The bears are circling traditional TV. With a continual digital migration, traditional TV ad spending entered last year entered what is forecast to be three years of downturn. By most definitions, that is a recession. But Mike Baker thinks it doesn't have to be this way. The CEO of ad-tech firm dataxu thinks digital and linear TV can combine to make something greater [...]

The worlds of crypto-currency and toilet paper may seem to have little in common - but the technology that underpins Bitcoin may soon help one of the world's largest personal hygiene product makers clean up its media business. Kimberly-Clark, whose - brands include Andrex, Corronelle and Huggies - was one of the companies announced by IBM and Mediaocean this week as [...]

CANNES – At gatherings like the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, audience segmentation strategies have been been front and center for the past few years. “I think now that a lot of learning discussions have come out we’ve come back to if you do that type of targeting, what are you going to say to these unique groups,” says [...]

CANNES – While L’Oreal USA’s Nadine Karp McHugh is happy to hear lots of conversations by television networks about how to improve the viewer advertising experience, she’d like to hear more marketer voices giving their input. “I think that’s really important to solve for. But they should start with not only the consumers but also their customers, which are the [...]

CANNES -- It was the subject of a thousand interactive TV dreams in the nineties - the ability to buy products straight from ads seen on the TV screen. Now Hulu has enabled it, and its ad chief thinks the future has finally arrived. The new ad unit, called T-Commerce, was launched with interactive firm BrightLine, and allows viewers to buy things [...]

When Twitter unveiled its mid-June feature update, focusing the company on a message of serving "What's Happening", it seemed strange. Twitter first embraced "What's happening?", the prompt to create new tweets, back in 2009. But, this time, the company was making some product changes, to better emphasise its role at the heart of global user conversations and events. And that's an enhancement which [...]

CANNES – Two highlights at the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for true[X] President Pooja Midha are some “very promising conversations” about the company’s engagement ad formats and positive response to measuring brand lift. “People really appreciate that the engagement ad format, which is the core of our business, has the power and flexibility to really answer a [...]

For most people, it’s easy to forget that before Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico last fall, the territory’s economy was already a disaster. But not Olga Ramos, who took over as President of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico just two months prior. With a successful 13-year career at Walmart and having spent eight years on the board of [...]

There’s so much enthusiasm expressed for the convergence of digital media and traditional television, it’s easy to wonder why targeting and measurement aren’t light years ahead. But given individual business demands, “everybody’s trying to get an edge,” says TiVo’s Walt Horstman. Meanwhile, because linear television hasn’t given up the Upfront negotiating mainstay, it’s still going to have a longer purchase cycle [...]

Widespread change requires “a lot of experimentation for people to change dramatically,” and that process has just begun in the quest for more advanced television targeting, according to LiveRamp’s Allison Metcalfe. Then there is complexity, which can inhibit change when not all entities are committed to changing at the same pace, notes Mike Rosen of NBCUniversal. As an example, he explained [...]

One month after Europe's new privacy legislation came in to effect, the world did not cease to exist - but a good proportion of ad inventory did. Still, one ad-tech exec believes consumers have every right to expect a rebalancing of their relationship with publishers and advertisers, which the new GDPR law sought to usher in. "We've seen a decrease in available [...]

CANNES – Rob Master is excited about the promise of transparency, visibility and measurement for Unilever as it helps to pioneer a blockchain consortium with IBM and Mediaocean. To him, it’s all about prioritizing dollars. “The digital ecosystem is fraught I think, as we’ve all seen with a host of challenges,” says the VP of Global Media. “We believe that the [...]

Today, AT&T announced it would acquire New York-based adtech firm AppNexus.   In February at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, we interviewed founder and CEO Brian O'Kelley about the company's growth and expanding efforts in the video marketplace.  We are republishing that video today

CANNES -- If you believe the hype, podcasts right now are one of the fastest-growing media in the market. Edison Research's The Podcast Consumer, the most oft-cited proofpoint, now suggests weekly podcast listening has grown to 17% of Americans aged 12 or over, with a balanced gender split. More and more publishers are falling over themselves to launch what is seen as [...]

CANNES – Like many industry executives, Amanda Richman applauds the “shared sense of purpose” among parties looking to advance measurement capabilities and experiment with new ad formats instead of “letting those conversations sit at a committee level.” When she eyes the video landscape, Richman sees it evolving toward the opportunity for more precision targeting without taking away from the scale “that [...]

true[X] may have been operating more than a decade now. But could the most recent of technology controversies be about to put the company in the sun? The technology company, owned by 21st Century Fox, helps consumers see fewer ads in digital video when they engage with an initial interactive commercial - effectively bartering their input for a benefit. Over the last [...]

CANNES – Big brands are far from dead, according to the Chief Marketing Officer of Mars Pet Nutrition. But they need to winnow out “fake news” about their supposed widespread demise and establish an evidence-based philosophy and operating model for driving growth, says Jane Wakely. “Accountability in marketing to me means growth. Ultimately, I think marketing are the growth architects of [...]

CANNES – While bigger can imply better when it comes to media scale, it doesn’t shield you from challenges like audience fragmentation and the “murkiness” of the digital advertising ecosystem. So while AT&T recently upped its vertical integration game with the acquisition of Time Warner, it’s as enthusiastic as smaller companies to see various industry stakeholders taking on the challenge [...]

CANNES – There was no shortage of talk about data at the recent Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. But beyond the purpose of targeting people who are actually relevant to particular brands, “when you get to the right people, what happens?” asks Dentsu Aegis Network’s Matt Seiler. In this interview with Beet.TV at the Festival, Seiler talks about the speed [...]

CANNES -- After transparency, back-handers and disintermediation by platforms, next on the list of challenges facing media agencies is blockchain. Or, is it? A blockchain is a public, distributed, anonymised ledger of transactions that is supremely trackable and traceable. It is the technology that underpins digital currencies like Bitcoin – but, in theory, those “transactions” don’t have to be monetary. Over the last year, businesses [...]