Ad Operations Online » Media Planning

Starcom MediaVest Group and ShareThis Announce Social Quality Index (SQI) Integration into comScore Media Metrix Interface

Otilia Otlacan — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:00:16 +0000

Marks Major Shift in Media Buying Strategy and Publisher Evaluation

PALO ALTO, Calif. & CHICAGO - Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) and ShareThis announced the integration of ShareThis’ Social Quality Index (SQI) into SMG’s comScore Media Metrix® interface for media planning purposes. SQI is a universal measure of social activity on the web. The integration marks the evolution of social from a networking tool to an industry planning resource. For the first time, media planners will be incorporating SQI scores into their evaluations of publishers to determine media allocations.

“Two years ago, we teamed up with ShareThis to leverage SQI in our media buying approach, and it has been an invaluable media planning and buying metric across multiple verticals and client KPIs. We’ve seen significant increases in campaign results across the board”

SQI provides scoring insights spanning 27 key content categories based on ShareThis’ vast reach across more than two million publisher sites. SQI scores are calculated using a patent-pending algorithm that measures how social a site’s content is, relative to other sites with the same type of content. These indexed scores help advertisers identify the most shared and valuable content and engaged audiences across the web.

Media Planning Insight that Improves Ad Campaign Performance

One of the most basic human behaviors, sharing is affecting and redefining every element of communications in ways that are rapidly altering the advertising and publishing industries. By optimizing toward high SQI-rated sites, campaigns will reach the most social audiences and generate higher user engagement. SMG clients have seen impressive results from integrating sharing insights into their campaigns such as ad interaction increased by 66 percent, newsletter sign-ups by 234 percent, and store look-ups by 236 percent. Brand preference lift was 18 percent while purchase intent rose 26 percent.

“Two years ago, we teamed up with ShareThis to leverage SQI in our media buying approach, and it has been an invaluable media planning and buying metric across multiple verticals and client KPIs. We’ve seen significant increases in campaign results across the board,” said Lisa Weinstein, President, Global Digital and Data & Analytics, Starcom MediaVest Group. “Integrating ShareThis’ social metric into our comScore interface gives us the intelligence we need all in one place and makes our media planning more efficient. We encourage our publisher partners to adopt SQI given its proven merit measuring marketing effectiveness.”

“The integration of SQI with comScore’s audience data is a first-of-its-kind effort to incorporate the value of social-sharing into the digital media planning workflow,” said Andrew Lipsman, vice president of Industry Analysis, comScore. “By collaborating with our clients in this manner to deliver innovative solutions, we help power improved campaign performance.”

Changing the Way Content and Inventory is Valued

This is the beginning of new value of content in an increasing social and cross platform environment. In a world where content selection in media plans is increasingly reliant on machine bidding, SQI gives the industry a measure of what content real people like the most. With this standard social quality measure, sellers can set price floors and buyers can make bids on domain names.

“As the first provider of third party social insights integrated into Media Metrix, we’re enjoying a significant increase in visibility for SQI and continue to push forward with our partners to make it an industry standard,” said Kurt Abrahamson, CEO of ShareThis. “SQI is a tool for publishers to distinguish themselves as leaders in engaging, shareable content and attractors of high referral traffic. Social acts, page views and incremental traffic have become the new monetizable value of an online publication or website.”

About ShareThis

ShareThis powers the social web, touching the lives of 95 percent of U.S. Internet users across more than two million publisher sites and 120+ social media channels. It makes content more engaging for publishers and marketing more effective for brands by tapping into the purest expression of interest-based social activity. ShareThis is the company for those wanting to make the world more connected, trusted and valuable through sharing. Based in Palo Alto, CA, the company is privately held. To learn more visit http://www.sharethis.com

About Starcom MediaVest Group

Starcom MediaVest Group is the Human Experience Company. We believe experiences matter. They enhance lives and build brands. We bring brand experiences to life through SMG’s three global agency brands: MediaVest, Starcom, and Spark. Ranked one of the largest brand communications groups in the world, Starcom MediaVest Group (www.smvgroup.com) encompasses an integrated network of human experience strategists, investment specialists, content creators and digital experts. With nearly 6,500 employees in 110 offices worldwide, SMG partners with the world’s leading companies including The Coca-Cola Company, Kraft Foods, P&G, Samsung, Walmart, among others. In 2010, Adweek named SMG “Media Agency of the Decade.”

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in digital measurement and analytics, delivering insights on web, mobile and TV consumer behavior that enable clients to maximize the value of their digital investments. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Adform and Marin Software Partner for Seamless Revenue Attribution and Acquisition across Online Channels

Otilia Otlacan — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:00:57 +0000

Revenue acquisition management and ad tech platform provide solution to attribute accurate data, and optimise to revenue outcomes across search, display, social, and mobile.

London – Marin Software, provider of a leading revenue acquisition management platform, and Adform, Europe’s leading ad tech platform, announced a partnership to provide joint clients with the ability to attribute accurate data and optimise to revenue outcomes across search, display, social, and mobile. Through this partnership, advertisers and agencies using Adform and Marin will have accurate de-duped revenue and conversion data across all online media channels, from which they can accurately attribute, value, and optimise to revenue outcomes across a path-to-conversion.

News Facts

• In the age of “Big Data”, advertisers sit on a lot of data relating to their online advertising campaigns. Ensuring the accuracy of data and gaining visibility into it at this scale can be fraught with errors and resource constraints. As a result, advertisers struggle to maximise the use of data to optimise revenue outcomes. Adform and Marin Software’s integration will deliver advertisers with accurate post-attributed, de-duplicated revenue and conversion data, coupled with the workflow and optimisation tools required to act on this data across search, display, social, and mobile.

