. These two traits foster engagement but do little to build trust. This trust is built through a deeper level of engagement, which is why brands have begun to act less like consumers and more like publishers – particularly online.

As online video viewership continues to grow at an unparalleled pace, more and more brands will leverage the medium as a direct communication channel with consumers. And with the decision to devote energy towards content marketing comes a choice – to inform or entertain. Informational video allows brands to reach consumers in a need state and quickly build trust between viewers and brands outside of normal product interaction. But this requires brands to be comfortable with an authoritative role within their respective niches.

Expect brands to get used to this position fast. As users search for information, content marketers will focus on what these people want now, much like publishers already do. These brand marketers will be able tap into valuable search data to hone content strategies. Major fashion brands that shy away from giving fashion advice, or car manufactures who hesitate to provide tips on how to maintain your vehicle, will fall behind the eight ball to brands like Betty Crocker who to date have taught over 100 million moms and dads how to make the best dinosaur birthday cake.

By filtering, ranking and categorizing raw search data to develop accurate, actionable insights into what consumers are searching for online, great bounds can be made. The results are libraries of quality, evergreen content that provide brands with a vehicle to communicate their expertise to consumers.

While marketing continues to add channels to its mix, expect online video to dominate this newfound content marketing discipline.

Content marketing is increasingly being approached with multi-medium distribution in mind and Video advertising is no longer made for just for TV commercials before simply being re-purposed for Web. Strategies are going to be used across a multitude of screens in a very strategic, but also increasingly holistic way.

Alison Provost, Founder and CEO, Touchstorm

Using The History Books as Our Crystal Ball

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:20:55 -0400

Surprisingly, the two driving forces that have most shaped media consumption and distribution over the past few decades remain catalysts in media’s ongoing evolution today. While historians will tell us that it is important to understand our history in order not to repeat it, the media world, especially those focused on online video, should study the past in order to peer into the future.

Those forces - “more” and “personalized” - have shaped consumption habits since the days of the newsreel. While these catalysts have cultivated media habits both independently and as a combined force, we can expect them to coexist at a greater level as the media world enters its next stage. By studying how these forces have shaped media consumption to date, it leaves no
doubt that the forecast for future media consumption will focus squarely on online video.

Allow me to explain.

More is a bit obvious. There are more screens, more content and more audience members than ever before. 180 million Americans watch online video each month and this number will continue to increase as connected devices continue to skyrocket. Not even five years ago, people watched an hour of online video each month. Now, they watch almost an hour each day.

As content is created and distributed at a breakneck rate, media consumption is occurring through channels that are becoming more personalized.

Over time, the media distribution has evolved from a single room with very little personalization, to customized media available anytime anywhere. Theatres came first, where mass crowds watched newsreels about the war. Living rooms followed, as families gathered around a TV set for the evening news, sitcoms and sporting events. It then was passed onto the grandchildren
of those moviegoers who had their own TVs or video games within the comfort of their own bedroom. Our media consumption landscape has transitioned from communal to familial to personal in the span of only a generation and a half.

The 21st century saw this progression continue as personal media became more portable. I am writing this now on a laptop tethered to my smartphone. I’ll head back to my office to work from my desktop. Later, I’ll read a book on my tablet while my kids play Minecraft together on their iPods and tablets. Yes, I am an early adopter and a tech junkie, but this is not the leading edge of tech any more. This is now firmly entrenched as mainstream.

So, what will the next decade look like? Content will play catch-up—especially online video content—as it transitions from the user-generated market to the new global producer class. Video distribution strategies will push demand for “player” agnostic technology that allows content to be delivered and measured across multiple personalized channels, simultaneously. That same agnostic delivery and measurement will fuel targeting and drive revenue for publishers by adding efficiency and effectiveness for advertisers. Media versus its cousin, entertainment, is an advertising play and will continue to be, as the hyper-targeting trend expands to a global level.

Advertisers will be able to target across geographies into hyper-focused content at scale with AdSense-easy interfaces.

In short, it is an exciting time to be in the online video business and quite obvious that we are only at the beginning of the beginning.

Sean Womack, Senior Vice President, Marketing & Production, Touchstorm

Premium Publishers Have a Social Opportunity

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:16:34 -0400

“Innovate relentlessly.” That’s the message that successful media brands have absorbed over the past 10 years as digital media has grown and flourished. Traditional outlets like newspapers and magazines have struggled to preserve readership, while new, digitally-native companies unencumbered by entrenched business models have rapidly emerged and grown to incredible scale...and they're all chasing the same ad dollars.

The social networking era has only further complicated the situation. That sought-after, high-share-of-voice placement called the “homepage roadblock” isn't worth what it once was, with media brands’ most passionate followers now cherry-picking content from social feeds. Fewer dedicated readers hit the New York Times home page and branch out; now, they spend the bulk of their time in social, clicking in to what is interesting and relevant to them, and they bypass everything else.

But there are also opportunities created by social. Brands have an insatiable appetite for social advertising, and the top publishers have amassed HUGE followings… the trick will be figuring out how to monetize those social eyeballs beyond having fans click through to a story.

To stay competitive with other publishers and apps for the best brand campaigns, top publishers need to add a new, social arrow to their quiver.

Unfortunately, premium publishers can’t just put a new, socially-enhanced ad on each page of their sites, because demand for placement on their pages already outstrips the supply. Premium publishers, by virtue of commanding a high-value audience, are inventory-constrained. They can split up stories into only so many pages, and they can put only so many ads on a page.

If premium publishers can't add more ads to the page, what can they do?

One option would be to cannibalize existing ad space to make room for new, share-enabled ad units. This option would help publishers compete for innovative brand campaigns, but it would only marginally grow revenue.

Another option would be to monetize readers off-site. For example, those millions of social followers, the media brand's most loyal readers — would there be a new way to advertise to them without using the publisher's own site? New advances in targeting technology based in social data may hold the key.

