Marketing & Digital Advertising Blog

I have always been skeptical about the role that ad executions play in mobile games. Gaming publishers often defend the space by contending smartphone and tablet owners spend a significant amount of their device time in mobile gaming environments.

In 1990, cable TV was growing and media agency executives were incorporating cable channels such as CNN, A&E, ESPN, MTV and Discovery into their national television buys. Buyers moved dollars into cable to keep CPMs low and to follow the audience that was embracing the new content. Less than 10 percent of a television budget would go to cable at the time.

According to IBM’s Black Friday Report, mobile sales increased 63% over 2011 and predictions are calling for well over $1 billing in total mobile sales this year. Further reports are showing that in-store shoppers used their smartphones to search and compare bargains while battling the holiday rush.

Adweek has released their list of the Digital Winners for 2012 and the results prove that emerging technologies had quite the year.
While Twitter clearly was a dominate force during the election, boasting 327,452 tweets per minute and Instagram cashed in with Facebook at $1 billion, there were other best-in-show digital opportunities that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Finally, the age of anxiety about creative technology partnerships for advertising agencies is coming to a head.
More and more you’re hearing and reading about agency leaders who have seen the light about what collaborations with companies – yes, companies like Centro – can do for a business.

The QR code is getting a facelift. Understanding that QR codes have minimal value, Andrew Lippman of the MIT Media Lab has come up with a replacement. He, along with his graduate student Grace Woo, developed a new technology called video response (VR) codes.

What’s the big deal with RTB and mobile these days? It’s a good time to get familiar since many major players in the mobile advertising space see it being the next big thing for 2013. A common analogy used to describe the RTB process is the stock exchange; all Interested advertising parties simultaneously bid for a mobile placement with the set of qualifiers desired by an advertiser.

Earlier this year, Newzoo, the games industry researcher, showed in an infographic that in the first quarter of 2012, some 37 million Americans paid to play mobile games – either via purchasing games or by making in-game purchases.

Widespread adoption of viewable impressions as a measurement standard for advertisers and publishers is set to take root, according to AdWeek. A recent eMarketer article reported that U.S. consumers spent more time in apps than on the web.