Luxury Online Flagships Go For a Redesign

Luxury brands have traditionally been a bit slower to take up new technologies, therefore it is interesting to watch when and at what pace they play catch up. Recently some brands have rolled out more frequent website updates to drive traffic from both a search perspective, and visual and UX standpoint. Aston Martin chose to announce the redesign of their site via the brand’s social media outlets, instead of simply releasing the changes through an announcement on the site page itself, noting on Twitter both the “new and improved homepage design and navigation.” This was an interesting tactic for Aston Martin because it helps drive current brand enthusiasts to the new site, in effect to test out changes, tracking time spent on the site and identifying the most popular areas or content. Instead of having to navigate to a particular model, the different cars are the first menu options at the top bar, and slide across as full-screen images on the home page. As most users are likely looking for a particular car within the Aston Martin line, it was advantageous for the company to retool the site to align more closely with those search inquiries and page visits.

Marc Jacobs also recently revamped its online flagship, taking away some of the hierarchy to streamline the process of viewing and purchasing the product. The side menu is now organized in the same way in which customers would shop in-person, structured by gender, rather than by collection. Once navigating to the women’s section, the grid layout carries over from the home page, but there is also a split screen with two scroll bars. This could prove somewhat confusing or overwhelming, but does allow the site to push a ton of content and descriptors onto one page, which may help drive traffic from a search perspective.

Providing frequent website updates can help a brand stay relevant, not only through its content but also by staying up to date with developments in web design and architecture. Incremental changes make it easier to stay on the forefront of a competitive market that demands unique online experiences, meaningful content, and ease of use – and that’s just once the customer is already on the site. Driving customers to the online flagship requires proper understanding of the back end design as well, which Aston Martin and Marc Jacobs appear to recognize and work towards.  

How to Use the Instagram Hyperlapse App for your Fashion Brand

We all know how powerful the social connectivity of Instagram is, not only for your friends, loved ones, or that fashion brand you can’t help but check out. Latest hype from Instagram shows a new tool for brands to engage with their audiences through the channel of digital marketing. Burberry, in this realm, continue to set the bar as a first mover in the intersection of fashion and tech.

Basically the Hyperlapse app is a video content tool that elevates your Instagram video capability: Basically it allows you to do 3 things:

1.       Speed up your video 12x

2.       Tap screen to auto-adjust brightness while filming

3.       Crop any part of video

Now, the app is available for all to enjoy and fashion brands to further leverage technology to inspire, engage and innovate.

Source: http://startupfashion.com/instagram-hyperlapse-app-fashion-brand

Growth in mobile spurs mobile advertising innovation

When you walk the street, it’s difficult not to see people who are staring at their smartphones. I am also guilty of his. Consumers continue to ditch television and switch all their content viewing habits to mobile. There are skeptics out there who don’t believe smartphones and tablets will ever outrun TV, however numbers suggest otherwise. Millward Brown reported that each day, consumers are spending 147 minutes on their smartphones, 113 minutes watching TV, 108 minutes on laptops, and 50 minutes on tablets. Bob Dorfman, creative director at Baker Street Advertising, predicts that mobile will eventually become the predominant screen.

As a result of this trend, an increasing amount of advertisers are moving their advertising spending to mobile. Facebook and Twitter both saw double-digit gains in their mobile sales figures per quarter. According to eMarketer, mobile ad spend is projected to hit $19 billion this year and $58 billion by 2018. This is a huge change compared to several years ago when television advertising was still king.

A positive outcome of the growth in mobile is the increase innovation within this mobile advertising space. In order to capture the increased dollar spend, mobile companies are introducing newer, easier ways to advertise on their sites and platforms. For example, Facebook just introduced Atlas, which helps marketers track their campaigns on Facebook across smartphones, tablets and desktops. Google is planning on offering rich media ads for mobile.

Measuring impressions from mobile viewing has also become an important component of evaluating performance of advertising campaigns. To make it easier for advertisers to evaluate the overall performance, Nielsen is expected to pitch to TV networks a measurement tool that will pair mobile views with TV ratings.  Mobile is definitely becoming a large player in the advertising space.

