White paper outlines the best and worst metrics for optimizing display media campaigns

SALT LAKE CITY – mediaFORGE, a dynamic display media provider, released a white paper detailing its position on why optimizing campaigns for impressions, post-impression attribution, and click-through rate (CTR) does not give an adequate understanding of campaign performance, and how post-engagement is able to substantiate performance with much more meaningful results.

Given the influx of media coverage around online ad measurement, and the creation of the “Making Measurement Make Sense” (3MS) initiative by IAB, ANA, and 4As, it’s clear that advertisers are consensually dissatisfied with current performance metrics. What’s less clear is how to identify the best solution.

mediaFORGE’s white paper was written to empower advertisers to make the right decisions when exploring campaign metrics amidst the growing clamor of proposed solutions.

“Optimizing campaigns is about much more than identifying a metric to report against,” explains mediaFORGE CEO, Tony Zito. “It also determines the design of your campaign, including who you’re targeting and how. It’s important that advertisers understand the implications of the metrics they choose, and we hope this paper will give them a step in the right direction.”

The full whitepaper can be downloaded from the mediaFORGE website at mediaFORGE.com/resources. Some of the paper’s key conclusions include:

- Limited viewable ad inventory challenges validity of attributed view-through conversions.

- Narrowing target audience to optimize campaigns for clicks leads to substantial opportunity cost.

- Campaigns should be optimized for engagement to maximize yield.

- Tracking ad engagement validates that impressions were viewable.

- Clicks are not the exclusive indicator of purchase intent.

About mediaFORGE

mediaFORGE is a dynamic display media company that delivers a personalized and interactive ad experience designed to capture prospects and increase revenue. Its pioneering shared-revenue model charges marketers according to measured engagement that can be attributed to incremental revenue – never for impressions or view-throughs. With mediaFORGE, online marketers can employ the best aspects of display advertising with a low-risk business model, transparent data reports, and best-in-class account managers, making it the most compelling and efficient paths to optimal return on ad spend (ROAS). For more information, visit mediaFORGE.com.

Renewal of MRC accreditation demonstrates VINDICO’s commitment to building trust in online video advertising

NEW YORK – VINDICO, the leading online video ad management platform, announced the renewal of their Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation, which was initially granted in June 2010. Through this MRC accreditation renewal, VINDICO continues to demonstrate its commitment to building trust in online video advertising.  The accreditation will continue to benefit the global brands that work with VINDICO, as well as institute a benchmark for success in the industry.

Established to ensure audience measurement research is valid, reliable and effective, the MRC accreditation process requires companies to undergo rigorous third-party audits to guarantee compliance with industry standards. VINDICO’s accreditation indicates its video advertising platform is compliant with the MRC’s standards for Media Rating Research and the applicable guidelines published by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. MRC members include leading media and technology companies, such as AOL, Microsoft, CBS and FOX, among others.

“VINDICO has taken strides to make online video as trusted and easy to work with as any other measured media,” said George Ivie, CEO and Executive Director of the Media Rating Council. “Renewal of its MRC accreditation further solidifies VINDICO as a quality leader in the industry.”

VINDICO has deep market penetration, serving almost forty percent of all online video ads in the United States. The company provides video advertising management solutions to over 200 brands through their leading agency groups such as GroupM, Havas, IPG, Publicis and Omnicom. The VINDICO solution reduces complexity for advertisers by providing an efficient and reliable way to serve video ads across multiple networks.

“Video advertising is one of the advertising industry’s fastest growing categories, with eMarketer estimating that online video ad spending in the U.S. will reach more than $7 billion in 2015,” said Matt Timothy, president of VINDICO. “Renewal of MRC accreditation reinforces our commitment of giving advertisers the confidence they need to make larger investments in online video and demonstrates our data remains up to the MRC’s rigorous standards.”

About VINDICO
As the first ad management platform dedicated exclusively to video, VINDICO allows advertisers to serve, track and measure all of their online video ad activity. Since 2006, VINDICO has been the gold standard in online video platforms, providing standardized reporting and analytics for the online video industry. The power of online video isn’t just the audiences it reaches and how it reaches them. Its strength also derives from its ability to track an ad campaign and precisely measure the campaign’s effectiveness. For more information, please visit http://www.vindicogroup.com or follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/VINDICO_Group.

About MRC
The MRC is a non-profit Industry association established in 1964 composed of leading television, radio, print and internet companies, as well as advertisers, advertising agencies and trade associations whose goal is to ensure measurement services that are valid, reliable and effective. Measurement services desiring MRC accreditation are required to disclose to their customers all methodological aspects of their service; comply with the MRC Minimum Standards for Media Rating Research; and submit to MRC-designed audits to authenticate and illuminate their procedures. In addition, the MRC membership actively pursues research issues they consider priorities in an effort to improve the quality of research in the marketplace. Currently approximately 70 research products are audited by the MRC. Additional information about MRC can be found at www.mediaratingcouncil.org.

‘Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions’–MRAID–Empowers Seamless In-App Advertising Across the Mobile Landscape

NEW YORK – The IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence today released the final version of “Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions,” or MRAID. This initiative defines a common API (Application Programming Interface) for mobile rich media advertisements, establishing a framework of principles and guidelines to help the mobile marketplace reach new levels of consistency, efficiency and effectiveness.

Mobile’s range of benefits has secured incredible interest from agencies, publishers, vendors and ad designers, driving rapid growth. However, the accelerated speed of adoption also led to inefficiencies, including a marketplace cluttered with multiple, incompatible APIs from a variety of rich media vendors working with publishers to enable in-app advertising. This fragmentation placed undue burden on marketers and agencies, requiring that their advertisement’s underlying code be rewritten several times in order to run across different apps. With MRAID in place, the API “Tower of Babel” will be eliminated, allowing agencies to be able to quickly and easily run creative across applications from different publishers.

“With apps becoming more and more central to the consumer mobile experience and brand marketers’ plans, the industry needs to have set guidelines and principles when it comes to communication between ads and apps,” said Joe Laszlo, Deputy Director of the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence. “MRAID is the next crucial step in bringing mobile to scale.”

“Greater emphasis is being placed on mobile by advertisers, which is a fantastic tribute to mobile’s benefits for brands. However, the industry’s rapid growth also gave birth to a number of inefficiencies that need to be addressed if we’re to move ahead,” said Scott Jensen, Vice President of Digital Products & Applications at The Weather Channel Companies, a participating member company of the IAB’s Mobile Marketing Center Board of Directors. “Simplifying and streamlining the process for designers of ad creative through MRAID today will only further the chance of stronger mobile media buys in the future.”

For a copy of MRAID 1.0 and more information about MRAID, the working group and its members, please visit: http://www.iab.net/mraid.

About the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence

The IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, an independently funded and staffed unit inside the IAB, is charged with driving the growth of the mobile marketing, advertising and media marketplace. The Mobile Center devotes resources to market and consumer research, mobile advertising case studies, executive training and education, supply chain standardization, creative showcases and best practice identification in the burgeoning field of mobile media and marketing. Our agenda will focus on building profitable revenue growth for companies engaged in mobile marketing, communications and advertising, and helping publishers, marketers and agency professionals understand and leverage interactive tools and technologies in order to reach and influence the consumer. For more information or to find out how to join, please visit www.iab.net/mmcoe.

About the IAB

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

LONDON – VivaKi, one of the leading media and digital communications organisations in the world, today announced an agreement with Evidon to power compliance with the EU ePrivacy Directive in the UK and throughout Europe. This agreement extends the US Preferred Provider agreement between the two companies.

This partnership enables all clients of VivaKi agencies, which include Starcom MediaVest Group, ZenithOptimedia, Razorfish and Digitas, to deploy in-ad notice including the IAB EU’s AdChoices Icon programme. The icon is executed seamlessly via the agency to give consumers the highest degree of transparency and control available on the market.

Evidon is the world’s first and largest provider of privacy and compliance solutions for digital media, and creates a platform for companies to comply with the European ePrivacy Directive, industry self-regulatory programmes, and to audit and manage website cookies. VivaKi is the leading media and digital agency in the US self-regulatory programme, delivering billions of in-ad notice impressions served on behalf of their clients, and this agreement will affect a broad range of companies across a variety of verticals including automotive, finance, retail, CPG and pharmaceutical.

Marco Bertozzi, EMEA Managing Director for the VivaKi Nerve Center, comments: “We have been using Evidon’s solutions in the US for some time and our clients are pleased with the results. We are now looking to strengthen and expand our strategic relationship, as part of our commitment to ensure best practice in the area of online privacy. VivaKi is a strong supporter of privacy controls and we support our clients’ desire to empower consumers to make informed decisions about their information use online, while complying with the ePrivacy Directive”.

CEO of Evidon, Scott Meyer, adds: “This decision by VivaKi to extend the agreement with Evidon into the UK and Europe further underlines our leading market position and track record of exceptional delivery of results. Evidon works in tandem with VivaKi’s agencies and the VivaKi Nerve Center’s Audience On Demand team to educate and implement the OBA solution for clients in the US, and we are excited to expand this support to the European market. We look forward to delivering privacy and compliance solutions on behalf of their extensive list of clients”.

About VivaKi

VivaKi is part of Publicis Groupe (Euronext Paris Exchange: FR0000130577; and part of the CAC 40 index) the world’s third largest communications group.

VivaKi aggregates the marketplace influence of four autonomous brands, including two global media agency networks: ZenithOptimedia and Starcom MediaVest Group; and two leading digital marketing agencies: Digitas and Razorfish. On behalf of its agency brands and their clients, VivaKi faces the market to help identify and build technology, message distribution, audience aggregation and content solutions for the future. Sitting at the core of VivaKi is the VivaKi Nerve Center, which serves as a think tank, R&D center and testing ground to activate new pathways for clients to connect with consumers in an increasingly digital world. VivaKi also includes a Talent & Transformation Practice, which leverages the scale of the VivaKi brands to develop and deliver tools and approaches designed to attract, develop, train, motivate and reward the world’s best people.

For more information, please visit www.vivaki.com

About Evidon

Evidon is the world’s first and largest dedicated provider of privacy and compliance solutions for digital media.

The company provides strategy and technology to help leading brands, agencies, publishers, and solutions providers comply easily with privacy law and self-regulatory “Ad Choices” programs across North America and Europe. Evidon serves Ad Choices notice on billions of impressions on behalf of these businesses—in the U.S. and in local languages across Europe—giving consumers transparency into and control over how their information is used online. With insights fuelled by its popular Ghostery browser extension and its rich, 800+ company privacy database, Evidon also helps businesses control their audience data.

By protecting themselves and empowering consumers, businesses build their brands and improve results. For more information, please visit www.evidon.com

Global Ad Network Signs Master Services Agreement with the Leading Regulatory Service Provider to Manage Compliance throughout the US and European Union

NEW YORK – IDG TechNetwork today announced that it has chosen Evidon as the exclusive provider of compliance services for management of the Industry Self-Regulatory Program in the US, and the management of the Pan-European Self-Regulatory Framework for Online Behavioral Advertising in the European Union. The agreement includes IDG TechNetwork access worldwide to Evidon’s Assurance Platform, Evidon InForm, through a Master Services Agreement. By using Evidon as the technology platform to deliver in-ad notification across multiple countries, the IDG TechNetwork positions itself as a global leader in online compliance and self-regulation.

The IDG TechNetwork represents more than 460 independent publishers reaching enterprise, tech enthusiasts, and entertainment and gaming audiences. The ad network averages 90 million unique users and more than one billion impressions per month. Through the partnership, IDG TechNetwork will use Evidon’s industry-standard method for demonstrating compliance with the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) program. Evidon InForm enables simple and scalable implementation of the Advertising Option Icon in display ads and on websites, giving consumers access to and control over how their information is collected and used, including the choice of opting out altogether.

“The IDG TechNetwork is taking a leadership role in consumer transparency and confidence,” said Peter Longo, CEO, IDG Syndication and Networks. “Working with Evidon enables us to support privacy self-regulation in international markets as their own self-regulatory guidelines are established, and ensures that compliance will be built-in for everything we do online in the US.”

IDG TechNetwork joins the growing list of companies, now exceeding 175 brands, agencies, publishers, technology solutions providers and networks that use Evidon to power their compliance efforts in order to inform consumers about how the industry collects and uses interest-based data. Evidon was the first company designated by the DDA as an approved provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising. This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option (or Forward I) icon on behalf of companies that are participating in the self-regulatory program. The company’s Assurance Platform is operating at scale, delivering the Advertising Option Icon and corresponding notice in billions of monthly advertising impressions across the Internet for leading brands.

“We’re clearly thrilled to have IDG TechNetwork join our dossier of clients around the world, and we see them as very strategic for the promulgation of the industry self-regulatory program’s key messages,” said Scott Meyer, founder and CEO of Evidon. “The smartest marketers and brands understand the role transparency plays in engendering consumer confidence, and results from numerous study agrees.” The industry recognizes Evidon as the leading technology company that enables online advertising transparency through its leadership role in the Open Data Partnership (ODP) alliance. The ODP of online behavioral advertising companies gives consumers access and control over the information companies have collected about their interests, directly from an ad impression or publisher site, which uses Evidon’s platform.

The DAA is made up of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI).

About International Data Group

International Data Group (IDG) is the world’s leading technology media, events and research company. IDG’s media brands – including CIO®, CSO®, Computerworld®, GamePro®, InfoWorld®, Macworld®, Network World®, PCWorld® and TechWorld® – reach an audience of more than 200 million technology buyers in 90 countries. Online, IDG’s network features more than 450 websites spanning business technology, consumer technology, digital entertainment, and video games worldwide. The IDG TechNetwork represents more than 460 independent websites in an ad network complementary to IDG’s media brands. IDG® is also a leading producer of more than 700 technology-related events, including Macworld® 2011, E3 Expo®, DEMO®, SNW™, and IDC Directions®. IDG’s marketing services include lead generation with IDG Connect®, custom publishing, social Web marketing with IDG Amplify® ads and IDG Social Scout™ analysis and program development, and IDG Market Fusion™ research and content optimization. IDC®, a subsidiary of IDG, is the premier global provider of market intelligence; advisory services; and events in IT, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. Over 1,000 IDC analysts in more than 110 countries provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends. Additional information about IDG, a privately held company, is available at http://www.idg.com.

NEW YORK – interclick, inc. (Nasdaq:ICLK) announced that the sole remaining federal claim alleging violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the state law claims for breach of implied contract and tortious interference have all been dismissed with prejudice by the United States District Court after determining the plaintiff had no legal basis to support her claim. The plaintiff and her counsel may not re-file those claims.

In December of 2010, Sonal Bose filed a lawsuit, seeking class action status, against interclick, Inc. alleging that interclick’s online advertising practices violated numerous state and federal acts. On August 17, 2011, ruling on interclick’s motion to dismiss, the Court granted the dismissal of the above claims with prejudice. This follows the March 21, 2011 decision by the plaintiff to voluntarily withdraw her claim that interclick had violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

The Court also dismissed all claims against the advertiser defendants with prejudice.

“As we have said from the beginning, interclick has always taken consumer privacy very seriously and these claims were brought without merit. We are pleased that the central claims in the litigation have been dismissed by The United States District Court,” said Michael Katz, CEO of interclick.

About interclick

Powered by OSM, interclick, inc. (Nasdaq:ICLK) offers proprietary data-valuation capabilities combining analytical expertise and media fulfillment to help marketers navigate the complex data ecosystem to drive successful online display and video campaigns.  OSM is a powerful solution which aggregates and organizes billions of data points from 3rd party providers – delivering actionable consumer insights, scalable audiences and the most effective campaign execution.

For more information, visit http://www.interclick.com.

New Report on Trends in Behavioral and Contextual-Based Advertising Shows Consumers Accepting of Targeted Advertising

DALLAS – Creation of the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) is an important step for the $26 billion U.S. online advertising industry, according to Parks Associates’ new report Trends in Behavioral and Contextual-based Advertising.

The international research firm reports 17% of U.S. broadband households are willing to provide personal information for relevant online ads and 10% with a mobile phone service are willing to submit for relevant mobile ads. Parks Associates analysts say to foster continued consumer interest in targeted advertising, the market needs self-regulatory programs that provide transparency and give consumers a choice to opt-out of targeted online advertising.

“While current data show online consumers are amenable to advanced advertising practices, privacy concerns, if not properly addressed, could negatively impact future growth in this market,” said Heather Way, Research Analyst, Parks Associates. “Our research shows formation of organizations such as the DAA is the right approach for online publishers, ad networks, and industry trade organizations to show their commitment to full transparency and consumer empowerment.”

Young broadband users are willing to provide personal information to receive customized Internet ads. Over 50% of adults 18-34 and approximately 40% of adults 25-54 are positive or indifferent to advanced advertising practices. These targeting tactics stoke privacy concerns by delivering ads to specific consumers based on individual online behavior, but these concerns are less intense when consumers are given opt-out management tools.

“The keys to assuaging consumer privacy fears are in providing education, transparency, and control,” Way said.

For information on Trends in Behavioral and Contextual-based Advertising, visit http://www.parksassociates.com or contact 972-490-1113, sales@parksassociates.com.

About Parks Associates

Parks Associates is an internationally recognized market research and consulting company specializing in emerging consumer technology products and services. Founded in 1986, Parks Associates creates research capital for companies ranging from Fortune 500 to small start-ups through market reports, primary studies, consumer research, custom research, workshops, executive conferences, and annual service subscriptions.

Each year, Parks Associates hosts executive thought leadership conferences CONNECTIONS™, with support from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®, CONNECTIONS™ Europe, and Smart Energy Summit.

Controversial ICANN Plan Includes Exorbitant Fees for Web Publishers and Brand Marketers & Opens Doors to ‘Cyber Squatters’

NEW YORK – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) called on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to withdraw its controversial new domain-naming plan, saying that the program to assign hundreds of thousands of new domain names would cause incalculable financial damage to brand owners, including the hundreds of media brands in its membership. These “top-level domain” addresses, which could include domain endings that focus on specific trademarked brand names such as .coke, .jetblue, .cnn, .facebook or .verizon, would come at an extremely high cost to publishers and advertisers, and would also offer “cyber squatters” an opportunity to harm a brand’s integrity and/or profit greatly from their bad-faith domain registrations.

“This could be disastrous for the media brand owners we represent and the brand owners with which they work. We hope that ICANN
“ICANN’s potentially momentous change seems to have been made in a top-down star chamber. There appears to have been no economic impact research, no full and open stakeholder discussions, and little concern for the delicate balance of the Internet ecosystem,” said Randall Rothenberg, CEO and President, IAB. “This could be disastrous for the media brand owners we represent and the brand owners with which they work. We hope that ICANN will reconsider both this ill-considered decision and the process by which it was reached.”

The IAB move followed strong criticism of the ICANN plan by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). The ANA has labeled the plan as economically unsupportable, stating that it is likely to cause irreparable harm and damage to its membership and the Internet business community in general. At the same time, according to the ANA, the program contravenes the legal rights of brand owners and jeopardizes the safety of consumers.

