SAN FRANCISCO – VideoEgg, the rich media ad network for guaranteed engagement, announced it expanded its global sales team and opened a new sales office in Atlanta. The new executives bring a diverse range of experience to VideoEgg and further strengthen the company’s presence across North America, the UK and Australia. Coupled with the Atlanta office opening, the talent additions will help drive VideoEgg’s aggressive growth plans for 2009 and beyond.

In 2008, the company achieved domestic revenue growth of 171 percent in North America. This increase is reflected in the expanding reach of VideoEgg’s network, which recently hit the milestone of 100 million uniques, up from 85 million in November 2008. VideoEgg has now delivered more than 1,200 campaigns for more than 300 leading brands.

“As media buyers and advertisers face increased pressure to deliver ROI, they’re re-examining every dollar in their digital spend and becoming laser focused on value,” said Matt Sanchez, CEO for VideoEgg. “As a result, we’re seeing a drastic shift to performance-based advertising to drive demand and awareness. Our remarkable growth in a flat market reflects the clear need for accountability and value in today’s media buy. VideoEgg is uniquely positioned to deliver an innovative approach that lets advertisers engage with consumers in a valuable and measurable way.”

The opening of VideoEgg’s seventh North American office in Atlanta reinforces the company’s sales footprint and provides a more comprehensive connection between its rich media ad solutions and VideoEgg’s client base. The expansion also builds off VideoEgg’s recently announced European headquarters and lays the groundwork for continued global sales team growth.

As part of its current expansion, VideoEgg adds executives Sean Cauley in Chicago, Katie Barrett in New York and Daryl Faulkner in Montreal. Increasing its Southeast presence, the company also introduces Shelley Gosney to lead the new Atlanta office.

Shelley Gosney joins VideoEgg as the Southeast sales manager and the flagship member of VideoEgg’s new Atlanta office. Gosney has over 12 years experience in interactive media sales, previously as the strategic sales director for Endemic Media, the online advertising sales firm for American Express Publishing. Gosney was also the strategic sales manager for DoubleClick’s Online Media Sales Division where she opened and managed the company’s regional sales office in Texas.

“VideoEgg is incredibly excited to increase our presence not only internationally but also with Shelley Gosney in the Southeast, as her vast experience while working for Endemic Media and Double Click perfectly fits our goal of delivering high-value rich media solutions to brand marketers,” added Hess. “All our new executives have incredibly relevant experience in the online media sales arena and extensive contacts with leading global brands. We are well poised for continued growth.”

VideoEgg is a unique advertising network enabling marketers to create rich media experiences that guarantee and deepen engagement across top social, video and gaming environments. The company’s model is changing the way brands deliver advertising and provides the industry’s most feature rich advertising experience. VideoEgg was recently recognized with an ASPY award for its innovative cost-per-engagement (CPE) pricing approach and accountable brand advertising platform. Puma, Coca-Cola, Unilever and Mercedes Benz have all used VideoEgg to increase the amount of time users spend with their brand content.

About VideoEgg, Inc.

VideoEgg is a new kind of rich media advertising network that guarantees brand engagement. The network is composed of over 100 million uniques across more than 400 leading video, gaming and social network sites as well as social applications, bringing outstanding consumer reach and engagement to its advertising partners. An advertising innovator, VideoEgg was the first to commercialize interactive advertising overlays onto video, an approach that is being widely adopted by the industry. Founded in 2005 and based in San Francisco, with offices across North America, in the UK and Australia, the company is privately held and backed by August Capital, First Round Capital, Maveron, WPP and Focus Ventures. For more information on VideoEgg, please visit http://www.videoegg.com.

Follow VideoEgg on Twitter: http://twitter.com/videoegg

AdFrames and VideoEgg are trademarks, servicemarks or registered trademarks in the United States and other countries. All other brands, names, or trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

Business Wire is the official news wire for Search Engine Strategies London 2009. Breaking news releases, advisories, photos, and multimedia are available at Tradeshownews.com, Business Wire’s trade show, conference, and event news resource.

