Supponor Introduces Novel Technology for Segmented Advertising in Live Sports Broadcasts
Northzone Ventures and Conor Venture Partners Co-Lead the Financing Round to Bring Digital Billboard Replacement Solution DBRLive for Sports Marketers
Supponor Ltd, a pioneering provider of Digital Billboard Replacement (DBR) solutions, today announced the successful closing of its Series A funding round. The funds will be used for international sales and marketing of Supponor DBRLive, a novel system for precise masking and replacement of on-event advertising content in live sports broadcasts. The system opens up a wide range of opportunities for targeted and localized sports marketing.
The funding round was led by Northzone Ventures, one of Europe’s leading early stage venture capital firms, and Conor Venture Partners, a Finnish early-stage technology venture capital firm and an existing investor in Supponor. The funding of 6 million Euros, a significant investment for a pre-revenue company, will be used to leverage the business opportunities that Supponor DBRLive brings to digital advertising agencies and television right holders. With the new funding, Supponor will launch DBRLive in Europe and the United States, the world’s leading markets in sports advertising.
“Television broadcasts of the world’s most popular sports events are watched in exactly the same format in highly different markets, whereas advertisers are looking for segmented audiences”, said Mr. Juha Ruohonen, Supponor CEO. “Billboard ads visible throughout the sporting events create attention values that are manifold compared with ads on commercial breaks. The ability to digitally change the billboard content to best suit different audiences has achieved great interest from both TV rights holders and advertisers”.
”TV rights and advertising slots in sporting events are bought and sold for huge sums of money around the globe”, said Mr. Björn Stray, General Partner at Northzone Ventures. “DBRLive gives organizers, sports clubs, sports federations and television right holders an opportunity to multiply the value of their events by enabling advertisers to target their messages. We are impressed by Supponor’s system and are true believers in its success”.
Billboard content digitally changed with DBRLive looks very similar to real physical billboards. Patented software technology calculates the position of the billboards in real time which allows for smooth and exact placing of digital content in live broadcasts. The system works in both indoor and outdoor events, regardless of weather and lighting conditions, and irrespective of people or objects moving in front of the billboards. The result is a natural-looking billboard that is relevant to viewers in different markets.
”There are already several players in the market that produce digital content and place it on top of the television picture”, explained Mr. Ruohonen. “Their offerings typically range from graphics that help viewers follow the event to digital ads that appear on screen independently of physical billboards. The unique advantage of DBRLive is that digital ads are placed exactly on top of real-world billboards, which allows advertisers to reach their desired target groups without a risk of being blamed invasive or intrusive”.
”The traditional television broadcasts will expand to multiple new channels and services, including IPTV, web and mobile”, said Mr. Manu Mäkelä, Partner at Conor Venture Partners. “Directly applicable in all digital channels, the opportunities available through full deployment of DBRLive are exceptionally exciting. We have already been working with the Supponor team for two years in perfecting the technology, and bringing Northzone on board to boost the market entry is a great leap for the company”.
Supponor, based in Finland, is currently negotiating with several sports event organizers and television right holders in Europe and the United States. /PR
Worldwide Online Ad Spending
Reaching for a bigger slice of the total ad pie
Several recent worldwide online ad spending projections indicate that the medium still has a lot of room for growth.
Worldwide online ad spending will reach $65.2 billion in 2008, according to IDC's "Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast." The research company predicted 15% to 20% annual growth through 2011, when spending would hit $106.6 billion.
IDC said that online ads would account for nearly 10% of all ad spending across all media in 2008, rising to 13.6% by 2011. Nearly one-fifth of Western European ad spending will be online by that time.
"The long-term opportunity for Internet advertising can be seen in the disparity between per-capita spending," said John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC, in a statement. "Total advertising revenues equate to more than $105 per inhabitant of the planet, while Internet advertising revenues are less than $50 per active Internet user."
In May, Credit Suisse lowered its worldwide online ad spending estimates and forecast only modest growth in total ad spending for the next two years. The investment bank said the US and most other developed nations would actually drag growth down, thanks to phenomenal growth in developing nations.
