ADOTAS

Consumer insight and audience data can make or break a media business. Further, loyalty, engagement, and brand affinity all hinge on how well marketers and publishers use data + technology to create favorable consumer web experiences.  As I noted in a recent blog, the future of the consumer experience is still largely uncharted terrain, crying out for some visionaries to move beyond a status quo where targeting is really only about ads.

C-Level Awakening

Recent coverage in Ad Age highlights how CMOs are responding to this shift, cozying up with their technology and data counterparts. One article examines how CMOs are working in tandem with their CIOs to be successful as marketing moves away from simply broadcasting to creating tools that “foster loyalty, juice sales and [use] lots of data and targeting.”

It’s not always an easy transition, as another piece outlines how most CMOs feel unprepared to address issues of data explosion, social media, channel and devices choices. Today’s CMO needs the CIO at their side to be successful in reaching the right consumers with the right message at the right time and in the right places.

On the media sales side, I am seeing an analog in how CROs, publishers and CEOs are drawing on their technology teams.  No longer is the CTO, CSO or CIO just focused on back-office platforms. Recognizing the importance of their interactions with customers over the web, they’re looking to augment infrastructure for data center security with new technology for website data security. Business and technology teams are working together to unlock the value of the first-party consumer relationship, with unique focus on creating the smarter, cooler web experiences their digital customers have come to expect.

Taking the Data Leap

Looking at the bottom line and watching the average consumer’s expectations grow, content providers will see their feet held to the fire if their audience has a negative experience on the site, when people realize that their information is being disseminated and leveraged without their knowledge or approval. Consumers want control over the process; they want to define the location and timing of the transaction; and they expect hyper-efficient, technology-driven experiences that still feel personal.

Consumer targeting and selling online audiences isn’t a new concept.  But smart publishers are recognizing that they need to play catch-up and (re)evaluate their infrastructure and business strategy.

Without focusing on every aspect of the consumer web experience, publishers risk further revenue erosion to the benefit of buyers, competitors, and intermediaries — not to mention loss of trust and loyalty among the audience they serve, as consumers become more astute and simply begin to expect more from their web experiences. Publishers can take a leap forward by adopting audience data control technology, which is just now coming to market.

Key considerations for taking that leap include solutions that:

• Benefit both buyers and sellers while protecting the consumer data fueling those transactions
• Provide consumers with rewarding content, commerce, and advertising experiences
• Respect consumer preferences and expectations, increasing trust to deepen the audience relationship

If you look at today’s standard bearers in customer experience management — such as Amazon, Apple, Salesforce.com and Netflix (just to name a few) — they all have these three points in common. And, it’s what enables them to anticipate their audiences’ needs and desires while creating extremely devoted customers.

Everyone’s a Digital Publisher

Over time, every enterprise becomes a digital publisher. As they increasingly discern that the new normal requires an intelligent fusion of technology and business strategy, the new generation is chartering their leadership teams (CMOs, CIOs/CTOs and CROs) to work collaboratively to use the web to engage with customers more effectively.

Many of them don’t know or care a bit about advertising, which is actually a promising phenomenon. Fittingly, however, their efforts already echo the trail-blazing ways of digital media pioneers through a shared commitment to harnessing the power of their most precious asset: relationships with audiences and customers.

This proposed rule arises from an “FTC COPPA Rule Review” through which the FTC solicited comments about every aspect of COPPA, including whether technological advances such as social media and mobile commerce necessitated revisions. The FTC has now proposed prominent modifications to COPPA that will have a significant effect on the operation of websites, online services and mobile applications that collect personal information from children.

In the preamble to the proposed rule, the FTC states that “[t]he Commission remains deeply committed to helping to create a safer, more secure online experience for children and takes seriously the challenge to ensure that COPPA continues to meet its originally stated goals, even as online technologies, and children’s uses of such technologies, evolve.”

The first major revision to COPPA will certainly create a better online experience for children, however, the changes may also create regulatory compliance hurdles for companies that will be forced to make significant changes to their current information practices.

The FTC is proposing amendments in five areas: (1) definitions; (2) requirements in the parental notice; (3) parental consent; (4) confidentiality and security; and (5) safe harbor provisions.

First, the FTC has clarified that COPPA applies not only to websites, but also to technologies that can be considered “online services.” This includes mobile apps that permit children to play network-connected games, engage in social networking activities, and some text messages.

The definition of “personal information” has also been expanded and will almost certainly impact companies’ behavioral advertising activities. The new definition includes Internet Protocol addresses, customer numbers held in cookies, device identifiers, the linking of information across websites and geo-location information.

Next, the notices that operators must provide to parents about their information collection practices must be streamlined and clarified. Fourth, changes to the existing parental consent mechanism are required, including the removal of the “email plus” verification method and adding several new methods.

In addition, enhanced security provisions and requiring operators to ensure that third-party service providers to whom an operator discloses a child’s personal information have reasonable privacy and security procedures in place. Lastly, changing the existing COPPA Safe Harbor program to require that “safe harbor programs” exercise more oversight.