Listed below are Search Engine Strategies London 2009 exhibitor profiles.
Company:           ACQUISIO
Stand:         305
Media Contact:         MARC POIRIER
Phone:         450.465.2631 x210
E-mail:         mpoirier@acquisio.com
Web:         www.acquisio.com

Montreal-based Acquisio is a SaaS (software as a service) company that offers a pay-per-click (Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN AdCenter) management software designed specifically for advertising agencies. The tool, Acquisio SEARCH, allows campaign managers to launch, manage, and optimize all of their client’s campaigns from a single interface, without the need to log into Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, or MSN AdCenter. Additionally, it provides integrated reporting for designing and building beautiful client-ready PDF reports to help you save even more time.

Company:         Efficient Frontier
Stand:         Track Sponsor
Media Contact:         Merinda Peppard
Phone:         2071665220
E-mail:         sales-europe@efrontier.com
Web:         www.efrontier.com/uk

Efficient Frontier is the market and technology leader in providing paid search marketing solutions. The company provides the most powerful, most effective search engine marketing technology and comprehensive strategic and tactical services, to ensure that clients with large-scale, complex search marketing campaigns can achieve the highest possible return on investment. The largest advertisers in the most competitive markets use Efficient Frontier to achieve unprecedented levels of search marketing efficiencies, scalability, risk reduction and campaign growth. The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, USA with offices in New York, the United Kingdom, France and India and licensing partnerships in Japan and Australia. Please visit www.efrontier.com/uk and blog.efrontier.com.

Company:         The Search Monitor
Media Contact:         Laura Nolte
Phone:         321-206-9705
E-mail:         laura@greentheoryinteractive.com
Web:         www.thesearchmonitor.com

The Search Monitor provides real-time competitor monitoring software. TSM crawls and monitors Google, Yahoo, MSN, social media, and shopping engines daily and can be geo-targeted. Interactive agencies, search marketers, and affiliate marketers use The Search Monitor for several reasons (1) to acquire competitive intelligence on paid and organic search including market share, keyword research, ad copy research, discovery of competitive promotions/offers, rank, and budgeting strategies; (2) to police brand use in ad copy, display urls, and branded keyword sponsors; (3) to identify and measure brand buzz; and (4) to police affiliate marketers for compliance with affiliate programs.

Company:         WebTrends
Stand:         309
Media Contact:         Thomas Flischer
E-mail:         Thomas@octopuscomms.net

About WebTrends Inc.

WebTrends provides web analytics and online marketing solutions to optimise marketing campaigns and customer engagement. WebTrends Marketing Lab delivers the industry’s most recognised analytics, SEM, and visitor intelligence solutions to enable companies to understand their customers, drive customer engagement, and enhance marketing and brand awareness. Thousands of leading global organisations, including HSBC, Microsoft, Reuters, General Mills, and Ticketmaster have chosen WebTrends business solutions and client services expertise to optimise their customers’ online experiences.

For more information, visit: www.webtrends.com

About Business Wire

Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is utilized by tens of thousands of member companies and organizations worldwide to functionally enhance and communicate investor relations and public relations content to target audiences. As a recognized disclosure service in the United States, Canada and a dozen European countries, Business Wire facilitates the simultaneous flow of market-moving press releases from corporations to financial markets and their audiences, including regulatory authorities, media, investors, financial information systems and consumer news services. Business Wire also handles XBRL tagging, document formatting and regulatory filing into EDGAR, SEDAR, FSA and other systems.

Communications professionals turn to Business Wire to optimize and issue press releases, photos and multimedia to news organizations, journalists, trade publications, search engines, and individuals, with full-text posting to web sites, online services and databases. A range of distribution options enables members to target by geography, industry, news theme and audience demographics.

Founded in 1961, Business Wire has dual headquarters in San Francisco and New York, with 30 bureaus in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Paris, Frankfurt, London, Brussels, Tokyo, Toronto and Sydney and reciprocal offices throughout the world. Business Wire’s patented NX data platform supports XML, XHTML and XBRL code that enhances news release interactivity, social media sharing and search engine optimization. More information about Business Wire and its services is located on its website at www.BusinessWire.com.

