Hasta La Creative!

Advertisers have been making a lot of noise about viewability and fraud lately. And with good reason — according to sources like comScore and Google, half of online advertising dollars go to waste due to bots, click fraud and out-of-sight placements. While the costs to advertisers might be obvious, fraud has severe negative consequences for publishers as well.

Why ad fraud hurts publishers

Premium publishers have everything advertisers want: targeted audiences, quality content and brand-safe environments. They are the partners of choice, and their inventory commands the highest CPMs. But premium publishers are being squeezed by a confluence of forces. The first is downward pricing pressure on CPMs driven by rapidly expanding ad network inventory. The second is the challenge of growing their audiences to attract ad dollars. Finally, the shift to mobile creates entirely new monetization challenges.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Mason City Brewing in small-town Mason, Iowa decided to have some fun parodying “Big Beer.” The result is a low-tech spot featuring the things that those other beer companies use to advertise their product. Humorous and light hearted, yet in no way lives up the quality we demand as fine ad folk. By the way. […]

The post Dogs and Horses, Horses and Dogs appeared first on AdPulp.

Poopy Cat a récemment lancé le projet BLOCKS, en 5 jours et grâce à la plateforme de crowdfunding Kickstarter. Il s’agit d’une cabane pour chat, modulable et en carton, que chacun peut construire soi-même. Ces cabanes eco-friendly comportent toutes des tunnels, des poutres, des ponts, des rampes et des cubes que l’on peut personnaliser facilement.

Eric Silver, former owner and chief creative officer of New York-based Silver & Partners, has joined McCann as regional chief creative officer of North America. Mr. Silver confirmed his agency will close along with his departure, and he is in the process of transitioning clients and staff.

The appointment marks Mr. Silver’s return to the big-agency world. Mr. Silver previously served as chief creative officer at Omnicom’s DDB New York and as an exec creative director at BBDO New York, where he led work for FedEx, Monster and the BBC. In 2010 he resigned from DDB to take a majority ownership stake in indie shop Amalgamated New York, which then became Silver & Partners. Mr. Silver had served as chief creative officer at DDB for a little over a year before the agency replaced him with Matt Eastwood, moving him into a new-business role.

“Silver and Partners / Amalgamated was such a rewarding experience and I’m so proud of what we accomplished there,” said Mr. Silver via email. “We did a few Super Bowl commercials, we got tons of recognition for our social efforts, and we made the Ad Age A List. In December, we won a couple of AOR accounts, one of which will follow me. With all that said, in talking to Rob [Reilly, McCann Worldgroup global creative chairman] about what this could be, it’s just too interesting to pass up — to work on something of this scale. There will be some challenges for sure, but what a fantastic opportunity, surrounded by some pretty great people.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

A-B InBev could not be reached for comment on Monday evening.

In an interview with Ad Age before Bud’s Super Bowl commercial ran, Budweiser VP Brian Perkins said the ad was not meant to criticize competitors or craft beer in general, noting that “the only other beer that we reference in the spot is a fabricated, ludicrous flavor combination of pumpkin peach ale.” He pointed out that much of the spot talks in a “positive, affirming way about Budweiser quality,” such as its beechwood aging process.

But some craft beer supporters accused A-B InBev of hypocrisy, noting that it has been an aggressive acquirer of craft brewers. That includes a planned acquisition of Elysian Brewing of Seattle in a deal announced in late January. A-B InBev’s critics have also seized on the fact that Elysian actually makes a peach pecan pumpkin beer that is similar to the brew that Bud mocked in the ad.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Google is giving the advertising world a peek into the size and scope of the industry’s seedier elements. The company, in a blog post on the industry’s ‘bad ads,’ said it rejected 1.25 million applications from publishers looking to join its network in 2014. The applications were tossed due to concerns over ad fraud, malware, misleading promises and more.

“The scammers are actually standing up literally hundreds of thousands of sites,” said Vikaram Gupta, director of ads engineering at Google, in an interview. Mr. Gupta said these scammers are scaling the breadth of their attacks, knowing the sites they set up will likely get rejected during the application process or shortly thereafter.

Google’s network includes its ad exchange and Ad Sense offering. Those two combined make Google the single biggest ad-tech company in the world. And its post this morning shows it’s looking to play something of a sheriff’s role on ad quality issues. Google rejected even more applications in 2013, shutting down three million applicants.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Google has tweaked its personal assistant service, Google Now, to include information from brand partners ranging from Tripadvisor to Hailo.

Digital ad revenue rose almost 12 percent in 2014 as the paid digital subscriber base rose to 910,000, on track to surpass 1 million this year.

Le designer industriel argentin Tomas Moyano a eu la bonne idée de conceptualiser ce qui pourrait être le futur d’Apple dans les prochaines années avec son concept « LightMac ». Son idée ? Mixer la puissance d’un ordinateur de bureau, l’expérience utilisateur d’une tablette et l’interface des nouveaux écrans tactiles projetés.

Facebook continues to develop its commercial potential, says Steve Parker, co-chief executive of Starcom MediaVest Group.