Viewing entries by
Jason Wolfson
Digital shopping is changing the way millions of consumers shop for clothes, and there is no change of that in sight. This is creating a divide between luxury brands and millennials, as the device-savvy shoppers are focused on sites that offer style, mixed with reasonable pricing, and convenience.
Flite conducted a survey to provide fashion advertisers with insights on the habits & attitudes of today's digital fashion consumers, so campaigns can be tailored effectively.
Publishers and advertisers are constantly seeking new ways to offer readers engaging and less-interruptive experiences with native/branded content.
Some, including The New York Times, are experimenting with different ad formats and sizes like the Immersion Unit developed by Flite. The New York Times started using Immersion Units late last year and the format has quickly evolved as a go-to format that the Times has incorporated into premium ad offerings.
The units are designed to deliver content-rich native experiences with non-standard ad sizes. These in-stream ad units are helping publishers increase engagement rates and making advertisers see the merit in leveraging a CMP like Flite.
Facebook has done a stellar job offering engaging and interactive ad products, and Canvas is no exception. In case you are unfamiliar, Canvas is a media-rich, full-screen mobile ad format in the Facebook app that has quick load times.
This ad product was built knowing that consumers' time spent is drastically shifting to mobile-first and brands need to follow suit.
Would you ever want to receive only a percentage of something you paid for? Of course not. This is precisely why the concept of “video viewability” has been of great interest to brand advertisers, publishers, and agencies, over the course of the past several years.
With the rise of digital video advertising, followed shortly thereafter by the rise of the “bad actors” of the digital ecosystem – ad fraudsters, bots, suspicious traffic, and malware – viewability has become an important metric when analyzing inventory, as well as when analyzing campaign performance.
The IAB’s recent report on digital video’s explosive growth was the veritable symphony to the chorus that we’ve all been hearing from the industry the past two or three years. All the facts are there. Digital video is white-hot and everyone — publishers, brands, agencies, and yes, consumers — want it. But how do we properly measure it? Ah, the $100,000 question.
School is almost back in session and marketers and publishers are responsible for personalizing the shopping experience, both online and in-store, for a variety of audiences. And like every other seasonal event, digital advertising is the featured platform for personalized campaign messages to be served to students and parents alike.
For anyone that has been in advertising for more than five minutes knows that digital video is the end all and video on mobile must be a part of every digital strategy.
While all of that is true, and the results support those notions, monetizing video can be a tougher nut to crack, especially when you look at some of the revenue shares.
How would you define a good ad? Do you think about the tension between user experiences that audiences seek and the experiences that advertisers put in front of them? And what role does design and adtech play in enhancing these experiences? Last night, Flite and The New York Times joined forces to have an intimate knowledge-sharing session on these types of questions.
Hosted in the lovely New York Times space in Manhattan, the two companies brought together a seasoned panel, and over 75 brand marketers, creatives, and media folks to discuss creating compelling digital brand experiences on the most important screen – mobile.
According to a recent AdWeek article, NBC has already racked in over $1B in ad sales for the 2016 games in Rio. And digital ad sales are anticipated to increase by over 50%.* Such a large sales increase reinforces the need for personalized, effective, and efficient advertising during major sporting events. The brands who are succeeding during the 2016 Summer Olympics have already adopted an branding + performance advertising approach.
Every so often, my mother gets retargeted a bunch of ads and then when I speak to her she complains that she’s being ‘followed.’ From a technology standpoint, yes she is. Yet every time this happens, I’m forced to explain to her that the L.L. Bean banner ad for house slippers is based upon her likes, dislikes, and online behaviors.
From ad fraud and viewability, to ad blocking and a variety of other industry problems, it is clear that there’s something wrong with the digital advertising industry. While the industry recognizes this it is playing the blame game rather than fixing the issues.
It is abundantly clear that video is top of mind for every marketer, publisher, and platform in digital advertising. According to a recent eMarketer piece, US digital video ad spending is predicted to reach $28.08 billion in 2020, up from a projected $9.90 billion in 2016. These estimates make video the fastest-growing category on mobile, on desktop, and overall for the next four years. The current challenge with video advertising is how to better personalize and optimize video ads, at scale, to drive awareness and results. And the answer to solving this conundrum is the Creative Management Platform (CMP).
Over 400 tech providers and publishers “roughed” it and gathered in Vail from March 30-April 1 for Digiday’s 2016 Publishing Summit. While this conference possessed stereotypical elements standard digital advertising events, the various shuttles and hotel check-ins, coffees, cocktails and oxygen bar, there was something different about this one. Everyone there has skin in the digital publishing game and all sincerely want to improve the digital experience, including Flite. Throughout the three days of sessions, meetings, and networking there were three main themes: social platforms, ad blockers, and improving the user experience.
We all know that digital advertising is in a pivotal moment in its existence - lackluster creative and ad-filled digital real estate has opened the door for ad blockers to become more and more widely adopted. This has made marketers, publishers, and agencies everywhere pause and reprioritize the creative that goes into their grandiose, data-driven media plans. The era of creative management and true 1:1 marketing has arrived and it is here to stay.
Without a doubt, one of the topics set to dominate the digital advertising conversation for much of 2016 will be ad blocking. It’s been well documented that at last count there are 198 million active users of ad blocking software worldwide, and that number only continues to rise.
So, should the entire digital ad ecosystem go into full panic mode? Well, not necessarily.
Most digital marketers are often categorizing their advertising as either branding OR performance, with siloed strategies and objectives. As programmatic advertising has driven home the ‘right ad, to the right person, at the right time’ phrase over the last several years, creative adoption has been slow.
The annual SXSW Interactive Festival evolves into something slightly different every year. And why shouldn’t it? From music to sports, food to fashion, and the very first POTUS appearance, they pride themselves on creativity, innovation, and inspiration. We were there for the latest in ad tech and one of the 2016 themes was something near and dear to Flite - the impact of intelligent creative on personalizing the consumer experience.
Election season is heating up and candidates are being tasked with personalizing their campaign to both their core audience as well as those teetering on which direction to cast their vote. And just like every other “vertical” nowadays, digital advertising is the platform for these personalized campaign messages to be served to voters.
In February, Beet.TV and Videology hosted 35 technology innovators, media agency executives, and publishers for three days of in-depth sessions around the burning topic of digital video.