Source: AdWeek

Advertising Week 2014

Today marks the first day of Advertising Week here in NYC. For those who don’t know, Advertising Week is the world’s premier annual gathering of marketing and communications leaders that is held each year in New York City.

According to the official website, Advertising Week draws from the client, media, and broader cultural communities with a laser focus on key business drivers which shape and influence the global industry. Here are some of the key numbers: The Week is 4 days long, has 250+ events, 190+ seminars and workshops, and expected attendance is 90,000.

The focus this year is on digital – as evidenced by the many hundreds of panels and discussions scheduled on various digital topics ranging from mobile marketing to data mining. One topic that is expected to get a lot of discussion is digital advertising, specifically programmatic ad buying. Programmatic ad buying is when automated software systems (rather than calls, faxes, or emails to salespeople) are used to buy and book ads.

According to the official schedule, there are more than 20 panels that will discuss some aspect of programmatic buying. Magna Global, a research and ad-buying unit of Interpublic Group estimates that digital-ad spending around the world done through programmatic channels will increase 52% this year to $21 billion. The majority of the panels will focus on the growth and efficiencies of automated buying, however the conference will also discuss some of the risks, including the rise of phony websites and online fraud. It will be interesting to see how the conversation develops and what larger trends emerge from The Week.

Source: Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/articles/digital-media-to-take-center-stage-at-advertising-week-1411933781

Empowering Filmmakers to Build Brand Awareness

 As travel brands strive to establish their own identity and voice, digital marketing content is transforming from social media postings highlighting promotions and new products to stories inspiring wanderlust.

I first caught glimpse of 'Move' shared on a friend’s Facebook page, there in one brilliant minute of compelling content three friends traversed 11 countries and 38,000 miles and left me eyeing Google Flight Search’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.  With no blatant brand plastered across the images, I was drawn to the friends’ adventure – a personal story of a trip of a lifetime. It instigated memories of my steps on some similar global roads. Only months later did I realize that ‘Move’ was a part of a video series campaign commissioned by STA Travel to build brand awareness.  

‘Move’ now has over 2.5 million views on Youtube where STA’s branded video appears. The Director, Rick Mereki, has his personal channel where ‘Move’ views exceed 15.5 million. The short video was by no surprise one of Vimeo’s advertising finalists in 2012.

Tourism boards and travel brands are beginning to stray away from the scripted and impersonal video, bringing back the thrill of unknown destinations. Key to this new content approach’s success is the brand’s trust of filmmakers to capture the location’s mysteries in their own manner. Stepping away from the corporate restrictions on content empowers filmmakers to do what they do best: be storytellers. Engaging, powerful content which offers a fresh perspective will spread itself across social network sites as we have seen with ‘Move’ as well as with Barcelona (funded by the Catalan Tourism Board) and Enter Pyongyang (funded by Koryo Tours, the leading North Korean travel specialist). 

Sources:

·         http://www.internetmarketingadelaide.com/2011/08/move-eat-learn-marketing-interview-with.html#comment-form

·         http://skift.com/2014/09/22/skift-global-forum-vimeo-president-on-how-brands-can-win-by-letting-go/?utm_source=Skift&utm_campaign=6911aea2ae-UA-28362693-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fe7fb4248c-6911aea2ae-63871053

Google's New Grab for Mobile Ad Dollars

Despite the rise of mobile and the ever evolving discussion about the mobile experience, what ad platforms haven't figured out yet is exactly how to woo the advertising dollars that the mobile audience should command.

A new attempt is being made by Google, which has just announced it is rolling out 4 new formats - 3 of which borrow heavily from the the interstitial ad format. The idea here is that they will mimic the television experience that consumers are already comfortable (i.e. people won't be "turned off" because they've grown accustomed to them).

Besides their user friendly nature, the benefit to advertisers (which is perhaps part of Google's attempt to entice them onto the platform) is that they will only pay if users clicks to expand and connect with the ad.

The jury is still out re: whether or not these formats will work (although they've long existed in mobile gaming apps), but it certainly seems to be a step in the right direction.



