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Program Areas
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Chango lets you target and retarget users wherever they spend their time on-the-go. Our intent data — to find users on desktop and reach them on mobile. Our Approach Our cross-device solutions can be used in a variety of ways, depending on your set of goals. Highlighted below is our approach to these different cross-device solutions. Scenario 1, Facebook: Retarget customers on Facebook mobile based on their previous behavior on desktop. Change’s cross-device Facebook solution is a combination of Chango’s intent data and Facebook’s cross-device data. This allows you to reach your target audience on their desktop and mobile devices as part of the same campaign. Chango identifies the target audience for the campaign. Chango messages the target audience on desktop. Change re-messages the same target audience. For the full article, visit http://bit.ly/1I5Yv9d (link is external)
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What’s up with The New York Times Co. and programmatic? We’ve pondered that question before (link is external), but the publishing giant declined to speak at the time. Since then, Times SVP of Ad Products and R&D Michael Zimbalist has revealed to AdExchanger that the company intends to release more inventory cautiously into the RTB space. It also is planning an expansion of non-RTB programmatic initiatives. One such area the Times is considering is developing an audience extension buy. Much has changed at the Times in recent months. “We had a change of leadership in our sales department,” Zimbalist said. “Meredith Levien came in to head sales after a long search, and we’ve reorganized the whole department. In doing that, I stepped in and took on, in addition to my role as head of R&D, a new role in the company, which is head of ad products. We never had a formal head of ad products function before.” As part of this restructuring, the Times has consolidated a number of functions: ad ops, ad systems, product management, some of its custom development work and, of course, programmatic. Zimbalist spoke with AdExchanger on the changes. AdExchanger: What elements of programmatic has The New York Times embraced, and what elements has it decided to forego? Michael Zimbalist: There’s no area of programmatic we’re philosophically opposed to going forward with. Programmatic is now part of an overall practice. We’ve recast our thinking around programmatic as part of a total yield-management practice, which is part of ad products. So it reframed our view in the marketplace to incorporate total yield both in our direct-sold and in our overall market. That’s the setting. At the present time, we’re leaning into programmatic through our partnership with Google and Google AdX. Full interview available at http://bit.ly/1gmbzhQ (link is external)
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Blog
Step Aside, Creators. Brands Are Taking Over YouTube
40 billion views for the top 100 companies
The digital video world will converge on Anaheim, Calif., this week for the sixth annual VidCon, a three-day extravaganza that's grown from 1,400 YouTubers and their rabid fans, to 20,000 strong, with top-tier creators from Vine, Vimeo, Tumblr and Meerkat, just to name a few. Some of the biggest brands on the planet will also be in attendance. It's no wonder. While about 90 percent of video viewing is still on TV, according to Nielsen, 18- to 34-year-olds—a demographic coveted by advertisers—are increasingly cutting the cord. "It takes a very different media mix today to reach that audience than it did 10 years ago," explained Jenny Schauer, media director at Digitas. She believes YouTube, and increasingly Facebook, are uniquely positioned to reap the rewards of brand videos. "Taking content from a brand and putting it right in front of consumers in the News Feed, that's where Facebook is really strong." Meanwhile, at VidCon, YouTube will take its own well-deserved victory lap. An exhaustive study released today by video marketing firm Pixability digs into viewability, reach and growth of the top 100 global brands as determined by Interbrand (see above chart for the top five brands on YouTube and the top 100 global brands online (link is external)). The veritable treasure trove of data is a marketer's dream: YouTube's channels count 73 million subscribers, with subscribership up 47 percent year over year. Full article available at http://bit.ly/1TLmI9U (link is external) -
July 20, 2015 — Over the last several years, publishers and advertisers have continued to adopt programmatic buying and selling of digital inventory into their media strategies; however, within the complex programmatic ecosystem there has been a lack of consensus around the definition of programmatic and its associated types and formats and the size of the programmatic market in comparison with the overall internet advertising market. This study, commissioned by the IAB, seeks to estimate revenue associated with programmatic selling and buying of advertising and establish a benchmark for measuring the growth of programmatic. Read the full report, attached.
