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  • Facebook Connects Mobile App Ads To Pages

    Facebook announced that it is aligning mobile app ads to other ad formats by connecting them to Facebook Pages and adding social context, such as indicating when a friend like a Page. It’s also adding like, comment, and share buttons.

    Facebook’s Calvin Grunewald said in a blog post, “Desktop (canvas) app ads, have always included like, comment, and share buttons, but will now be connected to a Facebook Page as well. These changes will offer you consistency amongst all your Facebook ads, and will have the added benefit of social context.”

    Advertisers won’t be able to create or edit app ads in the old format beginning on July 2nd. All old-style app ads will be migrated to the new style on August 6th. If you don’t connect your ad to a Page, Facebook will create a new Page for it. There’s an API solution for connecting it here.

    Facebook has also changed how Domain Insights determines domains for which posts, clicks, and impressions are recorded.

    “This update will make it easier for you to see all of your Facebook traffic if you use multiple subdomains,” explains Grunewald. “Previously we would only show the event of the domain for which it occurred. Within the next couple of days we will now show each event against the domain as well as each of the parent domains.”

    More on the changes here.

    Image via Facebook

  • Twitter Forecast: Cloudy with a Certainty of Hyperlocal Weather Targeted Ads

    In the near future, you can expect to see a new type of promoted tweet that’s appearing in your feed because it’s raining outside.

    Or because the forecast calls for a b-e-a-utiful weekend.

    Twitter has partnered with The Weather Company (Channel), who will be “the first media partner to tap into Twitter’s ad API,” to allow marketers to target, in real-time, Twitter users based on the current or upcoming weather in their hyperlocality.

    Let’s make sense of a particularly thorny paragraph of ad-speak, shall we?

    WeatherFX enables brands to capitalize on weather’s effect on consumers by automatically triggering advertising in real time against hyper-local conditions…

    If it’s sunny and nice in your area, you might see a promoted tweet for a brewery’s light, crisp pilsner.

    Advertisers can dynamically activate different Promoted Tweets within each geolocation…

    And if it’s cold and rainy somewhere else, those people will see promoted tweets for the brewery’s dark, rich coffee stout.

    WeatherFX triggering factors in a variety of different weather conditions and condition mixes, including temperature, humidity, wind, rain, dew point and more, and/or can be a combination of weather-triggering targeting and Twitter’s targeting abilities such as location, user’s interests, keywords, device, and more…

    The ad overlords have brought their A-game. Dew point?

    “Marketers have a search strategy and a social strategy. But with one-third of the economy impacted by weather, most marketers also need a weather strategy,” said Curt Hecht, chief global revenue officer for The Weather Company. “Providing marketers with the means to weather-trigger tweets helps them create more locally relevant content for each and every Twitter user.”

    Here’s an obviously fake tweet, for context:

    All kidding aside, this is a solid partnership that it likely to entice plenty of marketers to let Twitter target based on the weather. The fact that it’s so easy for me to think up scenarios where this could be useful is a testament to that.

    Image via YouTube

  • Will This Make Facebook Ads More Effective?

    The effectiveness of Facebook ads has been questioned time and time again. A few months ago, the topic picked up a great deal of momentum after a controversial video came out suggesting fake accounts were harming results. Forrester’s Vice President and Principal Analyst said brands were becoming disillusioned with Facebook.

    Other than relying on the organic sharing of your content and hoping for referrals from that, however, advertising is about the only way your’e likely to get any results from Facebook. It’s not going to be from the organic reach of your Page posts, which Facebook confirmed last week. At least Facebook appears to be making moves to increase the effectiveness of its ads.

    Do you think Facebook ads are becoming more effective? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Here’s the graph that Forrester shared with its comments. Granted, that’s based on Q3 2013 data. But still.

    Facebook said it will soon start including information about the websites and apps its users visit in its ad targeting, ignoring the user’s browser’s “Do Not Track” setting.

    “Many companies already do this,” the company said in a blog post. Facebook’s stance is essentially that not everyone agrees about this practice, so they’re going to go ahead and do it. From AdAge:

    Facebook already enables retargeting to users who’ve previously visited specific websites and apps, which advertisers can turn on by affixing tracking software to their products. Additionally, ads can be retargeted to Facebook users on their desktop screens via FBX, the company’s ad exchange, which a plethora of demand-side platforms like Turn and AdRoll are plugged into.