Targeting based on the public interest graph can aggregate social followers of premium publishers into audiences. The twist is that publishers, not social platforms, could sell advertising to those audiences, the audience that publishers have spent so much time building. Amassing millions of readers offsite, through social targeting, could be an ideal scenario for premium publishing’s advertisers to stake their bold new social campaigns.

Michael Cascio, SVP of Business Development and Strategy at 140 Proof

Transformation in Digital Social Media

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:15:00 -0400

We live in transformational times and nowhere is this more apparent than in the worlds of digital and social media. The last few years have seen a revolution in the way we communicate and any one person in the world can now have an amplified voice. The question I was asked is “what is the future of digital and social media”. I think the answer can be summed up like this: The future IS digital and social media!

The ability to share music, the written word and video online, coupled with our ability to access that material anywhere and all the time, has changed not only how we communicate but the value we place on that material. With regards to traditional media, the old standard involved media companies or PR departments controlling a single message and broadcasting it to the masses. To be heard you needed advertising dollars and the people with the biggest budgets could have the most influence over the people who received the messages. That influence gave an advantage to a relative few through TV, magazine and billboard ads for example.

Everything has changed now. We don’t rely on any single source to get our information or to help form our decisions about what to buy, or what to believe in, and we all have the power to be an influencer today.

So what will the future in this area look like? I think social media has amounted to a democratization of meaningful content. There are few barriers to raising your voice today and millions of people, who would otherwise have been silenced, are creating amazing content worth hearing. Of course the level of noise overall will only increase with no shortage of poor content but the cream will rise to top through word of mouth. Great bands will get heard, thought leaders will develop audiences and innovations will gain traction.

This space will continue to become more competitive to be heard or noticed so we can expect a rise in creativity in the digital space. People will gravitate to a fresh idea or approach to sharing information and new innovations will emerge. In fact I think this is already happening exponentially. That is why they say there are no social media experts; the minute you understand where the trends might be, they can change the next.

Influence in the world will move further away from who has access to traditional distribution channels (like TV and radio) to the new influencers. Companies, who will always want to be where their customers are, will look to align themselves with people who have a high number of supporters, followers and “likes”. Without much choice in the matter companies will become immersed in social media as they do what they can to increase their number of followers and acquire more influence. You see, the“buy-in” to social media is only just beginning. Once all companies realize there is power in being connected online, digital media innovations will change immensely as competition dictates they must.

We used to have to be at home at a certain time to watch afavourite television show. We used to wear out records from our favourite bands because we had to buy our music and access was limited. The flood gates have now opened and we consume TV, music and a whole bunch of things differently and the business models that support those industries are crumbling.

There will be over 12 billion devices (iphones, blackberry’s tablets etc.) in the world by the end of 2013 and we carry these with us constantly. Our access to information and our own accessibility has never been greater and so the future of digital and social media will be limited only by the imagination of people with an idea to share. What can be said with some certainty is that the old way of doing business is over.

Dave Carroll, co-founder, Gripevine.com

Adaption: Key to Success for Future of Ad World

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 14:44:50 -0400

Consumer’s growing dependency on accessing the web 24/7 has wreacked havoc on the ad world’s traditional operating model. For decades, marketers have relied on agencies to help craft and tell stories about their brands in a fairly linear, streamlined process. Today, however, we’re operating in a world
where the storyteller is sharing a stage with its audience and their input is critical to the overall story of the brand. The ad world’s ecosystem of lead-time, project planning and publishing schedules now needs to find a way to take in the consumer voice, and incorporate it into the story.

Finding ways to bring that reverse flow of data into the mix is essential to how media’s role will evolve. This shift is seismic in nature because of its impact on the operational structure of so many organizations. It changes how agencies build practices, communicate their offering to potential customers, train and develop employees, and operate in profitable ways.

The elements critical to media’s success in the future include:

• Real-Time, Fluid Budgeting: Marketers need to think about carving out budgets for real-time dollars. In the online space this is already happening. Last winter we saw a huge surge in smartphone use while consumers were out shopping for the holidays. Some marketers were nimble enough to shift dollars to accommodate the increased volume, however, those that had strict KPIs against certain channels and could not free up dollars missed the opportunity to capture more revenue. Fixed budgets allocations need to be reconsidered as there is a rising need to distribute dollars in real-time, even if it starts out as just a small percentage of their overall budgets.
• Response Timing: During this summer’s Olympics AT&T was able to incorporate the results from Ryan Lochte’s 400M into a commercial that aired less than 24-hours after the event. For Super Bowl XLVI, Coca Cola developed an online world of two polar bears responding real-time to the game’s play-by-play. The live stream reached over one million viewers by the fourth quarter. As we continue down the path of the “immediacy of now” consumers will come to expect marketers to be as up to the minute as possible with their content, their stories.
• Collaborative cross-functional teams: The previous two ideas feed into this last notion and it’s an idea that Google is already advocating via its “Agile Creative” approach that strives to make the creative development and distribution process more nimble. Placing media specialists side-by-side with creative developers and analytics gurus, enables the group to make collective decisions that result in highly successful real-time relevant campaigns, stories that will ultimately resonate more with consumers.

The media world is changing. Agencies need to adopt new models that reflect changing consumer habits; considering their 24/7 dependency on the web and rising influence in contributing to a brand’s story. The agencies that pioneer the way and test new fluid, flexible and collaborative operational models are the ones who will end up on top.

Dawn Zencka, VP Strategic Insights iProspect

Value Chain Consolidation

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:34:59 -0400

At a recent OMMA show, Jeremy Woodlee of Doubleclick quoted a statistic I found incredibly interesting. Publishers only gets 18% of the total revenue on premium display advertising sold through programmatic buying. That means if the average CPM paid by an advertiser is $4.50, after it passes through all the intermediaries in the value chain (trading desk, DSP, ad network, exchange, SSP) the publisher gets, on average only $0.80.