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Blog
Tsunami of Offline Customer Data is Flowing to the Web
Data-Onboarding Business, Now Named Connectivity, Has Grown Significantly
Call it something dry like "data on-boarding" or something marketable like "connectivity." Whatever it's called, Acxiom-owned LiveRamp (link is external) is doing a lot more of it than a year ago. The company currently "on-boards" or connects 20 billion consumer records representing individuals or households each month, or around 240 billion per year. That's a big leap from the 3 billion customer records it brought to the web in March 2014, up from 1.3 billion in March 2013. Those records contain consumer data generated offline, such as information from auto leads, retail transactions or banking relationships. The digitized data is used by companies who want to communicate with their current customers via email or targeted digital ads, optimize website pages or measure the impact of digital ad campaigns on offline sales. More than 200 marketing-technology platforms are integrated with the LiveRamp system -- part of Acxiom's newly-named Connectivity division -- meaning the data can be plugged into all sorts of ad targeting, email marketing, site optimization and campaign analysis tools. Acxiom reported that Connectivity revenue rose 367% to $22 million in fiscal Q4 2015. The growth is a result of more awareness of data onboarding, said James Arra, VP-strategic partnerships for LiveRamp. But it's also the May 2014 Acxiom acquisition (link is external) that has facilitated business with clients that may have been out of reach when LiveRamp was still an indie, such as highly regulated financial services firms. Full article available at http://bit.ly/1SpFtgN (link is external) -
Media brands were quick to adopt video apps Periscope and Meerkat (link is external) to broadcast live streams, and now Facebook marketers want in on that action. Social platform BumeBox started hosting live Facebook chats (link is external) for brands like VH1 and Discovery Channel back in October, as an alternative to the Twitter Q&As (link is external) that brands typically organize. For example, Sony Masterworks set up a real-time chat on Facebook to promote a new album from artist Jackie Evancho last fall. Now, MTV and iHeartRadio are plugging video into those virtual meet and greets. Late Thursday afternoon, MTV set up a Facebook chat with Teen Mom 2 star Kailyn Lowry to talk about her show. And last week, iHeartRadio ran a Facebook Q&A (link is external) with YouTube singer Max Schneider. He responded to eight questions from fans in one hour with short video clips. It's all part of Facebook's plan (link is external) to turn the site into a video platform for brands, publishers and creators. Clips are uploaded straight to Facebook through BumeBox's platform with a branded logo at the top of the screen, similar to what Periscope streams look like. The social videos aren't technically streamed since they are uploaded, but the idea is to crank out responses through clips quickly, similar to how brands use Periscope and Meerkat to answer questions in real time. Full article available at http://bit.ly/1KaHk75 (link is external)
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Real-time Bidding (RTB), a key component of the programmatic advertising revolution, represents a massive platform change in the way we advertise online by bringing the relevance and efficiency of search to display. RTB spend will reach 429 million GBP this year (eMarketer) as budget moves away from more traditional channels. If advertisers consider RTB for display there are a couple of tips to help get it right: Advertise to the individual not the ‘segment’ Every customer is slightly different from the next. With this in mind the traditional marketing method of grouping customers into ‘buckets’ does not always make sense. For example, consumers within the “mums” segment will be vastly different. A mother with a newborn will have hugely different needs to one who is just about to send their eldest off to university. Everyone has unique demographic traits – income levels, hobbies, family statuses, interests, etc. Grouping customers into segments relies, partly, on human perception, but driving performance is not always intuitive in the same way. RTB means targeting at the impression level as opposed to traditional media buys of large chunks of inventory. Therefore, there is a unique opportunity to target individuals – segments of one. Machine learning and the application of algorithms make this possible. In the past guesswork decided the majority of ad buys and creative execution, now, through machine learning, we can use computers to impact specific performance goals. Fresh data is key for reaching and influencing consumers While the number of data sources available for advertisers is never-ending advertisers must remember that not all data sources are created equal. The time between collecting the data and using it is an important factor. Commonly datasets used in RTB can be over a week old, this means they are stale and fail to identify the right customer at the right point in their purchase journey. Find out more at http://bit.ly/1LefbPr (link is external)