The Growing Realm of ‘Personal Information’

One of the most significant proposed changes to COPPA is to the definition of “personal information.” The definition of “personal information” is important as COPPA only applies to operators whose websites or online service are directed to children or who have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information from a child under the age of thirteen.

The proposed definition of “personal information” adds or changes the following categories of information:

• Online contact information – the FTC proposes to include not only a child’s email address but also “any other substantially similar identifier that permits direct contact with a person online,” such as an instant messenger name, a video chat name or a VOIP identifier.
• Screen names or user names – however, the FTC would not consider screen or user names that are only used to support internal operations to be “personal information.
• Persistent identifiers, including Internet Protocol addresses, customer numbers held in cookies, processor or device serial numbers, or unique device identifiers — however, the FTC would not consider these persistent identifiers that are only used to support internal operations to be “personal information.” This is a significant change from the current COPPA Rule, which requires that a persistent identifier be associated with individually identifiable information to be considered
  “personal information.”
• Identifiers that link activities of a child across different websites or online services – this category is “intended to serve as a catch-all category covering the online gathering of information about a child over time for the purposes of either profiling or delivering behavioral advertising to that child.”
• Photographs, videos, or audio files that contain a child’s image or voice – the FTC proposes this change from the current standard which includes photographs only when they are combined with “other information such that the combination permits physical or online contacting.”
• Geo-location information sufficient to identify a street name and name of a city or town.

The foregoing proposed changes will significantly expand the scope of COPPA to operators that were not previously subject to the Rule. For example, the requirement that persistent identifiers only be used for internal operations or be considered “personal information” will force any operator having services directed to children or having knowledge that it is collecting information from children under 13 that wishes to provide targeted advertising to children to receive parental consent, even where such advertising is not based on what has been traditionally considered personally identifying information.

The proposal also brings geo-location data into the definition of “personal information,” which will similarly require mobile apps or operators offering mobile apps to comply with the COPPA Rule. This proposed change will likely have the most significant effect on businesses as it would not only subject a wider array of entities to COPPA, but also may make it more difficult for a website or online service to determine whether it is subject to the COPPA Rule, at all.

Parental Consent Required

In the proposed rule, the FTC attempts to streamline the process by which operators are required to provide parents with notice of their privacy practices and the FTC tries to make the process easier for both operators and parents to understand. This change comports with the FTC’s recent efforts to encourage businesses to provide consumers with more easily understandable notice and choice about information practices.

The proposed rule requires that a link to a notice of information practices must be clearly, conspicuously, and prominently labeled and placed on a website’s homepage and at each page where personal information is collected in close proximity to the information request. The FTC both simplifies and expands the requirements for what must be included in the privacy policy, requiring they include:

• Contact information for each operator (the current rule allows multiple operators to select one operator to have their contact information listed).
• What information is collected from children, and whether the website allows children to make this information publicly available.
• How the operator uses the collected information.
• The operator’s disclosure practices for collected information.
• The fact that parents can review and delete or refuse the further collection of a child’s personal information, and the procedures for doing so.

Currently, COPPA requires operators to send parents a direct notice, which informs the parent of a website’s information practices. The proposed rule revises these provisions and includes specific information that an operator must address in different circumstances, including:

• When affirmative parental consent is needed for the collection, use or disclosure of a child’s personal information.
• When a child’s online activities do not involve the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information.
• When an operator intends to communicate with a child multiple times.
• When an operator collects a child’s personal information in order to protect a child’s safety.

The FTC proposes removing one of the most popular parental consent mechanism under the current Rule – email plus. Currently, operators who collect personal information and do not disclose this information to external parties can utilize this consent mechanism by sending a parent an email and then using another step – such as another email at a later date– to confirm the consent.

However, in the proposed rule, the FTC suggests that this consent mechanism is prone to abuse (such as when a child simply provides his or her own email address) and has inhibited the development of better, more reliable parental consent mechanisms. Therefore, the FTC has proposed the elimination of the email plus method of parental consent.

The FTC has also proposed new methods of parental consent, including allowing parents to send electronic scans of signed consent forms, using video-conferencing to signal consent, and providing government-issued ID numbers that the operator can check against a database. If an operator collects government-issued ID numbers, the FTC proposes that this information must be promptly deleted after the verification is complete.

Almost every experienced Internet attorney will tell you that the changes proposed by the FTC to the parental consent process could have a major impact on operators. Many websites currently rely on email plus to obtain consent from parents when the website will only be using the personal information collected from a child for internal purposes. The email plus method is often preferred as it is the easiest parental verification method.

The FTC proposal would require all operators to implement more complicated parental verification methods. This change could mean that all of the operators currently using email plus will have to overhaul their parental verification practices. While these proposed provisions may ultimately make compliance with the notice provisions easier for covered operators, these changes could require operators to expend valuable resources to adjust current practices and regulatory requirements.

