Online video ads get more attention

YuMe and IPG Media Lab, recently partnered on a research project to track relative attention level to video advertising in a lean forward PC experience vs. a lean back TV experience.  Specifically, we wanted to know:

  1. Do people pay attention to online video differently than they do when watching TV?
  2. If people have the option of avoiding advertising, will they, and how does it differ?
  3. If the experiences of watching TV and Online Video are different, should an online ad impression be valued the same way that TV ads are?

Continue reading “Online video ads get more attention”

Brian Monahan predicts digital things

What’s in store for digital in 2011? Brian Monahan, EVP, Managing Partner, IPG Media Lab offers his prediction in an interview for Ad Vision—a month long video series produced by Microsoft Advertising.  Brian was one of 30 global advertising experts interviewed for the series. Interviews are released every weekday. The first of the series was posted on May 9, 2011 and the last will mark the beginning of  Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

To view the full interview:

When all the world’s a screen

Obscura Digital's solution on display in San Francisco

One the most dramatic areas of media innovation is in digital out of home space.  The Lab appeared earlier this week at Mediapost’s DOOH Forum in New York to showcase the most exciting new DOOH technologies.  We brought our friends from Klip Collective and Obscura Digital.  The work was well recieved — prompting savvy industry pundit Joe Mandese to live blog that he was at a loss for words!  Check out the video of the event to see for yourself.

Serendipity Happens

As consumers increasingly personalize their media consumption there is no shortage of hand wringing about the implications from lack of shared cultural experiences.  Particularly in news, there is concern that consumer will choose to consume content that reinforces existing opinions hardening political discord.  Beyond news, one could argue that shared love for TV shows and pop songs have also provided the bonds that make citizens feel comfortable with one another.  Where will those bonds come from when TV ratings and record sales continue to slide?

This genuinely concerns those of us who feel we are doing the lord’s work assuring consumers access to free, ad-supported content.  Yet just when despair sets in, we get reminded that, somehow, content hits still spring up and capture the imagination of mass audiences. Continue reading “Serendipity Happens”

API-enabled ads pack more punch

The history of storytelling is as much about technology as it is about narrative. As humans have transitioned from the earliest cave scratches to the newest highly interactive digital experiences, the way stories are told have had a powerful influence on the stories themselves. As the number of media channels continue to blossom, marketers must not only become more familiar with existing tools, but stay relevant by seeking out competitive new platforms.

The IPG Media Lab‘s most recent Media Trial focused on one important new element of storytelling: data. Data sets are increasingly being structured and exposed via APIs so that third parties can grab and understand the data in real time. Weather, headlines, traffic, sports scores, tweets, videos, social data—the available data sets are only limited by your imagination. Marketers who can curate these streams in real time may be able to create more engaging and more impactful stories, with the results to match.

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Predicting Peak Media

At the IPG Media Lab one of the things we track intensely is the ways in which consumers adopt new media technology into their lives.  As consumers have more options to connect with content, we’ve noticed a trend towards fully mediated lives.  Just as the Rotarians eliminated Polio, the engineers of Silicon Valley have seemingly eliminated boredom.  Consumers are filling the dead zones in their lives with content—in the elevator, on the bus, in the bathroom!

There is a concept called “peak oil“  that attempts to predict when oil production will max out. Estimates vary, but it’s predicted that peak oil capacity will happen at some point between 2006 and 2020. These estimates are predicated within the boundaries of known reserves and man’s ability to extract them. Continue reading “Predicting Peak Media”

Data is the new black….cyan, magenta, and yellow

Historically, ads have been closed systems. The information contained in the ad itself is fixed. Most of the interactivity in digital ads to date has been limited to the ability to link somewhere or to engage with content elements that were included in the unit at the time it was trafficked. But anyone who has ever looked at billboard that had a clock or thermometer knows the power of real time information to capture attention.
There is a new generation of rich media providers who now enable advertisers to pipe up-to-the-moment content into digital display ads. The number of data sources available by API is growing every day – weather, traffic conditions, UV index, Tweets, Facebook updates, you name it! The next generation rich media companies are working hard to make it easy for advertisers to incorporate these feeds while assuring the ads never break.
Continue reading “Data is the new black….cyan, magenta, and yellow”

A futurist’s take on hyper collaboration

I took advantage of a summer vacation to read Vernor Vinge’s Rainbow’s End.  Rainbow’s End recently won the Hugo Award for science fiction literature.  Like any good hard SciFi book, this one portrays a not-too-distant future where technology has fundamentally transformed the human experience.  The 2025 Southern California dramatized in Rainbow’s End features pervasive connectivity sub-vocally accessed through smart contact lenses resulting in a world of augmented reality.   The main plot revolves around Alzheimer’s patients who have been “cured” after many years in a vegetative state.  The book portrays the challenges these previously successful people face now that they lack the literacies required to command the new technology that runs the modern world.  It’s a good read and if you are into the genre, I highly recommend it.

But the really interesting feature in the novel was the skills that allowed certain characters to thrive in the highly complex, connected, real-time world.  The most capable characters had mastered the art of massive collaboration.   Continue reading “A futurist’s take on hyper collaboration”