Credit Suisse's estimates of online ad spending as a percentage of total ad spending were very close to IDC's: 10% last year and 12% this year.
Read more - eMarketer
Young Adults Influenced by Mobile Advertising
Spreading the word, by handset.
Many mobile marketers are still struggling to influence consumers, judging by an analysis of BIGresearch's "Simultaneous Media Usage Study."
Only 6.9% of adults surveyed said that video on mobile phones influenced them to purchase electronics; 6.4% said text messaging did the same.
However, mobile media was twice as effective among young consumers, with 14.2% of 18 to 24 year-olds saying that mobile video influenced them and 15.9% saying text messaging did.
"Given the state of our economy, mobile advertisers have a unique environment in which to build strategies that influence consumers to buy via their cellphones, especially the media-elusive 18 to 24 year-old segment," said Gary Drenik, president of BIGresearch, in a statement.
Those results complement a study by Ketchum and the USC Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center. Their research found that young adult influencers were more likely to use mobile media than were other consumers.
Read more -eMarketer
Telstra Acquires Majority Stake Two Leading Chinese Online Advertising Businesses
Telstra today acquired 55 per cent of two Chinese internet businesses with leading positions in the fast-growing online auto and digital device advertising sectors.
Telstra acquired the controlling stakes in the two businesses, Norstar Media and Autohome/PCPop, for an undisclosed amount. Both businesses are cash-flow positive.
Norstar, founded by Chairman Mr Lan Jiang, operates the popular auto site Che168.com and leading digital device site IT168.com. Autohome/PCPop, founded by successful young Chinese entrepreneur Mr Li Xiang, operates the leading auto site Autohome.com.cn and popular digital device site PCPop.com.
Combined with the 2006 acquisition of a 51 per cent stake in China's number one real estate site, SouFun, the majority stakes in the auto and digital device sites give Telstra a strong strategic position in the internet advertising market of the world's most populous nation. Together, the sites deliver the second largest user traffic in the digital device segment and the largest user traffic in the specialist auto segment, complementing SouFun's leading position in real estate.
Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo said the acquisitions were consistent with Telstra's strategy of creating a media-comms footprint in Australia and internationally.
"Telstra now owns majority interests in three of the leading Chinese companies operating in the three key online advertising industry segments: real estate, auto and digital devices," Mr Trujillo said. "Combined with our majority stake in China's number-one real estate website, SouFun.com, these acquisitions provide further high-growth opportunities for our buy, find and sell business, Sensis."
While the price paid by Telstra was not disclosed, Mr Trujillo said the acquisitions cost "less than half what we paid for 51 per cent of SouFun in 2006".
Online advertising revenues in the Chinese auto segment are predicted to almost triple by 2012, rising from US$230 million this year to more than US$690 million in 2012. New car sales in China are already almost half that of the United States, with 7.2 million cars sold this year. China is expected to overtake the United States as the world's largest auto market in the next decade.
The online digital device advertising market is expected to triple by 2012 - up from about US$235 million this year to US$700 million. Last year, 48 per cent of the Chinese population had access to a digital device. By 2015, that percentage is predicted to increase to 84.5 per cent, or 1.18 billion people, with sales totalling almost US$280 billion annually.
Sensis CEO Bruce Akhurst said: "These acquisitions allow Sensis to continue to leverage core capabilities and technology in a larger, faster-growing and less mature market than Australia, and in partnership with high performing and experienced local management.
"We will devote resources to delivering the highest quality content in the different segments, build a strong sales force to monetise traffic, invest in the brands to build awareness and continue to drive revenue while improving margins. Our goal for the merged business is a leading position in traffic and revenue market share to ensure continued strong growth."
Norstar's founder and chairman, Lan Jiang, said Telstra's involvement gave him great confidence in the future of his websites. "Telstra brings a strategic vision, world-class technology and a results-driven management philosophy, exactly what we need to become an even more successful company."
The founder of PCPop and Autohome, Li Xiang, said he is very excited with the opportunity to work with Telstra to build a great internet business. "We already offer a terrific user experience. Telstra's extensive experience and resources will give our team an improved innovation capacity to best serve our users and customers."