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Last week during the DoubleClick Leadership Summit (link is external) (DLS), we introduced cross-device measurement across all of our DoubleClick advertiser products. Today, as the first post of our week-long DLS series, we're excited to announce that these cross-device metrics will be rolling out to all DoubleClick advertisers in the next week. Mobile continues to reshape how consumers engage on digital: they are increasingly turning to the nearest device to act on an immediate need in the moment and then seamlessly shifting their attention from screen to screen to complete their journey. With the path to purchase becoming increasingly fragmented, it’s essential marketers understand how consumers interact with their brand across all devices. When marketers have access to cross-device insights, they will also make the best decisions about how to invest their marketing dollars. With this launch, advertisers can access cross-device metrics in all buying tools within our platform -- DoubleClick Campaign Manager, DoubleClick Bid Manager, and DoubleClick Search. Full article available at http://bit.ly/1I2qppH (link is external)
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NEW YORK: Netflix, the online video platform, believes that programmatic advertising can provide numerous benefits for its brand – not least the ability to deliver personalised marketing messages at scale. Kathy O'Dowd, Netflix's global director/programmatic marketplace and channel development, discussed this topic at MediaPost's OMMA Programmatic Display conference. "We are moving to programmatic, in part, because it is so efficient, she said. (For more, including tips for brands, publishers and agencies, read Warc's exclusive report: Netflix's programmatic defence balances man and machine (link is external).) "We can be more individualised in the kind of marketing that we're doing – and that's ultimately, I think, every advertiser's dream." Given that Netflix has an extremely broad potential audience, its need for tailored digital communications is especially powerful. "You think about Netflix as a brand: we could be a fit for anyone with a credit card and an internet connection. But that doesn't mean that we're going to benefit from approaching everyone in the exact same way," O'Dowd said. "So, programmatic allows for that database buying. Then, on the flipside, the automation of it is great because we can do individualised marketing at scale." Full article available at http://bit.ly/1TxyOU5 (link is external)
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Facebook commissioned SalesBrain, a US-based neuromarketing agency, to understand how people’s brains and physiology respond to identical stimuli viewed on a smartphone versus on a TV. The study focused on how the brain responds to 4 key areas: engagement, attention, emotion and retention. Today, people tune into content whenever and wherever they want. With viewing happening at home on a TV and on-the-go on a smartphone, marketers want to ensure that their messages are being received no matter the screen. To determine if their advertising is effective, marketers have traditionally turned to self-reported market research techniques, but those approaches have limitations. Enter neuromarketing, which according to the Neuromarketing Science & Business Association “is the systematic collection and interpretation of neurological and neurophysiological insights about individuals using different protocols allowing researchers to explore non-verbal and unconscious physiological responses to various stimuli for the purposes of market research.” Though still in its infancy as a marketing research practice, neuromarketing is giving marketers a direct view into people’s physical reactions to stimuli rather than relying solely on people’s ability to report their own feelings to that stimuli. Full article available at http://bit.ly/1KdlrGM (link is external)
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Programmatic media-buying technologies are taking over the internet at a rapid pace, so much so that traditional offline media is the new frontier for the tech. Programmatic, digital out-of-home (DOOH) has been pioneered in APAC, and is now being exported around the globe. ExchangeWire charts is progress. The means of buying OOH media space using programmatic technology has been piloted in Australia for well over a year (link is external), and is about to be exported to other parts of the region; plus Europe is also on the roadmap with the launch date there imminent. The potential disruption of programmatic media trading will be discussed at next week’s ATS Singapore, during a panel session entitled ‘Joining the Dots – Why Programmatic Can Solve the Multi-Channel Conundrum’, where Vicki Lyon, Site Tour, CCO, will share her experience of rolling out the tech in Australia. Site Tour is part of a specialist consortium aimed at developing the opportunities in this space, along with IPG Mediabrands’ programmatic buying division Cadreon, plus Brandscreen, that has been running over 1,000 OOH screens that can display media traded using programmatic technologies. Site Tour, effectively an ad exchange, recently inked a contract with programmatic video advertising firm TubeMogul to allow advertisers to programmatically purchase video ads on billboards, kiosks, and elevator screens in Australia. The pairing has extended this relationship to the UK where they are imminently to launch the offering. ExchangeWire caught up with Site Tour’s Lyon (pictured) to learn more about the offering. Full article available at http://bit.ly/1UgdT9l (link is external)
