AdMonsters is officially live from Boulder for Publisher Forum XXX. We’ll be live blogging throughout the conference, bringing you a snippet of all the industry insight and discussion from mile-high Boulder. Stay tuned to this page throughout the week for the latest news and updates from AdMonsters’ thirtieth Publisher Forum. Also, visit us on Twitter and Facebook for additional updates throughout the event.
Monday Morning:
Opening Keynote: A Venture View on Ad Ops, Seth Levine, Managing Director, Foundry Group
9:22 a.m. – “I often feel like I’m in over my head when it comes to ad tech,” Seth Levine admits as he begins our morning keynote.
9:26 – The rise of programmatic: significantly faster than we thought it was going to happen, Levine says. But, programmatic and exchange aren’t the same thing.
9:30 – Programmatic buying doesn’t mean there’s no need for an ad operations team. Programmatic direct gives ad ops teams more efficiency, lowers minimum buys. But, what about forecasting? And, when can reserved inventory get in the way of other buys.
9:35 – Is content still king?: Trying to figure out how to harness the value of the audience you have. Not merely better audience targeting, but how you interact with people when they get to your page. And, what you think about the relationship of advertising and content.
9:39 – Consumers are more accepting of sponsored content and native advertising; and, more advertisers want to ‘get in the conversation.’ Facebook has helped out as well – “[Native advertising] is essentially News Feed advertising,” Levine says.
9:41 – Ad ops and ad ops for publishers has historically focused on how do I sell boxes and rails. “There’s so much more to do with the article,” Levine says on the concept of ‘related posts’. Getting the reader to stick with you adds value to the publisher.
9:42 – What about all the hyperlinks on publishers’ websites? “We’re going to be moving deeper into the page.” There’s an opportunity to direct traffic within hyperlinked content. Drives value to the publisher; super authentic for the consumer and reader.
9:46 – There’s a huge opportunity within the content to drive publisher revenue: “You think you’re creating content, but you’re actually creating an audience.”
9:48 – Why ad tech is challenging?: There’s not a fluid purchase ecosystem; tons of false positives; the rise of the ‘sucker round’ (there are hundreds of companies that believe they’re worht $100m). And, where are the IPOs?
9:52 – What to look at when investing in ad tech?: Scale; intertia – the escape velocity of an ad tech business becomes very important. The companies’ margins, performances and technology (tech innovation) matter as well. Ad tech innovation turns over about every 18 months.
Making Digital Brand-Ready, Josh Cohen, Sr. Business Product Manager, Google
10:22 a.m. – “Everything in the industry was changing so dramatically, it became moot within a matter of weeks or so,” Josh Cohen says as he begins his talk on acceleration. Welcome to the acceleration era.
10:25 – Programmatic is anopportunity for publishers to think more efficiently about their direct buys.
10:25 – Multi-Screen First: A shift from one to multiple devices. Non-PC impressions on DFP have gone up 3x year over year.
10:27 – Audience is the currency: Soon, they’ll be a direct connection between a user and a publisher. Trust is key to succeeding and reaching out to users. (Consumer to publisher: “I trust you with my identity.”
10:29 – Brand is the opportunity: Ads are a big experience; ‘making consumers smile.’ How do we start creating these types of experiences for brands? Creating experiences for users who want to come back.
10:33 – Native advertising: You can’t escape it. “Once you have a LUMAScape, you’re all set.” Social, search and sponsored. Display + native is already here. “How do you get these two different types of systems to work well together,” Cohen asks?
10:38 – Some of the challenges: Scalablity (is everything custom?), cost of creative (who’s paying for it; who’s creating it [editorial, the brand itself?], Unified reporting.
10:45 – How far have we come with measurements? TV has had the GRP for a long time; but, in a much shorter period of time, we’ve had a bigger dirsuption when it comes to metrics. Viewability is the next step, says Cohen, which will eventually lead to an online GRP. “That’s how we get to $2 billion.”
10:51 – Viewability equals engagement, according to Cohen. Consumers are 21x more likely to click. For viewability, below the fold equals above the fold.
11:00 – Working together with the publishers on defining the theme for native is crucial, says Federated Media’s Jonathan Schreiber. People may not be clicking back to the brand; but, they’re reading and being exposed to the brand in-stream.
11:40 a.m.- 2013 US video ad spend? $3.6b – digital video spend is only 5 percent of that.
11:41 – TV’s got it handled from a measurement perspective (since the 1950s). Average viewer of TV consumes 35 hours of TV. Why does TV succeed? Established measurement, easy to scale, and easy to execute.
11:43 – Why are publisher’s embracing programmatic? According to Castellanos: programmatic demand is exploding, increased supply via multi-platform, eliminating latency, and more…
11:46 – Programmatic video spending is rising; it’s expected to be about a fourth of total spend by 2014. RTB impression volume is also exploding.
11:47 – 35.1m US household have at least one IP-connected television; and, the number of hours spend watching video on mobiles and tablets have grown twofold year over year.
11:53 – Once you bring your content into the private exchange, it’s not uncommon to see growing price points. Premium sales begin to overlap with direct sales, Castellanos points out.
4:15 p.m. – On University of Colorado-Boulder’s BDW: “We are what happens when a university program thinks and acts like a startup,” Slayden says.
4:16 – “The user is not the problem, the user is the solution,” Slayden says on the future of digital ad tech innnovation.
4:19 – The Internet + the future: “Everyone want to know, ‘What’s going to happen in my future because of the Internet?'” Slayden says.
4:25 – Reimagining the present: “Why don’t we start focusing on the present; that’s much more useful…”
4:30 – The Internet of Things: When you can connect everything to everything, on a globalized scale. Simplicity is key (think Uber, Nest, etc.– car rentals been around for a long time, so have thermostats.)
DreamWorks Dreams Big Across Screens, Chris Hewish, Head of Global Interactive, Dreamworks Animation
9:14 – The question all entertainment companies have to answer: revenue or reach? It’s about balancing the two, says Chris Hewish. Hewish discusses Dreamworks Turbo Racing League app, which through incentivization (in-app contests) and branding helped to answer both.
9:19 – “When advertisers are buying ads for a brand, where are those ads going?” asks Hewish as he details the DreamWorks app. “If you’re reaching an happy audience with a brand, deliver an additional property.”
9:23 – Social Media: High engagement — driving people between platforms. Taking engagement from mobile and extending it to PC. Around 40 percent of fans engaged with content on the Turbo Racing League app. Social giveaways brought almost over 70 percent of engagement in total.
9:30 – Monetization: Blending revenue with in-app purchances and ad revenue. Learnings from price points and monetiation came from the developer. Advertising interstitials and offer walls drove revenue as well. The game also used Kiip to incentivize gameplay with real-world discounts and products.