Steve Ellwanger

BOSTON – First it was “Reach out and touch someone” for AT&T and now the ubiquitous “Green Line” for Fidelity Investments. Jim Speros had a hand in both creative endeavors, along the way refining his definition of creativity. “To create disruption, you have to start by being a curious person,” Speros, EVP of Corporate Communications […]

BOSTON – Not that long ago, the biggest challenge with apps used to be getting people to download them. Now churn is “the single biggest problem in mobile,” according to Raj Aggarwal of Localytics. The company uses machine learning and predictive analytics to help app publishers better understand their users via its software development kit, […]

BOSTON – To the uninitiated, Media Access Control could sound like something they’d like to be able to do during political campaigns. But as television content and advertising continue to go over-the-top, the household set-top box identifier known as MAC is slowly giving way to IP addresses and other alternatives. MAC identifiers and cable TV […]

BOSTON – Being able to touch more than seven billion mobile devices around the world isn’t difficult when you are telecom company Syniverse. It’s making sure you’re touching the right person that is a big focus these days, according to CMO Mary Clark. “The challenge I think right now that we’re getting a lot of […]

BOSTON – In the media business, being in the television is like being in the kitchen—to the 100th power. Which is one of the reasons Dan Ackerman joined Samba.tv from a long stint at AOL Like many others, he was frustrated about trying to make sense out of all the disparate data sources that might […]

BOSTON – Despite the prevalence of binge viewing, as recently as 2015 marketers and media companies weren’t overly concerned about a shift to over-the-top viewing. “What we’re seeing is more of a sense of urgency in terms of trying to figure out how to measure, segment and do attribution as marketing dollars are starting to […]

BOSTON – When Ashley Swartz discusses the nuts and bolts of digital media, it’s reflective of her background in manufacturing systems. Hence her view that connecting disparate data and systems is “not sexy” and that media company content management systems “are dirty and messy.” They’re also the main reasons why she started Furious Corp., an […]

BOSTON – To bring the power of programmatic advertising to marketers with localized targeting needs, unstructured data beats pre-packaged audience segments, says Frost Prioleau, CEO of demand-side platform Simpli.fi. It’s a mantra that is fueling Simpli.fi’s expansion into more precise measurement of mobile foot traffic and, very shortly, localized native advertising. Within the realm of […]

BOSTON – Akin to what Pandora has done with streaming music, IRIS.TV brings adapted machine learning to video viewing preferences. Its white-label solution, licensed to digital publishers, uses artificial intelligence to create a “personalized viewing experience for every viewer,” according to CEO and Co-Founder Field Garthwaite. “We ingest the archive from a publisher, look at […]

Addressable television advertising removes the conjecture surrounding the fragmented viewing behavior of today’s audiences, according to Brienna Pinnow. “With addressable, I don’t have to guess if my audience is watching Shark Tank or Sharknado,” says Pinnow, who is Director of Product Marketing for Experian Marketing Services. “I actually get to target the right person at […]

BOSTON – When placing video ads inside walled digital gardens, should you engage those gardens directly or through an intermediary? The direct route, according to Pixability’s Bettina Hein, comes with a fox and a henhouse. The Pixability story is concise: Many advertisers don’t want the lion’s share of their video ad dollars going to Facebook, […]

BOSTON – As digital media collide with traditional TV, the result is a tectonic shift that provides opportunities for companies with data, software and other workflow solutions. Playing matchmaker between large incumbents and tech entrepreneurs is Progress Partners, which recently gathered some 275 participants to “talk about the unusual suspects,” according to Davis Rosborough, Investment […]

The words “sophisticated” and “manual” would seem to be mutually exclusive, yet they go hand in hand with addressable television advertising. That’s because everything’s manual with addressable at this stage of its evolution, according to Mike Bologna, President of MODI Media. “So you could argue that the most sophisticated and exciting part of the television […]

ORLANDO, Florida – Georgine Anton believes the “marketer’s dilemma” is something created by marketers themselves. She describes it as “a vestige of many years of building the marketing department so that today they’re built more by channel than around the consumer.” Anton, who is President of Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, has a theory for how this […]

BOSTON – Shereta Williams is hoping that 2017 will mark the tipping point for scaled advertising inventory from local television stations, whose power has been diminished by competing and often more efficient media. Although it’s not the only player in the local-sales automation space, Videa, of which Williams is President, has the imprimatur of owner […]

ORLANDO, Florida – Chief Marketing Officers’ biggest mandate is being able to figure out “Where should my next dollar go,” says Neustar’s Wes Nichols. In other words, how to maximize return on marginal investment. “If I have an extra million dollars, do I put it into marketing or trade funds or into new production innovation?” […]

ORLANDO – After studying video consumption patterns, the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video has established a position on improving the consumer ad experience in three areas: proper frequency, customizing the ad experience and maximizing the diversity and quality of advertising creative. “It’s really important for us to ensure that the ad experience and all of […]

ORLANDO, Florida – The biggest challenge for television advertising buyers and sellers is changing their mindsets and embracing new infrastructure. While it would have been much more difficult a decade ago, the infusion of digital into the TV space has made these changes unavoidable. This is how Fariba Zamaniyan surveys the TV landscape while attending […]

ORLANDO, Florida – In this purpose-driven marketing age, it’s only natural to sell toilet paper without showing or even talking about it. Instead, simply focus on things like grandparents, single moms and step parents. This is the path taken by Georgia-Pacific as part of its overall effort to portray women more accurately, according to CMO […]

Not only is addressable television advertising cheaper than direct mail, it enables smaller advertisers to harness the sight, sound and motion of TV and prepares them for a future in which all media will be addressable and programmatic. That’s the uptake from Tracey Scheppach, whose agency has done more than 200 addressable campaigns. “What we […]