LONDON -- It started out as The Manchester Guardian in 1821 and had since become a national newspaper. But, this fall, The Guardian crossed another geographical rubicon - it became more popular in the US than its native UK. "Since we moved to theguardian.com, the US audience is bigger than the UK audience," Guardian News & Media revenue director Tim Gentry [...]

Most brands are still measuring video ads by display metrics, but that's not the most effective mechanism for the medium, says Avi Brown, CEO of analytics firm BrandAds. His company aims to provide additional insight for video marketers into whether their ads are being seen by moving beyond "banner metrics" of clicks, impressions and completion to include measurement of audience, engagement [...]

One of the problems with the huge online video opportunity is that premium video ads can typically only be placed in premium video content, which advertisers grumble is not in great enough supply. So The Economist is now beginning to thread auto-playing video advertising in between paragraphs of its respected text articles. The development comes from French firm Teads' inRead ad format. [...]

LONDON -- So-called "programmatic" buying and selling of online ads may super-target highly efficient inventory - but that doesn't mean algorithms really understand consumers' emotions, says one ad exec. "The programmatic landscape is very obsessed with 'who' and 'what'; it's not looking at 'why'," Phil Townend, EMEA MD of viral video monitor Unruly Media, tells beet.TV, bemoaning programmatic's "one-size-fits-all" approach. "Once you understand why somebody [...]

LONDON -- For a medium so dependent on digital data, it is no wonder the internet has lately seen the rise of super-targeted, highly-efficient "programmatic" ad-buying. But that hasn't stopped the re-emergence of old-style TV ad-measuring metrics like gross rating point. "When you're in TV, you're told 'there'll be no such thing as TV'," sports video distributor Perform Group's UK sales [...]

LONDON -- We know that automated, so-called "programmatic" purchasing of online ad space is important and growing. But how important, and how fast is it growing? "We don't have any independent figures at the moment," the Internet Advertising Bureau UK's data and industry programmes head Steve Chester tells Beet.TV. "We will have that next year - that will be an industry-first, [...]

TV technology company Gracenote will be testing addressable ads in smart TVs in the coming months in an effort to deliver personalized ads to TV consumers, says Stephen White, President of Gracenote, in an interview with Beet.TV. "We are using the technology to insert or overlay on top of ads in a traditional linear broadcast so the user doesn't know they [...]

LONDON --Videos is the fastest part of Xaxis, the data and technology of GroupM, media agency division of  WPP.  It has been a "watershed" year where the agency is using data to target about half of its video buying across the EMEA region, says Caspar Schlickum, MD of EMEA, in this interview with Beet.TV The Impact of Data "Data Is The New [...]

LONDON -- Consumers are using many different digital devices to watch content and advertising. But ads are still being bought with an air of fragmentation, says one executive. "Mobile is still a very, very tiny fraction of advertising spend," says Nicolas Bidon, UK MD of GroupM's Xaxis data-handling unit in this interview with Beet.TV "The limitation we have at the moment - [...]

LONDON -- Tailor video to the brand, the medium and the consumer. That's the advice of Kristen Kelly, VP and International Business Director at Starcom MediaVest Group in an interview with Beet.TV. "Understand the consumer and where they're at in the decision journey. You can do awareness marketing and direct response. Understand how people are using your content, what they're receptive [...]

Vimeo, the video sharing site known mostly for its use by creative professionals, now has 400,000 paying subscribers and has booked b out $40 million in revenue over the past twelve months, parent company IAC said yesterday.   It was the first time the company has broken out financials for its video unit. The company has seen growth in its premium services  [...]

LONDON -- It's barely a week since video distribution and monetization service Rightster became that rare beast - a technology floatation on London's stock markets. But CEO Charlie Muirhead, whose company raised £22.4 million ($36 million), tells Beet.TV he is already talking with companies he wants to buy to grow his video business further. "We're in discussion with a small number of [...]

LONDON -- While many news publishers have eyed the rise of so-called "programmatic" automated online ad trading with skepticism, Guardian News & Media has "embraced" the approach for four years, says revenue director Tim Gentry. The latest example is the deal Gentry signed with ad tech vendor MediaMath last month creating Response+, a trading desk which lets theguardian.com continue showing ads to [...]

LONDON -- To continue its strong growth path, the video business needs to ensure campaigns are viewable and accountable across all sites, says Nick Reid, Managing Director of the United Kingdom for video ad buying platform TubeMogul in an interview with Beet.TV. "The market isn't quite what it should be when it comes to viewability," he tells us in this video interview. That's why [...]

LONDON -- When it comes to content, digital media used to be seen as the poor relation to television. But, when it comes to measuring content, it's TV that's now imitating the web, says a Nielsen executive. "One of the most int trends we're seeing at the moment in Europe is the extent to which television is moving in to the [...]

LONDON -- There comes a point in the life of every buzz phrase when it knows the writing is on the wall. Has that time already come for "mobile-first", the industry's recent recognition that mobile devices are now the primary content consumption spaces for many consumers? "This idea of putting 'mobile first' is starting to become redundant," SMG's European executive director for [...]

LONDON - Marketers who use household targeting can allocate their budgets to various screens, depending on which are most used by different consumers, says Owen Hanks, General Manager of YuMe in Europe in an interview with Beet.TV. YuMe introduced its Household Targeting Solution in the UK this fall that lets brands target various members of a household across devices such as PC, [...]

LONDON -- "Programmatic" ad-buying, so much talked about through 2013 yet apparently so misunderstood, may be giving way to a clear and flexible definition of the practices it encompasses. Videology global accounts director Jana Eisenstein tells Beet.TV: "Our definition of 'programmatic' is automating media buying,  integrating supply and demand, making decisions in real-time and optimizing against elements you're seeing to allow you [...]

LONDON -- The best way for brands to exploit the real-time marketing opportunity is with a combination of copious amounts of data and a healthy dose of new-wave creativity, says ad group Starcom MediaVest Group's EMEA chief digital officer. "Real-time marketing is becoming a part of what we do on a day-to-day basis - we refer to it as 'agile marketing'," [...]

LONDON -- In a multi-screen advertising universe, what's the role of TV anymore? First amongst many but merely the seed for all, says one digital ad boss. "Our approach is integrated screen planning - we see all TV screen content as video," SMG's EMEA director of performance marketing and mobile development Richard Hocking tells Beet.TV. "The traditional 30-second TV spot is the trailer for [...]