    But what Facebook is now enabling is far more expansive in terms how it uses data for ad targeting. In a move bound to stir up some controversy given the company’s reach and scale, the social network will not be honoring the do-not-track setting on web browsers. A Facebook spokesman said that’s “because currently there is no industry consensus.” Social-media competitors Twitter and Pinterest do honor the setting. Google and Yahoo do not

    Facebook uses the example of a user who is considering purchasing a new television, and starts researching TVs on the web and in mobile apps. That’s when the user could start seeing ads for TVs on Facebook. It may also use that information to show you ads for other electronics later on, ‘like speakers or a game console to go with your new TV.”

    This does have the potential to make ads a great deal more effective, and frankly, it’s surprising that the company hasn’t been doing this for a long time already.

    You can opt out of this kind of targeting by using the Digital Advertising Alliance opt out (which is in beta). You can see a list of all the companies, agencies, and ad networks that participate in this here. Facebook will presumably be added to the list. It’s a big list.

    Facebook also introduced an Ad Preferences tool, which users can access from any Facebook ad. You could remove electronics from your ad interests, for example.

    How Ads Work on Facebook from Facebook on Vimeo.

    If users use the ad preferences tool enough, it should help ads become more effective, simply because it won’t be showing them to users who explicitly don’t want to see that particular kind of ad.

    As we discussed in a recent articles, Facebook has been working on making its platform better for small businesses, and has put together the Facebook Small And Medium Business Council.

    The company also, of course, announced the Audience Network in April, which will help mobile app developers monetize their apps using Facebook ads. Naturally, that means increased exposure for advertisers.

    BIA/Kelsey projects social ad revenues in the U.S. to hit $15 billion in 2018, largely driven by Facebook News Feed ads and Twitter’s promoted tweets. Resolution Media found that while advertisers invested 127% more in Facebook than in Twitter in 2013, Twitter consistently delivered a higher click-through rate. According to Adobe, however, Facebook ad CTRs were up 20% quarter-over-quarter in Q1.

    Do you believe Facebook ads will become more effective? Were they already effective? Let us know in the comments.

    Image via Facebook

  • Instagram Ads Going Global ‘Later This Year’

    On the heels of what the company is calling a very successful ad rollout in the US, Instagram has announced that they plan on taking their new ads global very soon.

    According to Instagram, they will build on their “momentum” by launching ads in users’ photo feeds in Canada, Australia, and the UK ‘later this year.”

    “The results for advertisers have been positive—and in some cases, well above the ad industry’s average for performance. We’re excited to build on this momentum, and in the coming months we will extend the same level of care and consideration as we introduce ads on Instagram to our global community,” says the company in a post.

    “As with our initial roll-out, we are committed to learning as much as we can while building Instagram as a sustainable business. Later this year, we’ll start by introducing ads on Instagram in three countries—Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In the future we’ll also look to introduce ads on Instagram to additional countries across the world.”

    After a month-long soft launch period, Instagram finally unveiled in-feed ads back in November of 2013. Starting with big-name partners like Ben & Jerry’s, Burberry, Levi’s, Macy’s, PayPal, and Michael Kors, Instagram’s ads look like regular old posts – but are marked with a ‘sponsored’ tag. Users can also hide them from their feeds if they so desire.

    The move came a little over a year after being acquired by Facebook.

    Image via Michael Kors, Instagram

  • Pinterest Tests Do-It-Yourself Promoted Pins, New Analytics

    Pinterest Tests Do-It-Yourself Promoted Pins, New Analytics

    Pinterest is beta testing do-it-yourself Promoted Pins and a new analytics offering. Last month, the company announced that it was rolling out Promoted Pins from a group of big partner brands, but with the new test, businesses of any size can promote their own pins.

    The do-it-yourself pins are available on a cost-per-cilck basis through ads.pinterest.com. For now, Pinterest is testing them with a few businesses including vineyard vines, Nicole Miller, and Shutterfly, but will make them available to everyone else in time. You can sign up to participate here.