All four Chinese websites under the new Telstra ownership are consumer focussed. The auto websites providing detailed information about all aspects of buying a car. The digital device sites focus on products such as computers and cameras. All four sites provide advertising and listing services for manufacturers, retailers and dealers in these products. The businesses generate revenue primarily through online display advertising and product listing fees.
The two internet businesses have been legally merged following Telstra's acquisition, with operational integration to occur over the next year to capitalise on core strengths and synergies.The current executive teams at both Norstar and Autohome/PCPop will maintain key roles in the merged business. /PR
Microsoft Rebrands Ad Offering
Microsoft has announced that it has rebranded its advertising business under the new name of Microsoft Advertising. The move is a clear sign that Microsoft is taking the fight to Google and its other rivals in mobile and internet advertising. The new brand will incorporate many of the companies that Microsoft has purchased in recent times.
Explaining the new organization, Microsoft SVP Brian McAndrews said “It’s designed to let customers know that we’re committed to making sense out of a complex environment, and that we have everything they need, all under one roof”
The companies included are:
- aQuantive, who specialize in digital marketing services and technologies and who own interactive agency AvenueA/Razorfish, digital marketing technology company Atlas Search and DrivePM, a performance media company.
- The AdECN exchange, which is auction-based exchange for online display advertising.
- ScreenTonic, who have a ad network and offer a mobile advertising platform.
- Rapt, who help ad supported businesses monetise their media assets.
- YaData, who’s Segmentation Suite enables marketing managers to discover, understand, operate in and manage multiple actionable customer segments on a daily basis. [MobiAdNews]
Auto Industry Revs Up Online Spending
No slowdown online
After consistently leading the US in advertising spending, the automotive sector has dropped into the number two spot behind retail. Ad spending in the sector is going in reverse—except on the Internet.
According to figures published in the new eMarketer report, Automotive Marketing Online: Negotiating the Curves, even as new-vehicle sales decline, automotive marketers will spend nearly $3 billion online this year, up 21.6%.
By 2012, automotive online ad spending will top $5.6 billion. When eMarketer asked Scott Keogh, chief marketing officer at Audi, how much the automaker was increasing its online budget year-over-year, he replied, "We more than doubled our online ad budget in 2007 to about $1.2 million, and it looks like we'll double it again in 2008."
Auto marketers are changing media lanes and following their market. Research from Capgemini shows that 80% of consumers now consult the Internet at least once during the car-buying process. The firm reported the percentage was 71% in 2006 and 64% in 2004.
Read more - eMarketer
Nokia Simplifies Mobile Advertising with Launch of Nokia Advertising Alliance
Nokia today announced the launch of the Nokia Advertising Alliance, which will simplify mobile advertising for brand advertisers. The program brings together leading mobile marketing solutions, including couponing, location-based targeting, image recognition, and other emerging technologies, to offer advertisers a simple way to increase consumer engagement. Now brands can work with Nokia to combine the reach of mobile advertising on the Nokia Media Network with the latest mobile technologies for more effective campaigns.
Mobile is maturing into an effective advertising medium, however, the fragmentation of certain technologies makes it hard for some programs to scale," said Brian Bos, Senior Vice President, Convergence Director at MindShare-Team Detroit. "We applaud Nokia's efforts to streamline this evolving market and make it easier to manage our clients' mobile advertising investment."
"To realise truly integrated advertising, it's imperative that major brands can make use of a range of mobile services. The Advertising Alliance brings together the most innovative technologies in the market, and brings trust to brands who want to use them," said Scott Heron, Director of Digital Services at Wunderman.
Members of the Alliance are integrated with the Nokia Media Network allowing brands to plan, execute and measure mobile advertising campaigns through a single Nokia interface. A range of companies have been initially certified as Members of the Alliance, including i-movo, Mobile Acuity, Mobiqa, and uLocate, with many additional members in testing. Leading brands from the automotive to entertainment industries have built campaigns using the Nokia Advertising Alliance.