Unless the IAB, ANA and other organizations can effectively defeat plans for ICANN’s “top-level domain” program, these new domain endings are expected to roll out in late 2012.

About the IAB

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

The widespread adoption of audience targeting by Madison Avenue has prompted the Federal Trade Commission to call for more oversight of the industry through a proposed solution named Do Not Track (DNT). While the government’s intention is noble, DNT has become somewhat of a misnomer by adding more confusion than clarity. It’s time that we set the record straight.

The conversations taking place about behavioral targeting is occurring between the wrong parties. As DNT stands today, the dialogue is happening between consumers and monetization platforms, which are providing a universal opt-out feature at the browser level. Rather, this conversation should be between consumers and publishers.

Publishers need the ability to monetize their content either through subscriptions or ad-supported content, while users need to know how their information is being used. Therefore, what’s needed is a more balanced approach that acknowledges the benefits of subsidized content and illustrates trade-offs in a non-advertising world. What is not being discussed is how DNT in its current form is a mechanism for shutting down this process that otherwise funds content that provides value to both consumers and publishers.

Much has been made of the similarities between DNT and the Do-Not-Call list introduced by lawmakers in the 1990s to address the rising concern of telemarketers. This comparison is misplaced and points people in the wrong direction. Since phone bills have always been paid by the consumer, there is no value for them to take telemarketing calls. So Do-Not-Call was created to give the ultimate choice to the paying consumer. Sounds fair to me. But let’s be clear that there is no parallel to DNT where consumers are getting free content. Would consumers have agreed to get telemarketing calls if their phone service was free? Maybe. Does it make sense to offer free phone service if there is no value to the provider? That’s the question we need to address with DNT. Otherwise, DNT should be named the “Do Not Pay – let someone else pay for me” feature.

What is needed is not less or more regulation, but a revision to the current DNT proposals that preserves the interests of both consumers and publishers by giving them control over DNT. So what would that revision look like? Here’s an example:

- Users would have the ability to select DNT settings in their browser.
- This preference would be recognized by the publisher site the user navigates to.
- The Publisher site presents the user with a message that acknowledges their DNT setting and asks if the Publisher can override that setting to give them a better site experience, more free content, etc.
- Users choose! (Their DNT preference is applicable for this publisher site only.)

This model would open the lines of communication between consumers and publishers on the application of DNT while preserving the benefits of monetization for publishers and the service (aka free content) provided to consumers. It is also vitally important that DNT not erase cookies as this would still be counterproductive in the disruption of the monetization process for ad-supported content (e-commerce would be severely impacted). What it should ensure is that the state of the cookie be intact while DNT is present.

We would be supportive of a revision of DNT to include the above consumer-publisher dialogue. However, we also want to make clear that the principles being adopted by the DAA and NAI, where consumers get global and local opt-out capabilities and transparency through the about ads icon offers another viable implementation of this same goal. This self-regulatory approach (we have heard industry estimates of over a trillion ads being served with this icon enabled) is already receiving wide adoption and aims to deliver on the goals of transparency and simplicity for the consumer.

DNT promises to alter the way advertising is served and needs to be transparent in its impact on both consumers and publishers. Let’s be clear and upfront on what exactly DNT is designed to do. We can start by bringing the right parties together to have a fruitful and productive conversation about the pros and cons of sponsored or free content.

NEW YORK, NY — The ANA (Association of National Advertisers), the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), and the 4A’s (American Association of Advertising Agencies) announced the release of Guiding Principles of Digital Measurement.  These five principles are the foundation of Making Measurement Make Sense, an ecosystem-wide initiative independently facilitated by the management consulting firm Bain & Company and the strategic advisory firm MediaLink LLC.

“This collaboration focuses on the needs of brand marketers and highlights the importance of cross-platform comparison,” said Bob Liodice, president and CEO, ANA.  “For the first time in the history of Internet advertising, business leaders and functional experts from leading marketers, publishers and agencies have come together to jointly develop a plan for improving digital media measurement.”

To identify priorities, develop measurement solutions and build industry consensus, Making Measurement Make Sense has assembled a group of 40 thought-leaders and decision-makers to actively contribute to the initiative.  In addition to the three founding associations, the NAA (Newspaper Association of America) and OPA (Online Publishers Association) are also participating in the initiative.

Making Measurement Make Sense has three primary objectives:

-    Define transparent, standardized and consistent metrics and measurement systems to simplify the planning, buying and selling of digital media in a cross-platform world

-    Drive industry consensus around the solutions

-    Establish a measurement governance model to support ongoing standards development, ensure compliance and manage change in a rapidly evolving media climate

The initiative’s leaders have agreed on five Guiding Principles of Digital Measurement.  These principles are the product of extensive fact-finding and due diligence regarding current measurement offerings and their application to the business of transacting and evaluating advertising effectiveness.  The five principles are built upon the input and consensus garnered from workshops with teams of functional experts and business leaders representing companies across the ecosystem.

Principle #1 – Move to a “viewable impressions” standard and count real exposures online.

Today we count “served impressions” as recorded by ad servers.  Often, ad units are not in a viewable space to the end-user or fail to fully load on the screen – potentially resulting in substantial over-counting of impressions. Viewable exposures are increasingly the norm across other media and better address the needs of brand marketers.

Principle #2 – Online advertising must migrate to a currency based on audience impressions, not gross ad impressions.

Brand marketers target specific audiences.  Marketers need to understand the quality and number of exposures against their targets – and the respective reach and frequency of such exposures.  The existing digital currency makes this extremely difficult.  Moreover, the practice of selling ad impressions makes cross-media comparisons extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Principle #3 – Because all ad units are not created equal, we must create a transparent classification system.

Unlike traditional media, which have a limited number of inventory types (e.g., 30-sec spot, full-page back cover), digital has a myriad of units. A transparent classification system will:

-    Reduce complexity from a creative standpoint
-    Simplify the comparison of ad units across websites
-    Enhance the ability to track how different types of ad inventory drive different outcomes
-    Facilitate planning and evaluation across media

Making Measurement Make Sense advocates a transparent classification system, adhered to by all publishers. Such a system will enable marketers to identify and spotlight the best offerings for brand building, and for other marketing objectives.

Principle #4 – Determine interactivity “metrics that matter” for brand marketers, so that marketers can better evaluate online’s contribution to brand building.

Currently, the industry is awash in digital interaction metrics. However, these metrics are not necessarily relevant for brand marketers.  Aside from click-throughs, there are few standards for enabling reliable comparison across sites.  The industry must identify and define the specific metrics most valuable to brand marketers and define and implement reliable standards for existing metrics.

Principle #5 – Digital media measurement must become increasingly comparable and integrated with other media.

Measurement solutions must facilitate cross media platform planning, buying and evaluating of marketing and media.  This is a substantial issue that hampers analysis and decision making throughout the ecosystem.

According to Bill Koenigsberg, president, CEO and founder of Horizon Media and Chairman of the 4A’s Media Policy Committee, “In addressing measurement issues, these principles will provide a consistent standard of currency across the digital platform.  This will allow the media community to navigate the digital technology landscape in a more reliable manner.”

“Now that industry leaders have defined Guiding Principles of Digital Measurement, the Making Measurement Make Sense initiative is refining and vetting concrete means of advancing these measurement principles,” said Sherrill Mane, SVP Industry Services, IAB.  “The process of developing recommended solutions and communicating a detailed implementation plan is expected to be completed this summer.”

In addition to bringing together the marketers, agencies and publishers to determine measurement solutions, Making Measurement Make Sense is engaging the measurement and research community.  This initiative will build on existing measurement efforts to further the goals of better, streamlined, high quality measurement that reduces supply chain friction.  As such, other industry organizations, including the Media Rating Council (MRC) and the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) are being consulted.  To gauge the feasibility of potential solutions and to encourage innovation, there has been outreach to the leading measurement vendors.

About the ANA
Founded in 1910, the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) leads the marketing community by providing its members with insights, collaboration, and advocacy. ANA’s membership includes 400 companies with 10,000 brands that collectively spend over $250 billion in marketing communications and advertising. The ANA strives to communicate marketing best practices, lead industry initiatives, influence industry practices, manage industry affairs, and advance, promote, and protect all advertisers and marketers. For more information, visit www.ana.net, follow us on Twitter, join us on Facebook, or visit our YouTube channel.

About the IAB
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

About the 4A’s
The 4A’s is the national trade association of the advertising agency business. Its membership comprises virtually all of the large, multinational agencies and hundreds of small and mid-sized agencies from across the country. The 1,200 member agency offices served by the 4A’s employ 65,000 people; offer a wide range of marketing communications services, and place 80 percent of all national advertising. The management-oriented association founded in 1917 helps its members build their businesses, and acts as the industry’s spokesperson with government, media, and the public sector. For more information, visit www.aaaa.org, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook or download the 4A’s iOS app in the iTunes Store.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – GoldSpot Media, the leader in mobile rich media and video advertising solutions, launched the Open Mobile Advertising Alliance to accelerate adoption of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB’s) forthcoming MRAID (Mobile Rich-media Ad Interface Definitions) spec for mobile rich media ads. This new standards-based solution empowers the advertising industry to seamlessly transact in-app mobile advertising across all smartphones and tablets.

The mobile rich media advertising industry is far from scalable, with resource-intensive proprietary integrations, weekly SDK updates, under-delivering rich media ecosystems and broken mobile ad server functionality. GoldSpot Media has been collaborating with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Open Rich Media Mobile Advertising (ORMMA) to develop a solution that eliminates the fragmentation in mobile advertising. IAB is expected to ratify its MRAID version 1.0 specifications in early September.

The GoldSpot Media in-app SDK for iOS and Android enhances the pioneering contributions to the ORMMA open source project and is available at no charge to participants of the Open Mobile Advertising Alliance. Partners can optionally enable advanced features such as ad caching, frequency capping and video overlays.

“Publishers in the mobile advertising ecosystem are frustrated with today’s disparate online and mobile ad serving infrastructures,” said Cameron Clayton, EVP Digital Products, The Weather Channel Companies and Co-Chair of IAB Mobile Committee. “Initiatives such as the Open Mobile Advertising Alliance bridge the compatibility gap between any ad server and mobile rich media vendors.”

GoldSpot Media’s white label solution simply plugs into a publisher’s existing ad server via an open campaign interface, thereby eliminating additional operations and infrastructure costs. Publishers can sell digital effectively as they can use their existing inventory forecasting and other ad server functions, while maximizing their mobile revenues by selling MRAID compliant ads from any rich media vendor, as soon as they are available.

“For a highly scalable mobile advertising ecosystem, advertisers and agencies should be allowed to focus on driving marketing goals without being restrained by technology hurdles,” said Srini Dharmaji, Founder & CEO, GoldSpot Media. “Similarly, a publisher should be free to focus on driving higher ad revenues through engaging ad campaigns using state of the art creative ad units without significantly increasing their CapEx and OpEx. The Open Mobile Advertising Alliance helps make that a reality for our publisher and advertiser customers.”

To participate in the Open Mobile Advertising Alliance, visit www.goldspotmedia.com/OMAA for more information. For partners who are developing their own MRAID compliant SDK, a comprehensive MRAID compliance test suite is available.

About GoldSpot Media, Inc.

GoldSpot Media is the leader in scalable mobile rich media advertising solutions for all smartphones and tablets. miSpot, our award-winning, cloud based mobile rich media advertising platform, is the only open and universal mobile ad platform that delivers a self-serve environment to create, distribute and measure rich media campaigns across any publisher or ad network.

GoldSpot Media founded the Open Mobile Advertising Alliance to bridge any ad server with mobile rich media to promote rapid adoption of IAB-MRAID (Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definition) standard.

A privately-held and venture-backed company, GoldSpot Media is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, with regional offices in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Japan, and India. For more information, visit www.goldspotmedia.com.

12% of the total U.S. population own or use a tablet, Expected to rise to 23% by early 2012

New York, NY − The Online Publishers Association (OPA) released a new study, “A Portrait of Today’s Tablet User,” that was commissioned to learn about consumer usage of tablets, content consumption preferences, and implications for advertising on the device. The study found that tablet users view tablets as their preferred reading device over computers and printed media for many types of content, including weather, entertainment, news, sports and financial information. A copy of the study’s findings is available at www.online-publishers.org.

The OPA collaborated with Frank N. Magid Associates., Inc. to conduct this study. Magid fielded a nationally representative online survey of 2,482 people, ages 8 to 64 years old, to evaluate the attitudes and behaviors of tablet owners and users between April 15 and April 20, 2011. The study found that 12% of today’s US online population (ages 8 to 64) currently owns or uses a tablet device and an incremental 11% intend to purchase a tablet device in the next 12 months.

“79% of app downloaders paid for content in the last year, which provides a great opportunity for publishers to generate new revenue streams,” said Pam Horan, President of the OPA. “The study also revealed that consumers prefer content bundling and payment options to buy content through a variety of sources including direct from publishers rather than only through app retail stores.”

Key findings from “A Portrait of Today’s Tablet User” include:

- Today’s tablet users represent 12% of the US internet population ages 8 – 64; that number is projected to grow to 23% by early 2012—a group that represents an estimated 54 million people
- 87% of tablet users are accessing content and information, the dominant activity for this device
- 93% of tablet users have downloaded apps; the average tablet user has downloaded 20 apps
- 79% of app downloaders have paid for apps in the last 12 months; 26% of all apps downloaded are paid
-  On average, those who have downloaded apps on tablets have spent $53 on apps in the past 12 months
- In addition to iTunes, Amazon and Google, 29% of tablet users would prefer to buy apps from their cable company or internet provider and 25% would prefer to buy their apps directly from publishers

“The tablet also provides a rich platform for advertisers with 46% indicating that they found tablet advertising within newspaper and magazine apps to be relevant, unique and interesting,” continued Horan.

Additional insights regarding tablet users and usage preferences include:

-60% of tablet users are males; 48% are 18-34 years old
- 43% of tablet users have HH income in excess of $50,000
- 56% of tablet users who watch video watch full-length TV and 55% watch full-length movies

About the OPA
Founded in June 2001, the Online Publishers Association is an industry trade organization whose mission is to advance the interests of high-quality online publishers before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public. Members of OPA represent the standards in Internet publishing with respect to editorial quality and integrity, credibility and accountability. OPA’s membership has an unduplicated audience of 172.5 million unique visitors or 83% reach of the U.S. online population (comScore Media Metrix, January 2010). For more information, visit www.online-publishers.org.

About Frank N. Magid Associates
Frank N. Magid Associates is a leading research-based strategic consulting firm that helps clients solve business problems and take advantage of opportunities. Magid brings unique frameworks for solving problems and seizing opportunities to each engagement, all informed and driven by unparalleled consumer and stakeholder research, market knowledge, and experience-based perspectives. For fifty-three years we have carefully studied human behavior and how communication affects it. This understanding provides us with a unique consumer lens through which we approach each engagement. Magid is particularly well-known in the media, communications and entertainment industries, but is increasingly conducting engagements across many non-media consumer-facing and B2B industries.

Do-Not-Track Mechanism Proposed by the FTC Affects the Online Ad Industry

NEW YORK – ClickZ, Incisive Media’s resource for digital marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion and research, offered comments on the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) proposal to establish a do-not-track mechanism. FTC’s proposal would give consumers more control over the advertising they see, but it would come at a cost.

ClickZ made that assessment in comments, based on reader input, to the FTC. While a do-not-track mechanism is intended to protect consumers from receiving behaviorally targeted advertising, ClickZ alerted federal regulators to other effects, including unintended consequences, the measure could have.

“ClickZ recognizes that the commission’s do-not-track proposal is the most significant regulatory initiative affecting the online ad industry ever to be introduced during its short life,” said Kate Kaye, ClickZ senior editor.

“For this reason, ClickZ’s editorial staff wanted to ensure our readers – comprised of the top digital marketing professionals in the U.S. – shared their thoughts about the implications of do-not-track on this burgeoning sector of the economy,” said Zachary Rodgers, ClickZ’s managing editor, news.

Other findings:

- A do-not-track mechanism, if adopted en masse, could reduce consumer access to free content, and could erode the quality and relevance of ads they see online.
- Do-not-track could hurt small and niche publishers. Website owners will likely resort to site demographic data and market research to target their ads. This requirement will tend to favor large publishers with research budgets and direct sales forces.
- Do-not-track could hurt innovation. The online ad sector is a fiercely competitive ecosystem where some of the world’s brightest technologists, working for well-funded startups, are building products that will define the future of marketing. The risk, should many consumers opt out, is that this innovation would simply migrate elsewhere.
- Do-not-track should not be an all-or-nothing proposition. Any mechanism should allow users to specify not only topics of interest, but also what data types can be collected, who may leverage that data, and how they are permitted to use it. The downside of this is greater user confusion than a simple on/off switch would create.
- Do-not-track, if implemented, should include ad tracking on mobile devices. The future of interactive content and services is mobile and any ad tracking rules should extend to handheld devices.
- Consumer participation may be minimal. It may be that consumers, given the choice will choose not to opt out of ad tracking for the above reasons, and because historically they have not done so.

ClickZ’s full response can be found at: http://www.clickz.com/digital_assets/2621/ClickZ-Privacy-Report-Feedback.pdf

About ClickZ

Incisive Media’s ClickZ is a unique resource for digital marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion and research. Other Incisive Media resources include SES, a leading global conference and training series focused on search engine marketing, and Search Engine Watch, which provides news and information about search, analysis of the search engine industry and tools for improving search marketing effectiveness.

Incisive Media is a leading global provider of specialized business news and information, in print, in person and online. The company’s principal markets include financial services, legal services, commercial real estate, marketing services and risk management. Incisive Media’s market-leading brands include Accountancy Age, Computing, Investment Week, Legal Week, Post, Risk, and SES Conferences and Expo. For more information, visit www.incisivemedia.com.

- Evidon, the Only Company Deploying Industry-Wide Compliance Solutions at Scale, Demonstrates Leadership Role in Comments to FTC and Thought Leadership IAB’s Blog
- Call to Action Highlights Key Advantages for Companies Employing OBA to “Get with the Program” as Brands begin to Realize Benefits from Closer Consumer Engagements

NEW YORK – As confusion reigns and misinformation pervades the airwaves, one of the more complicated issues of our day seems all too close to slipping from the grasp of the interactive media industry’s control. In the past 30 days, as Do Not Track (DNT) proposals have reached a crescendo, the stakes for both the industry and the consumer have followed suit.

Many DNT proposals strike at the core of how web content is delivered, optimized, and funded. These would have a highly disruptive impact on medium to small web publishers and the marketers who depend on them. While many influential parties are supportive of DNT, they all define the concept differently. Does DNT address the consumer need? And how are the DNT debates shaping industry views, let alone consumer views of the self-regulatory program?

These and other questions were posed by Evidon’s founders in comments to the U.S. Federal Commission on the FTC’s preliminary report on a proposed framework for consumer privacy, and to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which solicited comments to its blog from Evidon to address the industry directly.

