Euro Round-Up: TubeMogul’s FakePreRoll Highlights Dodgy Industry Practice; WPP Q1 2012 Trading Statement; IAB Location-Based Ad Report

TubeMogul’s FakePreRoll.com Highlights Deceptive Industry Practice
Most people think they know what a pre-roll video ad looks like: 15-30 second video clip that plays in a large video player in the top left part of the screen is a pre-roll ad. That’s what most brand marketers think they are getting when they buy pre-roll video ads, but it’s often not the case.
Many video advertising vendors are using “Fake Pre-Rolls” to fulfill campaigns. Fake Pre-Rolls are video ads that auto-play on a web page where the viewer has shown no intent to watch the ad or the content after the ad. They are typically run within banner ad units or in small, syndicated players below the fold.
FakePreRoll.com will showcase instances where vendors have run “fake pre-rolls”. By shining light on the issue, TubeMogul hopes that marketers and agencies will demand more transparency from their vendors to better understand what type of pre-roll they are buying.
TubeMogul has multiple controls in place to ensure that its clients’ pre-roll video ads never run in these auto-play banner units, unless they have specifically chosen this format. The SiteSafe system includes manual screening to flag sites that use this ad unit and the PlaySafe technology is continually screening for video player size to ensure pre-roll ads are not served within these units.
This practice – delivering auto-play pre-roll when an advertiser thought they were buying user-initiated pre-roll – is detrimental to a brand’s video campaign and TubeMogul believes the industry can do better. They’ve launched FakePreRoll.com with the hopes of reducing this deceptive practice.
WPP Q1 2012 Trading Statement
– Reported revenues in sterling up 7.6% at £2.392 billion
– Reported revenues in dollars up 5.5% at $3.762 billion and in euros up 10.1% at €2.866 billion
– Constant currency revenues up 7.4%
– Like-for-like revenues up 4.0% in first quarter, gross margin 1 up 4.0%
– First quarter profits and operating margin above budget and ahead of last year
Quarter 1 highlights
– Revenue growth of 7.6%, with like-for-like growth of 4.0%, 3.4% growth from acquisitions and 0.2% from currency
– Growth in all regions and business sectors, characterised by particularly strong growth geographically in Asia Pacific and Latin America and functionally in advertising and media investment management and direct, digital and interactive
– Like-for-like gross margin growth up 4.0%
– Average net debt increased by £416m (-19%) to £2.644 billion reflecting an improvement on the 2011 comparative year end position
– Net new business of $1.855 billion in the first quarter, compared to $1.346 billion in the first quarter last year
IAB Location-based Advertising on Mobile White Paper
Location-based advertising can be a personal and powerful form of advertising on a mobile and, if used correctly, can deliver exceptional results. The IAB has just released a white paper on location-based advertising (LAB), analysing various case studies and reporting their findings. The report has been created to offer advertisers and agencies analysis of the models currently being used by other companies, which gives insight into how to maximise the effectiveness of their own future campaigns.
We’ve put together a brief summary below. The full white paper may be downloaded here.
What is Location Based Advertising?
LBA has been around for years. With the rise of regional and local newspapers in the 19th century there was an influx of advertising which was tailored to your local area. These adverts were relevant, split by sector and some even offered vouchers and coupons which could be cut out to be claimed. Although static, they bear a lot of resemblance to what is happening in this space today.
Mobile devices are very personal to the user. It is therefore very important that, with any location-based marketing technique, the privacy of the user is safeguarded at all times. In most cases, the consent of the user will be required and it will be important to determine where this is sought as it may vary between business models. In any case, it is vital that marketers offer users transparency about the location data that is collected and used and ways to control it. The IAB will be developing UK good practice for location-based marketing in 2012.
LBA for consumers
As consumers become more tech savvy, they seem more than happy to receive information to their handset as long as it is relevant. According to a consumer survey carried out by the IAB in 2010, 49% of consumers would use LBA more if the information they received was more relevant and useful. Social media has played a big part in consumer adoption of LBA.
Technology
There are a number of ways in which technology can be used to track a consumer’s location. The three traditional methods which are currently available and commonly used are: Network-based, Handset-based and a Hybrid of both.
Inventory
Mobile display advertising on mobile is a rapidly growing industry, with the amount of inventory available increasing exponentially. The rise of mobile networks and agency trading desks has made it easier than ever to buy, sell and track campaigns. The type of inventory available has also evolved with expandable banners which can be interactive and can even play video. Their popularity – particularly with creative agencies – has given the industry some award winning campaigns over the past 12 months. Add location to the mix and you can create an impressive end result.
Top tips
Use a location-based ad creative. Always state the location of the user in the creative. This can be the actual place name or just the environment. If someone is at the train station or airport then a message referring to the wait for departure will attract many more clicks than a generic brand message.
Try to use mobile maps in your creative. Whenever people use their mobile to view media there is a good chance they are out and about. Showing someone where they can interact with your brand on a mobile map can increase engagement over regular banner ads.
Use sensible geo-fencing. Whilst it may sound ideal to only target consumers walking past your store the reality is that only a few percent of your audience will be doing that when your ads go live. Try blending store targeting with a more general lifestyle geo-fence like retail spots to get higher campaign delivery.
Look out for new KPIs. Although CTR and CPC may be your key metrics for online advertising it doesn’t guarantee the same results on mobile. Mobile is a different medium and so your brand may find different ways of measuring success. Certain high street retailers will realise that a 60 second expandable map interaction is more powerful than a 10% CTR as zooming in and out of the map show the start of consumers’ journeys to a store.