    Promoted Pins appear in search and category feeds.

    The company is also refreshing its analytics offering with more detailed insights.

    “In addition to seeing what people are Pinning from your website, you’ll also be able to see how Pins from your Pinterest profile are performing,” says Pinterest’s Jason Costa. “We’ll tell you which of your Pins and boards are driving the most impressions, clicks and repins. We’ll also clue you in to Pins that drive engagement across different platforms.”

    They’re rolling this out slowly to “make sure everything works,” but if you have a business account, you should get access to it soon.

    A couple weeks ago, Pinterest announced that it is working with a small group of marketing technology companies, including Salesforce, Hootsuite, Spredfast, Percolate, Piqora, Curalate, and Tailwind, who are getting automated access to public dat through Pinterest’s Business Insights API. Partners were encouraged to add insights that aren’t available in Pinterest’s own offering.

    Both of Pinterest’s latest announcements may become quite significant to marketers as the company uses recent funding to expand its search offerings.

    Images via Pinterest

  • Twitter Acquires Namo Media To Add Its Native Ad Tech To MoPub

    Twitter has acquired Namo Media, a native advertising company known for in-stream ad technology. It’s backed by Google Ventures, betaworks, Trinity Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Susa Ventures as well as angel investors including Kevin Scott, Chung-Man Tam, Keith Coleman, Garrick Toubassi, Tikhon Bernstam, Michael Levit, Benjamin Ling, and Paul Buchheit.

    Here’s what they’re about:

    Both Twitter and Namo Media have confirmed the news, though terms were not disclosed.

    Twitter’s VP of Product Kevin Weil had this to say on the Twitter Advertising blog:

    We’re excited to let you know we’ve agreed to acquire Namo Media! Since we acquired MoPub last October, we have been working to bring native ads to mobile app publishers in order to create a more seamless and less intrusive ad experience for users. We believe strongly that all app developers large and small should be able to monetize their applications without sacrificing the user experience.

    In our conversations with the Namo Media team, it became clear we share a vision for how native advertising can improve the state of mobile app monetization for marketers, app publishers, and users. We’re thrilled to add Namo Media’s expertise and technology to the ecosystem MoPub and Twitter have already developed to continue building the best native ads platform for app developers and publishers.

    A message on the Namo Media blog says:

    At Twitter we’ll continue to work on building the best native advertising platform for app developers with the goal of continuing to improve the native ad landscape for all mobile app developers.

    …

    Combining our technology with MoPub will offer our current and future customers a more powerful platform to generate revenue, all while preserving an amazing user experience. If you’re an existing publisher partner looking for more information on how to take advantage of these future capabilities, we’ll reach out to help you transition to MoPub’s native ads platform.

    Twitter opened up MoPub’s programmatic native advertising platform to all advertisers less than two months ago.

    Last week, the company made a two-year $230 million deal with Omnicom to integrate its programmatic ad buying network Accuen with the MoPub exchange.

    Images via YouTube, Twitter

  • Kenshoo Solution Matches Paid Search Clicks To Facebook Audiences In Real Time

    Kenshoo announced a new offering called Intent-Driven Audiences (IDA), which it calls an “industry-first solution”. It matches clicks on paid search ads to audiences on Facebook in real time.

    Marketers can create Facebook Custom Audiences made up of those who have clicked on specific search ads. These can be targeted to get ads across Facebook’s entire ad inventory, a spokesperson for Kenshoo explains, including mobile, via Facebook’s advanced filtering capabilities to further refine targeting on top of consumer search intent data.

    According to Kenshoo, Facebook campaigns targeting IDA saw 110% higher ROI and 66% lower CPC in a multi-month test for a “leading national retailer”.

    The IDA campaigns on Facebook also had “significant positive impact” on paid search performance including 19% higher conversion rate and 22% increment lift in revenue.

    “We’re very excited about Intent-Driven Audiences and the ability to leverage signals from search marketing to reach our advertisers’ most valuable customers with Facebook advertising,” said Steve Katelman, EVP of Global Strategic Partnerships at Omnicom Media Group. “Kenshoo’s overall approach to audience management is very innovative, and the solutions they’ve brought to market help advertisers bridge the gap from branding to performance in driving bottom-line results.”