That number is fascinating for two reasons. First, it shows that the current distribution chain is unsustainable. On the one hand, no publisher in their right mind is going to settle for 17% of the revenue split with an advertiser at any level of inventory quality. Publishers will thus seek ways to reduce the steps in the value chain, bypass the middlemen, and claim more revenue for themselves. On the other hand, with that many steps, no intermediary earns a large enough share of revenue to survive, long-term, against parties who will seek to merge portions of the value chain and thus grab a larger revenue share with more defensible margins.

Two competing forces are attempting to grab as much as possible of that $3.70, currently shared by the middlemen. The first is the profit seeking publishers, wishing to maximize their revenue. The other is the competitive instincts of the technology providers and ad networks, who are jockeying to acquire as much of the value chain as possible before consolidation makes their positions untenable.

Publishers will always need technology providers, as they provide capabilities and profit opportunities that the publisher cannot achieve alone, especially in RTB. These technology providers are “market- makers” that can help publishers find arbitrage opportunities across the entire market. For example, when publishers sell via RTB in an exchange, they can acquire a second bite at a client’s budget if their exchange integrates with multiple DSPs. If advertisers change DSPs, the publisher can still get the campaign, because another DSP partner will likely get that budget. Publishers have neither the skills nor resources to develop and maintain these services on their own. Nor should they – their only strategic focus should be on creating great content for their customers.

These two competing forces will reach a steady state where a publisher’s minimum required revenue for an impression equals the cost of acquiring that impression + a “brokerage fee.” As in any competitive trading market, transaction fees will be squeezed from the system as arbitrage windows close- which is exactly what RTB causes to happen. And we can hazard a guess at the approximate percentage thattechnology providers will achieve when that steady-state occurs, based on other RTB market examples, such as paid search which averages 32-35%.

The real question isn’t if this is going to happen, but when. Guess right and structure your business accordingly, and you may just win a Kewpie doll.

Arthur Coleman, Chief Scientist, 4INFO

Rethinking F-Commerce - The Real Value of Facebook for Your Bottom Line

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:01:46 -0400

JC Penney, Nordstrom and Gap have all opened and closed stores on Facebook in the last year, but the drive to get eCommerce conversions from Facebook (fCommerce), or any social media platform, is nothing new. Brands have been questioning the ROI for a while now. Finding the value in Facebook as a sales channel may actually mean rethinking the role the platform plays in aiding sales. Despite ongoing focus to build ROI through social media, brands focusing on the traditional definition of commerce through these channels – direct sales on a site – are missing the boat on what’s far more important to social media users. The real value of Facebook’s 900 million users is the amount of engagement and reach a brand can achieve; not the direct dollars the platform can push their way.

The key for Facebook’s survival is to maintain a level of interest and relevancy that sustains the ad revenues. From beefing up its search engine, to acquisitions like Instagram, to figuring out how to serve ads on mobile devices (their highest volume of users), it's clear Facebook is aggressively and proactively trying to stay relevant, which directly feeds its monetization ambitions. Additionally, features like Facebook’s rumored “want” button could potentially help establish the platform as a virtual marketplace for consumers and brands to meet and make connections.

Reuters/Ipsos research states four out of five people have never made a purchase via Facebook influence. With nearly $3.7 billion in Facebook advertising revenue last year, it's clear brands have been trying a lot of different strategies to change that statistic, including fCommerce strategies. The strategic shift away from those models suggests that an awareness/brand building approach is the best strategy for producing the highest ROI from Facebook. While that may not translate into direct revenue, neither does most brand building advertising (e.g. display media on any other site). Additionally, a 2009 Forrester/iProspect study found that “38% of Internet users learn about a brand through display advertising and that 33% of those people eventually purchase something from a brand they are familiar with.” In short, awareness drives purchase, and building this awareness through Facebook could potentially make all the difference.

Todd Labeau, VP, Director of Interactive, Lindsay, Stone & Briggs (LSB)

Hands Off My Data!

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:51:44 -0400

Historically, the advertising industry has built services on top of categories of data…for example, competitive services on top of competitive data. CRM services were built on top of customer profile stores. Marketing mix on top of media spend data. Even more recently, we have built “social” services on top of “social data” (quoted because of the enormous and undefined scope of data falling under the umbrella of that label).

However, this paradigm—the “data-centric” approach—no longer makes sense. It limits our insights, and it suffocates our imagination.

It first restricts our ability to appropriately analyze data as we all know we should. For example, when examining campaign performance, an analyst would first sit down with the goal of answering “how did my campaign perform, and why?” It would be difficult to argue that an analyst would not be better equipped to answer this question if they possessed access to not only ad-server data, but also buzz, word-of-mouth, website behavior, audience segmentation, engagement value, and customer LTV. However, the traditional approach to building services—with respect to specific data sources—limits the analyst’s access to this data. Marketers are reticent to provide media agencies with access to web analytics, but will gladly provide it to the agency responsible for web development. A social agency may “own” the administration, communication, and optimization of a Facebook page, and fend off attempts from other agencies to access profile page visitor, post, and “like” data. Outside of “territorial” considerations, there are often challenges of access—a media client may be tasked with reach and savings, and thus not have access to an LTV analysis managed by some other internal department, because LTV does not factor into the client’s remit.

In addition to restricting an analyst’s ability to answer questions, the “data-centric” approach also places artificial, unnecessary, and limiting barriers on the type of questions that can be asked. This is perhaps the more dangerous, as it can quickly spiral into a self-fulfilling cycle of progressively less and less inquisitive and deep analysis. Let’s take the same question of “how did my campaign perform, and why?” If an analyst knows that she can only have access to ad-server data, she will be highly limited in the quality and sophistication of analysis. Pretty soon, the analyst will stop asking questions such as “Which audience segments are driving performance?”, “Are we driving high or low value customers?”, “What are prospects doing on the website after the campaign drives the visit?” Unmotivated and uninterested, the analyst will resign to “burn and churn” reporting, characterized as low-value analysis, having minimal impact on performance and buying time until she finds a more interesting role elsewhere.