Source: http://adage.com/article/digital/google-bringing-brand-friendly-ads-mobile/295176/

Let's not worry about advertisers collecting data, but rather how they are protecting data

Last week, I explained why it doesn't bother me that advertisers track my browsing behavior in order to personalize my web experience. They claim to have no intention of using the data for any purpose outside of selling. The basis for this partly hinges on the fact that the tracking software assigns random numbers as identities and does not use our real names, email addresses, SSNs, etc. 

The problem, however, is that it becomes pretty easy to link these randomly assigned numbers to personally identifiable information ("PII") once a little bit of browsing data is collected. The advertisers, and their data collecting vendors, therefore have a responsibility to protect this data. While they may not care to link the number to PII, hackers surely will. As such, the concerns should not be on the fact that advertisers collect and leverage data to make sales, but rather on the security measures they have in place to protect the data that's collected.

Let's face it - the collection of data for the purpose of targeted advertising is not going anywhere. We shouldn't be concerned that it's happening because it is being collected for the purpose of selling more effectively. There's nothing wrong with that. More effective selling leads to more successful businesses, resulting in more jobs, a growing GDP, and ultimately a better average quality of life for everyone. All good things.

Let's instead shift the conversation to ensuring that the vendors collecting the data on behalf of advertisers are properly protected from hackers and external threats that could compromise the information and use it maliciously. The ability to protect this data is there, as evidenced by a large, growing cybersecurity market underpinned by tons of innovation and more investment than ever before. Let's make sure that our advertisers, and by default their technology vendors, are devoting enough resources to securing the data that they collect.

If an Advertisement Runs Online and No One Sees It, Is It Still an Ad?

The authors of the paper point out that the discrepancies between the quantities of digital ads served and the corresponding quantities of ads that reached targets were mainly caused by various reasons, including

1)      Deletion of Cookie:

While cookies are around today and are still critical to web-based measurement, cookie based targeting has many limitations. In the first place, cookies are deleted regularly by internet users, and this may lead to huge error in validating accurate measurement of the number of unique visitors to a web site. Furthermore, it can impact upon the accurate delivery and frequency for digital ad campaigns. As noted in the article, problem is that once cookie is deleted, a computer following a web site visit

.

2)      Problem of Multiple-user- Machine

The other measurement error can be amplified with the deletion of cookies when same user use multiple devices (i.e. smartphone, home computer, office labtop), and different people using the same computer which can result in more than one person per cookie. Therefore, it is an elusive matter to measure and validate cookie to a specific individuals’ internet utilization.

3)      Behavioral targeting based on cookie registrars

Use of cookie to target digital ads to certain demographic and behavior segments are also exposed to risk in delivering accurate ads info due to targeting errors caused by problems defined in the above (cookie deletion & multiple user machine)

4)      Losing opportunities to be seen

Not all ads in online have opportunities to be seen by viewers/internet users. Thus, not a few ads are delivered to the wrong demographic segment and geography. According to the reading article from Fiosi, Fulgoni and Vollman, the authors point out the fundamental problem of this matter arises from lacking sufficient technology and measurement tool to properly validate delivery across the relevant dimensions. For instance, lack of viewability could occur when a user scrolls down the past ads before the entire message of ads are fully rendered.

It must be also noted that variations in exposures (ie. viewable impressions) affect calculations of ROI and campaign effectiveness. For instance, applying the click through rate as a metric for campaign performance should be abandoned as clickers are not the actual buyers and CTR can distract from optimizations focused on real revenue impact. It is understandable that many advertisers apply cost per action (CPA) metric as this is more reflective of campaign performance, but for better and accurate measurement, focusing on total return on investment by tying ad exposure data back to on-and off line sales is critical.

Source: https://www.econbiz.de/Record/if-an-advertisement-runs-online-and-no-one-sees-it-is-it-still-an-ad-empirical-generalizations-in-digital-advertising-flosi-stephanie/10009778464

When is Targeting Through Mobile Creepy?

With the re-launch of Facebook's new ad platform Atlas - privacy issues are at the forefront of mobile advertising yet again.  It's safe to say that if you are logged into Facebook on your mobile device you have very little privacy from corporations looking to target you based on your online behaviors. Advertisers make the argument that providing you better, more relevant content is in the best interest of all parties. However, it will be curious to see if consumers are put off by a perceived breach of privacy, put less on facebook, and tend to log in less - thus evading the Atlas platform.