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The digital data “arms race” that is propelling major companies around the world to expand their data collection, consumer profiling, and online targeting capabilities illustrates how information from and about us drives the commercial (and increasingly political) marketplaces. Corporations want to know as much about us as possible—including how to influence us at any point in what they call (link is external) the “consumer journey.” Companies are significantly investing in sophisticated “data management platforms” that regularly gather and analyze our behaviors. Large amounts (link is external) of so-called first-, second-, and third-party data (information collated from their own files on us and amplified by additional files from numerous data brokers) are used to influence our online and offline experiences. Antitrust and merger regulators (link is external) have not kept up with how consumer data is being used today. It’s become a dynamic and critical factor, whose “actionabilty” (link is external) (the capacity to use our information both instantly and effectively) to influence the decision-making of both individuals and groups is crucial for competiveness. Companies are increasingly expanding their ability to effectively (link is external) track individuals and use that information (where are we online, what did we do, whom we communicate with, and what we read, buy, etc.). These practices illustrate how commercial surveillance has become a fundamental part of our lives today. But violating our privacy is just one key and disturbing dimension of this largely invisible data apparatus. Another is that data is used in new ways as part of a much more complex system that delivers influence and promotes behavioral changes. How data is used today to transform the consumer experience should be a focus of competition regulators. Merger reviews need to go beyond issues related to what price we may pay for a product to explore how data is and will be used to change our perceptions, relationships, and actions with items and brands. While advertisers and marketers have always been in the persuasion business, they’ve never before had the capabilities they have today—from neuromarketing to social media marketing to advanced data analytics used for targeting and much more. And nearly every day these companies advance the data-driven digital influence process. The very nature of contemporary media companies is all about using our information to drive consumer transactions, regardless of device and location. (See Google (link is external), Facebook (link is external), etc.). We still don’t know what the cumulative effect of all this will be, but our consumer-protection and competition regulators need to be on the cutting edge—not looking backward. Both the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission need to stay abreast of how Big Data and the techniques tethered to it change the nature of markets. The approval (link is external) of Big (link is external) Data mergers (link is external) by the DoJ and the FTC without a thorough analysis and public accounting, illustrates that it’s time to reform the process. This is on the agenda of consumer advocates, including those working together across the Atlantic.
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What is Adobe Audience Manager? It’s a data management platform that helps you build unique audience profiles so you can identify your most valuable segments and use them across any digital channel. Understand your audiences: Get a complete view of your audience by combining all of your data sources in one place. Create new segments: Continually discover and organize new, valuable segments for smarter targeting and personalization. Advertise effectively: Make your ad campaigns more productive by targeting specific segments on any platform. What can Audience Manager do? 360-degree profiles: Combine information from online, offline and second- and third-party sources to create complete audience profiles. Audience activation: Conveniently target specific profiles on any content delivery platform, like content management systems and ad servers. Cross-device measurement: Identify, measure and target people as they move across screens and devices. Look a-like modeling: Identify prospects who are similar in behavior to your most valuable customers, so you can extend your reach. Read more about Adobe Audience Manager at http://adobe.ly/1Cl5hc1 (link is external)
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In case you missed it, we recently released a study showing the first holistic analysis of cross-platform digital media consumption in the U.S., entitled Digital Omnivores: How Tablets, Smartphones and Connected Devices are Changing U.S. Digital Media Consumption Habits (link is external). The study brings together insights from across the comScore mobile suite of products and provides a first look at survey-based behavioral data on tablet use. In the report, we explore the increasingly fragmented digital media landscape shaped by the widespread adoption of smartphones and entry of tablets and other web-enabled connected devices. As people become increasingly connected through the use of these devices, we are witnessing the transformation of consumers into digital omnivores able to engage seamlessly with a steady stream of digital content across different platforms. Below we will share with you a few key highlights of the broader trends we’re seeing, and tomorrow I’ll be conducting a webinar that will dive deeper into this topic. Below we will share with you a few key highlights of the broader trends we’re seeing, which I also presented at a recent comScore webinar on the topic. You can find the Digital Omnivores webinar presentation here (link is external). Digital Omnivores Are a Global Phenomenon An analysis of ten selected global markets in August 2011 showed a notable percentage of Internet traffic (measured as browser-based page views) coming from non-computer devices. Singapore led among those markets with more than 7 percent of all Internet traffic in the country coming from smartphones, tablets and other connected devices. While mobile phones continue to be the main driver of non-computer traffic around the world, it is interesting to see tablets contributing a sizeable amount of traffic for a few mature technological markets. In Canada, tablets drove nearly 40 percent of all non-computer traffic. Read more at http://bit.ly/1C7wYEG (link is external)