Evidon’s FTC Comments are available here: http://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/privacyreportframework/00391.html

Evidon’s IAB Comments are available here: http://www.iab.net/iablog/2011/02/self-regulation-solves-the-do-.html

“The fact is that consumers have enjoyed multiple, free, Do Not Track mechanisms at their fingertips for years,” said Colin O’Malley, Co-Founder & VP of Business Development and Policy for Evidon and member of the IAB’s Networks & Exchanges Committee and Public Policy Council. “It seems that pretty much everyone following the online privacy issue, and even offline consumer data-related privacy issues, believes that the commercial market has a role to play and is looking to leaders on privacy to make clear what he best practices are now.

“The FTC has made it clear that providing consumers with clear notice and simplified choice are key components of their proposed data privacy framework,” said Scott Meyer, Founder and CEO of Evidon in his comments to the FTC. “Evidon’s Assurance Platform is a proven, effective means for meeting these goals. Information presented through the platform enables consumers to make informed and meaningful decisions about data collection and use. Relying on a Do Not Track mechanism will limit consumer transparency, control and innovation in empowering consumer privacy in a vibrant online advertising market.”

The Evidon platform that has been operating at scale since last summer is comprised of three components:

- A transparency component that notifies a consumer viewing an ad that the advertisement was delivered using online behavioral data and identifies the data providers involved in its delivery;
- A choice component that provides consumers choice, namely, an easy method for consumers to opt-out of the collection or use of behavioral information on a company-by-company basis; and
- A reporting tool that provides the advertising agency, advertiser, or network insight into consumers’ interaction with the platform and evidence of compliance with self- regulatory principles.

“We’re in the midst of a golden age of innovation in privacy technologies,” said O’Malley in his IAB.net commentary. “Consumers that are so inclined have a growing array of tools to manage their privacy online.”

Indeed, consumer-empowering tools range from the aggressive and technical (NoScript, Adblock Plus), to the simple and ad industry friendly (NAI/AboutAds.info opt-out page, Facebook privacy settings), with many options in between (Ghostery, which Evidon operates; TrackerBlock, etc.) Each of these tools approaches the policy, technology, and larger political conversation differently, which represents even deeper consumer choice. Privacy requires the active management of trade-offs in every case, as the quid-pro-quo of consumer relationships with media companies increasingly tilts toward the consumer.

Brands Buying Into the Program

“Many of our clients are choosing to present consumers with the icon, including notice and choice tools, on advertising campaigns and web pages that don’t even have an OBA component,” said Meyer. “Brands understand that consumers have more choices – more power – online than they do offline, and that the expression of transparency through the Advertising Option Icon is just part of the conversation that is available with them online. All along, we’ve felt that the industry’s self compliance efforts should be regarded as a carrot, not a stick – that this will improve brands’ relationships with consumers, and vice-versa. Now that we’re approaching 15 billion impressions served, the proof is as clear as the choice that consumers are making.”

About Evidon

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its online behavioral advertising self-regulatory program, Evidon (formerly Better Advertising) enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in OBA with confidence and generate Evidon results. For more information, please visit: www.evidon.com.

NEW YORK – David Moore, Chairman, Founder & CEO, 24/7 Real Media, Inc., and Chairman, IAB Board of Directors, sent the following letter to the IAB membership this morning:

Dear IAB Members,

As we prepare for a new year that promises to be another record setter for interactive advertising revenues, the IAB is announcing some changes in our management. Randall Rothenberg, who has been President and CEO since January 2007, will be leaving the IAB on January 17, 2011, to become Chief Digital Officer of Time Inc.

A search has already begun for a new CEO. As that search continues, we are confident that the IAB moves into 2011 with the right leadership for tackling the issues of importance to its member companies and to the industry at large. Patrick Dolan, recently promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, will be acting as the organization’s leader. David Doty, also recently promoted to Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, will join Dolan in the organization’s leadership.

The IAB is stronger than ever and the Board of Directors has expressed its complete confidence in the current management team to carry out our key strategic initiatives—Building Brands Online, Making Measurement Make Sense, Protecting Privacy, Data Demystification, the Mobile Center of Excellence and Supply-Chain Simplification.

Two other executives round out the management team: Mike Zaneis, who was recently named Senior Vice President and General Council, focuses on matters related to public policy in Washington, D.C., and Sherrill Mane, Senior Vice President of Industry Services, leads the organization’s measurement and research efforts.

Over the past four years, this management team has worked to grow the IAB membership by 50 percent, and has more than doubled our revenues. They have advocated effectively for us in Washington, and made our industry a public policy force to be reckoned with. They have done groundbreaking work in developing industry standards and best practices for digital video distribution, online networks quality assurance, social media advertising, interactive games marketing and mobile advertising. They have built a world-class conference business that attracts more than 5,000 marketing, agency, media and technology executives annually. The IAB’s efforts to develop cross-industry standards for audience measurement are changing the way the marketing-media ecosystem does business, as is the IAB’s ongoing campaign to promote creative excellence in digital advertising.

Randall Rothenberg as President and CEO has been a superlative leader and will be missed. We are thrilled that he is becoming a senior executive at one of the IAB’s largest member companies and we look forward to Randall’s continued involvement with the association.

The IAB is a strong and well-respected organization and will manage through these changes with no interruption in serving our members and advancing the interactive advertising industry at large.

Sincerely,
David Moore
Chairman, Founder & CEO, 24/7 Real Media, Inc.,
Chairman, IAB Board of Directors

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

Launch Partners Include: 33Across, Bizo, BlueKai, Demdex, eXelate, Lotame, SafeCount, and Turn
Program’s Technology will Enhance Consumers’ Transparency into and Control over their Online Data

NEW YORK – The Better Advertising Project, Inc. (Better Advertising) announced an unprecedented partnership toward launching a program that extends consumer notice and choice deep beyond the browser to companies collecting anonymous behavioral information online. The Open Data Partnership (ODP) will provide consumers with full transparency into this data and enable them to edit their information or opt out completely from any participating company’s cookie. Consumers will be able to gain access to and edit their information directly from an ad impression or publisher site that uses Better Advertising’s Assurance Platform – already in wide use by leading advertisers, agencies, networks and publishers – rather than needing to visit each company’s site individually.

The announcement was first covered in the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704377004575650802136721966.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Companies initially participating in the partnership include: 33Across, Bizo, BlueKai, Demdex, eXelate, Lotame, SafeCount and Turn. None of these companies sells, distributes, or otherwise traffics in personally identifiable information (PII), and no PII will be accessible as part of the program. In accordance with the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (the Principles) announced by the Digital Advertising Alliance in July, 2009, participating companies have agreed to integrate their information into the Better Advertising notice experience, enabling Better Advertising to provide a single, easy-to-use portal for consumers across all participating companies.

“Better Advertising’s Open Data Partnership is exactly the kind of initiative that will enable us to remain self-regulated as an industry,” said Mike Zaneis, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). “The more transparency we can provide consumers that enables them to retain control over their own data, the more trusted our ecosystem becomes – to the benefit of everyone.”

“As the world’s largest auction marketplace for audience data and pioneer of consumer transparency tools such as the BlueKai Registry, we are staunch supporters of preserving consumer privacy and happy to participate in the Open Data Partnership,” said Omar Tawakol, BlueKai CEO. “Ensuring consumer choice and visibility continues to be a core tenet of our business and we fully support Better Advertising’s initiative to give web users the ability to update their privacy preferences in one place.”

Open Data Partnership companies will provide Better Advertising with access to information on what they collect and maintain about how each unique consumer browser is identified within their systems. This will include whether or not an active targeting or opt-out cookie is present on that particular web browser, and what information – if any – has been collected. Better Advertising will make this data available to consumers through its industry-leading Assurance Platform, which is the first and currently only platform endorsed by the Digital Advertising Alliance as a standard method for providing evidence of compliance with the Principles. Better Advertising, however, will not collect, hold or use any of this data.

“What we at Lotame and other companies in our space do with regard to data collection is so misunderstood, and is far more benign than some reports would have consumers think,” said Andy Monfried, Lotame CEO. “We’re happy to do all we can as a company to engender the kind of transparency that the Open Data Partnership provides toward enabling consumers not only to better understand, but also to have complete control of their online data. And we fully support both Better Advertising and the Principles.”

“Since introducing the first Data Exchange, we’ve always provided consumers with clear choice and control,” said Meir Zohar, the CEO and founder of eXelate. “We’ve been at the vanguard of this segment and built a sustainable business with dozens of trusted partners, all without compromising user privacy in any way. So, we regard our participation in the Open Data Partnership as a natural step and we’re proud to be a part of it.”

Better Advertising is the first Approved Provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (Principles) of the Digital Advertising Alliance. This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option (or Forward I) icon on behalf of companies who are participating in the self-regulatory program. The company’s Assurance Platform is operating at scale, delivering notice with billions of advertising impressions across the internet for leading brands.

“We’re proud to be working with Better Advertising and the other companies in the Open Data Partnership program. This program follows our privacy centric-approach with all of our clients and is a natural extension of our own initiative, www.donottarget.com,” said Randy Nicolau, CEO of Demdex. “The audience data market is complicated enough for those of us participating in it. I think it’s all too easy for people in our business to lose sight of what’s at stake for consumers who obviously deserve a simplified process controlling their data.”

“Better Advertising’s Open Data Partnership effort is a tremendous step in the right direction for the industry,” said Stuart P. Ingis, Counsel to the DAA and a Partner at Venable, LLP in Washington, who led the crafting of the Self-Regulatory Principles. “To consumers, meaningful self-regulation will require this kind of transparency, which complements the education program that the industry has undertaken.”

“As a leading data-driven advertising platform, Turn takes privacy protection very seriously and is committed to keeping consumers in complete control of their personal data,” said Xuhui Shao, Chief Technology Officer at Turn. “Better Advertising’s initiative encourages all players in the ecosystem to provide the highest level of transparency, adhere to stringent self regulation to address consumer anxiety and foster trust in digital advertising channels.”

“Joining the Open Data Partnership supports the tenets that Bizo was built on: transparency, targeting and helping publishers and marketers thrive online,” said Russell Glass CEO of Bizo. “In the B2B world, marketers need to know that the companies they work with are serious about online privacy and transparency. Initiatives like this are the best way to ensure the sustainability of our industry for the long run.”

“We salute our Open Data Partners for collaborating with us to empower the consumer and adhering to best practices in the online behavioral advertising ecosystem,” said Scott Meyer, CEO and founder of Better Advertising. “We look forward to working cooperatively with these and other companies to deliver on the promise of the Open Data Partnership as well as on full industry implementation of the Self-Regulatory Principles.”

About Better Advertising

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its interest-based advertising self-regulatory program, Better Advertising enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into, and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in IBA with confidence and generate better advertising results. For more information, please visit: www.betteradvertising.com.

Notes on the DAA and the Industry Self-Regulatory Program

Launched by the nation’s largest media and marketing trade associations: the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), with support from the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), and he Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising responds to the Federal Trade Commission’s call for more robust and effective self-regulation of online behavioral advertising practices that would foster transparency, knowledge and choice for consumers. The Program promotes the use of the “Advertising Option Icon” and accompanying language, to be displayed where data is collected and used for behavioral advertising. The Advertising Option Icon indicates a company’s use of online behavioral advertising and adherence to the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, guiding the Program. More information about the DAA and its member associations is available at: http://www.aboutads.info/

AT&T among the Major Brands already Serving Notice with Billions of Monthly Impressions through the Better Advertising Platform

NEW YORK – The Better Advertising Project, Inc. (Better Advertising) and the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), a joint project of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the American Advertising Federation, the Association of National Advertisers, the Direct Marketing Association and the Interactive Advertising Bureau announced that DAA has designated Better Advertising as an Approved Provider. DAA also endorsed Better Advertising’s Assurance Platform as an Approved Technology and a standard method for providing evidence of participating companies’ compliance with the cross-industry self-regulatory program for online behavioral advertising that was announced Monday.

“This is a key example of how we’re working with our partners, advertisers and consumers to ensure strong privacy protections,” said Bob Quinn, Chief Privacy Officer for AT&T. “Protecting consumers’ privacy is a top priority for AT&T. We fully support the efforts of the DAA, and we look forward to continuing our work with Better Advertising.”

Better Advertising is the first company designated as an Approved Provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (Principles) of the DAA. This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option (or Forward I) icon on behalf of companies who are participating in the self-regulatory program. The company’s Assurance Platform is operating at scale, delivering notice with billions of advertising impressions across the internet for leading brands.

“We’ve been working closely with Better Advertising since its start. We’re especially pleased about this endorsement and we fully support this launch,” said John Montgomery, COO, North America, GroupM Interaction, a WPP company. “Our clients have made it clear that providing consumers more transparency into and control over how interest-based data is collected and used is essential to their online marketing efforts. Better Advertising’s technology delivers the transparency that will keep this ecosystem safe for these brands, and provides our clients with the evidence of compliance with the Self-Regulatory Principles that they need.”

The accountability program is part of the implementation of the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising announced in July, 2009 in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s call for the marketing industry to develop self-regulatory principles and practices for online behavioral (or interest-based) advertising. Separately, The Council of Better Business Bureaus and the Direct Marketing Association have announced that they intend to use technology from Better Advertising to monitor and report on the industry’s compliance with key provisions of the Principles, including providing consumers with enhanced transparency and control options for online behavioral (or interest-based) advertising.

“We’re extremely pleased to be working with Better Advertising’s team on the implementation of their platform to deliver compliance services to the online behavioral advertising industry,” said Stuart P. Ingis, Executive Director of the DAA and a Partner at Venable, LLP in Washington, who led the crafting of the Self-Regulatory Program. “Crafting meaningful self-regulation has been a long time in development for the companies at the vanguard of the interactive media industry. So, we are especially pleased to be innovating with Better Advertising as we make this program a reality.”

“Our partnership with Better Advertising is in line with VivaKi’s broader mission to collaborate for industry change,” said Grace Liau, VP/Group Director, VivaKi Nerve Center, a division of VivaKi and a subsidiary of Publicis Groupe. “We believe that establishing meaningful self-regulation is in the best interest of every party within the industry ecosystem. Transparency delivered through a platform such as the one Better Advertising has built represents a powerful mechanism to help us achieve this goal faster.”

Launched in July 2009, Better Advertising is working closely with leading agencies, networks and publishers on behalf of their brand clients. These and other companies are already using Better Advertising’s Assurance Platform as a standard method to provide evidence of compliance with the Principles.

“Better Advertising is delighted to receive this endorsement from the DAA,” said Scott Meyer, CEO and founder of Better Advertising. “We look forward to working cooperatively with the DAA and our clients to deliver full industry implementation of these important self-regulatory Principles.”

About DAA

The Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising gives consumers enhanced control over the collection and use of data regarding their Web viewing for online behavioral advertising purposes. Launched by the nation’s largest media and marketing trade associations – the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) – with support from the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), the Program responds to the Federal Trade Commission’s call for more robust and effective self-regulation of online behavioral advertising practices that would foster transparency, knowledge and choice for consumers.

The Program promotes the use of the “Advertising Option Icon” and accompanying language, to be displayed within or near online advertisements or on Web pages where data is collected and used for behavioral advertising. The Advertising Option Icon indicates a company’s use of online behavioral advertising and adherence to the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, guiding the Program. By clicking on it, consumers will be able to link to a clear disclosure statement regarding the company’s online behavioral advertising data collection and use practices as well as an easy-to-use opt-out option.

More information about the DAA and its member associations is available at: http://www.aboutads.info/

About Better Advertising

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its interest-based advertising self-regulatory program, Better Advertising enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard method to provide evidence of compliance with industry guidelines and provide consumers with more transparency into, and control over the interest-based advertising (IBA) they receive. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in IBA with confidence and generate better advertising results. For more information, please visit: www.betteradvertising.com.

RTC Makes Online Contextualization More Widely Available and Simplify Adherence to New IAB Taxonomy Standards; ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange Also Adopts New IAB Taxonomy Online to Track Inventory

NEW YORK – ContextWeb, Inc., which operates the ADSDAQ Ad Exchange, the largest independent ad exchange, announced the launch of ContextWeb Real-Time Classifier (RTC). ContextWeb RTC categorizes web pages in real-time across more than 450 content categories. With this announcement, the company is productizing its industry leading RTC technology for licensees, enabling them also to maximize the impact of content and adhere seamlessly to the IAB’s taxonomy guidelines. ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Ad Exchange, which already utilizes RTC, also adheres to the taxonomy standards that are a part of the IAB’s Networks and Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines.

The new IAB Quality Assurance Guidelines provide universally defined content categories for trading media against this content, and are designed to bring transparency, control and simplicity to buyers and sellers who trade media on ad networks and exchanges. With ContextWeb RTC, all parties buying and selling ad inventory—advertisers, publishers, agencies, ad networks and exchanges—can trade media more easily using IAB standardized content categories.

“When determining which ad impression to purchase on behalf of our clients, context is a key characteristic,” said Jessica Ciliento Group Director of Digital Strategy at OMD.

“In the future, we’ll be more likely to do business with partners who plan to adhere to the IAB’s networks and exchanges quality assurance guidelines—partners like ContextWeb.”

In a world defined by media and audience fragmentation with more than one million web publishers carrying advertisements and billions of impressions bought and sold every day, content is a necessary data point for trading media. Identifying valuable, high performing audience segments begins with a clear understanding of content and environment. Only ContextWeb RTC enables this in real time.

“The IAB’s new guidelines bring a new level of consistency and dependability to online advertising by creating a lingua franca for ad trading,” said Jay Sears, General Manager of ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Ad Exchange. “Rolling out ContextWeb RTC and adopting the IAB taxonomy are just the first in many steps ContextWeb will take to advance and fully adopt the new IAB Quality Assurance Guidelines.”

“Content is almost universally available for each saleable ad impression on the web. This makes content the perfect basis grade for evaluating tradable impressions and reinforces the importance of the IAB guidelines,” added Sears. “Other types of data, like user demographics, interest and in-market presence, can add additional value to the impression, but unlike content they are not consistently available or scalable enough to achieve advertisers’ desired reach. ContextWeb RTC enables strategic partners and sellers to leverage content for their offerings.”

ContextWeb RTC examines web pages in real-time and determines which of more than 450 standardized content categories the page should be classified into allowing sellers to organize their online ad inventory and make it more attractive to prospective advertisers. Today, ContextWeb RTC not only powers the ADSDAQ Ad Exchange, but it also works with exchange partners’ products like PointRoll’s Ad Control to enable advertisers to dynamically generate rich-media ads, in real-time, based on the content of the page across IAB standardized categories.

About ContextWeb, Inc.

ContextWeb operates the ADSDAQ Ad Exchange—the only online ad exchange where advertisers and publishers both enjoy complete control. The ADSDAQ Ad Exchange works with more than 12,000 ad buyers and ad sellers every day. Using page-level, contextual technology the ADSDAQ Ad Exchange delivers category-specific, brand-safe inventory along with extensive in-category reach, all with a purchase comparable to a site or portal buy.