• Advertisers who take advantage of this turnkey integration will be able to utilise the Adform platform for path-to-conversion analysis across all online media. Within Marin, advertisers will be able to leverage post-attributed data to optimise revenue outcomes across search, social, display and mobile campaigns using post-attributed data from Adform.

• Independent communications agency, AMS Media Group, is one of the first companies to take advantage of the Adform and Marin Software integration for its clients. Before working with Adform and Marin Software they utilised a technology stack, and client data from search and social advertising was siloed in separate interfaces from display advertising data, with discrepancies between the two. As a result, they couldn’t attribute value across a path-to-conversion effectively. Through Adform and Marin Software, AMS Media can now see accurate data across multiple online channels in one interface. They can also attribute value across the path-to-conversion for their clients through Adform, and optimise campaigns towards revenue outcomes within Marin using post-attributed data.

Quotes

• “There is no doubt online advertising channels are increasingly converging,” said Paul Spokes, Director, AMS Media Group. “This presents a requirement for advertisers and agencies to integrate more data across multiple channels, creating challenges with technology infrastructure and data discrepancies. Adform and Marin Software is the perfect solution to this challenge, as we continue to have best of breed tools in each channel, as well as accurate data in a single interface from which we can better optimise campaigns across channels for our clients.”

• “For advertisers and agencies, getting accurate data across all their online media channels to attribute value from is one of their biggest challenges,” said Matt Lawson, Vice President of Marketing and Partnerships at Marin Software. “The integration between Adform and Marin Software not only provides accurate data to attribute value across a path-to-conversion, it also enables marketers with the tools to optimise revenue outcomes from this data.”

• Martin Stockfleth Larsen, Chief Marketing Officer at Adform, commented, “Online advertisers often make important decisions based upon inaccurate data. We at Adform are proud of to offer Europe’s best ad tech platform including full path-to-conversion and tag management. We are delighted to also now offer an out-of-the-box integration with Marin Software which will benefit many of our agency and advertiser clients across Europe”

About Adform
Adform is Europe’s leading ad tech platform, closing the loop for media agencies and online advertisers by integrating media planning, buying, delivery, optimization and reporting into one place.
Adform’s unique platform incorporates display ad serving, rich media, video, mobile, dynamic ads, personalised targeting, and real-time bidding through integrations with major inventory players, making display advertising simple, relevant and rewarding.
Adform was established in Denmark in 2002 and now has offices in 12 countries including Nordics, UK, Netherlands Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Belgium and Italy.

Visit http://www.adform.com for more information or follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/adforminsider

About Marin Software
Marin provides a leading revenue acquisition management platform used by advertisers and agencies to manage more than $4 billion in annualised ad investments. Offering an integrated platform for search, social, display, and mobile marketing, Marin helps advertisers and agencies improve financial performance, save time, and make better decisions. Headquartered in San Francisco, with offices worldwide, Marin’s technology powers marketing campaigns in more than 160 countries. For more information about Marin’s products, please visit: www.marinsoftware.co.uk/solutions/overview.

comScore Announces U.S. Launch of MMX Multi-Platform to Deliver Unified View of Desktop, Smartphone & Tablet Audiences

Otilia Otlacan — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:00:01 +0000

Stand-Alone Reporting of Tablet Audiences Also Now Available in comScore Mobile Metrix®, Providing Critical Component of Multi-Platform Audience Reporting

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, announced the official U.S. launch of MMX® Multi-Platform, the next generation of digital audience measurement and media planning. Building on MMX®, Mobile Metrix® and Video Metrix® from comScore’s Audience Analytics suite, this first-of-its-kind product – originally released to clients in Beta with September 2012 data – offers unduplicated accounting of audience size and demographics that reflects today’s multi-platform digital media environment.

“We are excited to formally introduce MMX Multi-Platform, a revolutionary development that combines comScore’s flagship products to accurately account for unduplicated audiences across the desktop, smartphone and tablet platforms,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore. “This unified view of digital audiences not only establishes a new measurement standard for the industry, but also has the potential to unlock insights that can deliver substantial, currently unrealized value to our publisher, advertiser and agency clients.”

To learn more about MMX Multi-Platform, click here: www.comscore.com/multiplatform. Those interested in requesting a live product demonstration can click here: www.comscore.com/MMX_Multi-Platform_Demo_Request

Multi-Platform Reporting Drives Value for Marketers and Media Companies

MMX Multi-Platform provides unduplicated audience reporting across the various media platforms, in addition to different content delivery vehicles, whether those are websites, videos or apps. The synthesis of these platforms and content assets delivers new value to the digital media ecosystem in the following ways:

Facilitating Content Monetization- Publishers and media companies can now get credit for their entire unduplicated audiences across computers, smartphones and tablets – including the incremental audiences reached only via mobile platforms.
Demonstrating the reach and value of these audiences to advertisers helps facilitate the monetization of mobile channels.
Improving Content & Marketing Strategies– Understanding demographic differences between audiences across channels can help publishers and media companies devise acquisition strategies and develop content that better engages their different audiences.
Enhancing Media Planning Efficiency– Independent media platform reporting in addition to synthesized, unduplicated views of audiences enables media planners to optimize audience reach and frequency both within and across channels. The full palette of media platforms offers more options to maximize efficiency.
Reaching High-Value or Difficult-to-Reach Demographics– Smartphones and tablets can be more efficient at reaching high-value demographic targets, such as younger males and upper-income audiences. The availability of multi-platform audience reporting provides data that supports more efficient ways of reaching these important demographic segments.
Understanding Media Usage Trends– Publishers, media companies and marketers all need to understand how the consumer media mix is changing over time as a result of the continued adoption of mobile platforms. By illuminating the shifting dynamics, particularly within different segments of consumers, businesses can respond to their customers’ changing needs and better plan for the future.

