Posted by Jay Sears on Mon, Mar 31, 2008 @ 06:41 AM
It keeps getting better.
This morning we announce that Michael J. Kelly has joined ContextWeb as a Senior Advisor to the Board of Directors. Mike is the former president of AOL Media Networks and the current Chairman of the Board of Directors of Eyeblaster.
The news comes on the heels of Wenda Harris Millard joining our board in February and the announcement of our new advisory board members Ira Carlin, Robin Cooper and Scot McLernon.
As President of AOL Media Networks from February 2004 until September 2007, Mike was responsible for AOL’s global advertising business, including revenues, product and platform development, and media strategy for all of AOL’s properties, as well as its Advertising.com network. During Mike’s tenure, revenues grew from $600 million in 2003 to over $2.1 Billion in just 3 years.
He also oversaw the acquisition of Advertising.com in 2004, the negotiation of a multi-year, multi-billion dollar contract with Google in 2005, the development of AOL’s network strategy and other acquisitions (such as TACODA, Lightningcast and Third Screen Media) as well as the global expansion of Advertising.com to 11 countries.
If you happen to be at the IAB Conference today on ad exchanges and ad networks, be sure to attend the “learn from the Experts” sessions from ContextWeb and our ADSDAQ Exchange in the morning and Mike’s closing keynote speech at 5pm:
One View: What’s Next?
The past several years have brought a dramatic shift in the buying and selling of online media. Platforms, publishers and even agencies are acquiring, creating and partnering with ad networks and exchanges to secure their presence in the new industry space.
At the forefront of this revolution is Michael J. Kelly, who in 2004 orchestrated AOL’s acquisition of Advertising.com while serving as the President of AOL Media Networks.
What’s next for ad networks and exchanges? Will media ever become a commodity? Will networks and exchanges remain relegated to non-premium inventory? Will they move out of the interactive space into TV, print and radio? And, amidst all the change, how do you, the marketer, agency or publisher, stay in control?
Michael will address these questions as well as reveal other underlying forces that will no doubt impact your business as this revolution continues.
Michael J. Kelly, Digital Media Advisor, Investor and Chairman of the Board, Eyeblaster
-- Jay Sears
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Posted by Ross Caveille on Thu, Mar 20, 2008 @ 04:12 PM
What has a parent that is seven years old, siblings all across the US and lives in Covent Garden, London?
As of today, ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange has a footprint in the UK online marketplace. The initial murmurings about the introduction of a highly intuitive, page-level targeting solution that was soon to enter the UK market could be heard in and around St. Albans at the first UK iMedia seminar. One week on and the ripple of activity created at iMedia, and covered by Alan Moore here, now has a physical presence in the form of a UK footprint, the first European office – no doubt with additional markets on the horizon.
I am happy to say that I am enjoying first-hand the experience of this grand opening, albeit a relatively quiet and lonely one given that the office comprises of one . . . for now. With regard to new recruits I hope to be able to double the UK staff level by the end of April, or at least have the new hire and start date in place. What with over 800 contacts from 80+ agencies in the UK, we are hoping to build the team relatively quickly so we can gain a good foothold in the market and provide first-class service to go along with our first-class marketing solution.
Since being exposed to the unique technology behind the ADSDAQ Exchange platform, I can’t help but notice articles and industry trends relevant to contextual targeting . . . a result of my new state of mind and subsequent qualification for relevant content, to be sure. One thing that all analysts agree on is that the marketplace is becoming more fragmented so advertisers are having a tougher time reaching niche target audiences. There is a need for targeting solutions beyond that which is currently universally adopted.
Although in it’s infancy, I have high hopes and aspirations for the UK operation and early feedback from advertisers is welcoming. So, keep an eye out for industry news - and not just about contextual - but about ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange in the UK.
