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The 2012 holiday shopping season is now in full force! Depending on your perception of the burden or blessing that is seasonal giving, expect to see another few weeks of joyous (or hellish) deal hunting across these final weeks of the year.

While many holiday shoppers may have kept with the tradition of scarfing down Thanksgiving dinner early to strategize a plan of attack for in-store holiday deals, a notable number are looking for a less-crowded, no-wait digital option.

The Cyber Monday that once played a distant second fiddle to Black Friday has risen in popularity as more tech savvy folks embrace the opportunity to do their holiday shopping with the aid of digital devices.

The same can be said for general digital shopping vs. brick and mortar shopping. The National Retail Federation reports that 51.8% of US consumers will be doing their holiday shopping online this year. Many stores have embraced identical deals in-store and online, giving more people the option to turn towards their PCs, tablets and smartphones to fulfill their holiday shopping needs.

Even for those shoppers who prefer the in-store route, consumers can expect mobile devices to improve their shopping experience. CBS News released a smartphone app list to assist with in-store navigation and deal hunting. Noted app functionality includes checking prices, product searches, comparison shopping, mobile purchases and in-store floor maps, in addition to other conveniences. Major retailers who have created custom seasonal apps include Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Macy’s amongst others.

The holiday shopping season has primed the canvas for advertisers to embrace the mobile advertising space.  For brands that haven’t been sure about the value of mobile advertising in the past, this holiday season’s deeply engaged mobile audience will provide ample reason for consideration.

(AgencyPost.com) – Welcome to The Agency Post. Tell us about yourself.

I’m Charlie Thomas, executive vice president of sales for Centro. Prior to Centro, I had my own consulting firm for four years and did long stints at Yahoo and Time Inc. Those two companies were the main influences in shaping my professional values and standards.

Tell us more about Centro and the work you do there.

Centro is a media logistics company, which means that we provide operational efficiencies for ad agencies and publishers so they can contain costs and be more profitable.

We achieve this goal through a blend of technology, data and services. These pieces come together in different ways depending on the customer’s needs.

My job is to work specifically with agencies and help them understand the solution we offer.  Most don’t realize that this kind of option is available, and that if properly applied, it can reduce one of their biggest barriers to health and growth.

How has the relationship between a brand and an agency changed over the past five to 10 years? How has technology complicated this?

The most important thing to realize is that our environment is expanding. It’s a time of abundance, but our business models, strategies and processes haven’t kept pace, so it often feels like scarcity. This is normal when powerful new cycles are in their early stages.

The data says that brand/agency relationships are more troubled and stressed than ever before. This is largely because the relationship is being pulled in two different directions. As the environment expands at increasingly faster rates, the potential for strategic innovation greatly increases. At the same time, the work is becoming more complex and there’s tremendous pressure to contain costs.

So agencies are being asked to elevate their thinking while also doing more work and increasing cost efficiency. You have these really smart agency people who don’t have time to think deeply about ideas because they’re caught up in operations and trying to solve new problems using old methods and tools.

Technology contributes to this problem by adding to the load without taking anything away.  This just makes the situation more costly and complex. For example, the average brand now has something like 20 different agencies, many of which are based on new types of technology (search, social, mobile, etc.).

The next wave of industry innovation has to be about finding new ideas to create operational efficiency. Once this happens, it will unleash a tremendous wave of creativity and growth. This has occurred before in our industry. The 1960s are full of great examples involving TV.

Read the remainder of this interview on The Agency Post. 

(AdWeek.com) - So long, Mitt. Hello, “Got Debt?”

Spoofs of landmark ads are part of a new campaign from the Fix the Debt group, and they are the tip of a tsunami of legislative-issue messaging that’s expected to emerge in the coming weeks and months.

For those thinking that the end of the election meant the end of political ads, think again. In fact, issue advertising during nonelection years has been growing at double-digit rates. Spending on issue ads is forecast to hit $2 billion in 2013, topping the $1.63 billion spent in this election year and up 87 percent from the $1.07 billion spent in 2009, per Borrell Associates.

A barometer reading from media companies indicates that although there hasn’t been much issue spending since the elections, a groundswell is expected to materialize now that Congress is back in business.

Not only have issue ads become a bona fide ad category in the off election years, but also the category is evolving in two other ways, said Bruce Haynes, managing partner of Alexandria, Va.-based Purple Strategies, a public affairs and communications company. Political strategists are using more digital media than before and migrating video that was once reserved for TV across all video screens. Also, rather than just pressuring legislators in the greater Washington, D.C., area, groups with more dollars to burn are taking ad placements to the districts of congressmen whom they believe can be swayed by public pressure.

For example, Centro, a digital media logistics firm, recently worked on an issue campaign related to healthcare that targeted 28 states. It began in August and more recently heavied up its media buy, said Grace Briscoe, Centro’s director.

Read the remainder of this article on AdWeek.com. 

Happy post-thanksgiving!  Did you wait in line, beat the crowds or simply decide to do your shopping online this year? If you chose to shop online this past Black Friday, you weren’t alone.  This year, online consumers turned out in record numbers.  IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark reported that online sales on Black Friday increased nearly 21% from last year.  However, the most interesting activity was the positive shift coming from mobile devices.

Mobile-based sales were nearly doubled, reaching 16% (up from 9% last year).  In fact, The IBM report showed “24 percent of consumers using a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site, up from 14.3 percent in 2011”.