    “Facebook’s Custom Audience targeting capabilities allow marketers to reach the people that matter most to them – their loyal customers. Kenshoo’s Intent-Driven Audiences allows advertisers to bridge audiences across marketing channels by bringing together consumer intent signals from search campaigns and Facebook’s Custom Audience targeting capabilities to drive better results for their marketing efforts,” said Blake Chandlee, VP of Partnerships at Facebook.

    Kenshoo has offered Facebook Exchange access and support since January of 2013. It also support’s Google’s Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA).

    Image via Kenshoo

  • Google Announces Partner Select Marketplace

    Google Announces Partner Select Marketplace

    Google announced Google Partner Select, a new premium programmatic marketplace to connect publishers “investing in top-quality video” with brands that want to buy against it.

    The company says marketers are eager to buy against high quality video experiences, citing the projection from eMarketer that video ad spending will grow from 4 billion last year to nearly $6 billion in 2014.

    “Our brands and agencies want to buy this premium content programmatically, but have difficulty finding the high quality inventory they want,” said Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display and Video Advertising Products at Google. “Our publisher partners also want to take advantage of the ease and efficiency of programmatic to connect with top brands, but with transparency and control over how that happens. In order to grow the marketplace for everyone, we need to invest in the systems that will make it easier for brands and premium publishers to transact at scale.”

    Mohan shares these quotes from partners:

    “As a longtime Google partner, we are excited about what this marketplace has to offer. Video is the fuel for effective brand marketing and having more top quality video content available programmatically is going to open up all sorts of new possibilities for brand clients,” said Josh Jacobs, Global CEO, Accuen & President, Platforms and Partnerships, Omnicom Media Group. “That’s what Google is looking to accomplish with this marketplace and we look forward to working with them as it evolves.”

    “Video has become central to our strategy, and being able to sell premium video programmatically to top brand partners is a requirement in this dynamic marketplace,” said J.R. McCabe SVP, Video, Time Inc. “We are looking forward to working with Google to enable this technology and to develop this premium marketplace.”

    Google is also letting marketers and publishers execute direct, reservation-based sales through the DoubleClick platform. The company says this will help prevent “days of back-and-forth negotiations”.

    Image via Google

  • Google Puts Knowledge Graph Info In Ads

    Google is testing a new feature for search ads, which includes links to popups that contain Knowledge Graph information. It appears to replicate a feature that Google already utilizes in organic results.

    This was launched in January:

    Typically, like most Knowledge Graph descriptions, info is taken from Wikipedia. Recently, it was discovered that Google is actually tapping DMOZ for some of it.

    Arianna Wolf got some screenshots of the feature being used in ads, which were picked up by Search Engine Land.

    Here’s what it looks like:

    When clicked, it produces essentially the same effect as what you see in the first image from the organic results.

    Apparently the feature only appears on the ads that appear above the organic search results (as opposed to those on the side of the page).

    We’ve been unable to reproduce the test. It’s unclear how big it actually is.

    As Ginny Marvin at SEL points out, this feature could potentially drive people away from the actual ad click, similar to how the Knowledge Graph can already take traffic away from organic results. On the other hands, if it has a Wikipedia page or something else to point to, it could lend a bit of credibility to an advertiser the user isn’t familiar with.

    Image via Google

  • Twitter Makes $230 Million Ad Deal With Omnicom

    Twitter Makes $230 Million Ad Deal With Omnicom

    Omnicom announced that it has entered a two-year deal with Twitter worth $230 million to integrate its programmatic ad buying network Accuen with Twitter’s MoPub exchange.

    The Wall Street Journal, which appears to have gotten an exclusive on the news, shares statements from both companies:

    “This is the first holding company agreement we’ve done on the mobile ad exchange side,” said Twitter’s president of global revenue, Adam Bain, adding, “It’s great for us because we’ll now have high-quality advertisers coming through the exchange…We haven’t made an announcement about opening up Twitter to programmatic buys, but it’s natural that we’ll do it.”