-- Ross Caveille
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Posted by Ken Lauher on Thu, Mar 20, 2008 @ 04:00 PM
Yesterday, Search Engine Strategies brought together the three main players in the world of online advertising exchanges - ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange, Yahoo!’s RightMedia and Google/DoubleClick’s AdX - for a lively discussion on the origins, current state and future of advertising exchanges.
The “Ad Exchanges Are Changing Everything” panel was moderated by Rebecca Lieb, Vice President & Editor-In-Chief of The ClickZ Network, and she was joined by:
The panel came fresh on the heels of ContextWeb’s announcement regarding the ADSDAQ Exchange Agency Trading Desk as detailed in the Wall Street Journal (PDF here) which Jay touches upon in his presentation at SES.
If you would like to download Jay Sears presentation at SES, please click here.
To view the complete video, click the “Play” button on any video below.
Jay Sears of ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange
Ramsey McGrory of RightMedia
Scott Spencer of DoubleClick
Q&A
To download an MP3 version of the audio, click here.
-- Ken Lauher
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Posted by Jay Sears on Wed, Mar 19, 2008 @ 07:37 AM
We have been hard at work.
This morning we announce ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange Agency Trading Desk. It’s a platform that uses ContextWeb’s real-time page level contextual engine to bring actionable insights to an advertiser’s entire media spend and investment.
For the first time, advertisers can look into a specific placement and across an entire campaign and associate performance with context. That advertiser can then BUY more inventory in the context that works and SELL only the context that is performing poorly.
The Wall Street Journal is carrying a Q&A (PDF here) on ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange Agency Trading Desk with our CEO Anand Subramanian (Marketplace, pg B2H) this morning. And I’ll see some of you at Search Engine Strategies this afternoon at 5:30pm for a discussion on Ad Exchanges.
We are pleased to have six stellar agencies participating in our invitation-only beta program including Omnicom’s OMD and WPP’s GroupM.
From the release:
NEW YORK CITY (March 19, 2008)ContextWeb, Inc., a leading contextual advertising company and operator of the ADSDAQ Exchange, today announced the ADSDAQ Exchange Agency Trading Desk-TM: a technology platform that will enable media buyers to see how their online ad campaigns are performing and - with the push of a dashboard button - buy more inventory in the better performing contextual areas and offer to sell inventory that is underperforming. The ADSDAQ Exchange Agency Trading Desk can track campaigns running outside of the ADSDAQ Exchange system, giving media agencies an efficient and effective way to track campaign performance against more than 386 contextual categories of inventory.
Nothing like Agency Trading Desk is offered by any other company in the online advertising space. Six agencies, including Omnicom’s OMD and WPP’s GroupM, are participating in the invitation-only beta program. Collectively, the beta agencies represent billions of dollars in annual online display ad spending. The ADSDAQ Exchange Agency Trading Desk will be provided at no cost to agencies participating in the ADSDAQ Exchange and provide actionable analysis of how their campaigns are performing online. As particular contextual categories (such as luxury autos, home repair, adventure travel or mutual funds) provide superior performance for any given campaign, media buyers can immediately acquire additional inventory in that category on the ADSDAQ Exchange simply by hitting the BUY button. Likewise, when other category inventory is not supporting a particular campaign, media buyers can hit the SELL button and offer the remaining inventory for sale on the ADSDAQ Exchange at a price they control.
Click here for full release.
Also, please read the March 21, 2008, MediaPost article, “Buyers Can Assess Contextual Performance And Take Action Via ADSDAQ Tool.”
-- Jay Sears
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Posted by Jay Sears on Mon, Mar 17, 2008 @ 02:59 PM
The Dallas-Fort Worth Interactive Marketing Association (DFWIMA) invited us down last Tuesday, March 11th, to speak with their members about the who, what, where, why and how of advertising exchanges.
For an hour, we spoke about media fragmentation, marketplace response from portals, sites, networks and exchanges and about something we call “The Passion Tail”.
