Last Thursday, at the OMMA Ad Nets conference in New York City, exchanges and their trading partners were gathered together for an informative panel entitled, “Roll Your Own Network: Enter the Ad Exchange“.

To view media from the event, please click the following:

• Online video
• Audio-only download (MP3 format)

Participants included the following executives from the advertising exchange industry:

• Moderator: Marla Schimke, VP, Marketing, Revenue Science
• Paul DeBraccio, CEO, Interevco
• Will Margiloff, CEO/Founder, Innovation Interactive
• Ramsey McGrory, VP, Yahoo! U.S. Partnerships, owner of APT and Right Media Exchange
• Michael Rubenstein, Director, DoubleClick Ad Exchange
• Anand Subramanian, Founder and CEO, ContextWeb

Each of the participants provided insights on ad exchanges. Will Margiloff said that from his agency perspective, “We do a lot of buying on the exchanges for our customers. The main difference for us is transparency as well as technological facilitation.” Anand Subramanian stressed the importance of ad exchange platforms being able to provide value to both sides of the advertising exchange – advertisers and publishers, alike.

Intervco’s Paul Debraccio pointed to the importance of liquidity for media buyers saying, “If Exchange 1 has 50 million uniques and Exchange 2 has 500 million uniques, it’s a no brainer where they’re going to go with similar targeting and pricing.”

Ultimately, the lively discusssion led by Marla Schimke proved insightful for the audience who confirmed as much when polled at its conclusion. To view the video, click below.

The Ad-Tech New York conference continued last Thursday morning with a panel devoted to the rapidly expanding advertising exchange space. “A Spade Is Not a Spade: Analyzing the Exchange Marketplace” was moderated by ThinkPanmure analyst, Robert Coolbrith, and looked at the differences between each exchange as well as the perceptions of the exchange model within the agency world.

To view media from the event, please click the following:

• Online video
• Audio-only download (MP3 format)

Panelists included:

• Dan Ballister, Chief Operating Officer, Traffiq
• Ramsey McGrory, VP, Yahoo! Corporate Partnerships, Yahoo!, owner of APT and Right Media Exchange
• John Donahue, Director of Business Intelligence Analytics and Integration, Omnicom Media Group
• Jay Sears, Executive VP, Strategic Products and Business Development, ContextWeb, Inc. / ADSDAQ Exchange
• Michael Rubenstein, VP and GM, DoubleClick Exchange

John Donahue raised the point that he’d like to see more value brought to the buyer’s side of the equation with advertising exchanges in the same way that publisher yield management tools bring value to website owners. He added, “The model that occurred in search - where its solely maximizing yield for the publishers - is not a model we’re too eager to pursue.”

Jay Sears agreed and said that content and display-based ads is a completely different market than search. “The advertiser is at a real advantage because there’s a lot of supply [in display],” he said. “The question is how to reaggregate what has been fragmented back to the advertiser that not only gives the advertiser scale, but also gives the advertiser control.”

Michael Rubenstein concurred with the panel’s overall sentiment, “It’s got to be a fair trade. If you look at any marketplace that works well, like Ebay’s, there’s got to be something there for the buyer and the seller.” He added, “The promise of the exchange is fair market pricing - not always cheap pricing.”

To view the video, please click below:

Tuesday in New York City, ContextWeb hosted a panel discussion at The Times Center entitled, “The Best Solution for Media Fragmentation or Just More Work?”

To view media from the event, please click the following: 

• Brian Pitz’s presentation on Media Fragmentation (PDF)
• Online video
• Audio-only download (MP3 format)
• Additional photos of the event

With over 130 advertising agency, brand clients, publishers and press in attendance, the event focused on a key challenge for advertising agencies today - namely, media fragmentation and how agencies must find a solution for Web users who are increasingly migrating from portals and large sites to the special interest, niche content sites of the mid and long tail.

The panel began with a brief opening given by Jay Sears, EVP, Strategic Products & Business Development, ContextWeb, Inc. / ADSDAQ Exchange.

Sears introduced Carl Fremont from Digitas, who briefed the audience on the New York Advertising Club’s Digital Action Program which receives donations of premium online ad space to The Advertising Club, the space is then sold by The Club at a discounted rate. The proceeds from the Digital Action Program help to fund student outreach to the High School Innovation, Advertising & Media and undergraduate scholarships to students studying digital media in both the business and creative disciplines.

For more information please call Lucy Truglio at 212.533.8080 ext. 208, or visit:
http://www.theadvertisingclub.org/digital-action-properties.

