Digital Innovations Awesome List: Mobile, Programmatic, and Artificial Intelligence

At Centro, we know that keeping up with the trade pubs and latest trends can be tough and time consuming. To make that easier, we’ve compiled all the articles, reports, and other bits of awesomeness you may have missed, but should definitely read. Enjoy our latest list below!

Media Websites Battle Faltering Ad Revenue and Traffic

$.85 of every new dollar spent in online advertising goes to Google or Facebook, according to Morgan Stanley. This is the result of audiences’ growing preference for social feeds and apps versus traditional websites.

Dorm Rooms Go TV-Set-Free as Millennials Change Their Habits

Though they’re not the only generation to change video viewership behaviors, Millennials are leading the pack today by shifting away from live TV. Forrester data shows that young Millennials, age 18-22, stream video for 2 hours per day. Others estimate that only 20% of Millennials still watch live TV. It’s not that this young adult generation doesn’t like TV. They prefer to watch video content on digital devices instead of traditional TV sets.

New Study Shows Millennials Prefer Short Mobile Videos, While Older Crowds Like Long-Form

Considering our low attention spans and propensity to multi-task with various devices, the results of a recent IAB study conducted in partnership with Millward Brown Digital and Tremor Video reaffirms what we already know. Nonetheless, it’s a research-backed reminder that advertisers shouldn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to video campaigns.

Unskippable, Too: YouTube Touts New 6-Second Ad

In a move intended to capitalize on viewers’ tendency to watch short-form, bite-sized content on mobile devices, YouTube is rolling out a new ad unit they call Bumpers next month. These six-second spots will be non-skippable, and seem like a good fit for a platform known to have content of varying lengths, with dominant mobile consumption patterns.

IAB Reports $59.6 Billion In 2015, Mobile And Programmatic Drive Growth

PricewaterhouseCoopers released a full report on digital ad revenue growth in 2015. Much of the growth was attributed to mobile-related advertising encompassing search, display and video. It rose 66% to $20.7 billion in 2015, compared with the prior year. Digital video, excluding mobile, rose 30% to $4.2 billion in 2015.

Shopping Frequency: Smartphones Up 64%; Physical Stores Down 30%

A new research study conducted by Ipsos found that there is a rising trend of consumers shopping and buying with their smartphone, right from wherever they are– which might very well be their couch. The recent study found that 64% of surveyed individuals were more frequently shopping on their smartphones compared to their past usage, which included shopping and making a purchase.

Google Mobile Clicks Double, CPC Lower

Google search ads are showing stronger performance coinciding with a growth in traffic largely sourced from an increase in mobile web searches. The increased traffic from mobile sources is subsequently driving down the cost of buying on a CPC.

Report: App Store Plans Auction-Based Search Ads

Apple is considering adding search ads to the App Store which would appear at the top of the search results, similar to sponsored search ads seen on Bing, Google and Yahoo. This would enable Apple to join the ranks of the Google Play store, which already offers up these search-based ads to Android users.

Google's CEO is looking to the next big thing beyond smartphones

Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, believes the world will shift from mobile-first to AI-first.

15 examples of artificial intelligence in marketing

Artificial Intelligence is becoming an increasingly big part of marketing, or at least it seems like people are talking about AI more (we’re looking at you, Google). Check out this round-up of case studies and use cases, as a primer for AI in our industry.

Will conversational marketing become a reality in 2016?

Are you hearing voices? Will 2016 be the year that conversations actually become a paradigm for realizing the promise of marketing as a personalized experience at scale?