CANNES, France - Bringing authenticity and an easy sell to sponsored content is essential, explains the make-up  web celebrity Camila Coehlo in this interview with Beet.TV The Brazilian is part of Maker Studios, which is bringing her advertisers and creative support, she explains.  We spoke with her at Cannes Lions.   More on Maker Studios and its efforts around sponsored content [...]

CANNES, France -  Disney's Maker Studio, the Los Angeles based multi-channel network (MCN) that distributes and promotes web videos from some 55,000 content creators around the globe, made a big push for advertising dollars at the  Cannes Lions festival.   Jason Krebs, who heads up sales, says that Maker has what advertisers want - scale and authentic content.   He [...]

CANNES, France -- Once upon a time, it was just a games device. Now, Microsoft's Xbox consoles are used to consume TV, video, music and other content. "Gaming is the core," says Microsoft's advertising GM, Scott Ferris. "Over half of people who buy Xbox for gaming end up using it as their all-up entertainment source." Ferris says Xbox now has a total [...]

CANNES, France -- The recent acquisition by AOL's Adap.tv programming video ad sales unit of two smaller vendor companies will help close the loop between marketing spend and corresponding sales, says a company exec. AOL acquired Santa Monica-based Convertro and Seattle-based Precision Demand. "The combination really helps change the game in terms of how you evaluate the value of television … being [...]

CANNES, France - While there has been considerable conversation in programmatic media circles about a movement away from open exchanges to private exchanges, it's not a matter of choosing one solution,  but of both, says Stephan Beringer, President of Audience on Demand at VivaKi, the digital unit of the Publicis Groupe. We spoke with during the Cannes Lions Festival. You can find [...]

CANNES, France -- Nielsen global product leadership president Steve Hasker has put up a spirited defense of his media audience research provider and one of its core measurement tools. "A lot of people will talk about the GRP (Gross Rating Point) being dead," he tells  moderator Terence Kawaja at this Beet.TV leadership summit. "We have never argued it is the be-all and end-all [...]

CANNES, France -- Some may characterize the rise of so-called "programmatic" online ad trading and control techniques as the transition of Mad Men into "maths men" - but one agency boss thinks the technologies can spur creativity by liberating staff from "drudge". "I don’t think anyone signs up for our industry to be staring at an Excel spreadsheet. moving click-through analysis rates [...]

CANNES, France -- Advertisers are increasingly buying spots in online video ads through private exchanges, not on open exchanges, in order to guarantee quality inventory. "The majority of our clients are using private marketplaces … not just going out in to open exchange," according to video ad tech platform Videology's chief development officer Ryan Jamboretz. "Super-premium publishers - the broadcasters, the high-end [...]

ON THE SEA OFF THE COAST OF FRANCE --  Sitting between Silicon Valley, Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Wall Street, MediaLink is a unique media consultancy, explains Wenda Harris Millard, president, in this interview with Dave Morgan. "We are operators." At Cannes, MediaLink created a a number of high-profile seminars for its clients along visibility for itself with banners and signage on [...]

SAN FRANCISCO -- Viggle has set about enabling a virtuous "circle" of TV discovery and reward after acquiring Dijit in January. Dijit's NextGuide product lets broadcasters place a "reminder" button on their pages so that viewers can receive notifications of upcoming shows. Viggle, a check-in app that gives users rewards for watching shows, acquired the firm. Now the technology has been [...]

SAN FRANCISCO -- Once conceived as an ambitious cable industry effort to insert ads in interactive TV, Canoe Ventures says it is now making headway after pivoting from its original goal. The venture flipped three years ago to help TV content owners benefit from ad sales in their own content when it is hosted on cable operators' platforms. "We have over 140 programmers signed [...]

SAN FRANCISCO -  With the introduction of new data from Rentrak and other providers, technology provider INVISION will be able to provide unified ad workflow for both digital and linear television, predicts David Miller, VP for Product Management, in this interview with Beet.TV The company recently announced partnership with Rentrak. We spoke with him at the TV of Tomorrow conference.   You [...]

SAN FRANCISCO -- After launching to let viewers consume live and recorded US broadcast TV on a multitude of devices in 2011, Simple.TV will soon launch in the UK. CEO Mark Ely tells Beet.TV: "A lot of there most watched, most popular content is available through the major networks. We are the TV Everywhere solution for broadcast." When Simple.TV launches in the UK [...]

LONDON -- Users' news consumption habits are shaped by their devices and the time of day, says Guardian chief digital officer Tanya Cordrey. "In the morning, smartphones completely rule as people snack on bits of content before they go to work," Cordrey tells Beet.TV. "At lunchtime, we see a huge pickup on desktop traffic. By the middle of the afternoon, Guardian content [...]

CANNES, France - While there has been much discussion about the move away from an open bid scenario, to private, programmatic marketplaces which match specific advertisers and publishers, Josh Jacobs, the Global CEO of OMD's Accuen programmatic unit, says that while private exchanges are extremely important, an open ecosystem is also essential. In this interview with Beet.TV, he says that it [...]

CANNES, France - While "programmatic" has been a much-referenced  buzzword of the Cannes Festival, in the future it will just be media buying, albeit machine-lead for most media except network TV, predicts  Michael Kassan, CEO of the powerhouse media consultancy MediaLink, in this interview with Beet.TV We spoke with him during the Festival onboard the AT&T Adworks yacht. You can find more [...]

CANNES, France -  Maker Studio, the giant multi-channel network of some 50,000 YouTube creators, is finding a majority of its views, as much as 60 percent, coming from mobile, says Erin McPherson, Chief Content Officer of Maker, in this interview with Beet.TV This amount of mobile consumption is higher that the 40 percent that YouTube ascribes. Maker was purchased by The Walt [...]

CANNES, Lions -- More top-end publishers will be trialling so-called "programmatic" technologies for automating and controlling online ad trading in the next few months before they jump aboard next year, says one exec from a programmatic video platform. "(In the) second half of 2014, we’re going to see a lot of new players jumping in," Videology's global markets SVP Jana Eisenstein tells [...]

CANNES, France -- Advertising is no longer the only game in town for brands who want to reach audiences, says a media planning agency exec. "The reason content is now so topical is, brands are increasingly looking for much more ROI," MediaCom's global MBA head James Morris tells Beet.TV. "Content elevates itself over and above advertising. Advertising is still an important part of [...]

CANNES, France -- LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner tells Beet.TV that the social network for business people will be the the "definitive professional publishing platform." LinkedIn's content ambitions began with its Influencer program, in which a selection of hand-picked A-list business and public figures have gathered large audiences for their thought leadership on the site. Now LinkedIn is increasingly opening up to all [...]