Ulitzer Named 'New Media' Partner For iStrategy 2010

Sys-Con

SYS-CON-owned Ulitzer has been touted as the ‘Wikipedia Killer' with now over 7,000 authors online sharing news, views and industry trends on the sites' innovative blogging system. Magazines are managed and created on Ulitzer by visionaries of the digital media space, some of which brought the sites attention to the organizers of what is now the most anticipated New Media event to happen next year - The iStrategy 2010 in Berlin.

The iStrategy program is famed for educating the corporate elite in the relatively infant innovation of Social Media. Such visionaries as Michael Donnelly Group Director Worldwide Interactive Marketing at Coca-Cola, Michael Buck, Global Head , SMB Online Dell and Ralf Ahamer CMO, XING are sharing their successes at the conference in February next year, looking at; ever changing media consumption patterns and the rapid growth of mobile web, social networking, behavioral targeting, vodcasting, email marketing, viral marketing and how their companies have so brilliantly embraced online advancements to bring them closer to the consumer.

"We have over 150 CMOs confirmed for the Berlin Conference, they are all keen to learn what web 2.0 can do for their business, and we are delighted to welcome such a luminary within the digital media space as SYS-CON's Jeremy Geelan." Richard Owen - iStrategy Director.

A new ‘Internet' has been born that can flatten the market place if not managed correctly. New opportunities create greater challenges for any company to stay ahead. Thanks to sites like Ulitzer the corporate world has finally embraced online social media as a real competitive advantage, and the tier ones are now incorporating such initiatives in their 2010 business plans.

Yahoo Says Online Ad Market Improving

From Business Week

Results from the Web portal gave further evidence that the online ad slump is ending, though executives stopped short of calling a recovery

While no match for the resurgent third quarter reported by Google a few days earlier, Yahoo's (YHOO) results and its forecast for current-quarter sales beat analysts' expectations and gave further evidence that this year's swoon in Internet advertising may be ending.

Investors were pleased with the results, boosting Yahoo's shares almost 6% in extended trading after the market close. "It was a clean 'beat' quarter," says Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst at financial services firm Collins Stewart (CLST.L). "You see signs of stabilization, which is very positive."

Yahoo, in the midst of a sweeping reorganization and rebranding campaign under CEO Carol Bartz since she joined in January, emphasized that the online advertising market is stabilizing. But still-declining revenue signaled that a full-blown recovery has yet to materialize. "Ad spending is starting to free up, and we are a great value proposition for advertisers," Yahoo Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse said on a conference call discussing the results. Bartz did not participate in the call because she had a minor illness. However, she said in a statement that Yahoo had a "solid third quarter that signals our major businesses have stabilized."
Profit from Alibaba Sale

In the third quarter, Yahoo earned $186.1 million in net profit, or 13¢ a share. That's up from 4¢ a year ago. Gross revenue of $1.58 billion was down 12% from a year ago. Net revenue after commissions to advertising partners, a more closely watched metric, was $1.13 billion.

About 5¢ of the profit came from the sale of Yahoo's stake in China's Alibaba, but remaining results were still ahead of forecasts. The company was expected to earn 7¢ a share on gross revenues of $1.52 billion, or $1.12 billion after payments to advertising partners.

In particular, Yahoo saw relative strength in selling display ads on its own sites, such as its home page. Revenue from those so-called guaranteed ads, whose placement is planned in advance, grew at a mid-single-digit percentage rate. That was much better than "non-guaranteed" ads, which run on pages with less valuable audiences, such as e-mail pages. Those ads declined, partly thanks to a recent Yahoo drive to rid itself of lower-quality ads for weight loss and other schemes.
Losing Ground to Google

Although display ad revenues overall grew 2% from the second quarter, the second straight quarter of sequential growth, they were still down 8% from a year earlier. Moreover, Yahoo's search business fared much worse, with search revenue falling 19% from a year earlier. That means Yahoo continues to lose ground to Google SEO (GOOG), which saw growth accelerating in the third quarter.