The agency panel was moderated by Michael J. Kelly, former President of AOL Media Networks and current Senior Advisor to the ContextWeb Board of Directors. Following his remarks on the impact of media fragmentation across all media today, Kelly introduced Brian Pitz, Bank of America, Principal, Equity Research | Internet, who presented a fact-based overview about the effects of media fragmentation in online advertising (See above for a download of Brian Pitz’s presentation). This introduction provided a perfect lead-in for the panel. In addition to Kelly, panelists included top executives in the advertising agency world:

• Bant Breen, Interpublic, - President, Initiative; former Director of Strategic Development and Innovation for Interpublic
• John Donahue, Omnicom Media Group, Director of BI, Analytics and Integration
• Ed Montes, Havas Digital, Executive Vice President
• Tim Hanlon, Publicis, Executive Vice President/Ventures for Denuo

Panelists agreed that media fragmentation is presenting not only new challenges but also new opportunity, especially in the areas of data and insights. The panel discussed topics ranging from why so much ad spend still goes to the top portals (despite declining audiences and explosive blog growth) to who owns and controls the data generated by hundreds of millions of dollars of online campaigns that are developed, planned and bought for brand clients through their agencies.

Denuo’s Tim Hanlon said he believes that within the next 3-5 years, it will be time to rethink the agency model entirely and offered “… if [agencies] are just the best buyer of traditional media opportunities - historically what [agencies] are charged with doing - we’re missing half the picture. We’re missing a whole wellspring of innovation, touchpoints, audience. The audience is further along in media consumption habits than we are in the ad media complex. The consumer is dragging us into a direction that [agencies] are not ready to move to.”

To view video of the panel, please click below.

Opening: Jay Sears, Carl Fremont, Michael Kelly and Brian Pitz

Panel Discussion

Q&A with Audience

Not long ago, targeting audiences through portals and large sites was the answer for advertisers looking to achieve campaign goals. But with audiences increasingly migrating to their favorite, niche content sites in the Long Tail, how are advertisers coping?

Last Friday on an Advertising Week panel, a distinguished group of executives discussed the challenges of and solutions for online media fragmentation.

Panelists for “Online Media Fragmentation: Wandering Audience and What Advertisers Can Do About It” included:

• David Joseph, Executive Director, Morgan Stanley Research - moderator
• Wenda Harris Millard, Co-CEO and President of Media, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
• David Churbuck, Vice President, Global Web Marketing, Lenovo
• Nicole Estebanell, Partner, Group Planning Director, Neo@Ogilvy
• Jay Sears, EVP, Strategic Products and Business Development, ContextWeb, Inc. / ADSDAQ Exchange

Panelists agreed that social media and the Long Tail are presenting new opportunities for advertisers trying to reach their target users. Wenda Millard stressed that marketers need to better understand the fractionated environment in which they are targeting. She suggested that behavioral targeting alone, sprayed with no attention to context, will not be the answer.

Jay Sears of ContextWeb, Inc. / ADSDAQ Exchange added that the remnant model of ad networks, which has served advertisers well in the recent past, is enhanced by the new controls of the exchange where inventory can be premium, remnant or anything in between - the choice is in the hands of the advertising traders of the exchange.

To view video of the panel, please click below:

To download the audio of the panel (MP3 format), please click here.

For more photos of the event, click here.

Tags: online, advertising, exchanges,, media, fragmentation,, google,, doubleclick,, yahoo,, right, media, exchange

Last week at the IAB’s 2008 MIXX Conference & Expo, a strong group of panelists was brought together to consider the impact of self-service tools on online advertising.

Jay Sears, EVP of Strategic Products and Business Development, ContextWeb, Inc. / ADSDAQ Exchange, participated on the panel to give ContextWeb’s side to the self-serve story as it relates to advertising and ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Ad Exchange. With the ADSDAQ Exchange, the self-service model has built a publisher base that provides access to over 107 million uniques and enables deep targeting of contextually relevant, niche content for advertiser campaigns.

The complete panelist list for “In Practice: Self-Service & Automation” included the following marketers and platform-providers who are heavily involved in companies focused on the automation opportunity:

Presenters:
Michael Wolf (Moderator), Partner, Farrallon Point, Inc.
Dan Ballister, Chief Operating Officer, TRAFFIQ
Aaron Finn, President & CEO, AdReady
Ian Schafer, CEO, Deep Focus
Jay Sears, EVP, Strategic Products & Business Development, ContextWeb, Inc. / ADSDAQ Exchange

To view the video from the event, please click below:

To download the audio of the panel (MP3 format), please click here.

