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We're just now getting into the "upfronts" and "NewFronts," where TV and digital media companies promote sizzle reel after sizzle reel in the hopes that advertisers will open their checkbooks. But the song of the spring ad season has already revealed itself: "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson, featuring Bruno Mars.
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A New York-based digital and social media agency has built what it is calling a DVR for Meerkat videos. The agency Glow, which handles social media marketing for several TV networks including HBO and NBC Universal's SyFy, is set to release on Friday two Web destinations designed to organize and catalog streams from Meerkat and Periscope: MeerkatStreams and OnPeriscope. Plus, Glow has developed technology that will allow people to record individual Meerkat videos--or as the agency's new site bills it "your very own live video recorder."
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CABLE DRAMA: The failed mega-merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable has given rise to a cable industry game of thrones. Now it looks like two giants, Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications, are vying for the same prize: Bright House Networks, the Newhouse family-owned operator with two million customers, WSJ reports.
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WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell was again the best-paid ad holding company CEO in 2014, earning roughly $66 million last year, according to the advertising giant's annual report. For 2014, Mr. Sorrell's total compensation was a 44% increase from his earnings in the prior year.
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Marketers are questioning the attractiveness of Twitter's platform. They love that it reaches a lot of people - 302 million monthly active users - but they aren't totally convinced its ads deliver real-world business results. That makes it hard to justify an increase in ad spending with the company, some marketers say.
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YouTube used its NewFront event on Wednesday night in New York to take some direct shots at the TV ad business, and some subtle digs at Facebook's emerging Web video prowess. The basic message during the Web video giant's presentation-which doubled as a 10thbirthday party for the service-our stars are influential, our viewers are young, they favor consuming media on mobile devices, and are pretty much never going to watch TV the way that previous generations did.
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According to data from social media analytics firm Networked Insights, the top three emotions on social media associated with Bud Light's "Up for Whatever" campaign over the past three months were "success," "desire" and "love." But after the social media firestorm this week, the top-three emotions associated with the campaign turned to "stress," "remorse" and desire for the brand to recall the bottles, Networked Insights said.
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Over-the-top streaming company Roku announced Thursday plans to make Nielsen's Digital Ad ratings available to all publishers that operate channels on its platform. Nielsen's ratings will be "baked in" to an initiative Roku is calling its Ad Framework, meaning publishers will later this year have the opportunity to contract with Nielsen and easily switch is audience measurement tools on for their Roku channels.
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Anheuser-Busch has ceased making a Bud Light label that said, “The perfect beer for removing 'no' from your vocabulary for the night,” after it provoked Internet ire for being rather tone-deaf about rape and sexual assault.
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Vice Media is getting closer to claiming its holy grail: its own U.S. television channel. A+E Networks has recently made some progress in its months-long quest to turn its History channel spinoff, H2, into the Vice channel, after agreeing last year to buy a 10% stake in Vice for $250 million. A+E Networks is hoping to have several distributors signed on in time for its annual spring “upfront” ad sales presentation on Thursday and Vice's similar event on Friday.
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Yahoo, facing pressure from investors, reported its fourth straight quarterly decline in display-ad revenue, a key focus this year for CEO Marissa Mayer.
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Target’s website went down Sunday morning, overwhelmed by shoppers clamoring for the retailer’s latest design partnership with Lilly Pulitzer.
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Yahoo amended the terms of its search partnership with Microsoft to give it more control over how search results are presented on both desktop computers and mobile devices.
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Frustration has grown among some McDonald’s franchisees about the fast-food giant’s efforts to reverse lagging sales and rebuild its damaged image, a recent survey shows.
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Following Facebook, Google is in talks to let advertisers use email addresses to target ads.
