Robert Andrews

MIAMI — What has Jeff Bezos ever done for print? Transformed the fortunes of the Washington Post, for one. Since acquiring the paper in 2013, the Amazon CEO has put money in to journalists, video and new technologies, with the result that the paper overtook The New York Times for unique users last December, according to comScore. Now […]

It is the medium most desired by programmatic ad-tech execs, who can sniff a slice of a $70 billion advertising industry. But TV is still only on the path to programmatic, not yet at full conversion. Still, one ad group man says the prospects for that tipping point are now looking a lot healthier, five years […]

This year’s presidential election race is shaping up to be the one most defined by the science of polling meeting the precision of ad targeting. This year, candidates from both parties are using Targeted Victory, a Virginia-based politics marketing agency, to help target using first-party data. “They’ve learned they can start with an email message […]

Almost five months in to a partnership in which AT&T is helping TV advertisers reach consumers on mobile phones, the company enabling the process says results have been promising. Opera Mediaworks and AT&T announced the deal in November, with the former helping advertisers on U-Verse and DirecTV also reach consumers on smartphones. “For every addressable TV campaign […]

In the beginning, there was real-time bidding, for ads in open-auction networks. And some advertisers sought greater control. So ad-tech vendors separated the light from the darkness, creating private marketplaces. By constraining the inventory available through private marketplaces and giving advertisers greater control over what they buy, platforms have developed a “best of both” approach to their offering, says […]

This election year, $1.1B of an expected total of $11.4B political ad spending will go to digital, according to a recent Borrell Associates estimate. But how is that money being used online? One advertising technology firm buying ads for campaigns says a new flavour of programmatic is rising – and not all ads have to be political in […]

In a world of abundant ad-tech superpowers, many newly-empowered advertisers have begun to wonder if they couldn’t take on some of the traditional functions they previously outsourced to agencies. But the tide may be turning, as some of those agencies decide it’s safer to stick than to twist, says one senior agency exec. “The concept […]

We report every day on the burgeoning number of ad-tech vendors helping advertisers profit from new-wave connected TV platforms. But one group of firms often missing from the discussion is TV makers themselves. Lotame SVP and CMO Doron Wesly suggests they should be in prime position, if technology can get them over the hill. Citing just-published […]

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 […]

As a discipline, performance marketing is both the ultimate in efficiency and on a worrying path. But the tactic, in which buyers pay only for measurable results, now stands ready to be rejuvenated, says a leading ad-tech exec. “The modernization of performance marketing has still got a long way to go,” according to Marco Bertozzi, the […]

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 […]

The growth in “programmatic”, super-scientific targeting and trading of online ads has boomed – just in time for the industry to start harking for more creative ad campaigns again. Programmatic can support creative ad campaign sequencing, too – but one exec doesn’t imagine that ability coming to mobile quiet yet. The potential is astounding for […]

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 […]

The emergence of programmatic ad trading technology in to digital video and TV has not yet garnered as many dollars as it has conversation. But that could change with deals like the one Videology has struck to power programmatic linear TV ads for AT&T. Announced last week, the deal will see AT&T allow a group […]