Unicast

The Unicast Business Intelligence team has compiled general benchmarks related to campaigns served in the US during Q1 of 2010. These benchmarks are assessed across all Unicast tagged campaigns and are tracked across individual formats and verticals. This report provides a summary of the engagement and interaction performance of some of the most popular ad formats served by Unicast through March, 2010.

Key Findings Include:

•Branded Canvas ad formats, which are fully custom interactive units positioned within full episode video players, produced very high interaction rates and average video view time.

•Consumer Packaged Goods produced the longest average interaction time across verticals.

Unicast Analytics Benchmark Report Q1 2010

Recently, we finalized a report to help online advertisers know what women want from the web. By surveying 578 women in the U.S., we’ve helped shed further light on the influence women have when it comes to their purchasing power and how they plan to use it on the web this summer.

Some key findings that were revealed in our report were that 76% of women plan to use the web to connect with friends and family, 67% will keep up with the news, 64% plan to shop for sales/compare prices, 59% intend to entertain themselves (play games, listen to music or watch TV/movies), and 48% will research travel/vacations.

The fact is, women have enormous purchasing power and as advertisers we need to be aware of how to reach them – 85% of all brand purchases are made by women. As women continue to bring more of their daily tasks online this summer, we need to be prepared to get access to the women who will be plugged in this summer. To learn more and read the full report then visit the link below and see the numbers for yourself.

Unicast's 2010 What Women Want From the Web Report

A lot of controversy has come up surrounding Apple’s recent change to its developer terms prohibiting Google and other third party affiliates from collecting analytical data from iPhone and iPad apps. We will leave it for the courts to decide, but it’s not completely clear if this is an attempt by Apple to monopolize an emerging market, protect their stake in the smart phone market from Google and others, or just Apple being “different” (which doesn’t seem to be so different anymore). Despite what tricks Apple may have up their sleeve, there are a few daunting realities surrounding this information collection that are no secret to all parties involved.

The sheer volume of data collection coming from mobile users is going to increase exponentially. With the growing popularity of mobile computing, marketers are going to want to start looking at things like location, time, and previous interactions within the mobile device.

The value of this data is going to increase. With new metrics being collected, data will be used to create more innovative ways of ad delivery, and of measuring success. In a dynamic online advertising environment where tiny changes to ad design or placement can mean a world of difference in performance, it forces marketers to buy in, or bust.

And lastly, Apple clearly wants to collect and do things with this data that it doesn’t want Google to know about. This is really no surprise from Apple, but does create artificial barriers to competition and stirs up even more bad blood between fierce competitors, who most certainly will be required to play nice at some point in the future. However, for the foreseeable future, Apple has the tablet market cornered, and doesn’t want to provide information to anyone who may infringe upon that.

Competitor AdMob’s CEO Omar Hamoui wrote in a blog post, “"Artificial barriers to competition hurt users and developers and, in the long run, stall technological progress."

This may be true Mr. Hamoui, but is it “an attempt to monopolize, combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations” as prohibited by the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890?

This will have to be left for Washington to decide, and with a law originally written in 1890 with no concept of “information” as a commodity or mass marketing in general, it could really go either way. In the meantime, the data keeps rolling in.

What do you do when Apple reports that two million iPads were sold in less than 60 days? You create the first-ever tablet task force, duh!

With the debut of iAd fast approaching on July 1, 2010, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has created the Tablet Task Force to help create an infrastructure that would help support a variety of rich new advertising opportunities for the inevitable emerging technologies of tablets and e-readers. In the short period of time the iPad has been on the market, developers have created over 5,000 apps that take advantage of all its features and not to mention more than 200,000 apps already in the App Store that were created for the iPhone or iPod touch. The objectives of the Tablet Task Force are to explore and define the best practices in the area, build a solid foundation for ongoing growth and provide guidance on the development of ad standards.

“The ad market is developing for tablets and e-readers as the excitement builds for those devices.” said Bob Carrigan, CEO, IDG Communications Inc., Co-Chair of the Tablet Task Force and a member of the Executive Committee of the IAB Board of Directors. “Their growth will create new revenue for media companies, agencies and technology companies and new experiences for users.”

Although, IAB was the first to create a tablet task force, they won’t be the last to create a support group that will help developers answer all their questions, especially with the current controversy and skepticism surrounding applications such as iAd. In just the last month, Apple has had a number of potential antitrust cases arise regarding its developers terms to exclude analytics companies from collecting data on users.

One thing’s for sure, we wouldn’t love Apple without a little bit of controversy along with a little bit of smoke and mirrors. Let’s just hope that the Tablet Task Force will help bring clarity to this rapidly growing market. In the mean time, let’s kick back with a bucket of popcorn and a coke and see what is in store for us in the next few months.

For more information on the Tablet Task Force, and to download “tabvertising—iPad and other tablets: the advertising and marketing opportunities,” please go to: www.iab.net/tabvertising

On May 6th Caleb Hill, SVP of International Business, was a featured panelist at this year’s Digital Hollywood Spring to discuss Advertising Innovation around Broadband, Mobile, In-Video, In-Game, Social Networks, Blogs and Podcasts. Caleb had this to say about the experience:

“There was great panel energy with a broad spectrum of expertise and insights. The moderator, Rick Mathieson, did a great job preparing the subject matter and organizing a lively debate that the panel participants and audience alike enjoyed. Between all of the discussions we had around how technologies are evolving and where they are heading it seems like Mobile, In-game, i-anything, and dynamic content still lack scalability, standards protocol, and reliable platform support. As a result, I see in-video advertising as the only model with the ability to scale during 2010. I am looking forward to following all of the great contributions from the folks I met at the panel and at the conference in general.”