The NY Times article below sites PepsiCo using the the platform to target the very advertising-elusive 18-34 male demographic with advertisements for a Mountain Dew drink. They site the combination of voluntary and involuntary consumer data provided by Facebook as being deeper than the intel provided through other platforms - especially for this demographic. However, I am curious about the accuracy of the "voluntarily" provided information on the Facebook, and how reliable it might be in consumer targeting. I use Facebook frequently, but I think my Facebook profile says that I am a teacher in North Carolina - which was true about 8 years ago. If companies are using bad data to target consumers on the web, not only are they more likely to miss the mark with the tone and appeal of their ads, they may further alienate consumers who may suspect that an ad may be mining bad data from their Facebook profile. Although I have no doubt this platform will be a money maker for Facebook, I am curious to see the response by companies and consumers over the long term in terms of any backlash for consumers or the usefulness of the data for companies.

Link to NYT article

Why Google can't dominate search in Korea

http://www.link-assistant.com/blog/google-vs-naver-why-cant-google-dominate-search-in-korea/

Above is the link to an old article on why Google can't dominate in certain regions of the world, namely Korea. From our last lecture I noticed that Google doesn't have the dominant position in countries such as Russia, China, Japan and Korea, and I wanted to comment further on why that is for some regions (aside from the fact that Google is banned in mainland China). I think I found one that best explains the rationale behind Google's performance in Korea.

Main reason behind Naver (local web portal in Korea) to outperform Google is that they generate search results that are more optimized for searches couducted in Korean language. Google can basically search for any website links out in the world containing that exact phrase, but Naver delivers search results that aligns with what the search was targeting to find. This may be because Google basically has to search the entire world for their results, while Naver can just focus on the local webpages.

Once interesting thing I found some time ago was that Yahoo! Japan and Naver Korea's website format are very similar. They still adopt the traditional web portal image, with multiple layers of hot topics presented in a multi-layer text format. Long before Google's blank, user-driven search function was viewed as the global norm, portals in Korea and Japan must have locked their local users to using this type of format.

Web search behavior is very local, and it is very hard to change the way certain users view the internet. Google has done a great job in creating a simple, non-noisy environment to conduct voluntary searches. In order to attract more users from regions where people like to have information presented to them, maybe they need a different approach.

In an effort to attract the attention of overly stimulated consumers several marketers are combining digital marketing efforts with experiential activations.

Coca-Cola recently launch the #shareacoke campaign and was looking for a unique way to combine their product marketing with an out of home marketing experience. Coke worked with Clear Channel Outdoor to create an interactive billboard that allows consumers to send a text message to the billboard and display their name on a coke bottle. The campaign generated 110,000 submissions and 820 million impressions.

Just this passed November, British Airways employed a similar tactic to engage billboard viewers and market the airline. The billboard at Piccadilly Circus was programmed to display a boy pointing up at the sky as any British Airways flight passed over. The billboard would also identify the flight number and the place of origin and destination.

As commuters and consumers in general are increasingly looking down at their phones marketers will need to worker harder to gain their attention in unique and creative ways.

Source: Adweek

Email continues to be the most effective digital tactic

Marketeers have consistently rated email as the most effective digital marketing tactic - as can be seen in the research published by Marketing Charts:

(http://www.marketingcharts.com/online/marketers-continue-to-rate-email-the-most-effective-digital-marketing-tactic-46295/?utm_campaign=rssfeed&utm_source=mc&utm_medium=textlink).


But what means to be most effective in the first place? One could measure effectiveness by ROI, but then how is return defined -  increase in sales, in leads? Although I agree that ROI (sales) is probably the best way to measure the effectiveness of a digital tactic, different channels work better for different purposes and objectives and it is hard to imagine that email would have superior performance when it comes to brand building or capturing demand for example.

