Quarterly Newsletter Issue 9: April 2010
It's All About the Content Performance Driven Interactive Ads on Burst Direct Publisher Spotlight Video is On at Burst Network Proposed Privacy Legislation Will Do More Harm than Good for Web Publishers The IAB’s Long Tail Alliance

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It's All About the Content

By Jarvis Coffin, CEO, Burst Media

Earlier this month while delivering his keynote speech at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit, Rupert Murdoch nailed it when discussing the role of content in our daily lives:

"These days our homes and offices are cluttered with the latest electronic devices. It is easy to be dazzled by this new technology. But the bright and shiny wonders that technology gives us can be like the desert sun – they can blind us to what is real and valuable. Amid the digital dazzle, we risk missing the magic: the creative content that brings these devices to life."

It has bothered me forever that the leading trade event in the interactive space is called ad:tech. It bothers me still that investment bankers and analysts covering this space hail from the technology practices in their firms. That fact alone has helped perpetuate the advertising model chaos online, devoid as it has always been of appropriate amounts of media vision and experience.

The technology of radio is still amazing to me, but the only time I think about it is when I drive through a tunnel and lose the signal. Television beams into our living rooms thanks to satellites in geo-synchronous orbit over earth, which is astonishing – though I never think about it unless I’m trying to explain to someone why the Internet is not about the technology, but about the content. USA Today gets to market thanks to similar satellite technology along with four-color newspaper presses occupying a facility the size of a football field that can churn out 85,000 folded copies of the paper per hour before they are bundled and heaved into the back of a truck. It’s remarkable. And I never think about it.

Instead, I think about content. What’s to be read, what’s to be viewed, what’s to be heard? I think about what’s on.

Murdoch is right. We can be blind to what’s real and valuable. What is real and valuable is that we are awash in content. This is the self-evident truth of the Internet Age, the source of all activity and data, the purpose of every machine and the wellspring of all hopeful searching – paid, or otherwise.

Tubes and wires and bolts of lightning aside, there is no story unless it comes to life and rises from the table. Content brings media to life. And media must be alive if advertising is ever to profit from relationship.

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Performance Driven Interactive Ads on Burst Direct

By Noreen Hafez, Director of Product Management and Marketing

Burst Direct recently launched a new ad format that has the capability to be one of the most powerful conversion tools to date: the Spongecell interactive ad.

Spongecell ads are built to encourage audiences to easily navigate, interact and convert within the creative without disrupting their online browsing experience. This allows Burst Direct and its advertisers to create an innovative way to showcase products, answer questions, engage with audiences within social media, notify interested shoppers of discounts and coupons and help lead them to the ultimate goal of converting.

Click the images below to see the demos.

Click the images below to see demos

The simplicity of the Spongecell ad makes it easy to customize with features that are relevant to both advertiser and visitor. Spongecell includes features that drive people to your Facebook fan page, allow you to repurpose existing videos and let visitors schedule/add events to their calendars with a click of a button. Other interactive features include email registration to request product information, or to be added to your mailing list or subscribe to your online newsletter. You can also utilize a mapping feature that automatically detects a visitor's IP address or allow direct zip code input and will locate the closest storefronts where your product or service are available. The Spongecell banner also acts as a viral tool that allows audience to invite, by email and/or SMS, friends and family to view products or services, download and send coupons, or register to receive emails and special offers.

With Spongecell, you’ll also receive detailed campaign reporting that includes standard impressions, click-through and mouse-over rates. You can also view detailed metrics on which screens were viewed the most and/or clicked on, so you can gauge interest and optimize to that screen. For example, if your map location finder page was the most viewed and clicked on, you’ll know that people are trying to find a specific location for your retail store.

In addition to measuring all interactions and screens that visitors engaged with, Spongecell offers an enhanced way for advertisers to drive participation through remarketing. Any visitor that interacts with your Spongecell unit will be tagged and Burst Direct can remarket the same ad unit or a different one to help drive them down the purchase funnel and lead them to a solid conversion.

When it comes to engagement, customization, interaction metrics and remarketing, Spongecell interactive ads are a one-stop solution. Ask your Burst Direct rep today about how you can utilize Spongecell to make your campaigns deliver.

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Publisher Spotlight

By Caitlin Quaranto, Manager of Publisher Services, Burst Media

Take your scrapbooking into the 21st century and do more with your photos at www.cropmom.com. CropMom is your source for online scrapbooking allowing you to create digital scrapbook pages, greeting cards, and art.  A Burst publisher since 2009 and a key site in the Burst Moms Network, www.cropmom.com embodies the niche content sites that Burst works with.  Bring your favorite family photos over to www.cropmom.com and easily start creating your online scrapbook today.

Have a little chef on your hands?  What if your granddaughter is the next Picasso?  Is your star student is looking for a challenging game of Sudoku? Activity Village (www.activityvillage.co.uk) is the place to go!

Since 2001 www.activityvillage.co.uk has been an integral part of Burst and a one-stop shop resource for parents, grandparents, and teachers to help keep kids busy while having fun!  A Burst Network sales team favorite, www.activityvillage.co.uk is an anchor site in the Burst Moms, Baby Boomers, Entertainment, and Family Travelers networks.  

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Video is On at Burst Network

By Noreen Hafez, Director of Product Management and Marketing

Online advertising these days is all about video – video in-banner, video in-stream… and there’s a ton of video networks popping up daily that claim to have the best video content.

Cutting through the clutter is significant, and having one network that meets your video needs along with your non-video formats is challenging. Burst Network’s ability to offer 100% transparent high quality content, customized in-banner rich media formats and video, and in-stream video helps advertisers allocate their entire media plans for easy campaign tracking, evaluation, optimization, and reporting.