"Succeeding in mobile requires much more than a banner ad alone. Brands have the opportunity to deliver immersive, highly engaging experiences to consumers. The Alliance gives brands access to a range of novel mobile ad experiences from one trusted vendor," said Mike Baker, VP and Head of Nokia Interactive Advertising.
Nokia Interactive Advertising provides brands with all that they need to connect with and engage the mobile consumer. It includes:- The Nokia Media Network which gives reach to millions of mobile consumers through advertising on more than 100 blue-chip mobile publishers, operator partners and Nokia properties.- Nokia Interactive Solutions that creates end-to-end, high performance mobile campaigns for brands from banner ads, mobile internet sites and location finders to mobile coupons, click-to-call and other advanced mobile mechanics. /PR
Will Social Networks Remain Low-Ad Districts?
By David Hallerman, Senior Analyst
The question of whether social network sites will become major centers for online marketing is one that my colleague Debra Aho Williamson and I have debated for the past couple of years—she on the yea side, and me more on the nay side.
In the spirit of that debate, I set out to write a counterpoint to her recent piece, "Will MySpace Revenues Add Up?"—but, after some digging, my point of view has changed.
That change spins on two factors: money and people. That is, do a site's ad revenues match its traffic? The relationship of traffic to revenues is not an exact one, since it fails to factor in elements such as the amount of time people spend on a site. However, matching eyeballs to dollars builds a rough estimate of how well any Web site monetizes its audience.
To research this, I gathered eMarketer's projections for 2008 US ad revenues at five sites—MySpace, Facebook, Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Then, using Nielsen Online's April 2008 data for US unique visitors to those sites and extrapolating that data across the whole year, I created a rough placeholder for unique annual visitors.
Read more - eMarketer
China Goes for the Online Gold
Like seemingly everything else in China, online advertising is growing fast
In terms of sheer numbers of users, 2008 marks the year that China overtakes the US as the largest Internet market in the world.
"By 2012 there will be 373 million Internet users in China, 150 million more than in the US at the same time," says Ben Macklin, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Online Advertising in China: The Olympic Year. "Despite this fact, the Chinese Internet market is still relatively immature and only in its first phase of growth.
"This makes China a large—and growing—opportunity for online advertising."
eMarketer forecasts that online advertising spending in China will grow from RMB7 billion ($924 million) in 2007 to RMB29.26 billion ($4.9 billion) in 2012. In projecting yearly growth rates, eMarketer assumed a strong uptick in 2008 due to the Beijing Olympics and annual growth above 30% to 2012.
"The 2008 Beijing Olympics will be a significant driver of advertising spending growth," says Mr. Macklin, "but positive underlying economic and demographic indicators point to continued advertising spending growth well beyond this year."
Read more - eMarketer
Online Ad Spending Holding Strong
Strong growth, good prospects
For the full year 2007, online ad revenues totaled $21.2 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)/PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) "2007 Internet Advertising Revenue Report." That was 26% higher than 2006, which was itself a record year.
The IAB and PwC said that Q4 2007 Internet advertising revenues reached $5.9 billion, the highest ever for a single quarter and 24% higher than the same period in 2006.
"Despite the current state of economic uncertainty, 2007 was another record year and the 13th consecutive record quarter," said David Silverman, partner, Assurance, PwC, in a statement.
The IAB and PwC said that search, display, classifieds and lead generation all continued growing. As in prior years, consumer advertisers were the largest category of Internet advertising spending, at 55% of 2007 full-year revenues, up from 52% from the full year 2006.
Read more - eMarketer
Google CEO: Mobile Advertising to Generate More Revenue Than Today's Web
By Lynnette Luna
In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that the next major growth wave for Google in terms of search engine marketing is the mobile Internet. He cited the iPhone as the first mobile device with a good web browser and that more devices will come to market, enabling advertising to become personal. He predicted that within a few years, mobile advertising would generate more revenue than advertising on today's web.
