- NBC News launch its new documentary series “Hidden Planet” not on TV, but on the “Rock Center with Brian Williams” iPad app, reports Broadcasting & Cable in an exclusive. This will be the first time NBC has premiered a series that way. Episodes of the monthly series will be exclusive to the iPad app for one week, before it becomes available on RockCenterNBC.com. The series takes the veteran foreign correspondent to such exotic destinations as Timbuktu and the Sahara Desert—places generally off the news radar.
- Mobile app rankings (including those for digital magazines and newspapers) will not be manipulated, pledges Apple. As paidContent describes, the company has acknowledged that third parties are offering download-bot services to inflate app rankings; and to place favorable reviews on apps. Apple declined comment to paidContent, but quickly issued a statement on its developer site that “Even if you are not personally engaged in manipulating App Store chart rankings or user reviews, employing services that do so on your behalf may result in the loss of your Apple Developer Program membership.”
- Subway has moved its domestic digital ad business (including search, mobile and display ads) to MediaCom, and away from Publicis, reports ClickZ. The sandwich chain is reportedly consolidating its U.S. business, and MediaCom has managed Subway’s offline ad business since 2000. Kantar Media clocks Subway’s 2011 digital spend at about $12.7 million, excluding mobile, but the chain announced it will up that spending considerably in 2012.
- Elsewhere in digital/agency news, Ad Age discovered that AOL is searching for an agency to refresh its image and spread the word “why people should care about AOL again.” Supposedly, the company finds consumers vague on its value proposition. AOL struggles against competitors Google and Yahoo, has also struggled to support its Patch.com community news outlet, but has recently acquired online properties Techcrunch and the Huffington Post. AOL posted Q4 2011 display ad revenues at $363.8 million, up 10% year-over-year.
“Discrepancies” Abound in Media Impressions say Publishers, Advertisers, Agencies
Ask a publisher, ad agency or third-party measurement service for a tally of impressions, and chances are the numbers will not match. The discrepancy boils down to the ad server and measurements the organization uses, a panel of experts told AdExchanger.com. Even if they are within 5%, “I’m not willing to lose 5% extra revenue because of the agency’s choice of ad server,” said Jay Wright, Yield Management Group Leader at Cars.com, an online marketplace. AdExchanger posed the question "What's your take on trends you're seeing with discrepancies in ad delivery reporting today?" the responses boiled down, largely, to “Who is measuring?”
Mitchell Weinstein, director of ad operations at media agency Universal McCann, believes discrepancies stem from using multiple ad servers on a single campaign; one server handles rich media while another handles video, for example. So, “It’s important to identify up front where…billing numbers will come from.” Weinstein hastens to add that revised Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) guidelines of December 2009 did away with far greater discrepancies.
Wright of Cars.com also observes improvement, but still a lack of precision, which can cost a publisher. Cars.com found that some 3rd party servers can routinely return discrepancies of up to 7% between the publisher and ad advertisers’ measurements. Wright is in favor of paying on first-party numbers—picking one measure (perhaps the publisher’s or the advertiser’s) and paying on it; or, have a rate card based on an agency’s choice of server.
While discrepancies are improving with technology, “There still exists a fundamental difference in who’s counting an impression when,” said Daniel Davies, director, US ad operations for Adnetik. The Adnetik technology compiles and resolves data between exchanges, ad networks and publisher sites. “What we sometimes end up with is a handful of varying snapshots, all taken of the same thing, but at slightly different times,” and the number of entities making those measurements grows yearly. Davies sums up the solution very well for most of the panelists: technology and standardization have to keep pace. Davies observes that “computing muscle and stamina backing digital advertising” is keeping the discrepancies from growing in pace with the number of digital ad outlets . That number will not keep growing; it is the responsibility of the industry to find technology that keeps pace.
WSJ Reports Top Ad Trends 2012: Think Mobile, Soft Core, Hard Edge and Humor
The Wall Street Journal polled ad industry luminaries, and reports that digital media are breathing life into the supposedly declining TV commercial, print ad and print catalog formats. Google for example has unveiled an app to aggregate print catalogs, including those for LL Bean and Pottery Barn. iPads provide a new platform for print ads, and YouTube enables commercials to go viral. (As of this writing, that Volkswagen commercial with a boy in a Darth Vader mask has had 48 million views.) WSJ expects “couch potato gatherings” to gain steam, with viewers using virtual communities to meet and comment during broadcasts. “TV networks will pump it up because it encourages live watching and thus commercial watching,” CEO Daniel Khabie of Digitaria (a digital marketing firm) told WSJ.
