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November 2007

November 30, 2007

Tribune Interactive Joins YouTube Distribution Wave

Tribune Interactive, the online division of the Tribune Company, is looking to capitalize on YouTube's distribution system and has launched a number of channels for its newspaper and television stations.

Tribune papers like the Chicago Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel, and television stations KTLA in Los Angeles or WGN in Chicago, will continue to have their own Web site presences, but each will have a YouTube dedicated channel as well. Michael Dizon, communications manager for Tribune Interactive, repeatedly told me that the expanded distribution that YouTube provides was the big draw.

"We invest a lot of time money and resources on our video content, and this partnership with YouTube is another way of making sure that we make this available to the greatest number of people," he said. "Our long term goal is to continue to populate these Web sites with as much good local content as possible."

The channels include advertising in the form of InVideo overlays, that run with the video content produced by the Tribune's news organizations.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 29, 2007

EyeWonder Offers Ad Widgets. Are Your Ads Worth Sharing?

Here's one for all you marketers with widgets to promote. EyeWonder
has begun offering multi-function, sharable (a.k.a. "widget") ads within display units through a partnership with Gigya.

Gigya does not create the widgets. Rather it has the technical chops to guarantee existing widgets can be syndicated to numerous blogging platforms and social networking sites. It offers reporting as well.

In other words, if you already have a widget or want to let EyeWonder create a multi-paned video widget for you, you can stick it in a rich media ad and rest easy in the knowledge that it will be able to talk to Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, WordPress and other platforms.

Here's a sample:

Pretty nifty. Yet the ads aren't quite slick enough. The syndication features in particular ask a tad too much of the user. For instance, the "quick post" function for Facebook requests that I add a widget called "My Stuff" from Gigya. Come again? I thought I was installing an EyeWonder widget.

Anyway, the first client to use the product is Samsung's Juke phone, courtesy of ad agency Cheil USA.

It bears repeating that while widgets are certainly a notable trend this year, and it makes sense to retrofit your cooler ads with this kind of functionality, bloggers and social networking users deploy this stuff for very different reasons. Therefore it may be a mistake to lump them together in a single "widget ad buy."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Google Doubleclick Decision by Mid-December?

A trusted source told me a Federal Trade Commission decision on Google's acquisition of DoubleClick could come by the middle of December. Wow, now that could make for some serious holiday celebration and/or lumps of coal depending on whose side you're on.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 28, 2007

MediaNews Group Socializes with Topix

Yesterday local news aggregator and community Topix announced a partnership with MediaNews Group to enable Web forums and comments for the newspaper publisher's sites, including San Jose Mercury News and Denver Post. Other sites including GoErie.com, Zap2It.com, KOB.com, and CapitalTimes.com are also using Topix's social platform.

Topix has shifted gears over the past year or so, switching its domain from .net to .com, and adding its own social news features in the hopes of becoming a hub for local citizen journalism.

For MediaNews Group and other paper publishers, enabling social features like forums, comments, photo uploads (for high school sports especially), is a great way to build ad inventory. And newspaper publishers need all the ad revenue they can get.

For the record, Topix is partly-owned by paper publishing giants Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Major U.K. Broadcasters Team up for Landmark Partnership

Three of the U.K.'s largest broadcasters are to join forces in launching an On-Demand entertainment service, potentially presenting marketers with new online advertising opportunities.

Subject to approval from their respective board members, BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 will launch a three-way on-demand TV content service in 2008.

The project, temporarily titled "Kangaroo," will initially be launched as an online-only service, before rolling out to other platforms. An official name and brand for the service will be unveiled at a later date.

The joint venture will be equally owned by all three broadcasters, with each taking a share of revenue.

Although specific details of the revenue model are not detailed in the press release, it states that viewers will have access to free content, as well as having the option to rent or buy.

Presumably, therefore, the free content will be supported by advertising.

Quoted in the press release, Andy Duncan, Channel 4 chief executive described the deal as "good news" for advertisers and viewers alike.

Lesley MacKenzie, previously director of Channels and Operations at BSkyB, has been appointed as launch CEO.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MoveOn's Facebook Privacy Campaign: Pot, Kettle, Black?

Judging by the astounding rate at which MoveOn's Facebook group 'Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!' is gaining members, it's clear that there is a great deal of public concern surrounding the way in which the site is using user data.

One of the key privacy issues for MoveOn, according to the petition group page, is the fact that Facebook's new 'Beacon' ad format automatically shares information about a user's activity gathered on third-party sites.

The text in the group description, presumably written by MoveOn, states, "Facebook says its users can 'opt out' of having their private purchases reported to all their friends. But that option is easily missed."

It continues; "The obvious solution is to switch to an 'opt in' policy, like most other applications on Facebook."