The Top 50 Digital Media Property Ranking: A New View of the Digital World

Multi-platform audience measurement immediately changes the established view of the digital landscape, with media properties’ audience sizes increasing, in addition to changes occurring within content category rankings. The average property within the Top 100 increased its audience size by an average of 38 percent, and 19 of those properties had incremental mobile (i.e. smartphone and tablet) audiences that extended the reach of their desktop audiences by at least 50 percent. The properties with the greatest incremental percentage gains from mobile were Groupon (223 percent), Zynga (211 percent) and Pandora (183 percent).

MMX Multi-Platform Top 50 Properties February 2013 Total U.S. (Age 18+ on iOS & Android platforms for Mobile) Source: comScore MMX Multi-Platform
		Unique Visitors/Viewers (000)
		Total Digital Population	Desktop*	Mobile**	Mobile-Only	Mobile Audience Incremental % to Desktop
	Total Internet : Total Audience	235,855	221,379	127,106	14,475	7%
1	Google Sites	228,084	196,782	107,604	31,302	16%
2	Yahoo! Sites	210,603	186,596	88,876	24,007	13%
3	Microsoft Sites	175,902	166,346	48,867	9,556	6%
4	Facebook	174,800	145,306	99,698	29,494	20%
5	Amazon Sites	147,031	115,363	74,122	31,668	27%
6	AOL, Inc.	130,619	115,202	54,010	15,417	13%
7	Glam Media	126,117	104,517	48,016	21,600	21%
8	Apple Inc.	115,920	75,358	62,104	40,562	54%
9	Wikimedia Foundation Sites	109,523	85,856	49,296	23,667	28%
10	CBS Interactive	100,772	85,783	34,029	14,989	17%
11	Turner Digital	98,311	81,501	38,424	16,810	21%
12	Demand Media	97,250	78,512	35,800	18,738	24%
13	eBay	84,677	65,764	41,355	18,913	29%
14	About	83,743	64,782	30,000	18,962	29%
15	Ask Network	81,430	69,355	20,933	12,075	17%
16	Comcast NBCUniversal	81,275	67,183	32,193	14,092	21%
17	Viacom Digital	79,966	70,446	20,194	9,520	14%
18	The Weather Company	76,642	56,120	37,368	20,522	37%
19	Pandora.com	65,142	23,035	51,977	42,107	183%
20	Gannett Sites	63,055	47,611	27,023	15,445	32%
21	Answers.com Sites	60,861	47,738	17,832	13,123	27%
22	VEVO	58,010	55,953	4,586	2,057	4%
23	Yelp.com	55,641	36,775	27,569	18,866	51%
24	Twitter.com	55,540	35,963	31,372	19,577	54%
25	craigslist, inc.	55,520	46,380	18,839	9,140	20%
26	Adobe Sites	54,840	40,984	19,810	13,856	34%
27	Federated Media Publishing	54,607	39,577	24,297	15,030	38%
28	Hearst Corporation	54,498	41,514	20,967	12,984	31%
29	Linkedin	54,071	45,699	14,978	8,371	18%
30	Wal-Mart	52,857	38,854	22,397	14,004	36%
31	WebMD Health	50,841	32,641	27,614	18,200	56%
32	NDN	46,262	46,260	N/A	N/A	N/A
33	Meredith Women’s Network	45,533	32,253	19,771	13,280	41%
34	ESPN	44,759	30,348	27,735	14,411	47%
35	Tribune Interactive	44,618	32,991	17,982	11,627	35%
36	New York Times Digital	44,206	33,175	19,869	11,031	33%
37	YP Local Media Network	43,191	30,112	17,539	13,079	43%
38	Pinterest.com	41,210	26,972	22,994	14,238	53%
39	Disney Online	39,551	27,621	18,022	11,930	43%
40	Netflix.com	38,987	29,205	21,480	9,782	33%
41	Everyday Health	38,720	27,143	16,141	11,577	43%
42	Intuit	38,029	29,091	15,105	8,938	31%
43	Discovery Digital Media Sites	37,590	30,504	10,622	7,085	23%
44	Zynga	37,459	12,051	29,936	25,408	211%
45	Fox News Digital Network	37,340	29,829	15,276	7,512	25%
46	Scripps Networks Interactive Inc.	37,050	26,514	15,469	10,536	40%
47	Groupon	36,924	11,421	28,722	25,503	223%
48	WordPress.com	36,846	27,964	11,976	8,882	32%
49	Target Corporation	36,061	23,043	18,028	13,018	56%
50	Time Warner (Excl. Turner/WB)	35,142	25,729	13,693	9,413	37%

*Note: Desktop includes audience reached via video and will therefore differ from standard MMX rankings
**Mobile includes smartphone and tablet platforms

comScore Clients Support Multi-Platform Measurement

“Mobile and video are central to how we deliver content to our readers, so having an audience measurement platform that accounts for this was essential. We are excited that comScore’s MMX Multi-Platform will now be providing that for us.”

- Dan Abrams, CEO, Abrams Media Network

“ESPN’s mission is to serve sports fans, anytime, anywhere, so it’s critically important that we are able to represent the audience of our entire digital footprint. Measuring user behavior across platforms provides us better insights to most effectively build products, serve content, market our offerings and develop innovative advertising solutions.”

- David Coletti, VP, Digital Media Research & Analytics, ESPN

“With the growth of tablets and smartphones, media consumption has become fluid throughout the day. These numbers demonstrate how well Gannett has been able to leverage its digital focus to grow our consumer base through our mobile and tablet products. We applaud comScore for addressing the industry’s need for accurate multi-platform audience measurement.”