The ADSDAQ Ad Exchange ranks among the top 20 ad-supported properties according to comScore. ContextWeb, Inc.’s investors include leading venture capital firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson (“DFJ”), DFJ Gotham Ventures, DFJ New England, Updata Partners and Investor Growth Capital. For more information, please visit: www.contextweb.com.

IAB Member Networks and Exchanges Commit to Greater Brand Safety

NEW YORK – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released the finalized “Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines,” a document that standardizes the information networks and exchanges provide to advertisers, enhances buyer control over the placement and context of advertising, and builds brand safety. The guidelines were finalized with feedback from stakeholders across the interactive advertising ecosystem including the Digital Committee of the Association of American Advertising Agencies (4A’s) and the Digital Marketing Committee of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). In addition, IAB member publishers and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) provided feedback on the provisions that protect advertisers from supporting illegal content.

“The feedback we received from marketers, agencies and publishers confirms that the guidelines are truly game-changing,” said Sherrill Mane, SVP, Industry Services, IAB. “The definitions, standards and practices covered by ‘Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines’ afford advertisers the highest level of brand safety when they buy on networks and exchanges.”

The final “Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines”:

- Allow for transparency of inventory sources, publisher relationships, content types, and ad placement details
- Provide universally defined content categories for advertisers
- Require that networks and exchanges rate content for audience segments
- Define categories of illegal content, for example, content that infringes on copyrights, and specify that they are prohibited for sale
- Outline data disclosure terms for off-site behavioral targeting and third-party data
- Provide for mandatory IAB training of appointed compliance officers in each certified network or exchange
- Include a list of terms and definitions for targeting and data that will help eliminate confusion

“These guidelines are an important first step towards ensuring that legitimate advertisers do not unintentionally support the market for illegal content on the Internet by running ads on sites that promote and sell such content,” said Kevin Suh, Vice President, Content Protection, Internet, Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.

“Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines” can be found on the IAB website at: http://www.iab.net/ne_guidelines

About the IAB’s Networks & Exchanges Committee:

The IAB Networks and Exchanges Committee is comprised of senior leaders of ad networks and ad exchanges that are general member companies. The committee is dedicated to furthering the interests of ad networks and ad exchanges in today’s complex ad marketplace. Committee objectives are to foster the highest standards of professionalism and accountability in relationships with publishers, advertisers and the agency community, to develop programs that enable revenue growth, and to create best practices that protect consumers and the industry. A full list of Committee member companies can be found at:

http://www.iab.net/networks_and_exchanges_committee

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 460 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

Critical Step in Interactive Industry’s Ongoing Self-Regulatory Efforts

NEW YORK – Advancing the self-regulatory efforts of the digital advertising and marketing industry, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) released the CLEAR  Ad Notice Technical Specifications, a set of common technical standards enabling enhanced notice in online ads. These technical specifications will allow advertisers and ad networks to begin offering a clickable icon in or near online ads that directs users to additional information about online behavioral advertising and choices about such ads.

The icon-based approach to enhanced consumer notice was outlined in the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, which were released in July 2009 by a coalition of associations—American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Direct Marketing Association (DMA), Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Council for Better Business Bureaus (BBB).

“Transparency and notice are critical to creating a safe and enjoyable consumer experience,” said Mike Zaneis, Vice President, Public Policy of the IAB. “These specifications will allow third-party ad servers to seamlessly integrate the icon so that consumers have access to more information when they are being served an ad based on their interests and behaviors.”

The CLEAR Ad Notice Technical Specifications detail how third-party media companies, such as advertising networks, can provide enhanced notice to consumers through an industry-standard set of metadata tags that are delivered along with behaviorally targeted advertisements.

Those metadata tags include information on which organization(s) served the ad, where to find their advertising policies and how to opt-out of such targeting in the future.

“The metadata infrastructure proposed in this specification provides a sound technical foundation for informative notice about behavioral advertising, while giving publishers, advertisers and ad networks the flexibility to adopt innovative approaches to consumer disclosure,” said Charles Curran, Executive Director of the NAI. “We look forward to working with the IAB and other leading industry associations to support implementation of enhanced notice to consumers.”

The CLEAR Ad Notice Technical Specifications were developed to:

Meet the third-party requirements set forth in July 2009 as part of the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising released in July 2009 by the cross-industry Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising Working Group
Provide enough flexibility for future expansion as the online advertising industry matures
Be open such that publishers, browser developers, tool developers or any other party can easily take advantage of the information presented to the user and find new ways to communicate this information.
The CLEAR Ad Notice Technical Specifications can be found at: www.iab.net/clear.

It is important to note that these technical specifications are intended for third-party media companies. There are separate requirements set forth in the Self-Regulatory Principles concerning first-party notice on publishers’ own websites, such as an independent link in the footer of a web page (e.g. “About Our Ads”). Publishers should refer to the Principles document for specific first-party guidance.

To view that document, please go to www.iab.net/behavioral-advertisingprinciples.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 460 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

About the NAI:

The NAI (Network Advertising Initiative) is a coalition of more than 40 leading online marketing companies committed to building consumer awareness and reinforcing responsible business and data management practices and standards, and which includes all ten of the largest online advertising networks in the United States. Its initiatives are piloted by a cooperative of the most significant online advertising companies including Akamai, AOL Advertising, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, AlmondNet, AudienceScience, BlueKai, Media6degrees, SpecificMEDIA and 24/7 Real Media. As increasingly sophisticated online advertising technologies evolve, the NAI works to enhance consumer confidence through effective self-regulatory practices and user choice. To learn more, visit www.networkadvertising.org.

IASH – the Internet Advertising Sales House council – confirmed that eSpot has been suspended from IASH membership.

All IASH members are bound by the IASH code 9.2 to submit an audit every 6 months, and failure to doing so results in suspension of their IASH membership.

eSpot appears to have failed to submit an audit covering the July – December 2009 and has consequently been suspended. Even thought there is communication from IASH with regard to eSpot’s membership – which could be reinstated if they complete and pass the audit, then apply to be re-admitted into IASH – eSpot chose to not discuss the matter at all.

Currently, eSpot’s web site makes no note of their changes in IASH membership status, and their blog has not been updated since May 8, 2009. eSpot’s apathy and hands-off approach to updating their publishers and advertisers is probably a good indication of where they’re heading to: off the grid.

If IASH membership is something you’re following, here’s the current list of members:

* 24/7 Real Media UK
* ad pepper media (UK) Ltd
* AD2ONE GROUP UK
* Adconion UK Ltd
* Addvantage Media
* Adify
* Clickbrokers
* Consilium Media Ltd
* Crimtan
* Digitize New Media Ltd – Adsure Network
* DotFox Networks Ltd
* Eyeconomy Performance Network
* Glam Media Limited
* GMW Media Ltd
* Jemm Media Ltd
* Media Initiatives Group
* Microsoft Media Network (UK)
* Oridian UK Ltd
* AOL UK
* Specific Media UK
* Unanimis Consulting Ltd
* TD Campaigns Premium Network
* ValueClick Media UK
* Vibrant Media UK
* Yahoo! DR

About IASH
IASH exists to encourage best practice among online advertising sales houses through the adoption of an effective code of conduct. IASH also exists to promote the real benefits of the online advertising network business model.

IASH members wish to ensure that display ads placed via their networks do not appear on websites which could jeopardize advertisers’ brands. This Code provides a formal framework for best practice for IASH Members to follow when dealing with advertisers, agencies, networks and site owners. The purpose of the Code is to give those buying, selling or broking internet advertising space a clear understanding of the types of inventory which can and cannot be used when fulfilling an ad insertion order.

The ABC Electronic audit checks a representative sample of publisher terms and conditions, site vetting and inventory delivery according to the permissions set by advertiser insertion orders.

NEW YORK – Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, announced that Marc S. Roth has joined the firm as a partner in the Advertising, Marketing and Media Division. Roth comes to Manatt from Synapse Group, Inc., a subsidiary of the Time Warner Company, where he was Vice President and Chief Marketing and Compliance Counsel. He will be based in the firm’s New York office.

Roth’s practice will focus on customer acquisition, retention and promotion based marketing programs, as well as regulatory defense. He will deepen the firm’s considerable expertise in legal, regulatory and legislative issues surrounding affinity and loyalty marketing programs, emerging media and consumer privacy. He has worked extensively in the areas of direct mail, telemarketing, negative option marketing, text messaging, email marketing, sweepstakes, contests and data security.

“Marc is working at the forefront of the most dynamic legal issues facing brands today,” said Linda A. Goldstein, chair of Manatt’s Advertising, Marketing and Media Division. “As advertisers adapt to meet the fast evolving consumer landscape, embellished by emerging social media trends and developments, his understanding of the legal issues that surround these marketers’ challenges will be of great benefit to our clients. We are thrilled to have him on our team.”

Roth joins Manatt following a number of recent high-profile additions, including false advertising trial and appellate attorney Thomas C. Morrison, claims support and emerging media attorney Terri J. Seligman, and consumer protection lawyer Anthony DiResta.

“Manatt’s industry-leading advertising practice is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and sophisticated in the nation,” said Roth. “Linda and her strong team of experts are inspiring, and I look forward to working alongside these extraordinary lawyers.”

William T. Quicksilver, Manatt’s managing partner and chief executive officer, said the addition of Roth “enhances the talented cadre of professionals in our national advertising practice and highlights the firm’s dedication to providing leading-edge resources and counsel to our clients.”

Before Synapse, Roth’s experience included several positions as general counsel to private and public companies, work at the Federal Trade Commission, and in private practice, most recently with Hall Dickler Kent Goldstein and Wood LLP.

Roth earned his J.D. from the Syracuse University College of Law with a joint Master of Public Administration from Syracuse’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He received his B.A. from Hobart College.

About Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP is one of the nation’s leading law firms with offices strategically located in California (Los Angeles, Orange County, Palo Alto, San Francisco and Sacramento), New York (New York City and Albany) and Washington, DC. The firm represents a sophisticated client base – including Fortune 1000, middle-market and emerging companies – across a range of practice areas and industry sectors. For more information, visit www.manatt.com.

“Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines” Provide Marketers and Agencies with Greater Brand Safety and Trust

CARLSBAD, Calif. – In a move that standardizes the information networks and exchanges provide to advertisers, enhances buyer control over placement and context, and builds brand safety, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released “Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines” for public comment.

These guidelines provide full understanding of the sources and types of inventory offered, and the context and content surrounding advertising. The IAB announced these guidelines at its third Annual Leadership Meeting, Ecosystem 2.0: Revenue the Next Wave, in Carlsbad, California, where leaders across the digital media landscape have converged to address the most critical issues facing the industry.

“Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines” outline concrete measures that will allow for standardizing the buying and selling of advertising inventory in networks and exchanges and provide greater brand safety assurances to marketers and agencies. The guidelines:

- Allow for transparency of inventory sources, publisher relationships, content levels and ad placement details
- Provide universally defined content categories for advertisers
- Require that networks and exchanges rate content for audience segments
- Outline data disclosure terms for off-site behavioral targeting and third-party data
- Provide for mandatory IAB training of appointed compliance officers in each certified network or exchange
- Include a list of terms and definitions for targeting and data that will help eliminate confusion

“These guidelines are the first of their kind in the U.S., and we believe they will go a long way to building more marketplace trust,” said David J. Moore, Chairman and Founder, 24/7 Real Media, and Chairman of the Board of the IAB. “Networks and ad exchanges have transformed how advertisers can deliver targeted messaging to consumers and these guidelines further secure the promise of this extraordinary marketing resource.”

“‘The Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines’ represent a watershed moment in the ability of the marketplace to fully leverage the value of inventory placed on networks and exchanges. For the first time, there are definitions, standards and practices that will yield significant choice and brand safety when buying on networks and exchanges,” said Sherrill Mane, SVP, Industry Services, IAB. “Advertisers will have a high degree of confidence that consumers will get the right messages within the right environments and that’s what interactive media is all about.”

“The IAB is continuing the process of improving transparency and accountability through issuing these Network and Exchange Guidelines,” said George Ivie, CEO and Executive Director of the Media Rating Council. “The self-certification program outlined in the Guidelines represents a step forward in ensuring an appropriate contextual understanding surrounding network/exchange advertising, patterned after examples of existing processes for similar situations such as the Safe Harbor Program maintained by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The IAB has expanded upon these existing examples by requiring certain self-certification training and periodic testing which will help provide assurance to advertising buyers and their Network and Exchange partners.”

The public comment period for the guidelines will remain open until Friday, March 26, 2010.

About the IAB’s Networks & Exchanges Committee:

The IAB Networks and Exchanges Committee is comprised of senior leaders of ad networks and ad exchanges that are general member companies. The committee is dedicated to furthering the interests of ad networks and ad exchanges in today’s complex ad marketplace. Committee objectives are to foster the highest standards of professionalism and accountability in relationships with publishers, advertisers and the agency community, to develop programs that enable revenue growth, and to create best practices that protect consumers and the industry. A full list of Committee member companies can be found at: http://www.iab.net/networks_and_exchanges_committee.

“Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines” and public comment survey can be found on the IAB website at: http://www.iab.net/ne_guidelines.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 460 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

http://blog.betteradvertising.com/2009/12/07/self-regulation-your-business-and-your-privacy/

By Scott Meyer, CEO, Better Advertising

Fitting The Pieces of Self-Regulation Together

WASHINGTON – At Better Advertising, we believe that industry self-regulation is the key to more transparent ads that produce better results. How our industry fits the pieces of Self-Regulation together will be a major topic of conversation at the FTC’s Exploring Privacy Roundtables. The first is Monday, December 7th. Better Advertising will be there, actively tweeting and blogging. Keep an eye out for me, Colin O’Malley and Sim Simeonov. And, Better Advertising will be filing a request to participate at the next one on January 28th in Berkley.

While Better Advertising lives this stuff every day, it can be fairly opaque to many. Here’s the way Better Advertising sees the situation.

The Cross-Industry Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising which rolled out in July of this year was a huge step. The leading trade associations in the online advertising industry came together to document the rules of conduct they expect their members to follow. If you haven’t read it yet, you should. As the document states:

“The Self-Regulatory Program consists of seven Principles. These Principles, described below, correspond with the “Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising” proposed by the Federal Trade Commission in February 2009, and also address public education and industry accountability issues raised by the Commission.”

The seven self-regulatory principles are: Education, Transparency, Consumer Control, Data Security, Material Changes to Existing Online Behavioral, Advertising Policies and Practices, Sensitive Data and Accountability.

The first to roll out was the IAB’s new Privacy Matters campaign to address the education principle. More than 500 million impressions are being donated by major media outlets to get the point across. WPP, a Better Advertising design partner, did a great job here on the creative. Twenty leading publishers and ad networks donated ad inventory. Stay tuned, there will a lot more information to educate consumers as to what is going on. Better Advertising will be playing a major part of that effort.

The next step in self-regulation is “the icon.” The icon will alert consumers that an ad is using or collecting behavioral data to target them. It also gives consumers more information about behavioral advertising and provides a logical way to exercise the choice of whether or not to be targeted. The Future of Privacy Forum (where Better Advertising is on the Advisory Board) working with important academics Mary Culnan and Manoj Hastak plus Better Advertising’s friends at WPP’s GroupM and Kantar have pulled together a very impressive set of choices. They just announced it as their New Privacy and Personalization Symbols Finalists. This is a project which Better Advertising enthusiastically supports. It’s been incorporated into what Better Advertising will be delivering to clients.

So, that brings us to the last piece of the self-regulation puzzle. How will companies be able to prove that they actually following all of these principles? That’s where the Accountability Principle comes in, and that’s what Better Advertising does. This will end up being the most complicated, and most important, part of successful self-regulation. It requires processing billions of events per day and integrating with hundreds of companies across the online advertising ecosystem. For that, you need a custom-built technology solution that is laser focused on Behavioral Advertising and complying with the Principles.

Better Advertising is actively engaged with all the key players in this effort as we roll out our platform. And there is a lot of good work that’s going into this space. The NAI’s new opt-out extension for Firefox is one example. As is the Yahoo CLEAR notice protocol. The Better Advertising platform supports, and is complementary to, these and alternative technologies that will be coming to market soon.

Behavioral advertising is here to stay. It makes for a better consumer web experience. It delivers better results for advertisers. It will take a lot of continued hard work to deliver the kind of transparency that consumers, regulators and legislators are demanding. And Better Advertising is committed to working with everyone to make this happen to ensure our industry stays self-regulated and keeps on growing.

NEW YORK – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to withdraw recently issued enforcement guidance regarding the opinions and commentary of bloggers and other participants in social media, saying the rules unfairly and unconstitutionally impose penalties on online media for practices in which offline media have engaged for decades. In an open letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, Randall Rothenberg, the President and CEO of the IAB, called the FTC’s distinction between offline media and online media, “constitutionally dubious.”

In his open letter to the FTC Chairman, Mr. Rothenberg said portions of the “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising,” would explicitly muzzle online media, while exempting offline media from equivalent scrutiny or penalty.

“What concerns us the most in these revisions is that the Internet, the cheapest, most widely accessible communications medium ever invented, would have less freedom than other media,” said Mr. Rothenberg, “These revisions are punitive to the online world and unfairly distinguish between the same speech, based on the medium in which it is delivered. The practices have long been afforded strong First Amendment protections in traditional media outlets, but the Commission is saying that the same speech deserves fewer Constitutional protections online. I urge the Commission to retract the current set of Guides and to commence a fair and open process in order to develop a roadmap by which responsible online actors can engage with consumers and continue to provide the invaluable content and services that have so transformed people’s lives.”

The Guides include revisions that specifically address online media and will require that bloggers who receive free products to review must disclose that they received those products for free or be subject to civil enforcement penalties.

There is a longstanding practice in traditional media of providing products and services to journalists including freelancers, for the purpose of reviews. Mr. Rothenberg writes in his column:

“They—and we—are not arguing that bloggers and social media be treated differently than incumbent media. After all, most newspapers, magazines, radio stations and television networks, in recognition that Americans are embracing new forms of social communications, have established their own blogs, boards, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and the like. Rather, we’re saying the new conversational media should be accorded the same rights and freedoms as other communications channels.”

Pages 47 and 48 of the Guides emphasize the FTC’s disparity in the treatment of online media versus traditional media: 
  
acknowledges that bloggers may be subject to different disclosure requirements than reviewers in traditional media. In general, under usual circumstances, the Commission does not consider reviews published in traditional media (i.e., where a newspaper, magazine, or television or radio station with independent editorial responsibility assigns an employee to review various products or services as part of his or her official duties, and then publishes those reviews) to be sponsored advertising messages. […]
 
     In contrast, if a blogger’s statement on his personal blog or elsewhere (e.g., the site of an online retailer of electronic products) qualifies as an “endorsement” – i.e., as a sponsored message – due to the blogger’s relationship with the advertiser or the value of the merchandise he has received and has been asked to review by that advertiser, knowing these facts might affect the weight consumers give to his review. 

To learn more about the IAB’s Public Policy work, please go to http://www.iab.net/insights_research/public_policy.