As the article states, people could also attribute email effectiveness to the fact that it is a tactic usually perceived as easier to use. We can never forget the multi-channel attribution challenges - how likely is email to be more effective once the recipient has had previous contact with your brand through social, video or simple banner ads?

Cost Per Hour: The New Currency in Digital Advertising

    Move over CPM there's a new metric in town.  Back in March 2013, Financial Times announced that the paper would roll out ad rates based on time rather than impressions.  The attention metric, named Cost per Hour (CPH), stemmed from an attempt to change up the status quo that has been unchallenged for years and to even the playing field for premium publishers versus ad-giants such as Google, Yahoo, and Facebook.  So what exactly is CPH and what are its implications for advertisers?

    Cost per hour puts the focus on time rather than views.  The goal is to create scarcity so media companies can place price tags on commercial time, similar to the way television advertising works. While Financial Times has a relatively small online readership (approximately 12 million monthly unique visitors across desktop and mobile), the paper found that its audience heavily engages with the content on the website.  This is why FT is actively pushing the movement towards attention metrics.  Other publishers are also following suit.  To date, The Economist, Upworthy, and The Wall Street Journal are all implementing attention metrics to upgrade the viewability standard of their content. Media buyers also see the value in attention metrics.  The belief is that pricing based on time will place more pressure on marketers and their creative agencies/departments to create more interesting content.

    While there is a small contingent in favor of standardizing the CPH metrics, there's also plenty of resistance.  Many agencies would like to keep the status quo as is.  This could largely be due to the fact that they are already comfortable with the way the infrastructure currently works.  Many large publishers that attract large audiences are also resistant of the shift.  Of course, the current process is working for them and if it's isn't broke, then why should it be fixed?

    As an actual viewer of online advertising content, I'm excited to see what this new metric can do for the quality of the advertising brands create.  Marketers would have to work hard to create engaging advertisements that encourage viewers to stay on the page.  While I see big players such as Facebook an Google irritated about the change, I do see opportunity for the smaller players to up their advertising ante.

Sources: Is Digital Advertising Ready to Ditch the Click, Cost per hour: A new metric for paid content

Sendwithus optimizes email marketing for companies large and small

Over the past year of internships at large and small companies, email marketing has been a big topic of debate. What subject lines should we be using? How often do we send emails? What time of day do we send them? What should the images look like? Getting the perfect combination of these seems to be nearly impossible.

The new email marketing startup, Sendwithus, aims to help all companies optimize their emails. They offer a range of tools such as A/B testing for transactional emails - emails for specific purposes and tied to specific events. The company allows marketers to test variations of these emails without going through a developer. Co-founder Matt Harris also mentions it becomes a huge pain for large companies manage, produce, and automate but Sendwithus streamlines the process. The company recently added segmentation tools to effectively target specific groups within the customer base.

The company has seen 30 percent growth in the last six months and has optimized 250 million emails. A subscription starts at $19 per month. The company has raised $2.3million dollars in funding.

Sendwithus focuses on transactional emails. However, companies such as MailChimp is widely popular within small to medium businesses. Since I've used the interface, its very easy and convenient and I could easily see MailChimp create a few more enhancements to their existing system so they can help their existing customers streamline transactional emails as well. In my opinion, it would be a hassle for companies that already have an email tracking system to set up with Sendwithus just for the purpose of optimizing transactional emails. You can also segment customers in MailChimp and the tracking report for each email sent out is quite extensive.

My prediction is that this company will continue to build their system and will eventually be bought out my another email marketing company, such as MailChimp.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/25/sendwithus-seed-funding/

Email Marketing Gon Wrong

Having a good email marketing strategy can be a powerful tool used to reach new customers, retain and take a larger share of existing customer’s wallets.  The email channel is familiar, flexible and universal and accessed all the time across a host of mobile devices that keep people connected at all times. 

An effective strategy should deliver personalized, relevant content, and compliment existing channels.  I personally receive plenty of targeted content via email, either because I signed up to be on a particular distribution list, or unknowingly consented to receiving the emails when I purchased something, or signed up for a service.  I received the below email this past week, and needless to say I was taken aback.  I often receive emails from airportparkingreservations.com, and despite seeing them in my inbox a bit more than I’d like, I am yet to unsubscribe (until now) since I often use the coupons they deliver when I fly out of JFK. 

