Robert Andrews

As an advertising medium, TV has traditionally been all about attaining the biggest audience reach possible. Now that connected TV has the ability to reach individual consumers based on refined targeting criteria, some in the industry want it to become a one-to-one medium. But there is a third way. For Jonathan Steuer, Omnicom’s chief research […]

Almost 12 months to the day after Group M merged its MEC and Maxus agencies, the combined entity finds itself starting up just as everyone talks about the prospect of the sun setting on ad agencies. But Wavemaker, which started up in September, is responding to the talk of agency disintermediation with a clear plan. […]

For at least as long as there has been a Lumascape, consolidation has been the check and balance on ad-tech proliferation. But could we be about to enter another wave of merger and acquisition? One platform exec thinks so. In this video interview with Beet.TV, OpenX’s senior director of buyer development says the new practice […]

Just because you can reach a consumer through super-targeting, doesn’t mean you should. That is the new advice from one leading marketing analyst who has worked at an ad-tech platform but who also benefits from reams of consumer insights. In this video interview with Beet.TV, Forrester VP and principal analyst Joanna O’Connell says many marketers are […]

The #DeleteFacebook campaign may have reached fever pitch – but Facebook’s Q1 daily active users were up 13% over the previous year. With performance like that, it is enough to make observers wonder, did the Cambridge Analytica scandal even happen? That scandal, coupled with Europe’s new GDPR legislation, has put the digital marketing industries on […]

If you thought ad-tech companies weren’t taking seriously the prospect of GDPR-style privacy legislation coming to the US, consider this – in March, MediaMath hired a State Department official as its VP of government policy. Daniel Sepulveda had been deputy assistant secretary at the department, and had served as its “ambassador” on international communications policy. […]

It may be a law conceived in Europe to protect European citizens – but many ad-tech companies, whose data processing capabilities may be impacted by GDPR, are now operating on an assumption that similar considerations should apply more broadly than just Europe. Over the last couple of years since GDPR passed, we have seen a […]

It was one of the latest steps in a series of ad agency reconfigurations. But what are the founding philosophies of Wavemaker, the agency formed from the merger of Group M’s MEC and Maxus? In this video interview with Beet.TV, global CEO Tim Castree offers three pillars… Marriage of media content and technology: “Media is not just […]

There are “point solutions” – and then there are “what’s the point?” solutions? In ad-tech, many software vendors are risking ending up in the last category, as a dizzying array of function-specific tools risks confusing buyers. That is according to one agency boss communicating how technological complexity is actually working against buyers and their vendors. […]

Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation sees new requirements for consent placed on the collection and use of EU citizens’ data That would seem to mean a hefty challenge for ad-tech techniques that, in recent years, have grown so fast that users cannot keep up. But Tom Kershaw relishes the challenge. As Rubicon Project’s chief […]

Europeans and companies that hold data about them woke up in a new world this morning. May 25 was the final deadline for compliance with the new GDPR. For ad-tech and marketing, GDPR seems to represent a threat to many of the advanced targeting techniques that have grown exploded in the last five years, many […]

Its share price is still rebuilding after being battered by Facebook’s decision to cut ties in March, but Acxiom is trying to see profound ad industry challenges as opportunities. Acxiom is a data warehouse firm that sells consumer profiles to the world’s largest companies, available to advertisers and ad-tech platforms for advanced customer targeting. In one […]

As more brands buying ads programmatically have found their ads appearing against unappealing and unintended content, the problem has given rise to yet more technology solutions. Ad measurement firms like Moat, Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify now offer products rating the quality of the environments in which brands’ ads are served. For Wayne Gatinella, CEO […]

The last year has seen a perfect storm hit the marketing industry – brand safety concerns, agency strife, GDPR and Facebook’s data scandal. In response, the industry is seeing a big movement of money, from platforms now deemed undesirable, to alternative channels brands find more appealing. So says Geoff Ramsey, chairman of marketing analysis company […]

There can barely have been a moment in time so filled with anxiety over digital advertising techniques as 2018. In the last few years since the advent of “programmatic”, many ad buyers have become used to using customer data from a variety of sources to piece together profiles that can target audiences through networks, wherever […]

Over the last few weeks, many consumers have been receiving a deluge of emails from data handlers, controllers and processors seeking to re-obtain consent for communication under Europe’s new GDPR. But could the complexity of the issue force some of the operators to simple stop doing business with Europeans altogether? That is what one analyst […]

What’s old is new again – but, in advertising, the old practices have also received a pretty significant upgrade. So says Tim Castree, global CEO of the Wavemaker agency formed from the merger of Group M’s MEC and Maxus. In this video interview with Beet.TV, Castree says traditional TV viewing is declining – but, by […]

In an age where datasets through warehouses have become commoditised, what can be a competitive differentiator? For Ari Weiss, CCO, North America, DDB, the difference is all in the brain. Specifically, the Cortex. That’s the name for the collaborative unit inside DDB’s We Are Unlimited, the agency dedicated to serving McDonald’s. Cortex, which launched two […]

With broadcasters like Turner experimenting with shorter ad loads in order to improve premium video ad experiences, what is the commercial break anymore – and what is the optimum length of an ad? Suddenly, all bets are off – and answers to those questions are becoming necessary. That’s why the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video, […]

If only broadcast owners really knew what ads viewers were watching, maybe then they could prove the value of their advertising to brands. But that prospect is no longer just a possibility, it is a reality, and NBCUniversal just became one of the latest to undertake the practice. It inked a deal with iSpot.tv, a […]