The answer? In the future, smart agencies and marketers alike will migrate away from a “data-centric” service approach, instead evolving to a “use-case-centric” approach. This will require that marketers and agencies develop much more open data platforms, policies, and contracts to build more sophisticated, higher value, solutions. This type of access will breed a variety of challenges around inter-agency relationships, but that is an entirely different post.

Adam Gitlin, US Director of Analytics, OMD

Sprinting Past the Inflection Point: Going for Gold with Digital Video

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:47:00 -0400

In 1964, NBC made its Olympic television debut with the broadcast of the Summer Olympics from Tokyo. This was made possible through the Syncom 3 satellite, which delivered daily highlights of the Games across the Pacific within a few hours of the events. Additionally, 1964 marked the first opening ceremony that audiences watched on TV in color. Although seemingly primitive by modern-day standards, these advances made an indelible mark on the television landscape and once again showcased what was possible in the delivery of content to mass audiences.

In July 2012, the London Olympics created yet another landmark moment in delivering the games to fans and enthusiasts. This was the very first time in Olympics history where the Games were available to all audiences across internet-connected mobile devices, with 3,500+ hours of live streaming. The digital content landscape has changed dramatically and will continue to evolve into the future. Over the last several months, we’ve seen a radical shift in the appetite of media companies to bring their content online and across mobile platforms. We’ve moved from seeing experimental tactics to tactical implementations across the entire spectrum of content delivery. The blue sky concept of having your content “go where you go” is becoming a tangible reality.

Moving forward, the industry can expect to see massive developments in the technological infrastructure supporting the migration of TV content to mobile, in addition to a heavy handed focus on creating a seamless consumer experience. We’ll continue to see significant innovation from companies in areas such as content creation and delivery, ad insertion, user authentication and the measurement of ROI; all of which will be focused around the changing habits of mainstream audiences. Essentially, we are well on our way in achieving a scenario where watching content on a mobile device completely mirrors the experience of watching traditional broadcast TV.

It’s not only an exciting time for brands that produce content, but for the audiences that view videos on a daily basis. With the mass proliferation of smartphone and tablet devices, the opportunity will only continue to grow. Much work is to be done, but the traction exists and the goals feel within reach. We’ll wait to see where the conversation lies once the 2014 Olympic Games come across – who knows what innovations they’ll bring!

Jeremy Helfand, Vice President of Monetization, Adobe

Social Media Has Changed Us - And Now We're Going to Return the Favor

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:45:40 -0400

The top 100 TV shows have Twitter accounts. Every new theatrical release has a Facebook page. Heck, a quarter of TV ads now proudly display a URL or handle. Marketers and publishers are racing to augment their content with social arms and legs.

And from the Olympics to the Election, it is inarguable that social media has changed how we interact with content. But what if we’ve been overstating that change? What if social media is just the garnish to the content main course: enhancing its presentation and appeal, but not fundamentally changing the consumer/content dynamic? What if social is not a driver, but rather a casualty of shifts in consumer behavior?

Here’s what I mean. Social media has been heralded as the savior for “live,” linear television. Sure, program-related Twitter feeds and Facebook posts are a blast, but work only if consumed concurrently with the original airing of content. And consumers are resigned to that tradeoff: watching linear TV to get the augmented social experience.

But I argue that that paradigm is short-lived. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that consumers are what/where/when. Technology has taught them that they need not compromise. If they can time-shift their content, why not their social “commentary track” as well?

Some companies are already starting to play with this concept. The IntoNow app recognizes a show whenever it’s played, and incorporates shifted-time commentary. Bravo replays its shows with a “Pop-up Video”-like social feed. Consumers will get a taste. And they’ll want more.

Facebook and Twitter will need to revamp their offerings to this new synched reality of “Social on My Terms.” Social without content is less than worthless. Twitter sees the writing on the wall: they’re pivoting to focus on “events.” Facebook is desperate to get advertisers to create compelling content to keep fans returning. But if they continue to ignore the reality of time-shifting, the social element will be yesterday’s newspaper.

Increasingly, consumers are coming home, firing up their DVRs, and curling up in front of their favorite shows. And they’re saying to themselves, “why is it that I can watch my content when and where I want, and on whatever platform I want – but I can’t get a relevant comment stream?”

Content-creators need not cede the answer to social networks. Publishers have earned the right to deliver this experience – after all, they own the content. Social platforms have been extraordinarily successful in inserting themselves between the consumer and the content. In the future of media, smart publishers will cut out the middleman and build direct, lucrative relationships with willing, socially engaged consumers.

Ben Winkler Chief Digital Officer, OMD

The Impact of Next Gen Technology

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:39:15 -0400

Advancements in technology have always had a tremendous impact on consumer media consumption. However, due to the Global Economy and a bit of gadget fatigue, we seem to be entering a period of incrementalism in hardware innovation. This is not bad, as it will give time for new technologies to work their way to mainstream and for consumers to evolve their media consumption habits accordingly.

Four technologies, currently in their infancy, will make an impact on consumer media consumption, and in turn, the ways that marketers reach and persuade consumers.