In presenting “The Passion Tail,” I argue that sites are no longer as relevant as individual pages of content. If you look at the proliferation of The Long Tail of content publishers (in the millions) and how 75% of site entry is a deep dive thru search (regardless of publisher size), the consumer is connecting with her passions by going directly to the pages of content that matter to her. Exchanges are one way to make this phenomenon addressable to marketers. In particular, at the ADSDAQ ad exchange, we contextualize each and every page and provide a level of control for the brand advertiser not commonly seen in exchange or network models.
For those that attended the presentation, below, we have also embedded video of Rob Norman of WPP’s GroupM speaking at the IAB Annual meeting in February.
Video, audio and a copy of the presentation follows.
Video of Jay Sears, SVP of ContextWeb at DFWIMA discussing Media Fragmentation and “The Passion Tail”:
Download Audio of Jay Sears, SVP of ContextWeb at DFWIMA discussing Media Fragmentation and “The Passion Tail”
Download the PDF presentation of Jay Sears, SVP of ContextWeb at DFWIMA
Rob Norman at IAB Part 1
Rob Norman at IAB Part 2
Rob Norman at IAB Part 3
Rob Norman at IAB Part 4
Rob Norman at IAB Part 5
Rob Norman at IAB Part 6
-- Jay Sears
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Posted by Shanthi Sarkar on Fri, Mar 14, 2008 @ 04:10 PM
As announced on their blog, last night was the inaugural event, Dream Big - the future of Women in Media, for the NYC Women in Media & Technology (aka Wimlink).
I spoke on a panel with Dina Kaplan (Co-Founder and COO of Blip.tv) and Nicole Tecco Reece (Principal at Tipping Point Partners). Juliette Powell (co-founder of The Gathering Think Tank) did an excellent job moderating a lively discussion and kicked off the evening on a positive note with the question,“What are we optimistic about over the next few years?”
Dina felt optimistic about the creative video content Internet users are creating from their living rooms. Her company, Blip.tv, focuses on enabling this creativity by providing tools and services for hosting, software, advertising and distribution.
I agreed with Dina. The explosion of creativity spurred by online tools, whether it’s video, content or otherwise, is phenomenal. Users are spending more time engaging with The Long Tail. And to take this topic one step further, I added, “there needs to be good monetization strategies to sustain the creativity.” To this point, I stated that I’m optimistic about another key trend: the significant increase of dollars in online display advertising that will support the growth in creativity. I was excited to share that ADSDAQ enables advertisers to connect seamlessly with users on The Long Tail by acting as the inside sales team for small, niche publishers.
Audience member Cynthia Glasbrenner of Digitas, underscored this thought by stating that one of her top clients, Kraft, was very interested in social media & The Long Tail, but they wanted measurable results for advertising in the space. I was glad to tell her ADSDAQ can provide such results.
Nicole Reece, who provides funding, advice & strategy for social media companies via Tipping Point Partners (she asked Malcolm personally to use the name), stated that she was also very optimistic and has seen a lot of innovation in the social network arena. She felt that platforms like open social will enable many “niche” social networks to thrive, while maintaining an ease-of-use for Internet users to maintain one profile.
Of course, yesterday’s news about the purchase of social network Bebo by AOL for $850 million in cash contributed to the optimistic attitude of growth in social media and The Long Tail.
I was glad to participate in an event that brought together so many intelligent women, all who possessed an entrepreneurial spirit. Thanks to Tania Yuki and Rebecca Shaw for putting together a fantastic event!
View the photos of the event here.
-- Shanthi Sarkar
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Posted by Jay Sears on Thu, Mar 06, 2008 @ 09:09 AM
This morning we announced the creation of a new Board of Advisors and added three veterans from Interpublic, Kelly Blue Book and CBS Digital who will provide ContextWeb strategic guidance for ADSDAQ Advertising Exchange.
This news comes on the heels of Wenda Harris Millard of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia joining our board of directors only two weeks ago.
Who are these interactive innovators?
