online advertising

Netflix needs to entertain advertising — at least that’s the view on Madison Avenue. As online video viewing explodes and linear TV- watching comes under pressure, marketers are making the case that the Internet streaming video giant should drop its aversion to ads and embrace brands.

Online ad companies are posting rising revenue, but for many, their losses are broadening at an even faster rate. The firms aren’t household names such as Google or Facebook, but smaller companies that help marketers buy ad space and deliver those ads on websites and in applications.

Online advertising in the first quarter of 2014 continued to grow at a steady clip from last year. U.S. Internet ad spending increased 19% to $11.6 billion in the period, according to new data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PwC US. That rate is slightly above the 17% growth for all of 2013, and the 16% gain in the year-earlier period.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that major advertisers including MasterCard, Mondelez and Verizon Wireless in the past year have moved a portion of the money they previously spent on TV over to online outlets. WSJ subscribers can read the story here.

Billions of dollars are flowing into online advertising. But marketers also are confronting an uncomfortable reality: rampant fraud.

In an advertising marketplace disparity that likely has not been seen since Arbitron and Nielsen competed as currencies for local TV advertising buys decades ago, a report released this morning suggests the gap is far worse for the burgeoning online video advertising business. Pivotal Research Group’s Brian Wieser shows audience estimates produced by comScore, the current Madison Avenue standard, to be about three times higher than those being produced by challenger Nielsen.

The Wall Street Journal Is reporting that in the past few months, about a dozen companies have announced new ventures related to online news, often in specialized areas such as media or technology, creating a crowded field. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.

Digitally delivered news, both hard and soft, appears to combine reach, popularity, engagement and authority like no other collective of digital assets. And individual news outlets engage their readers and viewers frequently. The uncomfortable truth, however, is that the advertiser has not followed the user. If ever there was a misalignment of time spent and the allocation of advertiser dollars, this is it.

Google said it will begin allowing Nielsen to measure audiences for ads on its YouTube website, a decision that could give ad buyers more confidence to shift dollars to online video.

On Wednesday, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves indicated ad dollars are about to become platform neutral. No more analog-digital divide. Within three to five years, there will be parity pricing for ad positions in NCIS whether on CBS or streamed on CBS.com, he said in an interview on CNBC. So, “we won’t care where you watch the shows,” Moonves said.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Procter & Gamble Co. is now spending more than a third of its U.S. marketing budget on digital media, an aggressive shift as Americans for the first time are expected to spend more time online this year than watching television. The story by Serena Ng and Suzanne Vranica quotes P&G executives as saying digital media in many cases is proving to be a faster and cheaper way for P&G’s brands to reach consumers, and feedback is also faster. WSJ subscribers can read the story here.

Facebook Inc., seeking to break the long-held dominance of television over advertising budgets, plans to sell 15-second TV-style commercials on its site for as much as $2.5 million a day, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Online and mobile outlets are expected to see a nearly 19% rise in automotive advertising, while the category continues to drain away from legacy media, according to a new report from Borrell Associates. Newspapers are expected to be hit hardest, with auto ad levels falling almost 30%.

Higher interaction with a TV commercial for viewers comes with watching an advertising message on a laptop/desktop — not via television, according to a recent study. In a survey showing 59% of U.S. commercial-watching viewers “having some degree of likelihood to act on a commercial they watch,” the best results come when watching on a computer — some 29%, according to research from Viamedia.

A new forecast from Borrell Associates suggests 2013 will be a big year for local online advertising. The firm projects revenue will surge almost 31% this year — from $18.7 billion to $24.5 billion as more small and medium-size businesses shift ad spending to digital from traditional mdia.

President Obama spends $52 million on digital ads in his reelection bid, double what Mitt Romney spent, as presidential campaign online spending jumps 251% over 2008.

Media companies need to think beyond the banner and focus on ads that become part of the content in users’ experience, according to David Payne, chief digital officer for Gannett, where the focus is shifting away from banners and direct response to full-screen video and rich media and the power of branding. Full Story | Add comment

Yet another advertising forecast for 2012 has been downgraded, but this time it’s not a reflection of the sputtering economy. EMarketer, the online forecasting firm, has lowered its outlook for online ad spending this year from 17.7% growth to 16.6%. That’s still a robust number by any standards, and especially right now, when so many media are growing only by low-single-digit percentages or even shrinking.

AT&T AdWorks is expected to launch an ad platform in September allowing brands to target ads online based on TV and mobile data, according to Danielle Lee, AdWorks VP of product marketing and innovation. Two undisclosed brands have signed up to participate in the initial rollout.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau issued a new report today estimating the global mobile advertising market at $5.3 billion, with a wide gap between developed and emerging regions. Asia-Pacific, for example, represented 35.9% of worldwide mobile ad spend, North America, 31.4%, and Europe, 25.9%.

Nearly two-thirds of marketers say they consider online video as a complement to TV rather than a replacement for TV, while only 10% look at online video as a replacement, according to Adap.tv’s just-released state of the video industry report for the first quarter of 2012.

Ad sales for Web streaming of March Madness has grown each year that games have been streamed online, nearly doubling the $32 million sold for the 2009 tournament.

Viacom has been testing an ad sales offering called Surround Sound that will let brands bundle audience-targeted TV buys with a digital campaign aimed at the same consumer segment that would span online video, display, mobile and email advertising.

While some advertisers have bought into digital packages for the Super Bowl’s first live video presentation on personal computers, tablets and mobile phones, many have not shown the same enthusiasm for the live stream as for the TV broadcast.

I’ve finally found a way to quantify the relative effectiveness of TV and online display advertising. It’s two decimal points. That’s how much more effective TV ads are, relative to online display ads on an impression basis.

Brands spent more money advertising on the Internet in Britain than they did on TV for the first time in the first half of 2011, as companies moved online to reach the millions of Britons using social networks and watching videos.

A group of fifteen Chicago community news sites have joined together to overcome the isolation, launching, this week, the Chicago Independent Advertising Network. The network, which will began running ads on November 1, is an effort to bring the benefits of scale — and the complementary ideas of “safety in numbers,” “misery loves company,” etc. — to the business side of community news.

A proposed anti-piracy bill pending in the Senate could make it difficult for online advertisers and credit card companies to continue doing business on the Web, warns a group of law professors.

MagnaGlobal is predicting the U.S. online ad market to hit $30 billion by the end of 2011, while the overall ad market will grow 2.9% — revised from its original prediction of 3.1% growth.

Marketers continue to move advertising budgets online, but two separate studies released Monday — one from Interactive Advertising Bureau and the other from audience marketing company Bizo — provide conflicting evidence on where ad dollars will go.

There is a process that is being used more and more in local advertising that is spurring significant growth and profits. If you are not yet selling online display ads using this proven process, you should start right away as those using it have seen two to five times the growth in digital revenue.

Christine DiStadio, KHOU Houston director of digital media, told attendees at the Borrell Associates Local Online Advertising Conference that having the ability to help clients tie together online, mobile and social media in a way that has meaning for them is key to her TV station’s success in the digital space.

In a study conducted by Break Media and Advertiser Perceptions, 70% of respondents said they planned to increase their ad spending on digital video in 2011. PricewaterhouseCoopers, meanwhile, predicts that spending for online video will increase this year by 38.6% from 2010, coming on top of a 39.5% increase in 2010 compared with 2009.

Online advertising revenue and online retail spending will both grow by 10% in 2011, according to the latest forecast from S&P Equity Research, which also issued predictions about major players and the industry as a whole — not all of them rosy.

Research conducted by Turner Broadcasting suggested that programmers could surround the online streams of their TV shows with even more ads.