Quarterly Newsletter Issue 7: September, 2009
The Online Publishers Association: Still Driving With its Foot On the Brake Interstitials: An Immersive Branding Experience Extend the Value of Your Brand and Grow Revenue Beyond Existing Boundaries - Build a Vertical Ad Network with adConductor Smart Media Connecting Consumers to Brands Publisher Spotlight: Grandparents.com and Womenshealthbase.com

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The Online Publishers Association: Still Driving With its Foot On the Brake

By: Jarvis Coffin, President and CEO, Burst Media

The Online Publishers Association (OPA), the trade association representing the digital interests of mostly offline media companies, opted to set fire to the forest floor in August with the release of a study on brand advertising metrics that scorched the effectiveness of the entire Internet as a brand medium save for its 50 or so members who served as the “proxy for content sites” in the study. That means all the other non-proxy content sites or, basically, the remainder of the Internet and all its long-standing quality Publishers were voted off the island by the report.

Unfortunately, the OPA study is a problem for anyone rooting for the Internet to get to a $50 billion industry – and I am. No one is confused about the OPA’s mission: countless years and considerable wealth and innovation went into building the global media franchises that the OPA mostly represents, and keeping them secure amidst the torrent of new media brought on by the Internet is an important and worthwhile assignment. They should be beacons. But we must live in the real world and the real world online isn’t confined to a city block. It isn’t a gated community. It just isn’t. Look up.

The OPA should be the representative for all quality content online including the publishers touched by ad networks like Burst who have been publishing quality content on the Internet before the OPA was formed. The OPA needs to get over the “branded” content thing and identify with millions of consumers online that have abiding relationships (some might call these brand relationships) with plenty of sites the OPA has never heard of.

The IAB is wisely reaching out at a critical time to long tail, independent publishers (http://www.iab.net/member_center/longtailalliance). The OPA should be ahead of it. The OPA, informed by the centuries-old mission of its founders - themselves once small, independent media pioneers – should be the principal steward of online content and quality and a fierce advocate for publishers, big and small, that work hard to create meaningful destinations for consumers. The OPA should be filled with empathy, not petty rivalry.

Let’s face it, many brand advertisers are looking for proof points to support their desire to allocate more money online in response to all the signs that proclaim that’s where the people are! The very fact that the Internet – brand sites as well as long tail sites – is “where the people are” gives testimony to its importance in the media ecosphere. We at Burst will continue to bring to brand advertisers proof of the Internet’s value – brand sites and long tail sites, and we will continue to support web publishers – big and small – so they can continue to publish quality content and grow their sites.

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Interstitials: An Immersive Branding Experience

By: Noreen Hafez, Director of Product Management, Burst Media

Breaking through ad clutter can be a challenge for creative innovators. One way advertisers can attract a user’s attention is to leverage a large creative canvas by using an interstitial, transitional, commercial break, or superstitial ad unit. All of these names describe the same ad unit, which is viewable when navigating between web pages or upon site entry, revealing a new content-free web page that is rich in advertisement messaging and design. The interstitial is often comparable to a television ad, but with more dynamic features and at a fraction of the cost! The opportunity for advertising success with an interstitial is enhanced when the unit can leverage the reach acquired by reputable, transparent ad networks, like Burst Media. This relationship allows the advertiser to capture a 100% share-of voice of its audience as the unit is an exclusive page take-over. The interstitial can drive superior ad performance with click-through rates ranging from 3%-14%, and allows users to interact with features like pause or replay a video, turn on sound, enter data into data capture fields, and select hot spots that appear in the animation. These features have extraordinary interaction rates measuring from 11% to 40%, according to Unicast.

While an interstitial may briefly delay a user from getting to the web page they are visiting, it actually offers them much more control over their web experience than other ad units. Interstitials typically display for approximately 10 seconds and include a skip/close option. This superior viewing experience lends itself to a more engaged consumer receptive to a brand’s message.

The interstitial is a unique ad unit that gives advertisers and their agencies few creative limitations. The unit’s size provides advertisers with a broad creative canvas to communicate their message and deliver an exceptional brand experience.

For web publishers, the interstitial unit offers additional monetizable ad inventory that does not take away from existing placements, higher CPMs, and an attractive compelling offering to attract brand advertisers. It also gives publishers higher brand association to increase site relevance and exposure.

Click here to check out what a savvy film marketer accomplished with an interstitial ad powered by Unicast.

For more information about interstitials or other Rich Media capabilities with Burst Media, visit our Creative Solutions page.