I thought this was an excellent example of how not to execute an email marketing strategy.  Better results, such as these examples of great email marketing campaigns, are sure to come from following a strategy like the one exactTarget outlines here. 

New Google Ads on Mobile

The mobile advertising market has been having trouble capturing audience size and increasing customer interactions primarily because of its inability generate consumer friendly ads. Google is trying to change that with their new advertising formats.

The company has adopted the look and feel of TV format ads, which can include videos, large scale pictures, and stimulate immediate customer interaction. Google has come up with 4 unique media ads that mimic the audience's interactions when watching television ads. Google is planning to have different ads show up when the user is at a strategic break point in their mobile activity. These ads come in various forms. Some ads will be displayed in a lightbox format that will take over the entire screen. Other ads will be banner ads, which are anchored to the bottom of the user's screen when they are browsing the internet. However, don't be alarmed - users will still be able to close out any unwanted ads through closing windows or swiping the ads to the side.

On the company advertising standpoint, this an exciting breakthrough because it opens new opportunities in the mobile audience market, which is exponentially increasing. In addition, Google will only be charging via Pay Per Click, so that advertisers can maximize their customer engagement at a minimal cost.

Example: Kate Spade's new Google mobile ad format, which includes video and slideshows.

Source: http://adage.com/article/digital/google-bringing-brand-friendly-ads-mobile/295176/

Despite Buzz, Social Commerce is Limited

A recent article on emarketer.com highlighted what may surprise some - despite the buzz surrounding social marketing, very few adults have actually made a purchase through social. This higlights a distinction between social marketing/advertising and social commerce; in other words, there's a difference between marketing/raising awareness through social and actually effecting purchasing behavior through the same channel.

According to the article , only 5% of US adults have ever made a purchase on a social platform such as Facebook or Twitter. The chart below dives into some of the factors that might increase the likelihood of a person making a purchase THROUGH social channels themselves.



It's interesting to see that many people cite security as a reason for holding back on purchasing via social. Security concerns have been grabbing headlines recently, and smaller purchase amounts seem to be of greater appeal (those less than $25). Everyday there seems to be a completely new credit card hack at a major retailer, and to make matters worse, social media sites are already associated with a lack of privacy. On these sites, in other words, users are already primed to worry about leaks of their personal information, even though much of it is voluntarily shared. It makes sense that they would be reluctant to share their personal financial information with these sites as well. This association could be sapping will or desire among consumers to buy.

In my opinion, though, the problem is a lack of infrastructure. Twitter's introduction of a buy button hints at this part of the problem. How many times have you been consuming social media marketing or marketing through social channels and found it easy to buy directly from the channel? Rarely is it as easy as purchasing through an Apple App Store or an Amazon.com. Limited infrastructure to actually enable buying through social channels - much social marketing simply drives users to conventional eCommerce sites - may due to the fact that users have reservations about the safety and security of the platform.

Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/How-Make-Social-Commerce-More-Appealing/1011231

Facebook announces re-launch of Atlas

It's Ad Week, and Facebook has announced their re-launch of Atlas, an ad platform that serves and tracks ads across platforms.

To provide some context, Atlas is a main competitor to Google’s DoubleClick. This will also compete with AdMob, an ad technology built specifically for mobile, which was acquired by Google years ago. Further, Marin Software and Kenshoo have been named as Facebook’s paid search partners. So, an advertiser can create a paid search campaign using Marin/Kenshoo and optimize their campaign with the Atlas tool. With Google bringing in ~32% of online ad spending last year, it is no question that Facebook is looking for ways to take a larger share.

According to the Atlas blogpost, the industry is moving to “people-based marketing”. Atlas claims that the use of cookies for  for ad serving and measurement is flawed when used alone, and that their platform can measure cross platform usage across devices. Moreover, they claim that the platform can connect online campaigns to offline sales. Details about how this works, according to the post, is vague.

