Until now, Apple has focused on getting big brands to advertise in iAds, such as its two launch advertisers, Nissan and Dove.

But the new iAd for Developers program is Apple’s way of getting more (albeit cheaper) ads in its system to fill its inventory glut, while also moving more app downloads through its App Store, and helping the developers who run its ads in their apps make a little more money. A potential win-win-win, if it works out.

Good news for Apple: So far, all of the developers we’ve talked to are interested in the program, even though these sorts of app ad exchanges have existed from other providers for a long time.

How much is it going to cost developers to advertise their app within other apps?

Apple won’t say, but we’re told by a participating developer that Apple will be initially charging 25 cents per click for iAd for Developers.

This is cheaper than Apple’s iAd for brand advertisers program, which includes both a cost-per-impression fee – 1 cent per impression, or $10 per 1,000 impressions — and a hefty $2-per-click “engagement” fee.

While other app-ad-exchange programs run on a cost-per-acquisition basis, Apple’s is not. Not yet, at least. We assume this program will evolve over time, with rates and structures varying based on success.

How does the iAd for Developers rate translate into a cost-per-acquisition basis, if you’re used to that metric?

One developer we spoke to is assuming that good iAds for good free/cheap iOS apps could result in about a 20% conversion rate, suggesting a cost-per-acquisition around $1.25. (One new customer for every five clicks, at 25 cents per click.)

So if the lifetime value of a developer’s app customer is more than $1.25, iAd for Developers could be a profitable way to attract customers.

We’ve recently heard of iPhone-app user acquisition costs through other networks in the $1 range, so it sounds like Apple’s offering could be competitive, but skewing toward the high end.

Apple has also posted an FAQ with some more information on iAd for Developers. Basically:

• The apps being advertised will be available for download in the background from within other apps, without leaving the app, meaning that users won’t be booted into the App Store to download the apps, or won’t be booted into the home screen to watch them install
• You can exclude competitors’ ads from your app, based on specific keywords, URLs, and application Apple IDs
• You can’t choose which specific app ads display within your apps; in other words, you can’t tell it only to display ads for your own apps
• Apple is handling all the targeting and you can’t specify which apps you’d like your ads in

Meanwhile, bigger picture, here’s our latest impressions on iAds, after talking to a bunch of developers: So far, it’s a little slow, but it’s still very early.

After a quick burst of launch activity, some developers tell us they’re surprised how slowly the iAd rollout is going; that they only see the two companies’ iAds running; and that fill rates hover in the single-digits to around 10%.

But it appears (and makes sense) that Apple is actually rolling out iAd slowly on purpose, to make sure it doesn’t unleash a monster before it’s happy with the way everything works.

After asking Apple when more iAd campaigns would roll out, one developer tells us that Apple said, “We will ramp up the number of ads served in the weeks and months ahead.”

Important to note: Besides the deliberately slow rollout, it’s also a slow advertising period.”
Source: Business Insider

“Take one look at the newly launched Facebook Questions feature and it’s clear that things are about to change dramatically on the world’s largest social network. Take a second look and it’s also clear that the feature isn’t working very well yet – but it will be fixed and is going to be a very big deal.

A few million people have been given access this afternoon to Facebook Questions, a social Question & Answer feature built under the leadership of Blake Ross, co-creator of the Firefox browser years ago and now an employee at Facebook. Questions may come closer than anything else has yet to founder Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of Facebook as a connector of people around the world, a force for empathy and world peace. I think it’s going to be a very important and enjoyable part of the site.

It might be tempting to assume that Facebook Questions is going to end up a cesspool of idiocy, harshness and partisan tyranny of the majority. But look at it this way: The most successful social software company in the history of the world hired the creator of the Firefox browser who worked for months to build an effective Q&A service and you think it’s going to turn into a YouTube dumb-fest? That’s not the outcome I’d bet my money on.

Scale, social software smarts and real identities have the potential to add up to something really magical. Company founder Mark Zuckerberg, wrong as he is about many things like privacy, has said that his goal with Facebook is to build empathy and connection between different people all around the world. If he was in it for the money, he would have taken Yahoo’s $1 billion offer years ago and run. That goal of cultural change may very well be served better by Questions than by any other Facebook feature to date.