Clearly, the FTC has been enforcing the COPPA Rule much more broadly than it has in the past. Any media that is targeted at children under the age of 13 will have to analyze whether it can be considered an “online service” and take appropriate steps to comply with COPPA if necessary.

Special thanks from the editor to Gail Gardner of Growmap.

As web content proliferates, CPMs fall. Mathematically speaking, it’s inevitable. But content hasn’t become worthless. Whether it’s Shakespeare or the deep introspections of Mommy Bloggers, any content that someone besides the author is willing to pay attention to has value greater than zero.

And don’t buy into the myth that value has all shifted from content producers to content discovery. If there is no content, there is nothing to discover. “Discovery” is a derivative while content remains the underlying asset.

So, good news! Content’s value is still intact; it’s just been spread thinner and thinner as the web has grown.
Given that web content still has some value, the urgent matter before us is: How can publishers stay in the game while facing the commoditization and dilution of content?

Here’s one news flash for you: you no longer need a bloated corporate apparatus to sell ad space. If you own a web property (or a collection thereof), count on its value decreasing steadily with time, at least in terms of advertising revenue (subscriptions being an alternative source of revenue, but one that has no direct bearing on CPMs or ad sales effectiveness).

And don’t think you can gain the upper hand by expanding your web property or building a bigger media empire; you won’t ever come close to matching the web’s exponential growth rate.

Instead, focus on what you can control: costs and efficiency. If CPMs are in freefall, then your cost to sell each thousand impressions has to drop even faster. In a prior post for Adotas, I focused exclusively on automated ad creation as a means to streamline the sales process, but the need for cost reduction goes much further than that.

How do companies sell a commodity product, the value of which is declining? They develop standardized, automated processes that operate more and more efficiently at higher and higher volumes. They keep fixed overhead low, and per-unit margins high. In my corner of the online advertising world, this translates to self-serve platforms for creating and trafficking ads.

But there’s even lower-hanging fruit that doesn’t require an army of software developers to pluck. Think about it for awhile, and you could probably list dozens of anachronisms that are begging to be retired.

Rate cards are a perfect example. You might as well etch your prices in shekels on stone tablets.

The mere existence of a rate card implies a lack of variety in what you’re selling; it’s like opening a brokerage and only selling two stocks, then updating the prices of those stocks once a year in a downloadable PDF that’s mostly filled with overly contrived stock photos of businesspeople shaking hands. And then you’d wonder if your slowdown in business might be at least partially attributable to that newfangled E-Trade thing you’ve been meaning to check out…

Publishers also fall victim to the Fallacy of the Perfect Campaign, which leads to misguided and expensive investments in hands-on, consultative account management (in contrast to the completely hands-off, yet massively successful approach of Google’s self-serve AdWords platform). This quaint school of thought holds that campaigns will perform better if the media plan is hand-stitched and baby-sat by account reps and media gurus who’ve got first dibs on “premium” inventory.

Let’s assume that a personal touch does give a boost to campaigns. Guess what? Advertisers don’t want or need the best possible campaign performance!

To illustrate my point: someone shopping for a suit could pay $3,000 for a sublimely-tailored garment that will fit perfectly and be superior in every way to something made in an overseas sweatshop, but in this Technological Wonder Age of mass production, 99.999% of suit buyers are completely satisfied to buy 3 for 1 suits off the rack for $1,000 at a Macy’s Fall Sale. It’s called the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility, and it certainly applies to online advertising.

Even the negative connotations around the term “remnant inventory” speaks volumes. This is the inventory that’s arguably monetized most efficiently and powers scores of highly effective campaigns. Will publishers still call it “remnant” inventory when they’re selling a majority of their impressions through exchanges?

Don’t be travel agent in the mid-1990s. The age of the expert media intermediary is coming to a close, to be replaced by easy, automated and highly efficient (if imperfect) solutions.

Web content and ad space are still worth money, but the more mysterious, precious or inaccessible you make it seem, the fewer advertisers will choose to buy from you over more straightforward alternatives. Not to mention that your business will be built around complexity, when the rest of the industry is moving towards standardization, automation and simplicity.

At some point, it will be too late to turn back. You’ll be the last lonely travel agent trying to book Hawaiian vacations for customers who are about as inclined to visit your shabby little office as they are to cross the Pacific in a canoe.

The conversations taking place about behavioral targeting is occurring between the wrong parties. As DNT stands today, the dialogue is happening between consumers and monetization platforms, which are providing a universal opt-out feature at the browser level. Rather, this conversation should be between consumers and publishers.

Publishers need the ability to monetize their content either through subscriptions or ad-supported content, while users need to know how their information is being used. Therefore, what’s needed is a more balanced approach that acknowledges the benefits of subsidized content and illustrates trade-offs in a non-advertising world.

What is not being discussed is how DNT in its current form is a mechanism for shutting down this process that otherwise funds content that provides value to both consumers and publishers.