I couldn't agree more! However, an interesting comment on the group wall was pointed out to me yesterday. A member has posted the following:

"Well, I tried to write this yesterday but it looks like it was removed. I'd love to sign a petition, but I am not going to sign something that will automatically subscribe me to moveon.com emails. Sorry."

I took a look at the petition on the MoveOn.org site earlier today. The privacy policy is outlined at the bottom of the page and reads; "MoveOn will send you updates on this and other important campaigns by email. If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from our email list, you may do so."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this reads very much like an 'opt-out' policy to me. Admittedly, if someone is interested enough to sign an online petition, the assumption is that he or she will want to be updated on its progress. However, I'm not sure that sending e-mail updates on campaigns that MoveOn deem to be "important" really passes as an acceptable use of user data.

To avoid hypocrisy therefore, perhaps MoveOn should take some of its own advice. To quote their Facebook group description once again, maybe "the obvious solution is to switch to an 'opt in' policy" for future e-mail correspondence.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 27, 2007

Debate Over Cyber Monday

The holiday season is a time of elevated sales both offline and online, no question. And while Black Friday is commonly known as the day when consumers converge on malls and big box stores, but it's not the busiest shopping day of the season. "Although most of the news is about how big of a deal the offline sales are; typically the biggest retail day during the season is actually the week before Christmas," said Youn-Bean Song, VP of analytics at Atlas Institute when discussing a recent holiday study.

So true is the misconception about Black Friday (which experienced a nice increase in online sales last week), it also exists for Cyber Monday. The same Atlas study forecasts online shopping's peak will take place closer to shipping cut-off dates in mid-December. The debate over the busiest online shopping day of the year actually makes the day a moving target, depending on the length of the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's commonly placed at the Monday after Thanksgiving. The Atlas study states December 11 as the big day due to a peak in online sales. This week press releases stated, "It's not Cyber Monday, it's Cyber Week." Wikipedia defines Cyber Monday as "the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season in the United States between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas." Is the designation still up for debate? Is it relevant at all? There's no question yesterday was significant online. Akamai registered 4.6 million visitors per minute at the day's peak around 2:00 p.m. EST, and said online visits to Akamai sites surpassed 2006's visits by 10:00 a.m. EST. If this isn't the highest-earning online shopping day of the season, what will the remaining days look like? Especially when early reports speak of more modest growth this year.

Posted by Enid Burns at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Facebook Ad Trial Update

Zero clicks. Zilch. Nada. Facebook ran my ad 1,086 times, but no one clicked. Yesterday I decided to do a Facebook ad experiment, ponying up 5 whole dollars from my own personal funds for a one-day maximum CPC campaign spend.

Today I'm re-running the campaign. This time 'round I'm sticking with the same exact ad creative but targeting a much broader audience of "people in the United States who like Baking, Rock, Punk, or Punk Rock." According to the system, that brings my audience up to 682,600 as opposed to yesterday's narrower 185,960 potential ad viewers.

That whopping $5 daily minimum is still burning a whole in my pocket, Facebook. Help me spend it!

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 26, 2007

FIM to Serve Ads Outside News Corp Empire

In February, MySpace parent Fox Interactive Media, a News Corp company, acquired ad tech firm Strategic Data Corporation to handle the ad management back end for a portion of the display ads on its sites. At the time FIM said it would use the system to manage ads targeted to all sites in its network, excluding FoxSports.com, IGN Entertainment, Rotten Tomatoes, Fox.com, and of course, MySpace.

Now FIM President Peter Levinsohn says that ad management platform is near ready, and could eventually extend to media properties beyond the FIM and News Corp walls. According to Reuters, Levinsohn told an audience at the Reuters Media Summit in New York today the platform could be unveiled as early as the first half of '08.

This is no big surprise, considering Yahoo is also aiming to be the next big ad network and AOL already does it with Advertising.com. Oh, and Google serves a few ads on other properties, too....

"We're well down the path in terms of discussions with some of the other News Corp properties to do ad serving," he said, according to the story. "Ultimately we'll take the company off network and become an ad network for assets outside of the News Corporation empire."

So, does that make his boss Darth Murdoch?

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rockin' the Facebook Ads

Considering the hubbub about Facebook ads invading user privacy, I thought I'd see what a search for "Facebook ads" returned in Google search results. Nothing anti-Facebook popped up on the first page of results. No Facebook ad competitors, either.

What did come up was an ad for Facebook ads: "Reach the exact audience you want with relevant targeted ads," read the sponsored search result, linking to www.facebook.com/ads/.

The exact audience, eh? Well, in my spare time, I sell an item that has a very niche audience. And, indeed, it could be and has been advertised online. So, I figured I'd try an experiment advertising my punk rock cookie cookbook and electric guitar cookie cutter, Cookie Chaos!, on Facebook.

Being such a big spender, I agreed to run a text ad for the day with a $5 maximum spend on $.10/per click ads. Sure, the ads aren't the same ones Facebook is catching all the heat for, but what the heck.

