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Welcome back to our Feet on the Street series! We emerged from our candy-induced comas from Valentine’s Day ready to work. That means bringing you the best in digital as well as some awesome events. Check out our schedule below to see where we are this week. If you’d like to know where we will be next week, or would like to set up a meeting with us, email [email protected]. We’d love to chat!

What’s going on? Centro is on the search for the best and brightest at UC Berkeley. If you are interested in working at Centro, we're hiring! Check out our Glassdoor page.

What’s going on? Ryan Manchee is leading a partner session at this year's Summit about the latest and greatest in emerging digital technologies and trends. If you are attending, be sure to check it out at 2:00pm PT!

What’s going on? The American Advertising Federation Awards is the advertising industry's largest and most representative competition, attracting over 40,000 entries every year. Centro is a proud sponsor of this year’s event.

What’s going on? Centro is hosting a Power Perk at Elabrew Coffee Shop for RPA Advertising. The RPA peeps will be getting free coffee and breakfast over some shop talk.

A few specialized vendors facilitate programmatic direct, relying on API integrations with publisher ad servers, allowing advertisers and agencies to have campaigns served directly on a publisher’s ad server in an automated fashion. There are many advertiser benefits, including the automated process, better targeting, ad serving priority and guaranteed inventory volume. Yet drawbacks still hamper widespread adoption, such as detached relationships with publishers, limited adoption, isolated platforms and premium prices. Despite the challenges, programmatic direct is also a process that’s still very much to the publisher’s benefit.

The Biggest Mistakes Brands Make With Programmatic

Programmatic’s popularity continues to rise, but some brands are still having a tough time with adoption, as they face many challenges, and sometimes make some painful mistakes along the way.

One is the tendency for brands to stick to old KPIs. Programmatic shouldn’t be viewed as simply a performance-driven mechanism. Bringing the programmatic practice in-house can help them to avoid that pitfall. Brands also tend to move too fast. Before rushing into it, they need to work out their data strategy and trading technology. Failing to create their own proprietary data is another misstep brands make. It’s the proprietary data that helps brands maintain a competitive advantage.

Separating programmatic into a silo is another big brand error, as is forgetting to provide value to consumers. Programmatic data is something all brand marketers should grasp to better understand consumers, which helps their bottom line in the end.

The Creative Side of Programmatic Advertising

Millward Brown’s top marketer, Amanda Phillips, predicts that programmatic will undergo a dramatic reinvention this year that will see it on the agenda at the start of the creative process. The benefits, she says, will be big, but only if the process is managed with the brand, and not solely performance, in mind. It all has to do with the advantages around contextual priming.

Creative strategies can be adapted across a number of formats to suit different channels and screens. Such an outlook will help brands to better take advantage of the tight audience targeting possible through programmatic. It will also help advertisers to craft a new sort of storytelling that’s both dynamic and contextually relevant. Think of it as a kind of customizable smart advertising.

Read More from The Drum…

That’s it for this week’s RTB Zeigeist. To subscribe to #RTBZeitgeist, click here.

Learn more about Programmatic Advertising with Centro.

Well folks, Punxsutawney Phil issued his final verdict last week – six more weeks of winter. As depressing as that might sound, there are two things to be happy about: Valentine’s Day and the latest edition of our Digital Innovations Awesome List. With more snow in the forecast (on the East Coast at least!), there’s no better time to sit down by the fire and catch up on the latest trade publications and trends, as well as other bits of awesomeness you may have missed, but should definitely read. Enjoy!

You may not remember the final score of the game or all of the advertisements, but have you thought about how you would spend the $4.5 million it cost to run a coveted 30 seconds of Super Bowl commercial time?

As advertisers keep funneling more money into TV, networks are bulking up their ad pods in order to create more inventory to try to offset declining ratings. So what does this mean for advertisers? Higher frequency instead of more reach? Lower engagement with their ads? Probably both and maybe even worse consequences.

More people are watching TV on devices rather than their actual television. While we contemplate finding a new name for that big screen streamer or the video content we watch across multiple gadgets, find out why marketers and media buyers need to embrace a multiplatform strategy. Bonus: Jim Nail from Forrester is heavily quoted in this article. He also recently hosted a webinar with our own director of video, Heather Robertson. Check out the three-part webinar series here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Based on the nominees for the Golden Globes, critics seem to believe in the idea of breaking down the silos of video consumption. When looking at ad spend, it’s clear that advertisers still believe in TV, but are starting to think more holistically by incorporating digital video into their plans. Simply put, consumers want as many access points as possible!