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Blog
Acxiom Honored with 31 Industry Awards
The Company’s Digital Impact Division Takes Home 13 Internet Advertising Competition (IAC) Awards and 18 Communicator Awards
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.--(BUSINESS WIRE (link is external))--Acxiom® (NASDAQ: ACXM), an enterprise data, analytics and software-as-a-service company, today announced that its Digital Impact division, now Acxiom Impact™, has won 11 “Best of Industry” 2015 Internet Advertising Competition (link is external) Awards (IAC), and was the sole agency to win two “Best in Show” awards from the Web Marketing Association (link is external) at ad:tech San Francisco 2015. Acxiom Impact’s work was also recognized by the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts (link is external) with 18 Communicator Awards -- three gold and 15 silver -- from a field of 6,000 entries that were submitted this season. Acxiom has recently relaunched Digital Impact (link is external), its email and cross-channel marketing business as Acxiom Impact, an advanced marketing offering specifically designed to meet the unique needs of sophisticated enterprise marketers. The new, upgraded Acxiom Impact platform offers a wide breadth of features including data-rich targeting and personalization, flexible analytics and reporting, cross-enterprise collaboration tools and cross-channel orchestration capabilities. As a recognized leader in client satisfaction and marketing services, Acxiom Impact provides a broad range of leading marketing services, including campaign operations, analytics, marketing strategy, technical solutions and award-winning creative. “The Acxiom Impact creative team has again displayed the power of their creative talents with impressive award wins across several different categories,” said David Bonalle, general manager at Acxiom Impact. “These awards highlight Acxiom’s dedication to redefining 1:1 marketing at scale for our clients and Acxiom Impact’s strength as a leading provider of email and customer marketing services.” Read more at http://bit.ly/1BXV70k (link is external) -
Despite struggles, marketers remain focused on improving big data (link is external), and those putting money toward such efforts are reaping the benefits. In April 2015 research by the Direct Marketing Association (link is external) and Winterberry Group (link is external), 43% of US marketing professionals said they expected their data-driven marketing (DDM) spending to be higher in Q2 2015 than Q1, and 60.2% of respondents expected DDM revenues to increase during the same period. However, June 2015 research by Econsultancy in association with Signal found that senior-level marketers in North America weren’t jumping for joy over returns from data-related marketing investments. Just over one-third said these had a strong positive impact. Promisingly, though, was that 47% said that they had some positive impact. Econsultancy suggested that first-party data could help the group reporting so-so results—along with the laggards, of course. When marketers were asked to compare different levels of data and their effect on desired outcomes, first-party data ranked highest across the board. It was most popular for gaining insight into customers, cited by 74% of respondents. More than six in 10 respondents also said it was the easiest to justify using, drove the highest increase in customer value and the highest campaign lift among data sources—all by a long shot. Read more at http://bit.ly/1IHPcJZ (link is external)
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Blog
Can Mondelez, Facebook Sell More Cookies Online?
Snacks Giant and Social Network Reach Deal To Boost Video, E-commerce
Mondelez International has struck a new deal with Facebook that the Oreo maker says will help it crack the code for selling more cookies online. The pact renews a one-year global strategic partnership announced in March of 2014 that covered 52 countries and gave the snacks and candy marketer access to Facebook's beta testing programs. The new arrangement also covers 52 countries and will "focus on creating and delivering creative video content and driving impulse snack purchasing online," according to a statement issued on Tuesday. Mondelez declined to release terms of the new deal but a spokeswoman said it is "significantly larger" than last year's deal. The arrangement was brokered by Dentsu Aegis Media. Mondelez will get access to a full-time Facebook creative strategist that will work with the company and its agencies to develop "scalable video content natively for the platform to optimize social engagement," according to the announcement. Facebook will also give Mondelez access to beta-testing programs on Facebook and Instagram. Additionally, the two parties will work together to create ecommerce solutions to "drive impulse purchases" in markets including the U.S., Australia, India and U.K. Full article available at http://bit.ly/1QPZEJd (link is external) -
Blog
Facebook has been looking at an alternative to the 'Like' button
Reading your facial expressions and sending your friends an appropriate cartoon face.