Khabie and other interviewees predicted “Facebook fatigue,” spurred largely by advertising, alas. But large brands will tie their identities to social marketing, chiefly through a Facebook presence, if not through Facebook ads. Mobile devices will be a powerful advertising outlet, as “the link between mobile and commercial thickens” in 2012, speculates the CEO of Digitas North America. Finally, interviewers expect advertising to become more targeted, more sexual and foul mouthed, and light hearted.
Magna: 2012 Mediaspend to Grow 4.7 Percent
IPG's Magna predicts that global media spending will hit $427 billion in 2012, up 4.7 percent from estimated 2011 mediaspend. That is a 0.5 percent decrease from the firm's previous 2012 estimates.
US media forecasts are slightly less rosy, at 3.7 percent growth to $153 billion. Interestingly, China may pop up to the second largest ad market in 2012, partly due to its own organic growth, and partly due to unexpected adspend declines in tsunami-hit Japan.
Two other ad giants published 2012 forecasts that were equally or slightly more optimistic than Magna's newest prediction. Zenith Optimedia predicts 4.7 percent growth. GroupM predicts that the Olympics will add still more momentum, driving world spend to $522 billion, a 6.4 percent increase over 2011.
MySpace Owners See Room for Artists, Celebs | Google, Facebook Plug-ins Slow Sites, Impact Commerce?
-
Specific Media, the company that purchased ailing social network MySpace, plans to make the website a place to interact with celebrities and artists and to view content produced specifically for Myspace, writes the Los Angeles Times. "Thirty-five million unique users in the U.S. every single month come to it. That is a massive property online,” said Tim Vanderhook, who co-owns the company with his brother, Chris.
-
Forrester has released a new research series called Community Speaks, based upon a market research online community (MROC) of more than 2,000 participants. The series provides market researchers with qualitative consumer insights built from data on topics such as customer experience and loyalty, consumer technology adoption, and media and Internet behaviors and attitudes.
-
Calculating that the Google’s +1 plug-in and a Facebook’s ‘like’ plug-in slows page-load time by 1.2 seconds, and citing research that indicates that 10% of site traffic is lost for every extra second a site takes to load, the Tag Man Blog has an interesting take on what kind of impact the two plug-ins could make to an e-commerce site. That translates to more than a 10% loss in visitors, and by extension, in conversion. Otherwise put, an online business with $35 million in revenue could lose over $3.5 million in sales using just these two plug-ins.
-
Search optimization company SEOmoz has introduced a search product that allows marketers to see inbound links to their brands' sites as well as other link-identifying information. The company's Open Site Explorer search engine shows what other companies are linking to a particular website, top pages and content on a domain. The software also indicates what content is drawing the most links to competitors' websites and allows users to compare up to five domains side by side, writes B-to-B Online.
Report: Global Ad Spend to Return to $471 Billion in 2011
Global ad expenditure will grow by 4.1% in 2011 to return to $471 billion, the level it had achieved in 2008 before the recession, according to an update from ZenithOptimedia. The ad market continues to recover from the 2009 recession, but growth has dipped this year in response to economic pressures, natural disaster and political disruption. More robust growth is forecast to resume in 2012 and 2013.
In North America, ad spending will reach $165.3 billion this year, up 2.3% over last year. That is also down slightly from the 2.6% growth forecast in April. The sheer size of the US – 3.3 times the next-largest market – means it will contribute the most new ad dollars to the global market over the next three years (US$13.8 billion), despite its slow growth.
NBC Sports Will Handle NHL Ad Sales | Online Budget a Concern for Soap Opera Stars
-
NBC Sports Group has reached an advertising deal with the NHL that gives the network oversight of the teams’ national sales. The agreement follow April’s $2 billion deal that extends media rights for league games for 10 more years. The new ad sales deal is limited to the next five years. Terms of the new deal were not disclosed, writes Paid Content.