Schmidt said he was less enthusiastic about the advertising possibilities of video portals like YouTube and DoubleClick, and said he generally wasn't happy with the advertising prospects of Web 2.0 in general. Google has invested some $900 million in a deal with MySpace that saw the search engine as the exclusive advertising and search engine. It reached many users but was proving difficult to establish the ad network. "Some things work, and others just don't--but the mobile Internet always works," he said. [FierceWireless]
Does the Web Inspire Consumers to Buy?
Or does it suggest what they could buy?
Although adult consumers in the US use the Internet to research and discover new products, it is usually not the key factor in final purchasing decisions, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project's newly released "The Internet and Consumer Choice" study.
Pew surveyed consumers about how they discovered various products. Of respondents who bought music in the prior year, 83% found out about music from the radio, TV or in a movie. Nearly two-thirds followed the advice of friends, family members or co-workers. More than one-half said they went to band Web sites or streamed song samples.
However, when it came to actually choosing what to buy, only 12% of music purchasers surveyed said that online information had a major impact on their decision.
"The Internet is a tactical tool for shoppers who use it in product research, and usually not a game-changer in people's purchasing decisions," said John B. Horrigan, associate director at Pew, in a statement. "Its impacts show up in efficiencies in the search process. Even for a digital product such as music, people more often than not buy in stores, not online."
Read more - eMarketer
Perfecting Online Video Ad Tactics
How much does ad format matter?
"Getting Beyond Pre-Roll" was one of the more challenging panel sessions held at the Online Publishers Association Europe conference last week in London.
Although online video ad standards have been established, at least in the US, many questions remain about how such ads may best be used. Panelists were asked how advertisers could best use video formats to engage audiences. The relative lack of breakthrough thinking in this area made for a somewhat subdued session.
Henrique de Castro, head of European sales for Google, stressed the enormous growth in the online video audience recently, but acknowledged that video search has a long way to go in helping audiences get what they want out of it. Mr. de Castro predicted that proper video search would be "sorted" [out] in the next 12 to 24 months, however.
Nada Stirratt, executive vice president of digital advertising at MTV Networks Digital, emphasized that attempting to decide on the best video ad formats was a red herring, because a format viewers found intrusive in one context might be tolerated or even welcomed in another.
Read more - eMarketer
Ad Agencies Thrive on Digital Revenue
Revenues at US advertising, marketing services and media agencies grew 8.6% to $31.1 billion in 2007, according to Advertising Age's "Agency Report 2008." Most of the increase was driven by digital ad spending.
Growth was down slightly from 2006, when revenues grew 8.8%. However, revenues jumped 26.8% in 2007 among digital specialty agencies despite a generally lukewarm ad market.
Overall, digital accounted for 10.2% of US ad agency revenue in 2007.
Ad Age estimates that among the Big 4 ad firms—Omnicom Group, WPP Group, Interpublic Group of Cos. and Publicis Groupe—12.3% of worldwide revenues came from digital services.
WPP's GroupM ranked first in terms of worldwide media revenue. Omnicom's OMD Worldwide is the world's largest media agency, while WPP's MindShare is top in the US, according to Ad Age estimates. [eMarketer]
Consumers Use Social Media to Vent
A recent Society for New Communications Research study sponsored by Nuance Communications found that consumers are using social media to share their customer experiences and to research the customer service of other companies.
Among the US Internet users surveyed, 59% used social media to 'vent' about a customer care experience.
Almost three-quarters (72%) said they sometimes research a companies' customer care online prior to purchasing a product or service; and 84% said the quality of customer care is a factor in their decision to do business with a company.
"With consumers increasingly using social media to share feedback on their care experiences, it has become increasingly difficult for businesses to ignore or hide from bad experiences," said Lynda Kate Smith, a vice president at Nuance Communications.
"As this research highlights, the consumer's voice is louder and travels further than ever before. One poor customer interaction can have a very significant impact on a public impression of a brand." [eMarketer]
DoubleClick Integrates With Mobile Ad Networks
Digital marketing technology and services provider DoubleClick announced its DoubleClick Mobile advertising delivery system is integrating with mobile ad networks including AdMob, Google's AdSense and Millennial Media's MBrand and Decktrade in an effort to enable mobile publishers to fill more of their available inventory.