Facebook as Empathy Engine

Why do people listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio? Because they are idiots, right? Wrong, according to Grant Fisher, a grad student at St. Mary’s University School of Law in Texas. Fisher offered a lengthy, intelligent, insightful and sympathetic answer to that question on Facebook today and his answer has been voted to the top of the question’s page. Fisher says people listen to Limbaugh because he has decades of experience researching politics, because he articulates to conservatives what (he believes) liberals are thinking and to liberals what (some) conservatives are thinking and because many people believe he has a good track record of predicting what’s going to happen in politics. And because he’s entertaining.

That’s a good, informative answer and one that has already changed my shallow thinking about Rush Limbaugh fans. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I would pass judgement on a huge group of people so thoughtlessly and callously, but I know I’m not alone. And neither is Fisher alone in offering a high-quality answer to a controversial question on Facebook.

There are going to be some very interesting questions and answers about peace in the Middle East, the Pro Life vs Pro Choice debate, drug policy, race, gender, the environment – you name it.

Because Facebook Questions are open to the whole world and because answers are voted on, we’re going to learn a whole lot about other peoples’ perspectives. Most of the Facebook newsfeed is filled with Farmville updates, baby pictures and misspelled drunken rambling. That will never bring me closer to the personal thoughts of a woman in Indonesia, a young boy in Egypt or a Canadian Mounty who rides through the snow-covered hills on a horse all day, thinking about why on earth people listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. But the public, voted-on Questions feature will.

Early users of the service are offering long, thoughtful answers. That will change in time, but answers that aren’t helpful will not be voted up. Will obnoxious partisan answers be voted to the top in a tyranny of the majority? Even if such an answer were to be at the top, the next one below it would likely be more informative, empathetic and useful. Facebook engineer Beau Hartshorne has also said on the site that users will be demoted if they ask questions that are really assertions. There will be individual Questions that get nothing but terrible answers – but in aggregate, due to the scale of the humanity doing the voting, I think the Questions experience will be on balance strong.

I think we’re going to see some really good discussions on Facebook. These conversations aren’t going to be like YouTube. They aren’t going to be like Wikipedia. They aren’t going to be like Yahoo Answers, with millions of questions asked again and again, with no legacy knowledge retained and developed over time. They are going to be like Stack Overflow, and those are some really good conversations.

People will have their hearts and minds changed about controversial matters after using a well-designed social Q&A feature on a sprawling world-wide social network like Facebook. This will be a net win for the human experience. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration at all.

I think millions of people will end up spending hours browsing through Facebook Questions, learning things. I think it’s going to be great. As soon as they fix it and make it work better.”

Source: Read Write Web

“Sky Broadband is to be the new sponsor of film programming on the Channel 4 Network.

The company, part of BSkyB, has signed a 12 month deal that includes the sponsorship of peak-time transmission of films across Channel 4 , E4 and More 4, as well as the screenings on the corresponding ’plus one’ channels.

The style of the sponsorship bumpers will follow on from Sky’s ’Broadband Happily Ever’ marketing campaign, and initially focus on the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

The sponsorship will also extend to Channel 4 HD, E4 HD and the daily early evening film on Film4 and Film4 HD. and the deal was brokered by Mediacom Beyond Advertising.

Sky Broadband appointed ad agency Engine in June to work on a relaunch campaign.

Sky Broadband now has over 2.5 million customers. Around one in five Sky homes now take all three of Sky TV, Sky Broadband and Sky Talk and Sky is expected to deliver robust full year results on Thursday (29 July)

Robert Tansey, group brand marketing director, said: “Sky Broadband provides a high quality, great value service, and we believe this sponsorship deal is the right way of helping customers get the message about what we have to offer.”

Previous sponsors of films on Channel 4 have included Stella Artois and Renault.”

Source: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/sky-broadband-ties-up-with-c4-films/3016240.article

“Some thinking about online advertising spend in 2010 suggests that this year it’s going to see serious growth, which is fabulous news for new media. But it’s potentially bad news for traditional publishing.

The analysis is coming from ZenithOptimedia, which has been revising its estimates for online advertising spend in 2010 upwards for several months now. Its latest piece of thinking has attracted some attention in the online media itself because it predicts that the spend in 2010 will rise some 13.1% throughout this year, and even zoom upwards another 16.1% in 2011. That figure is an amazing indicator that the economic downturn really is over, as ad spend was one of the big indicators that the recession was biting deep.