Tags: contextweb, google, doubleclick, adsdaq exchange

ContextWeb, Inc. is proud to announce that it has developed and implemented “next generation” algorithms that have resulted in deeper, niche classification of the millions of Web pages that are part of the ADSDAQ Exchange. The new algorithms, developed and tested by in-house ADSDAQ mathematicians and software engineers, have produced the following achievements:

1. Automatically discovers additional keywords for existing exchange content categories, which increases the number of keywords for categorization by tenfold. This enables the ADSDAQ exchange to be able to discern niche subcategories more efficiently.
2. Automatically discovers keywords to define new categories chosen specifically by advertisers as those content topics become relevant. This will allow advertisers to use hot topics to continually target their audience for maximum engagement.
3. Provides a platform that is language-independent; allowing the discovery of keywords and phrases in real time across content in every language.

With the new approach, the system can learn to categorize automatically with no human management. Results of new algorithm performance across the more than 7,000 sites on the ADSDAQ exchange show huge gains in category refinement.

Our new algorithms open up millions of pages of additional ad inventory in very targeted, niche categories. This is great news for brand advertisers who want assurance that their ads will appear in appropriate context and on brand-safe content that supports their messages. For performance advertisers, getting their offers in front of the right audience allows them to meet their performance metrics. This will also help publishers to more effectively monetize Web pages deep within their sites.

Search Engine Strategies (SES) will host SES San Jose at the San Jose Convention Center from August 18-22nd. At this year’s conference, marketers, webmasters, online ad industry executives and others will come together to learn how to maximize SEM opportunities and stay informed of the latest industry trends, tools, algorithm developments and solutions. ContextWeb’s Jay Sears, EVP Strategic Products & Business Development, will appear on the panel “Everything but Google: Alternative Search Advertising Options” on August 18th at 2:45PM. Andrew Goodman, Principal, Page Zero Media, will moderate the panel. Other speakers will include:

• Sage Lewis, Search Engine Watch Expert & President, SageRock.com
• Jonathan Ewert, Vice President and General Manager, LookSmart
• Dustin Kwan, Senior Product Manager, Ask Sponsored Listings
• Mary Berk, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft.

“Everything but Google: Alternative Search Advertising Options” will explore alternatives to Google, Yahoo, and MSN (the “big three”) in the search and online ad display industries. Topics discussed will include: Bit Torrent search engines, image search engines, artificial intelligence systems, clustering engines, recommendation search engines, metasearch and many more.

We hope to see you at SES San Jose! Visit our site to find out about more upcoming events.

This week, Ad:tech Chicago will take place at Navy Piers where the theme will be “Mastering Brand Performance and Effective Marketing Solutions.” Top Web publishers, agencies and marketers will network and share insights over the next few days. Among them are ContextWeb, Inc.’s Scot McLernon, President of the Upstream Group and member of ContextWeb’s Advisory Board; Jay Sears, EVP, Strategic Products & Business Development; and Joe Kutchera, Director of Spanish-Language Markets. Come see us at the following keynote panels.

On Tuesday from 2:15-3:15PM, Jay Sears will speak on the panel “Industry Spotlight: So Many Networks, So Little Time.” Join Jay Sears to get a detailed primer on the state of the digital ad network and ad exchange landscape and learn about emerging best practices from Mr. Sears and other leading executives. Robert Coolbirth, Research Associate, Internet and Online Media, ThinkPanmure LLC, will moderate, and the other panelists will include:

• Ro Choy, VP of Business Development, RockYou
• Roy de Souza, CEO, ZEDO, Inc.
• Bill Wise, General Manager, Marketing Technology Solutions, Yahoo!
• Mike DiFranza, President and General Manager, Captivate Network.

Update: View the Video from this panel:

To download the audio of the panel (MP3 format), please click here.

For more photos of the event, click here.

Also on Tuesday from 3:30-4:30PM, Scot McLernon and Doug Weaver, Founder and CEO, Upstream Group, will moderate the panel “Deal Quality: Planning, Negotiating and Securing Online Ad Buys That Make Sense.” This panel is perfect for sales executives and agency and client participants who seek to gain an understanding of their media partner’s motivations.

Other panelists will include:

• Paul Thenstedt, Director of Sales, Midwest, NBC Universal Digital Media
• Reggie Riley, VP of Multi-Media Sales, The Wall Street Journal
• Michael Kraut, VP National Sales, Cars.com.

On Wednesday from 2:15-3:15PM, Joe Kutchera will appear on the panel “Publishing in the Digital Age: How Media Companies are Extending Their Reach.” This panel will bring together executives from traditional media companies and Web publishers to discuss their content and how technology offerings are creating new value propositions in the marketplace. Brenda White, Senior VP, Publishing Activation Director, Starcom USA, will moderate the panel. Other panelists will include:

• Josh Stinchcomb, Associate Publisher, Wired Digital
• James Smith, Chief Revenue Officer, HuffingtonPost.com
• Rob Barrett, Senior VP, GM, LATimes.com/Tribune
• Jacki Kelley, Executive VP, Media Sales, Martha Stewart Living

Update: View the Video from this panel:

To download the audio of the panel (MP3 format), please click here.

