Robert Andrews

Through the eyes of a US marketing exec, Europeans are, notoriously, relatively more concerned about how ad targeting might impinge on their personal data. A recent report from Belgium’s data protection agency claimed Facebook tracks computers of users without their consent, whether they are logged in to Facebook or not, and even if they are […]

The old adage used to be that digital video had to be short, that viewers wouldn’t sit and watch it in long sessions. That may have been true on the desktop – but video ad tech company FreeWheel’s latest quarterly market report shows new devices are now driving online video ever more toward long-form and live […]

The data continues to point to a disconnect – consumers have flocked to consume content and engage socially using mobile devices, over desktop alternatives. So why have advertisers still not piled in to mobile at the same rate? “It’s sometimes an afterthought,” IPG Mediabrands global mobile head Travis Johnson agrees, in this video interview with Beet.TV “We’ve got clients […]

Through January to October 2014, the total value of ad tech deals totalled $3.8 billion, according to a report from investment bank Coady Diemar Partners at the time. And things are about to get bigger. Terence Kawaja, founder and CEO of media M&A advisory LUMA Partners, says his firm is advising on several deals, due to be announced this year, […]

It’s four years since ad tech company AppNexus first tried helping advertisers tackle targeted ad buying on digital video, an attempt it later aborted. But now the New York-based outfit is ready to reboot its video plan. AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley, in this video interview with Beet.TV, says:  “We’re going in to open beta for our new video-buying […]

We may not yet have reached the point at which so-called “addressable TV”, the ability to target individual connected televisions with unique advertising, is mass-market – but we have reached a close second, thanks to a combination of dumb TVs and smart devices. “Everyone would like to get in to … the dream of one-to-one advertising,” […]

As TV audiences start watching TV on more devices than just, well, TV, marketers face a challenge – how do they measure, target and price their advertising efforts? Companies tackling and talking about that problem are now commonplace. One such, Cadreon, believes the answer lays in what global president Arun Kumar calls “advanced TV” – a […]

A host of ad tech platforms is helping marketers break down the boundaries between buying TV ads, VOD ads, digital video ads and all the other flavors of moving-image ads. That’s the topic that seems set to dominate the upcoming DMEXCO digital marketing expo in Cologne. Speaking with Beet.TV in this video interview, FreeWheel marketplaces GM James Rooke channels […]

The auto-playing video ads Facebook introduced a while back could make the social network $3.8 billion by 2017, a Nomura analyst recently forecast. So just how good is the new format, and what challenges remain? Ben Winkler, chief digital officer of ad agency OMD USA, says the ads were bound to be successful, given Facebook’s scale – […]

This year, all the hot advertising talk is about the linking of planning, targeting and buying for TV ads and ads on handheld internet devices. For TV viewers distracted by touchscreens during commercial breaks, Teletrax has been gaining attention for allowing brands that are advertising on the living room big screen to also buy ads on social […]

So far, “programmatic” technologies for targeting and automating online ad buying have revolutionized the display ad segment. They have also made big in-roads in to video ads. Whilst few expect such a big bang in the television sector any time soon, WPP’s programmatic unit Xaxis expects to have its technology on-stream by the start of 2016. […]

Across the advertising industry this year, the main challenge seems to be uniting brands’ understanding of how consumers respond to ads across the many different media they now use. One more vendor tackling that problem is Tapad, whose “device graph” model aims to help clients do just that. “We’re working with a (television) manufacturer that has […]

If you thought mobile advertising was hard to measure, Nielsen reckons over-the-top TV and video services is much harder – so it aims to integrate its ad measurement systems with box makers at the system level. “Over-the-top is a really challenging space,” Nielsen product leadership SVP David Wong tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “A year or […]

CHICAGO — If you haven’t yet heard of 4C Insights, the data science company that just acquired Teletrax, the scale of insights it is processing suggests you soon will. The Chicago-based company is helping advertisers better understand how to target users of social networks by comprehending their response to brands, interests and media behaviour. “We look at […]

Fresh from announcing a deal with Associated Press, content recommendation engine Taboola also says newspaper publisher Gannett will adopt its technology to show readers related stories. The deal, which is a three-year exclusive, will see Taboola suggest next articles to be read by readers of sites including USA Today and will earn Taboola $45 million to $55 million, CEO Adam Singolda […]

CANNES — When Mike Perlis decided to accept the invitation to become the first CEO of Forbes Media from outside the Forbes dynasty, many industry insiders wondered why he would take on such a challenge. “You all were well-mannered and good friends enough to not say it too loudly to me, but I did feel it,” […]

New York-based AppNexus‘ real-time ad bidding platform has built the company a position as one of the leading advertising technology vendors out there, at a time when contenders are racing to hail the virtues of their own suites. But CEO Brian O’Kelley sees one big differentiator between his company and the likes of Facebook, which […]

TV may not yet be fully addressable to advertisers in the same way the internet is, but that isn’t stopping a collection of platform operators and ad tech vendors from trying to make it a reality. The Trade Desk, a demand-side advertising platform, is working to bring more ad targeting to Roku, the connected TV […]

In the battle of the content recommendation titans, the two leading contenders routinely trade new client announcements. Amongst the latest is Taboola, which says it will power content recommendations inside Associated Press’ mobile apps and websites. The deal is a two-year exclusive, meaning Taboola will serve links to related stories when a reader is reading an article […]

CHICAGO — The latest incarnation of a leading TV-synced online ads enabler is coming in to focus, with the announcement, by ad data company 4C Insights, that it has raised funds to acquire Teletrax, aiming to beef up its activities in social and TV advertising. “We’re playing aggressively in the decisioning process for addressable TV and we’re […]