Robert Andrews

CANNES – One of the world’s most popular games could also become one of its most pervasive video brands, after Rovio added its Angry Birds Toons cartoon channel to its mobile apps. “Overnight, we updated 1.7 billion games back in March. We’re doing over 100 million views a month,” Rovio chief marketing officer Peter Vesterbacka told […]

CANNES — Marketers are being called upon to sponsor the 12 filmmakers picked to make next-generation science-fiction digital shorts for Ridley Scott. Machinima global brand strategy VP Seth Bardelas, whose video publisher firm is helping Ridley Scott Associates on the project, called it an “incubator”. “The idea is to incubate the next great science-fiction franchise,” […]

CANNES It’s now a hackneyed industry forecast: “This will be the year of mobile advertising.” But VivaKi products and services president Kurt Unkel thinks advertisers is still testing out the opportunity. “There are a lot of things still being learned about mobile,” Unkel told Beet.TV in this video interview during Cannes Lions. “How do we […]

CANNES – After branching out from identifying music to enabling TV ad interaction, now mobile app Shazam wants to start aggregating its wealth of user data to encourage greater user engagement. “Expect to see us do more and more around content and engagement, and becoming a more of a destination app around music instead of […]

LONDON – The latest in a line of citizen-journalism contributor platforms embraced by big media, Sweden’s Bambuser is taking an equity investment from Associated Press. Bambuser members broadcast live mobile video of news events like the Syrian conflicts, Russia’s meteor sightings and a recent helicopter crash in London. AP has had exclusivity on the footage […]

CANNES – Now that it has turned advertisers on to its marketing tools, Twitter is snapping at the heels of the biggest online ad gorillas, according to industry data. “When you’re talking about the digital landscape, there are four dominant players that everyone knows – Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft,” ZenithOptimedia global CEO Steve King […]

CANNES – Microsoft believes its Xbox game console can take marketers’ messages to consumers beyond gaming’s traditional hardcore audience. “The fastest-growing demographic on Xbox today is females aged 18 to 39, who happen to be the chief decision-makers on purchases in most households around the world,” Microsoft’s advertising and online corporate VP Frank Holland said. […]

CANNES – Time was, the term “mobile” could be used to describe a swathe of devices. But now the market is so rich with portable gadgets, it’s time to get more granular, according to Adobe digital marketing SVP and GM  Brad Rencher. “A lot of people are still lumping smartphones together with tablets, together with […]

CANNES – Look out, world. Having quickly become the planet’s most-visited newspaper website, Mail Online plans to ramp up its digital video offering beyond its core categories of entertainment, lifestyle and breaking world news. “We’ll continue to expand the types of video programming we’re deploying,” the title’s global chief marketing officer Sean O’Neal told Beet.TV […]

LONDON – GroupM’s Mindshare already targets many conventional TV ads using online data – but the full internet delivery of TV advertising could unleash even greater targetability. Speaking at Beet.TV’s recent London Video Ad Strategy Summit, the group’s chief digital officer Norm Johnston said Mindshare already leverages geographical search data – for example, showing people […]

Nowadays, programmatic digital ad-buying technology automates targeted ad buying and removes the task from human operators. But those ad buyers should rejoice at throwing off the shackles of the mind-numbing task, according to a GroupM executive. “What programmatic does is free up resource,” Caspar Schlikum, the EMEA managing director of GroupM’s data-centric ad unit Xaxis, told […]

LONDON – Few video watchers could have failed to notice how YouTube is amping up the frequency of pre-roll ads on the service. But what will that bring to the operator’s bottom line? “We estimate this year YouTube will generate about $4 billion in advertising revenue,” analyst Ian Maude of Enders Analysis told Beet.TV’s recent […]

Online video innovation is now quickening outside the United States – but in very different ways, according to the international director of video ad technology group Videology. “The general notion when we first started our international business three years ago was, markets outside the US were 18 to 24 months behind,” Ryan Jamboretz told Beet.TV’s […]

On-demand video advertisers are now beginning to target their spots using richer data. That’s according to video ad tech firm Videology’s international product manager Catherine Hallam. “Although VOD has been primarily age- and gender-targeted, now up to a maximum of 60 percent of campaigns only use age and gender,” Hallam told Beet.TV’s recent London Video Ad […]

If you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, can a new medium learn to play by an old rule book? Nielsen’s new Online Campaign Ratings mechanism seeks to measure online viewers as people, not clicks. That’s just what TV has done for decades – and that’s just fine for now, according to Nielsen’s media client consulting […]

Automated or programmatic video advertising buying techniques can be a great boon for marketers – if used in the right way and at the right time in the targeting cycle. That is according to Digital-Labs founder Eamon Tuhami. “Programmatic buying allows for a huge amount of efficiencies,” Tuhami told Beet.TV’s recent London Video Ad Strategy Summit. “But there are dangers […]

Online video advertising is taking off – because most of the ads are just plain ol’ TV commercials. Ruth Cartwright, the broadcast director at GroupM’s Maxus agency, told Beet.TV at the recent London Video Ad Strategy Summit her outfit is spending six to 10 percent of clients’ budgets on online video ads. “Ninety percent of the clients […]

Data-driven, automated video inventory buying (AKA programmatic buying) is “the future for video advertising,” according to one advertising executive working in the space. “With online video combined with traditional TV, we have much more precise targeting possibilities,” Rosa Markarian, the EMEA region product development director of GroupM’s Xaxis audience profiling unit, told Beet.TV during the […]

Many advertising execs are advocating the amalgamation of video ad buying across TV and online. But, at Beet.TV’s recent London Video Ad Strategy Summit, the online investment head of GroupM’s MediaCom agency, warned a single piece of creative must be judged very differently across the two formats. “There’s a tendency to want to revert everything […]

Programmatic ad-buying technologies, which are all the rage, can be a revelation for advertisers – but their use must go hand-in-hand with conventional advertising practices, according to one marketing advisor. “You may have the best targeting or programmatic technology, but if you’re not very good at engaging with your clients from a planning point of view, if […]