Much has been made of the similarities between DNT and the Do-Not-Call list introduced by lawmakers in the 1990s to address the rising concern of telemarketers. This comparison is misplaced and points people in the wrong direction.

Since phone bills have always been paid by the consumer, there is no value for them to take telemarketing calls. So Do-Not-Call was created to give the ultimate choice to the paying consumer. Sounds fair to me.

But let’s be clear that there is no parallel to DNT where consumers are getting free content. Would consumers have agreed to get telemarketing calls if their phone service was free? Maybe. Does it make sense to offer free phone service if there is no value to the provider?

That’s the question we need to address with DNT. Otherwise, DNT should be named the “Do Not Pay – let someone else pay for me” feature.

What is needed is not less or more regulation, but a revision to the current DNT proposals that preserves the interests of both consumers and publishers by giving them control over DNT. So what would that revision look like? Here’s an example:

• Users would have the ability to select DNT settings in their browser.
• This preference would be recognized by the publisher site the user navigates to.
• The Publisher site presents the user with a message that acknowledges their DNT setting and asks if the Publisher can override that setting to give them a better site experience, more free content, etc.
• Users choose! (Their DNT preference is applicable for this publisher site only.)

This model would open the lines of communication between consumers and publishers on the application of DNT while preserving the benefits of monetization for publishers and the service (aka free content) provided to consumers. It is also vitally important that DNT not erase cookies as this would still be counterproductive in the disruption of the monetization process for ad-supported content (e-commerce would be severely impacted). What it should ensure is that the state of the cookie be intact while DNT is present.

We would be supportive of a revision of DNT to include the above consumer-publisher dialogue. However, we also want to make clear that the principles being adopted by the DAA and NAI, where consumers get global and local opt-out capabilities and transparency through the about ads icon offers another viable implementation of this same goal.

This self-regulatory approach (we have heard industry estimates of over a trillion ads being served with this icon enabled) is already receiving wide adoption and aims to deliver on the goals of transparency and simplicity for the consumer.
DNT promises to alter the way advertising is served and needs to be transparent in its impact on both consumers and publishers.

Let’s be clear and upfront on what exactly DNT is designed to do. We can start by bringing the right parties together to have a fruitful and productive conversation about the pros and cons of sponsored or free content.

Cross-published at the BlueKai blog.

All is solved, the Internet is safe!

When I first started reporting on the digital ad space, over and over I heard CPA network heads claiming that the Wild West days of the Internet were over. Bulls—, I thought then, and I’m of the same mindset now. CPA networks love propagating the idea that some bad apples are ruining a legitimate business for the rest, but the fake blogs and articles (hence “flogs and farticles”) issue is systemic — publishers, networks, affiliates and advertisers are all guilty parties.

FTC reps — likely in response to a widely shared AdAge article suggesting the agency’s crackdown on flogs and farticles wasn’t doing much — sat down with Paul Farhi of The Washington Post to explain the 10 operations (PDF) it swept back in April, focusing on the belly ad scam in particular and why it spread to even the most premium content depots (MSNBC.com? CNN.com? My lord!) of the worldwide web via affiliate marketers (which WaPo almost describes as alien-like creatures).

Basically, affiliates used ads with the animated shrinking belly and pretty (fake) investigative reporters to lure browsers to websites disguised as legitimate news depots — i.e., they had no big print that saying “This is an advertisement.” These were/are filled with fake statements from real news depots and unsubstantiated benefits, as well as links to sketchy stores where you can buy miracle diet products.

It’s nothing new – a source recently suggested to me that the farticle has been ingrained in the affiliate model for a long, long time.

But the FTC is always quick to jump on health-related fraud, and there happens to be a scam du jour behind the belly ads. Most of the companies offer “free” samples in exchange for credit card information, but the devil is in the details, which are typically in the finer-than-fine print: a user unwittingly agrees to pay for more shipments in the future and can’t stop them until the toll-free cancel line is located and called (which is another hassle all in itself). The FTC is arguing that’s misleading to the point of fraudulent.

The previous poster boy for this kind of business is Jesse Willms, a Canadian Internet marketer accused by the FTC of making $467 million from such unsavory practices. If you Google “Jesse Willms,” a few sites about fraud and scams show up, but the majority of results are self-published sites boasting Willms’ charity work and puke-worthy platitudes about business ethics. Yes, Google’s search engine appears to be Willms’ bitch.

Anyway, there’s no real news in the WaPo story, just investigation details that show the FTC’s crime-stopping abilities and a clarification to the general public of the extent of such Internet scams.

But Fahri notes that WaPo is guilty of running the ads as well — he asks his own publication why it ran the ads and a representative says they are “investigating the situation.” Let me know when/if they finish that investigation, Paul. Jim Edwards at Bnet notes his site also ran the ads, as fingered ad network Pulse 360 sells space for parent company CBS.

