You can trace the modern day billboard back to the 1790’s, when the advent of lithography made it easy to mass produce signage.  In the 1900’s, billboards followed the explosion of the automobile and moved from the sides of buildings to highways.  Close to 100 years later in 2012, the digital billboard was born – allowing content to change interactively.

Thanks to the proliferation of location tracking through mobile devices, digital billboards are now advancing even further.

Clear Channel just launched a program called Radar, which uses technology and location data from partners like AT&T, Place IQ, and Placed, to build audience profiles based upon the people that pass by the billboard. They’re able to tell an advertiser not only the exposure of the ad but the aggregated demographics of the consumers who likely drove by the billboard.  This is a vast improvement over the old method, which relied on a person actually counting the cars that drove by a particular ad.

Synapse Labs is using cameras to identify the make, model, and year of a car passing by a billboard – and changing the ad content in realtime.  So BMW can target the drivers of late model Audi’s differently than early model Mercedes Benz owners.

Technology has vastly improved two of the three legs of addressable advertising for outdoor signage – modeling and targeting.   All that is left is accurate post-campaign measurement, tying those who are exposed to an advertisement to their future purchases.

These are exciting advancements, and this type of technology isn’t limited to billboards and cars; it can be applied to any outdoor signage.  For example, targeted advertising in a shopping mall based upon the gender of the person standing in front of the sign. And I’m certain that this isn’t the last advancement we’ll see to billboards and outdoor signage.  As cross channel hyper-targeting becomes more accurate through technological advancements, you’ll see better uses of this “classic” media.

Sources:  History of Billboards, Wikipedia

There is quite a bit of debate going on about people based matching versus cookie based matching.  I thought that I’d take a minute to set the record straight.

Before I start, it’s important to have a basic knowledge of how the Internet and cookies work together.

WHAT IS A COOKIE?

A cookie is actually just a small text file, which sits on your device (like a laptop, a tablet, or a mobile phone).  Your device can store countless cookies from the various websites you’ve visited, and each is unique to  your device and in some cases your web browser.

Cookies are used to store information about your web browsing.  This information could be your name (so that the webpage can greet you … eg: “Welcome back Scott”, address, your username / password (to give you access to a specific website), the web pages that you’ve visited before,  etc.

Now to understand the importance of a cookie, you need to understand how a web server works.   

THE WEB SERVERS AND COOKIES IN BASIC TERMS

Imagine you’re at a hotel bar, and you’re charging drinks to your room.  Each time you go up to the bar for a refill, you have to repeat your room number because the bartender has a really bad memory.  Now imagine that the bartender can look up your room number using your room key.

This is how the Web Servers and cookies work together.  

Websites are hosted on Web Servers.  When you surf the web, each webpage is delivered to your device (phone, ipad, etc.) from the Web Server independently.   The Web Server is a “session state” environment, meaning that it cannot natively associate one request from a device to another.  In other words, it only “sees” (and remembers) each webpage request separately.  This is where cookies come in.  They help carry information to the Web Server, from one webpage request to another.

In the example above, you are the web browser.  The bartender is the Web Server.  The drink you order is the web page.   And your room key is the Cookie.

Cookies can also be used to target advertising.  An Ad Server (like a Web Server for advertisements) can be programmed to serve specific ads to specific cookies.  This is the technology used to deliver ads to specific people.

THE PROBLEM WITH COOKIES

A cookie, in and of itself, isn’t the problem.  The problem is the linkage.  How was a cookie associated with the person to whom the ad is being served.  As marketers, we need to make sure that we are reaching the right people with the right ad … and more importantly not reaching those people who have opted out.

This is especially true in the world of regulated data, where you need to know who you are targeting.  And cookie-based linkage is controlled by a handful of companies who 1) are walled gardens and don’t share how they link offline people to online cookies 2) they don’t collect this information directly.  They rely on other websites to gather PII, and connect it to their cookies.  In some cases, the data is very accurate (especially with transaction data).  In some cases, it is not (think websites that collect PII when giving surveys, offering coupons, etc.).

In short, in order for you to use cookies based targeting accurately, you need to have insight into the source of the base linkage data that was used to connect the offline consumer record to the online cookie.  And until that happens, the debate will continue to rage on. 