For more photos of the event, click here.

Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about “Web 2.0,” on July 23rd, ibreakfast held the “Media Buying 2.0” event. With over 50 attendees, the event was held at the CresaPartners building in Midtown Manhattan. The panel focused on how emerging technologies are evolving online marketing and advertising strategies.

We’ve posted video clips from the event as well as a copy of Adam Broitman’s (Morpheus Media) and Robert Davidson’s (EarthQuake Media) presentations that focused on how media agencies are using technology to promote their client’s messaging in new and innovative ways. Check out photos of the event.

The event featured:

• Adam Broitman, Director of Emerging and Creative Strategy, Morpheus Media
• Rebecca Coleman, SVP Client Services, WhittmanHart
• Robert Davidman , Chairman & CEO, EarthQuake Media
• Ben Ezrick, Senior Strategist of Digital Innovation, Ogilvy
• Jay Sears, EVP Strategic Products & Business Development, ContextWeb , Inc.

The panel discussion provided insights on how agencies can utilize new Web technologies and develop successful online marketing and advertising campaigns. Attendees were able to ask questions and network with the panelists and sponsors. Just a few of the highlights included: Adam Broitman, Morpheus Media, focused his discussion on audience engagement and the creativity required to produce effective online marketing campaigns. During his presentation, he said, “There are more tools of engagement than even before and devising ways to use thses tools effectively requires creative thinking, not just quantitative strategy.” Robert Davidson, EarthQuake Media, focused his presentation on mobile marketing and conveyed that ads on mobile devices, such as the iPhone, should be integrated into the applications hosting them. View Adam Broitman’s (Morpheus Media) and Robert Davidman’s (EarthQuake Media) presentations.

ContextWeb’s Jay Sears kicked the panel off. He discussed media fragmentation and other current industry trends. View Jay Sears’s presentation.

Watch the video footage of the event and the Q&A with the panel.

Packed with over 150 attendees from some of the hottest interactive companies, ContextWeb hosted a panel discussion on “The Next Big Thing: How Publishers are Taking Back Control of Their Brands with Scalable and Profitable Online Strategies” on Wednesday July 9th at The Yale Club in Manhattan.

We have posted video and audio from the event as well as a copy of Bill Morrison’s (ThinkPanmure) presentation that kicked off the event and an offer from Bill to be added to his Internet research distribution list. View our photos from the event or just subscribe to ContextWeb’s blog.

The event featured:

• Moderator:Randall Rothenberg, President, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)
• William Morrison,Partner, Senior Internet Analyst, ThinkPanmure
• Wenda Harris Millard, Co-CEO and President of Media, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
• Ari Brandt,General Manager - Digital Media, Conde Nast Business Media Group and Portfolio.com
• Sean Muzzy, Senior Partner, Media Director, Neo@Ogilvy

The panel discussion provided insights on how publishers can utilize their brand equity to capitalize on the significant growth expected in display online advertising.

Topics covered included: comparison between ad networks and exchanges, the economics of launching a branded network, how to create reach for your advertisers, topics specific to ad delivery, media fragmentation and how to reach Long-Tail content, how to make sure your content is brand-safe and much more. Attendees were able to ask questions and network with the panelists and other leading media executive attendees. Listen the panel discussion, view Bill Morrison’s Introductory Presentation and view the research report Bill mentioned on ad networks and exchanges from ThinkPanmure. If you want to be added to Bill’s internet research distribution list, email your request to wmorrison (AT) thinkpanmure.com.

Here’s the first installment of AdvertisingAge’s clip of “The Next Big Thing.” The second and third installments are also now available.

Watch the entire event on video:

Attendees from the event included executives from A&E Television Networks, ABC Television Network, ABC.com, About.com, American Media Inc., Avenue A, Bank of America, Baron Funds, Beyond Interaction, BusinessWeek, cablevision.com, Comcast Interactive Media, Cox Newspapers Inc., Crain Communications, Fantasy Sports Ventures, HACHETTE FILIPACCHI MEDIA U.S., Hearst Digital Media, Hearst-Argyle Television Inc., Hollywood.com, Lehman, Lightspeed, LLC, Magazine Publishers of America, MediaPost, msnbc.com, MTV, NBA, NBC Universal, Neo@Ogilvy, New York Post, nytimes.com, OMD, RAPP COLLINS WORLDWIDE, SportsNet New York, Susquehanna Financial, The New York Times, theautochannel.com, Thomson Reuters, Time Inc. Interactive, Turner, tvguide.com, United Media, USATODAY.com, Weather.com, Westwood One and The Wall Street Journal.

Tags: ContextWeb, ADSDAQ, ad, exchange, ad, network, agency, advertising, internet, publisher