Google’s partnership with Omnicom to build out the agency’s trading desk with the view of putting hundreds of millions of display dollars through automated channels (Google’s mostly) could well be a transformational moment for the display market. I could be accused of a certain degree of hyperbole here, but you have to look at the size of this deal and take note of the other significant relationships Google has already established with the biggest media buying agencies. It is slowly bringing the dsplay market under its control. You also need to recognise the significance of how details of the story were released: instead of giving the “scoop” to a trade press journo, it was given to Emily Steel at the WSJ. Google is serious about display, and bringing order to a ridiculously chaotic and opaque market. And it wants Wall Street to know this. Google maybe chasing profit, but in doing so it is pushing innovation in this space. This might be unpalatable for some in our industry who fear change, and would rather keep this innovation at bay. But change is upon us and we, as an industry, must act now.
There was a certain amount of surprise and incredulity in the European ad industry when Wunderloop announced its bankruptcy at the end of April. Wunderloop, unlike a lot of ad tech companies, had demonstrable technology. It had also a decent share of the European data market, particularly in France and Germany – and was one of the leading data companies in the European display space. So why did it go bankrupt?
nugg.ad, a leading European player in behavioural targetting, recently moved into the UK market. ExchangeWire spoke to Ajay Daved, nugg.ad UK & Ireland Sales Director, last week about the company’s targetting technology, its committment to user privacy and the trends in the display marketplace.
AudienceScience has agreed to buy Wunderloop for a reported eight figure sum. Wunderloop declared bankruptcy at the end of April due a to lack of funding. It is believed that Wunderloop has been actively seeking a buyer since going bankrupt kin April – and has had lots of interest. Reports suggest that there were a number of US and European companies were in the hunt for Wunderloop, attracted by their proprietery behavioural technology. This is an excellent acquisition by AudienceScience as it will now give it a strong presence in the German and French markets. It will be interesting to see what happens to the AdAudience joint venture now that Wunderloop’s technology is owned by AS.
Nic Peters, Managing Director at Improve Digital, penned a piece yesterday for Imedia on why the cookie still matters. The post tackles the upcoming (and hated!) cookie directive, and the effect it will have on the digital media industry in Europe. Peters finds it hard to believe that the much maligned cookie is seen as such a threat to user privacy when more intrusive forms of offline data collection get a free pass by European regulators. She points to the example of loyalty cards, which collects, harvests and consumers’ personal data. These activities rarely attracts the furore that anonymous pixeling does because loyalty cards offset data collection with discounted products. Is it a communication issue? Is the online advertising sector not showing legislators the value of the cookie? Peters argues that the industry needs to do a number of things to give the cookie the “threat-free reputation enjoyed by offline data-collection methods”: first, improve the communication and understanding of how the cookie benefits the consumer; second, the industry needs to be more transparent about how it collects and uses data; and finally, use the cookie data to deliver better user experience. Nic briefly touched on the mess Phorm caused with its questionable data collection methods. But can we all applaud Phorm for doing a fine job of muddying the waters with legislators, privacy advocates and consumers. [Imedia]
There’s a piece today in MarketingWeek about the OFT’s report. The report points out that the online advertising industry could be doing more to “address consumer concerns over behavioural targeting”. The OFT (Office of Fair Trading) has warned that unless more stringent self-regulation is introduced, it will bring in external regulation to tackle the perceived problems. This tells me two things: firstly, the privacy advocates are lobbying the OFT very hard; and two that behavioural targeting has still got a very bad name. One way around this is to introduce labelling for all BT-powered ads, giving users the opportunity to opt-out. I suggested the introduction of a similar initiative to that currently running in the US – but it should be Europe-wide so that EU legislators can also see that the industry is acting responsibility on the issue of user privacy. Interesting to see that BT-related ads only accounts for about £90 million of a total £3.3 billion spend of online ad spend.