Particular emphasis is placed on the mobile ad market (as smartphones and tablet PCs revolutionize how people access the Internet) with Zenith predicting it will grow 43.2% on average, year on year, between 2009 and 2012. That’s a huge growth, and it even outstrips the predicted increase in social media ad spends–30.2% for the same period. Of course, increased smart device use is also strongly linked with increased use of social media systems (particularly with the new vogue for location-based social gaming).

Is this data also a very negative sign for the traditional publishing game? Though TV advertising spending is still the biggest thing around, the battle for ads in printed media and online is becoming more important–and though the economy may indeed be growing, it’s not doing so at the rates predicted. In other words, the extra money going to online ads has to come from somewhere. With falling readership figures for printed matter of all types, versus the rise of the Net, of blogs, and of digital-content-accessing devices (such as the iPad) you’ve got to go where the audience is.

Is this also another sign that the traditional newspaper’s website paywalls are a bad idea? Because if online ad spends rise, then so will the quality (or at least, if you’re cynical, the quantity) of online content sources. And since these tend to be free, the paid-access paywalls around traditional news sites will seem even more ridiculous. As people like Gawker’s Nick Denton are fond of noting, in an online world you’re only as good as the next mouse-click of your readers.”

Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/1671656/online-advertising-markets-ad-placements-social-media?partner=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+fastcompany/headlines+(Fast+Company+Headlines)

This time it’s for real.

Tokyo, Japan’s Digital Signage Promotion Project is currently trying out digital advertising billboards fitted with cameras that can discern the gender and age group of passerby who look at them.

The point? To tailor their commercial messages to the onlooker.

A consortium of 11 railway companies launched the pilot project last month, and has since set up 27 intelligent displays in subway commuter stations around Tokyo.

In JR Shinjuku station, straphangers are informed about two 52-inch smart billboards by a panel that reads, “Advertising survey under way; images being recorded to determine gender and age groups.”

“The camera can distinguish a person’s sex and approximate age, even if the person only walks by in front of the display, at least if he or she looks at the screen for a second,” said a spokesman for the project to the AFP.

As you might expect, the billboards’ operators promise that they will not save recorded images. What they will do is collect data about groups of people, which will help advertisers learn what works best at which locations in the city and at what time during the day.”

Source: http://www.smartplanet.com/business/blog/smart-takes/tokyos-intelligent-digital-billboards-can-tell-gender-age-of-passerby/9031/

When I was coming up in advertising, Starbucks was the classic product that didn’t use anyadvertising to launch. It spread on world-of-mouth, and not word of brand (a term I just made up to show that advertising helped tell the story).

Just as famously, Starbucks was in trouble in recent years because it wasn’t as easily able to differentiate itself from local coffee shops. Across the street from the closest Starbucks to my office is a local coffee joint that uses strange jargon to sell expensive coffee. Cafe Lattes are “on wheels”, meaning to go. People behind the counter shout to one another and there are many moving parts. Like Starbucks, it has free Wi-fi and music. And like Starbucks, it has passionate fans. Though I see the fan thing turning away from Starbucks.

To me, the Starbucks fan is an early adopter. They consider Starbucks the leader in the “good coffee” movement. At a time, Starbucks was the good coffee alternative to the bad coffee that needed a cream and two sugars to cover the taste.

Okay, to the point.

What is Social media isn’t really a new media platform. What if social media is a behavior, and not a new tool in the marketers toolbox? What if social media can define a brand while the brand isn’t looking?

Meaning, if we say X in advertising, but the people are saying Y in social media, then who will win? The people or the brand? And obviously, what brand wants to be in competition with its customer for the brand attributes?

I say all this because brands that don’t advertise run the risk of being identified in social media by the people.”

Source: http://sharemarketing.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/what-business-are-you-in-define-it-or-the-people-will/

“Usually when a large brand experiments with mobile AR, they immediately think to provide the heads-up navigator that helps people find store locations. We saw this earlier this year when the popular sandwich chain Quiznos partnered with Layar to provide this exact functionality, but the company peppered in a bit of its own brand of fun as well.

The AR Decision

Ben & Jerry’s, a brand with hundreds of shops around the world, could have easily followed a similar path, but instead it has taken things a bit further. Katie O’Brien, manager of Ben & Jerry’s global digital marketing initiatives, says the company first became excited about AR when it was “blown away” by General Electric’s Smart Grid Web-based AR campaign. “Wow, one day we should do something like that,” O’Brien remembered thinking.

