As anticipated, eBay will be introducing an online contextual advertising system for eBay sellers to promote auctions, reports Reuters from the eBay Developers’ Conference in Las Vegas (via MarketingVox). Contextual ads will be placed on other websites in exchange for a share of the resulting eBay sales. The ads would link only to eBay auctions. A test of the program, dubbed eBay AdContext, is expected early this week.
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Vibrant Media is adding 15- and 30-second video clips to its sometimes-controversial IntelliTXT in-text contextual advertising unit, reports ClickZ (via MarketingVOX). The clip appears when users mouse over a targeted keyword on a site’s content. The advertiser’s message, along with a link, will remain next to the video. “IntelliTXT Video allows us to marry contextual and brand advertising,” according to Doug Stevenson, Vibrant’s CEO.
HBO will be the sole sponsor of the June 16 issue of The Week, Mediapost reports. All the ads will be part of a single photo spread featuring the stars of HBO’s drama Deadwood, which kicked off its third season of 12 episodes yesterday. The move will probably renew the branded editorial content debate raised when The New Yorker devoted all the advertising in its Aug. 22, 2004 edition to retail marketer Target.
In its aftermath, the American Society of Magazine Editors scolded The New Yorker and issued revised guidelines governing the separation of advertising and editorial content in consumer magazines during the American Magazine Conference last fall.
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MMR will release its 2005 Publication Readership Satisfaction Survey, which measures reader involvement and satisfaction with magazines on June 14, Mediaweek writes. The survey included 16,000 participants and measured engagement across 17 metrics for nearly 200 magazines.
The new alliance of 21st Century Marketing and Ralph Stevens Associates has won three catalog mailing lists from Starcrest Products of California, DM News reports. This is the first time these lists will be available for rental and the files comprise 700,000 new mail-order buyers who spend $50 or more on an average order.
The arrival could calm mailers concerned with the lack of prospects available on the list market.
The top 25 radio groups are expected to post revenue increases of only about 2.3 percent this year, according to a forecast from BIA Financial Network - and this view is actually more optimistic than Wall Street’s, as many analysts have already revised downward their forecasts to below 1 percent or lower, Billboard Radio Monitor writes. While radio continues to experience sluggish growth, it is “by no means a dying medium,” Mark Fratrik, VP of BIA, is quoted as saying, though he acknowledges that there are challenges to the industry.
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Media Buyers who purchase network ad inventory on a cost-per-performance basis could be paying more than once for the same customer, MediaPost reports. A study by aQuantive’s Atlas of 10 campaigns, involving 49.4 million impressions, that ran last October and November found that different ad networks frequently take the credit for the same customer who converts.
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When it comes to email marketing, smaller is better. Retailers’ email campaigns using lists of 100 addresses had the highest open rate (38.78 percent) but the third-highest click-through rate (10.67 percent), according to the VerticalResponse Q1 2006 Email Trends Report, Internet Retailer writes (via MarketingVOX). Campaigns using 100,000 addresses had the lowest open rate (14.41 percent) and the second-lowest click-through rate (4.05 percent). Retailers using lists of 250 email addresses had the highest click-through rate (14.7 percent); lists of 1 million produced the lowest rate (3.09 percent).
Turner Entertainment completed its upfront business late last week with Starcom to the tune of about $150 million, making that the second big upfront deal for cable - MTV Networks signed a deal for reportedly about $300 million with OMD - while upfront activity with the broadcast nets remains sluggish, according to Mediaweek.
Yes, Fox did some business with movie studies at CPM lifts as high as 4 percent, but the article points out that studios traditionally pay higher rates than other advertisers in exchange for selective positioning. CW cut some deals at pricing similar to those cut by the WB last upfront, and NBC did business at significant CPM cuts. Overall, the broadcast upfront - which has also been defined by plenty of misinformation and rumors - has not picked up much steam.
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Running Press, publisher of a young adult novel being released in September, has signed an unusual marketing deal with P&G’s makeup division Cover Girl; while no money exchanged hands, Cover Girl makeup is showcased in the book and in return, the book will be promoted on Beinggirl.com, a website directed at adolescent girls that includes, among other things, makeup tips, the New York Times reports.
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The start of the NBA finals between the Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat has been good to ABC. Game 1 averaged 9.3 household rating/15 share in Nielsen Media Research’s top 56 “metered” markets. That was a 6 percent gain over the first game of last year’s series, Reuter’s reports. That’s good news for American Airlines, which owns the naming rights to both arenas that the finals are being played in.
A new MySpace Motorola profile, My Very Thin Space, pushes the new MotoQ personal phone that can play music, send e-mail, take photos, and record video, MediaPost reports.
Aegis Group’s Carat has won media planning duties for The Gap after a review. Other contenders included WPP Group’s Mediaedge:cia, Publicis Groupe’s Starlink, independent Palisades Media Group and the buying incumbent, Omnicom Group’s PHD, Adweek reports.
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ABC News Radio has launched the first news service developed specifically for music stations, Mediaweek reports. The one-minute, twice-hourly service debuted Monday on ABC Radio’s Doug FM (WDRQ-FM) in Detroit, joining Mix WRQZ-FM and Smooth Jazz WJZW-FM, the company’s stations in Washington, D.C. that were the first to air FM News in April.