I told the system what audience I want to reach, choosing keywords to show user interests, and picking gender, age, relationship status and political persuasion. It spit out the following: "I want to reach liberal, moderate, and conservative people age 15 and older who are single, in a relationship, engaged, or married in the United States who like baking, guitar, punk, or punk rock."

Based on who I said I wanted to reach, the system began tabulating how many users would be in that audience: 185,960. But what's interesting is the more demographic groups I added, the fewer people in the pool. For instance, when I don't choose "liberal," "moderate" or "conservative," the number of people in my target audience goes up to over 386,000.

So, I'm running the ad from now until midnight PST. I'll keep you posted.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Class A Classmates Shares

Everybody's favorite online advertiser (besides LowerMyBills) is going public. Maybe those investment dollars will help Classmates Media modernize the tired ad creative it's been using for so many years.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Anti-Facebook Petition Gains Momentum -- on Facebook!

Fellow reporter Zach Rodgers posted last week on the Facebook privacy petition from MoveOn.org.

In August I kept a close eye on the U.K. National Union of Students' Facebook campaign against overdraft charges titled "Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-off". I was astonished by the rate at which new members were joining, but that proved nothing in comparison to the way users are signing up to the "Facebook: stop invading my privacy!" group.

When Zach blogged on the group on November 21st, it had approximately 6,200 members. When I took a look at the group on November 23rd the group had almost doubled in size to around 11,000 members. Three days later the group has amassed in excess of 23,000 members! Even since I began writing this post, over 100 new members have joined the group.

Online campaigns such as these clearly demonstrate the potential influence of networks such as Facebook in a wider social context. I bet Facebook weren't counting on being on the receiving end of that influence though!

Posted by Jack Marshall at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 23, 2007

Barry Diller Bringing Ask.com, $100M to China

IAC/InteractiveCorp., owner of over 60 interactive brands including search site Ask.com, will reportedly invest up to $100 million to build its business in China.

Chief Executive Barry Diller told journalists in Bejing that the company will likely launch a Chinese version of Ask.com within two years and plans to invest $100 million in an online gaming venture based there, MarketWatch reports today.

IAC, to date, has invested $200 million in China, Reuters reports. That investment involves IAC's Expedia, which has a majority stake in China's eLong.

Looks like Diller has some money to throw around. IAC, in its Sept. 30 earnings report, said it had had $1.8 billion in cash on hand and marketable securities.

In 2006, 9 percent of IAC's $6.3 billion in revenue came from media and advertising, including Ask.com, Evite, and CitySearch. As of

Earlier this month, Diller announced plans to split IAC into five companies. The plan calls for leaving the Internet and advertising-related entities intact under IAC's banner. Other new companies would include: HSN for retail businesses; Ticketmaster for ticket sales; Interval International for timeshare properties; and LendingTree for real estate and lending businesses.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 21, 2007

MoveOn Campaign Takes on Facebook... on Facebook

Of the ad-related feature enhancements Facebook rolled out earlier this month, its Beacon project to share customer transaction data with Web site partners was obviously top contender for the "most likely to piss off users" award. And now the backlash has commenced with a new Facebook-based ad campaign and petition from MoveOn.org.

MoveOn has placed ads which drive traffic to a group it's created with the name "facebook: stop invading my privacy!" On the group page are links to a demo of Beacon in action and an online petition entreating the company to make the feature opt-in rather than opt out. Indeed, the main point of contention for MoveOn is the unwieldy requirements for begging off the service. MoveOn does a decent job of articulating what's actually a very complicated offering. This from the Facebook Group:

Matt in New York already knows what his girlfriend got him for Christmas...

Why? Because a new Facebook feature automatically shares books, movies, or gifts you buy online with everyone you know on Facebook. Without your consent, it pops up in your News Feed--a huge invasion of privacy. (See demo below.)

The missive continues, but that's the gist of it. Approximately 6,200 Facebook users had joined the group at the time of this posting.

Facebook knew this was coming. At its first press conference announcing Beacon and its related ad platform, numerous reporters asked about the privacy implications of the feature. CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded only by saying it was always open to user feedback. MoveOn and many Facebook's own users appear determined to test that pledge.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 19, 2007

Google Video Units Hit the U.K.

Google has today announced the availability of its AdSense Video Units in the U.K. and Ireland, following the U.S. launch in October.

As reported by ClickZ News last month, the units allow publishers to display YouTube content within an embedded player on their site. Content-relevant text overlay ads are then displayed within the lower portion of the unit, with ads rotated every 20 seconds. Ads are sold on a CPM or cost-per-click basis.

Publishers can choose categories of video to target their site, specify individual YouTube partners, or have video units automatically target their site with relevant video. In theory this will allow U.K. sites to display U.K.-only content if required or desired. Other than that, the units themselves are identical to their U.S. equivalents. In a press release, David Thacker, group product manager for Google stated the program will "create a new revenue opportunity for publishers and content owners, and help advertisers reach their target audiences in new and innovative ways."