    …

    “Our agreement with Twitter reflects what we look for in a media partnership – the opportunity to deliver first-to-market benefits that impact all aspects of all Omnicom clients’ digital investments, from content to placement to measurement,“ a statement from Omnicom read.

    The news follows a similar deal Facebook made last week with Publicis, which will see Facebook data integrated into the latter’s media-mix-modeling platform while Publicis’ product will be integrated into Facebook’s recently announced ad network.

    Omnicom confirmed its announcement on Twitter.

    The company also announced today that its TBWA Worldwide network has acquired Germany agency Heimat.

    Image via Twitter

  • Strata Survey Looks At Agency Ad Trends

    Strata has a new report out finding that, unsurprisingly, Facebook leads social media in advertising by agencies, with 86% saying they will likely use the platform in client campaigns. YouTube is in second place with 62% followed by Twitter at 57% and LinkedIn at 38%.

    The survey of agencies found that confidence in the ad economy is the highest it has been in the past five years. 62% of these agencies said they see business increasing this quarter compared to the same period last year, which is the highest that number has been as long as Strata has been conducting the survey.

    53% of them projected future growth to be better in the first half of this year than the last half of last year.29% are increasing their ad budgets from last year, which is the most Strata has found since 2008. 32% plan on hiring staff this year, and only 3% plan on reducing staff.

    “Ad agencies revealed an interesting dichotomy within the advertising industry; agencies are displaying high levels of confidence and are increasing their ad spend while they question the accuracy of reported Web traffic numbers and the inflated CPMs they may command,” said Strata president Joy Baer. Another interesting parallel was the optimism many agencies felt while they looked cautiously at rising ad costs as a major concern. The strength that our clients are reporting bodes well for the rest of the year.”

    As far as agencies’ plans for social media go, 49% of advertisers said they’re most likely to use Promoted Posts for their Facebook ad purchase, followed by Page Post ads (27%). YouTube is obviously the top online video site at 76%, followed by Hulu at 34%. 51%, the survey found, are more interested in streaming/online radio.

    BIA/Kelsey recently projected social ad revenues to hit $15 billion in 2018.

    Via MarketingCharts

    Image via PR Newswire

  • Twitter Wants You to Casually Share Promoted Videos in Your Tweets

    Twitter has always wanted tweets to include more media–whether that be photos, videos, or links to articles through Twitter Cards. Not only does it make for a more robust Twitter experience, but it paves the way for sponsored content. You know, ads.

    Twitter’s been feeling the post-IPO pressure lately, as some remain skeptical of the company’s ability to grow its user base, despite success in the paid content realm. It now appears that Twitter is testing a new way to not only promote engagement, but build a framework where the users themselves are placing advertisements within their own tweets.

    As first reported by Recode, Twitter is experimenting with a new video-sharing feature.

    The first instance of said feature seems to be tied to the upcoming Seth MacFarlane film, A Million Ways To Die In The West. Here’s what happens when you start entering a hashtag like #AMillionWays… into Twitter for iOS:

    When you select a video (‘provided’ by, not ‘promoted’ by…yet) Twitter will autocomplete the hashtag and queue up a video. You’ll have the chance to preview the video before clicking “attach”.

    “A short advertisement might play before this video,” reads a message that scrolls across the video when you preview it.

    Effort to replicate the feature test were unsuccessful on the Android app. Twitter kept mum in a statement about the feature.

    It’s pretty obvious what Twitter has in the works here. Right?

  • Google Changes Call-To-Action Video Ads, Video Ad Reporting

    Google revealed a new look for call-to-action overlays on YouTube videos, which apply to both desktop and mobile devices. They’re trading in two lines of text in favor of a single-line call-to-action. This gives more real estate to the video content, which will be better for users.

    Here’s what they look like expanded and collapsed:

    Google is making the change automatically, so advertisers won’t need to make any changes to existing ads.

    Call-to-action clicks will also now be included within the Clicks and CTR reporting metrics in AdWords for video. This should, as the company says, give advertisers the ability to better quantify the overall impact of the feature. In addition to that, Google is rolling out other reporting changes in AdWords for video. These include improved column sets, more conversion segmentation options, and the ability to access all metrics from the Videos tab.