Click below to see demo

Through a partnership with Pointroll, Burst Network introduced the Burst Video In-Banner in 2005 and it quickly became a very easy and successful format for advertisers to use. Burst Video In-Banner offers broad reach and runs in any 300x250 box across Burst Network. If certain minimum impressions levels are met production fees are waived – maximizing ROI for advertisers. Other attractive features include a seamless production process and detailed tracking that allows for optimization to the best performing sites. Best of all, the Burst Video In-Banner can resolve into a 300x250 banner at no additional cost.

Recently Burst Network began to offer advertisers Video In-Stream (pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll) across long-tail video content websites and quality brand video publishers. By reaching out to where people go daily to consume video, advertisers are accessing audiences who are “tuned in” to see their ad. Brand advertisers can now use this powerful medium with sight, sound and motion to reach audiences with a compelling :15-:30 second clip and a companion 300x250 banner. Burst Network can even find contextually relevant content to run your Video In-Stream ads, so that your brand is associated with content that speaks to your audience.

Performance has been a key driver for increased video adoption. In fact, strong performance has been reported with click-through and average video completion rates. Burst Network provides these and other important engagement metrics that help advertisers analyze their campaign success, including unique visitors, impressions delivered (people who activated the video player to see the video content), share of voice, percentage of the video advertising watched, average time viewed and frequency of played video, along with click-through rates and completion rates.

Burst Network content channels ready for video run the gamut and include top-quality sites. Advertisers looking for an established network with 15 years of industry experience can rely on Burst Network to deliver their video messages to the right audience. Contact your Burst Network representative today to learn more about our quality video inventory.

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Proposed Privacy Legislation Will Do More Harm than Good for Web Publishers

By Dave Stein, CTO, Burst Media

You may have heard the European Union is enacting new laws that would require web users to consent to Internet cookies. The legislation essentially dictates that cookies can’t be placed on a user’s computer unless it’s strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the user.

Got that?

Joking aside, these implications are serious for web publishers. Sure, websites use cookies for countless legitimate reasons such as session management and preferences. But could you imagine a world where every time a user visits a site they’re prompted with something like "if you would like our site to enable anti-spam and flood control, would you be willing to accept our cookie?"

In the U.S., Congress is now crafting proposed legislation that may place restrictions on the use of cookies as well as the collection of information that could be considered personally identifiable.

For 15 years strong, Burst Media has strived to be the best online citizen it can. Through industry organizations such as TRUSTe, IAB, NAI and many other companies, we’ve helped create and follow consumer privacy best practices. We’ve also visited Washington, D.C. to educate lawmakers on the practices we use to maintain privacy and the benefits these policies afford the consumer.

One of the most obvious impacts this potential legislation has on publishers in the U.S. is in ad revenue. Losing the ability to use cookies to serve ads would substantially affect performance. At the simplest level, without cookies, ad servers would be unable to perform basic functions such as frequency capping (limiting the number of ads per advertiser shown to an individual) and fraud analysis. At a higher level, we’d lose the ability to measure conversion rates or serve ads to people who’ve expressed prior interest in a topic. Without these capabilities, large brand advertisers will either have to buy far more impressions at much lower prices or move their campaigns offline in order to meet their goals.

This legislation may also limit the tools web publishers use to manage their sites. For instance, third party services (e.g., Google Analytics) or any applets that plug into a site use cookies to provide significant functionality. If legislation goes as far as limiting all cookies, web publishers may find that their content management system will need a complete overhaul.

Moreover, most web publishers will need to become experts in compliance. Imagine if the same requirements to manage credit card numbers were applied to collecting seemingly anonymous user data such as zip codes. If a publisher fails to comply with the proposed compliance elements, they could face fines that could sink their business.

Despite the results of a recent Annenberg study that suggests consumers don’t care whether the ads on the sites they visit are relevant, I have to believe that consumers would reconsider if they saw the alternative: multitudes of popups/layers that ask for cookie permission, less free content and more annoying ads.

So what can you do?

If this new world of less ad revenue but more regulation, more annoying ads, more complex content management and compliance concerns you, get involved. Work with industry organizations like the IAB and NAI that are out in the trenches educating consumers and legislators on the value of contribution on online media and advertising. Institute best practices within your organization to ensure consumer privacy is protected. Lastly, insist on better self-policing that detects and prosecutes the “bad actors” in the industry. This self-regulatory environment protects consumers and protects the industry’s good citizens without creating laws that make it difficult to do business.

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The IAB’s Long Tail Alliance

By Chuck Moran, CMO, Burst Media

For 15 years running, Burst has committed itself to championing the value of long tail websites. Recently a powerful ally joined our effort – the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), which is the premier industry organization dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace. Unlike other industry organizations, the IAB represents all sites – from large media brands to content rich long tail websites like those represented by Burst.

The IAB represents the long tail publishers through its Long Tail Alliance (LTA), and is truly the only industry organization that is dedicated to maintaining the interests of mid and small-sized publishers through its association with the IAB; it carries the weight of the industry’s leading advocacy organization. The LTA provides a range of services for its members, including:

• Representation in Washington to ensure publishers’ voices are heard regarding legislation and regulatory rulings that could impact the online advertising industry
• Exclusive seminars designed specifically for long tail publishers covering topics such as SEO, website design, ad placement optimization, small business accounting and more
• Educational events and the opportunity to network with peers
• Resources to help run their business such as insurance, TRUSTe and more

If you’re a web publisher, one of the best investments you can make for your business is to join the LTA. By joining, you’ll get access to educational and business resources and become a visible participant in the industry’s efforts to grow the online advertising marketplace.

Detailed information on the Long Tail Alliance can be found at www.iab.net/member_center/longtailalliance.

 

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