According to DoubleClick, publishers can employ the DoubleClick Mobile system to sell mobile display inventory indirectly without sacrificing direct sales, promising automated access to one or more mobile ad networks as well as accurate views of what inventory is available to sell, what has been sold directly and what was already filled by ad networks.
DoubleClick Mobile is part of the DoubleClick Revenue Center, which offers media sellers a single location to manage their display campaigns across emerging media platforms. [FierceMobileContent]
Targeting, Ad Network Spending Increase
Zeroing in by spreading out.
More than nine out of 10 US advertising agencies and advertisers buying online media plan to work with ad networks in 2008, according to Collective Media's "Ad Network Study 2008." Nearly three-quarters of respondents said that they planned to spend more with ad networks in 2008 than they did in 2007.
Online ad networks represent multiple Web sites that sell advertising and let ad buyers reach broad audiences across categories. The networks are proving popular for both brand and direct marketing.
Ad network usage by both brand advertisers and direct marketers rose by nearly 20 percentage points in the 2008 study to 59.2%. Only 13.4% of advertisers said they only used ad networks for direct marketing purposes in 2008.
Overall, 40% of respondents in the Collective Media study said they planned to increase spending on ad networks by 10% or more in 2008. Three-quarters of those respondents said they would spend 5% or more of their overall online advertising budget on ad networks in 2008, and over one-quarter of agencies and advertisers said they would spend 15% or more on ad networks in 2008.
Read more - eMarketer
UK Advertisers Shy From Social Networks
UK social networking advertising hits a bump.
In 2007, more than half of the UK’s Web users used social networking sites, according to an European Interactive Advertising Association-sponsored study conducted by SPA Research and Synovate.
Despite being popular with UK Internet users, social networks are getting a wide berth from some UK advertisers.
One of the most memorable Internet stories of 2007 centered on a number of high-profile British companies—including Vodafone, First Direct, Halifax, Virgin Media, the Prudential and the Automobile Association—withdrawing advertising from Facebook, because their ads were seen on pages with content promoting the far-right British National Party.
“I estimated that within a year [from January 2008], advertisers would begin to back away from social network advertising,” wrote Michael Masnick, CEO of TechDirt, on that blog. “Apparently, my estimate was wrong. Brands are already staying away.”
Read more - eMarketer
Another View of Google's Dominance
Looks like DoubleClick was a very savvy buy.
Online ad networks offer site publishers a big revenue opportunity, according to a January 2008 study conducted jointly by Attributor and Compete.
The companies looked at content monetization and user information across 68 million domains. DoubleClick and Google dominated overall market share capturing 35% and 34% of unique users, respectively.
"DoubleClick owns the head and Google owns the tail," said Attributor on its blog. The company noted that Doubleclick had nearly half of the total market for ads on sites with more than a million monthly unique users. Google had more than 70% of the market for sites with less than 100,000 monthly unique users.
One of the ways in which online ad exchanges help marketers is by letting them place ads alongside different instances of a given article on the Web. Content is constantly being reprinted, copied and otherwise reused on multiple Web sites.
The researchers found an average of 20 different copies of each article tracked, and more than half of the copies did not link back to the sites where the articles appeared first. The ad traffic exchanges track these multiple article editions and let ads be placed against all of them.
Read more - eMarketer
Online Video to Generate Big Bucks
Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that by 2013, US online TV and video services will generate revenues of $7.9 billion. In 2007, the market was already worth over $1 billion and by 2008, that figure will leap to $4.7 billion.
Though these figures include a la carte and subscription-based download fees, advertising revenue is expected to account for the largest slice at 63% of the 2013 global total.
"The Writers Guild strike brought much of Hollywood to a standstill for several months. The fact that revenues derived from online TV and video were at the heart of the dispute indicate just how important this sector has become," said Adam Thomas, media research manager at Informa.
The UK and Japan are the second and third largest markets, respectively, in terms of online TV and video revenues. In 2008, revenues are expected to reach $842 million in the UK and $605 million in Japan. [eMarketer]
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