Yahoo said it expects gross revenues of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion in the fourth quarter. Operating income before depreciation, amortization, and stock-option costs is expected to be between $400 million and $450 million. Both of those are somewhat higher than Wall Street forecasts.

More than Google's results, Yahoo's may be indicative of the broader trend in online advertising, since Yahoo is a leader in the display ads that most Web sites depend on for revenue. Overall online ad revenue is expected to fall 2.9% this year but rebound to 5.9% growth next year, according to forecasts by market researcher eMarketer.

Eliminating Annoying Ads

There are some other glimmers of improvement in display ads. Prices for ads sold through middlemen known as ad networks have been rising each month this year, and are up 32% since the start of the year, according to PubMatic, which helps online publishers run the most lucrative ads. "The market has bottomed," says PubMatic CEO Rajeev Goel. "Marketers are returning to the fray."

Yet the display-ad market will not bounce back as quickly as the market for search ads, the mainstay for Google, says Bryan Weiner, CEO of digital ad agency 360i. While marketers can measure the effectiveness of search-related ads through several means, including whether they result in the sale of a product, they've been less successful in testing the effectiveness of display ads other than by counting clicks, widely acknowledged to be inadequate for brand-oriented display ads.

Yahoo SEO faces unique challenges as well. Even as it cuts some operations, it's making some costly investments in its many Web properties, as well as spending $100 million on a new branding campaign. It's also revamping its ad systems to eliminate annoying ads as well as ads advertisers pay to appear in search results. Those and other changes are expected to cost Yahoo about $60 million in revenue a quarter but eventually pay off in the form of more satisfied users and advertisers.
Losing Search Share

Still, all that means lower sales and higher costs in the short term. Meantime, a deal announced July 28 to let Microsoft (MSFT) handle Yahoo's search operations likely will take until early next year to be approved by regulators. The companies estimated the deal would boost Yahoo's operating profit by $500 million annually, but it might take Yahoo a couple of years after the deal closes to reap that benefit.

Despite Yahoo's struggles since it rejected several Microsoft buyout and search deal proposals last year, its stock has risen 31%. But that's just under the Nasdaq's 32% rise—and Yahoo has underperformed the index even more than that in the nearly three months since it finally reached a search deal with Microsoft. Investors were disappointed that Bartz didn't craft a more lucrative deal with Microsoft, which did not include the multimillion-dollar up-front payment many had expected.

Moreover, Yahoo has continued to lose search share since then. Share fell by half a percentage point, to 18.8%, in September, while Google and Microsoft's Bing gained, according to market researcher comScore (SCOR). That's why some investors remain bearish. "We don't think Carol Bartz has a coherent plan for Yahoo in search," says Jeff Donlon, managing director of technology research for asset manager Manning & Napier, which holds shares in Google and Microsoft but not Yahoo.
Hoping for a Faster Turnaround

Analysts, however, have turned moderately more positive on the stock of late, with 14 recommending a buy, 14 advising a hold, and only one calling for a sell, according to FactSet (FDS). Wall Street is hoping Bartz's cost-cutting and strategic focus will set up Yahoo for a faster turnaround as marketers open up their wallets starting in the fourth quarter. And if the Microsoft deal passes regulatory muster, Yahoo will not only reduce its search costs but start to get significant revenue from Redmond.

Chicago Ad Firm Cramer-Krasselt Scores Big Wth Porsche TV Spot

Chicago Sun-Times

The family of Porsche models comes together 

in a desert setting to welcome the new Panamera in a 

television spot from Cramer-Krasselt/Chicago

Mention the words "cars" and "advertising" in the same breath, and most people's eyes start to glaze over fast. Cars rarely are the most fascinating or innovative category in the advertising world, though the Modernista shop in Boston did try to do some interesting things with the Cadillac brand. But now that account is in review, and, probably wisely, Modernista won't be pitching to retain it. Welcome to the advertising world circa 2009, where there's little rhyme or reason for much of what happens.