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MySpace Targets Ad to Print Sibling

Online media giant MySpace is using a print newspaper ad to push its new hyper-targeting capabilities. Can you guess which paper has a half-page ad touting "HyperTargeting by MySpace" today? That's right, The Wall Street Journal, another subsidiary of the ever-expanding News Corp..

The ad even subtly promotes another News Corp property, Fox's Family Guy.

"HyperTargeting, the new advertising solution available only through MySpace allows marketers to tap into the largest global social network like never before," reads the ad.

Superimposed over a park full of people are bubbles featuring declarations like, "I love hip hop," "I love hybrids," and "I love Family Guy."

The ad for the "World's Largest Ad Targeting Platform" also claims, "HyperTargeting helps you to: Target self-expressed user interests and passions/Connect with your desired audience on a massive scale/Achieve significant performance increases vs. traditional targeting campaigns."

What many of us see today on MySpace, however, is anything but hyper-targeted. Visiting the site just now, I was served two generic lead gen ads. One was for the ubiquitous "Crush Calculator," urging me to "Calculate the exact name of [my] perfect lover," despite the fact that my MySpace profile lists me as married. Crush Calculator, a lead generator for the official-sounding mobile entertainment firm National Telephone Advisory, lures users to subscribe to paid cell phone content like predictions.

Another ad seen on my profile page was for a credit report service PrivacyMatters.com.

By the way, MySpace HyperTargeting has 43 friends. I suppose MySpace's ad platform will put them in the "I love hypertargeting" audience category.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 16, 2007

Ron Paul Gets Web Ad Hug from Freedom Loving PAC

It looks like some of the first online ads endorsing a specific presidential candidate bought by a non-campaign entity ran last month. And they were placed by those rabidly loyal fans of Congressman Ron Paul -- go figure.

Americans United for Freedom PAC ran 12,000 impressions of this ad endorsing the Web grassroots phenom's presidential bid on Drudge Report, according to Nielsen Online, AdRelevance. The ads linked to the GOP underdog's official campaign site. The organization has also run TV spots for Paul.

There's tons more about what candidates ran what ads where in October here.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 15, 2007

Coke gets Bubbly over Joost

If you really want to tell friends what you think about an online television show, Coca-Cola is making it possible to share your comments… as long as they come from pouring out of a soda bottle. Internet television system Joost has its first advertising widget in the form of Coke Bubbles, which allows users to attach comments to scenes from televised shows and then send them to friends. When recipients open the e-mail and visit the Joost site to see the show, the comments will appear in a bubble over the screen. Which seems similar to VH1's Pop-Up Video to me.

Coca-Cola has been a sponsor of Joost since it launched earlier this year, and the company’s European team came up with the widget. The two companies have also formed a partnership to help widget developers create and launch more widgets for the site, and are planning a contest to be announced at today's Joost Developer Days event in London.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 9:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Traditional Ad Agencies, an Endangered Species

Traditional ad agencies have the most to lose during the transition to digital advertising. At least that's the assessment of 44 percent of those executives interviewed by consultancy Accenture.

One in three say broadcasters could be the biggest losers. And, they aren't referring to the reality show.

"The dual challenges of technology and cultural adoption create a pessimistic perspective on the fate of the traditional advertising agency," warns Accenture's media and entertainment team in its global digital advertising study released this week.

What's more, the consultancy says some business leaders contend that traditional agencies are incapable of adapting to the digital era, thus clearing the way for technology savvy upstarts to fill the void.

Businesses with the most to win during advertising's evolution? Online search companies and digital advertising specialists, say survey respondents. The consultancy interviewed 70 business leaders from advertisers, media companies, ad agencies, and technology providers earlier this year.

Survey respondents predict advertising will be viewed on three screens -- television, computer, and wireless handset. And, advertising agencies must be prepared to support all three.

Advertising will become more performance based. "In effect, this change will put TV advertising on the same basis as the film industry's weekend box office -- with accurate measurement of results, rapidly delivered," the Accenture team says.

Advertising agencies, to survive, must master technology to target advertising, perform customer analytics, measure performance, and interact with customers. Fewer than one in four respondents said their companies are equipped to do so now.

