Archive for October, 2008
YuMe Agency Bar Olympics – NYC @ Slate
Congratulations to the team from Mindshare World for winning the YuMe Bar Game Olympics, having won two Gold Medal and one Silver Medal. Beyond came in a close second with one Gold and one Silver medal. We look forward to helping Mindshare enjoy their grand prize of a happy hour on YuMe.
Final Standings
Foosball
Gold Medal: Beyond Interaction – Melissa Kugelman & Rachel Veiga
Silver Medal: Mindshare – Bessie Zhang & Richard Oh
Pool
Gold Medal: For Your Imagination – Gino Tomac & Jon Johnnidis
Silver Medal: Underscore Marketing – Rachel Marcus & Victoria Shirley
Ping Pong
Gold Medal: Mindshare – David Wu & David Hwang
Silver Medal: Beyond Interaction – Meinan Liu & Risa Pearl
Beer Pong
Gold Medal: Mindshare – Chris Dino and Richard Oh
Silver Medal: Carat – Hugh Cullman & Will
- YuMe Team
The “Right” Number of Ads
Dynamic Logic, bless their heart, conducted a study recently on the reaction to people of ads that interrupt content. I can’t quite figure out what that means, but it seems they included pop-ups or “over-the-content” ads. Yeah, I’d be annoyed too, if I’m watching Quantum of Solace and something started to float over the critical chase scene when Bond and the Bond girl are strapped into an Aston Martin chasing the baddies.
What I found interesting in the article titled “What’s the right amount of advertising?” is that the subtitle is “It can depend on the type of ad” state that not only does it depend on the type of ad, but it depends on the viewer, the viewer’s tastes, the relevancy of the advert to the viewer and the content. Maybe Dynamic Logic can run a study that includes some more variables.
According to the data, another interesting trend is that from 2005 to 2007, the number of people that found it simply unacceptable or borderline unacceptable to have “over-the-content” ads dropped from 48% to 36%. That’s significant. It either means that the ads are getting more relevant, or people are getting more tolerant. I’d suspect the former, given that from 2005 to 2007, the number of ads has increase per piece of content. Maybe in 2 more years, the number of naysayers will drop from 36% to 24%. But hopefully this time, because ads are much more relevant and contextual and tailored. Again, let’s see.
- Jayant Kadambi
Forbes – Expands Ad Guarantee Program
If you haven’t seen the article from last week titled “Forbes Expands Ad Guarantee Program“ it got me thinking and writing. So here’s my post.
Forbes is “guaranteeing reach and frequency” for its ad buys. But only if you are part of an elite group who spend a serious amount of money on Forbes per year. Hmm, so Forbes doesn’t guarantee reach for the proletariat? If we don’t deliver the reach we promised (as per the IO), we either continue the campaign until it delivers or refund the money. I’m not sure what it means to guarantee it. Guaranteeing frequency? Well, we do that (as I’m sure others do). We’ll frequency cap the ads so the user doesn’t tire from seeing the same ad, if that’s what the advertiser wants. Basically, I’m confused about the point of the article or what Forbes was trying to say.
The article goes on to state that Forbes is against the proliferation of ad networks. I guess it’s ok to say that. It’s their opinion. But the article didn’t spend enough time on why. Let me open on a couple of reasons why Forbes could think this is a good idea (and then quickly plug YuMe while doing so…)
First – Ad Networks take away business from Owned and Operated (O&O) sites such as Forbes. Well, Forbes of all magazines should be OK with a bit of friendly competition. What are they afraid of? That we’ll outperform them because we have a far larger set of content, uniques and publishers so we can optimise and spread the ad around better to make the campaign perform better?
Second – Ad Networks are devaluing O&O inventory? Maybe the display and search businesses sold their inventory blind, but we don’t. Everthing is transparent and we sell inventory at premium prices, while have the ability to blend in other inventory to lower the effective cpm for the advertiser, yet maintaining the campaign metrics and goals.
Third – When advertiser go to the O&O publisher and the publisher is sold out, they shouldn’t have another choice, so they simply book their ad campaign next month or next year, instead of finding another alternative. See the first point above. Sounds pretty anti capitalist to me.
- Jayant Kadambi