TV – it’s a whole new world.  With new ways that live and prerecorded video are being distributed, so too does the list of new terms that define this medium.  Here’s a list of the most common terms being used in Television today.

Addressable Advertising: TV audiences which can be segmented, usually at the household level, based upon attributes such as geography, demographics, and / or behavior.

Cable Operators: Companies that provide television content via a cable in the ground – for example, Cox communications.

Connected TV: A television that supports the delivery of OTT content.

Digital Video Recorder:  A device which records linear TV digitally,  for viewing at a later date.

Gross Rating Point (GRP): The common method in which television viewership is rated.  Also known as “TV Ratings”, it shows the percentage of households which watch a particular program.

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV):  Also known as Internet TV, it is the streaming of video content to any media device (such as a personal computer, game console, etc.).

Linear: Television service where the programs are delivered on a set schedule, as opposed to Video On Demand.

Mobile TV: This is real-time video content which is broadcast over a mobile network.

Multiple System Operators (MSO): An operator of multiple cable or satellite transmission systems. MSOs include AT&T, Comcast, Charter, Dish, Verizon, Cox Communications, Altice, Frontier, Mediacom, WOW!, Cable One, TPG, Windstream, Century Link, Midcontent Communications, Atlantic Broadband Group, Amstrong Cable Services, Service Electric Cable TV, Metrocast, Blue Ridge Communications, Google Fiber, etc.  They are also known as Multichannel Video Program Distributors (MVPDs).

Over The Air (OTA):  Television which is broadcasted using radio waves to a TV receiver.  OTA is typically not addressable at the household level, meaning that it cannot be segmented by household.

Over The Top (OTT): This refers to the delivery of video content (TV, movies, etc.) using an Internet protocol – without requiring a television subscription to a cable or satellite provider.

Satellite Providers: Companies that provide television content via Satellite transmissions.

Set Top Box:  This is the device which decodes the signal transmitted by your cable or satellite TV provider.  It likely was named because it was a box which, in early days, sat on top of your TV set.  The Set Top Box is registered and is unique to a household.

Streaming:  Streaming is the real-time distribution of video and audio content over an Internet protocol, as opposed to the content which is downloaded.  Streaming content can be stored for a short period of time (commonly referred to as a buffer, for obvious reasons) to ensure a consistent user experience in case of an interruption in the Internet connectivity between the device and the server.

Time Shifting: The process by which a viewer watches content at a different time than the scheduled broadcast time.  They can do so using various technologies and services, such as DVRs, VOD, OTT, and Mobile TV.

Video On Demand (VOD): Television and video content which can be accessed by the viewer at any time.

In the world of high power politics, marketing is king.  And the foundation of that marketing is the CRM file.  Who donated, how much, and when?  This just the tip of the data iceberg that sophisticated campaigns collect.

This data is used to power all aspects of the campaigns, from direct mail to digital campaigns to the door to door ground campaign.

And after a campaign ends?  What happens to the voter data?  It’s rented to other candidates, of course (using a trusted third party, of course).

You can read more about the “ins and outs” of political campaign marketing in the articles sourced below.

Sources:  AdExchanger, AdAge

Apple announced that it is discontinuing its iAd Network (though as of this published date, the main website for iAd was still up and running).  iAd *was* a native ad network within apps running on Apple devices, allowing advertisers to reach new consumers, and publishers to earn valuable ad dollars.

Along with this, the iAd sales team will be disbanded.  In lieu of the iAd platform, Apple will be shifting to a (yet to be announced) more automated publisher focused platform.  Publishers are the big winners here; for now they’ll keep 100% of the ad revenue.

Did you receive a “less than desirable” gift this holiday season?  Well, if you have fast fingers you can trade it in for a $100 Zappos gift certificate.  You’ll need to be one of the first 500 callers between 11 AM – 11 PM (Eastern time) to qualify to the “Happy Returns” promotion.

If you’re one of the lucky few, just send your gift, in its original packaging, back to Zappos.  Zappos will donate your gift to a charity of their choice.  Simple!

And if you’re truly feeling charitable, you can always donate the $100 gift card to charity too, along with your hand-me-down present.

Source: AdWeek

I really appreciate how this “event” has turned into a social media marketing campaign.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/03/29/bronx.cobra.twitter/index.html?hpt=C2