“Jonathan combines great expertise about the Canadian online market and experience in search, marketing, sales and partnerships that will be integral to our continued growth in Canada,” says Penry Price, Vice President, Advertising Sales, Google North America. “On behalf of all my colleagues at Google, we welcome Jonathan to the team.”

Jonathan also previously served as General Manager of AOL Canada Inc. and as Vice President, Audience for AOL Canada Inc. Before working for AOL, Jonathan managed the sales team at Internet startup Bird On A Wire, a business focused on creating and monetizing hosted Internet infrastructure. Jonathan is a graduate, with Honours, from the University of Toronto, and has an MBA from the Rotman School of Management.

Google Canada’s advertising sales office opened in 2002, and moved into their new office space on Dundas Street in Toronto in October 2008. Google also has Canadian engineering offices in Waterloo and Montreal.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company product names may be trademarks of the respective companies of which they are associated.

New York, New York (November 19, 2008) — Eyeblaster, home of the world’s most innovative digital marketing solutions, today announced that it has teamed up with IGN Entertainment and San Francisco-based agency JVST, to launch the first North American full page High Definition video takeover to promote the new video game, TombRaider: Underworld. Leveraging Eyeblaster’s independent position to push product innovation and IGN’s massive online audience, JVST unleashed ‘first-of-its-kind’ takeover ads across IGN’s leading network of gaming sites.

The Tomb Raider: Underworld takeover uses an ad unit to re-skin web pages within IGN’s network by combining full page high-definition video with interactivity. Creative features include Lara Croft rappelling across homepages, sending content crashing and bringing the “Underworld” experience directly to online users with full page HD video.

“JVST developed an innovative and strategic campaign for the next generation of the Tomb Raider franchise, and needed partners with both creative sensibilities and the technical expertise to help us deliver,” said James Song, Executive Creative Director and Partner at JVST. “We selected Eyeblaster and IGN based on their understanding of our objectives and ability to think outside the box. Metrics for this campaign have already exceeded industry standards.”

“We are proud to work closely with JVST and Eyeblaster to create this unique execution and expose our millions of users to the Lara Croft brand in a new way,” said Charlie Barrett, SVP of Sales for IGN. “As the Web’s leading entertainment and videogame destination, IGN is always striving to not only deliver leading content to gamers, but also to create the Web’s most engaging marketing solutions for brand advertisers.”

JVST is using Eyeblaster’s Ad Campaign Manager (ACM) to serve and measure the campaign throughout its lifetime, and to carefully monitor the campaign as it rolls out additional ads with the IGN Network.

“Collaboration, partnership and change continue to be the driving forces within digital marketing,” said Gal Trifon, CEO and Co-founder of Eyeblaster. “As breakthrough creative emerges, better products and enhanced technology will raise the bar online, affecting all players within digital advertising.”

The Tomb Raider: Underworldtm campaign kicked off the HD video takeovers this week on IGN.com and will run until the end of December. To view the campaign visit, http://xbox360.ign.com/?special=tombraider or http://creativezone.eyeblaster.com for other homepage takeovers.

About Eyeblaster: In 1999, Eyeblaster was among the pioneers in rich media communication. Today, Eyeblaster extends its inventive heritage in digital advertising through Ad Campaign Manager (ACM). ACM enables interactive agencies, advertisers and publishers to manage campaigns across digital media channels, including online, mobile and in-game, and a variety of formats, including rich media, in-stream video, display and search. ACM is a robust, integrated and easy-to-use platform that allows customers to focus on campaign strategy, creativity and media efficiency without having to worry about the technical complexities associated with managing global advertising campaigns online.
In 2007, Eyeblaster delivered campaigns for nearly 7,000 brand advertisers serving approximately 2,500 ad agencies across over 2,700 global web publishers in over 40 countries worldwide throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. Learn more at http://www.eyeblaster.com.