Mondelez made ad tech history with the first Super Bowl ads to be bought programmatically. What’s even more awesome is that Centro is piloting this very technology (powered by TubeMogul) and we’re actively looking for clients who are interested in combining the advantages of digital media buying with TV.

Though many of the new social video opportunities emerging in the ad space today fall into a somewhat separate category than your standard “pre-roll” units, larger budgets are being applied to the social space as advertisers look to capitalize on the reach potential with these platforms.

AT&T is developing a 12 episode, scripted entertainment series for Snapchat and will be leveraging social media influencers and fans to shape and steer the narrative. Sounds like a ‘Choose your own Snapchat adventure’!

Adobe released a Q4 report showing how the evolution of mobile devices is lending itself to a bigger and brighter future for mobile advertising. For now, bigger mobile screens means bigger results.

With the monumental growth in the mobile ad category, this article provides a great perspective on the growing pains and struggles of monetizing mobile ads for digital publishers.

If there’s a screen out there, there’s an ad for it. It’s no surprise that as wearable devices have grown in consumer adoption, the digital ad community’s interest in advertising on wearables has also increased. Here’s a glimpse at what the ads might look like on the Apple Watch.

Facebook rolled out an interesting update focused on location and proximity called ‘Place Tips’. Through the magic of cellular networks, Wi-Fi, GPS, and beacons, the Facebook app will launch a tip with personally curated information such as your friend’s posts and pictures.

Here you’ll see a thought-provoking list of design and technology innovations that could be in the works this year, along with a list of companies leading the charge for each.

An interesting (and satirical) experiment utilizing retargeted banner ads customized to create “the world’s first and only personalized museum that’s with you wherever you go.”

On February 14th millions of Americans will be fêted by their partner in one way or another. From jewelry to candy, flowers, dinner – even lingerie, gifts will be bought and exchanged in droves. In fact, it’s estimated that Americans will spend a record $18.9 billion on Valentine’s Day this year alone. Whoever said love doesn’t cost a thing is surely flying solo this Saturday night!

Did you know men spend more than women — about twice as much — but focus their spending on just one love? Whereas women spend less but buy for a broader range of people, including kids, friends, and pets. Yes, pets!

Even though consumers are willing to spend when it comes to Valentine’s Day – they’re not total fools in love. They’re motivated by deals on price and delivery.

To get a data-driven picture of where and how much consumers are spending, check out the infographic below. Then measure your current digital strategy against the facts you see here. Is there still time to spend those remnant dollars? Perhaps. If not, the sweet thing is, there’s always next year.

Welcome back to our Feet on the Street series. February is in full swing and as we work diligently to bring you the best in digital, we’re also attending a series of awesome events. Check out our schedule below to see where we are this week. If you’re going to be in the neighborhood, we’d love to chat. Email us at [email protected] to set up a meeting or find us at the event and say hi. Let’s make it a great week!

What’s going on? Industry thought leaders come together to discuss the present and future states of digital, the metrics that matter, and how native and content marketing layer into the programmatic landscape.

What’s going on? What’s Hot takes a look at 2015 and the big topics in queue for media and advertising. A panel consisting of great minds in media from Yahoo, Digitas, Citibank, Heineken USA, and Mercedes Benz USA are headlining the event. There will also be a variety of demos from a new roster of start-ups who are innovators in the media space.

What’s going on? In honor of Valentine’s Day this Saturday, we are visiting Initiative NYC for an event packing sweet treats, ice cream sandwiches (Valentine’s themed of course) and a photo booth.

What’s going on? The Media Alliance of Houston is hosting their annual Awards Gala at the Omni Hotel. Centro is the official sponsor of the champagne toast at this year’s Black Swan-themed gala.

This March seven Centrons in the New York office are on the path to go the extra mile (well, actually, many, many miles) to end cancer once and for all. Tannis McKenna, Kaitlyn Pearsall, Emily Chow, Rob Kohn, Justin Haber, Sam Yee, and Sarah Solso have joined the American Cancer Society DetermiNation endurance event program and will be running the New York City Half Marathon on March 15th, 2015 to help fight cancer and save lives.

