Leading Operations Online

Pop Quiz, Hotshot: New Marketing Institute's Online Crash Course

February 18, 2013 digital marketing grovo mediamath new media institute Training Gavin Dunaway

Training my new colleague Josh included an intense hour-long powwow where I tried to explain the inner workings of the industry at a relatively high level. Afterward his eyes were as wide as dinner plates and his jaw trembled slightly – I could tell I’d completely overloaded his mind.

I hope that’s not the same experience for the brave souls who try the online training element of MediaMath’s New Marketing Institute (NMI) on digital education platform Grovo, especially considering that the crash course covers the basics of display advertising in less than an hour – 18:32 flat. Then again, with such a fast-changing space, can you even afford to spend around 20 minutes learning (or refreshing on) the basics?

As a supplement to the NMI’s in-person training sessions held at the Direct Marketing Association’s...

This Week In Ad Ops: Ad Quality's Effect on RTB, Viewability

February 15, 2013 programmatic programmatic guaranteed pubmatic real-time bidding RTB viewability viewable impressions Joshua R. Weaver

Starting the Year in Full Gear

It’s been another exciting week for the AdMonsters team. The year’s first Publisher Forum in Sonoma is officially sold out. And, with around 150 confirmed participants landing in Northern California March 3 – March 6, Sonoma is sure to kick off this year’s schedule of events in style. Industry influencers from leading companies, from LiveRail and MAGNAGlobal to Adobe, OpenX and more, will be on hand to lead more than 15 sessions.

If you didn’t secure a seat for Sonoma, don’t fret – OPS Markets 2013 kicks off April 4 in New York. This year’s OPS Markets will explore how digital strategists across the spectrum are embracing automation technology and audience data to further their revenue efforts in an ever-changing environment. In recent announcements, we’ve secured Hearst Digital’s VP and CRO Kristine Welker, LUMA Partners’ Amanda Bicofsky and Future of Privacy Forum’s director and co-chair Jules Polonetsky to round up our list of keynotes for the event. Also, Jonathan Glick...

Monster In the Mirror: UM's Mitchell Weinstein

February 14, 2013 Mitchell Weinstein Monster In the Mirror UM Joshua R. Weaver

In this week's Monster In the Mirror, we feature ad ops industry leader and OPS Markets 2013 speaker Mitchell Weinstein, senior vice president of ad operations at UM. In between working through the "chaos" that is the ad operations industry, Weinstein keeps a fairly tidy workspace. And, as for work afterhours -- Weinstein shuts it down; but, it's never a bad time to start teaching the industry's future leaders, e.g., Weinstein's kids, who get an earful on the industry.

Read more about how Weinstein navigates the workday below. And, if you haven't yet, make sure to read our previous Monster In the Mirror with NRP's Bryan Moffett. Also, reserve your seat today to catch Weinstein discuss viewable impressions at this year's OPS Markets.

...

Coexisting on a Competitive Landscape: Lessons from the Monolithic Platforms

February 13, 2013 audience platforms publishing Atul Patel

As publishing platforms and connected devices continue to multiply, remaining competitive comes into question for every video stakeholder. It’s puzzling that monolithic platform companies, such as Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, are competing for the same buyers, yet all of their platforms have apps for the competitor available in their app stores –e.g., Google Maps on Apple devices and the Amazon Kindle app on Google Play devices. What lessons can media companies take away from the fact that, so far, these companies seem to be coexisting? Are apps the means of democratizing distribution to break down the walls that are being put up? How do you stay competitive when a competing publisher’s app is sold right alongside yours? Media companies must take a lesson from platform companies and learn that ultimately, it’s about offering the best user experience for the audience.

A Mutually Understood Self-Destruction

Audiences have come to expect access to content wherever they go, and they have their go-to platforms and publishers for consuming...

T's & C's For Our Decade

February 11, 2013 IAB standards terms and conditions Jana Massey

At the tail end of last year, the IAB Ad Ops Summit held a 3MS Town Hall Discussion around the implications of viewable impressions. The 3MS defines itself as “a cross-industry coalition committed to developing brand-building digital metrics and cross-platform measurement solutions.” Their major initiative at the moment is viewability, or an assurance that a purchased impression, when it delivers, is truly visible to a user and not beyond the screen they are consuming. (A broader definition can be found here: http://www.iab.net/mmms).

There are many debates happening concurrently around the validity of viewability as a new metric standard, and the feasibility from a publisher’s standpoint of how to implement. But one thing that rung true from the IAB Town Hall Discussion was a call-to-action from George Ivie of the Media Ratings Council for the online ad industry to take a closer look at today’s transactional terms and conditions. The IAB has been putting out their recommended T’s and C’s as a voluntary standard since 2001, which has served both publishers and agencies well. However there has not been an update beyond version 3.0, which was released in 2009...