The global annual spend on television advertising is currently pegged at more than $150 billion, almost 10 times larger than expenditures for online advertising. Still, more than two in five business leaders say they expect digital media will become the primary form of programming and advertising content within the next five years.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gaming Events Draw Major Sponsors

It seems clear that some major brands are taking video game tournaments and events as an effective means of reaching their target audience. Having worked with them for the past year, PepsiCo's Mountain Dew soda brand signed on again with the Championship Gaming Series (CGS) worldwide professional gaming league for another year of sponsorship. Mountain Dew’s deal with the league consists of TV and event promotions, and includes the "Dew Trophy" to be awarded to the CGS World Champion next month, along with a $500,000 top prize. Separately, the Austin Independent Game Conference has signed on IBM, Icarus Studios, Vivox, and GNi as sponsors of its event for game developers later this month.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Marvel Opens its Comic Vaults for Online Reading

Marvel Comics, and the comic book industry in general, has a problem. The next generation of potential comic book readers, the kids and pre-teens, aren't reading their books, because they're too busy doing stuff online! The average age of consumers willing to actually pick up a paper comic book has been increasingly skewing older, as the younger generation comes to know heroes like Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four from other mediums, like film or games.

So what's Marvel's answer to how to expose new readers to its classic comic characters and their print books? They're putting them online. As mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article, Marvel Entertainment is putting large numbers of issues from its comic vault online. The company is sharing not only newly released titles, like Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men run, but also the classic first issue runs of Spider-Man, The Avengers, Uncanny X-Men and others. It's charging a subscription to access the comics, ranging from $4.99 a month for a year's subscription, to $9.99 on a month to month basis.

Marvel is clearly willing to experiment with reaching out to viewers, and advertisers, in new ways to keep its readership fresh. Last month it signed a deal with advertising rep company Gorilla Nation to start experiment with sponsorship opportunities (although I checked and Gorilla Nation admitted it hadn't had a hand in this promotional event).

As media changes it's interesting to see how some companies are trying to use the new to reach back to the old. And it should also be interesting to see what results this online sharing of classic content garners Marvel in the long run.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 6:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Florida AG Slaps Italian Firm with Cyber Fraud Suit

The Florida AG's office has struck again. After getting AzoogleAds to "contribute" $1 million to Florida's Department of Legal Affairs Revolving Trust Fund last week, Attorney General Bill McCollum and his trusty new CyberFraud Task Force announced it is suing Buongiorno USA, a digital entertainment firm.

The Office claims the company has greeted consumers' cell phone bills with charges for ringtones they were duped into believing would be free. "In the lawsuit filed yesterday, Attorney General McCollum asked for a permanent injunction against the company, substantial penalties and restitution to all customers who were taken advantage of by the misleading internet marketing," states a press release from the AG's Office. "The lawsuit also seeks to stop the deceptive sale of other cell phone content that is falsely advertised as 'free,' such as horoscopes, jokes of the day and wallpapers."

The Italian name is no mistake. Buongiorno USA's parent is Buongiorno S.p.A. Yes, an Italian firm. Buongiorno USA does business here as Dirty Hippo and Blinko. It looks like there's been a class action suit filed against the company, too.

As reported by ClickZ News last week, Azoogle got slammed for pretty much the same thing. Though, rather than settling out of court and being fined, the company signed an "Assurance of Voluntary Compliance," made a $1 million "contribution" to cover legal costs and fund future cyber fraud investigations, and even agreed to help out with future investigations.

The Sunshine State AG is also suing World Avenue U.S.A, which has operated under the name NIUTech, for deceiving consumers through online ads making free gift claims.

The AG's office seems to be paying special attention to lead gen companies offering free ringtones and other mobile content. Search ads and other ads promoting these not-so-freebies tend to lure kids who can be misled into divulging private data and unwittingly signing up for paid mobile content subscriptions (like the kids who ride the #80 Jersey City bus everyday whose obnoxious walkie-talkie phones have equally obnoxious ringtones).

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

AOL's Games.com Plays Catch-up for Advertisers

AOL relaunched Games.com in an effort to provide advertising integration "beyond banner ads." The new opportunities include in-game advertising integrations in online games, pre-roll ads, and in-game interstitials. Is this anything new, or just playing catch-up to casual and Web-based game sites already monetizing effectively through advertising? The site offers more than 400 online and downloadable games, and plans to add 20 new games by the end of 2007.

Posted by Enid Burns at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Lifetime Leads up to Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is family time, will you be watching TV? Lifetime TV wants to make sure viewers tune in and created a mobile contest and sweepstakes to make sure that happens. Lifetime brought in broadline closeout retailer Big Lots as the featured sponsor in the integrated campaign, with the intent to drive purchase intent on the busy shopping day.

From Sunday November 18 through Thanksgiving Day, on-air promotional spots will run on Lifetime Television pointing viewers to a mobile and online promotion run by mobile entertainment community Limbo. Limbo then supports the campaign with its Limbo Unique game across multiple platforms including SMS, WAP, Internet, and e-mail. Users can enter the contest on Limbo's Web site, or by texting "biglots" to a short code (define), in which they select a number. At the end of the contest's run, the participant with the lowest unique number wins. The grand prize winner will receive $5,000, and five other entrants will win $500 gift cards from Big Lots.