- Matt de Ganon, VP, Mobile Product and Operations, Gannett Digital

“Given the trends we’re experiencing in this new multi-screen world with more of our audience engagement with us across mobile devices, it’s critical to our future to capture this activity accurately. comScore is leading the industry in methodologies to realistically represent all the audience who’s coming to our sites across all these new devices.”

- John Denny, VP, Marketing, Advance Digital

“comScore’s new Multi-Platform service provides invaluable data to help navigate today’s tumultuous digital landscape. It is crucial to holistically quantify the unduplicated exposure and engagement of all our digital assets moving forward.”

- Michael Gratz, VP, Research & Insights, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

“Consistent multi-channel reporting of audience reach and demographics is an important underpinning of cross-platform media planning. We look forward to leveraging MMX Multi-Platform to improve side-by-side comparisons and gain a more holistic view of audiences that will help increase the efficiency and performance of our clients’ campaigns.”

- Brian Quinn, Chief Revenue Officer, Triad Retail Media

“With mobile representing such a large segment of our digital audience, we knew that traditional web-based audience measurement was not giving us credit for the significantly larger audience we’ve been delivering to our advertisers. By addressing that critical piece of the landscape, this product is bringing a more realistic view of the true digital media universe to the market.”

- Radha Subramanyam, EVP Insights, Research & Analytics, Clear Channel Media and Entertainment

About comScore

Centro Launches Cloud-Based Digital Media Planning Software for Agencies

Otilia Otlacan — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:54:43 +0000

Media Logistics Software Creates Operational Advantage and Improves Productivity of Digital Media Teams

CHICAGO, IL – Centro (www.centro.net), a provider of modern media services and software, today announced Centro Planner, cloud-based software that automates, documents and consolidates every step of the digital media buying process. Centro Planner simplifies repetitive, manual tasks, enabling agencies to get more work done faster and invest time on higher value, client-facing output, like campaign strategy and analytics. Centro Planner will be unveiled at the 4As Transformation conference in New Orleans, March 10-13.

Broken Operations

Digital is straining agencies because planners are trapped in outdated practices and tools, like email, spreadsheets and PDFs. Agencies want better solutions, but the archaic and cumbersome technology currently in the market ranges anywhere from ineffective to reviled. Centro helps agencies overcome these challenges with intuitive, purpose-built software and managed services that provide operational efficiency. Centro’s CEO, Shawn Riegsecker, will address these topics on a panel session during the 4As conference.

“Centro gets what planners and buyers go through. From our preview of Centro Planner, we think it offers one of the most intuitive and time-saving solutions in digital media planning today,” said Kazi Ahmed, VP Group Digital Media Director at mediahub/Mullen. “Our main focus is to be smarter, faster and more responsive for our clients. By leveraging powerful tools, our team can maximize the time we spend on larger, innovative campaign ideas, instead of organizing and documenting the tiny details of media logistics.”

“Broken operations are severely impacting the health—and happiness—of the advertising industry. Digital teams are drowning in labor-intensive and complex processes. Centro aims to change this by automating media operations,” said Shawn Riegsecker, CEO of Centro. “For online advertising to truly scale and give advertisers the campaigns that they need and deserve, we must fix these inefficiencies.”

Centro ‘Gets’ Media Logistics

Centro Planner is software created for planners by planners—leveraging the company’s eleven years of knowledge in executing media logistics for more than 1,000 agencies. Centro’s highly effective media logistics specialists developed digital know-how by executing more than 20,000 national and local campaigns across all display platforms and ad media types. The only provider in the market to offer both managed services and software, Centro streamlines the full digital media campaign lifecycle.

Centro Planner quickly implements with agencies with a few users, and scales rapidly to accommodate large organizations with multiple teams. Features and benefits allow users to:

Replace cumbersome spreadsheets, PDFs and emails with a cloud-based system—cutting days from the media services process
Access a complete audit trail on all communications, negotiations and contracts
Simplify adoption with intuitive workflow for all levels of planners and buyers
Eliminate errors caused by duplicate entries to multiple systems, resulting in fewer billing and reconciliation issues
Send insertion orders with terms and conditions to publishers to sign contracts and receive site approval using secure digital signature technology
Manage contract revisions before and after the insertion order
Integrate with DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA)
Export media plans for offline use and import into 3^rd party media logistics systems

Agencies interested in a Centro Planner demo can visit: www.centro.net/agencies/software/planner.

About Centro

Centro (www.centro.net), a provider of modern media services and software, partners with advertising agencies to improve their campaign performance and digital media teams’ productivity in order to better manage costs and maximize profitability. Centro is the only provider that offers both managed services and cloud software options to simplify and streamline the full campaign life cycle to meet the unique requirements of every agency. Since 2001, Centro’s media logistics specialists have successfully planned and executed more than 20,000 local and national campaigns across all digital display platforms and ad media types. Headquartered in Chicago with 28 offices nationwide, Centro’s success and commitment to culture has led to many accolades, including #1 on Crain’s Best Places to Work in Chicago in 2011 and 2012.

comScore Announces Beta Release of MMX Multi-Platform, Providing a Unified View of Web, Smartphone and Tablet Audiences

Otilia Otlacan — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 17:07:38 +0000

MMX Multi-Platform is a Revolutionary Digital Audience Measurement and Media Planning Product that Accurately Accounts for Today’s Fragmented Media Environment

New Rankings, New Metrics, New View of the Digital World

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, announced the U.S. Beta release of MMX® Multi-Platform, the next generation of digital audience measurement and media planning. Building on MMX, Mobile Metrix and Video Metrix from comScore’s Audience Analytics suite, this revolutionary product offers unduplicated accounting of audience size and demographics that reflects today’s multi-platform digital media environment, which includes websites, apps and video content accessed from multiple devices.