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Extend the Value of Your Brand and Grow Revenue Beyond Existing Boundaries - Build a Vertical Ad Network with adConductor

By: Sean Keaveny, Senior VP of Sales, adConductor

The trend in media consumption indicates that consumers are spending more time online compared to traditional media channels: this rush online has caused the web to fragment. Consumers look for information on search engines, but spend their time on the thousands of sites that surround their passions. comScore reports that reach on vertical networks increased 172% over a year ago (comScore MediaMetrix 3/09), and the advertising dollars are following. Research shows that more ad dollars are being spent on vertical content online than search. (Razorfish Digital Outlook Report 2009)

Building a vertical network is a great way to leverage the value of a media brand and capture additional ad revenue. Vertical networks should become an extension of a Publisher’s brand mission by supporting affiliated sites that possess complementary high quality content and similar audiences. Vertical networks are built around interests (such as cooking or sports), demographics (such as teens or moms), or around a Publisher’s brand like Martha Stewart Living’s Martha’s Circle, or MTV Networks’ Parents Connect and Comedy Tribe. Aggregating audiences across similar content sites in a vertical network also allows the opportunity to re-market to a larger audience pool. A vertical network can not only increase a Publisher’s reach, it can also provide a new set of products for their sales team to offer established customers.

To help publishers build and grow a vertical network, Burst offers its powerful ad management platform, adConductor™. adConductor was built to make the process of recruiting, managing, and paying publishers seamless. Our dozen plus years of experience successfully working with publishers in the Long Tail of the Internet means that we know what it takes to maximize their revenue, and keep them engaged with a media partner’s sales team.

adConductor provides end-to-end ad management technology and services designed specifically to meet the needs of online media companies, large Web publishers, and ad networks. adConductor seamlessly integrates with existing business processes – from CRM through financial reporting – and provides industry-leading ad management functionality. As a hosted technology solution, adConductor allows campaign managers to forecast and build proposals, traffic and test creative, and take advantage of powerful targeting and remarketing capabilities. Once a campaign is running, our industry leading campaign management and optimization system gives campaign managers the information and tools needed to ensure campaigns perform. For affiliate publishers, a branded publisher portal offers transparency and reporting at levels based on specific business rules.

adConductor also offers the option to outsource the professional services required to manage a vertical network. Our experienced teams of professionals can assist throughout the set-up and growth of a network and provide publisher recruitment, network management, ad trafficking and billing services. As the technology that powers networks such as MTV Tribes, BET, Reed Business, Burst Network and Burst Direct, adConductor is constantly evolving and improving to remain at the cutting edge of advances in ad management.

Please contact the adConductor team to learn more about our offerings at 781.852.5231, or submit a request online.

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Smart Media Connecting Consumers to Brands

By: Andres Morón, VP of Marketing and Business Development, Spongecell

Burst recently partnered with Spongecell – an interactive technology company that offers advertisers an innovative creative solution that converts consumer engagement to consumer participation. Burst and Spongecell will work with advertisers to design and build ads that will incorporate Spongecell’s interactive features to be served across Burst Network. Spongecell's technology platform transforms ad creative into a truly interactive advertising unit that makes it easy for messages to flow directly from the ad unit into calendars, mobile devices, social networks and email inboxes. Spongecell’s advertising units provide interactivity without the need for the viewer to expand the ad, and allows marketers to measure and report granular levels of engagement. Spongecell ads benefit consumers by enabling them to interact through a variety of social media features within the ad unit. These interactive features allow consumers to become fans of a brand on social media web sites, stream video and audio, browse through the brand’s products or offers, download coupons, and locate the brand’s nearest point of sale - all within the confines of the banner. The partnership will also allow advertisers to benefit from Spongecell’s interactive web based reporting that tracks and visualizes campaign performance on a daily basis. Spongecell and Burst will use this information during a campaigns’ flight to proactively optimize ad placements with a focus on increasing ROI. This powerful reporting coupled with Burst Network’s full transparency will give advertisers insight into campaign performance to the site level. At Spongecell Interactive, we are very excited about this partnership and look forward to building successful interactive advertising solutions that fulfill an advertiser’s campaign goals, while complementing the browsing experience on publisher sites.

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Publisher Spotlight: Grandparents.com and Womenshealthbase.com

By Caitlin Quaranto, Manager of Publisher Services, Burst Media

It is great to be grand! www.grandparents.com embraces all that is the modern grandparent, showcasing activities for grandchildren of all ages from toddlers to teens. Learn how to get more fun, smiles, and memories out of the time you spend with your grandchildren by logging onto www.grandparents.com . Find relevant and informative articles including 100 Things You Can Teach Grandchildren & The Guide to Grandparent Names. A newcomer to Burst Network, www.grandparents.com is an anchor site in the Moms, Family Travelers, & Baby Boomers Network. Visit www.grandparents.com to see everything it offers grandparents.

What’s really in your beauty products? Need workout tips for a better body? How about cool pregnancy lifestyle videos? All this can be found at www.womenshealthbase.com. WomensHealthBase.com combines medically reviewed original content from doctors and medical researchers, as well as health information and videos. Since joining Burst in June 2009, www.womenshealthbase.com has become a vital part of the Burst Moms and Burst Wellness Networks. Log on to www.womenshealthbase.com today to get the inside scoop on health information important to women.

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