Digital Innovations Awesome List (DIAL)

The season of giving is upon us again and what better way to bring in good tidings and cheer than with a fresh Digital Innovations Awesome List (DIAL)? At Centro, we know that keeping up with the trade pubs and latest trends can be tough and time consuming. To make it easier, we’ve compiled all the articles, reports, and other bits of awesomeness you may have missed, but should definitely read in this list just for you. Enjoy our final DIAL of 2015! And happy holidays!

U.S. Digital Media Usage: A Snapshot of 2016

eMarketer takes a look ahead at key digital media usage trends for next year and how they will differ from 2015. It’s chockfull of infographics illustrating increases in social media (3.2%), video viewing (3.1%), and tablet and smartphone usage (12.5% for dual users), as well as the first estimates for wearables usage (61% expected increase).

Publishers And Marketers Are Anteing Up – And Networks Are Folding

As brands and publishers increase first-party data usage in their digital buys, their expectations for certain levels of performance, reliability, and quality on the open exchange is also increasing.

‘Digital Marketing’ Is Redundant, So Why Create A Separate Budget For It?

Why pre-allocate a proportion of your 2016 marketing budget and create separate silos for both digital spend and for traditional or non-digital? Will we finally see more marketers stop approaching their strategy with no reference to ‘digital’ at all?

AOL-Owned Millennial Pairs With Rentrak To Offer TV Ad Retargeting In Mobile

Millennial Media rolled out a solution to link Rentrak’s TV commercial viewership data with its own mobile user data anonymously, in order to serve a corresponding mobile video ad. Others continue to tackle TV ad syncing/retargeting; see both RadiumOne + ITV and SYNC.

Google Adds Programmatic Support for Native Ads

When Google does something, the world takes note. Especially with their recent addition of native programmatic support, you can expect more brands to boost their native budgets. Native will be an even hotter topic in 2016.

Facebook + Instagram = The New Ad Normal?

Instagram is still in its advertising infancy, but that hasn’t stopped the wave of excitement around its ad product being rolled out under Facebook’s treasure trove of data. Smart marketers are eager to tap into the cross-platform retargeting capabilities, especially since one in five mobile minutes is spent on one of the two platforms. Many are saying that well-budgeted campaigns will need to include both Facebook and Instagram ads in media plans.

Facebook’s Next Step? Teleportation.

Augmented reality has been a focus for Team Zuckerberg since it acquired Oculus last year. Recently, Facebook’s CTO made a bold statement regarding where it wants to take this tech in the next ten years. Fully immersive ad experiences? Here we come!

The Internet of Things: Saving Retailers Time and Money

A look at how the Internet of Things (IoT) will not only help consumers, but enable retailers to increase their efficiency and efficacy.

New System Puts Video Ads on Store Cooler Doors

Check out a new innovation in digital place-based media. This offering, an alternative point-of-purchase ad opportunity, goes well beyond typical overhead screens and end caps that are presently in stores.