The promotion serves two purposes. "Lifetime is encouraging viewers to tune in during the holiday period," said Stacy Geagan Wagner, Limbo's VP of public relations. "Big Lots is trying to be top-of-mind in that key week leading up to Black Friday."

Limbo and Lifetime worked previously on promotions using the Limbo Unique game. "When Lifetime shows [a spot for Limbo Unique], we tend to get a lot of new members," said Geagan Wagner.

Through post-campaign research conducted by a third party, Limbo reports a 7 percent conversion to purchase for advertisers. SMS player averages 50 branded interactions, and averages 15 minutes per Web gameplay session.

Posted by Enid Burns at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Role Reversal: Dick Cheney is Your Puppet

Working Assets, the telco with a heart and lefty politics, has relaunched its Credo Mobile wireless service -- an MVNO built on Sprint's network. Clever digital elements in the integrated camaign include projection screens in San Francisco and Seattle that let people put words in the mouth of Dick Cheney. By sending a text message, passersby can populate a speech bubble over our sneerer-in-chief's head in a Tom Tomorrow-style single-pane comic. See above for a detail of the projection plus a photo of it in action. The call-to-action accompanying the projection is "Text 'say' and your message to 30644 to see your response above."

The campaign plays off the presidential primaries in more ways than one. A video sharing site lets users upload their video expressions of "what our next president should believe in." The results to date are rather lame, consisting almost entirely of uncomfortable-looking Working Assets employees and leading me to think the firm isn't doing enough to promote the video feature.

Other digital elements include bus shelters with an SMS call to action and a display campaign with six creatives spread across local and progressive properties, plus general interest sites like weather.com. Accoridng to Working Assets, the campaign is aimed at liberal 30- to 55-year-olds "whose progressive values drive their consumption."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 14, 2007

Online Ads: Still Sleazy After All These Years

You hear a lot about the Web's legitimization as a marketing medium, but a quick glance at the biggest online ad buyers shows just how far it has to go. Last month, the top two advertisers in terms of raw impressions were Whohasacrushonyou.com, a horoscopes and ringtones service, and dating and online chat provider Zencon Technologies, according to AdRelevance. That's not so awful in itself -- digital sites and services have always relied heavily on remnant online inventory. What's disappointing is that both companies are using deceptive pitches and shady billing tactics to push their wares.

In the case of Whohasacrushonyou.com, the company uses a bait-and-switch offer to register customers, mentioning the service's $5.99 per week (not per month, mind you) cost only in the smallest of small type. According to Compete, the site scored a 7 percent conversion rate in July, which sank to 4.5 percent in August and September. At the same time, the number of ads it's buying has skyrocketed, shooting up 176 percent last month. In other words, the firm's propping up conversions with loads of new ads. As for Zencon Technologies, well, a Google search on its name will tell you all you need to know.

Bonus Smarm: I can't finish this post without mentioning Anastasia International, ranked eighth in AdRelevance's list of top advertisers for the month. The company's top search terms include gems like "russian+models," "mail+order+brides" and "russianbrides.com."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

eBaum's World, Gorilla Nation to Offer Video Overlays

Alliances to support in-video advertising, and especially video overlays, are coming fast and furious. This week we learn that eBaum's World, the flagship site for ZVUE Corporation, will work with ScanScout to identify brand-safe video inventory and deliver contextual overlays to it. And ad rep firm Gorilla Nation has partnered with video ad delivery specialist Panache to offer its publishers the ability to run numerous formats, including overlays. Truly no one can claim rights to the overlay format any longer, if they ever could. VideoEgg has claimed to be the first, and if they're right hen good on 'em, though I suspect the cable nets might have something to say about that.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 13, 2007

Second Life Goes Condo

If you're interested in buying a condo in some far flung location, but worried you might travel all the way there only to realize it's not what you want, Global Condo Center has the sales pitch for you! Instead of buying the property sight unseen, or poking cheesy cardboard mock ups, head on into Second Life and take a look at the virtual version of the property.

This week the company launched a virtual version of its Urban & Resort Condo Center showroom that includes the 3D virtual floor plans of 40 or so projects from around the world for customers' avatars to tour. The company created its own Second Life island for the condos with the help of virtual world project specialists Clear Ink and Code 4 Software.

The idea of setting up a virtual world mock up of a real world location for avatars to peruse does remind me of Starwood Hotels campaign in Second Life, which was sparsely visited due to the fact that avatars don't really need hotel rooms since they don't sleep. Even so, a show room is probably as good in the virtual world as it is in real life, but personally I'd still like to put my hands on something that expensive before I buy it.

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Zillow Pairs with Yahoo Newspaper Partners, but no Yahoo Involvement?

Real Estate "Zestimator" Zillow.com has announced partnerships with 11 newspaper publishers. The plans are preliminary, but the gist is newspaper classifieds sellers will upsell Zillow listings, and the papers and real estate site may share content in the future, according to Zillow Spokesperson Sarah Mann.

