@Cassel

Traditional media planners, offline and online staffers, need to be at the core of an agency’s programmatic evolution.  Simply moving programmatic traders into a silo within an agency will not create the seamless flow of insights that drive a media plan.  Training planners to be programmatic strategists gets agencies closer to becoming true programmatic agencies.

More than $45 billion in market value was wiped out across seven media companies this week, as investors questioned the future health of the TV ecosystem. For decades, television was sacrosanct for advertisers on Madison Avenue and considered the best way to reach millions of consumers simultaneously. But with younger viewers decamping for newer, cheaper and often ad-free digital platforms in droves, TV’s grip on advertisers is looking a lot looser... For years, the rise of digital advertising had come at the expense of other ad budgets, such as print, not TV. But now, major marketers like Allstate, Mondelez, Wendy’s and MasterCard have moved dollars away from television and into digital, partly to track down millennials... To be sure, the TV ad market remains larger than digital. But that is expected to reverse in a few short years. By 2018, research firm eMarketer predicts digital ad spending will total nearly $83 billion in the U.S., while TV will generate about $78.6 billion.

Google's decision Thursday to shut down YouTube media buying on its programmatic network DoubleClick Ad Exchange (or AdX) signals the tech giant wants tighter control of its growing advertising ecosystem. But the attempt to create a so-called walled garden with video ads has some agency execs baffled. Under Google's new rules, marketers won't be able to buy YouTube ads through AdX at the end of the year. Instead, they will need to work with Google to make ad buys through Google's AdWords or DoubleClick Bid Manager, which are already used to sell search and skippable TrueView ads. The problem with that, though, is that ad-tech vendors like TubeMogul, Atlas and DataXu rely on YouTube's technology to power advertising campaigns for brands and agencies. In return, brands get better insights and data about their ads than Google is willing to fork over. Now, tech players will have to look elsewhere to find video inventory, which could be a challenge.

When you think about it, Instagram ads are actually far less invasive than, say, YouTube’s true-view. “It’s a user ecosystem where you’re part of the conversation and not just disruptive to it,” said Jamie Tedford, CEO of Brand Networks, which placed some of the first API-bought Instagram ads this week. The new ads will give both users and marketers what they want by introducing action-based formats. Buttons in the Instagram ads will invite users to “learn more”, “sign-up”, “shop now” or “install now”. Not only does this touch every point on the sales funnel, from awareness to purchase – it also allows users to do more without sacrificing the experience they came for. Meanwhile, with the new targeting capabilities, a 17-year-old cycling enthusiast is going to discover new bike images, rather than being pushed Eton Mess recipes. It’s no wonder Instagram claims it is getting 2.8 times higher recall for the more than 400 ad campaigns it tested before going live. The marketing opportunity for brands is great: Facebook-style data-driven targeting mixed with the visual beauty of Vogue, all focused on a young and socially engaged audience that hasn’t been accessible since the early days of Facebook. So long as brands create relevant, targeted and results-driven advertising, it should be a harmonious relationship for this generation of users and brands.

"A funny thing happened to Vine, Twitter’s short-form video app, after its initial buzz wore off: It kept going. If you haven’t checked lately, Vine, launched in early 2013, is still a thing. It has evolved from a social “Instagram-for-video” built atop Twitter into a unique mobile entertainment platform with its own style, format, and celebrities. And as mobile video continues its long-awaited rise, Vine has built and maintained an impressive audience… … Meanwhile, comScore says Vine reached 34.5 million unique visitors in the US in June across desktop and mobile—roughly the same as Snapchat, which has grown rapidly over the past year and is valued by investors at $16 billion.