Full text of the letter is contained below.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

         
     
   October 15, 2009 
     
   Jon Leibowitz, Chairman 
   Federal Trade Commission 
   600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 
   Washington, DC 20580 
     
   Dear Mr. Chairman: 
     
   So there I was last Saturday, about to send out on my Twitter feed — which automatically updates my Facebook page and links to my personal blog — a photograph of this wonderful baked halibut dish I’d just made as a surprise for my wife. I was in the middle of typing a rave review of the recipe, which I’d pulled from my favorite cookbook, Delicioso! The Regional Cooking of Spain by Penelope Casas. But before I could press the “post” button, I stopped and canceled the whole thing.
 
     
   I remembered that the book was a freebie, sent to me by an editor at the Alfred A. Knopf publishing house 13 years ago. And I didn’t want you guys to haul me into court and fine me for violating the rules you’ve just promulgated to muzzle social media.
 
     
   I know what you’re thinking – I’m just confused. But so are the 22 million bloggers currently collecting audiences in the United States and the close to 140 million Americans registering news and opinions through social media channels like Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, and Twitter. The source of the confusion: The new set of “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” issued on October 5 by the Federal Trade Commission that you chair.
 
     
   As you’re undoubtedly aware, the revised “Guides,” an update of principles the Commission originally established in 1980, have generated a firestorm of controversy within the ad-supported interactive media industry. Of particular concern are footnotes, asides, and elaborations in the Guides – as well as reported commentary by Commission staff – which indicate that opinions published by individuals have less protection than speech promulgated by large corporations; that “traditional” distribution channels deserve more protection than innovative online channels; and, finally, that the Internet, the cheapest, freest, most accessible communications medium ever invented, should have less freedom than other media.
 
     
   It’s the Commission’s own words that have sewn this controversy and confusion. On pages 47 and 48 of the 81-page Guides, your staff
 
     
   acknowledges that bloggers may be subject to different disclosure requirements than reviewers in traditional media. In general, under usual circumstances, the Commission does not consider reviews published in traditional media (i.e., where a newspaper, magazine, or television or radio station with independent editorial responsibility assigns an employee to review various products or services as part of his or her official duties, and then publishes those reviews) to be sponsored advertising messages. […]
 
      In contrast, if a blogger’s statement on his personal blog or elsewhere (e.g., the site of an online retailer of electronic products) qualifies as an “endorsement” – i.e., as a sponsored message – due to the blogger’s relationship with the advertiser or the value of the merchandise he has received and has been asked to review by that advertiser, knowing these facts might affect the weight consumers give to his review.
 
     
   With all due respect, Mr. Chairman: Huh? Does the FTC really intend to probe America’s opinion-mongering apparatus this closely? Do you have a team of Freuds and Jungs able to examine “the weight” consumers give such opinion – and the way they weigh that weight?
 
     
   Naturally, this expedition from Oceania – that’s the place Big Brother ruled – should be worrisome to all Americans, and to all viewers, readers, listeners, users, and providers of any communications medium. But for the 400 members of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, most of which are small and medium-sized enterprises struggling to build their businesses in the face of the worst decline in marketing spending since the 1930’s, the implication that online social media represent a separate class of communications channels with less Constitutional protection than corporate-owned newspapers, radio stations, or cable television networks is of particularly grave concern.
 
     
   They – and we —are not arguing that bloggers and social media be treated differently than incumbent media. After all, most newspapers, magazines, radio stations and television networks, in recognition that Americans are embracing new forms of social communications, have established their own blogs, boards, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and the like. Rather, we’re saying the new conversational media should be accorded the same rights and freedoms as other communications channels.
 
     
   All of us would agree that false and deceptive advertising should be stopped, and penalized when it slips through and is caught. We agree that paid testimonials and endorsements should be labeled. But in taking business ethics and attempting to give it the force of law, the Commission is stretching the definition of remuneration to ludicrous lengths. More frightening – certainly to the 22,000 womens-issue bloggers” on BlogHer, the 218 sports-fan facilitators on SB Nation, and the 302 people Tweeting to me daily – is that the FTC’s new Guides open the door to extremely selective pursuit and prosecution of those least able to defend themselves against government’s hammer: the solo entrepreneurs and opinionated individuals who are most vital to the functioning of our democracy and economy.
 
      
  That fear, I fear, is supported by the Commission’s own words. For example, in an interview with the blog edrants.com, FTC Assistant Director of Advertising Practices Richard Cleland took decades of common practice in offline media — specifically the acceptance by reviewers of free books from publishers — and said that bloggers engaging in the same activities could be subject to prosecution. “The primary situation is where there’s a link to the sponsoring seller and the blogger,” said Mr. Cleland. The repeated supply of free books could constitute “compensation,” thus triggering an FTC review and, possibly, sanctions. 
    
  “You can return it,” Mr. Cleland said, when asked how a social mediator could avoid this fate. “You review it and return it. I’m not sure that type of situation would be compensation.” Otherwise, “if a blogger received enough books, he could open up a used bookstore.” 
    
  The ignorance of established offline media practices is more than mildly surprising. Take a walk through New York’s mecca of used books, The Strand, or the Portland emporium Powell’s, and you’ll find bin upon bin of “reviewers’ copies,” direct contravention of Mr. Cleland’s declaration that “most of the newspapers have very strict rules about that and on what happens to those products.” (My own shelf of review copies from my days as a journalist attest to how wrong he is.) 
    
  But of greater concern is that the Commission is translating this ignorance into rules that would specifically shackle online media while exempting our offline cousins and competitors from equivalent constraint. Publish? You might perish: “Consumers who join word of mouth marketing programs that periodically provide them products to review publicly (as opposed to simply giving feedback to the advertiser) will also likely be viewed as giving sponsored messages.” Have a lot of Facebook friends? Better watch it, you dot-commie: “If that blogger frequently receives products from manufacturers because he or she is known to have wide readership within a particular demographic group that is the manufacturers’ target market, the blogger’s statements are likely to be deemed to be ‘endorsements.’” 
    
  Indeed, to copious industry protests that provision of free samples, tickets, and services to independent reviewers has been a staple of media since media began and shouldn’t be regulated more strictly online than off, the Commission simply disagreed and said it will “consider each use of these new media on a case-by-case basis for purposes of law enforcement.” So if Niero Gonzales fails to flash “freebie” across each review of a first-person shooter posted on his gamer site Destructoid.com, will he be dragged down to Pennsylvania Avenue for a civil investigation? If I blog on randallrothenberg.com about the dozens of free management books I receive each year from publishers, will I, John Wiley & Sons, or Harper Business be subject to a penalty? Again with all due respect, Mr. Chairman, the Commission’s Guidelines really provides no guidance at al 
    
  You must know that, because in the days following the release of the revised Guides, the FTC has been furiously backtracking about their implications, in an apparent attempt to soothe the blogosphere. “We are not planning on investigating individual bloggers,” Mary Engle, the Commission’s Associate Director for Advertising Practices, told reporters this week. “We will be focusing any enforcements on advertisers, not on individual endorsers.” 
    
  But the Commission is being disingenuous. “The recent creation of consumer-generated media means that in many instances, endorsements are now disseminated by the endorser, rather than by the sponsoring advertiser,” the Guides state. “In these contexts, the Commission believes that the endorser is the party primarily responsible for disclosing material connections with the advertiser.” 
    
  In other words, the Guides do allow you to pursue bloggers. They do hold individuals more liable than larger corporations. They do explicitly say online social media have less protection than offline corporate media. They do obstruct online companies’ opportunities to drive cultural conversation more than offline companies’. They do threaten with prosecution book publishers, movie producers, and other companies that supply products to individual social media conversationalists. 
    
  This confusion easily could have been avoided. The IAB and other industry organizations clearly identified the risks to free expression and provided the FTC significant, formal First Amendment guidance when you first mooted the new guidelines earlier this year. We offered to bring in bloggers, social media executives and others from among our membership and work with you to develop practical guidelines and self-regulatory mechanisms that would protect consumers from real harm, while assuring that independent opinion in digital media isn’t stifled. 
    
  But Commission staff did not follow up with us on our offer, held no public hearings on the proposed Guides, and ultimately dismissed our concerns. Instead, they took the perverse – and Constitutionally dubious – step of saying that individuals writing in social media bear greater liability than do those writing for offline, one-way media. 
    
  Mr. Chairman, these are the types of vital regulatory issues that, if decided without due care and reasoned judgment, will impair the continued growth of news and content in the online space. I urge the Commission to retract the current set of Guides and to commence a fair and open process in order to develop a roadmap by which responsible online actors can engage with consumers and continue to provide their invaluable content and services. 
    
  Regards,
 
    
  Randall Rothenberg

President and Chief Executive Officer

Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Reevaluate How to Reach Consumers during the Search Process

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, released the results of a study of changes in search engine marketing in the pharmaceutical industry as a result of the FDA warning letters distributed in March 2009. Using comScore data, the study found that sponsored link exposures to U.S. Internet users declined more than 50 percent immediately after the FDA warning letters were issued to pharmaceutical manufacturers concerning the exclusion of fair balance language in sponsored link advertising.

On March 26, 2009, the Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC) of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent warning letters to 14 major pharmaceutical manufacturers identifying specific brands as being in violation of FDA fair balance guidelines. The letters stated that sponsored link advertisements for specific drugs were misleading due to the exclusion of risk information associated with the use of the drug.

At the urging of the warning letters, many pharmaceutical companies temporarily removed their sponsored link ads for these identified brands as well as many other brands not specifically mentioned in the letters. As a result, sponsored link exposures for pharmaceutical brands experienced a dramatic decline as manufacturers redesigned their strategies to ensure compliance with the letters.

FDA Letters Cause an Immediate 59 Percent Drop in Sponsored Link Exposures
An analysis of exposure to branded URLs within comScore’s data revealed that substantial declines occurred immediately following the letters being sent on March 26. Sponsored link exposures dropped 59 percent from 10.5 million during the week ending March 29 to 4.3 million during the week ending April 5. Declines in sponsored link exposures not only occurred in the weeks immediately following the letters, but continued over the next several months, plummeting 84 percent overall from March to June.
____________________________________________________________________________
Total Sponsored Link Exposure for Major Pharmaceutical Manufacturers
Average Link Exposures per Month
Total U.S. Home/Work/University Location
Source: comScore, Inc.

Average Total Exposures (000)
Mar-09      Apr-09      May-09      Jun-09
Sponsored Link Exposure          11,861       3,244       2,895       1,924
Unbranded Link Exposure           1,582       1,419       1,337       1,028
Vanity Link Exposure              3,545       3,038       3,568       3,170
____________________________________________________________________________

Vanity and unbranded link exposures also experienced a decline, on average, across brands during the same period, although these methods were not under scrutiny in the FDA letters. Unbranded sites, which give additional information on the condition and treatment but do not directly promote the brand drug, declined 35-percent March to June to slightly more than one million exposures. Vanity URLs, which make no mention of a specific brand while generically describing a health condition but then redirect to the brand or drug’s website, declined 11 percent in June to 3.2 million average exposures versus March.

Although the use of vanity and unbranded URLs saw growth for certain individual brands after the letters, the overall decline in vanity and unbranded URL exposures demonstrates that searchers for information on a specific treatment or drug brand  may not find the health-related information they are searching for as readily as they did prior to the guidance.

“The FDA letters changed not only how pharmaceutical manufacturers are marketing online, but what consumers are being exposed to when they search for health information,” said John Mangano, vice president of marketing solutions for comScore. “Independent of what is happening on the regulatory front, we see continued increases in consumers turning to the Internet to research health conditions, treatments and drugs. It is important that marketers and the FDA find a middle ground that meets the spirit of the FDA guidelines and is supportable in the various emerging online media.”

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

US bloggers and publishers of all sizes are now asked to declare all forms of compensation they receive in order to promote products and services on their sites. Not doing to can lead to penalties of up to 11,000 USD, according to new regulations issued earlier by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

It is for the first time since 1980 that the FTC modifies regulations with regard to testimonials, endorsements, shopping advices, reviews; it is also for the first time that blogs are to be monitored as well.

Below are excerpts from the new regulations, “FTC Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”:

Definitions

[...] “an endorsement means any advertising message (including verbal statements, demonstrations, or depictions of the name, signature, likeness or other identifying personal characteristics of an individual or the name or seal of an organization) which message consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experience of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser. The party whose opinions, beliefs, findings, or experience the message appears to reflect will be called the endorser and may be an individual, group or institution.”

Consumer Endorsements

“(a) An advertisement employing an endorsement reflecting the experience of an individual or a group of consumers on a central or key attribute of the product or service will be interpreted as representing that the endorser’s experience is representative of what consumers will generally achieve with the advertised product in actual, albeit variable, conditions of use. Therefore, unless the advertiser possesses and relies upon adequate substantiation for this representation, the advertisement should either clearly and conspicuously disclose what the generally expected performance would be in the depicted circumstances or clearly and conspicuously disclose the limited applicability of the endorser’s experience to what consumers may generally expect to achieve. The Commission’s position regarding the acceptance of disclaimers or disclosures is described in the preamble to these Guides published in the Federal Register on January 18, 1980.

(b) Advertisements presenting endorsements by what are represented, directly or by implication, to be “actual consumers” should utilize actual consumers, in both the audio and video or clearly and conspicuously disclose that the persons in such advertisements are not actual consumers of the advertised product.”

Disclosure of material connections

“When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed. An example of a connection that is ordinarily expected by viewers and need not be disclosed is the payment or promise of payment to an endorser who is an expert or well known personality, as long as the advertiser does not represent that the endorsement was given without compensation. However, when the endorser is neither represented in the advertisement as an expert nor is known to a significant portion of the viewing public, then the advertiser should clearly and conspicuously disclose either the payment or promise of compensation prior to and in exchange for the endorsement or the fact that the endorser knew or had reasons to know or to believe that if the endorsement favors the advertised product some benefit, such as an appearance on TV, would be extended to the endorser.”

The whole guide, as published by the FTC, is available at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/endorse.htm .

IAB Releases “Data Security Best Practices” for Advertisers and Publishers; 2009 Online Lead Quality Summit

LAS VEGAS – As consumers are sharing ever more details about themselves to obtain personalized information, products and services, it is critical that industries working with consumer data maintain the highest standards of security for the storage of that information. To provide a framework for monitoring security vulnerabilities, threats and potential fraud, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released “Online Lead Generation: Data Security Best Practices,” a guide that ensures the safety and security of consumers’ personally identifiable information. The announcement was made at the fourth annual TARGUSinfo Online Lead Quality Summit (OLQS), a premiere event where senior interactive marketing executives from the lead generation industry met to discuss best practices and emerging trends.

“Data Security Best Practices” provides guidance across the following three areas:

•The storage and retention of consumer data collected in online lead generation
•Industry-specific government regulations for the protection of consumer data
•Procedures for network controls that ensure the security of proprietary networks through the monitoring of access and compliance within a defined security policy

“The security of consumer data is essential to the continued growth and success of the lead generation industry,” said Mike Zaneis, vice president of public policy, IAB. “These best practices were developed with leading online lead generation companies across all major industries and reflect the commitment of the lead generation industry to adhere to the highest levels of integrity as it relates to the use of consumer information.”

“The lead generation industry has exceeded a billion dollars in annual advertising spending. As we continue to grow, it is imperative that all companies engaged in the use of consumer information act responsibly,” said Gayle Guzzardo, SVP Product Management, Q Interactive and Chair of the IAB’s Lead Generation Committee. “The Data Security Best Practices provide any organization with the steps and information necessary to make certain that consumer data is properly protected.”

“The Data Security Best Practices will serve as an important resource for any organization that must process consumer data,” said Paul McLenaghan, vice president of interactive markets, TARGUSinfo. “We are pleased that it is being launched here at OLQS where so many lead generation executives have gathered to discuss best practices and techniques to grow our industry.”

Data Security Best Practices can be found on the IAB website at: http://www.iab.net/data_security

The IAB has been actively engaged in providing clarity across the industry as it relates to the collection and usage of consumer data as well as driving strong self-regulation across the interactive advertising industry. In July 2009, the IAB, together with the nation’s largest media and marketing trade associations, released self-regulatory principles to protect consumer privacy in ad-supported interactive media. This unprecedented collaboration among the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Council of Better Business Bureaus (BBB), the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and the IAB, was the first time that representatives of the entire advertising ecosystem had come together to develop principles for the use and collection of data in the interactive economy.

To review the “Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising,” and to learn more about the IAB’s public policy work, please go to: http://www.iab.net/insights_research/public_policy

About the IAB Online Lead Generation Committee: The mission of the IAB Lead Generation Committee is to define best practices that ensure lead quality and improve conversion, and to educate marketers and agencies on lead generation/customer acquisition as a cost-effective vehicle for advertisers to gain high quality customers. The committee also evangelizes lead generation targeting to new industries not utilizing lead generation today. A full list of Committee member companies can be found at: http://www.iab.net/member_center/councils_committees_working_groups/committees/lead_generation_committee

About the IAB: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

Internet Activity Index Reveals Consumers Spend More Time Online with Content Than Community and Communications

New York, NY – Internet users continue to spend a majority of their time with Content sites, up from 34 percent of total time spent in 2003 to 42 percent in 2009, a 24 percent increase, according to the Online Publishers Association (OPA). The OPA announced a six-year analysis of its Internet Activity Index (IAI), a monthly gauge of the time being spent with Commerce, Communications, Community, Content and Search. And, while consumers may be spending significant time with Community sites, it’s coming at the expense of their time with Communication sites whose core capabilities are email and Instant Messaging (IM).

“In the six years that the IAI has reported on how consumers are spending their time online, we have seen some significant shifts, most notably the emergence of Community,” said Pam Horan, president of the OPA. “While Community has grown, data from the IAI proves that Content is still king; these sites continue to be a place where consumers spend the majority of their online time and provide an environment for brand marketers to reach and engage with consumers.”

The latest IAI report provides insights into how consumers are spending their time online, and how that has changed over the past six years. Based on the analysis, the OPA found that the percentage of time spent online with Web sites providing news, information and entertainment, like NYTimes.com, ESPN.com and Edmunds.com (Content sites), has grown even in the wake of Community sites like Facebook. Moreover, Communication sites offering email and IM have decreased in share of online time spent due to the ability to conduct these activities elsewhere.

“In 2008, we introduced the Community category based on the emergence and popularity of sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn,” continued Horan. “These new sites have had significant impact on the Communications category, which saw a 41 percent decline, due to the fact consumers are using Community sites where they can conduct these same activities more efficiently.”

When comparing how people used the Internet in 2003 with how they use the Internet today, the OPA found a number of factors behind the changes, including monthly average time per person:

Category 2003 Avg Time* 2009 Avg Time Change in Time
Content                         3:42                           6:58                    +88%
Communications      5:20                           4:54                      -8%
Commerce                  2:07                           2:40                    +26%
Community                N/A                            3:01                     N/A
Search                          0:27                           0:57                    +111%
*Note: 2003 average is May through December 2004, and 2009 average is January through May 2009.