•Ira Carlin, former Chairman-International of Interpublic’s MAGNA Global Worldwide and former Chairman of Universal McCann;
•Robin Cooper, Vice President of Advertising and Business Development for auto publisher Kelley Blue Book;
•Scot McLernon, President of the Upstream Group, Inc. and former head of sales for CBS Digital.
The mission of Context Web’s advisory board is to provide ongoing strategic advice to the company’s management team as it continues to grow the ADSDAQ Advertising Exchange (http://www.ADSDAQ.com), the leading independent platform for online advertisers and publishers, as well as the company’s overall business model. The ADSDAQ Exchange already serves 9 of the top 10 marketing organizations in the United States.
About Ira Carlin
“The lack of advertiser solutions to the audience fragmentation issue continues to result in misplaced ad dollars and lopsided media spend,” said Ira Carlin, former Chairman-International of Interpublic’s MAGNA Global Worldwide. “ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange effectively aggregates audience across the Long Tail while still providing control for the brand advertiser.”
Ira Carlin; Ira Carlin has 36 years of top-level media and new media management and strategic thinking experience with some of the world’s largest agencies and clients. Most recently, he was Chairman-International of Interpublic’s MAGNA Global Worldwide, a groundbreaking operation designed to focus and enhance the marketplace leverage of the Interpublic media operations, ‘Initiative’ and ‘Universal McCann‘. Earlier, Carlin was Chairman and CEO of Universal McCann and EVP and Worldwide Media Director prior to the establishment of UM, which was the $15 billion media arm of McCann-Erickson Worldwide, a leading multinational advertising agency network spanning over 130 countries around the world. He was also Chairman of Thunderhouse, IPG’s first effort in Global online advertising and media operations. Carlin was a primary architect of McCann-Erickson’s 1987 sponsorship of the MIT Media Lab, and served as a member of the Lab’s News in the Future executive committee during the ’90’s.
About Robin Cooper
“ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange offers a unique and brand safe solution to the audience fragmentation challenge faced by Fortune 1,000 and brand advertisers,” said Robin Cooper. “I know that Ira, Scot and I will be able to effectively assist the ContextWeb management team in understanding the needs of online advertisers and publishers so the ADSDAQ Exchange will continue to become increasingly relevant to the leading market players.”
Robin Cooper: Robin Cooper is Vice President, Advertising and Business Development for Kelley Blue Book, where she is responsible for all OEM business relationships with the leading auto publisher, including all national and regional advertising, lead generation and business development. Since the beginning of Cooper’s tenure in 2001, Kelley’s ad revenue has increased over five-fold. Before Kelley, Cooper was with DoubleClick, joining the company as director of business development, responsible for developing strategic partnerships with high-profile, highly-branded sites. She was then named publisher of automotive, and ultimately group publisher of four categories — Automotive, Women, Health and Ecommerce – where she was responsible for all advertising and business development in these key areas.
About Scot McLernon
“The ADSDAQ ad exchange’s premium and brand-safe approach to the marketplace is a clear winner and sets it apart from other marketplaces,” said Scot McLernon.
Scot McLernon: Scot McLernon is President of the Upstream Group, a consultancy he co-founded in 2007. Over the last 12 years, McLernon has built and led three different and very successful web advertising sales teams, including CBS Interactive. His sales teams have frequently been cited by Forrester for highest revenue per salesperson, and for four years in a row his CBS MarketWatch team won “best business and finance site to advertise with” and have won the acclaimed ASPY award as Best Overall Sales Team on the web. McLernon entered the business in 1995, selling some of the web’s initial banners and interactive “booths” for the web’s first online and offline trade show titled “Web Innovation.” He’s been branded a pioneer, an innovator, and, from time to time, a maverick. He’s an active board member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a founding member of the Online Publishers Association (OPA), a founding Director of the Bay Area Interactive Group (BIG) and a founder of the Seller’s Forum, where twice a year over 30 of the top brands sales VPs share and work out industry issues for a day in an open, moderated forum.
-- Jay Sears
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