“We are excited to introduce our Beta version of MMX Multi-Platform, the next generation in digital audience measurement offering a unified 360-degree view of digital consumer behavior across platforms and content types,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore. “With smartphones and tablets accounting for a rapidly expanding share of digital media consumption, comScore recognized the need to evolve our industry-leading audience measurement product to better represent this new paradigm. By developing proprietary methods to account for multi-platform audience overlap, we have designed a truly unique and innovative solution.”

MMX Multi-Platform is expected to remain in Beta over the next several months as the product undergoes a thorough data review and validation with comScore clients. All publicly reported data included in this initial report are illustrative and should not be interpreted as official comScore rankings.

A New View of the Digital World

Multi-platform digital audience measurement has significant implications for how the digital world is seen and understood. “As an active investor in mobile and web businesses, I have been dying for an accurate consolidated view of web, mobile web, iOS, and Android audience data. comScore has delivered exactly what I’ve been seeking for the U.S. audience and I am looking forward to seeing them tackle the global audience next,” said Fred Wilson, Managing Partner of Union Square Ventures.

The most notable change from traditional MMX rankings are the overall audience increases for media properties with a measurable mobile presence; in some cases, these increases are substantial. Specifically, the MMX Multi Platform view shows 10 properties reaching 100 million unique visitors compared to six in a non-multi-platform view, 28 properties reaching 50 million (vs. 19), 77 properties reaching 25 million (vs. 51), 223 reaching 10 million (vs. 171) and 410 reaching 5 million (vs. 334)

MMX Multi-Platform Beta vs. MMX: Audience Threshold Comparison September 2012 Total U.S. (Age 18+ on iOS, Android and RIM platforms for Mobile) Source: MMX Multi-Platform and MMX
Audience Size (Unique Visitors / Viewers)	# of Properties with Specified Audience Size
Audience Size (Unique Visitors / Viewers)	MMX	MMX Multi-Platform
100 Million	6	10
50 Million	19	28
25 Million	51	77
10 Million	171	223
5 Million	334	410

Another visible way of reflecting this change is through the ranking of the top media properties. Properties that are particularly mobile-centric, or at least have a strong mobile extension of their brands, may realize strong increases in total audience size and rankings under MMX Multi-Platform reporting.

Below is a comparison of the top 30 media properties in September 2012 according to the new MMX Multi-Platform Beta rankings compared to the existing MMX ranking of top web properties. These properties reached an average incremental audience of 26 percent compared to their desktop computer-only audience. Other key findings include:

Google Sites ranked #1 was the only property to surpass 100 million unique visitors across both desktop and mobile channels.
Facebook moved up one spot to #3 in the multi-platform rankings, and ranked as the top property in terms of total engagement in the mobile channel.
Amazon, eBay and Walmart each reached at least 20 percent more visitors across platforms than via desktop alone.
The most mobile-centric property in the ranking, Pandora, had an incremental reach of 164 percent and captured the #23 ranking, a full 38 positions higher than in the standard MMX ranking.
Twitter reached an incremental mobile audience of 54 percent, second only to Pandora on this list.
ESPN had the second biggest jump in the rankings, ascending 4 positions to #19, with an incremental mobile audience of 36 percent.

MMX Multi-Platform Top 30 Properties September 2012 Total U.S. (Age 18+ on iOS, Android and RIM platforms for Mobile) Source: MMX Multi-Platform and MMX
			Unique Visitors/Viewers (000)
MMX Multi-Platform Rank	MMX Rank		Total Digital Population	Desktop	Mobile
		Total Internet : Total Audience	234,953	219,970	126,890
1	1	Google Sites	214,806	189,588	109,099
2	3	Yahoo! Sites	189,272	164,404	94,304
3	4	Facebook.com	179,411	151,122	91,502
4	2	Microsoft Sites	170,565	168,022	41,837
5	5	AOL, Inc.	135,860	120,936	52,400
6	6	Amazon Sites	134,522	111,170	61,844
7	7	Wikimedia Foundation Sites	103,724	88,441	39,444
8	8	Glam Media	102,288	86,884	39,749
9	10	Apple Inc.	102,065	79,689	47,567
10	9	CBS Interactive	100,698	86,998	36,662
11	11	Turner Digital	98,711	84,649	36,996
12	12	Ask Network	91,011	78,023	31,618
13	14	eBay	90,289	73,805	37,537
14	13	Demand Media	89,894	78,214	30,003
15	15	New York Times Digital	88,284	71,671	36,401
16	18	Comcast NBCUniversal	83,105	70,031	31,135
17	17	Federated Media Publishing	81,923	68,846	30,071
18	16	Viacom Digital	79,410	71,610	20,313
19	23	ESPN	65,486	47,345	31,818
20	24	Weather Channel, The	63,268	46,930	28,878
21	20	Gannett Sites	61,514	49,499	24,140
22	22	Answers.com Sites	60,228	48,828	22,760
23	61	Pandora.com	59,877	22,657	48,641
24	19	VEVO	57,716	55,033	4,966
25	20	craigslist, inc.	57,442	49,601	16,657
26	27	Twitter.com	56,736	36,840	30,646
27	34	Disney Online	51,938	44,508	14,470
28	25	Wal-Mart	51,469	41,515	18,643
29	30	Yelp.com	47,920	33,385	23,021
30	26	Linkedin	47,064	39,600	13,639

*Note: Desktop includes audience reached via video and will therefore differ from standard MMX rankings; Mobile includes smartphone and tablet platforms

Methodology & Metrics

comScore’s multi-platform measurement relies on its proprietary Unified Digital Measurement™ (UDM) methodology, which combines panel and census-based approaches, to deliver best-in-class estimates of digital audiences and consumption. In order to provide accurate unduplicated audience size estimates across digital platforms, comScore developed a proprietary method that leverages its census web site network to understand audience overlap across different media channels – the first offering of its kind to utilize such an approach.