But while Cadillac starts to sort out where it wants to go with its advertising, we're happy to report that Cramer-Krasselt/Chicago has developed a rather nifty campaign to introduce Porsche's new Panamera, the very-high-end car manufacturer's first four-door sports car. The campaign's theme line is "Welcome to the Family," a reference to a long line of Porsche models introduced over the course of 60 years the German carmaker has been in business.

When C-K announced a couple of years ago that it had won the Porsche business, some observers believed the high-gloss account's arrival in Chicago would mark the start of a major turnaround in the local ad industry and the addition of more such accounts at agencies all over town. Things, of course, haven't quite worked out that way. And frankly, some of C-K's early, rather perfunctory-looking Porsche work didn't suggest the agency was exactly going to catapult car advertising to new heights or that the shop was singlehandedly going to turn around Chicago's entire ad industry.

But now comes the introductory television commercial for the "Welcome to the Family" campaign, and it's definitely a cut above C-K's previous Porsche work. Called "Family Tree," the debut spot was filmed in a dramatic desert setting, where what looks to be nearly the entire family of Porsche models -- including the 917 model driven by Steve McQueen in the movie "Le Mans" -- have come together to welcome the four-door Panamera into the fold.



With the help of some razor-sharp editing, the commercial tracks the Porsches racing across the flat terrain, while the voiceover explains Porsche's reason for being -- suggesting that every model introduced has answered a dream of one sort or another. That insight serves as the segue to welcome the Panamera into the mix. As the forceful voiceover talent describes the Panamera as another bold line on the Porsche family tree, we see an illustrative overhead shot of the cars creating a tree and its branches on the desert floor.

Altogether, this is a beautifully shot, edited and written commercial, though we would have preferred that the line of copy "the first true sports car for four" include the word "passengers" just for clarity's sake.

The "Family Tree" spot has a great deal of spit, polish and impact, but the new print work for the Panamera introduction isn't quite so spiffy. There's some exceedingly slick and rhythmic writing in the executions, to be sure, but C-K has chosen to include several images of design details from Porsches of the past that do tend to create a cluttered look that isn't in keeping with the sleek Porsche aesthetic this campaign otherwise so effectively underscores.

Beezag - The Reinvention of Advertising

Reuters

Beezag® has officially launched its NEW exclusive invite-only online and mobile advertising platform that is revolutionizing the world of advertising. Beezag benefits both the "Beezagger" (user) and the advertiser by providing the user with monetary returns while giving advertisers a direct and targeted medium to interact with the most attractive segment of the Web 2.0 and mobile market, educated adults ages 18-24, which tallies 72 million strong in the U.S.

"Our strategic vision at Beezag is to capitalize on an opportunity to create digital advertising distribution that works in today's environment, where traditional advertising models are becoming more fragmented by the changes in technology and consumer behavior," said Richard Smullen, Co-Founder of Beezag.

Beezag is the brainchild of entrepreneurs Richard Smullen and Laurent Alhadeff (the young founders behind South African media, technology and fashion market leader SouthWinston Investments). They have created an impressive team of business-savvy technologists, including six-year Google veteran Brian Dick to manage worldwide revenue; Steven Spencer, the former-Upoc/Dada Entertainment(TM) CEO/CTO as Beezag's CTO; and Ex-Forbes Digital VP Nicholas Ricci as the Beezag USA Sales VP.

Beezag's target audience is tech-savvy 18 to 24-year-olds, typically college students, who know every trick to avoid ads. Knowing that this demographic constantly needs extra spending money, Beezag has developed its invite-only service in which members login and watch a full ad from start to finish. Beezag then rewards them with discounts and cash which can be paid into accounts like iTunes, PayPal(TM), their favorite charity or even their personal bank account.

Advertisers see Beezag as the solution to technology like DVR and online "banner-blindness," which is the root cause of this massive fragmentation that we are experiencing.

Through Beezag's Proprietary Profiling Engine, Beezag ensures delivery of a brand's full message to loyal, hand-raising customers, not prospects. When Beezaggers login to view ads (online, on Facebook or on their mobile phones), they discuss the specific brands/products they use (and are looking for) - whether it's the coffee they drink, sports team they follow or airline of choice. The secret behind Beezag is its patent-pending technology, which guarantees a complete view of each commercial, and if Beezaggers don't absorb the ad in its entirety, the advertiser does not pay and the user does not earn. 