Connected TVs: Of the $166B spent on U.S. Advertising in 2012 (Source: eMarketer), the largest share still goes to television and will for the foreseeable future. Anything that can disrupt or enhance the current viewer experience has to be of utmost importance. Clearly, the Consumer Electronics industry has its eyes set on revolutionizing the experience. This may go more slowly than planned, given the state of the economy and slowdown of TV sales, but it will happen. The majority of sets sold over 40”, as of 2012, have built in Wi-Fi included. Navigation and availability of applications within the “Smart Hub” environments portend a fundamental shift in the way content is discovered and consumed. For now, familiar video distribution alternatives, such as Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu provide initial consumption touch points, but new content start-ups will provide new, maybe not-so-niche contextual opportunities to reach audiences in meaningful ways. This also repositions television manufacturers into major media portals.
Human/Technology Interface evolves: The remote control is top on the endangered technology list. Just as a camera on a phone changed the telephone experience, the addition of cameras and microphones will change television and advertising. What once was a passive viewing experience now becomes a way for marketers to optimize both brand potential (via sight, sound, and motion) and activation, driving consumers to interact by simply speaking or gesturing. CRM and Customer service will be transformed with the live 2 way video conversation that will allow for conversations.
Mobility and Location Based Services: Yes, arguably this is already at scale with smartphone penetration above 50%, but we are infants when it comes to the true power and scale of mobile marketing. The next few years will be defined by the sub-$200 tablet and adoption of 4G LTE (and eminent discussions of 5G with an estimated arrival of 2020.) allowing for further pushing out of the Media Consumption curve and the addition of physical location as a major element in contextual targeting. Tablets, in particular, will provide a more robust branding canvas for marketers to create emotional connections with prospects and clients. The symbiotic connection between the TV and tablet will evolve in ways to extend conversations and facilitate transactions.
Immersive and Augmented Environments: We’ve all heard the expression “If these walls could talk”. With augmented reality they really can. For marketers, the world becomes their canvas to tell stories and motivate transaction. Marketers can pinpoint exact relevant locations to enhance brand resonance with useful information visually demonstrated upon any surface. Apps like Fooducate which augments nutritional information on packaged goods is an example of how AR will create practical, not gimmicky, value and impact the marketing process. Faster processors in phones and wearable products like Google Glass will make AR a more practical and user-friendly experience

Jeff Minsky, Director of Emerging Platforms, Omnicom Media Group

Media is Dead.

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:27:32 -0400

Changes in media – whether time-shifting, mobile, social and more – create opportunities and challenges. Understanding and staying ahead of the challenges and recognizing and taking advantage of the opportunities has to be a priority for marketers. We’ll leave it to others to address what might be next or how this or that innovation will change everything. At [x+1] we think it’s important to take a step back and ask a larger question: does media still matter?

Obviously at one level – as a means for reaching the right audiences with relevant messages – the answer is “yes.” But if you’re still thinking of media as an array of discreet channels that need to be individually planned for, bought, optimized and managed, the answer needs to be a loud and emphatic “no.”

Thinking from a media-centric perspective makes no sense at all. The secret is to think and plan and buy and optimize and manage with your audience in mind. It’s the audience you want to be thinking about and frankly, you shouldn’t really care what media channels are involved – at least not consciously. As long you know are able to recognize your audience, reach them with relevant messages, remember what they’ve seen and heard from you before and provide them with a rewarding experience you will be successful.

The challenge with the media-centric view of the world is that it is woefully out of date. It reflects a time when channels couldn’t be managed in a centralized way and a time when little was known about audiences or the individuals within them. Think about TV. It’s still a blunt instrument that isn’t well suited to sophisticated, audience-centric thinking. It certainly has reach – and importantly emotion – but how can one be sure the messages it delivers are going to be relevant to the audience? How can one be sure you’re not overwhelming the audience with redundant and irrelevant messages?

Certainly as television has become less monolithic it provides better audience targeting opportunities; but why should marketers be forced to look TV (or any media channel) in a vacuum? Because, until recently, there was no alternative.

Now, not only are there better alternatives, there are also greater expectations on the part of customers and prospects. As the media landscape has evolved, audiences have become more sophisticated. The only thing more frustrating than wasting an impression is being the recipient something that is mistargeted, irrelevant or out of date. Those things can be better controlled once you’ve moved beyond media thinking to an audience view of the world.

That’s the direction we need to be moving: toward a unified view of customers. Toward one platform able to reach them with relevant messages through whatever media channel they are using. A platform that knows what they have done and what they plan to do so they aren’t shown offers about the car they just bought or the vacation they just returned from.

We’ve become so sophisticated in the ways we’re able to use data to target really discreet groups of people; but then we have to try and shoehorn those groups into a whole range of media channels that use different models, different forms of measurement, different ways of reporting performance and
results, etc. It’s crazy.

Technology exists – including our own Origin enterprise DMP – that allows media to become almost an afterthought. As long as there’s a system in place to push messages out to audiences through what we call an omnichannel model, the details of channel become far less important than they are today. And for marketers and their audiences, that’s a very good thing.

Perianne Grignon, CMO, [x+1]

Digital Integration of Media, Advertising, Gaming, and Philanthropy

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:33:58 -0400

Today a new company Thinaire is placing low cost links to digital content in physical objects such as shelf talkers and magazines. People can just tap their mobile phone to the object and the content appears on their screen and can be shared in the usual ways plus by tapping a friend’s phone whereupon the content leaps phone to phone. This is only one small part of the continuing evolution of all (including in-store) media into digital media. All print media to the extent that they continue to involve printed copies will utilize links like Thinaire’s to become woven seamlessly into the one digital mediasphere that is forming. Radio is migrating into digital and cellphone+stereo earpods will be the next stage both by radio receivers in phones and by all-digital stations led by Pandora springing up

The advertising industry is gradually becoming aware that sponsorship of good content (including fun/social games) and of good causes has far greater power to win hearts and minds than interruptive pitch/offer messages no matter how clever. Today Cause Marketing is still only a billion dollar slice of the advertising pie but in the future, with the precise media/creative ROI measurement now available through companies led by TRA, things that work will quickly balloon to the level justified by their economic efficacy. CMOs and bright agencies will devise mixtures of Cause, Game, Social aspects to make advertising and even promotion far more intriguing, fun, and self-satisfying for media audiences.

New forms of web-based testing, brain and psychographic research will develop that understand how people tick so much better than today that creatives will be equipped with powerful insights to help shape effective messages. Sophistication and creativity will merge into talent that is not only rational, emotive, perceptual and intuitive but also appeals to whole human beings instead of to one small layer of their most petty purchasing interests. Share of ROI Uplift will become a way that media and agencies are compensated, with trusted third party research companies led by the ARF, ANA and 4As ensuring that the ROI report cards are scientific and objective. The media business will become more fun for all with fewer doomsday scenarios and a never-ending game of day to day surprises enabled by technology and human ingenuity. Resistance to advertising which had always been futile will now also become nearly extinct due to the enjoyability of the new formats.