Check out Rick Mathieson's blog to read about his experience as the moderator and his thoughts on the All-Star panel: Rick Mathieson GENWOW

Click here to learn more about Digital Hollywood Spring and other events coming soon: http://www.digitalhollywood.com/

Thanks to the fact that I work at a pretty awesome company, I can log into Pandora every morning and delight myself in endless hours of music while I work intently on my day to day projects. Listening to everything from Beethoven to Beyoncé helps me power through my countless emails, all the while keeping me in a great mood and my energy levels up!

Over the past year, I have seen the ads on Pandora transform from simple 300x250 ads that sit awkwardly on the page and often overlap the player to enormous and elaborate designs that transform the entire page into something almost magical. The ads are impressive to say the least and as much as I want to hate them for interrupting my music experience for 15 seconds, I have to admit they capture my attention. Just recently, I saw an ad for the movie “Kick Ass” on Pandora. This ad allowed users to choose stations designed to evoke the supposed musical preferences of each one of the super heroes in the movie. I couldn’t help myself and chose “Hit-Girl’s” station. To my surprise the music was actually very good. The station played everything from The Grateful Dead to Joan Jett and the blackhearts.

This ad was insanely clever! They didn’t interrupt my music experience but offered me the opportunity to make it better and try something new, while still effectively promoting the premiere of the movie. In addition, the design caught my eye instantly. It was huge and colorful but didn't cover the player- essentially it didn't come between me and the content I care about. In an age where technology is evolving at the speed of light and consumer’s attention spans are steadily decreasing it’s important for publishers, marketers and agencies alike to keep their finger on the pulse. Online ads should not only promote your product or service but they should also seamlessly integrate into the publisher page and compliment the content on the page if possible. I think Pandora and those who choose to advertise on it are definitely on the right track. These new ads show that they understand the importance of sharing their message through innovative designs and features while creating a positive user experience without stopping the music!

Why is CBS gaining, and what do they need to do to continue generating revenue from March Madness on Demand (MMOD)? Here's my take:

- Online video consumption is on the rise in general, as we know. More and more people have the hardware and bandwidth that makes this exercise more popular than in past years

- CBS is gaining because they are the only website that is allowed to stream video content for March Madness. They have purchased the rights to the tournament

- People planning to watch games online (54% from our survey) will need to go to the MMOD site, which is powered by CBSSports.com. So, even though they may be ESPN.com customers or Yahoo! Customers – they will inevitably go to CBSSports if they want to watch games

- Making the video free is a huge deal, consumers do not like to pay for video content online

- To continue to grow, they need to continue to promote the video coverage on their site. They need to innovate on the ad format perspective to charge a premium to their advertisers and also offer innovative, rich, and palatable experiences to the viewing online audience

Take a look at the full Ad Age article:

CBS scores $37 Million in Online Ad Sales for March Madness

Check out our 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament Fever Report:

http://www.unicast.com/Unicast_NCAA_Basketball_Survey.pdf.

On March 7, 2010, James Dillon and James Egan, who lead our global and publisher solution initiatives, had the opportunity to attend the AdMonsters Publisher Forum XXII where they met and dined with some of our industry’s biggest publishers. The event was held at the Hamilton Park Hotel & Conference Center in Morristown, New Jersey and drew in over a hundred leaders in the online advertising space whose roles focus on online advertising operations and advertising technology. Unicast was a proud silver sponsor of the event along side several companies such as Collective, Operative, and Adsoftware.

Jim Egan had this to say about the event "this was definitely a solid networking event with Publisher Ad Ops professionals, who are often times in the driver seat for making vendor decisions on the publisher side. I definitely felt it was a worthwhile investment and I'm looking forward to attending the next Publisher forum in August."

The majority of the agenda for this event is comprised of member-led sessions, workshops, and breakouts covering a wide variety of relevant topics; some examples include ad serving technology, inventory management, organizational structure, business process automation, ad operations policies, rich/streaming media, and case studies.

For more information on this event or to learn about other AdMonsters events coming soon please visit http://www.admonsters.com/events

March Madness is right around the corner but what are NCAA Basketball Tournamet followers doing to stay on top of scores, watch games and check the status of brackets?

According to Unicast’s 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament Fever Survey:

- 83% of March Madness fans will watch coverage on TV

- 44% will go online and just 10% will use a mobile device

- 20% plan to visit online newspapers and magazines barely beating social networks at 18%

A full report of the findings is available here: http://www.unicast.com/Unicast_NCAA_Basketball_Survey.pdf.

The Winter Games have commenced and with the popularity of Social Media, Video Websites and Mobile Applications growing steadily marketers have the opportunity to engage consumers like never before. But unlike the Superbowl, the games are the primary focus not the ads.

So what are the best advertising platforms to grab the attention of Olympic fans without overshadowing the games? Take a look at the article "2010 Olympics offer video marketers a unique opportunity" to learn what, according to Bryan Hjelm, are the best strategies to use when advertising during such a high profile event.