It’s an effort worth mentioning. With countless hours of running and strength training mixed with dietary restrictions and healthy eating habits – training for a half marathon is no simple task. Collectively, the team runs close to 105 miles per week (or 15 miles each), give or take a mile or two. That’s more than some of us run in a lifetime!

Almost every one of us has been affected by cancer in some way. According to the American Cancer Society, more than one million people in the United States get cancer each year. Together with millions of supporters, the American Cancer Society saves lives by helping people stay well and get well, by finding cures, and by fighting back. Thanks in part to all of our contributions, more than 1.5 million lives have been saved in the United States in the past two decades. But let’s not stop there – there’s still so much more work to be done, research to perform, and lives to be saved.

Each athlete on Team DetermiNation has their own personal motivation and inspiration for participating in the race. For Sam Yee, it was, and continues to be, her mother, Sally Eng Latteri, who inspires her even in passing. Sally lost her battle with cancer on June 16th, 2014. “She was a vibrant, amazing, and caring woman,” notes Sam. “I want to do all I can to keep her memory alive. What better way to do that than with the American Cancer Society?” Sam’s motivation also derives from her teammate, Tannis, who encouraged her to join the team and train for the event.

The magnificent seven will be hosting a fundraising happy hour at Centro’s New York office this Thursday, February 12th to help them reach their team goal of $6,000. Currently, the group has raised an astonishing $5,395! Let’s help them out a bit. The team will be auctioning off a couple “bachelors” for dates, along with a few raffle prizes. If you’re going to be in the area, be sure to stop by! Otherwise, check out their team page to see how you can donate.

Finally, to the more than 11 million Americans who are cancer survivors and will celebrate another birthday this year – happy birthday, from your friends at Centro.

Along with app store optimization strategies, new trends in real-time bidding and programmatic marketing will come to the fore as they continue to become the norm in 2015.

Programmatic has evolved beyond simple transactions and RTB, now accounting for 47 per cent of non-search advertising in the U.S., with an overall spend of $21 billion. As an increasing number of targeted data points become available to programmatic marketers in 2015, expect advertising relevancy to increase. With major brands like Proctor & Gamble and American Express investing more heavily in programmatic, machine learning will have a bigger part to play this year.

Also, marketers should seek to utilize optimized programmatic marketing methods to get the best bang for their buck whilst simultaneously drawing in the right consumers.

Data Remains A Daunting Challenge Marketers Will Overcome

Making sense of marketing data can be daunting. According to “”Marketing Data Technology: Cutting Through the Complexity,” a whitepaper from the IAB, the rise of programmatic advertising has put marketers under even more pressure to make audience data actionable.

Key takeaways from the paper include harnessing platform integration, cross-channel marketing as an unrealized goal, data-dependancy on marketing technologies organizational silos as a barrier to integration, and the critical nature of interoperability. It also noted that despite marketers’ increased familiarity with data, understanding how to use the technology create an ongoing challenge.

Making data actionable has become crucial for marketers. About 80 per cent said that the open-market programmatic transaction is central to their data initiatives, with 61.1 per cent supporting connected digital advertising content optimization and 60 per cent supporting private-market programmatic buying.

Four Factors That Affect the Viewability of Digital Display Ads

Display ad viewability is always a concern for marketers employing programmatic. A display ad is commonly considered viewable when half of its pixels are in view on the screen for a minimum of one second. That said, a Google report recently found that there are four things that can affect the viewability of your display advertising.

Viewability isn’t evenly distributed across all publisher domains. Page position is also a factor, with the most ideal placement being directly above the fold. Format and size are crucial, similar to standard advertising. Vertical units are the best. Finally, the publisher’s industry also plays a crucial role. Certain verticals have higher rates of viewability.

That’s it for this week’s RTB Zeigeist. To subscribe to #RTBZeitgeist, click here.

