Steve Ellwanger

Having rushed to the bottom of the funnel when the agency first executed addressable television ads, Publicis Groupe’s Starcom MediaVest Group has been mining the upper funnel of late and finding potential for marketers beyond autos and financial services. Experience at the bottom of the funnel proved that TV drives actual sales, according to Tracey […]

Two new partnerships linking Rubicon Project with IPG’s Cadreon and workflow automation giant Mediaocean are a nod toward more direct programmatic deals for premium inventory in “well-lit environments,” says Rubicon’s VP of Sales for North America. Matt Greenberg describes Rubicon’s expanded involvement with Cadreon as the latest step in a relationship spanning about three years. Cadreon […]

Integral Ad Science’s new partnership with MediaMath, an integration that enables advertisers to choose specific levels of video viewability for their campaigns, is one of several initiatives based on targeting at the placement level that will be replicated by others. Instead of doing video targeting at the domain level, Integral does it at the placement […]

Creating unique audiences for individual brands and programmatic platform consolidation will gain ground in 2016, yielding more precise targeting across devices and channels, according to the Xaxis unit of WPP Group. “We’re being challenged to identify an audience wherever they show up,” observes Greg Anderson, VP, Account Services at Xaxis. This ultimately will include connected […]

Publishers that have traditionally segmented their premium and non-premium ad inventory are missing high-value opportunities that can be captured with better header integration. Intermarkets, whose portfolio of digital publishers includes Drudge Report, embraces this approach as it gears up for what should be a year of “unprecedented levels” of political advertising spend, according to Erik […]

Within the realm of addressable television, 18-year-old TiVo’s more liberal approach to sharing viewer data makes it a welcome alternative to “stitching together” the plethora of inconsistent information owned by TV and device manufacturers. This is the viewpoint of Michael Bologna, President of GroupM unit MODI Media, who says TiVo is “its own MSO in […]

Seeing a big shift toward premium programmatic inventory, tech publisher IDG uses Google as its centralized ad exchange but welcomes alternatives to the company’s “waterfall” suite to foster one-to-one engagement between marketers and publishers. According to Marisa Preston, Head of Programmatic Operations & Digital Platforms at IDG TechNetwork, there’s still too much systems complexity and […]

The year 2016 will bring wider use of programmatic guarantees, provided that advertisers and publishers take the steps that are needed to foster global adoption. For publishers, this broad expansion will requires better forecasting tools so buyers can know “what kind of inventory can be there in the future,” says Tanuj Joshi, Senior Director, Strategic […]

VIEQUES, PR — Programmatic ad buying is less a media revolution than an evolution, one in which GroupM eschews the term “trading desk” in favor of an “upgrade to the toolset” available to agencies, according to the company’s President of Programmatic Buying, Joe Kowan. Interviewed at the 2016 Beet Retreat by Matt Spiegel, MediaLink’s SVP/GM […]

VIEQUES, PR — Mobile devices may dominate headlines but marketers aren’t creating enough ads for them, while accurate cross-platform measurement—with the exception of Apple, Facebook and Google—is still very much a work in progress, according to Travis Johnson, the Global President of Ansible, a unit of IPG Mediabrands.  Johnson also heads mobile for IPG Mediabrands. […]

VIEQUES, PR — Header bidding in programmatic advertising—not necessarily a new concept but one that’s gaining in popularity—can only benefit publishers and advertisers when both possess an intimate knowledge of the techniques involved, according to longtime practitioner Sam Cox. Simply stated, header bidding enables publishers to avoid the “waterfall effect” of how ad exchanges offering […]

VIEQUES, PR — TV ads repurposed for Facebook and combined with CRM data are fueling hyper-local targeting that can drive both online and offline sales with ROI far greater than the standard two dollars for every one spent on video. The keys are Facebook’s vast database and the ability to measure the impact—beyond just brand […]

VIEQUES, PR — FreeWheel believes that 2016 can be a watershed year for publisher monetization of video across a range of platforms including desktop/laptop, mobile, over-the-top and set-top boxes. Data-enabled transactions are a key determinant of success for efficient cross-platform management, says FreeWheel VP Neil Smith. “Last year we were able to transact on buy-side, […]

VIEQUES, PR — Supply-side platform DashBid has a big stake in video advertising, so it’s naturally bullish on video ads, but the company believes publishers with quality content with persuade users to accept the ads as part of the value equation. DashBid CEO Tom Herman says that while he doesn’t think ad blocking of display […]

VIEQUES, PR — The New York Times and other publishers are on the leading edge of creative optimization of advertising formats, a sign that “creative matters now and people are excited about it,” says Flite CEO and Co-Founder Giles Goodwin. There is an active trend to move beyond finding people in the digital world to […]

VIEQUES, PR — Outstream video—standalone video ads without video content behind them—could be the key to raiding the vault of television ad budgets the video industry has been lusting for, according to video SSP ConvertMedia. The main reason inbound video is still dominant in volume is because it’s the only solution at scale today, says […]

VIEQUES, PR — Publishers are getting more aggressive with and knowledgeable about their inventory across platforms while legacy systems try to adapt to the demands of converged advertising. These insights were shared by Brent Gaskamp, SVP, Corporate Development, NA, Videology, who also predicts that publishers will consolidate the systems they now use. Publishers share the […]

Having forecast that non-search-related advertising spend will increase in excess of 20% annually for the next few years, Carat is constantly evaluating its multiple tech partners and getting more of its people comfortable using programmatic platforms, according to Doug Ray, U.S. CEO & Global President. As programmatic has evolved from a pure focus on efficiency […]

Where web publishers once perceived great danger in data leakage they are now embracing multi-publisher platforms where advertisers’ first-party data can be integrated for optimized people-based marketing. One such platform, MerkleONE, was embraced in late 2015 by News Corp. and other publishers are expected to follow as Merkle builds out its publisher-addressable marketplace solutions, according […]

One of the nation’s largest diversified media, information and technology companies, Hearst Corp. is pushing for data and audience definition standards while remaining optimistic that publishers and advertisers will be less impacted by ad fraud a year from now. That’s the takeaway from a conversation with Mike Smith, whose corporate titles are SVP Advertising Platforms, […]