About IGN Entertainment: IGN Entertainment, a unit of Fox Interactive Media, Inc., is a leading Internet media and services provider focused on the videogame and entertainment enthusiast markets. Collectively, IGN’s properties reached more than 30 million unique users worldwide in the month of July 2008, according to Internet audience measurement firm comScore Media Metrix. IGN’s network of videogame-related properties (IGN.com, GreenPixels, GameSpy, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, Direct2Drive and others), is one of the Web’s leading videogame information destination and attracts one of the largest concentrated audiences of young males on the Internet. IGN also owns and operates the popular movie-related website, Rotten Tomatoes and one of the leading male lifestyle Websites, AskMen.com. In addition, IGN provides technology for online game play in videogames. IGN is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices throughout the U.S. and in Montreal.

About JVST: JVST Inc. is a full–service advertising and design agency based in San Francisco specializing in innovation and high-impact creative work tailored to inject brands into the cultural currents. JVST prides itself on being media and technologically ambidextrous, culturally edified and out to shape what’s next.

NEW YORK – iPerceptions Inc. (TSX.V:IPE), a leading provider of web-focused Voice of Customer analytics, today announced the results of a new study that delivers accurate insights into which types of online ads are popular with consumers. iPerceptions collected user-generated feedback from over 14,000 visitors to leading media sites during the month of August 2008 to paint a detailed picture of consumer advertising preferences based on their likelihood to click on different types of online ads.

The study found that, despite current buzz around video ads, marketers do not need to spend on fancy interactive ads in order to reach consumers. In fact, consumers are most likely to click on simple text ads (25% of respondents). Display ads follow in popularity, with 20% of respondents likely to click on right banners and 12% likely to click on top banners. A surprising finding of the study is that video ads are not very popular among most consumers; only 11% of consumers said they were likely to click on video ads. And 25 to 34 year-olds show no special affinity for video, being just as likely to click on video ads as text, right and top banners. The only consumers who seem to be engaged by video ads are young people under the age of 25, a group that accounts for nearly one-third of the video-ad viewing audience.

“Retail groups are predicting the toughest holiday season since 1991, so marketers need to make sure every dollar spent on advertising delivers an end result,” said Jonathan Levitt, vice president of marketing at iPerceptions. “Our research shows that inexpensive banner and text ads are still preferred among web consumers. By having a direct dialog with consumers, we are able to know – with certainty – what consumers want and expect from their online experience.”

The iPerceptions study also unearthed some important data about how income level and frequency of visits impact consumer ad preferences. As advertisers plan key media buys to boost sales during the upcoming holiday season, they would do well to plan marketing messages and targeting tactics around the study’s finding that the likelihood that a person will click on an ad goes down as their income rises. On average, 40% of consumers likely to click on any ad make less than $50K a year – and only 15% make over $150K. The income gap is most pronounced with video ads, with 49% of consumers likely to click on video ads making less than $50K a year – and only 13% making over $150K.

Web marketers and publishers should also note that clicks come from loyal audiences. Across the board, 65% of consumers likely to click on online ads are weekly or daily browsers, and only 15% are first-time visitors and 6% are sporadic visitors.

“Our research clearly shows that media sites that offer consumers compelling content and features – encouraging repeat visits – generate much better ad clickthrough rates than less engaging sites,” said Levitt. “Marketers that want to reach high quality audiences should focus ad placement on sites that deliver the highest customer loyalty and repeat visitor traffic.”

iPerceptions technology goes beyond traditional web analytics to collect customer-generated feedback during actual web sessions to help websites understand who is visiting their site, why they are there, whether they are having a good experience, and what changes in site content or design would provide a better experience. By measuring metrics such as task completion and purpose of visit, iPerceptions can tell with certainty what consumers are doing on a site – and what they really want to do but are unable to – so that websites can pinpoint which marketing and merchandising strategies will deliver the best return.

More details on the iPerceptions research methodology and perceptual framework can be found at http://www.iperceptions.com.

About iPerceptions

iPerceptions is one of North America’s leading web-focused Voice of Customer analytics providers. Its webValidator Continuous Listening solution and Proprietary iPerceptions Satisfaction Index (iPSI), turn thousands of data points into easy-to-understand strategic and tactical decision support for website marketers. iPerceptions’ clients include such well known brands as InterContinental Hotels, General Motors, Dell Computers, Hyundai, LG Electronics, Choice Hotels International, BMW and Monster Worldwide. iPerceptions has offices in New York, Toronto, Montreal and London.