When we shift from IAI’s time spent to the share of online time each category attracts over six years, we see significant changes as to how consumers spend their online time:

Category                   2003 Avg Share* 2009 YTD Share Change in Share
Content                                               34%                           42%                       +24%
Communications                            46%                           27%                        -41%
Commerce                                         16%                           13%                         -19%
Community                                       N/A                          13%                          N/A
Search                                                  3%                             5%                            67%
*Note: 2003 average is May through December 2004, and 2009 average is January through May 2009.

IAI’s share of time helps to provide further context. For example, Content consumption, as a share of online time, surpasses Communications as the leading way online audiences spend their time. Furthermore, although time spent with Search doubled, its share of time is very small and has only increased by two percentage points. Monthly time spent with Communications decreased by less than half an hour, but declined by 41 percent as a share of a consumer’s online time.

About the OPA Internet Activity Index
Launched in 2003, the IAI is a new way of looking at consumer engagement online, and it remains a unique, relevant monthly benchmark. The OPA’s Internet Activity Index is derived from a categorization of Web properties accounting for more than 90 percent, on average, of active Web users and approximately 55 percent of total usage time (excludes .gov and .edu Web sites, as well as pornographic domains). By tracking share of time spent on each activity, the IAI provides a benchmark for charting the relative impact of changing market dynamics on these segments and identifying important trends in Web use. The IAI is conducted by Nielsen//NetRatings and is posted online each month. A full description of the IAI and its methodology is available at www.online-publishers.org.

About the OPA
Founded in June 2001, the Online Publishers Association is an industry trade organization whose mission is to advance the interests of high quality online publishers before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public. Members of OPA represent the standards in Internet publishing with respect to editorial quality and integrity, credibility and accountability. OPA member sites have a combined, unduplicated reach of 149.3 million visitors, or 79% percent of the total U.S. Internet audience (Source: comScore Media Metrix, August 2008 combined home/work/university data). For more information, go to www.online-publishers.org.

New Marketplace Tool Addresses Growing Advertising Platform

MIXX Conference & Expo 2009

NEW YORK – Long form video is forecasted to be the driving factor in the growth of digital video advertising over the next five years. Continuing its leadership role in developing standards, guidelines and best practices in the growing digital video advertising marketplace, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released “Long Form Video Overview,” the latest tool to help marketers and agencies better understand and make the most of digital video as a marketing platform. The announcement was made at the IAB’s fifth annual MIXX Conference and Expo in New York City.

Long form video, as defined by the IAB’s Digital Video Committee, is any professionally produced or user-generated video lasting longer than 10 minutes and consisting of a content arc with a beginning, middle and end.

The “Long Form Video Overview” covers:

•The current digital video ad marketplace
•Multiple forecasts for future ad revenue
•Common long form ad formats and other ad-buying opportunities
•Definitions of key terminology associated with long form video
“Broadband penetration and the convergence of the television with the PC are accelerating, making long form video advertising a strong focus for marketers,” said Jeremy Fain, Vice President of Industry Services at the IAB. “Our goal is to describe clearly the outlook and opportunities for anyone who is interested in learning more about long form video.”

“Long form video online is a natural fit for a lot of brands, not just those that do well on television,” said Geoff Coco, a Group Product Manager, Microsoft Corporation and Co-Chair of the IAB Digital Video Committee. “Long form video is close enough to the television experience that comparing its effectiveness is a no-brainer. But the future success of long form lies in giving marketers the ability to enlist viewers to engage with their brands in new and powerful ways.”

“Long Form Video Overview” is the latest addition to the IAB’s work over the past year dedicated to creating a common structure across the digital video ecosystem. The IAB’s efforts have addressed specific concerns around technology, metrics and consistent terminology. This ongoing initiative has included the release of the following documents:

•Digital Video Overview Document
•Digital Video In-Stream Ad Format Guidelines and Best Practices
•Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST)
•Digital Video In-Stream Ad Metrics Definitions
All of these documents can be reviewed at: http://www.iab.net/digitalvideo.

About the IAB’s Digital Video Committee:

The Digital Video Committee of the IAB is comprised of over 180 member companies actively engaged in the creation and execution of digital video advertising. One of the goals of the committee is to implement a comprehensive set of guidelines, measurement and creative options for interactive video advertising. The committee works to educate marketers and agencies on the strength of digital video as a marketing vehicle. A full list of committee member companies can be found at: http://www.iab.net/digital_video_committee.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

Global Deal Creates Better Choice for Consumers and Advertisers

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & REDMOND, Wash. – Yahoo! and Microsoft announced an agreement that will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.

For Web users and advertisers, this deal will accelerate the pace and breadth of innovation by combining both companies’ complementary strengths and search platforms into a market competitor with the scale to fuel sustained development in search and search advertising. Users will find what they care about faster and with more personal relevance. Microsoft’s competitive search platforms will lead to more value for advertisers, better results for Web publishers, and increased innovation and efficiency across the Internet.

Under this agreement, Yahoo! will focus on its core business of providing consumers with great experiences with the world’s favorite online destinations and Web products.

“This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry, and I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development,” said Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz. “Users will continue to experience search as a vital part of their Yahoo! experiences and will enjoy increased innovation thanks to the scale and resources this deal provides. Advertisers will also benefit from scale and enjoy greater ease of use and efficiencies working with a single platform and sales team for premium advertisers. Finally, this deal will help us increase our investments in priority areas in winning audience properties, display advertising capabilities and mobile experiences.”

Providing a viable alternative to advertisers, this deal will combine Yahoo! and Microsoft search marketplaces so that advertisers no longer have to rely on one company that dominates more than 70 percent of all search. With the addition of Yahoo!’s search volume, Microsoft will achieve the size and scale required to unleash competition and innovation in the market, for consumers as well as advertisers.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said the agreement will provide Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, the scale necessary to more effectively compete, attracting more users and advertisers, which in turn will lead to more relevant ads and search results.

“Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company,” said Ballmer. “Success in search requires both innovation and scale. With our new Bing search platform, we’ve created breakthrough innovation and features. This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know there’s so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search.”

“This deal fits the long-term strategic direction of Yahoo! to remain the world’s leading online media company and Carol Bartz has the full and unanimous support of the Yahoo! Board behind this deal,” said Roy Bostock, chairman, Yahoo! Inc. “This is a significant opportunity for us. Microsoft is an industry innovator in search and it is a great opportunity for us to focus our investments in other areas critical to our future.”

The key terms of the agreement are as follows:

- The term of the agreement is 10 years;
- Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing Web search platforms;
- Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology;
- Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process;
- Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force;
- Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology;
- Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites;
- Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88 percent of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first five years of the agreement; and
- Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
- Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country;
- At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million; and
- The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

The agreement does not cover each company’s Web properties and products, email, instant messaging, display advertising, or any other aspect of the companies’ businesses. In those areas, the companies will continue to compete vigorously.

The transaction will be subject to regulatory review. The agreement entered into today anticipates that the parties will enter into more detailed definitive agreements prior to closing. Microsoft and Yahoo! expect the agreement to be closely reviewed by the industry and government regulators, and welcome questions. The companies are hopeful that closing can occur in early 2010.

The companies have established a website at http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com to provide consumers, advertisers and publishers with additional information about the benefits of the agreement.

Yahoo! and Microsoft hosted a conference call with Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss the agreement. To listen to the call, please dial 1-866-515-2908 in the U.S. and Canada; +1-617-399-5122 international, reservation number: 47968026. A live webcast of the call can be accessed through Yahoo!’s Investor Relations website at http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/results.cfm. In addition, an archive of the webcast is available through the same link. An audio replay of the call will be available for two weeks following the conference call by calling 1-888-286-8010 in the U.S. and Canada; +1-617-801-6888 international, reservation number: 91217610.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq “YHOO”) is a leading global consumer brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is where millions of people go every day to see what is happening with the people and things that matter to them most. Yahoo! helps marketers reach that audience with its unique and compelling advertiser proposition. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit http://pressroom.yahoo.com or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal at http://yodel.yahoo.com.

“Owned and Operated sites” refers to Yahoo!’s owned and operated online properties and services.

“Affiliate sites” refers to Yahoo!’s distribution network of third-party entities who have integrated Yahoo!’s advertising offerings into their websites or their other offerings.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Bank of America, Cleveland Clinic, CNA, Frito-Lay, and Mercedes-Benz Leveraging New Formats to Achieve Online Marketing Goals

NEW YORK, NY – The Online Publishers Association (OPA) announced a group of leading brands implementing the new ad units across OPA member sites. The units, which were originally announced in March, are designed to help marketers deliver their brand experiences directly on the pages of these rich content sites. Today, a total of 37 OPA member companies are making the units available and several are running major advertising campaigns across a variety of sectors including consumer packaged goods, automotive, and financial.

“We believe that the new OPA formats will allow us to incorporate our brand messages more creatively and with higher impact,” said Jen McDonald, SVP digital marketing, Bank of America. “The new format allows us to take advantage of an environment where consumers are already spending a lot of time with content to deliver an interactive brand experience.”

Some of the brands leveraging the new OPA ad units include:
Bank of America will run the Pushdown on CNN.com and Time.com
Cleveland Clinic will run the Fixed Panel on NYTimes.com
CNA is running the Pushdown on Bizjournals.com
Frito-Lay ran the Pushdown on Discovery’s PlanetGreen.com in the second quarter of 2009
Mercedes-Benz will run various OPA units on FOXSports.com, msnbc.com, NYTimes.com, Reuters.com, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post

“The new ad formats really struck a chord with the industry because they represented a change in the way marketers and agencies think about digital ads and new ways of delivering engaging brand campaigns,” said Pam Horan, president of the Online Publishers Association. “The caliber of the brands actively leveraging the new formats is impressive and our members are working hand-in-hand with agencies and marketers to provide the right tools for them to connect effectively with their readers.”

The OPA ad units include:
The Fixed Panel: 336 wide x 700 tall, remains constant as the user scrolls to the top and bottom of the page
The XXL Box: 468 wide x 648 tall, opens for seven seconds to 936 wide x 648 tall with 1/24x frequency
The Pushdown: 970 wide x 418 tall, opens to display the advertisement and then after seven seconds rolls up to 970 wide x 66 tall, with 1/24x frequency.

“The new OPA ad formats take advantage of the immersive nature of digital,” Julie Weitzner, vice president of media for Razorfish, one of the largest digital marketing companies in the world. “With these new ad formats, digital advertising can be a more interactive, engaging consumer experience while also delivering a more meaningful expression of a company’s brand.”

Participating members rose to 37 from 24 originally announced including: About.com, ABCNews.com, American Express Publishing, BabyCenter, Beliefnet, Bizjournals, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, CBS Interactive, CNN.com, Condé Nast Digital, Discovery Communications, Disney Online, ESPN, Forbes.com, FOXNews Digital, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., HouseStuffWorks, IDG, iVillage Network, Lifetime Digital, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Meredith Interactive, msnbc.com, MTV Networks, NBC Universal, National Geographic, New York Media, The New York Times, Reed Business Information, Thomson Reuters, Time Inc., TopTenReviews, USA Today, Wall Street Journal Digital Network, The Washington Post, and Weather.com. In May 2009, these publishers had a combined, unduplicated reach of 132.1 million visitors, or 68% percent of the total U.S. Internet audience. This group of sites also represents 8.1 billion total minutes of time spent during the month (according to comScore MediaMetrix).

NEW YORK, NY – The Online Publisher’s Association (OPA) released a new research study, “The Silent Click: Building Brands Online,” which will be unveiled during the “Eyes on the Internet” tour kicking off in San Francisco on June 18th. Throughout the tour, the OPA will address the findings and host panel discussions with senior agency and marketing executives about effective ways to measure the impact of branding campaigns beyond the click.

The study, conducted by comScore, assessed 80 of the biggest branding campaigns across 200 of the most trafficked sites over a month’s time analyzing consumer behaviors of those Internet users who were exposed to display advertising. “The Silent Click” measured three consumer actions: 1) searches conducted related to the advertisers’ brands; 2) site visitation, the traffic driven to the advertisers’ site and 3) consumer spending, the e-commerce transactions related to the advertisers’ brands. For consumers exposed to brand display ad campaigns, the research found that:

* One in five conduct related searches and one in three visit the brands’ sites
* Users spent over 50% more time than the average visitor to these sites and consumed more pages
* Users spent about 10% more money online overall, and significantly more on product categories related to the advertised brands
* Higher income audiences visited the advertisers sites

“Marketers recognize that consumers are spending nearly 40% of their media time online, making it an ideal place to deliver their brand messages. To date, measuring a brand campaign meant relying on the click, a metric more appropriate for direct response advertising. In order to understand the value of the audiences that display advertising attracts, our study helps marketers think about real behavioral measures designed to move the needle,” said Pam Horan, president of the Online Publishers Association. “The findings suggest that measuring consumers exposed to an advertiser message in terms of their search activities associated with that brand, their visitation to the advertisers’ site and finally their e-commerce and retail spending activities, is a smart formula for getting an important view into display ad effectiveness.”

To understand if the environment that the advertising appears in has an impact on its effectiveness and more importantly the characteristics of the audiences that the different environments attract, comScore analyzed some of the most popular consumer content categories (e.g., business, entertainment, news and sports) with a particular focus on advertising among high quality content sites, as represented by OPA members. The research found that OPA members reach higher income audiences who are more likely to visit advertisers’ web sites where they spent significantly more money on related products and services. The results continue to reinforce why environment matters and how the brand halo effect is furthered among high quality trusted content sites. Key findings include:

* OPA Business News Sites: E-commerce spending by those visitors exposed to ads on OPA business news sites was 21% higher (a total of $334) than those exposed on the top 50 business sites
* OPA News Sites: E-commerce spending by exposed visitors on OPA news sites was 15% higher (a total of $426) than those exposed on the top 50 news sites
* OPA Sports Sites: E-commerce spending by those exposed to ads on OPA sports sites was 8% higher (a total of $241) than those exposed on the top 50 sports sites

The OPA’s annual “Eyes on the Internet Tour” will stop in San Francisco on June 18, Chicago on June 23, and New York on June 25. For more information or to register for the free event, visit http://www.online-publishers.org/eyes09.

A full copy of “The Silent Click: Building Brands Online” is available beginning Thursday June 25th at: www.online-publishers.org/

About the OPA

Founded in June 2001, the Online Publishers Association is an industry trade organization whose mission is to advance the interests of high-quality online publishers before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public. Members of OPA represent the standards in Internet publishing with respect to editorial quality and integrity, credibility and accountability. OPA member sites have a combined, unduplicated reach of 149.3 million visitors, or 79% percent of the total U.S. Internet audience (Source: comScore Media Metrix, August 2008 combined home/work/university data). For more information, go to www.online-publishers.org

DUBLIN – Research and Markets has announced the addition of the “Online Media in South Africa 2009” report to their offering.

Online advertising in South Africa grew at the fastest rate of all countries in the English-language world in 2008, and is likely to repeat this performance in 2009.

The Online Media in South Africa 2009 study, conducted by World Wide Worx and supported by the Online Publishers Association (OPA), shows that online advertising in 2008 grew by 32%, after an equally healthy 27% growth seen in 2007. This brought the total spent in online advertising in 2008 to R319-million.

According to the report, this robust growth rate over the last two years reflects growing confidence in the medium by advertisers, and the growing ability of online publishers to execute online strategies. The fact that this growth rate comes in the midst of a global economic crisis is further evidence of the strength of the medium.

Key Topics Covered:

* 1. Contents
* 2. Executive Summary
* 3. Introduction
* 4. The findings
* 5. Case studies
* 6. Challenges and strategies
* 7. Visions of the future
* 8. The agencies arrive?
* 9. Contact

Companies Mentioned:

* Times Multimedia
* Beeld
* iTalent
* FHM
* Dunhill
* Damelin
* Clicks
* BMW

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8868d7/online_media_in_so

Releases “VPAID” Guidelines as Latest Addition to Far-Reaching Strategy Intended to Fuel the Fastest Growing Area of Interactive Advertising

NEW YORK – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the release of Video Player–Ad Interface Definition Guidelines (VPAID), advancing an ongoing strategy to greatly simplify the buying and selling of digital video media by building a strong foundational infrastructure. The announcement, at the IAB’s Digital Video Marketplace in New York, outlines methods for communication between video players and video ads and provides specifications that facilitate the planning, production and implementation of digital video advertising. The guidelines will help all stakeholders in the interactive advertising industry—marketers profit from reduced costs of production, creative agencies benefit from the decreased time it takes to execute a campaign and publishers gain from the expansion of the marketplace to more interactive digital advertising.

The VPAID Guidelines help the interactive industry:

* Define a standard method for video ads to communicate with video players and enable ad compatibility across all VPAID-compliant players
* Provide specifications that can be implemented by any type of video player
* Cut production costs and improve ROI for advertisers while enabling a less intrusive experience for video content viewers.

According to the IAB’s 2008 Internet Advertising Revenue Report, digital video more than doubled its revenue with an increase to $734 million from $324 million in 2007, demonstrating how both marketers and consumers are embracing this dynamic platform.

VPAID is the latest addition to the IAB’s work over the past year creating a common structure across the digital video ecosystem. The IAB’s efforts have addressed specific concerns around technology, metrics and consistent terminology. This ongoing initiative has included the release of the following documents:

* Digital Video Overview Document
* Digital Video In-Stream Ad Format Guidelines and Best Practices
* Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST)
* Digital Video In-Stream Ad Metrics Definitions

All of these documents can be reviewed at: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676/508950

“Digital video is one of the most critical growth areas for interactive advertising because it provides marketers with the power of sight sound and motion,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “The standards that the IAB has created have played a key role in paving the way for a greater breadth of marketers across vertical industries to tap its power and I have no doubt that we are only at the very beginning.”

“The IAB’s work in developing the critical framework for digital video has played an important role in its growth and acceptance by both marketers and agencies,” said Joey Trotz, Sr. Director, Strategic Advertising Technology for Turner Broadcasting and Co-Chair of the IAB’s Digital Video Committee. “Consumers’ appetite for the sight, sound and motion of digital video will only increase–the solid foundation which we’ve established through the Digital Video Committee’s work will help ensure that ongoing growth.”

“All of our efforts related to digital video are meant to be infrastructural building blocks that together provide publishers, agencies and marketers with the tools needed to create dynamic online experiences for consumers,” said Jeremy Fain, Vice President of Industry Services of the IAB.

About the IAB’s Digital Video Committee:

The Digital Video Committee of the IAB is comprised of over 180 member companies actively engaged in the creation and execution of digital video advertising. One of the goals of the committee is to implement a comprehensive set of guidelines, measurement, and creative options for interactive video advertising. The committee works to educate marketers and agencies on the strength of digital video as a marketing vehicle. A full list of Committee member companies can be found at: http://www.iab.net/digital_video_committee

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

Inspiring a Renaissance of Creative Advertising on the Web

NEW YORK, NY – The Online Publishers Association (OPA) announced a new initiative designed to help stimulate a renaissance of creative advertising on the Internet that meets the needs of marketers by better integrating their messages into the fabric of the Web. As part of the announcement, a broad group of its members will implement new interactive, display advertising units across their sites. Starting in July, these new units will be available only through the publishers’ direct sales teams.

