Robert Andrews

CANNES, France — Nielsen global product leadership president Steve Hasker has put up a spirited defense of his media audience research provider and one of its core measurement tools. “A lot of people will talk about the GRP (Gross Rating Point) being dead,” he tells  moderator Terence Kawaja at this Beet.TV leadership summit. “We have never argued […]

CANNES, France — Some may characterize the rise of so-called “programmatic” online ad trading and control techniques as the transition of Mad Men into “maths men” – but one agency boss thinks the technologies can spur creativity by liberating staff from “drudge”. “I don’t think anyone signs up for our industry to be staring at an […]

CANNES, France — Advertisers are increasingly buying spots in online video ads through private exchanges, not on open exchanges, in order to guarantee quality inventory. “The majority of our clients are using private marketplaces … not just going out in to open exchange,” according to video ad tech platform Videology‘s chief development officer Ryan Jamboretz. […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Viggle has set about enabling a virtuous “circle” of TV discovery and reward after acquiring Dijit in January. Dijit’s NextGuide product lets broadcasters place a “reminder” button on their pages so that viewers can receive notifications of upcoming shows. Viggle, a check-in app that gives users rewards for watching shows, acquired the […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Once conceived as an ambitious cable industry effort to insert ads in interactive TV, Canoe Ventures says it is now making headway after pivoting from its original goal. The venture flipped three years ago to help TV content owners benefit from ad sales in their own content when it is hosted on cable operators’ […]

SAN FRANCISCO — After launching to let viewers consume live and recorded US broadcast TV on a multitude of devices in 2011, Simple.TV will soon launch in the UK. CEO Mark Ely tells Beet.TV: “A lot of there most watched, most popular content is available through the major networks. We are the TV Everywhere solution for […]

LONDON — Users’ news consumption habits are shaped by their devices and the time of day, says Guardian chief digital officer Tanya Cordrey. “In the morning, smartphones completely rule as people snack on bits of content before they go to work,” Cordrey tells Beet.TV. “At lunchtime, we see a huge pickup on desktop traffic. By […]

CANNES, Lions — More top-end publishers will be trialling so-called “programmatic” technologies for automating and controlling online ad trading in the next few months before they jump aboard next year, says one exec from a programmatic video platform. “(In the) second half of 2014, we’re going to see a lot of new players jumping in,” Videology‘s […]

CANNES, France — Advertising is no longer the only game in town for brands who want to reach audiences, says a media planning agency exec. “The reason content is now so topical is, brands are increasingly looking for much more ROI,” MediaCom’s global MBA head James Morris tells Beet.TV. “Content elevates itself over and above […]

CANNES, France — LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner tells Beet.TV that the social network for business people will be the the “definitive professional publishing platform.” LinkedIn’s content ambitions began with its Influencer program, in which a selection of hand-picked A-list business and public figures have gathered large audiences for their thought leadership on the site. Now […]

CANNES, France — Programmatic video ad tech platform operator TubeMogul used the Cannes Lions festival to announce food brand Mondelēz International would use its services to buy and serve all of its video ads. “Programmatic is getting to be less scary,” says TubeMogul’s CEO Brett Wilson. “You’re seeing more brands embrace it directly. “It doesn’t mean they’re […]

SAN FRANCISCO — It was the operating system that nobody loved. When LG Electronics acquired webOS from HP in 2013, it bought a technically sound OS that had struggled to make headway during the mobile platform wars. Now the electronics group is hoping webOS can finally flourish by simplifying the smart TV experience, with the […]

CANNES, France — WPP’s GroupM recently declared it would no longer buy advertising spaces from open trading exchanges from next year. The global boss of GroupM’s data-driven unit backs that strategy. “It’s our ambition to not buy any media in an open marketplace,” says Xaxis global CEO Brian Lesser. “Our clients expects us to give them […]

CANNES, France — It seems like it was only a few months ago that the topic of video ad fraud cast a long shadow on the digital advertising sector. Now everyone is running around trying to eliminate the dark arts. And one tech vendor says those arts could already be extinguished before 2014 is done. […]

CANNES, France — Yahoo will open up its recently-unveiled Ad Manager Plus ad software to use on a self-serve basis – and is offering users’ search history as a targeting characteristic. “People use search every day to show (purchase) intent – that search-based data has never been able to be used in a programmatic environment,” according to Yahoo’s […]

CANNES, France — Many brands nowadays are keenly commissioning content videos – but are they diving in to the opportunity in the right way? “What you see too often – we saw a lot of it on YouTube and at the Cannes awards – people are sacrificing brand equity or brand truth to get noticed,” says […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Ad group WPP is already making video and TV shows on behalf of advertisers, through its GroupM Entertainment division. But it wants to bring distribution platforms together to take its content to larger audiences. “The big aggregators have advantages, whether they’re Yahoo, AOL, Google or YouTube,” says the division’s CEO Peter Tortocici. “They […]

SAN FRANCISCO — TV subscribers want to be able to watch their programming digitally wherever they are. But creating a harmonious access point when the US’ patchwork market comprises dozens of different operators is a significant undertaking. Angie Britt, the advanced products VP at cable operators’ joint marketing association CTAM, says the sector-wide “TV Everywhere” initiative […]

SAN FRANCISCO —  BlackArrow SVP Chris Hock says the company helps pay-TV operators make money from their content, no matter what screen it is served on. The San Jose, CA, firm’s technology is used by traditional cable operators in up to 32 million US homes, Hock says. The outfit’s product suites include software for campaigns, […]

AT SEA  OFF THE COAST OF FRANCE — GroupM has put its money where its mouth was by creating a unit dedicated to using new-wave technologies to target TV ads, says the man put in charge of the group. “Being able to utilize the technology that’s been installed in set-top boxes to identify households and […]