Earlier this year, that day came. Ben & Jerry’s began planning for a campaign that highlighted the fact that many of its ingredients come from small family farms. The campaign, named “It’s what’s inside that counts,” was to feature rich visualizations and was the perfect opportunity for the company to finally jump into AR, O’Brien says.”

Read the rest of the article here

Efficient Frontier, however, is sticking to its previous projection that the search ad market will grow between 15 and 20 percent for the year, saying in its report that “weakness in the European economy might negatively affect Q3 2010, so we remain cautious.” Some additional details:

Like last quarter, much of the growth in the search ad market was driven by a jump in spending by retail advertisers. Efficient Frontier says spending was up 38 percent year-over-year among retail advertisers, a pace it said “far exceeds the typical modest quarterly rise.” It said that cost-per-click in the sector was up 18 percent year-over-year, indicating a “growing aggressiveness” from advertisers. The firm says it expects that sector’s strength to continue.

The travel and auto sectors were also up, although finance was down slightly.

As for the break-down among the major search companies, Bing’s share of total spending inched up to 6.4 percent from 6.1 percent a quarter ago. Those gains continue to come at the expense of Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) but not Google; (NSDQ: GOOG) Yahoo’s total share of spending dropped to 18 percent from 18.7 percent, while Google’s increased to 75.6 percent from 75.2 percent.

We’ll learn more about the state of the search ad market starting Thursday when Google reports its earnings. Analysts on average expect a 22.5 percent jump in sales.”

Source: http://paidcontent.org/article/419-report-search-ad-spending-up-24-percent-during-quarter/

The Social TV report from media analysts Futurescape features interviews from figures across the media and technology industries and puts forward an argument that as our TVs make the transition to being online devices, social media will provide both a huge opportunity, and a big challenge to broadcast networks.

The “Social EPG”

Online TV services like Google TV, Project Canvas and Yahoo Widgets will allow social media to “enter the TV value chain”, offering social recommendations for viewing directly on your TV screen. As Robin Sloan of Twitter’s media partnership team notes in an interview for the report:

“At some point in the past, people used a printed-out TV guide to decide what to watch and find it on their TVs. Now, most people use the EPG built into their cable boxes. But increasingly, people are also using Twitter. Think of it as a kind of live, living, breathing social EPG. You see which shows your friends are talking about, and you see which shows the whole world is talking about – all in real-time. Increasingly, we think that kind of behavior is going to drive ratings in a significant way.”

Imagine seeing viewing recommendations from your Facebook friends displayed directly on your TV screen, or having the option to watch the currently most-discussed TV show on Twitter, simply by selecting it from its on-screen hashtag. These are very real possibilities.

Social ads come to your TV

By integrating with our TV viewing, Twitter and Facebook have a real opportunity to grab a significant slice of the reported $180bn global TV ad spend.

The report notes that “Connected TVs will enable Facebook to launch socially targeted advertising on the TV set itself. Twitter’s forthcoming (sic) Promoted Tweets have similar potential”.

Social networks have a huge advantage over traditional TV advertisers. They’re sitting on top of a goldmine of realtime, social information that allows them to display just the right ad at just the right time for it to have maximum impact on the audience. Everyone’s talking about weddings after two soap characters decide to get engaged? That could be just the right time to appeal to viewers’ emotional side with romantically themed ads, for example.

Of course, that data could be a real asset for traditional advertisers too. The report notes that Twitter and Facebook “have the ability to provide social graph data to the TV industry, either free or in paid-for services.”

Facebook and Twitter aren’t the only ones with a chance to make a big splash in the Internet-conected TV world. Google is making a big play in the sector via its Google TV service as well as offering TV advertising itself.

Many other players will undoubtedly emerge, but Futurescape’s report shows how the mass appeal of social media services like Twitter and Facebook gives them an advantage. They’ll be all over every TV platform out there, from Google TV to Project Canvas and beyond. That ubiquity, combined with the valuable social data they hold puts social services like Twitter and Facebook in a very strong position indeed.

Source: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/07/08/how-twitter-and-facebook-could-dominate-the-tv-advertising-world/

Image: http://www.dantynan.com/2009/05/27/twitter-tv-a-sign-of-the-coming-apocalypse/