Within a study issued by the DVR Research Institute in 2008, "77 percent of agency higher-ups said that DVR usage will prove to be the greatest challenge to the current ad model," (Ad Week, June 2009). Within this traditional advertising model, advertisers pay hundreds of billions of dollars for consumers' attention, but with new technology like the DVR, statistics are showing that "90 percent 'always/almost always' fast forward through commercials," (2008 Starcom USA-Tivo custom study). Advertisers see Beezag as the solution to technology like DVR and online "banner-blindness," which is the root cause of this massive fragmentation that we are experiencing.

Beezag provides a new online and mobile model for advertisers to directly target these consumers. The Beezag guarantee is that advertiser dollars are going towards ads that will be 100 percent viewed - start to finish.

Beezag is the game-changer in the advertising industry and is changing the way  consumers interact with brands and view ads so that instead of avoiding them, they will want more.

Through digital and affiliate agencies, some of the country's biggest brands have joined Beezag as advertisers. Two of the most recent include Dr. Pepper and Dentyne.

About Beezag:
Beezag is a privately funded company headquartered in New York City's bustling Chelsea neighborhood. Its founders had an epiphany when they set out to create a revolutionary philosophy for the only effective way to advertise in this info-laden age: through the targeted delivery of customized video ads to vetted and invited individuals in real time through any Internet-capable device.

MySpace Strives To Recapture Its Focus On Music, Entertainment

From the Wall Street Journal

A new executive team at MySpace is trying to reignite the brand by focusing on areas like music, videos and games as users abandon the social-networking site for cooler destinations.

MySpace, which is holding a conference this week for its global ad-sales staff, needs to lure visitors back and kick-start advertising revenue, ad executives say. Research firm eMarketer estimates U.S. ad spending on the site will be $495 million this year, down 15% from $585 million in 2008.

The basic challenge is similar to the one facing big Internet companies, such as Time Warner's AOL and Yahoo, that are under pressure to reinvent themselves for fickle audiences.

"I've been in the Internet business for 15 years. There's always the new, new thing," says Jason Hirschhorn, the company's chief product officer. "Everybody plateaus at some point. The ones that remain remain relevant with their user base."

In a strategy shift, MySpace is striving to become an online hangout for people to connect with friends over entertainment content, whether it's the new Pearl Jam album, blogs from celebrities like British pop singer Lily Allen or a karaoke contest for the Fox musical comedy "Glee."

MySpace says ramping up its technology initiatives to create new products that let users share such content with friends is an essential part of its strategy.

MySpace's online-hangout push marks an effort to focus its offerings and differentiate itself from rival Facebook. As an entertainment site, MySpace would compete for ad dollars with a broader group of Web sites, including online video sites like Google's YouTube and Hulu, a joint venture of General Electric's NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney. It also would compete against music sites like Pandora and portals like AOL, which is also trying to reinvent itself with a push to create content.

"This is not an all-things-for-everybody portal," Mr. Hirschhorn says. "This is a social entertainment experience."

Fox and MySpace are owned by News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

To take its new pitch to Madison Avenue, MySpace has hired former MTV executive Nada Stirratt as chief revenue officer, responsible for overseeing global ad sales. Ms. Stirratt, 44 years old, most recently worked as executive vice president of digital ad sales at Viacom's MTV Networks.

MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, who was hired nearly six months ago to revive the site and has since turned over almost the entire executive suite, introduced Ms. Stirratt to staff this week at the sales conference, during which executives outlined the company's strategy.

Although MySpace drew an audience of 64.2 million unique U.S. visitors in August, that figure is down 15% from the same period a year earlier, according to comScore. Facebook drew 92.2 million unique U.S. visitors in August, more than double the number a year earlier.

Like her rivals, Ms. Stirratt will have to address broader, looming questions about the viability of social-networking sites as a place for advertising.