    “We’re adding View Rate by default for all sets and are grouping sets of metrics by insight topic (like Views, Audience, Branding or Conversions),” says YouTube product manager Avi Fein. “This lets you see a snapshot of your campaign based on key objectives, as well as evaluate your overall campaign performance based on View Rate before diving deeper into individual targeting groups.”

    “You can now segment by conversion name and category, showing how your video campaigns are driving key conversion types,” Fein adds. “Now you can more easily optimize across your videos by seeing the entire set of metrics available in other tabs.”

    These features are already available.

    Images via Google

  • Happy Meal Mascot for McDonald’s is Nicknamed “McScary”

    Happy Meal Mascot for McDonald’s is Nicknamed “McScary”

    Have you always thought that Ronald McDonald was a bit on the creepy side? If so, you aren’t alone, and now it appears that McDonald’s has taken creepy to a new level with their new Happy Meal mascot named “Happy.” The Happy Meal mascot debuted on the Facebook and Twitter pages for McDonald’s on Monday and has since been renamed “McScary” by the Internet.

    McDonald’s is using the Happy Meal mascot in their campaign to encourage kids to eat healthier, which will include choosing yogurt over french fries when the chain makes that a Happy Meal side option starting on July 4. “Happy is about bringing more fun and excitement to kids’ meals, including eating wholesome food choices like low-fat yogurt,” the company said in a statement.

    Check out McScary/Happy below:

    So, yeah, that’s Happy. That’s the little cartoon guy that is supposed to encourage your kids to make healthy food choices. If this was a move to actually scare kids away from making healthy food choices and make them clamor for more double cheeseburgers, sodas, and fries, then well played, McDonald’s, well played. Otherwise, most people are left wondering what the hell is going on with the creepy animated mascot that has bulging eyes, huge teeth, and looks like his cheeriness is drug induced. The nickname McScary is well deserved, no doubt.

    The Twitter response to McDonald’s debuting the Happy Meal mascot has been quite entertaining. Check out a few tweets below and search for the hashtag #HappyMeal or #McScary for more comments.

    McDonald’s has made a couple of followup tweets since debuting Happy, and the company appears to be taking the confusion, fear, and mocking in stride.

    Just so you know, Happy isn’t new–McDonald’s introduced the mascot overseas back in 2009, and apparently it was successful enough to bring to the United States five years later. Maybe Europeans just don’t scare as easily as Americans (or Twitter wasn’t popular enough to make mocking a kid’s fast food hamburger mascot a thing back then).

    If you want to see more of McScary, check out the video below or watch the 31-second video on the McDonald’s Facebook page.

    Image via Twitter

  • Bing Ads Report Suite Gets New Geo Location Report

    The Bing Ads Report suite and API now features a new geographical location report. This had apparently been an highly requested feature.

    “In response to your feedback, we’ve redesigned how location information is displayed in the report to show you exactly which targeting method was used to serve your ad,” says Microsoft’s Fady Khoury in a blog post. “We’ve also gone under the hood to enable this report to incorporate new targeting features when they become available.”

    The new version can be found under Targeting. The old version is still there, but is now labeled “old version”.

    The old one didn’t clarify between physical location or search location when it came to what was being being served with ads. Now, there’s a column called “Location Type,” which identifies location type by “physical location” or “location of interest”.

    Another new column called “Most Specific Location” lets you see the most specific location that was used for targeting.

    Khoury offers this scenario to illustrate the helpfulness of the changes:

    Let’s say you sell your products only in Seattle, and you’re using the default targeting option for your campaign (“Show ads to people in, searching for, or viewing pages about your targeted location”). You open the new Geo Location report, and you see that 100 ad clicks have a “Physical location” location type and 80 ad clicks have a “Location of interest” location type.

    Based on this data, you conclude that a significant amount of people are searching for your business outside of Seattle, and decide to expand your targeting to more areas like Portland to reach out to potentially more interested people.

    The new stuff is apparently already available for all advertisers.

    Image via Microsoft

  • Facebook Extends Video Ads Into More Countries

    Facebook announced that it is introducing its Premium Video Ads in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the UK with a limited number of advertisers. These ads have been tested in the U.S. since December.

