LONDON – SMG and the wider Publicis group will have a strong presence at DMEXCO this year, says Steve Parker, co-CEO, Starcom MediaVest Group London. "It feels like the business, certainly our business, and probably the whole industry, is obviously a year older but definitely a year wiser – and I think maybe a year braver," he says. At DMEXCO, SMG will [...]

LONDON – NextTECHnow (NTN), a tech solutions division of SMG which launched in January, is looking to expand into more markets, says Jim Kite, strategic development director for Starcom MediaVest Group. "The starting point is the client and the client brief, and we just want to meet as many startups as possible who can answer them," he says. Currently, there are about [...]

Facebook's Instagram unit has announced a range of new advertising units including a 30-second video ad unit and a premium product called "Marquee" which allows brand to "own" a prime position in the Instagram feed, explains Patrick Harris Global Agency Development lead at Facebook,  in this video interview. He says that advertising on Instagram is launching in 30 markets.  First to use Marquis [...]

SpotX, a leading video inventory management, widely known as an SSP for premium publishers, has launched an "in-content" ad unit. Unlike in-stream ads, which appear in a publisher's video player, these units appear in the text of the articles on desktop and on mobile. We spoke with SpotX SVP Sean Buckley about the new unit and opportunity for publishers to monetize [...]

It’s an oft-cited trope in adland that media fragmentation is still on the rise, but GroupM’s Rob Norman believes there’s an end in sight because of the rise of apps.  This is the crux of his DMEXCO keynote address he will present this week in Cologne. Norman points out that more than 80 percent of people’s time spent using smartphones and [...]

When you are sitting on as much data as David Kenny is, you can really move the needle. Over the years, The Weather Company CEO has spearheaded use of digital data to transform businesses. He has variously been president of network outfit Akami, managing partner of ad group VivaKi and co-founder of the digital ad company Digitas, acquired by Publicis. Now heading one of the world's [...]

As media agencies strive to become much more to clients than ad buyers, some are making technology consulting services an increasingly visible part of their offering. Maxus’s global CEO Lindsay Pattison observes that her agency is applying the same principles to technology solutions that it does to the traditional discipline of media buying, and it comes down to agnosticism. “Bringing together [...]

As the media landscape continues to shift, clients’ expectations of their media agencies are also changing -- and becoming more demanding in a sense. “I think it’s becoming the norm now for clients, quite rightly, to expect flawless execution and great value for money and brilliant client service, and I think now that we’re seeing an increasing desire among the client [...]

What does the flow of attention across social platforms and news article look like when it is actually happening? That's what WPP's advertising clients may get to find out, thanks to the ad holding group's new partnership with BuzzFeed. Announced last month, the deal sees GroupM and WPP constituents gain a "creative residency" amongst BuzzFeed content producers and a creative group at BuzzFeed's video studio, [...]

When Apple brings iOS 9 out of beta on September 16, many in digital advertising fear the pillars of their kingdom could begin to crumble. For, the latest version of the mobile operating system includes a content blocking architecture that could allow developers to release ad-blocking extensions for download by users. Some in advertising are jumping to act.  "We are closely working with the [...]

These days, Tim Armstrong may be best known for running one of the world's leading digital media businesses. But, two decades ago, when online media were just getting going, Armstrong made his first business foray by launching a print media business. It didn't work out so well. In fact, the newspaper he launched with a friend, “Beginnings of Boston,” targeted at 20-year-olds in Boston, hit [...]

He may have joined the company 44 years ago now, but Publicis' advertising industry was just about the last one CEO Maurice Lévy had in mind when he was picking a career. "The reality is, I wanted to be a surgeon," he confesses to Beet.TV in this video interview. "I just cannot stand blood, so I had to change. I went to learn something else. [...]

Clypd, a television ad targeting optimization platform vendor, will soon unveil a new multi-screen advertising initiative resulting from its recent investment by European broadcast group RTL. Chief relationship officer Mark Mitchell tells Beet.TV, in this video interview, the company is working with SpotX, which just rebranded from SpotXchange. RTL invested $144m in SpotXchange in 2014 and $19.4m in Clypd this April. "One of our sisters [...]

When "programmatic" advertising technology came on to the scene, it was first used to sell ad inventory that didn't otherwise manage to sell via traditional, human methods. But that is changing, says one ad tech vendor. SpotX platform and global supply SVP Sean Buckley says "programmatic" and "direct" sales channels are coming together. "We’re starting to see those two worlds converge, our platforms [...]

The industry lost one of its true visionaries this week with the passing of Curt Hecht, 47, to lung cancer. A veteran digital advertising and publishing executive, Hecht was a pioneer in addressable TV.  He created experimental programs, including one of the first in 2006 with GM and Comcast. As Chief Revenue Officer of The Weather Company, he envisioned the cable network [...]

Facebook’s VP-Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson went to college thinking she would become a broadcast journalist. But a subsequent stint in consulting that led her to a job at Disney ignited her love of media and technology for good. “That was the beginning of me seeing what it would be like to work for a consumer-focused company that has a fantastic [...]

In the narrative of media evolution, what was once new becomes old and, ultimately, becomes obsolete. But vinyl music is enjoying a bounce - so what chance a return for other media formats? "I’m seeing people beginning to pick up formats that were considered dead and reimagine them," says Susan Lyne, the veteran media executive who previously ran AOL's brand group and [...]

Riding the crest of a wave is a pretty good feeling. But the bigger lessons can come from falling off and hitting the bottom. Many a business guru is fond of the ironic value of failure. That's a notion that the boss of one of the biggest ad groups subscribes to, too. "I’ve always learned more from failure than success," Starcom MediaVest Group CEO [...]

Why did you get in to advertising? For Brian Lesser, it was because his dad showed him the ropes. Now Lesser runs WPP-owned Xaxis, one of the technology companies helping make advertising more targeted and more relevant. "When I was a kid, my father ran advertising agencies … I always liked the commercials better than the programming on television," Lesser tells Beet.TV [...]

Now the chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, Inc., Bob Pittman got his start in the media business as a 15-year-old disc jockey in Mississippi, where he grew up. Motivated to earn money so he could take airplane flying lessons, he first applied to the local men’s clothing store and then tried to get a job bagging groceries at the Piggly Wiggly. [...]