Marketing via social-networking sites isn't simply about buying ads on a page. It requires that marketers interact with users on the sites, says Greg Smith, chief operating officer at Neo@Ogilvy, a digital ad agency owned by WPP. "It requires a whole new way of thinking," he says.

MySpace declined to make Ms. Stirratt available to comment.

Ms. Stirratt, who earlier in her career directed sales at Internet-ad company Advertising.com, has a reputation on Madison Avenue as a savvy businesswoman who understands the technical side of the Internet business but also knows how to build creative ad sponsorships that attract dollars from big brand advertisers.

So far, most of the developments under the new MySpace management team have focused on cleaning up the underlying technology of the site and making it easier for visitors to use. Users previously couldn't upload a photo to blog posts, for instance.

MySpace also is reconfiguring search technologies for the site and has removed features that didn't fit into its new strategy, including weather, jobs and classifieds. In the past few months, it has released features including a fresh homepage for its music site and a feature that connects to Twitter, the microblog site.

Further developments are likely to center on building technologies that let users more easily share entertainment.

Ad executives say that MySpace Music has registered some success, drawing 24.8 million unique U.S. visitors in September, up 24% from a year earlier, but they say they have yet to see major changes across the board for MySpace.

MySpace lost its way over the years as it got caught up in a race with Facebook, launched disparate initiatives and let technology and new-product developments lag, ad executives say.

Those missteps cost MySpace much of its buzz on Madison Avenue and its organic search marketing, says Shiv Singh, vice president and global social-media head at Razorfish, the digital-ad agency owned by Publicis Groupe.

"Marketers want to align their brands with the newest and the greatest. Currently, that is Facebook and Twitter," Mr. Singh says.

"Hardly a day goes by without a client asking me, 'What should I do with Facebook?' I don't get anywhere near as many questions about MySpace," he adds.

"They are not hiding from the challenges," says Doug Neil, senior vice president of digital marketing at GE's Universal Pictures, which recently bought promotions on MySpace for its films "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" and "Couples Retreat." He adds: "But can they re-steer the ship?"

Ohio TV Tax Flawed, Say Legal Scholars

Reuters

Sixteen of the nation's top constitutional law scholars, including the Honorable Kenneth Starr, former U.S. Solicitor General and Washington D.C. Circuit Court Judge, and Erwin Chemerinski, the author of a leading constitutional law treatise, believe that an Ohio Court of Appeals ruling upholding a satellite TV tax would dramatically erode Constitutional protections from discriminatory state regulation.

In a "friend of the court" brief filed with the Ohio Supreme Court, the scholars firmly supported DIRECTV`s and DISH Network`s position that Ohio's discriminatory tax treatment of satellite TV violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution of the United States. Each of the scholars has a particular expertise in the Commerce Clause - a provision of the Constitution designed to foster a vibrant national economy by prohibiting states from enacting protectionist measures that discriminate against interstate commerce.

Earlier this year, an intermediate Ohio appeals court ruled that a 5.5 percent state tax, which does not apply to consumers who choose cable TV service, does not violate the federal Constitution, overturning a 2007 ruling by the Ohio Court of Common Pleas that struck down the discriminatory tax as unconstitutional.

The scholars described the rule the Court of Appeals followed as "newly minted," and that it "unmoors the dormant Commerce Clause from its traditional roots, runs contrary to a multitude of Supreme Court cases, dramatically narrows the scope of the dormant Commerce Clause`s prohibition, and clears the way for the state to impose a variety of new state taxes that would not have passed muster under traditional dormant Commerce Clause principles."

Among those who also signed the brief, authored by former Ohio Solicitor Douglas Cole, are Norman Williams and Brannon Denning, two of the most prolific writers on Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

In a joint statement, the companies said, "The brief makes absolutely clear that the analysis adopted by the Court of Appeals in rejecting our claims was not only wrong, but if upheld, would dramatically erode the protections from discriminatory state regulation that the Constitution provides and on which our economy depends. We are pleased to have their support and confident that the Court will appreciate and consider the viewpoints of this distinguished group of scholars in its deliberations."