    The ads begin playing without sound as soon as they appear on screen, catching users’ attention through motion, and expanding to a full-screen experience with sound when clicked. Facebook says it will roll them out slowly, and monitor how people interact with them.

    “This limited introduction allows us to concentrate our efforts on a smaller number of advertisers with high-quality campaigns to create the best possible experience on Facebook,” the company says. People can expect to begin seeing these new ads over the next few months.”

    The company is also reminding businesses about the previously announced roll-out of new video metrics in Page Insights and Ads Reporting for all videos that are uploaded to Facebook. These were announced earlier this month, and will be available globally.

    The roll-out is still in the process of happening, and will continue over the coming weeks.

    Images via Facebook

  • McDonald’s Creepy Ass New Mascot Unveiled on Twitter

    McDonald’s Creepy Ass New Mascot Unveiled on Twitter

    Despite the fresh, new, hipster look that Ronald McDonald unveiled last month–he’s still a creepy-ass clown. There’s really no getting around that. Has there every been a time when Ronald McDonald didn’t give off a probable-sex-dungeon vibe?

    Well, move over Ronald. Happy’s here to take most of the attention away. McDonald’s recently unveiled their new Happy Meals mascot Happy, and it’s one of the more terrifying things a fast food chain has ever come up with, just behind KFC’s Double Down and Burger King’s commercials about The King watching you sleep.

    And now, a smattering of replies from astonished Twitter users…

    What the fuck is that creature?

    THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT

    Why is he in pain?

    Oh FUCK no…

    What the fuck…

    I didn’t want to sleep tonight, that’s cool

    Hey McDonald’s, is that Gary Busey?

    Goodbye…

    Yikes. That ain’t good.

    According to McDonald’s, that creature is the new “ambassador for balanced and wholesome eating.” Officialy hitting Happy Meals everywhere on May 23rd, whatever the hell that thing is “will encourage kids to enjoy fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy and wholesome beverages such as water or juice.”

    Here’s the craziest thing about this: Happy has been around for half a decade. It’s been used in France since 2009, and spread across Europe and Latin America over the past few years. They’re just now introducing that thing in the States, meaning it has to have been at least remotely successful in other parts of the world.

    The social media backlash to McDonald’s newest mascot is fierce, but I’m sure they can handle it. I mean, we’re talking about the company who had to get past the #McDStories and #Shamrocking fiascos.

    Image via McDonald’s, Twitter

  • Facebook Reportedly Makes $500 Million Ad Deal

    Facebook has entered into a multi-year advertising partnership with Publicis Groupe, according to a report from AdAge. It’s said to be worth about $500 million.

    The report includes this quote from Laura Desmond, CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group which led the negotiations:

    Publicis and Facebook are announcing a multi-year partnership focused on co-creation of product around data, video and images, including core Facebook and Instagram

    Facebook data, as a result of the deal, will reportedly be integrated into Publicis’ media-mix-modeling platform, while Publicis’ product will be integrated into Facebook’s new ad network.

    Facebook announced the Audience Network at f8 last month.

    The deal between Facebook and Publicis will reportedly focus on North America at first, before expanding to other parts of the world.

    Publicis is said to be the number 3 advertising holding company in the world.

    A BIA/Kelsey report released last week projects social ad revenues in the U.S. to hit $15 billion in 2018.

    Image via Facebook

  • BIA/Kelsey: U.S. Social Ad Revenues To Hit $15B In 2018

    BIA/Kelsey released its latest U.S. Social Local Media Forecast looking at 2013 – 2018. The firm expects social media ad revenues in the country to grow from $5.1 billion in 2013 to $15 billion in 2018. This would represent a compound annual growth rate of 24%.

    According to the report, 2014 is seeing the greatest year-over-year increase in social media ad revenues with a projected $8.4 billion. The firm chalks this up to increases in mobile and native advertising spend.

    Social display ad revenues are expected to grow from $3.3 billion in 2013 to $5.6 billion in 2018 while native social advertising is expected to grow from $1.8 billion in 2013 to a whopping $9.4 billion in 2018 largely thanks to Facebook’s News Feed ads and Twitter’s promoted tweets. The firm expects native social advertising to eclipse social display for the first time next year.

