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David Dworin, VP Advisory Services, FreeWheel highlights findings from a very deep data dive by FreeWheel into the complex subject of creating the optimal video advertising experience for viewers: “We’re realizing that ad experience is more complicated than just cutting the number of ads.” But while there’s plenty of complication, “There’s actually a lot of other […]

SAN JUAN, PR – Last September, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. As cleanup and reconstruction continue, members of The Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico are still actively helping their communities, but they face challenges when it comes to resources. “They have the power to change our society. We only have to fight for […]

It took streaming video options and ad-free platforms to tip the scale, but the advertising industry has finally caught on to the importance of the viewer experience. “The big picture is that programmers are thinking today more about the user experience than they ever have before,” says OMD’s Ben Winkler, who will join a host […]

With broadcasters like Turner experimenting with shorter ad loads in order to improve premium video ad experiences, what is the commercial break anymore – and what is the optimum length of an ad? Suddenly, all bets are off – and answers to those questions are becoming necessary. That’s why the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video, […]

Like many agency television buyers, Todd Gordon spent a lot of time on the telephone buying inventory for clients that they didn’t necessarily want but that came in packages. “If you wanted to buy prime, you quite often also got late night and daytime,” says the Director of Programmatic TV for Adobe. “What’s remarkable about […]

The two companies may be at the center of the current swirl of media consolidation chatter, but that hasn’t stopped them making a tie-up of their own in the meantime. This week, Comcast saw its FreeWheel video ad-tech unit partner with Viacom to improve the future of advanced TV ad advertising. That adds Viacom to […]

Header bidding, the technology tactic through which publishers can entertain multiple bids for ad inventory simultaneously in order to maximize the chance of higher bid prices, has grown in momentum over the last couple of years. But Criteo didn’t anticipate this kind of demand. When the ad-tech company launched Criteo Direct Bidder, one of its header […]

Over the last year, some of the big national US TV networks have been rolling out advanced advertising capabilities allowing advertisers to plan a more targeted campaign, and measure the cross-screen effects. But the local market doesn’t have to be left on the sidelines, says one ad-tech provider. Alphonso‘s offering brings the ability to retarget […]

After a year in which it acquired Teads (video ads), miLibris (digital publishing), Audience Partners (ad-tech), Placemedia (advanced TV ads) and more, multi-national cable company Altice is making a step change to unify its ad offerings. In April, the Netherlands company’s USA division, which bought Cablevision in 2015, launched a4, a business allowing advertisers to build […]

Many U.S. marketers recognize the importance of Hispanic consumers but lack the research and content-creation resources needed to reach them most effectively. NBCU has just delivered those resources in the form of a new $250 million, state-of-the-art facility in Miami. The 500,000-square-foot Telemundo Center houses “eight studios the size of eight football fields and newsrooms […]

On the spectrum of ad-tech bold moves, it has to rank high. Last week, NBCUniversal announced it would create nothing less than “the industry’s first unified advertising metric”. So-called CFlight is a new measurement metric that aims to give advertisers a total sense of campaign viewership across screens, creating a new currency and offering guarantees […]

MIAMI-Veteran advertising and media author Ken Auletta predicts Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is “going to get beat up” when he appears before Congress beginning today. But he doesn’t see any easy answers to reining in big digital companies. “He’s just a prop,” Auletta says of Zuckerberg. “They’re the actors and they’re going to perform on […]

Three years ago, GroupM Global Chairman Irwin Gotlieb foresaw a future that would be “much more performance-based” and focused on outcomes as opposed to media delivery. “I believe that it will be enabled by granularity of data, census-level data. Instead of broad-scale attribution modeling it will be census-level attribution calculations,” Gotlieb said at the time. […]

Is Cannes Lions still relevant? That’s the question occupying Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity managing director Jose Papa. The festival has long been a Mecca for advertising types – and, increasingly, those from other industries, too. But, last year, the Wall Street Journal reported ad agencies were cutting costs amid a downturn that was just beginning. At the […]

An infamous no-show from most of the technology and marketing industries’ biggest annual gatherings, Apple looks like breaking its usual policy this year. Execs from the company will take to the stage at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this coming June, despite typically not attending. “We’ve got Angela Ahrendts and Tor Myhren,” says […]

While it’s clear that the ratings erosion in linear television “dam has broken,” more networks offering their audience audience targeting solutions means more walled gardens, according to Jonathan Steuer, Chief Media Officer, Omnicom Media Group. Meanwhile, during this year’s TV Upfront season, “There’s going to be a much bigger focus on delivery across all platforms,” […]

Declaring that “less is more” when it comes to the television viewing experience, NBCUniversal says it’s cutting advertising clutter by 20% in original, primetime programming and 10% across the portfolio starting this fall. In addition, the media giant is launching a new, 60-second, contextually programmed PRIME POD in the first or last break of a […]

He once ran programmatic advertising at one of the world’s largest news publishers – so what does Matt Prohaska think about the impending final deadline for compliance with new-look global consumer data protection legislation? “Belated” and “complacent” would seem to sum up his view of many publishers’ readiness for the European Commission’s new General Data […]

The Interactive Advertising Bureau is going bi-coastal with its Digital Content NewFronts presentation/negotiation event by trimming the original New York affair from two weeks to one and kicking off a Los Angeles version in the fourth quarter. “We decided this year to change it up a little bit because we have been getting feedback consistently […]

What if a switch was suddenly flipped that meant advertisers and their data partners would have to gain explicit consent from audiences to be tracked, and that allowed those targets to demand a stop to processing of their data in future? That’s what happened in Europe in 2016 – but the law that was passed […]