I attended an intriguing breakout session — “Spreading the Word: Advanced Strategies for Content Distribution”� – at the ad:tech conference today in San Francisco’s glistening Moscone Center.
The session  featured a presentation by Alex from Digitas, who walked the audience through the conception and implementation of a social-centric campaign to introduce a new taco at Taco Bell. …

This year will be the beginning of the end for printed Yellow Pages and the end of the beginning for native advertising. This reflects just two of the “Analyst Picks & Predictions” that BIA/Kelsey published this week.
Other 2014 analyst predictions honed in on the evolution of search and discovery, the growth of the “sharing economy” …

Recent reports of more online/digital companies using television as a key advertising vehicle has furthered buoyed the fortunes of this media.
After a remarkable 2012 in political advertising sales, many local television stations this year felt in a comfortable position. Even with all of the online and social advertising options available and used by many political …

The strong growth and future prospects for online video for SMBs were discussed by three notable panelists involved in this area at SMB Digital Marketing. Led by moderator, Rick Ducey, Managing Director at BIA/Kelsey, these panelists covered the extraordinary growth in recent years for online video growth. While there has been substantial growth in overall …

This is “Internet Week” in New York City as MediaPost hosts a series of conferences on the heels of the the second annual Digital Content Newsfronts. This is the Internet industry’s answer to broadcast and cable television’s “Upfronts” where the major networks hype the new shows and build advertiser and agency interest in committing to making …

If you’re planning to be at next week’s NAB Show in Las Vegas, please look us up. During A Fireside Chat with Facebook and Google: Partnerships and New Ventures, I will interview Kay Madati from Facebook; and Bright Parks and David Gehrig from Google about new ways local stations can be benefit from working with …

Today at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local Conference, we kicked things off with an analyst roundtable. The theme: mobile is siphoning off usage from the desktop and other media. That comes in the form of search query volume, minutes spent, etc.
Mike Boland: Sr. Analyst and Director of Content
Matt Booth: Chief Strategy Officer
Rick Ducey: Managing Director
Charles Laughlin: …

In keeping with tradition, BIA/Kelsey released its annual “Picks and Predictions” report this week, offering a collective view on the events that will drive the 2013 agenda in our local media coverage areas — directional, interactive, mobile, social, vertical and video.
This year’s predictions are an eclectic collection, covering everything from mobile ad revenues to cloud based …

Al Jazeera’s apparent $500 million deal to acquire Current TV’s 40 million U.S. cable homes, as reported in the New York Times, essentially values U.S. cable network distribution at $10.25 per cable home. Is this transaction a good deal? And perhaps more interestingly, what does it mean for how traditional media like cable versus digital …

As I argued in a recent TV Technology article, “It’s inescapable that today’s video consumer expects cross-platform access to content. If that’s where the audience and advertisers are, then broadcasters need to be there, as well. What broadcasters need to do is create a positive experience for their audiences and advertisers as seamlessly as possible, …

Before too many days pass in travel recovery mode, I wanted to get some of my thoughts down from BIA/Kelsey’s sessions at the EASDP Congress in Toledo Spain on Friday.  As background, we programmed and ran the second day of the two-day event.
We were able to recruit a quality lineup of speakers from different geographies …

Expensive ad agency solutions regularly push video and rich media ad campaigns into six figures. AdReady, Mixpo and others have used templates, stock footage, networks and other solutions to bring the cost down.
How about crowd sourcing the creative? Genius Rocket, a three year old startup launched by former VerticalNet and AOL Executive …

For traditional media companies with legacy businesses to harvest, mobile platforms offer a critical opportunity to forward-shift toward tangible growth. At MLM SF, digital media executives and vendor partners shared a variety of actionable mobile successes that indicate that, at long last, mobile’s time has arrived.
Media can deploy effective mobile solutions to clients big and …

As mobile usage reaches ubiquity and revenue generation becomes the much-debated next frontier, Pandora finds itself at the nexus of this movement — rapidly accelerating its mobile usage while iterating on its ad platform to monetize that base at a similar pace. At MLM SF, VP of Audio Sales Doug Sterne noted that the company …

Ted Leonsis, Groupon vice chair, American Express board member and Internet pioneer, emphasized the importance of scaling for local in a global economy during a keynote at ILM East yesterday. “Indiana really matters. India matters more,” said Leonsis, pointing out that for larger companies, most growth will come from outside the U.S.
The way …

Juan Delgado, Managing Director, Americas, Perform
John McIntyre, CEO, Backyard
Randa Minkarah, Senior VP of Revenue and Business Development, Fisher Communications
David Simon, VP, Advertising Solutions, Local Corp.
Video is everywhere you look, from your smartphone to the back of a cab, and at your gas station. National advertisers understand the power of video as a compelling tool for …

Millennial Media released its Scorecard for Mobile Advertising Reach and Targeting (S.M.A.R.T.) report today. Advertisers leveraging mobile to deliver locally relevant messages to target audiences were among the top trends. Mobile video ads became mainstream last year as advertisers shifted dollars to mobile from traditional media channels. As a result, developers benefited from higher eCPM …

Here’s what we’ve been waiting to announce: Google Offers’ head Nitin Mangtani will join our great list of keynoters at ILM East March 26-28 in Boston. We believe Mangtani’s appearance marks one of the first public debuts of Google Offers, which is playing a major role in Google’s vital local strategy, along with Google Places, …

Watching free videos on the Web is convenient and entertaining. But most viewers won’t say the same about pre-roll video ads. Enter Solve Media. The ad tech company announced the launch of Pre-Roll Insurance today. The new technology prompts viewers to enter a brand’s tag line or message to skip a pre-roll video ad. If …

As U.S. television broadcasters consider the future of their spectrum assets with pending auctions and the potential transfer to mobile telephony and Internet services, the embers of innovation in the local television industry are far from dead.
Television station group owner Granite Broadcasting Corp. has teamed with Motive, PLC, a U.K. firm, to launch a start-up …