However, upon additional research, Techcrunch explains that "the platform will be linking users’ ad interactions to their Facebook accounts, not just on Facebook itself, but on other websites and apps”. That said, it will be interesting to see how privacy factors come into play, as Facebook accounts are personally identifiable. CNET goes into a bit more detail about how it works: “The way it works is that when a user logs into Facebook with their mobile device, it registers a special device identifier with the company's servers. This identifier can then be used to track a customer so that if another app on their phone asks for an ad, Facebook can use information about the customer to find the best ad to send their way.”

It will be interesting how this plays out for Facebook. Facebook’s mobile advertising efforts alone represented 62 percent of its $2.68 billion in overall advertising tallies in the second quarter of this year. By tying in desktop more closely with mobile ad offerings, they may see a boost in revenues from cross platform ad spend in the coming quarters.

http://searchengineland.com/marin-software-kenshoo-named-facebooks-atlas-paid-search-partners-204496

http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/28/facebook-atlas-relaunch/

http://atlassolutions.com/2014/09/29/meet-the-new-atlas/

http://www.cnet.com/news/with-atlas-facebook-advertisers-can-follow-you-around-the-web/

Digital Video Advertising Outpaced Most Other Digital Ad Markets

Online video is growing faster than most other advertising formats and mediums.

• Video ad revenue will increase at a three-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.5% through 2016, according to our estimates. 
• 
  
• That's faster than any other medium other than mobile. And much faster than traditional online display advertising, which will only grow at a 3% annual rate. 
• 
  

BI Intelligence recently released a report regarding media spend in 2014. Some key trends are: 

1. Online video ad revenue will reach nearly $5 billion in 2016, up from $2.8 billion in 2013, while TV ad revenue will decline by nearly 3% per year during the same time period.

2. Video ad views exploded in 2013, topping over 35 billion views in December, averaging over 100% year-over-year monthly growth during the year.

3. Online video ads are significantly more expensive than other formats, but prices are steadily declining as more publishers rush into video, and placements open up.

4. Video ads have an average click-through rate (CTR) of 1.84%, the highest click-through rate of all digital ad formats.

5. Viewability has emerged as an issue, but the overall demand for online video is too high for viewability to put too much of a crimp in the video ad market.

6. Streaming devices and connected TV accounted for just 2% of online video ad views in the fourth quarter of 2013, but companies like BrightLine are experimenting with formats to grow this new niche market.

7. The growth of mobile and digital video advertising has been paralleled by fundamental changes in the online advertising industry —  programmatic advertising, has begun to reshape the entire digital ad market, including video. 

8. Newly launched video ad platforms have been among the companies to adopt programmatic tools, including real-time bidding, ad exchanges, and advanced analytics.

Activist Investor Calls for Yahoo! To Merge with AOL

Outside of the digital media industry, Yahoo! has been in the news quite frequently over the last 2 years since the appointment of CEO Marissa Mayer, a subsequent flurry of diverse acquisitions, and most recently for its large stake in newly public Alibaba. This week, investment management firm Starboard Value LP, which recently acquired a stake in Yahoo!, sent Mayer a letter urging the company to merge with AOL.

“"We believe a merger of AOL and Yahoo's core business may be one of the best ways to both fully seize the cost reduction opportunity and also to tax efficiently monetize Yahoo's non-core equity holdings."” claims Starboard.

Yahoo! has been the target of many potential megadeals over time, the biggest of which was its potential acquisition by Microsoft. In fact, an acquisition of or merger with AOL has already been proposed by many different parties, and strategically it could make sense. Starboard is correct that there would be significant synergies across both companies’ businesses, and the heightened scale and improved combined portfolio of media assets paired with both companies emerging advertising technologies could be more valuable for the combined entity than separately.

However, Kara Swisher of re/code believes that this activist outcry has little to do with the merits of the proposed merger, and more to do with Starboard’s desire for Yahoo! to deliver the cash from its holdings in Alibaba and other Asian assets back to shareholders. It will be interesting to see how Mayer responds to this proposal.  

Source: http://recode.net/2014/09/27/forget-aol-activist-attack-on-yahoo-is-all-about-forking-over-alibaba-cash/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2014/09/26/yahoo-aol-pushed-toward-merger-by-fed-up-activist-investor/