Nothing's implemented yet, though. Now's the time to hunker down and figure out how it will all work, she told me. The goal is to get things up and running in the first half of '08.

Remind you of Yahoo's expanding newspaper consortium? It should. Not only are all the new Zillow partners in the Yahoo group, Yahoo has featured Zillow's median home prices and property value estimates in its real estate section for over a year now.

Even the Zillow press release notes, "Many of the newspaper companies in the planned Zillow agreement are part of a newspaper consortium, which formed a year ago. The consortium began with a strategic partnership with Yahoo! for online recruitment advertising." The Yahoo partnerships deal initially involves HotJobs listings integration.

Still, Mann told me Zillow's deals with the paper companies didn't have anything to do with Yahoo, and were not a result of Yahoo fostering relationships between Zillow and the paper publishers. "This is a result of our direct communication with the newspapers….We've been talking to the newspapers since before we launched," Mann said.

The new Zillow partners are Hearst Newspapers, Journal Register Company, Lee Enterprises, Media General, MediaNews Group, Paddock Publications, Inc., Pittsburg Tribune-Review, The E. W. Scripps Company and Times-Shamrock Communications. "More newspaper companies are expected to join the network prior to launch," according to the release.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Santa Goes for the Wallet

Three Santas are dancing their way through the holiday season in an ad that appeared on AOL.com this week.

"House Payments Fall Again!" reads the ad for LowerMyBills.com, which promises to match consumers with up to five lenders once they disclose their home value, mortgage balance, ZIP code and other information.

Clearly aiming for cash-pinched homeowners during the holiday season, the dancing Santas looked like they're having a jolly good old time. What about poor Rudolph?

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November 12, 2007

Android Developer Challenge

Google made available the SDK for its Android open standard mobile operating system as part of the Open Handset Alliance. Details on the platform and the SDK are available on Google's blog.

Google also announced the Android Developer Challenge where the search company will award a total of $10 million between two tiers of submissions. Challenge I, with entries being accepted between January 2 and March 3 of next year, will reward the 50 most promising entries $25,000 to fund further development. The pool of 50 winners will be eligible for an additional $100,000 to $275,000 for their work. Challenge II will commence once handsets are released into the market.

Posted by Enid Burns at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

FreeRice.com Tests Your Vocabulary

A sister site to Poverty.com, FreeRice.com offers an adaptive vocabulary quiz and donates 10 grains of rice through the United Nations for each correct answer. The site's goal is to help end world hunger. Advertisers include Toshiba, Apple, iTunes, Radisson Hotels & Resorts, American Express, Macy's, Fujitsu. Ads rotate below each vocabulary screen where site visitors are asked to pick the word that matches the vocabulary term, such as alveolate (which means honeycombed); prestidigitator (magician); and adjuration (appeal).

Posted by Enid Burns at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

November 9, 2007

FLA Investigation Target W3i Says Hasn't Heard from AG

While AzoogleAds has agreed to cough up $1 million to the Florida Attorney General's office following a civil investigation of its online ad practices, there are several other firms under investigation by the state's new CyberFraud Task Force.

One, according to the Office's Web site, is W3i. After contacting all companies mentioned in our story published yesterday (Think Partnership, Intermark Media, Media Breakaway, Verisign-owned m-Qube, Traffix and W3i), I've only heard back from W3i. The company is under civil investigation by the AG's office for alleged use of deceptive co-registration paths to enroll consumers in monthly subscription plans. Co-reg is a common technique employed in lead generation campaigns.

I spoke this morning to Hayden Creque, W3i's VP and general counsel. He said the firm is aware of the information contained on the Florida Attorney General's Office site, but W3i has not been contacted by the AG's office.

"It'll be our policy to cooperate with the Attorney General's office if they contact us," he told me, adding, "I've made no efforts to contact them."

Stay tuned....

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NYDailyNews Latest to Join Yahoo Newspaper Partnership

If anything can save the foundering newspaper industry, it's bound to be digital advertising, but publishers continue to struggle with the big questions: who will work with whom and how?

Well, if its success in partnering with paper publishers is any indication, the winds are swaying in Yahoo's direction. The company just signed the New York Daily News to its roster of paper site partners. It's the largest newspaper to join the growing consortium, now up to 21 publishers. While Yahoo first is integrating its HotJobs recruitment listings with the local listings seen on its partners' sites, the eventual goal is for Yahoo to sell and manage the national ads running on their sites.