Bill Harvey, Vice Chairman and Chief Research Officer, TRA, Inc. (TiVo Research and Analytics)

The Future of Media Already Looks Too Much Like the Past

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:12:00 -0400

In August, a study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association that found homeless people were turning to social media sites because it was the one place where they felt everyone was truly equal and they could interact with others without fear of being judged.

It’s that same inclusive opportunity that I, and many of my Latino online media colleagues, saw in the Internet. For us, the Internet afforded an opportunity to participate in the reinvention of media, as equal partners, collaborators and publishers.

Online media, by its very name, symbolized the merger of two worlds for a new future. It was envisioned, by most of us, that online newsrooms would resemble the crew of any Star Trek starship using the latest platforms, apps and technology to tell and deliver stories and engage readers in new and exciting ways.

Unfortunately, that tired saying “old habits die hard,” has never been truer and is casting a cloud over the future of media to be the all-inclusive industry envisioned for the 21st Century.

This year’s American Society of News Editors’ (ASNE) Newsroom Employment Census found that regardless of market size, journalists of color employed in print newsrooms were “substantially” less than the percentage of minorities in their respective markets.

The same survey listed over 70 participating online news organizations and, while the ASNE deemed the number who responded too low to include in the final results, their data revealed a sad reality — some online news sites located in areas of high populations of color had not one single journalist of color on their staff.

Other online news organizations that did report journalists of color within their ranks had an overrepresentation of one particular ethnicity, at the expense of others.

Only a handful of online news orgs fulfilled the vision of equitable diversity.

Some in the news industry have downplayed the lack of diversity in online newsrooms by pointing out that the Internet has afforded journalist entrepreneurs, like myself, the opportunity to create our own niches.

While that’s true, it still doesn’t address the fundamental issue of inclusion in mainstream media. Creating our own niches, in essence, has segregated ethnic news sites from the mainstream. Instead of being regarded as new media pioneers, along with our mainstream colleagues, ethnic new media is still seen as “alternative media.”

It’s an ironic viewpoint considering it wasn’t that long ago that every online news site was considered “alternative media,” especially if there was a print counterpart.

To continue to exclude journalists of color on staff at mainstream news sites doesn’t make sense in a nation that is already in some states “majority-minority” and is on track to achieve that distinction nationally in the not far-off future.

What’s not widely understood in today’s predominantly white newsrooms is that just as the Internet opened doors of opportunity for news entrepreneurs of color, it also created opportunities for people of color to have equal access to news.

It’s that new demand that drives niche news sites to fill and nurture while mainstream online media carries on like it’s the 20th Century.

Marisa Treviño is the publisher of Latina Lista, a news site founded in 2004, targeting English-speaking Latinos.

Multi-Channel Marketing is Dead - Long Live the Channel of ONE

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:01:06 -0400

How many times have you heard marketers talk about “channels?” My guess is, too many to count. Marketers lose sleep worrying about how to reach their customer across specific channels. They dedicate teams of employees and precious budget dollars to managing these separate entities—social media, email, text, mobile apps … the list is endless these days.

But there’s a problem. Customers don’t think in terms of channels. Customers think about how brands are able to deliver value to them at every interaction. So marketers need to think about customers as the single all-important channel of ONE.

I’m not suggesting it’s useless to look at the efficacy of different marketing channels. On the contrary, I believe such analysis is crucial to devising successful, customer-centric marketing campaigns. The trick, however, is to look at the data gathered from multiple channels to gain a clearer perspective on customer behavior – and use that insight to engage with them at the
right time, at the right place, with the right message. For instance, it’s not about whether social media is an effective marketing “strategy”; it’s about understanding how customers use social media to interact with brands so we can deliver meaningful engagement that strengthens our messages and drive higher revenues.

To make informed decisions about marketing tactics aimed at influencing customer behavior, we must use data. The type of analysis described above can and should be based on hard numbers that detail when, where and how customers choose to interact with their favorite brands. Unfortunately, the vast majority of marketers still rely too much on intuition, incorporating data into only 11 percent of their customer-related decisions, according to a recent CEB study of nearly 800 marketers at Fortune 1000 companies. Using pure intuition can result in untargeted, irrelevant and disconnected messages that have a negative impact on brands and ultimately destroy customer relationships. Imagine how I felt the other day when I received an email about an unbeatable membership rate at my neighborhood gym … the same gym I paid a higher rate to join one month prior. This promotion should not have landed in my inbox. Why would I tell my friends about a great offer from a place I now feel has ripped me off?

My gym could have avoided upsetting me by generating data on paying and prospective customers and using the information to segment their customer base and communications. In more complex situations marketers can apply predictive algorithms to reduce the number of errors that come from broadly implemented channel-based tactics.

Perhaps the shift to data sounds intimidating. Let me assure you that it need not be. The necessary technology exists, as do the algorithms for putting the data to use. Right now, data is disconnected from marketing, but I predict the near future holds the marriage of the two: A real-time data and messaging automation platform that will gather customer intelligence and automatically translates it into profitable marketing activities. I foresee a marketing culture that doesn’t fear data, but rather embraces it and uses it to develop new revenue opportunities.

To prepare for this transformation, marketers must take but one crucial step. They must tear down the existing multi-channel infrastructure and start to view digital marketing in terms of one unified channel—the customer channel of ONE.

Alex Lustberg, VP of marketing for Lyris (www.lyris.com)

The Rise and Consolidation of Pre-Bid Data

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:48:54 -0400

Online advertising moves fast. One day, a technology is brand new, the next there’s an entire segment of thriving companies doing similar things. Not so long ago RTB was the newest tool, but we’re already seeing greater adoption and the emergence of tools supporting it. The future will see a massive growth in these RTB supplements, particularly in the pre-bid data space.

In the world of automated real-time buying, marketers often have little information about the page before their ad appears. They’ve been pushing for a preemptive blocking technology to keep their ads out of sensitive environments, and that’s why pre-bid data has grown in popularity and necessity.