This unified representation of disparate media channels also requires a modified view of certain standard reporting metrics. While “unique visitor”-based metrics remain central to MMX Multi-Platform, measures of engagement such as page views must be reconsidered. This means that duration-based metrics (i.e. minutes) become the preferred engagement metrics because they are consistent across media; however, comScore is also introducing the new “views” metric to account for content-specific engagements, such as the web-based page view, video view or app start.

Tag Your Digital Content Today!

MMX Multi-Platform Beta is available to U.S. clients immediately, and anticipated for introduction to the UK market in early 2013. Other international markets will follow thereafter. Publishers, brands, and media companies who want to ensure that all their digital platforms and audiences are fully reflected in MMX® Multi-Platform are strongly encouraged to begin tagging their digital assets with comScore today at the comScore Direct website.

Many web sites are already familiar with the process from tagging their traditional web content using comScore’s UDM census tag. The comScore tag has recently been updated to enable advanced measurement of sites and apps in a fixed web or mobile environment, inclusive of both iOS and Android platforms. With an increasing amount of media consumption shifting to smartphones and tablets, now is the time to make sure that all of your digital assets are accounted for:

Traditional web pages
Mobile-optimized web pages
Mobile apps
Tablet apps
Video content

If you have any questions about implementing these additional tags, please feel free to reach out to your comScore account representative.

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

2012 Holiday Media Buying Season: Lock Up Inventory Now, According to SpotXchange

Otilia Otlacan — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 14:05:18 +0000

Company Offers Valuable Tips to Help Brands Succeed During Critical Year End Push

DENVER - With the 2012 holiday media buying season right around the corner, brands need to start developing their plans now, if they haven’t already, according to SpotXchange, the largest global marketplace of digital video ad inventory. As these plans are formalized, brands and agencies should focus their buys around these four critical peak shopping days for consumers nationwide:

Black Friday – Friday, November 23
Cyber Monday – Monday, November 26
Green Monday – Monday, December 10
Last Day of Free Shipping (for most retailers) – Monday, December 17
Day After Christmas – Wednesday, December 26

Given the fast approaching holiday season, it is beneficial for brands to secure inventory on sites highly frequented by their core consumer. Purchasing inventory at this stage of the game will ensure that brands are able to get the placements they desire. Additional tips brands and agencies should keep in mind as they develop their holiday media buying strategy include:

Strive for high share of voice: Enables brands to more effectively counterbalance competitive messaging.
Consider exclusivity if possible: When buying ads, brands should consider exclusively buying inventory on a select number of sites frequented by their target audience as consumers are less aware of competing products.
Diversify types of ads: With so many options out there (display, mobile, search and video), which should brands choose? This depends on the target audience a brand is trying to reach, but nonetheless, brands’ holiday media buys should feature a variety of the ad types mentioned above. Keep in mind, digital video is one of the most effective forms of advertising as it combines the power of sight, sound and motion.

“DataXu works closely with advertisers to maximize the impact of their video campaigns against the metrics that matter most to them, including awareness, engagement and ultimately sales, to ensure the highest ROI possible,” said Adrian Tompsett, vice president of business development, DataXu. “After Christmas, we see available video inventory on exchanges like SpotXchange more than double, and that represents opportunity for the buyer. Coupled with generally weaker advertiser demand, this allows savvy advertisers to seize the opportunity to get a lot more bang for their buck.”

“The holiday season is one of the most critical times for brands, and it is vital that they build a strategic media buying plan in order to reach their target consumers in the right place, at the right time, to help influence their decision making process,” said Mike Shehan, CEO of SpotXchange. “Digital video is one of the most effective forms of advertising available to brands today. We typically see a noticeable uptick in ad calls the week after Christmas, so there is a tremendous opportunity for brands, regardless of vertical market, to reach their captive audience.”

For more information about how digital video can improve your holiday advertising push please visit – www.spotxchange.com.

About

With more than 200 million auctions per day, SpotXchange is the largest global marketplace of video ad inventory reaching 110 million unique visitors in more than 40 countries each month. The leader in video real-time bidding, SpotXchange connects thousands of online publishers with advertisers, agencies, trading desks and ad networks running top brand campaigns through its IAB-certified marketplace. SpotXchange shows premium publishers and more than 400 world class advertisers that there is a better way to buy and sell digital video — with solutions that guarantee total transparency, control, and the best targeting and real-time optimization tools available in a premium video exchange environment.

Adform Strengthens International Presence with New Dutch Office in Amsterdam

Otilia Otlacan — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 07:00:14 +0000

Adform recruits Peter de Zoete and Tim Kraaij to head up the new office in The Netherlands

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Display advertising specialist Adform has today announced the opening of a new regional office in Amsterdam, Netherlands. With the advertising sector showing great growth in the Netherlands, the move to the creative capital will enable Adform to support the local market in delivering the most innovative and technologically advanced display campaigns.

Adform will enable Dutch clients to more readily run campaigns through its unique single platform that hosts an array of services for effective display advertising, from traditional ad serving to real time bidding (RTB), dynamic creative optimisation, rich media and attribution.