    “We were initially skeptical about the social-mobile market’s ability to capture optimal wallet share because of mobile’s limitations, such as smaller screen size, limited ad inventory and static creative,” said Jed Williams, VP, consulting at BIA/Kelsey. “Over the past year, however, Facebook, Twitter and other networks have generated dramatic revenue growth, primarily as a function of mobile ad acceleration and largely through natively integrated mobile ad formats. We expect this growth to continue throughout the forecast period.”

    “While social networks are enhancing the geotargeting capabilities of their ad platforms, local targeting is still an emerging capability,” said Williams. “As social usage further migrates to mobile platforms, the need for locally targeted messages and offers that leverage mobile’s unique capabilities will expand. We expect social local ad spend to increase steadily through 2018, as SMBs better leverage multi- and micro-targeting to optimize campaigns, and national brands drive more traffic to individual store locations and target consumers with more personalized offers.”

    The firm expects locally targeted advertising in the U.S. to grow from $1.3 billion in 2013 to $5.2 billion in 2018.

    Image via PR Newswire

  • Yahoo Launches New Native Ads

    Yahoo Launches New Native Ads

    Yahoo is rolling out new, image-rich native ads, which according to the company, will be a “seamless part of the content around them.”

    “These new ad formats can deliver deep user engagement and drive improved recall, intent and favorability for advertisers,” a Yahoo spokesperson tells WebProNews. “With half of our monthly active users coming to Yahoo on a mobile device, they are also designed to be mobile-first and targeted to the right consumer to drive even better results.

    The ads are available through Yahoo Gemini, the marketplace the company announced in February.

    Here’s what they look like:

    “When advertising is a seamless part of the stories, photos and videos around it, it enhances the way people discover and share, while increasing engagement, recall, intent and favorability for advertisers,” says Yahoo Head of Americas Ned Brody. “We’re excited to move toward a new mobile experience that brings together engaging content and even richer advertising.”

    As the image above shows, Netflix is already on board for the new formats.

    They’re clearly marked as sponsored, and will appear within users’ content streams, article pages, and image galleries across Yahoo properties. When clicked, they’ll take users to the brand’s site or to a full-screen visual.

    Image via Yahoo

  • Pinterest Rolls Out Next Phase Of Promoted Pins

    Pinterest Rolls Out Next Phase Of Promoted Pins

    Pinterest announced Monday that it is rolling out the next phase of its Promoted Pins ad product. The company began testing them last fall.

    Pinterest is currently working with a small group of brands including: ABC Family, Banana Republic, Expedia, GAP, General Mills, Kraft, Lullemon Athletica, Nestle (Purina, Dreyer’s/Edy’s Ice Cream, Nespresso), Old Navy, Target, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, and Ziploc.

    “During the test brands will work with Pinterest to help ensure the pins are tasteful, transparent, relevant and improved based on feedback from the Pinterest community,” a Pinterest spokesperson tells WebProNews.

    “Tens of millions of people have added more than 30 billion Pins to Pinterest and brands are a big part of this,” says head of partnerships Joanne Bradford. “Brands help people find inspiration and discover things they care about, whether it’s ideas for dinner, places to go or gifts to buy. We hope Promoted Pins give businesses of all sizes a chance to connect with more Pinners.”

    Pinterest says it’s keeping the test small for now as it collects feedback, but expects to open up the product to more businesses later this year.

    A couple months ago, AdAge reported that the company was looking for spending commitments of between one and two million dollars, and pricing CPMs between $30 or $40, though we’ve not confirmed this.

    DIgiday, however, shared a pitch deck indicating that CPMs would be about $30, and that the company is seeking six-month commitments at roughly $150K per month ($900,000 total). Ads targeted upon search keywords will be priced on a CPC basis, it indicated, while those placed in “Everything & Popular Feeds” will be on a CPM basis. Promoted Pins can be placed in 32 different categories, according to that, and advertisers will be able to target US-only, the user’s location and the “metro-city level”. The ads will also be targeted based on device. Age will not be a targeting option initially, but apparently will become one later.

    The newly announced ads will appear in search and category feeds.

    Image via Pinterest