But it’s not simply a measure of brand safety. RTB transactions happen in less than 100 milliseconds, so the more information available up front, the better. Pre-bid data lets advertisers target more precisely, focusing on certain page quality points they didn’t have access to before. With improved data, advertisers can target something as specific as travel segments on large news sites -- impossible in RTB without this kind of data.

Pre-bid providers are generally coming from two different starting points. Former display verification companies realize that preventative brand safety is better than reactive safety, so they’re keeping ads out of inappropriate environments. The semantic/page level companies are approaching pre-bid data from more of an analytical angle. It’s not necessarily about brand safety, but a page’s overall quality, determined by an ad’s position, size, or relation to other ads on the page).

With these multiple approaches, we’re going to see the segment explode in the next six to nine months. We’ll likely see even greater advancements in segment modeling based on URL data, potentially with uses we haven’t even touched on here.

That’s not to say these companies will prosper without difficulty. Pre-bid data requires a heavy financial investment up-front to process all the data, and that’s a difficult business model to sustain. As the segment grows, expect platforms to buy up the pre-bid data companies, the same way DSPs and networks integrated dynamic creative. These products are natural fits for existing display services, but aren’t the best business models on their own. RTB’s future depends on them, and while the segment will grow, we’ll see it shake up a bit more.

Christopher Hansen, President, Netmining

The Future of Media: Going Native in Grids, Feeds and Galleries

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:57:21 -0400

Remember how media websites looked in 1999? In fact, most still look the same: a scrollable homepage with above-the-fold features and below-the-fold article links; a prominent, central navigation intended to drive more page views; and banner ads up top and on the sides.

But the traditional content publisher layout is now being replaced by content streams, grids, and galleries that produce a more social, fluid experience… and take advantage of the fast-growing market for native advertising. Native ads are brand content such as videos, photos, and articles directly integrated into the fabric of a publisher’s site, such as Facebook Sponsored Stories, Twitter’s Promoted Tweets or promoted videos on YouTube and Tumblr. Forward-looking publishers are turning their sites into fluid content streams to create a more dynamic user experience for their content and to incorporate branded content
into the mix.

Here are three design frameworks that are growing in popularity and expanding the market for native advertising:

1. Feeds/Content Streams

Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and other feed-based platforms have fundamentally changed the way people consume content. Our brains now feed off feeds. Each of these platforms offers a constantly updated stream of news, media and information. Feeds are very native-friendly, since brands can insert their
content (posts, photos, and videos) directly into the stream. Readers see brand posts in the same context as posts from their friends and followers. Facebook’s Sponsored Stories and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets are early examples of in-feed native ad units, and we’re sure to see many more iterations on this model, particularly on mobile.

2. Galleries

Gallery formats are very visual, with rectangular content units arranged in a symmetrical layout and often featuring an infinite scroll. Readers can scan images and click on them for deeper content. Pinterest is the most well-known gallery site, and marketers are already highly active on the site, pinning images to promote new products and build their brands. Once Pinterest rolls out Promoted Pins, brands will surely pay to have more prominent placement in relevant galleries. Chill and the newly re-designed Digg are also popular gallery-format sites. Gallery formats are extremely image-intensive, providing a great opportunity for brands to market visual-rich photo and video content.

3. Grid

Like galleries, grids are image-driven. Grids are usually video stills or images laid out in a square format, and they allow for a bit more accompanying text than gallery formats. Users can click on the image to get to an article, video, or more info. Devour, Etsy, and Imgur are good examples of successful grid-based sites. What makes grids so powerful is curation. Because you have a limited amount of homepage real estate with a grid, the images you choose to promote within the grid define the whole feel of your site. Grid-based native ads are a great fit for brands who publish original content, whether its images, videos or articles, as they can be integrated natively within the layout and enhance the core content experience.

Chris Schreiber, VP of marketing at Sharethrough

Beyond the Ad Model - A New Economics for Media

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:50:28 -0400

Facebook lost half its market cap because of doubts about the viability of ads as the world goes mobile. Advertising has its place, where it is non-intrusive, and when it provides valued information relevant to my current context. But that is unlikely to fully pay for the services consumers want. Similar problems are at crisis level in newspapers, video, and music.

It is time to rethink payment for media in the digital age. Most users of Facebook, or any media service, would be willing to pay a fee -- if it were commensurate with the value they actually perceive, and their ability to pay. Charging for Facebook seems impractical only because we have not figured out how to create a payment model that works for a wide range of consumers.

Instead, we look to advertising, or to selling data about consumers, both of which are largely opposed to the interests of the consumer. But consumers are coming to realize that "if you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." I suggest that by rethinking how we pay for services, we can find a much better solution.

Freemium offers a hint of the answer-- give away some product to get users to see the value and agree to pay for a service they find useful. But this still fails to match widely varying usage patterns, value perceptions, and abilities to pay.

How can a vendor understand the right price for each user, at each point in time? This seems intractable until we consider letting the user tell us -- the user knows.

The concern is that the user will not be fair, and will understate what he is willing to pay--or will fail to appreciate the cost of service. But we are in an era of relationship commerce – now we can build personalized relationships on mass scale. The solution is to build relationships with customers based on dialogs about value -- so that we can maintain relationships with those that set values fairly, nudge them to recognize the value, and cut off relationships with those who are unfair. The same technologies that enable ad targeting, individualized merchandizing, and automated customer service can enable this too. I have been talking to companies of all sizes about just such an approach -- I call it “FairPay” (short for “fair pay what you want”).

Advertising and data sales can still have a significant place in adding economic value, but can be limited to not detract from the core value proposition between the consumer and the business. The same FairPay process can let users individually determine what level of advertising and data usage they will tolerate, in return for reduced payments.

All it takes is some willingness to empower your customers, and some experimentation. Is that any more than we should expect in this new age?

Richard Reisman, President, Teleshuttle Corp.