Circa Direct and owner Andrew Davidson, the second listing on FTC’s “Fake News Site Sweep” info sheet, spent $6.25 million advertising with Pulse 360, Edwards writes: “Pulse 360 isn’t a scam house — it’s a legitimate media buying agency that counts Comcast and CBS* as clients or customers. Circa also placed its ads via SuperMedia, which is best known for Switchboard.com and other legit directory sites.”

Innocent until proven guilty, Circa like the rest in the gang of 10 is denying all charges.

Accessories

The FTC’s plan to clean up the flogosphere (as DigitalMoses lovingly puts it) is to scare affiliates (i.e., small fries) straight by coming down on a few Jesse Willms clones. But who else profited from the scams? The FTC claims that its gang of 10 spent $10 million — money that made its way into the pockets of ad networks and publishers.

They are not innocent bystanders — they’re looking the other way as easy revenue comes in. For publishers, it’s particularly atrocious because it suggests they’ll expose their readerships to scams for a quick buck.

Edwards notes:

“In one email, Pulse 360 executive Joe Burton told  “drewjdk2k@gmail.com” (allegedly an email contact for Circa) about complaints his agency was getting from customers that their credit cards were being dinged with unauthorized charges and no one will return their calls. The email was titled ‘Disgruntled customers.’ it said: ‘Can you help out here. If [Rubicon Project] keeps getting all these complaints they will shut you down….’ The email chain contained a bunch of emailed complaints from customers.”

If the FTC really wants to make a dent in this kind of advertising, it just can’t go after the affiliates. The agency needs to come down on the distributors.

Status Quo and the R-Word

Is there a need for regulation? That’s very arguable — in theory, browsers should reject publications that host flog and farticle ads. But I remember getting an email from a source a few weeks after the FTC’s crackdown with screenshots from an AOL site with a bunch of fake news-site advertising. I was tempted to send him back a screen shot from Salon.com with the exact same ads.

I haven’t stopped visiting Salon because the content is worth more than the slight ire I feel when the animated shrinking belly shows up on the right side of the page. (Only slightly more valuable — could you Salon guys lay off the TV show reviews?) I will never click on one because a) if I wanted to lose weight, I’d lay off the beer and hit the elliptical machine; and b) like the majority of Internet users, I know it’s a scam. Having been able to go online for more than half my life (and having been raised with a modicum of common sense), I recognize such advertising screams illegitimacy.

And that’s the status quo: while most browsers roll their eyes at another belly impression, the scammers pick up a decent amount of marks. Those that are as overly arrogant or perhaps delusional as Jesse Willms — he just may think he is running a legitimate operation — get picked up by the Feds. But cut off the head…

To actually make the Internet safer from this kind of fraud, the FTC would need to slap the networks, and possibly the publishers — these operations should be performing due diligence to keep scammers away as a service to consumers (and many do). It’s not like it’s hard to spot the fraudulent stuff — like pornography, you’ll know it when you see it. If it seems fishy, it probably is — even if it isn’t scammy, why do you want something that seems fishy on your site anyway?

Well, publishers may not want the fishiness, but they do want the revenue — without an agency breathing down their necks, what’s the real threat? A couple hundred angry emails and comments from pesky readers? That’s a speck a dirt when there’s millions of uniques visiting a month.

Many ad networks advertise themselves as “acai berry free” — publishers wield the power to kick out networks for serving sketchy ads, which is solid encouragement to stay clean. As for big boys, Google has been trying to play the “we’re too big to run due diligence on all our advertisers.” However, Google just set aside $500 million dollars for a likely Justice Department settlement relating to advertising by illegal pharmacies — the pretty much opens the door for the FTC (as soon as it files its anti-trust suit against the search giant).

Part of the reason I barely batted an eye when the FTC announced its farticle crackdown because it just fingered affiliates. The flogosphere will continue to thrive if that’s the only step taken – come next year, we’ll have a new Jesse Willms to frown and shake our fists at. Media outlets can write more articles along the lines of “Can you believe the nerve of this guy?”

And I’ll shrug, not even noticing the glittering banner on the right promising to help me make thousands a month working from home. By the way, this ad was served to me above and below the fold on the WaPo story on the belly ads:

So, what gives? In short, shady business practices are dominating the industry and are scaring away marketers.

Online video exchanges and similar networks are compromising the potency of online video advertising by clouding metrics with grossly generous claims of playback, positioning and click-through.

Online video is an emotional experience; one only moving pictures could ignite. As such, consumer interaction is key. Positioning is important. Distractions are real and a user’s temperance could be easily annoyed. Fail to deliver video just right and you’ll lose consumer interest in a moment’s glance.

As such, short cuts such as auto-play, “below the fold” placement, pop-ups, and sound-off commercials are delivering poor campaign results and driving away would-be marketers. Furthermore, online video is still suffering from an experimental feel and, as I suggested during a panel at OMMA Video, “media buyers are not getting fired for buying Google or Yahoo.”

