Douglas L Ross: Advertising

Targeted Television Advertising

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 14:28:06 GMT

There is a significant battle going on for control of the intellectual property surrounding the delivery of targeted television and internet advertising.

Ad firm 24/7 pushing for patent power. 24/7 Real Media wins another patent for delivering digital ads, giving it new authority over the online-ad serving market as it pursues patent licenses to improve shareholder value. [CNET News.com]

Targeted Advertising

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 17:33:18 GMT

This article is about the expansion of the bid-for-ad-placement concept from strictly the search domain to the general "web-site" browsing context.

If You Liked the Web Page, You'll Love the Ad. Online publishers are beginning to sense the possibilities of having Google or Overture serve ads to their audiences. By Bob Tedeschi. [New York Times: Technology]

Carat On ITV Advertising

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 15:01:04 GMT

Carat has an interesting little item on their web site.

Is interactive TV advertising a lost dream?

09-Mar-2003

To many observers, interactive TV is starting to look like an unfulfilled marketing revolution. Potentially, iTV can bring a new dimension to advertising by adding relationship-building and transaction to what is already the most powerful brand-building medium. But operators' financial problems, over-promised and under-delivered technology and poor communication of digital's benefits have stalled mass take-up by consumers. With the current mismatch between potential and reality, is it worth investing time and money in interactive advertising?

Evidence collected by Carat strongly suggests that it is, and that iTV advertising can already deliver marketing ROI.

Although almost no-one switches to digital TV for the interactive services, Carat research with Netpoll has found that once people have access to them, they use them to an increasing degree.

Integrated Digital Ad Delivery System

Mon, 21 Apr 2003 13:31:15 GMT

GTN, essentially an advertising agency which produces advertising [mainly for the Auto Industry] and Starnet [MediaDVX division which delivers digital ads via satellite, owned by the Lenfest people] have created an integrated system which uses an order entry system for adertising [owned by GTN] to enable ad agencies to direct digital ads to the right recipients by aligning the GTN order entry information with delivery information in MediaDVX's satellite distribution system. The integrated system does at least three important things:

It allows ad agencies to maintain control of digital ads from the time the ad leaves the "creative" computers until they reach the local broadcast or cable ad insertion points via MediaDVX's satellite system.
It reduces the time to deliver digital ads from days or hours, to minutes.
It thereby increases the amount of time available to the agency to create and customize the ads for local market conditions, essentially creating something like a "just-in-time" ad delivery system.

AOL's Mystro

Mon, 31 Mar 2003 15:03:02 GMT

Reuters is reporting that a key element of AOL Time Warner's Mystro project is thought to be Mystro's ability to preserve the advertising model for broadcasters.

Branded Entertainment

Thu, 20 Mar 2003 19:50:56 GMT

Business 2.0 article about the idea of producing media that actually builds a (sympathetic) story around an advertisers brand.

Supreme Court On Spam

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 13:50:26 GMT

Foes lock horns in Web filtering case. The Supreme Court hears arguments to decide whether a law aimed at installing Net filters on public library systems balances free speech with the need to restrict porn. [CNET News.com]

Google

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 14:48:40 GMT

An interesting summary of what Google is by a guy named Jason Kottke: "Google is not a search company." via Kevin Werbog's weblog. [Werblog]

NYT on the Google Targeted Advertising Announcement

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 12:01:29 GMT

It's interesting that the weblog world was all abuzz about this yesterday but the NYT didn't pick up on it until today.

Technology Briefing: E-Commerce. GOOGLE INTRODUCES NEW AD SERVICE; ELECTRONIC ARTS DROPS PUBLIC OFFERING PLAN;. [New York Times: Business]

Google and Targeted Advertising

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 20:04:09 GMT

Google announced today (http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/advertising.html) a "content-targeted advertising" service which proposes to replace general website ads with "relevant sponsored links" similar to those displayed in its own search engine, and in the search pages of its affiliates.

Here's how "content-targeted advertising" by Google appears to work:

Google's proprietary classification engines identify "the meaning of a web page"
Based on that, and presuming a 3-way arrangement between Advertisers - Google - Websites, Google then automatically serves "relevant" ads from its stable of participating advertisers
Relevance to a website is [apparently] based on Google's classification scheme, and the order of relevant ads served is [apparently] based on Google-measured click-through response rates [now competing with Double-Click and others].

Here's a link to a Motley Fool article about this: Google's Banner Day. The search king moves into third-party advertising. [The Motley Fool] and another in Wired News: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,57900,00.html

Cable vs Broadcast Advertising

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 16:08:59 GMT

An interesting article in Cableworld about the difference between Broadcast Network and Cable Network advertising rates. Among other things, Cableworld points out that cable advertising CPM's are half that of the Networks in prime time...

"According to Nielsen Media Research's Monitor-Plus service, which measures ad spending in all major media, buyers spent $21.10 to reach each 1,000 viewers in the key 18-to-49-year-old demographic (called cost-per-thousand, expressed as CPM in agency jargon) during prime time on broadcast, compared to $10.60 on cable."

Consolidation In The Advertising Research Ranks

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 13:56:14 GMT

http://www.thearf.org/Webpages/press-release/p4_1voice.htm

Advertising Spending Looking Up

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 13:14:10 GMT

A number of sources have begun to predict improved advertising spending trends in 2003 / 2004. Here are a few examples:

AdAge reporting on study by Morgan Anderson Consulting http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=37265

AdAge informal survey of ad executives http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=37229

AdAge reports on forecasts by Interpublic and Zenith Optimedia http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=36705

Nielsen NetRatings Announces

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 20:02:59 GMT

Nielsen has launched a 1.0 million plus "MegaPanel" research service in which internet users agree to let embedded Nielsen software track their on-line web use and e-commerce activity [in exchange for contest prizes, etc.]

Here's an article about it in InternetNews.com: http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/1587681

Internet.com Article About Cross-Media Advertising

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 19:36:39 GMT

What are Dot-Spots?

The Nielsen Deal With Ucentric

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 16:09:27 GMT

December 2, 2002 - Nielsen and Ucentric announced a deal on audience measurement software''. Here's how Nielsen described the deal...

"Nielsen Media Research and Ucentric Systems announced today an agreement to create television audience measurement software that will track usage of personal video recorders on multiple television sets. Many digital set-top boxes will be powered by Ucentric Multi-TV PVR applications. Under the agreement, Nielsen software will be integrated into the Ucentric system. This will enable Nielsen to collect tuning, recording and playback information from every TV set in the home connected to the Ucentric system."

Nielsen Deal With NBC Includes Digital Encoding For Audience Measurement

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 15:55:52 GMT

Nielsen's Feb 20, 2003 press release announced a seven year agreement with NBC to provide audience measurement services. The release also referred to a "digital encoding sytem" as follows:

"The agreement also builds on a strong engineering foundation between the two companies. NBC has agreed to implement Nielsen’s digital encoding system to be used in Nielsen’s new metering system for producing television ratings. The new Active/Passive metering system will be introduced in 2004. In sample homes, the A/P Meter will identify programs, stations and networks from electronic codes embedded in programs at the distribution source. NBC and Nielsen engineers will work closely together as new digital distribution systems come to the market."