“Members of the OPA are offering a set of new principles and unique display advertising units to continue to foster innovation and leverage an environment that research has proven delivers better results for advertisers,” said Pam Horan, president of OPA. “Agencies are looking for new ways to integrate their clients’ brand experiences with more interactivity on the page, and these new units provide a way for them to accomplish this while capitalizing on the halo effect of the high-quality media brands.”

These new advertising units reflect the publishers’ desire to achieve four key objectives that will guide the evolution of online display advertising into its next phase:

Inspire creativity and high-quality advertising: Develop display units that will inspire a creative renaissance in high-quality advertising by providing a larger canvas for creativity, content and functionality.
Provide a greater share of voice for the advertiser: Increase the relative proportion of advertising space (in a single unit) to editorial content and, where possible, run fewer but more captivating ads on the page.
Introduce a measurement to capture impact: Develop a metric that emphasizes the impact creative advertising can have on Web viewers while preserving the Internet’s well-established ability to engender response.
Enhance interactivity to build user engagement with brands: Offer a broad range of interactivity built into units such as video players, lead capture and advertiser content that will be sharable and have permalinks to spotlight and encourage the best in creativity, while weaving the advertisements deeper into the social fabric of the Web.
The initial participating OPA members are: BabyCenter, Bizjournals, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, CBS Interactive, CNN, Condé Nast Digital, Discovery Communications, ESPN, Forbes.com, FOXNews Digital, IDG, iVillage Network, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Meredith Interactive, msnbc.com, MTV Networks, NBC Universal, New York Media, The New York Times, Reed Business Information, Reuters, Time Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and Weather.com, with more OPA members to be announced. In January, these publishers had a combined, unduplicated reach of 108.3 million visitors, or 66 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience. This group of sites also represents 8.17 billion total minutes of time spent during the month (according to Nielsen Online).

“As consumers and advertisers increasingly turn to digital media, we must create formats and programs that support and sustain the differentiating aspects of our businesses,” said Martin A. Nisenholtz, founding chairman of the OPA, and senior vice president, digital operations, The New York Times Company. “Agencies must be given the tools to build brands on the Web and publishers must provide the formats for their advertisers to thrive, while balancing the needs of their users.”

The proposed new advertising units are:

The Fixed Panel (recommended dimension is 336 wide x 860 tall), which looks naturally embedded into the page layout and scrolls to the top and bottom of the page as a user scrolls.
The XXL Box (recommended dimension is 468 wide x 648 tall), which has page-turn functionality with video capability.
The Pushdown (recommended dimension is 970 wide x 418 tall), which opens to display the advertisement and then rolls up to the top of the page.
The publishers have committed to offer at least one of the three advertising units by July 1, 2009. Advertisers interested should contact their publishers.

Consensus-Based Initiative Enhances Accuracy for Interactive Advertising

ORLANDO, Fla. – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the release of the final version of its Audience Reach Measurement Guidelines at its Annual Leadership Meeting, Ecosystem 2.0: Brands Battle Back, in Orlando, Florida. These guidelines provide clear, consistent definitions of key metrics and create a single standard for measuring Web audience sizes. The guidelines are the result of a major industry-wide initiative led by the IAB and included the participation of publishers, agencies and auditing organizations.

These new guidelines:

* Define key industry metrics such as unique users, unique cookies, unique browsers, visits and time spent.
* Establish a framework for all measurement providers to have their methodologies audited, providing greater certainty for the industry.
* Foster greater accuracy and reliability of all forms of online audience measurement, whether based on server data, online panels or user registration.

Marketers, agencies and online publishers rely on audience metrics reported by vendors that use a variety of methodologies. Transparency into these methodologies and clear definitions of commonly used terms are critical to the ongoing growth of interactive media as marketers increase their investment in interactive media.

“Establishing a broad industry consensus in favor of these guidelines is critical to ensuring that they gain traction in the marketplace,” said Joe Laszlo, Director of Research at the IAB. “As providers of measurement data adopt the guidelines, marketers can be increasingly confident they are planning their campaigns based on sound, reliable data.”

“Effective interactive advertising campaigns rely on accurate audience measurement,” said Kate Downey, director of audience analytics and insights, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. “These guidelines provide accountability in audience measurement for marketers, agencies and other industry stakeholders.”

“By issuing these guidelines, the IAB has given measurement organizations across the industry a set of rigorous and consistent guidelines to help ensure standardized measurements of unique cookies, unique devices, or unique users,” said George Ivie, CEO and Executive Director of the Media Rating Council (MRC). “This is an important and commendable step towards full accountability.”

To review the complete guidelines, please go to www.iab.net/audiencemeasurement.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 400 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

Joint Task Force Devises Tools to Streamline and Automate Workflow for Buying, Selling, and Delivering Interactive Media

ORLANDO, Fla. – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies(4A’s) announced agreement on actions that will reduce the costs and complexity of buying and selling interactive advertising. The announcement was made at the IAB’s Annual Meeting, Ecosystem 2.0: Brands Battle Back.

The two industry associations joined forces to create the 4A’s/IAB Reinvention Task Force to focus on the following three areas:

* Standardization in business document formats. The recent E- Business Interactive Standards, a beta release of an XML-based solution for automating the transfer of business documents, standardizes order information including requests for proposals, insertion orders, and invoices between advertising agencies and media companies. Beta testing partners will be implementing and refining this solution throughout 2009. www.iab.net/ebiz
* Updating the 4A’s/IAB Standard Terms and Conditions. As interactive has grown and changed, so have the contractual requirements. The IAB and 4A’s are committed to updating the current standard Terms and Conditions language in 2009 to reflect the current operational and marketplace environment.
* Improving automated exchange of impression and other metric data for discrepancy resolution and billing. Solving the discrepancy problem is a top priority for both agencies and publishers, and a method for detecting discrepancies during a campaign is essential.

“The timing of these initiatives could not be more important for our industry,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “We must re-double our focus on costs as we continue to revolutionize the business of marketing. These efforts will only enhance the value of interactive for all stakeholders and consumers.”

“At a time when agencies and media companies are evolving the nature of their relationships and their businesses, the Reinvention Task Force is a critical step in improving the most fundamental elements of how we operate,” said Nancy Hill, President and CEO of the 4A’s. “These solutions will help drive revenue and allow all partners to more effectively scale operations.”

Though publishers and agencies have been developing sophisticated media buying and selling tools for years in the interactive space, they have often been difficult to integrate. The E- Business Interactive Standards will provide immediate operational efficiencies, enable scalability for all partners, and, by eliminating a large part of multiple entry, will reduce communication errors between publishers and agencies.

“The collaboration between publishers and agencies on the Reinvention Task Force has enabled us to accelerate the process by which these standards are implemented across the digital ecosystem,” said Zack Rogers, VP of Revenue Operations, CBS Interactive and the Publisher Lead of the Reinvention Task Force.

“We are pleased at the progress we have made to date on the Reinvention initiative,” said David Cohen, Executive Vice President, US Director of Digital Communications for Universal McCann, Chairperson of the 4A’s Digital Marketing Committee, and the agency lead of the Reinvention Task Force. “Through an impression exchange solution and consistent nomenclature for RFPs, insertion orders and invoices we believe that we have taken an important first step towards achieving that goal. Our attention will now turn to widespread adoption of these standards and working through the next iteration of industry standard Terms & Conditions.”

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

About the 4A’s

The American Association of Advertising Agencies is the national trade association of the advertising agency business. The 1,196 member agency offices it serves in the United States employ 65,000 people, offer a wide range of marketing communications services, and place 80 percent of all national advertising. The management-oriented association helps its members build their businesses, and acts as the industry’s spokesman with government, media, and the public sector. For more information visit our Web site at www.aaaa.org.

Defines Parameters for Click Measurement, Provides a Unified Industry Response to the Problem of Fraudulent Clicks

NEW YORK – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the release of Click Measurement Guidelines, a document that will establish parameters for the accurate buying and selling of cost-per-click advertising, an important and growing category of interactive advertising. Marketers will now have a standard for consistently and reliably measuring their performance-based marketing efforts. The guidelines also provide a strong framework for filtering fraudulent clicks, giving buyers and sellers confidence that only legitimate clicks are being counted.

The Click Measurement Guidelines will:

* Provide a detailed definition of a “click” and outline standard methodologies by which clicks should be measured and counted, including the identification of invalid and/or fraudulent clicks.
* Define standard terms that will help streamline the buying and selling of click-based media.
* Increase transparency and consistency in click measurements for media companies, ad-serving organizations, advertisers, and third-party click auditors.

“These guidelines demonstrate our continued commitment to being the most accountable advertising medium and providing marketers with the highest possible level of transparency,” said Sherrill Mane, Senior Vice President, Industry Services of the IAB. “It is critical that the advertising industry agree upon the precise definition and measurement of a click and establish procedures for weeding out fraudulent clicks. The IAB is proud to have organized our members around this effort.”

The guidelines are the latest addition to the IAB’s ongoing work to harmonize interactive measurement. They complement IAB guidelines for general ad impressions, digital video commercials and audience reach measurement.

“I applaud the IAB for taking a leadership role in bringing the Click Measurement Guidelines to fruition,” said George Ivie, Executive Director and CEO, of the Media Rating Council (MRC). “The interactive industry has consistently met the marketplace need for increased reliability in measurement, and this is yet another example of how the IAB has mobilized its members on behalf of both agencies and marketers.”

“Helping the interactive industry define a click and the standard for measuring one has been an extraordinary effort on the part of the IAB and its members,” said Shuman Ghosemajumder, Business Product Manager for Trust & Safety, Google, and a leading member of the IAB’s Click Measurement Working Group. “It is an important step that continues to reinforce interactive media’s role as the most accountable and measurable form of advertising.”

“IAB’s guidelines will provide users, advertisers and partners with further confidence that the industry, including Yahoo!, is taking click fraud issues seriously,” said Reggie Davis, VP of Network Quality at Yahoo! “Yahoo! worked on the IAB’s Click Measurement Working Group to develop these guidelines for identifying and filtering potential invalid or fraudulent clicks as part of its commitment to a transparent process for the measurement of valid clicks.”

Members of the industry—advertising agencies, advertisers, online publishers and technology vendors—are encouraged to read the proposed guidelines and submit comments on the IAB site at: www.iab.net/clickmeasurementguidelines. After the comment period closes on Friday March 27, 2009, the feedback will be reviewed and the guidelines will be finalized and released.

About the IAB’s Click Measurement Working Group:

The Click Measurement Working Group includes representatives from 38 IAB member companies, including sellers, measurers, and auditors of online media. Initiated in late 2005, the working group, together with the Media Rating Council, has spent the last three years developing these important guidelines and achieving consensus around them.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 400 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

Interactive Advertising Bureau Unveils Compelling Agenda For 2009 Annual Meeting “Ecosystem 2.0: Brands Battle Back”

WHAT: Leaders of the digital advertising world will gather at the premier interactive advertising newsmaking event of 2009 to grapple with the biggest issues facing the marketing-media value chain. At the top of the agenda: Controversial debate about how brands—agency brands, consumer brands and publisher brands—are battling back against commoditization in these challenging economic times.

Hear About:

* Marketing 2.0: The New Affiliates
* The Agency of the Future Just Happened. How’d They Do It?
* Recession 2.0: Where Are Advertisers Going? Where Are Investors Going?
* Makin’ Bacon: The Premium Inside the Pork Bellies
* Death of Display—Just Exaggerated Rumors?
* Just Publish and You’ll Perish: The New Imperative for Publishing Brands
* Debate!: Brand Marketers Don’t Need Agencies. Interactive Publishers Provide Everything They Need
* Yes, Social Media Can Brand: Discuss
* How Regulation Could Shut Down the Internet

From Experts Including:

* Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB
* Michael Mendenhall, SVP and CMO, Hewlett-Packard Company
* Wenda Harris Millard, President, Media and Co-CEO, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Chair, IAB Board of Directors
* Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO, Interpublic Group
* David Rosenblatt, President, Display Advertising, Google
* Scott Howe, Corporate VP, Advertiser & Publisher Solutions Group, Microsoft
* Joanne Bradford, SVP, U.S. Revenue and Market Development, Yahoo!
* Bob Carrigan, CEO, IDG Communications Worldwide
* Mark Mahaney, Director, Internet Sector, Citigroup Investment Research
* Sarah Chubb, President, CondeNet
* Jean-Philippe Maheu, Chief Digital Officer, Ogilvy North America

WHEN: February 22-24

WHERE: Orlando, FL

MORE: A year ago, commoditization was the hot topic at the inaugural offsite annual meeting of the IAB. A sell-out crowd of 400 top digital marketers, agencies and publishers discussed and argued about Chairperson Wenda Millard Harris’s now-famous admonition to the industry to avoid trading ad space like pork bellies.

How times have changed. This year, interactive advertising is the sole bright spot in the advertising world. Embattled marketers are reducing overall ad budgets, while shifting more advertising dollars to hard-working, measurable interactive advertising. A challenging economy has slowed the industry’s growth, but has created opportunities as brands, their agencies and publishers explore new ways to harness the power of interactive advertising to build brands and ROI.

Also front and center in 2009 is the continuing—and escalating—threat of regulation that would unnecessarily stunt the interactive industry’s ability to tailor advertising to consumers’ preferences. All this and more will be hot topics of conversation at IAB’s second annual meeting.

For a complete agenda of this newsmaking event, go to: www.iab.net

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

“VPAID” Guidelines Standardize Communication Between Ad and Player, Reduce Costs, and Increase Efficiency for Digital Video Advertising

NEW YORK – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the release for public comment of Video Player-Ad Interface Definitions Guidelines (VPAID). The announcement represents another important step in the IAB’s infrastructure initiative that seeks to build a common language for buying, selling, creating and delivering digital video advertising.

The series of definitions in the VPAID Guidelines help the interactive industry:

* Define a standard method for video ads to communicate with video players and enable ad compatibility across all VPAID-compliant players
* Provide specifications that can be implemented by any type of video player
* Cut production costs and improve ROI for advertisers while enabling a less intrusive experience for video content viewers.

Until now, video ads could only be posted on publisher sites that supported the same technology as an agency did when creating the ads. With VPAID, publishers adhering to these standards will be able to render any type of video advertisement from any video ad serving technology that also adheres to the standards. Likewise, advertisers that adopt the standards can be assured that the ads they create are usable by any ad serving technology and publisher.

Over the past year, the IAB has taken a lead role in the industry-wide effort to create a common structure across distinct areas of digital video. In addition to VPAID, the IAB’s efforts have included the release of the following documents as part of this initiative:

* Digital Video Measurement Guidelines
* Digital Video In-Stream Ad Format Guidelines and Best Practices
* Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST)
* Digital Video In-Stream Ad Metrics Definitions

All of these documents can be reviewed at: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676/508950

“Interactive advertising is a bright spot in the current advertising environment, and digital video is one of its most promising formats,” said Jeremy Fain, Vice President of Industry Services at IAB. “VPAID is the final piece of the current Digital Video Infrastructure Initiative. All five parts of the initiative help define the digital video ecosystem, reduce costs and increase efficiency for all parties and, most importantly, make it possible for advertisers to more easily reach larger online audiences.”

“Advertisers and agencies today require more interactive formats that go beyond linear TV ad spots, demand more control over how they experience ads, and want the ability to learn more about particular subjects of interest,” said David Ku, SVP of the Advertising Technology Group at Yahoo!, a member company of the IAB’s Digital Video Committee. “VPAID provides a common standard for how video ads will interact with players and serves as an important step forward to deliver on the promise of digital video ad formats.”

Members of the industry (advertising agencies, advertisers, online publishers and technology vendors) are encouraged to read the proposed guidelines and submit comments on the IAB site at: http://www.iab.net/vpaid. After the comment period closes on March 5, 2009 the feedback will be reviewed and the guidelines will be finalized and released.

About the IAB’s Digital Video Committee:

The Digital Video Committee of the IAB is comprised of over 180 member companies actively engaged in the creation and execution of digital video advertising. One of the goals of the committee is to implement a comprehensive set of guidelines, measurement, and creative options for interactive video advertising. The committee works to educate marketers and agencies on the strength of digital video as a marketing vehicle. A full list of Committee member companies can be found at: http://www.iab.net/digital_video_committee

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

- Report Reveals One in Six Ads During Football Broadcasts Inappropriate for Kids
“…I wasn’t too happy with ads for erectile-dysfunction drugs popping up every 15 minutes whenever I watched a football game with my daughters in the room.” –– Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, 2006
After listening to complaints from scores of fed-up parents, Common Sense Media released a report today on the content of ads shown during NFL broadcasts. The report, Broadcast Dysfunction: Sex, Violence, Alcohol and the NFL, looked at ads in more than 50 games from this season and found it was impossible to watch a single game without coming up against sex, violence, or Viagra®.
“Nearly 5.3 million kids watch football each week,* yet one in six of the ads shown during the broadcasts features content that’s wildly inappropriate for kids –– that’s every other commercial break, ” said founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, James Steyer. “The game of football is great fun for families, but it can be really awkward for parents when they have to explain erectile dysfunction on a Sunday afternoon, or have to dive for the remote during violent promos for network shows. I know we speak for millions of football fans and parents everywhere when we say this situation is really getting ridiculous.”

- ValueClick to Announce Fourth Quarter 2008 Results on February 12
ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq:VCLK) announced that it will release its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2008 financial results on Thursday, February 12 at approximately 4:05 p.m. ET.
At 4:30 p.m. ET, chief executive officer Tom Vadnais and chief financial officer John Pitstick will host a conference call and Webcast to discuss the Company’s results.
Analysts and institutional investors may obtain the conference call dial-in information through StreetEvents (www.streetevents.com) or ValueClick’s Investor Relations department at (818) 575-4677. The live Webcast of the conference call will be available on the Investor Relations section of www.valueclick.com.

Interactive Advertising Bureau Unveils Compelling Agenda For 2009 Annual Meeting “Ecosystem 2.0: Brands Battle Back”

WHAT: Leaders of the digital advertising world will gather at the premier interactive advertising newsmaking event of 2009 to grapple with the biggest issues facing the marketing-media value chain. At the top of the agenda: Controversial debate about how brands—agency brands, consumer brands and publisher brands—are battling back against commoditization in these challenging economic times.