-
With the agreement in place to move "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" from television to the internet with online distribution company Prospect Park, the shows’ stars are divided over whether to move online, or to move on, according to Fox News. The move will entail serious cost cutting, including the salaries of the programs’ high-priced talent, should they choose to sign on.
-
Syfy's three-hour Monday night lineup got off to a fast start. Rookie dramaAlphaswas the cable network's most-watched series debut since 2009, delivering 2.5 million viewers following veteran series Eureka and Warehouse 13. At 10 p.m., 1.2 million belonged to the ad-coveted adults 18-49 demographic and 1.3 million were in the older 25-54 demo, writes the Hollywood Reporter.
-
Netflix has changed its pricing and will no longer offer a plan that includes streaming and DVD. Instead, subscribers will have to choose or pay for two plans -- which amounts to a 60% price increase. Unlimited online streaming stays at $7.99; the DVD-only monthly fees range from $7.99 (1 at a time) to $11.99 (2 at a time). And a DVD and streaming is 15.98. The switch takes effect immediately for new subscribers but existing subs get current pricing until Sept. 1, reports Paid Content.
Apple iAd Discounts Run Deep for Multiple Campaigns | The Voice Mix of Live and Social
-
More than a year after Apple launched iAds in June 2010, the iAd is floundering, writes Daily Tech, listing Citigroup and J.C. Penney as highfalutin clients that have dropped out of $1M USD iAd contracts they entered at launch. Generally, Apple now offers a $500,000 flat rate -- half the original price -- and there is speculation that discounts run even deeper for agencies bringing in multiple campaigns, by as much as 70%.
-
NBC’s new hit The Voice has done well in the convergence of live broadcast and social web, writes Lost Remote, suggesting that the “genius behind the digital success” is that social media isn’t seen as a secondary marketing vehicle but as core to the entire production. Digital producer Andrew Adashek accounts for some of the social success by the show's reaction to what they were finding in the Twitter feed. "Twitter was super helpful in sharing what was working with us and showing us, and pulling back the veil and saying what was helpful."
-
Online will attract a greater portion of global ad spend this year than previously expected, according to WPP-owned media buying outfit GroupM. The company forecasts measured digital advertising will account for 17 percent of global advertising in 2011, a point ahead of the 16 percent it had previously predicted in December. In addition, the group estimated the digital ad sector is growing at between 15 and 16 percent annually, and that it will exceed $100 billion in spend, worldwide, by 2012, reports ClickZ.com.
Chart: Top 10 Least Effective Ads, Q2 2011
About this chart: Source: Ace Metrix, “Quarterly Top 10 National Ads,” July 2011. Definition: Ace Score is the measure of ad creative effectiveness based on viewer reaction to national TV ads. Respondents are randomly selected and representative of the U.S. TV viewing audience. The results are presented on a scale of 0-950, which represents scoring on creative attributes such as relevance, persuasion, watchability, information, attention, and others.
Report: Coca-Cola’s “Shape” Ranks First for Q2 TV Ads
Coca-Cola’s “Shape” spot that featured its new bottle design was the most effective television advertisement for the second quarter ending June 30, 2011 according to Ace Metrix’s, “Quarterly Top 10 National Ads,” a guide for television advertising effectiveness.
The ad, which was Coke’s highest scoring ad of the last three years and the second-highest scoring ad out of more than 500 beverage ads in the Ace Metrix database, received an Ace Score of 670 compared to the Beverage category norm of 551.
The second quarter top ten list was dominated by new products and packaging enhancements across several different categories. Oreo launched its Fudge Creme line extension with a new spot featuring a family’s “indescribably good” reaction to the new cookie.
Other product launch and packaging enhancement ads include Google’s Chrome browser, Subway’s new salads, M&M’s “design your own M&Ms,” Magnum Ice Creams’ U.S. market launch, Wendy’s new sea salt French fries, Orville Redenbacher’s new popcorn bag, and the iPad 2.
The third highest-scoring ad, Google’s “Dear Sophie,” narrates a little girl’s life through the eyes of her father using a Gmail “diary” that demonstrates the capabilities of Google Chrome.