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today marks the launch of a new media network designed to reach audiences with engaging advertising and entertainment content. Through its acquisition of Barfly Interactive Networks, a rapidly growing in-bar advertising and media company, TouchTunes Corporation, the largest out-of-home interactive entertainment network, will augment its expansive system of digital jukeboxes with prominent screens in bars across the United States. Barfly will bring new content from some of the most influential brands in the world, adding to TouchTunes’ robust digital music, advertising and games offering.

As a leader in the out-of-home (OOH) digital media market, the TouchTunes digital jukebox network is in more than 35,000 bars, restaurants and retail locations throughout North America. TouchTunes acquired Barfly to complete its vision to provide an integrated network that goes beyond jukeboxes, creating a go-to entertainment and advertising center that provides music, games, advertising, interactivity and social networking.

“A targeted in-bar presence is not merely an addition to other media, it is an enhancement of our successful music and gaming network,” said Ron Greenberg, TouchTunes CMO and senior vice president of digital media. “When we add Barfly to the mix, we create one of the largest, most robust new media networks around. The opportunities to target audiences and provide a new fresh mix of content are unlimited.”

The Barfly in-bar media platform, which has successfully operated in approximately 150 bars in select metropolitan markets for the past year, was built as a fully legal way to create a brand conversation at the point of sale with bar patrons between the ages of 21-34, a demographic that has become increasingly media sensitive and tech savvy. Its content is a balanced mix of interactive entertainment and marketing messages from its partners.

“Joining TouchTunes will help us leverage our combined creativity and capabilities to quickly expand with target audiences and in key growth markets,” said Bob Weinschenk, CEO and president of Barfly. “The acquisition brings great value to both companies. TouchTunes and Barfly are mutually interested in helping brands to interact with consumers inside of bars in unique and fun ways that deliver real business results.”

Barfly has signed exclusive advertising and content development deals with leaders in the beer, wine and spirits industry, including Anheuser-Bush, Diageo and Skyy. The company works closely with advertisers to develop relevant messages and content that promotes key consumer brands in a highly contextual and targeted manner, unlike traditional signage and in-bar promotional materials. The content is shown via wrap-around graphics on televisions in bars. Barfly augments its ad line-up with information about the host bars’ events and specials, trivia contests and other interactive entertainment.

TouchTunes’ new alignment will further advertising partners’ opportunity to rapidly increase their reach and connect with key audiences in new and entertaining ways. Now, marketers with the world’s leading brands will be able to reach consumers effectively at the point of purchase and within the right environment. Additionally, Barfly also will allow TouchTunes to work more closely with its operator and distributor partners – in a new and innovative way – and will bring TouchTunes fresh opportunities for growth.

Barfly Networks currently has about 30 employees and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. The company will continue to be run by its current management team and will retain the Barfly name. The complete terms of the deal, effective immediately, were not released.

About TouchTunes Corporation

TouchTunes Music Corporation is the largest out-of-home interactive entertainment network, providing innovative solutions to over 35,000 bars, restaurants, retailers and other businesses in North America – three times larger than the nearest competitor. TouchTunes introduced the world’s first digital-downloading, pay-per-play commercial jukebox in 1998 and now operates the largest network of interactive entertainment systems, playing over 1.5 million songs per day. TouchTunes maintains a digital music library covering more than two million licensed tracks from every major record label, plus independent music distributors and a host of independent labels.

A privately held U.S. corporation, TouchTunes Corporation’s principal offices are in New York City, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and Lake Zurich, IL.

About Barfly Interactive Networks

Barfly Networks is the leading “In-Bar Media” network – a new, disruptive technology that facilitates marketing of beer and spirits brands or products through the digital delivery of dynamic, interactive and customized content. Barfly is positioned to deliver top brand content with support from highly respected and known beer and spirits brands. Importantly, Barfly is 100 percent compliant with state liquor laws.