Facebook has given us a bit more of an insight into some of the more experimental new products and apps its product team has been working on. Speaking at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Facebook's chief product officer Chris Cox, showed off what could one day work as a more expressive version of the Like button. Instead of simply pressing Like, Cox said users could use their smartphones to take a selfie. But rather than just send that, the function could read the user's Facebook expression and transform it into an appropriate smiley/sad/frowning/indifferent face. Cox made it clear: "This is not on our roadmap, we don't know how to build this. It actually seems really hard, but it's the kind of thing unlocked by the power of all the different sensors on the phone." Read more at http://read.bi/1Ni1xJ5 (link is external) -
Delving deeper into ecommerce, Twitter is testing some new ways to help users discover products within its network. First up are dedicated pages, which will feature images and videos about products, alongside information such as a description, price and an option to buy, book, or visit a brand’s Web site for more information. Within users’ timelines, they can now expect to see pages and collections of pages that are shared by influencers and brands. In addition, Twitter is also beginning to test new ways for people and brands to create and share Twitter collections of products and places. Users can now browse collections from various influencers, and get more information about featured products and places. Already, there’s Nike’s LeBron Elite collection; Reese Witherspoon’s Draper James Summer Picks; The Ellen Show’s Best of The Ellen Shop and HBO's #GoT Fan Favorites. “This is just the beginning,” Amaryllis Fox, a product manager at Twitter, promises on a new blog post. “In the coming months we’ll be testing more new experiences we hope give you the most personalized and relevant information about the places and things you want to explore.” While Twitter struggles (link is external) with its direction, ecommerce appears to part of its broader ambitions. Among other efforts, the company has been inviting advertisers to create credit-card-connected promotions, and share them with users directly in their timelines. With their credit cards, users can redeem the new “Twitter Offers” in stores without the need for a coupon or numerical code. Full article available at http://bit.ly/1GuVHOT (link is external)
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Blog
The First 5 Seconds: Creating YouTube Ads That Break Through in a Skippable World
Google's Art, Copy & Code team saw a similar result with its first Unskippable Labs experiment. The team created and tested three YouTube ads for Mountain Dew® Kickstart™ and one with a lighter brand touch in the first five seconds was skipped less on mobile.
Five, four, three, two, one. What keeps people watching after the first five seconds? What can science tell us about the art of video advertising? We took a peek behind the data curtain to see which creative choices capture audiences' attention. Online video ad formats like YouTube TrueView (link is external) ads have created a paradox for marketers. They remove traditional 30-second time constraints, giving brands more time to tell their stories. But introducing a "skip" button after five short seconds also means that advertisers have to create more engaging stories that not only grab their audience's attention, but hold it, too. Is it time to start creating ads with the "skip" button in mind? Today, all ads are skippable—whether it's a function of the format or not. People have been honing their skipping skills for a while. Think about it: Viewers experimented with fast-forwarding on their VCRs, improved their skills with DVRs, and now are mastering ad choice on the web. Even if there's no option to fast-forward or skip, consumers can always pick up a smartphone, switch tabs, or find other ways to hit a metaphoric skip button. Is it time to start creating ads with the 'skip' button in mind? Thousands of ads run on YouTube every day. So, when we look at that data in aggregate, what patterns emerge? What can we learn from existing video ads about creative that works in the first five seconds? To find the answer, we looked into thousands of TrueView ads across 16 countries and 11 verticals, categorizing them according to 170 creative attributes, including brand name mentions and featured celebrities. We used aggregated analytics from AdWords to see how long people watched without hitting the skip button. To measure brand awareness and ad recall (link is external), we took advantage of Google's Brand Lift (link is external). There are no "rules" for making ads people choose, but we did find that certain creative choices are associated with how long viewers watch or how well they remember ads on YouTube. Turns out, there is a certain science to the art of engaging video advertising. Here's what we've learned. Full article available at http://bit.ly/1FpaPg5 (link is external)