French video ad tech company Teads has lately been shouting about the performance of its ad format InRead, which inserts auto-playing video ads between text paragraphs on major publisher sites. Now it is using a study commissioned from Nielsen to claim it outperforms its competitive video ad format technology. According to Nielsen's comparison, more viewers of ads delivered through other platforms were more [...]

It is often said that the "programmatic" shift from manual ad-buying to automated mechanisms will do for Madison Avenue what computer trading did to Wall Street. But, on one measure, it's already bigger than that. "The number of transactions now on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, if you add them together, is larger than every stock exchange in the world put together," Google [...]

The role of the media agency is dramatically changing with entrance of "biased" tech companies, says Michael I. Roth, CEO of Interpublic Group. He says the role of the unbiased, "agnostic"  media agency is more important than ever. Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, says that there will be an increasing "blurring of the lines" in the competitive set with tech [...]

Audience buying does not signal the end of premium publishing, but it is ushering in changing ways of doing business, says Mac Delaney, SVP of Programmatic at SMG Global, at the recent Beet.TV executive retreat.  Efficiencies, pricing, yield and CPMs are radically morphing, but publishers are still creating content and that content will still be quite valuable for marketers, he [...]

PHOENIX -- The rash of new ad tech platforms we have seen over the last couple of years is designed to wring greater efficiency, better targeting and lower costs out of ad buying. All of that appears to be stacked in favor of ad buyers, not ad sellers - so is the sell side disadvantaged in the ad tech boom? "They're showing [...]

PHOENIX -- What's the future of "programmatic", the collection of targeting and trading technologies currently revolutionizing display advertising, when it comes to television and video? It boils down to "four buckets", says video ad tech platform SpotXchange's programmatic TV VP Randy Cooke: "Linear stream is going to benefit from a tremendous amount of optimization." "Addressability." "Dynamic ad insertion." "Connected TV." All four of those provide opportunities, not [...]

PHOENIX -- Rocket Fuel's acquisition of data management platform X+1 was one of the more talked-about M&A deals in 2014. So why did the programmatic platform do the deal? To give customers a single, constantly-connected platform, says Rocket Fuel's global partnerships VP David Skinner. "The rationale for the acquisition was that Rocket Fuel really sees the digital landscape changing to one of [...]

For an ad tech industry used to talking so much about "data" these days, it may seem counterintuitive to suggest that there is insufficient data around. But that's the reality when it comes to video, says one video ad tech exec. "There’s a paucity of data," says Irfon Watkins, CEO and co-founder of Coull, a Bristol, UK-based company whose technology mines the content of videos, [...]

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Online ads aren't just banners anymore. Recent developments in digital marketing mean the discipline is beginning to create richer, more engaging advertising experiences, says an AOL ad exec. "There is already a renaissance of creative," Marta Martinez, Global Head Video Sales at AOL Platforms, tells Beet.TV in this video interview. "Advertisers are going in to the role of the content [...]

FORT LAUDERDALE -  WPP's Xaxis unit is not a trade desk, but is a media company much like AOL or Yahoo.  It  is a "line item" for agency media plans,  says David J. Moore, Xaxis Chairman in this conversation with Nielsen's Andrew Feigenson, Managing Director for Digital.  Moore notes that Xaxis has a large sales staff which sells to agencies [...]

FORT LAUDERDALE -- There are now all manner of ways advertisers and editors can try making from video assets. But, with so many options and devices available in the palette, what are the core considerations? Ad tech platform Videology's north America MD Tim Castree boiled it down during a panel interview with Beet.TV, saying return on video investment is a function of: "The [...]

PHOENIX - Lotame, the big DMP (data management platform)  is powering premium video distribution for publishers, explains Andy Monfried, founder and CEO, in this interview with Beet.TV  He explains how Lotame works with video ad company SpotXchange by bringing deep, actionable data to the company's programmatic operation. Monfried also talks about the growth of the company along different business lines. We spoke [...]

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Recent reorganisations within Publicis' Vivaki unit see digital expertise built up over the latter group's existence moved from its Audience On Demand division to other agencies within the sister SMG group. The Drum reports on the changes here. "The largest group within AOD - the client services group ... those individuals are a 60-person group, being folded in to [...]

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Mexican viewers are flocking to mobile screens - but not all advertisers are following suit, according to one leading broadcaster. "We see between 60% and 70% of the traffic coming through mobile," says Azteca chief digital officer Diego Leonel De Cervantes. "The government is pushing a lot to have broadband for people - usage has spiked. "For the agencies - [...]

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Dave Morgan's latest advertising technology venture, Simulmedia, has already been helping advertisers buy ads on linear TV using digital data. Now it is also helping them close the loop, showing how TV ads lead to confirmed purchase behavior. "We have access to set-top box data," Simulmedia business development manager Michael Glantz tells Beet.TV in this interview. "We have great [...]

The ad market should brace itself for huge digital transformations in the next few years. Changes that have been afoot for sometime now are on the cusp of hitting the market hard, says serial entrepreneur Dave Morgan, Chief Executive Officer for Simulmedia, who talked about these shifts in the ad business in this interview with Beet.TV. Look for a convergence of digital trends, he predicts. "The [...]

PHOENIX -- Mobile video advertising is exploding, with year-over-year video advertising up 13X for video adtech company SpotXchange, says Kevin Schaum, Director of Mobile Operations.  In the interview, he explains the factors leading the growth of monetization of mobile video on both the App and mobile web platforms. Schaum also speaks about the growth of in-text video advertising for the company. We [...]

FORT LAUDERDALE -  Virool, the self-service video advertising company with some 30,000 customers, is increasing  its operations around the needs of large brand marketers and advertising agencies -- meeting demand for views of branded video content, says Brian Danzis, Chief Revenue Officer of the San Francisco-based company. He says that the length of videos now served by Virool exceed 30 seconds. [...]

PHOENIX -- Dailymotion, the big global video platform tried open programmatic exchanges to sell its video advertising - but soon constrained its dealings to a smaller pool of buyers. "At the end, we could not manage it - we could not set the rules by ourselves," according to chief revenue officer Damien Pigasse. "So we decided, a year and a half ago, to [...]

FOR LAUDERDALE - While customized display ads, created on the fly for the individual consumer, has become well established, the opportunity for advertisers to customize video advertising has been limited by technology issues.  Those issues have been solved that value to brands is dramatic, says Anthony Risicato, Chief Strategy Officer for Eyeview. Risicato, formerly with Tremor Video, joined Eyeview earlier this [...]