However, not everyone turned to just one device.  If you were like me, you utilized multiple devices to find the best deals and offers.   In fact, the IBM report showed that tablets are already beginning to make a significant dent in online shopping, a potential precursor to tablets becoming the preferred device for future online shopping.

Specifically, the iPad generated more traffic than any other tablet or smartphone, reaching nearly 10% of online shopping!  Not bad for a device that didn’t exist 3 years ago.   Other Black Friday reports have also begun to surface, all showing the same signs of strong mobile growth. Ebay has added to the early reports, sharing that their mobile volume was up 153% and PayPal up 193%.

As we await the final numbers for this holiday shopping season (inclusive of big days such as Cyber Monday), it’s clear that e-commerce has already made a big impact on Black Friday.

Mobile and tablet devices now enhance the shopping experience with customized deals and offers that impact the entire purchase funnel.  In fact, Mojiva has reported in their latest Mobile Audience Guide, that 70% of female smartphone owners say smartphones will help them compare prices, check sale information and look for coupons this holiday season.

As consumers make the shift to mobile and tablet devices, it’s becoming more important for brands to follow suit and develop sound digital marketing and advertising strategies in order to stay top of mind with consumers this holiday season.

How are you utilizing online and emerging platforms to effectively reach consumers this holiday season?  Can you leverage Centro to help execute successful online marketing campaigns that impact your bottom line this holiday season?

In a media planning world where placing similar sites on similar plans can be a creativity killer, digital place-based network, Akoo, is allowing for new opportunities and creative executions by bridging several channels with its offering. And it’s boasting high engagement to boot.

Akoo places screens in what they are calling ‘Akoo Pavillions’ located in high traffic areas of malls and college campuses. Music content coupled with advertising on dual screens encourages viewers to engage with content by interacting through their mobile devices. Akoo is combining video, mobile and digital location-based advertising into a package that both targets and entertains.

According to a piece on the DailyDOOH blog, Akoo enables consumers to make on-demand content requests with their mobile devices, via free mobile app or text messaging. “Viewers within Akoo Pavilions can also access free Wi-Fi services, connect with friends via Facebook and Twitter, download mobile coupons, and participate in special promotions.”

Akoo is using a multi-screen approach, a method that is quickly catching on with tablet and television. By promoting engagement with several screens, targeting becomes more dynamic. More screens mean more opportunities to reach your consumer. Whether that is on a tablet while you are watching television, or on a mobile device while you are watching an Akoo screen, capitalizing on consumers multi-screen behaviors is beneficial for brands.

I think shifting towards a mindset of a multi-screen approach is important for advertisers. It provides more robust reach for a brand and increased engagement for a consumer.

While Akoo is not by any means the only digital place-based opportunity, it is the one most focused on engagement. Are you using digital place-based advertising as part of your digital media strategy? If not, what is holding you back?

In the mobile search world, all signs point towards an amplified focus in local mobile for the foreseeable future. Just ask local media research and consulting firm BIA Kelsey. The authority on all things local media released their latest forecasts showcasing anticipated growth for local mobile search advertising. It should come as no surprise since search undeniably becomes increasingly relevant for mobile users who actively seek information pertinent to their current locality.

The report shares details on forthcoming expectations for brands to target advertising efforts based on users’ geographic location. The same report explains how local targeting plays a critical role in mobile advertising strategy, this due to mobile devices lending themselves to honing in on a user’s location through targeting technologies like GPS and WiFi.

Some key highlights from the report include the following:

User intent to find local information drives the charge for the increasing popularity of the local search space. The user-friendly functionality of mobile devices lends itself to increased usage by device owners and the guiding reason for why more advertisers need to build strategy around the local space.

Advertising technology has been all over the mainstream news lately.

Whether it’s pre-obituaries lamenting the death of on-line display ads or spotlights on how tech is making it possible for brands to target individual consumers, rather than the aggregate audiences that publisher sites promise to deliver, it’s pretty obvious there’s lots of anxiety about publishers’ future ability to profit from digital media.

That’s why Joe Pych’s recent column in The Makegood comes as such a breath of fresh air — instead of wringing his hands, Joe provides one big, hairy audacious idea for publishers to wrestle control and revenue from advertising intermediaries.

We won’t give away the solution Joe details in his piece “One Obvious Way to Save Publishing,” but we will give you a hint: Joe calls out Centro for our advances in the automation of direct buys.

Go read “One Obvious Way to Save Publishing” now.

(The-Makegood.com) - Robert Vorel is president of Crest Communications Inc, a full service Branding/Promotional Ad Agency. It provides market positioning implementation utilizing newly defined “real-time marketing” approaches. 

For many brands and agencies that have long favored such traditional media as print newspapers, radio and television to carry their advertising messages, navigating the complexity of advertising in the fragmented digital landscape is a daunting proposition.

But these advertising agencies and brands are recognizing they can reach new customer bases, especially young consumers, through digital media – from Facebook, Twitter and MTV.com to local online sites that attract a younger audience. That’s why more and more brands are asking their advertising agencies to help them embrace digital media in order to reach their specific target consumer.

To become more efficient at navigating this digital space, and build even stronger plans, ad agencies are increasingly seeking out talented third-parties that can help them deliver bottom-line success. They’re linking with media buying firms that can offer teams of specialists whose expertise lie within knowing what specific new media can best serve a client in the digital media space.

Illustrating this growing trend is Old Second Bank, a community bank based in Aurora, Ill., and our Chicago-based advertising agency, Crest Communications Inc.

Read the remainder of this article on The-Makegood.com.