Going (Creatively) Digital
All Eyes On Verizon As Yahoo Downsizes, Looks For Core Business Solutions
The nation’s largest phone carrier and an increasingly powerful player in digital data and the advertising fueled by the data, Verizon seems to have set its sights on the core businesses of Yahoo. Bloomberg reported this week that Tim Armstrong of Verizon-owned AOL is leading the tire kicking. Among other things, Yahoo’s more than 1 billion users plus Verizon’s 112 million wireless subscribers plus AOL’s couple of million users would provide ample thrust to ad sales within Verizon’s go90 streaming video service. Icing on the cake are the logistical chops of Verizon’s Millennial Media, purchased last fall.
Facebook Still Tops For Social Media Logins But Google Gaining
While Facebook sees itself as a potentially serious search challenger to Google, the social media platform is still tops when it comes to people logging into websites and apps, although Google continues to gain ground. Citing data from tech firm Gigya, Advertising Age reports that Facebook closed 2015 with 62% of the social logins that Gigya tracked. Google followed Facebook with a 24% share of the market, trailed by Twitter at 7% and Yahoo at 4%. Facebook had more than double Google’s share of the market, but the third and fourth quarters of 2015 marked the first time that Facebook experienced share declines in two consecutive quarters since 2011. Google gained during that time period. On mobile devices, Facebook accounted for 80% of social logins in the fourth quarter, compared to Google’s 14% and Twitter’s 5%.
Bing Ads Outage A Wakeup Call For Monitoring Campaign Reporting
Late Saturday afternoon Feb. 6, Bing filed an incident report that confirmed the worst fears of many advertisers: Bing Ads was down. According to Search Engine Land, advertisers lost visibility into campaign performance, including impressions, clicks, conversions and, more critically for some, spend. All components of the platform were affected, including the API, Web UI, Bing Ads Editor and Mobile apps. Advertisers that were not doing their own tracking, relying instead on Bing’s reporting, were at risk of running through budgets on the blind unless they had paused their campaigns. SEL reported on Feb. 10 that Dare Obasanjo, engineering lead for Bing Ads, said that while there was no timeline for a fix, advertisers’ data would show up eventually.
Twitter Adds ‘First View’ Video Ads To Sponsored Spots
Twitter introduced a new ad unit to its repertoire this week, calling it First View video ads. As TechCrunch reports, advertisers opting for a First View position will essentially jump to the front of the queue in Twitter’s ad network, getting the top ad spot the first time a person opens Twitter, for a period of 24 hours. When users first visit the Twitter app or log in to twitter.com, the top ad slot in the timelines will be a Promoted Video. In a blog post, Twitter said First View helps marketers “achieve significant audience reach with exclusive ownership of Twitter’s most valuable advertising real estate for a 24-hour period.” The company is rolling out First View gradually to managed clients in the U.S., and in the coming months has plans to expand it globally.
C-Suite Moves:
Jango Unwalla to Unissant as Chief Marketing Officer, from Optimos, where he led technology initiatives for the Federal market.
Andrew Grygiel to Keeper Security as Chief Marketing Officer, from Informatica, where he was Chief Strategist of the Americas.
Bob Stohrer to Canary as Chief Marketing Officer, from Yahoo, where he led brand strategy, sports sponsorships and marketing communications for the Internet company’s search, communications and digital content business.
Andres Botero to Aria Systems as Chief Marketing Officer & SVP, from Steelwedge, where he was CMO.
Doron Wesly to Lotame as SVP and Chief Marketing Officer, from Tremor Video, where he headed market strategy.
Andres Campo to United Data Technologies as Chief Marketing Officer, from Axxis Solutions, which he founded.
Ashish Sharma to Spectralink as Chief Marketing Officer, from Graymatics, where he was SVP & GM Americas.
