Domino Effect of Data-Driven Advertising - Guest Post By Louis Moynihan, DemandBase

Flite's Guest Blogger series features the industry's top thought-leaders to share insights on display advertising, agile marketing, and innovation.

Louis Moynihan the Director of Advertising Strategy at DemandBase.

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When did data-driven advertising begin?  HotWired.com kicked off the first banner ad in late 1997.  Years later, Ad Exchanges emerged from the ashes of the 2001 dot-com bust and in 2003 a basic algorithm started running ad exchanges.  It wasn’t until 2007 that third party data sets were being used at scale.

With RTB commanding one of the more impressive growth curves in the ad industry, there have been many shifts in the supply chain connected to RTB. As we flight our way into 2013, the online ad industry is changing across the board. 

Summing Up 2012

There is no question that 2012 has been the most definitive year in our company’s history. What we accomplished is an outcome of both the feedback and support of our amazing customer base, and the hard work of our internal teams working tirelessly to change display advertising forever.

Here are a few of our milestones from 2012.

 

In February, we launched Flite Platform 3, dramatically simplifying the process of building interactive ads and enabling the gathering of ad performance metrics in real-time.

We also launched our partner program Flite Hub that month, which connects services like chat, movie ticket purchase, and online product vending right into ads.

In May, we hosted Flite Summit: Agile Marketing, our first large-scale convention. Joined by companies like Forbes, Starcom MediaVest, and Universal McCann, we were inspired by our customers and partners as we discussed how to apply agile methodologies to display advertising.

 

1st Annual Chili Cook-off

At Flite we like to think we're pretty good at building ad tech. But, how good are we at making chili?

On Monday, we found out.

It was the 1st Annual Flite Chili Cook-Off.

Above: Andy, 3rd place winner, proudly displays his chili cook-off poster.

With the smell of chili thick in the air, our staff descended upon the feast. 10 chilis were entered in the contest. Scoring for each dish was based on appearance, texture, taste and originality.

How Paid Media Publishing Transforms Ads That Tax Consumers

Traditionally, content marketing has been limited by scale.  The number of people who are exposed to a brand’s blog post is limited to its blog readership, and the number of people who see a video on Facebook is limited by its reach or fan base.  

If a brand wants to create content and have it reach new audiences, or existing audiences at multiple touch points, paid media publishing in digital ads offers the most relevant, scalable reach.

But don’t online ads underperform?  

5 Trends That Will Change Advertising in 2013

It’s been a spectacular year for innovation in the digital ad space. As we look toward the future, here are 5 Trends That Will Change Advertising in 2013.

Interactive, informative ad units continue to trump traditional ads as users click less on static messaging. There is also a shift toward higher-quality formats such as native display ads and IAB Rising Stars.

Full-screen mobile ads and interstitial ads are rising relative to small banners which are proving challenging to execute and track properly on devices. Early successes show that ad experiences specific to mobile, such as location-aware couponing and tap-to-call features, will become more prevalent and drive conversions.

Social, useful, real-time ads are replacing the old and tired banner. Display ads are trending toward looking like and doing what the rest of the web already does.

New ad aesthetics are emerging, moving away from driving click-throughs in lieu of showcasing content. Ads now require a user interface that indicates to the consumer that clicks won't necessarily cause them to leave the page.

Brands are publishing content to paid media, like they already do to their websites and social media. This is the biggest change happening in brand storytelling right now. As brands become publishers, they are turning to paid media publishing as a crucial method for extending their reach beyond their owned and earned media.

Paid media publishing also redefines the nature of an ad, from essentially just an image and a link, to actual content that is both conversational and influential. I have no doubt that we’re going to see a lot of great-looking, content-rich ads in 2013.

 

Learn More about Paid Media Publishing:

 

IAB Rising Stars In Flite Ad Studio

 

Today Flite announced that we offer IAB Rising Star templates in our Ad Studio.  We did a joint press release with our partners at IAB, Martini Media, and Forbes, and are thrilled about the results we've seen with the ads so far.

To see Rising Star ads in action, check out our interactive demo page.

Geo-Targeting Is Obsolete In The World Of Social Publishing - Guest Post By John Chan, BuzzFeed

Flite's Guest Blogger series features the industry's top thought-leaders to share insights on display advertising, agile marketing, and innovation.

John Chan the Vice President of Social Discovery at BuzzFeed.

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It’s exciting that brands have started to recognize the value of content as marketing.  The infrastructure for communicating with customers at scale is now well established -- it’s clear that relevant and meaningful content is the currency for customer engagement.   

Content can now easily find its audience.  Great content that gets shared can result in new customers and brand ambassadors, all powered by social word of mouth.  Brands have even come to understand that it won’t matter how good their content is if people do not discover it, that it’s not enough to simply post it as an update on their social profiles, and have embraced the use of paid media to drive that discovery.

However, most marketers still fail to realize that just because many of their content activation channels are “typical” ad products, it doesn’t mean that the conventional targeting tactics for those channels are a recipe for success.  

Scrolled, Not Stirred - James Bond Visual Storytelling

Above: Mouse-over this interactive parallax example built in Flite Ad Studio.

James Bond is famously known for facing steep challenges. Through talent, technology, and perseverance, he always comes through in a big way.

Such determination and reward was recently journaled in the BBC News blog, where they faced obstacles during the creation of an infographic using parallax scrolling to accompany their James Bond content. Parallax scrolling is a technique where 2D art animates in perspective, giving a 3D-like feel.

Despite the learning curve and technical troubleshooting, days of work paid off.

"When it launched the response was overwhelmingly positive. The vast majority of comments that came in were about how great it was we were using big bold visuals and how much fun the page was," wrote Helene Sears, Editorial Designer at BBC News.

James Bond: Cars, catchphrases and kisses on BBC News

It’s a common theme to be slowed down when trying out new approaches, and as fellow visual innovators, we love what they accomplished and apploaud the effort that it took. What was fun for us about this story is that we also implemented parallax scrolling earlier this year.