Flite Blog

The Display LUMAscape & IAB Digital Advertising ArenaFor years, LUMA Partners' CEO Terence Kawaja provided the only reliable map to navigate the intricate value chain of the display digital advertising business. The Display LUMAscape provides an easy-to-read, if a little cluttered, expose of the ad technology ecosystem, with the buy side on the left and the sell side on the right. Prominent players in the ad tech marketplace are clustered together, with notations for companies that have been either acquired or closed.

The IAB has recently unveiled a chart which looks at the same arrangement from a different point of view. Instead of focusing on specific companies and platforms (in fact, it does not list them at all), the Digital Advertising Arena instead concentrates on the relationship between the layers of suppliers and consumers of data, services, and platforms, much like the layers of an onion. At the center is the brand, with each type of value contribution represented as a colored layer.

Considering the differences in both the format and content of each graphic, it's best to consider these two charts as complements to each other rather than rivals. Let's have a more detailed look at both.

Click to read more ...

See the live video ad below.Videos are among the most engaging forms of dynamic content on the Web. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a good video is probably worth a million (maybe even more). The last decade has seen embeddable video, primarily hosted on YouTube, proliferate across all sorts of online media, including ads. Online ads incorporating video ("in-banner") continues to grow, apparently with good reason. A study by Dynamic Logic suggests that online video ads are considerably more influential in driving purchase intent than other rich media ads, particularly if they were designed specifically for online media. Even repurposed TV ads aided brand awareness among viewers.

And while it's become increasingly easy to include video content in ads, the capacity for autoplay video to annoy users has also forced advertisers to think carefully about how to surface it delicately. In particular, audio that isn't user-initiated is a big no-no; in fact, it's prohibited under the IAB Display Advertising guidelines. But there are a few ways to encourage audio initiation and interaction that strengthens the quality of engagement.

Click to read more ...

Click to see slideI participated in a webinar yesterday that shared findings from Nielsen's second annual Online Advertising Performance Outlook report. The study surveyed marketers and media sellers for their sentiments on the current state of online brand advertising and how they anticipated it to change over the next year.

Since both media buyers and sellers were polled, the report provides perspective from both sides of the online advertising market equation. Where brands, agencies, and publishers agreed and disagreed was also interesting, as this is an evolving marketplace and there are still disconnects about how to measure and evaluate the impact of online brand ads.

Some of the highlights:

Click to read more ...