Even some of Yahoo's current partners are keeping options open. Gannett and Tribune reportedly have been in talks with some newspaper publishers already in bed with Yahoo -- Hearst Corp., Media News Group and Cox Newspapers -- in the hopes of getting an ad network, which seems to be stuck in neutral, off and running.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Earnings: Marchex Adds 20K New Local Advertisers

One interesting tidbit from Marchex's earnings call yesterday: the local online ad company claims to have brought in more than 20,000 new advertisers in Q3 through a combination of direct sales, aggregator partnerships (i.e. yellow pages and other regional small biz ad sellers), and the acquisition of VoiceStar. It now has 50,000 advertisers using its tools and advertising on its Web sites, and expects to grow that to 80,000 in two years' time.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 8, 2007

Google Site Targeting Becomes More Targeted

Google notified us this week that its made some enhancements to site targeting on its content network. It's now called placement targeting, because you can now specify page-specific or content-specific, in addition to targeting by demographics which has already been available.

Not only is there more focus on placement targeting, but it's now available in cost-per-click (CPC) bidding format. Previously, site targeting was previously only offered through cost-per-impression (CPM) bidding. Google says advertisers can now choose the bidding option that best matches their needs. "If the purpose of your placement-targeted campaign is to increase sales, leads, sign-ups, or other conversion-oriented metrics, you can select CPC bidding and pay when users click on your ads." Alternately, "If you want to maximize impressions and increase brand awareness among your target audience, you can select CPC. And you can specify either the maximum price or the average price you want to pay for each click or 1,000 impressions.

Posted by Enid Burns at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wheeling and Dealing for IT Advertising and Aussie Ads

Acquisitions abound this week, as two IT trade publications made deals to increase their knowledge base for advertising's technical folks and bring in new ad dollars, while an American firm shored up its Australian banner ad offerings.

TechTarget announced the acquisition of KnowledgeStorm for approximately $58 million. KnowledgeStorm is a search resource for IT professionals that generates around 3.5 million visits per month, according to the company. TechTarget is also getting access to its 700 active advertisers.

Separately, CNET Networks agreed to buy FindArticles.com from LookSmart in an all cash transaction of approximately $20.5 million. FindArticles.com stores over 11 million resource articles from over 3,000 sources, including magazines, journals, trade publications and newspapers, according to the company, and CNET intends to capitalize on providing the premium content draw for advertisers.

Meanwhile down under, Adknowledge acquired the U.K. and Australian divisions of Media Run, an online advertising network focused on banner advertising with approximately 30 employees. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Adknowledge intends to add its behavioral targeting technologies to Media Run's ad network, and will do away with the Media Run name.

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Quote of the day: optimizing to the Nth

"Everyone's coming out with these solutions that are trying to optimize something to the Nth level, but if you can't get the basics right, there's no point in the Nth level. You'll see these behavioral targeting firms that say they get a 200 percent lift... but that's often because the client wasn't doing anything to begin with."

-Dave Murphy, general manager of Sapient's BridgeTrack division, during an interview at ad:tech.

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November 7, 2007

Helium.com Builds Direct Sales Force, Ad Safe Areas

Post written by Fred Aun

Helium.com, which cuts its writer-contributors in on a share of ad revenues, is on the verge of hiring a direct sales team.

Helium aims to begin selling direct in the early part of 2008, and its goal is “to build tighter partnerships around brand advertising,” according to President and CEO Mark Ranalli. The site is visited by two million unique users monthly, up from 100,000 six months ago, but it's still trafficking inventory largely through ad networks.

Ranalli says the site and its writers are “building little buckets of community” where people will gather to read and write about their passions. He adds the site’s story-ranking system creates havens of content where advertisers "can feel far more confident they are advertisng next to high-quality content and content packaged into the brand."

Unlike many other sites that are based on user-generated content, Helium offers contributors a share of ad revenues based on the popularity of their articles. It just unveiled a new member benefit and referral program called “Invite a Writer,” where members can introduce friends to the site earn an extra 5 percent of article earnings for every article written by the people they invite. Helium also allows members to donate to non-profit organizations some or all of their earnings.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Interview: Denuo's Tim Hanlon on dynamic ads in time-shifted TV content

While researching a feature on advertising in time-shifted television content, published on ClickZ today, I spoke with Tim Hanlon, EVP of Ventures at Publicis-owned strategic consultancy Denuo. Hanlon had a lot to say about various impedances to advanced targeting and optimization of campaigns for VOD content. A few of his comments below:

On the lack of dynamic ad insertion in on-demand TV content:

In VOD environments, I’m incredulous that the cable community still operates in a ridiculous fashion, with two and three month lead times to insert an ad into the stream. The ability to measure it on the back end is months after the fact.

It's less an issue of the advertiser and the programmer. It's almost squarely the fault of the intransigence and slowness of the cable operator, for whatever reason.

On the inevitability of dynamic ad placements in VOD:

The ability to do more real time ad insertion in non-linear video environments including those of television is an absolute inevitability. The advertisers have gotten very comfortable with that process online. The ability to real time insert, real time optimize... we're starting to see the beginnings of that in online video as well. But again, that bigger nut, what if we could do that in classic television environments