Centro Extends Relationship with AutonomyWorks
Supports Organization Dedicated to Creating Jobs for Professionals with Autism

Chicago, February 3, 2015 – Centro (centro.net), a provider of enterprise-class software for digital advertising, today announced an extension of its partnership with AutonomyWorks. Centro is a major supporter of AutonomyWorks’ mission to create long-term employment for working professionals who have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). AutonomyWorks deploys workers who focus on manual, process-driven labor—a strong fit for specific tasks within Centro’s business. AutonomyWorks’ ability to provide great service for Centro in the past year led to the agreement extension.

The first business organization that connects adults with Autism with long-term employment, AutonomyWorks maximizes the abilities of workers with unique skills in digital media. These workers can execute business processes with precision and quality because of their exceptional eye for detail, comfort with numbers, and predilection for repetitive work. AutonomyWorks’ solution utilizes this in-house talent to perfect manual processes for customers. This helps Centro with processes that still require many hours of manual labor in the digital media buying and selling lifecycle.

“AutonomyWorks shares Centro’s philosophy that organizations prioritize the need and well-being of employees. We appreciate its mission of channeling the skills of adult professionals with Autism for opportunities in the business world,” said Scott Neslund, EVP of media services at Centro. “Centro has been extremely happy with our first year engaging with AutonomyWorks. Its great work has led to an extension of our partnership into 2015.”

“Although employment rate for people with Autism is less than 20%, many within the population have the potential to be effective knowledge workers if long-term jobs were available,” said Dave Friedman, founder and CEO of AutonomyWorks. “With 500,000 individuals with Autism soon to age out of the public school system, the U.S. economy should leverage their skills in handling any business process service for the business community.”

About Centro
Centro (centro.net) is creating a platform to make digital advertising easier. Its enterprise-class software centralizes, organizes and automates all digital media campaigns across all channels, accessing both guaranteed and biddable inventory, to achieve any objective. Our holistic approach gives marketers a single system of record to fulfill their research, planning, buying, optimization, reporting and reconciliation needs. Since 2001, Centro has successfully planned and executed more than 100,000 national and local campaigns across all digital display platforms and ad format types. Headquartered in Chicago with 33 offices in North America, Centro’s success and commitment to culture has led to many accolades, including #1 on Crain’s Best Places to Work in Chicago in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, #1 on Advertising Age’s Best Place to Work in Media & Advertising in 2014, #8 on Fortune’s Best Medium-Size Workplace in 2014, and #6 on Crain’s Best Place to Work in New York.

About AutonomyWorks
Winner of the 2013 Chicago Innovation Award, AutonomyWorks believes in the unique talents and abilities of people with Autism to deliver high-quality, cost-competitive business Process Execution services to companies of all sizes. AutonomyWorks’ mission is to identify, enable and empower an exceptional, yet hidden, workforce to provide turnkey solutions for clients—including roles such as website maintenance, data entry and software testing. There are more than 1 million potential workers with Autism Spectrum Disorders whose skills and abilities are perfectly matched for today's highly technological business Process Execution tasks. Workers with Autism want to contribute their talents to the business community and to society and AutonomyWorks' goal is to help. For more information, please visit: http://www.autonomy-works.com.

Didn't have time to sift through all the industry news coverage this month? Don't worry - we've got you covered! Here are a few articles you definitely don't want to miss:

According to a study conducted by BrightLocal, 37% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) plan on spending more on digital in the next 12 months. However, despite this projected increase in digital spending, a lack of skillset, budget, and time could potentially stall these efforts. eMarketer recently surveyed SMBs’ attitudes toward digital marketing, and the amount of advertisers who understood and were able to execute digital in-house fell from 40% to 29%, marking an 11% decrease from 2013 to 2014, respectively. In addition to a lack of digital expertise, a few other challenges were cited: 17% of respondents indicated that budget was an issue, while 10% indicated that a lack of time was problematic. Despite smaller budgets, SMBs did report that they saw the value in paying a marketing expert to handle digital for their firms. Read the entire article here!

According to an eMarketer and Salesforce Marketing Cloud study, 46% of marketers have used some form of mobile marketing. When analyzing the effectiveness of mobile campaign types, loyalty campaigns were considered 86% effective by marketers, closely followed by win-backs, mobile-exclusive deals, and keyword conversation campaigns. Additionally, mobile loyalty efforts were considered the most popular and effective type of mobile campaigns, used by 37% of respondents, with a large percentage using the channel for holiday or event campaigns. Follow the trend here!

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