As part of the new office opening, Adform has recruited Peter de Zoete as its Commercial Director and Tim Kraaij as its Technical Account Manager. Both de Zoete and Kraaij will be responsible for leading the development of the local office and providing creative and inventive solutions to clients. In particular, the office will cater to the demand from advertisers for RTB campaigns and rich media ads across platforms.

De Zoete commented: “Despite the economic crisis hitting hard, online advertising has shown resilience, with online ad spend in The Netherlands reaching close to 1 billion EURO last year. In fact, advertisers here are keen to harness the new opportunities arising from technological innovations, particularly in mobile and RTB, and are making extra investments in this space. Our presence in this booming market means we can quickly and efficiently meet client demands for creative solutions. Away from solely using tired standard banner ad approaches, we can now offer campaigns which complement traditional offerings through the use of rich media ads, geo and behavioural targeting or RTB.”

Kraaij added: “Over the past decade, more and more products and services have become available for consumption online, leading to the rise of generic and uninspiring approaches to online display advertising. With the volume of adverts present on digital channels, it is now necessary to utilise technologies, such as rich media and RTB, to effectively engage with consumers. With Amsterdam being a center of creativity within Europe, there is a healthy appetite for more innovative display solutions and we’re excited to be at located at forefront of this rapidly evolving market.”

About Adform
Adform is the European specialist in online display marketing solutions, closing the loop for media agencies and online advertisers by integrating media planning, buying, optimization and reporting into one place.

Adform’s unique platform incorporates display ad serving, rich media, video, mobile, dynamic ads, personalised targeting, and real-time bidding through integrations with major inventory players, making display advertising simple, relevant and rewarding.

Adform was established in Denmark in 2002 and now has offices in 12 countries including Nordics, UK, Germany, Spain, Holland, Italy and Portugal.

Visit http://www.adform.com for more information or follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/adforminsider

Disney/ABC Television Group Chooses FreeWheel to Manage Advertising Across Display, Video, and Mobile Channels

Otilia Otlacan — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 09:26:47 +0000

Broadcasting Giant Selects Leading Video Technology Company to Help Monetize Digital Content as It Syndicates Across Partners and Devices

SAN MATEO, CA – Disney/ABC Television Group’s Digital Media team has signed an agreement with video technology company, FreeWheel, to manage its advertising and monetize its content across digital channels including video, display, and mobile formats on ABC.com, ABCFamily.com, and ABCNews.com.

ABC is deploying FreeWheel’s flagship product, Monetization Rights Management® (MRM) to better manage advertising sales rights, forecast advertising inventory, deliver yield-optimized ads, and monitor campaign performance on behalf of its advertisers and partners. MRM will be used to manage advertising across a multiplicity of partners and devices, and will serve all video, mobile, and display (banner) formats.

“FreeWheel’s focus on the television and entertainment industry allows the company to build technology that is uniquely suited to our needs,” said Skarpi Hedinsson, SVP, Technology & Video Platforms, Digital Media, Disney/ABC Television Group. ”MRM is a critical piece of technology that will allow us to scale in the increasingly complex world of entertainment content.”

FreeWheel’s MRM will help ABC successfully sell and execute converged campaigns to its most valuable advertisers. The technology allows its properties, including ABC.com, ABC Family, ABC News, and Owned Television Stations to offer sponsorships and exclusivities, monetize fast-changing news content, manage advertising with local affiliates, and successfully deliver monetized content across devices and partners.

ABC joins ESPN as the second unit from The Walt Disney Company to sign with FreeWheel.

“We could not be more proud to provide ABC with the technology they need to successfully execute television strategies in the newly converged landscape,” said Doug Knopper, co-founder and co-CEO of FreeWheel. ”Organizations like ABC are exactly why we founded the company and built the technology as we did, and we’re thrilled to have them on board.”

About FreeWheel
FreeWheel manages the economics of content for the enterprise-class world of entertainment, offering technical infrastructure for revenue rights management and business operations, wrapped in advisory services. Founded and led by a team of executives from the world’s leading technology companies, FreeWheel’s solutions have already armed companies like AOL, ESPN, FOX, NBCUniversal, Sky, Turner, and VEVO with the technology and services they need to profitably scale their professional content across devices and revenue models. For more information, visit www.freewheel.tv. Follow the company @FreeWheel.

[cb type="company"]freewheel[/cb]

Prohaska Consulting Launches “How to Be” Education Series with First Focus on Media Buying Through Advertising Exchanges

Otilia Otlacan — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 20:10:28 +0000

Industry-wide Initiative Features Charter Partners Adnetik and TubeMogul

Begins July 9 in New York

NEW YORK, NY – Prohaska Consulting, which specializes in digital sales, business development, marketing, and operational strategies for media companies, announced today the launch of its “How to Be” Education Series.

The first installment entitled “How to Be a Digital Media Trader” kicks off July 9 and will teach professionals the basics and more advanced skills around buying digital media on various advertising exchanges using audience targeting and real-time bidding, said Matt Prohaska, lead instructor and Principal at Prohaska Consulting.

“Unless you are deeply involved and engaged in this space, as a publisher, agency, or marketer, it can be quite confusing and difficult to grasp if you are able to do nothing but read the trades crowded with new companies and terminology,” Prohaska said. “Our goal is to help translate acronyms into answers and give a real-world view into how real people do this very exciting job, so they can apply these teachings to their existing or next role.”

“How to Be a Digital Media Trader” features 12 classes, each consisting of a lecture and discussion, followed by a guest speaker and then workshop/lab session, which will include students building their own ongoing mock digital advertising campaign. Instructors and speakers work at leading companies throughout the industry.

