Marketing Biz: IAB Rising Stars, In-Game Advertising & Rabbit

The week in marketing was a lot like gazing into a crystal ball as we were reminded about new advertising units and platforms. This is … Marketing Biz. Few Marketers Aware of IAB’s Rising Stars Units There’s a big gap in awareness of the IAB’s Rising Stars units between marketers and agencies, finds Undertone [download […]

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crystal-ballThe week in marketing was a lot like gazing into a crystal ball as we were reminded about new advertising units and platforms.

This is … Marketing Biz.

Few Marketers Aware of IAB’s Rising Stars Units

There’s a big gap in awareness of the IAB’s Rising Stars units between marketers and agencies, finds Undertone [download page] in a recently-released study. Only 31% of marketers surveyed said they had heard of the IAB’s Rising Stars, which promise to “drive brand equity at scale,” according to the IAB, and which the IAB has found [pdf] to outperform standard units in several brand metrics.

I knew about most of these units but not all of them. So, take a moment to review the Rising Stars ad units (after you finish reading the column.) These new units are important because the standard units we are accustomed to are dated, Gutenberg-like units that will be passed by the more advanced and rich formats our technology demands.

Umbel Partners with Janrain to Provide Secure, Actionable Social Analytics

The combination of Umbel and Janrain provides the easiest way for companies to enable user registration through social login while securely capturing valuable social data insights. This partnership provides a much deeper understanding of the social audience for joint clients, properly valuing audience and improving customer engagement.

Janrain is moving fast in 2013, and this latest partnership will deliver greater insight to marketers on users. The question is whether these moves are enough for Janrain to hold off other social login entrants.

MediaBrix Benchmark Report First to Reveal Social and Mobile Gaming Advertising Dramatically Outperforms Standard Online Display

In-Game Ads CTR Comparison

“It comes as no surprise that social and mobile gaming advertising sees results 30-100 times better than standard online advertising campaigns,” said Ari Brandt, CEO and Co-founder, MediaBrix. “This is largely due to the fact that people are driven by a deep well of positive emotions — such as joy, excitement and brand affinity — when playing social and mobile games. In-game ads offer marketers 100% share of voice through 100% viewable ads, which in turn produce digital ad campaigns that truly perform.”

Honestly, this was a surprise, but the explanation does make a lot of sense. Serious brand marketers should be looking more closely at how to leverage in-game advertising, particularly for brand awareness.

Google Is Making Moves To Seriously Disrupt Groupon

By putting offers into the mainstream of Google ad-buying and opening them up to its entire customer base, Google is cutting out the middleman, and creating the powerful feedback loop of data—tracing a transaction from the search results or Web page where a user saw the ad to the redemption of the discount on-site.

The new(ish) Google Offers ad extension certainly does cut out the middleman to some degree. But, I’m not sure Google needs to do much to disrupt the daily deal market, which is unraveling before our eyes.

Video chat startup Rabbit raises $3.3M from Google Ventures, othersRabb.it Logo

“Rabbit’s design and user experience is unlike anything I’ve seen,” said Kevin Rose, general partner at Google Venture, in a prepared statement. “Video chatting is always designed for utility, but Rabbit has created an online social experience that is closer to hanging out with your friends in real life. I can’t wait for the world to see it.”

Video chat is one of those things that everyone thinks should work but rarely does. A staple of many science-fiction films, it’s seen as much real world success as the flying cars we were also promised. But, marketers shouldn’t give up on video chat platforms because one of them will work at some point.

And Then …

Sharethrough Sponsored Stories Brings Native Ads to the Rest of the Web

CleverTouch drives B2B Marketing Automation uptake with 70% growth

Viralheat’s APIs Help Bring Social to Applications

SocialCode Unveils Analytics Tool, Message Optics

Lenovo Wins eTail Search Marketing Award for Global SEO Campaign


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

AJ Kohn
Contributor
AJ Kohn is Owner of Blind Five Year Old, a San Francisco Internet Marketing firm specializing in search. An experienced marketing executive with a successful track record spanning 20 years, AJ combines a deep understanding of search marketing with a passion for product strategy and iterative product development, fusing design and user experience with quantitative analysis.

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