Technology is Changing the Way People Shop and How they Expect to Be Rewarded

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:44:24 -0400

Consumers now expect everything to be fast, convenient and rewarding. In fact consumers don’t just expect this, they feel that they are entitled to it. Consumers expect overnight shipping, free returns, the ability to buy online, by phone or in-store and then have the ability to also return that item by whatever medium they choose, by mail or in store, at no cost. And, consumers also expect the highest quality customer service and quick response or resolution to complaints on their medium of choice ranging from traditional phone calls, Facebook, Twitter or whatever happens to be the newest social media phenomenon. This expectation is not going away. So how has this changed how people expect to be rewarded or ‘thanked’ for their purchases and loyalty?

With the advent of registered card program or card-linked offers, consumers are becoming used to activating offers provided by their bank or credit card company and getting $10 back when they spend $50 at a certain brand or getting $20 back a night for certain hotel stays, all while using their existing credit or debit card. Consumers now have the option of registering their cards with specific companies or just opting-in to offers and they can gain access to all of these perks and discounts. No awkward paper coupons required. No extra cards to carry. It’s the ease and convenience of using a pre-existing card that makes this so attractive to consumers. And it’s about to get easier.

With the universal mobile wallet on the horizon (think Paypal, AT&T, Google Square, etc.) the leather wallet may soon become a quaint, antique collectible that our children never see the need to own. Everything (even our state ID or driver’s license) will be tied to a single device - our phone, and we will use it to pay, identify ourselves and collect rewards. I would argue that as we complete every transaction on a single source, it becomes easier and easier to track those purchases and reward consumers for those purchases. Rewards programs will proliferate much as they did online (with e-commerce and affiliate programs) and consumers will expect to be rewarded for almost every purchase they make. Advertisers will begin to shift a growing portion of their massive TV and print budgets to rewards (performance-based marketing) and consumers will expect these rewards.

A single point of transaction, the phone, will facilitate this shift in both consumer shopping behavior and the shift in how brands are allocating their marketing dollars.

Peter Vogel is co-founder and CEO of Plink, an online-to-offline loyalty program that rewards members for dining and shopping at their favorite national restaurants and offline stores. Reach him via email at peter@plink.com or follow him on Twitter @pvogel.

The New Brand Experience

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:41:22 -0400

We've entered an era where the consumer has more control than ever. Disruptive messaging is not as effective - or tolerated - as it once was. So instead of asserting a one-way brand message, marketers are now creating relevant experiences to organically align brands with consumers. These experiences themselves are becoming brand platforms; an energy drink is a lifestyle and a computer company is a content provider. Today, brands represent much more than their product or service.

It's Not Readers, or Users, it's Participants, and They're Smarter Than You Think They Are

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:43:46 -0400

For over a century, advertising has been a powerful engine of growth, building businesses and brands with a relatively predictable business model for marketers and media companies alike. But, the traditional media levers for growth are breaking down. Media fragmentation and social media ubiquity have profoundly changed the marketer-agency-media supply chain relationship, and the consumer has more power than ever to define a brand’s success.

As traditional display advertising faces diminishing returns, social media – which is inherently about personal participation and word of mouth – creates new and more impactful avenues to engage, connect and transact with customers. Marketers used to seek and media companies used to sell readers and users; today they seek and sell participants. To harness the power of those participants, brands must leave behind traditional notions of advertising (pitch!), and embrace a space once the domain of journalists and media providers: high quality content; that which educates, informs, or entertains.

With marketers acting more like journalists, the lines between paid, owned and earned media blur – and the whole of what gets accomplished can be so much more than the sum of the parts in terms of participant engagement. So what’s really different in the marketer – media owner – participant relationship today, beyond the fact that marketers are content creators too? A greater respect for the intelligence of the participant.

In today’s multi-screen digital social world, confirming the veracity of content is only a click away. For consumers, that means great content can come from anywhere, as long as the source is transparent. And brands are often the owners of the best, most interesting content in the spaces in which they play. Who knows more about style and craftsmanship than Hermes who has designed beautiful things for more than 100 years? Who can better explain the dynamics of decision making around enterprise software choices than SAP, or Oracle? Isn’t today’s car buyer just as interested in knowing what BMW has to say about how a superior engine is developed as he/she is in knowing what Car & Driver has to say?

For participants, journalists are no less important, but they can and should co-exist in a world in which brands can also showcase their expertise, as long as it’s done with authenticity. And when it’s not, the participants will tell them – by choosing not to share their pages, or return to them.

For marketers, the opportunity to publish content means more power (and pressure!) to telltheir own stories in the credible, contextually relevant environments that consumers naturally visit and discover. For publishers, it means enabling marketers to participate in the conversation in a seamless way. And for participants – the ones who really hold the cards – it means using their multi-screen-enabled access and – as importantly – their intelligence – to make their own choices about which stories resonate and which are worth passing along to their friends.

Meredith Levien, Group Publisher & Chief Revenue Officer, Forbes Media

The Future of Media: RTB Moves Beyond Remnant

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:40:18 -0400

CMOs are faced with daunting task of effectively spending their money to ensure ROI. They are also faced with a data deluge, and making sense of it all is becoming increasingly complex. Not only in digital as a stand alone but in how digital relates to other channels. In order for digital to really grow we need to embrace the future of buying and selling by leveraging highly scalable platforms that not only allow us to buy "remnant" or "exchange" traded media but shift our mentality into buying and selling all digital media through programmatic approaches. This will allow both advertisers and publishers to determine the value of each transaction by leveraging predictive data related to the probability of this advertisement converting. The future of RTB will encapsulate the entire process of online media and simplify the ecosystem. Moving far beyond remnant inventory, advertisers will buy all types of online media via RTB, and because of the low overhead and streamlined process, it will enable digital to compete on the same level as television for brands' budgets. Initial complexity will lead to a simplified efficient process. This is what CMOs are looking forward to, as it will be a more streamlined system.

David Hahn, Senior Vice President, Product Management, AdSafe