Hear About:

* Marketing 2.0: The New Affiliates
* The Agency of the Future Just Happened. How’d They Do It?
* Recession 2.0: Where Are Advertisers Going? Where Are Investors Going?
* Makin’ Bacon: The Premium Inside the Pork Bellies
* Death of Display—Just Exaggerated Rumors?
* Just Publish and You’ll Perish: The New Imperative for Publishing Brands
* Debate!: Brand Marketers Don’t Need Agencies. Interactive Publishers Provide Everything They Need
* Yes, Social Media Can Brand: Discuss
* How Regulation Could Shut Down the Internet

From Experts Including:

* Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB
* Michael Mendenhall, SVP and CMO, Hewlett-Packard Company
* Wenda Harris Millard, President, Media and Co-CEO, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Chair, IAB Board of Directors
* Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO, Interpublic Group
* David Rosenblatt, President, Display Advertising, Google
* Scott Howe, Corporate VP, Advertiser & Publisher Solutions Group, Microsoft
* Joanne Bradford, SVP, U.S. Revenue and Market Development, Yahoo!
* Bob Carrigan, CEO, IDG Communications Worldwide
* Mark Mahaney, Director, Internet Sector, Citigroup Investment Research
* Sarah Chubb, President, CondeNet
* Jean-Philippe Maheu, Chief Digital Officer, Ogilvy North America

WHEN: February 22-24

WHERE: Orlando, FL

MORE: A year ago, commoditization was the hot topic at the inaugural offsite annual meeting of the IAB. A sell-out crowd of 400 top digital marketers, agencies and publishers discussed and argued about Chairperson Wenda Millard Harris’s now-famous admonition to the industry to avoid trading ad space like pork bellies.

How times have changed. This year, interactive advertising is the sole bright spot in the advertising world. Embattled marketers are reducing overall ad budgets, while shifting more advertising dollars to hard-working, measurable interactive advertising. A challenging economy has slowed the industry’s growth, but has created opportunities as brands, their agencies and publishers explore new ways to harness the power of interactive advertising to build brands and ROI.

Also front and center in 2009 is the continuing—and escalating—threat of regulation that would unnecessarily stunt the interactive industry’s ability to tailor advertising to consumers’ preferences. All this and more will be hot topics of conversation at IAB’s second annual meeting.

For a complete agenda of this newsmaking event, go to: www.iab.net

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

Gregory Markel, CEO of Search and Digital Marketing Firm Infuse Creative, LLC, Was Part of a Panel at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles to Discuss the Impact of Product Placement, Sponsorship, Commenting, Blogging and Ad Linking in Film, Television, Video Games, Online Gaming, Social Media and Search Engine Marketing and Advertising

LOS ANGELES – Infuse Creative CEO Gregory Markel spoke at the annual MLRC/Southwestern Law School Media and Entertainment Law Conference on Thursday, January 15.

The panel, titled “What Happens When Protected Speech Meets Embedded Promotions? Product Integration, Sponsorship and Ad Linking,” dealt with the current and potential legal issues surrounding television, film, videos games, online gaming, and online video product placement, search engine marketing or PPC, copyright and trademark issues.

Other panel members included: Pratheepan Gulasekaram, an Assistant Professor at Santa Clara University School of Law; Daniel O’Connell Offner from Nixon Peabody, LLP; and Jennifer Dominitz, Vice President of Legal Affairs at NBC Universal Television.

Markel’s experience in the field of search engine marketing, social media, and digital communication strategies and advisement was a powerful and dynamic addition to the legal experts, providing a digital and social media marketing vanguard view on the effects of advertising law, FTC concerns, and trademark and copyright law on SEM/paid search, SEO, social media marketing, and online video.

Recalling the evolution of Pay Per Click advertising lawsuits and FTC rulings that resulted in Google and Yahoo having to display their PPC ads along side the word SPONSORED, Markel asked, “How will it affect the industry if you have to place a disclaimer such as, ‘this blog comment is paid advertising’ as a preface to every blog or bookmark/tagging post? How will these copyright laws affect the sort of community, influence and stealth marketing approach that is currently so popular? These are all important questions to ask,” said Markel.

Gregory Markel has been involved in search engine and online marketing for over 13 years and is an expert on SEM, SEO, video, 2.0 social media marketing and more.

About Infuse Creative: www.infusecreative.com

Infuse Creative, founded by Gregory Markel, has provided search engine optimization and marketing services and technology to a diverse range of clients, including; Mazda, Gibson Musical Instruments, New Line Cinema, Warner Bros., Pacificare, The BBC, Ed Hardy, Led Zeppelin, CBS, FOX, The National Geographic Channel, Reality Executives International, Sony, Universal Vivendi and many more.

NEW YORK – Four leading marketing and advertising industry associations announced that they are working together to develop enhanced self-regulatory principles for online behavioral advertising in order to address privacy concerns and to increase consumers’ trust and confidence in how online information is gathered and used. This cross-industry self-regulatory initiative represents the first time the entire marketing-media ecosystem has come together to develop practices in interactive advertising. The associations are the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The Council of Better Business Bureaus (BBB), a leading organization dedicated to advancing marketplace trust, is also part of the effort.

The joint industry task force plans to engage with policymakers, a broad cross section of business, consumers, and other important stakeholders as it addresses the important public policy issues that have been raised regarding online behavioral advertising. The group is currently discussing the areas for self-regulation set forth in the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed self-regulatory principles issued in December 2007, including education and transparency, consumer notification and choice, data security, and self-regulatory enforcement. The associations look forward to working with the FTC as it continues to review its privacy principles.

The members of these associations, along with other participants of the group, together represent thousands of advertisers, agencies, marketers, publishers, media companies, ad networks, and other service providers, including the major participants in the online advertising marketplace. The initiative will seek to address concerns about the use of online consumer data for behavioral advertising purposes while preserving the innovative and robust advertising that supports the vast array of free online content.

“Advertising agencies are leaders in the innovation that is fueling the Internet economy,” said Nancy Hill, President and CEO of the American Association of Advertising Agencies. “The result has been tremendous benefits for all consumers. We are anxious to work with our colleagues in the Internet, advertising, and marketing communities to develop effective self-regulatory practices that apply across all our memberships.”

“Behavioral marketing provides enormous benefits to consumers, but it is our responsibility as marketers to ensure the Web-surfing public’s privacy interests remain protected. Strong and comprehensive self-regulation strikes a balance that both protects the public interest and allows marketers to provide relevant advertising, which is particularly critical during this period of economic downturn,” said Bob Liodice, President and CEO of the ANA.

“The BBB has always advocated responsible business practices backed by effective self-regulation. This is especially needed in the evolving area of online and behavioral marketing. We believe that this effort can play a critical role in developing meaningful standards supported by credible enforcement in this increasingly important area,” said Steve Cole, President and CEO of the BBB.

“It is essential that we have consistent standards that reinforce consumer relevance and business responsibility,” said John Greco, President and CEO of the Direct Marketing Association. “We believe this is one of the most important steps we can take to make that a reality.”

“Effective self-regulation of interactive advertising will help ensure that our industry can continue to evolve and innovate, offering consumers what they want when they want it. The value of online advertising to consumers and businesses cannot be understated, particularly in these challenging economic times. We want to be certain that we demonstrate the value exchange to the public that comes from online advertising. Having the support of our colleagues across the business community on these core issues is critical to the IAB and its members,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB.

Analysis of Independent Data Also Shows Advertising on Content Sites Performing Better Among Young, Affluent Audiences
New York, NY – January 8, 2008 – A new report released today by the Online Publishing Association, OPA, found that after analyzing independent Dynamic Logic MarketNorms data, advertising effectiveness scores on quality, original content sites, as represented by OPA members, were numerically higher than on the web in general, on portals or on ad networks. The strong showing for these sites swept across nearly all measurements outscored industry norms for the Internet in 47 out of 47 advertising metrics.
 
The new report, “Improving Ad Performance Online” is the second in a series of OPA reports leveraging Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms® database, the largest of its kind, and an industry standard for measuring online advertising’s effectiveness and branding impact. The first wave of the study was conducted in July, 2008. Both reports look at ad effectiveness scores for high quality, original content sites, compared with those for overall MarketNorms, portals and ad networks.

“The research has shown that a quality advertising environment delivers better results,” said OPA President Pam Horan. “Quality is proving to be a key point of differentiation during challenging economic times, increasing advertising performance relative to ad networks, portals, and overall MarketNorms.”

FINDINGS:
Since the first report in July, aided brand awareness scores on OPA member sites have increased 38%, while scores on ad networks have declined 19%.
Similarly, brand favorability scores for OPA member sites have risen 27%, while ad networks, portals and MarketNorms have dropped 29%, 17% and 6% respectively.
The new data also shows that younger audiences (18-34 year olds) are estimated to be about twice as likely (106% better, on average) to form favorable opinions about advertised brands on OPA member sites than on portals and MarketNorms (83% better). And the same trend holds true for affluent audiences, where OPA member sites are estimated to be 94% more effective at impacting brand favorability than MarketNorms, and 118% more effective at impacting brand awareness.
Horan continued, “This data is particularly important because the current recession is the first since online advertising has become a mainstream reality. At a time when every advertiser is looking for the best return on their investment, a quality environment matters more than ever. While advertisers with tight budgets may consider the cheap alternative provided by ad networks, the adage ‘you get what you pay for’ is as true today as it was a hundred years ago.”

The full report is available at www.online-publishers.org and includes more extensive comparisons.
Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms® is a marketing effectiveness database of 4,460+ campaigns across more than a dozen industries collected from 6.8 million surveys worldwide. The results cited have not been adjusted for exposure frequency, demographics, ad size, websites, advertiser industry and other factors that may contribute to brand lift. These findings are aggregate in nature, reflect past results and are not a guarantee of future results for individual campaigns. The data in this report referred to as overall MarketNorms refers to the average performance of all online campaigns measured by Dynamic Logic in the last 3 years, including those on branded content sites, portals and ad networks. www.marketnorms.com
About the OPA
Founded in June 2001, the Online Publishers Association is an industry trade organization whose mission is to advance the interests of high-quality online publishers before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public. Members of OPA represent the standards in Internet publishing with respect to editorial quality and integrity, credibility and accountability. OPA member sites have a combined, unduplicated reach of 149.3 million visitors, or 79% percent of the total U.S. Internet audience (Source: comScore Media Metrix, August 2008 combined home/work/university data). For more information, go to www.online-publishers.org.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Buyers and sellers in the advertising industry rely on audience measurement services to provide the data needed to make informed choices. Edmunds.com, the premier online resource for automotive information, is proud to announce it is now the first dedicated automotive website to receive Ad Impression Measurement accreditation by the Media Rating Council (MRC).

MRC accreditation certifies that Edmunds.com has adhered to the MRC’s Minimum Standards for Media Rating Research and the Measurement Guidelines of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in counting online advertising impressions and traffic measurements. The accreditation also certifies that Edmunds.com provides full and complete information to the MRC regarding all details of its operation, conducts its processing and reporting substantially in accordance with representations to its clients and the MRC, and submits to annual audits of its procedures by CPA firms engaged by the MRC.

“This accreditation helps ensure advertisers and their agencies that Edmunds.com’s audience measurement practices are valid, reliable and effective,” said Bradley Spannbauer, Edmunds.com Director of Advertising Operations. “This is a validation of both the custom reports we deliver to advertisers and to the site traffic analysis we collect to report on the trends in the automotive industry.”

“Media Rating Council standards and IAB Measurement Guidelines resonate with clients and industries seeking valid and reliable advertising impression measurement data,” said George Ivie, Media Rating Council Executive Director. “And Edmunds.com is the first dedicated automotive website to meet our stringent requirements and receive MRC accreditation.”

Other industry-leading properties that have achieved MRC accreditation include 24/7 Real Media, AOL, Atlas, CNET, Disney Internet Group, DoubleClick, Forbes.com, Google, MSN, Turner Digital, Univision.com, The Weather Channel Interactive and Yahoo!.

About Edmunds Inc. (http://www.edmunds.com/help/about/)

Edmunds Inc. publishes four Web sites that empower, engage and educate automotive consumers, enthusiasts and insiders. Edmunds.com, the premier online resource for automotive consumer information, launched in 1995 as the first automotive information Web site. Its most popular feature, the Edmunds.com True Market Value®, is relied upon by millions of people seeking current transaction prices for new and used vehicles. Edmunds.com was named “Best Car Research Site” by Forbes ASAP, has been selected by consumers as the “Most Useful Web Site” according to every J.D. Power and Associates New Autoshopper.com Study(SM), was ranked first in the Survey of Car-Shopping Web Sites by The Wall Street Journal and was rated “#1″ in Keynote’s study of third-party automotive Web sites. Inside Line launched in 2005 and is the most-read automotive enthusiast Web site. CarSpace launched in 2006 and is an automotive social networking Web site and home to the oldest and most established automotive community. AutoObserver.com launched in 2007 and provides insightful automotive industry commentary and analysis. Edmunds Inc. is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, and maintains a satellite office in suburban Detroit.

Data from Internet Activity Index Shows Content on the Rise with Elections, Economic Crisis; Online Commerce at All-Time Low

New York, NY – December 3, 2008 – The Online Publishers Association (OPA) today announced that time spent with online content reached a 2008 high in October, according to the group’s Internet Activity Index (IAI). And while content soared in October, share of time spent with e-commerce hit an all-time low. The exclusive Index, which the OPA launched over four years ago, measures the amount of time consumers spend online each month with commerce, communications, community, content, and search.

Content has consistently led all categories since early 2006, and October’s data marks a new high for 2008*. Over 45% of consumers’ online time in October was spent with content, an increase of 6.1% since the beginning of the year. The jump was driven by consumers’ growing reliance on trusted online media outlets, and in particular, the dramatic news related to the nation’s financial crisis politics.

At the same time, commerce fell to its lowest point since the OPA began tracking time spent online. Consumers spent more time with online trading sites in October, but it was not enough to offset a significant drop in time spent with other online commerce activities. Since the beginning of 2008, time spent with commerce has fallen 20.4%.

“The October Internet Activity Index demonstrates that consuming content is the dominant way people spend time online,” said OPA President Pam Horan. “The economy, the election and other current events have driven even greater interest than usual, as consumers turn to the Internet for vital news and financial information.”

Horan continued, “The new IAI report also reflects the current economic realities, including the decline of offline retail spend. Share of time spent on commerce sites reached the lowest point in the four years since we began assessing this data.”

OPA’s IAI is compiled by Nielsen Online and is available at www.online-publishers.org. The chart below summarizes recent results:

Category
 January 2008
 October 2008
 Change Jan-Oct
 
Content
 42.7%
 45.3%
 6.1%
 
Communications
 28.7%
 28.0%
 -2.4%
 
Commerce
 16.1%
 12.8%
 -20.4%
 
Community
 7.5%
 8.7%
 16.0%
 
Search
 5.0%
 5.2%
 4.0%
 

Community saw a large increase during 2008, due largely to increased use of Facebook, however it continues to account for a relatively small share of consumers’ time spent online.

“ Our goal with the IAI is to provide a reliable, ongoing measure of the time being spent with key online activities,” Horan said. “ Through this data, the IAI offers a unique gauge that helps define engagement and serves as a valuable supplement to other key measures.”

* Because community sites were removed from the content category in January, and a new community category was created, data for the content and community categories cannot be directly compared to pre-January data. However, content maintained its overall lead even after community sites were removed from the category.

About the OPA Internet Activity Index

The OPA’s Internet Activity Index is derived from a categorization of Web properties accounting for more than 90%, on average, of active Web users and approximately 55% of total usage time (excludes .gov and .edu Web sites, as well as pornographic domains). The IAI is compiled by Nielsen Online and is posted online each month. A full description of the IAI and its methodology is available at www.online-publishers.org.

About the OPA

Founded in June 2001, the Online Publishers Association is an industry trade organization whose mission is to advance the interests of high-quality online publishers before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public. Members of OPA represent the standards in Internet publishing with respect to editorial quality and integrity, credibility and accountability. OPA member sites have a combined, unduplicated reach of 149.3 million visitors, or 79% percent of the total U.S. Internet audience (Source: comScore Media Metrix, August 2008 combined home/work/university data). For more information, go to www.online-publishers.org.

Hires Executive with Capitol Hill Experience Complemented with Private Sector Work as Director of Government Affairs for IAC

New York, NY – November 21, 2008 – As part of its continuing effort to engage in public policy related to digital media, the Online Publishers Association (OPA) today announced it has added the position of Vice President of Government Affairs and hired Michael Drobac. Drobac spent years working on Capitol Hill and most recently was Director of Government Affairs for IAC. 

The OPA, which represents the world’s leading providers of high quality, premium online content, is committed to being active in policy debates on behalf of its member companies. As digital media has become a vital part of the lives of consumers, policy makers have taken an increasing role in examining the industry. While welcoming the important role of Congress, the FCC and other regulators, the OPA has sought to ensure these groups understand the industry’s economic fundamentals, its efforts at self-regulation and the important services it provides to consumers.

“Michael will play a critical role in making certain the voice of quality online publishers is heard on Capitol Hill and throughout Washington,” said OPA President Pam Horan. “Having both worked in the internet industry and served high profile members of Congress, Michael brings a perfect blend of experience for leading our public affairs efforts.”

Since 2006, Drobac has served as the Director of Government Affairs for IAC/Interactive Corp. He began his public policy work as a legislative aide in the office of Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR), and went on to serve Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) and Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN). Drobac is a graduate of Stanford University, the University of Oregon School of Law and received his Masters of Law from the London School of Economics. Most recently, Drobac served as a volunteer on the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama (D-IL).

Horan continued, “By following the debates in Washington and working closely with policy makers, we can help ensure the best interests of both consumers and publishers are served. It’s particularly important that legislators and regulators fully understand the essential role of digital media in providing consumers with vital information, unique services and engaging entertainment.”

About the OPA

Founded in June 2001, the Online Publishers Association is an industry trade organization whose mission is to advance the interests of high-quality online publishers before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public. Members of OPA represent the standards in Internet publishing with respect to editorial quality and integrity, credibility and accountability. OPA member sites have a combined, unduplicated reach of 149.3 million visitors, or 79% percent of the total U.S. Internet audience (Source: comScore Media Metrix, August 2008 combined home/work/university data). For more information, go to www.online-publishers.org.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced that Google has terminated the advertising services agreement the companies announced in June. Yahoo! continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court. Google notified Yahoo! of its refusal to move forward with implementation of the agreement following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo!’s proposed revisions to address the DOJ’s concerns.

While the implementation of the services agreement with Google would have enabled Yahoo! to accelerate its investments in its top business priorities through an infusion of additional operating cash flow, this deal was incremental to Yahoo!’s product roadmap and does not change Yahoo!’s commitment to innovation and growth in search. The fundamental building blocks of a stronger Yahoo! in both sponsored and algorithmic search were put in place independent of the agreement.

Yahoo! continually optimizes its algorithmic and sponsored search, and we have, in 2008 alone, developed and launched hundreds of improvements all designed to enhance search quality and deliver a more relevant search experience to the company’s users. To that end, Yahoo! has benefited from strong revenue per search (RPS) gains in the U.S. as discussed on the Q3 earnings call. Furthermore, Yahoo! continues to make substantial progress against its Open Strategy and in the deployment of its game changing APT from Yahoo! display advertising platform.

Going forward, Yahoo! plans to continue to provide the cutting-edge advances in products, platforms and services that the industry needs and expects, and intends to be the destination of choice for advertisers and publishers who want to reach one of the largest and most engaged populations of consumers on the web.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com.