With the poor business practices previously mentioned, data could be muddy but understanding your client’s business objectives and working against their own success standards allow online video platforms to deliver on expectations. Some clients want the impact of an atomic bomb, others, the finesse of a targeted sniper rifle. Sophisticated platforms can tailor parameters so specific that only the most mature consumers are approached.

The following suggestions can help proactively manage and exploit your online video campaigns:

Ask for a site list: site transparency is important but due diligence is often the responsibility of marketers. Accepting a huge list of niche sites blindly could cost your client, or company, the impact you’ve promised. To ensure fair brand delivery, visiting several sites on your target roster to gauge impact is recommended.

Honest video networks will provide concise media briefs on specific sites of interest while also grouping lower impact sites under categories. If your network partner is having a hard time identifying or producing a clear list of targets you should consider alternatives.

Know your placement on the page: protecting against poor positioning ensures clients avoid the uncertainty of web syndication. Protecting your brand against less then favorable associations will ensure you continue to foster consumer goodwill. We’ve seen top tier advertisers placed against inappropriate videos that not only cause perception damage; they turn off potential consumers with an inconsistent or uncomfortable experience.

One infamous example included Ford Automotive spots being played against videos of Glenn Beck ripping automakers apart for requesting federal bailout funds. Ask your rep what measures are in place to ensure brand protection and ask for brand safe placement examples.

Understand the reporting metrics: make sure you understand what type reports you will be receiving and how often. Marketers should share a clear understanding to their campaign objectives under real success standards with their media buyers.

Don’t allow agencies to saturate campaign recaps with impression numbers that can’t maintain the integrity of your objectives. If your video network attempts to hide behind soft metrics or can’t define data sources, you’re unlikely to ever be able to hold them accountable and should reevaluate your commitment.

Ad networks and exchanges are obviously valuable but content networks are building momentum with major acquisitions by major players like Yahoo! acquiring Associated Content. AOL even leveraged a recent network purchase to turn around their content model.

While capable of delivering large numbers, content networks value the engagement and potency of each consumer impression much more then just sloppy, wide reach. In fact, a recent competitive landscape map identifies major players and while the industry is crowded, content networks stand out as uniquely different. Content networks are simply closer to the audience.

While online video has its challenges, the truly innovative digital media platforms will provide transparency , protect brands against poor placements and proudly showcase data,. Those who do, will continue to grow and prove their value to marketers. Regardless of the current challenges, syndicating video against a sophisticated network is today’s vital solution for savvy media planners.

Online video ad campaigns can be immensely effective at reaching your audience in a truly different way, just make sure you are well informed and have the data you need to make that happen.

Basically the widgets employ unsold ad space to promote other pages within a domain deemed relevant to StumbleUpon users through its index technology. When a stumbler views a page using the tool, links within the widget prompt the user to visit more internal pages that may be of interest.

StumbleUpon continues to refer more social media referral traffic than all non-Facebook social sites — it actually overtook Facebook in social referral traffic last December. The company reports that publishers that implement StumbleUpon Badges, which facilitate sharing of content with other stumblers, see 20% to 25% more traffic from StumbleUpon.

Now with more than 15 million registered users, StumbleUpon is recording more than a billion stumbles a month, with users spending an average of six hours every month stumbling across the web.

Project Devil ads, or just Devils, do pull out all the stops, creating the web equivalent of Apple’s iAd with multiple functionalities (such as video and social media integration) and user interaction capabilities.

They also take up a third of a web page.

But supposedly the problem with online display advertising is that it is based on a newspaper model in which several smaller ads pepper a page. Since Tim Armstrong took over as CEO, AOL’s mantra seems to be that less ads are more (effective). Armstrong’s gang stripped AOL content of about a third of its display ad units, which hurt revenue something fierce but dug the foundation for Project Devil.

Today at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, AOL has released a six-week study with IPG Media that used traditional engagement metrics mixed with advanced body-function monitoring to examine the effect of Devils on browsers.

The experiment that sounds a bit like something out of “A Clockwork Orange” – AOL and IPG synced facial expression analysis (“But I am smiling!”) user excitement levels derived from bio-metric bracelets that recorded skin temperature and conductance with the exact focal point of a user’s attention, which was collected through eye-tracking technology. (I can’t be the only one that thinks this is going to extremes to prove the effectiveness of an ad unit). Test subjects were served display ads from IPG clients across a variety of verticals — Dodge, Verizon, and Zappos.

In general, Devils grabbed a user’s attention 35% faster than competing banners (300X250 and 300X600) and 81% more of it. Length of fixation was 95% longer than the other units, while interaction rates were between 4.5x and 7x. When viewing Devils, users were 46% more likely to recommend the brand or product to a friend and 49% more likely to visit a brand’s site or Facebook page. Purchase intent shot up 263% while the facial expression analysis showed the ads decreased negative emotions by 40%.

As with all such data, the percentages sound impressive but they’re kind of meaningless without knowing the benchmarks — i.e., the likeliness of a user to recommend, share, purchase, etc., after being confronted with a standard banner.

Of course that won’t stop the boasting: “These results prove that the ad unit is probably the most effective brand ad units on the web,” said Jeff Levick, president of AOL Advertising. ”All measures of interactivity, visual attention, emotive response and overall ad effective metrics increased when consumers viewed the IAB Portrait, creating an emotional connection between brands and their consumers.”

AOL Advertising Group is the re-organized $500 million unit that includes display ad network Advertising.com, ad server ADTECH, branded content platform Pictela, branded video platform, hyper-local content service Seed and AOL Video (the new moniker for video syndication network 5min). Apparently Pictela will be scaling out the delivery of Devil ads through the Devil Network.

Publishers are lining up to build stations for the Devil train: FOXNews.com, magazine publisher Meredith Corporation, Variety, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and The Weather Channel’s Weather.com were all announced as partners along with the release of the IPG Study.

But before advertisers hop on board, they should ask some questions about inventory — sure, engagement might be high the first time a user sees a Devil with neat-o interactive features, but subsequent viewings are not going to yield the same type of reaction. Just like online video, which has a serious ad inventory problem that agitates users, browsers are bound to get annoyed if they keep seeing the same huge ads taking up a third of their browser screens. Yeah, I played with you already… Some users may tool around a second or third time a Devil is served, but these toys aren’t designed to last.

If a user has interacted with a Devil, the ad is likely to record this and send it back to the advertiser. Can that user be shown different ads in the future — potentially from the same brand? Theoretically, data could be collected to give a more personalized experience every time a user is shown a Devil ad from the same brand.

At the same time, I can’t help thinking this is why the expandable was created — to let the user decide if he or she wanted the “bigger” experience. Devils take up a lot of real estate, and while AOL has done a good job selling the engagement metrics, the ad unit’s future is still up in the air.

Evolve CEO Aaron Broder took a sec to explain how Crowd Ignite’s widget will be incorporated into the company’s offerings and how Evolve is morphing alongside the always-in-flux display space.

ADOTAS: What attracted Evolve to Crowd Ignite? Was it founder Jake Moilanen’s gorgeous scent?

BRODER: Ha! Crowd Ignite made perfect sense for Evolve in every conceivable way.  Our AtomicOnline publishing division features vertically aligned websites that cater to a specific demographic audience and are then organized under a single media property and sold to advertisers (CraveOnline (Men), SheKnows (Women), GameRevolution (Gaming), etc).

Similarly, our third-party rep business, Gorilla Nation, features a series of vertically aligned branded sales companies (totallyher, Globetrotting,Youthology, etc) that organize third party websites based on their demographic and brings creative-led packages built around those demographics to market.

Since both of our primary divisions cater to vertically aligned audiences, what better way to pool those audiences together than to deploy the Crowd Ignite technology across the web and bucket the audiences that engage with the technology into common demographics?  Crowd Ignite serves as the engine that pools together a fragmented internet and enables users to discover content through our Crowd Ignite widget that they otherwise may not have been exposed to.

How will Crowd Ignite’s technology be integrated into Evolve’s offerings and used by advertisers?

Other than pooling highly engaged and focused audiences together as mentioned above, having the Crowd Ignite widget on billions of pages across the web each month creates a massive opportunity for Evolve. The widget will give us insight into the behaviors of web users in niche categories and will allow us to better cater our best-in-class marketing packages to those audiences.

The widget also provides a potentially massive source of targeted advertisement inventory that can be seamlessly segmented and served against with ease. Advertisers will be able to tap into microcommunities of like minded audiences by advertising to the exact segment of Crowd Ignite audiences that they desire.  Crowd Ignite immediately “socializes” our offering to advertisers and gives us yet another tool to push audiences to consume the messages and content that advertisers are seeking to deliver.

Evolve has been making a lot of acquisitions lately — is some executive going nuts with the corporate credit card?

Funny!  Running a diverse business means that we have a lot of corporate needs, and we often turn to acquisitions to meet these needs. Aside from publisher acquisitions, Evolve is continually investing into technologies and services that benefit publisher partners and this has truly been the recipe for success in the 10+ years that the company has been in existence.

By acquiring technologies like Crowd Ignite (publisher benefit = more traffic to their site) and developing technologies like Springboard Video (publisher benefit = video platform to power their video publishing efforts) we are able to help our partners grow and participate in their overall success.

How do the purchases of TeenSpot.com by Gorilla Media division Youthology and WholesomeBabyFood.com for Momtastic fit into Evolve’s grander plan?

TeenSpot gives Youthology another anchor to build creative packages around.  As one of the largest teen websites online, when the opportunity arose Evolve’s management felt that it was a must buy.  Acquiring the site guaranteed that the Youthology sales team would forever be able to rely on the site as a key partner when building sales and marketing packages for kids/teens/tweens marketers to take advantage of.

WholesomeBabyFood.com was similarly a category leader in a space that our Momtastic division is highly committed to (parenting, food, organic lifestyle, etc).  The website is the #1 site for the term “baby food” (and many other high value terms), ahead of even Gerber.com, and the quality of the audience that visits that site was something we jumped at acquiring when the opportunity presented itself.

Evolve has also forayed into the travel vertical with Globetrotting Digital Media — how does this new service build on prior offerings and stand out from competitors?

Globetrotting Digital Media is a travel and leisure-focused digital advertising sales division that exclusively represents premium travel publishers across a multitude of both general and niche travel categories. When looking at entering the travel vertical, we were perplexed as to how rudimentary the advertising solutions were in the category. Travel marketers were not yet benefit from the cutting edge creative solutions that are currently being harnessed by other sets of advertisers

Globetrotting, serves to fill that prior void by leveraging Evolve’s publisher portfolio and technologies to offer high-impact integrated creative packages and deliver them with scale. A one-stop-shop with the ability to concept, create and distribute customized campaigns that meet the specific needs of Fortune 500 brands does not exist elsewhere in the space and is a valuable service Globetrotting offers.

At the E3 conference in Los Angeles, did staff from Evolve’s CraveOnline break the world record for “longest video games marathon playing a fighting game” by playing the latest version of Mortal Kombat for 32 hours straight? They were allowed to take bathroom breaks, right? Or did you make them wear diapers?

Our team of CraveOnline gamers were officially announced Guinness World Record holders on Wednesday, June 8, for playing 32 hours straight! They accrued 10 minute breaks every 50 minutes but they rarely took them — they just powered through it with the help of NOS Energy Drink.

This event was sponsored by Coca-Cola’s NOS energy drink — in what ways did Evolve/CraveOnline hook them up online and offline, and how were these efforts coordinated?

NOS came to the CraveOnline sales team wanting to put together a campaign centered around E3 that would have a unique presence on the ground but also allow people who couldn’t go to E3 the capabilities of interacting online and feeling like they were a part of the action. The Crave creative team wanted to produce on offline event that would align with the NOS brand which is all about high performance and staying fueled and what better way to demonstrate that then to have four gamers attempt to break a world record for the longest video games marathon playing a fighting game!

At the CraveOnline Non-Stop NOS Gaming Lounge, E3 goers stopped by to listen to renowned local DJ’s, sip on NOS, watch the four Crave gamers and play Mortal Kombat on four separate screens set up in the lounge. In addition to the Non-Stop Gaming Lounge, an online hub that provided a live stream of the gamers attempting to set the world record, photos, video game news, a sweepstakes and a live ticker of encouraging tweets geared towards the gamers.

These forms of exchanges should also ultimately benefit premium mid-tail sites, provided that their content is premium, in demand from marketers, and their inventory is being pooled together with other similar sites.

The online display and video space is constantly morphing (as evidenced by LUMA Partner exec Terence Kawaja’s constantly updated map), but where does Evolve put itself in the current ecosystem? Where is the company heading?

At Evolve, we consider ourselves a leader in the vertical publishing and marketing services space.  We own and operate more than 30 affinity sites that reach more than 50 million users per month. Many of our sites are leaders in their respective categories, including SheKnows.com for women, CraveOnline.com for young men, and Thefashionspot.com for fashionistas. We plan on continuing to acquire new sites in lifestyle categories and to reinvest in our existing ones.

While there is always talk about the latest and greatest technology which enables advertisers to more effectively reach their audience, we do not believe that this is where most of brand display will be allocated by marketers and their agencies. Ultimately, the bulk of online brand advertising will flow to those companies that own and operate the leading web media properties and those that possess strong creative capabilities so that they are able to work collaboratively with marketers to run immersive, beyond the banner advertising program in premium content web environments.

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]]> http://www.adotas.com/2011/06/answers-served-evolve-talks-crowd-ignite-acquisition/feed/ 0 http://www.adotas.com/2011/06/ooyala-gets-easy-access-to-yume-video-inventory/ http://www.adotas.com/2011/06/ooyala-gets-easy-access-to-yume-video-inventory/#comments Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:12:10 +0000 Gavin Dunaway http://www.adotas.com/?p=25212 ADOTAS – Ooyala has expanded its partnership with video ad firm YuMe’s ACE for Publishers ad management platform, opening YuMe inventory to users of Ooyala’s video management, monetization and analytics platform. Previously publishers using Ooyala would have to sign up with YuMe to use the platform for monetization, but now access is open from the creation of a Ooyala account.

This spring YuMe introduced version 3.0 of ACE for Publishers, which streamlines the monetization and syndication efforts of midtail content developers and owners. Back at the end of 2009, the two companies teamed up to allow Ooyala customers to manually insert YuMed ad overlays during live video streams.

When Yahoo! Japan recently entered into a strategic technology and distribution agreement with Ooyala, CEO Jay Fulcher told me that the real allure of his company’s Backlot video publishing platform was its incomparable analytics, which offer real-time, actionable analysis into consumer viewing behavior.

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