The cookie directive is an ill-conceived piece of legislation. The EU seems hell bent on destroying its nascent digital media industry, as the new law requires an opt-in for every cookie dropped on a user. If my business depended on behavioural targeting for survival I’d be looking for a “cookie-friendly” country to operate in. Why are the trade bodies not lobbying the legislators hard on this? At least suggest some kind of stringent self-regulation to appease legislators. In an effort to highlight all of the above, Yieldivision has done an interesting blog post on the subject of the “cookie directive”. It looks at the consequence for the European online advertising industry – and gives some good examples on how anonymous pixeling can benefit users as well as the digital economy. The post also goes into how innovation will suffer, and the effect the law will have on user experience. Imagine how annoying it would be for a user to receive 50 odd requests to have cookie dropped on their machine while surfing the web. Do you know what they’ll do? They’ll head off to sites that don’t irritate with incessant pop-ups – which will probably benefit US-based web properties. And what if sites outside the EU don’t comply with the law? Will they be blocked? If not, I can see a mass exodus of European digital media companies to cities outside the EU’s jurisdiction, like Geneva and Oslo. The blog post is an excellent overview on the current EU legislation and its possible repercussions. [Yieldivision]
Qunatcast announced yesterday that they are moving into the European. They have hired Philip MacCauley, the former Director of Business Development and Commercial Relations at Yahoo!, to head up the operation. The feeling here in the market is that Quantcast’s arrival is a positive move. There is still a lack of good data in the market for automated buys, and Quantcast’s European lookalike data should give agencies and advertisers better targeting capabilities. No offence to any of the blogs or trade sites reporting on this story, but Quantcast are not exclusively an analytics company. VCs did not hand over fifty-odd million dollars for an analytics solution for publishers. If you were to definition (and that is generally a dangerous game in this industry), I’d say Quantcast is more of a data and audience profiling platform. So how does Quantcast collect and segment data and what is “lookalike”?
Criteo has raised another $7 million dollars for further expansion into the US. Criteo has had a lot of commercial success in the European BT market over the past two years and is now looking to put more investment and resource behind its US operation. The retargeting specialist recently moved its headquarters from Paris to Palo Alto, as it looks to crack the lucrative US ad market. Crtieo helps leading ecommerce clients to retarget users with relevant ads. Like most European BT vendors Criteo offers clients a “black box” solution for retargeting, but has been very successful in delivering strong campaign performance for its big retail clients.
» Independent digital media agency has been put into administration. The ten year old agency, which currently employs about one hundred and twenty staff, announced the news yesterday. I-level lost the lucrative COI account this year to GroupM, which accounted for 40% of its business. The company is also carrying a significant amount of debt, around £32 million, on its balance sheet after a private equity buyout in 2008. The cost of servicing that debt is about £3 million per year. Combined with the 15% fall in revenue last year and the loss of an account worth about £40 million in billings, the agency could not be run as a viable commercial operation. The company is now looking for a buyer, but who will buy I=level? One of the frontrunners perhaps would be WPP. Martin Sorrell did tell investors recently that WPP was in the market for digital agencies, and could pony up the cash to buy the agency. But there will be no big earn-outs for the private equity firm who bought I-level. This would be a fire sale. [Brand Republic]
Google’s partnership with Omnicom to build out the agency’s trading desk with the view of putting hundreds of millions of display dollars through automated channels (Google’s mostly) could well be a transformational moment for the display market. I could be accused of a certain degree of hyperbole here, but you have to look at the size of this deal and take note of the other significant relationships Google has already established with the biggest media buying agencies. It is slowly bringing the dsplay market under its control. You also need to recognise the significance of how details of the story were released: instead of giving the “scoop” to a trade press journo, it was given to Emily Steel at the WSJ. Google is serious about display, and bringing order to a ridiculously chaotic and opaque market. And it wants Wall Street to know this. Google maybe chasing profit, but in doing so it is pushing innovation in this space. This might be unpalatable for some in our industry who fear change, and would rather keep this innovation at bay. But change is upon us and we, as an industry, must act now.
There was a certain amount of surprise and incredulity in the European ad industry when Wunderloop announced its bankruptcy at the end of April. Wunderloop, unlike a lot of ad tech companies, had demonstrable technology. It had also a decent share of the European data market, particularly in France and Germany – and was one of the leading data companies in the European display space. So why did it go bankrupt? 
Nic Peters, Managing Director at 
There’s a piece today in 
» Independent digital media agency has been put into administration. The ten year old agency, which currently employs about one hundred and twenty staff, announced the news yesterday. I-level lost the lucrative COI account this year to GroupM, which accounted for 40% of its business. The company is also carrying a significant amount of debt, around £32 million, on its balance sheet after a private equity buyout in 2008. The cost of servicing that debt is about £3 million per year. Combined with the 15% fall in revenue last year and the loss of an account worth about £40 million in billings, the agency could not be run as a viable commercial operation. The company is now looking for a buyer, but who will buy I=level? One of the frontrunners perhaps would be WPP. Martin Sorrell did tell investors recently that WPP was in the market for digital agencies, and could pony up the cash to buy the agency. But there will be no big earn-outs for the private equity firm who bought I-level. This would be a fire sale. [