Prohaska also announced the program’s first two Charter Partners: Adnetik and TubeMogul, both long-time leading players in the real-time bidding ecosystem. “Charter Partners provide valuable content and underwriting funds that help us run this program and receive a unique opportunity to showcase their products and meet potential future customers or employees. We are thrilled to have Adnetik and Tubemogul as our first partners in this industry-wide initiative.”

To register or for more information, visit http://www.prohaskaconsulting.com and click on “How to Be” Series.

About Prohaska Consulting
Prohaska Consulting helps media companies with their digital sales, marketing, business development, and operational strategies and tactics. Its founder, Matt Prohaska, has been a contributor to the growth of online advertising since its commercial inception nearly 20 years ago as a part of CNET, Sesame Street, and AOL, and led media and data solutions for [x+1] in 2011. For more information, visit http://www.prohaskaconsulting.com.

About Adnetik
Founded in 2009 and funded by Groupo ISP out of Barcelona, Spain, Adnetik is an independent advertising technology company that provides its partners and clients with tools and services to more effectively plan, purchase, measure and deliver digital media. Adnetik operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, Mexico and Brazil. For more information, visit http://www.adnetik.com.

About TubeMogul
TubeMogul is the only video marketing company built for branding. As a demand side platform for video, TubeMogul integrates real-time media buying, ad serving, targeting optimization and brand measurement into its PlayTime platform. Over half of the Fortune 500 use TubeMogul to simplify the delivery of video ads in any format, optimize the impact of their brand message and maximize the effect of every dollar they spend. Founded in 2006, TubeMogul is based in Emeryville, CA with offices in New York, London, Chicago, Detroit, Austin, Los Angeles, Toronto and Sydney. For more information, visit http://www.tubemogul.com.

[cb type="company"]adnetik[/cb]

[cb type="company"]tubemogul[/cb]

GroupM and Nielsen to Jointly Develop First-Ever Cross-Platform Advertising Measurement Tool

Otilia Otlacan — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:45:03 +0000

New Service Will Provide Metrics That Integrate Online and TV Viewing

NEW YORK - GroupM and Nielsen announced a pioneering collaboration to create a new measurement service that will integrate media planning and measurement across television and the Internet.

The goal is to overcome challenges posed by separate media planning, buying, and analysis processes for TV and the Internet, and to answer a growing demand by advertisers for cross-platform measurement tools that help them streamline their marketing strategies.

The new service, dubbed Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings, will leverage the Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings product, as well as its existing television audience measurement capabilities, to provide clients with total and overlapped reach and frequency of their marketing campaigns. Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings provides reach, frequency and GRP measures for Internet advertising.

The effort calls for GroupM, the world’s leading media investment management company, and Nielsen, a leading global information and measurement company, each to contribute resources and expertise to create Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings and make it available to GroupM clients. The two companies will also work together to develop innovative new measurement tools that extend beyond TV and online to other platforms.

“Our advertiser clients increasingly recognize that traditional television advertising and online video advertising must work together,” said Rino Scanzoni, GroupM’s Chief Investment Officer. “It’s vital that we have consistent measurement, and that’s our goal in working with Nielsen.”

Executives from both companies said consistent measurement across TV, the web and beyond is critical in order to calculate the total reach and frequency of a cross-platform campaign—a goal previously unattainable because TV and web measurement traditionally employ different metrics.

“Cross-platform metrics are essential to both buyers and sellers of advertising,” said Steve Hasker, president of Media Products and Advertiser Solutions for Nielsen. “Every day, we’re hearing from advertisers, online publishers, TV networks and agencies that a better system of measurement is required. Through working closely with GroupM and others in the industry we believe we can help create best practices that will benefit the entire ecosystem.”

ABOUT GROUPM
GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation. It serves as the parent company to WPP media agencies including Maxus, MEC, MediaCom, and Mindshare. Our primary purpose is to maximize the performance of WPP’s media communications agencies on behalf of our clients, our stakeholders and our people by operating as a parent and collaborator in performance-enhancing activities such as trading, content creation, sports, digital, finance, proprietary tool development and other business-critical capabilities. The agencies that comprise GroupM are all global operations in their own right with leading market positions. The focus of GroupM is the intelligent application of physical and intellectual scale to benefit trading, innovation, and new communication services, to bring competitive advantage to our clients and our companies.

ABOUT NIELSEN
Nielsen Holdings N.V. (NYSE: NLSN) is a global information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and related properties. Nielsen has a presence in approximately 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA and Diemen, the Netherlands. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.

Ad Operations Online » Media Planning

Starcom MediaVest Group and ShareThis Announce Social Quality Index (SQI) Integration into comScore Media Metrix Interface

Related articles:

Adform and Marin Software Partner for Seamless Revenue Attribution and Acquisition across Online Channels

Related articles:

comScore Announces U.S. Launch of MMX Multi-Platform to Deliver Unified View of Desktop, Smartphone & Tablet Audiences

Related articles:

Centro Launches Cloud-Based Digital Media Planning Software for Agencies

Related articles:

comScore Announces Beta Release of MMX Multi-Platform, Providing a Unified View of Web, Smartphone and Tablet Audiences

Related articles:

2012 Holiday Media Buying Season: Lock Up Inventory Now, According to SpotXchange

Related articles:

Adform Strengthens International Presence with New Dutch Office in Amsterdam

Related articles:

Disney/ABC Television Group Chooses FreeWheel to Manage Advertising Across Display, Video, and Mobile Channels

Related articles:

Prohaska Consulting Launches “How to Be” Education Series with First Focus on Media Buying Through Advertising Exchanges

Related articles:

GroupM and Nielsen to Jointly Develop First-Ever Cross-Platform Advertising Measurement Tool

Related articles: