Mobile World Congress 2016, presented by Light Reaction

Virtual reality could offer unprecedented immersion for brand audiences – if the technology becomes a genuine reality, according to an executive from one of the world’s biggest ad agency groups. Speaking with Beet.TV for this video interview, Eric Litman, who became GroupM’s worldwide mobile SVP last June after the group’s acquisition of Medialets, the mobile ad tech […]

BARCELONA — A clutch of ad-tech vendors, from placeIQ to Ubimo, is focused on bringing to mobile advertising an input that is obvious but often overlooked – consumers’ location. Another vendor, Factual, has already been in this game for a number of years, and in December took another big $35mn funding round to further its ambitions. […]

BARCELONA — As mobile advertising booms, it’s likely much of the growth has come from the low-hanging fruit of desktop inventory, shovelled on to the small screen, and from standard mobile display banners. But mobile advertising can do much more, and one of WPP’s divisions is recommending advertisers take advantage. “There’s been a lot of […]

BARCELONA — Mobile advertising was set to account for half of all US digital ad spending in 2015. Many of those ads may have been simply repurposed from other digital formats – but it’s important to consider how mobile is different from desktop. Rosa Markarian, VP of Global Business Operations for WPP’s mobile-focused Light Reaction performance […]

BARCELONA — When it comes to mobile, marketers and publishers alike are firmly focused on driving app downloads. But what happens after a download is achieved? The sad truth is, many consumers’ app use tails off. So Auke Boersma, the APAC MD of WPP’s performance marketing unit, Light Reaction, wants to help clients re-enage. “We have […]

BARCELONA — Advertising no longer has to drive interest to an eventual sale – today, it can help complete the sale immediately, even on mobile, says an ad-tech chief focused on improving mobile performance marketing. “The evolution of mobile is a direct response,” says Karl Elken, the boss of Americas for Light Reaction, a WPP unit […]

BARCELONA —  With its acquisition by Verizon last year, coupled with the rapid consumer adoption, mobile – and mobile video in particular, has become “foundational” to the business of AOL, explains Allie Kline, CMO in this interview with Beet.TV While mobile is the focus, the industry is still “chasing the consumer” who has adopted mobile […]

BARCELONA — Mobile ads are booming. Now they’re ready to burst up the funnel, too. Mobile was set to account for the majority of digital ad spending in 2015. So far, most of that has been spent on so-called “performance” ads, where advertisers pay for a guaranteed, usually click-based digital outcome. But, as the medium matures, […]

BARCELONA — Mobile is a different device – and that’s going to require very different advertising strategies, one of Google’s international ad execs says. “We’re trying to help people move away last-click attribution,” Google EMEA performance solutions MD Ian Carrington tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “A lot of people are using last-click attribution models. That means they’re […]

BARCELONA — Much of the unconnected world is coming on to the internet, skipping landline broadband. But advertisers should beware serving up the same old experience, because one man’s internet is different from another’s. Asked to name a big trend at the recent Mobile World Congrress event, mobile ad server and measurement software maker MediaLets CEO Richy Glassberg said: “We’re […]

BARCELONA — Mobile ads are going to have to change if they are to recapture interest from consumers whom they are putting off with too-pushy experiences, says a leading advertising executive. Facebook EMEA publisher ad technology head Yoav Arnstein says the industry has got it wrong. “With the shift to mobile, there is growing concern […]

BARCELONA — The latest data-driven ad-tech operation under the WPP stable is Light Reaction, launched by WPP’s programmatic division Xaxis a year ago to put a performance spin on mobile-first ad sales. That company just named the former PubMatic exec Bob Walczak as its CEO, and Walczak says mobile could be the key that unlocks the door to […]

BARCELONA — With data suggesting a large percentage of online ad views are being called by fake users (malicious lines of code written by nefarious publishers racking up fraudulent clicks), advertisers have become worried. Now the boss of the world’s biggest ad agency holding group is repeating his call for online platforms to do more for […]