Learn From The Influencer That Gets 25-Million Impressions Per Day

inc.com
Influencer marketing creates a human connection between the brand and their audie

Influencer marketing has captured the hearts and minds of entrepreneurs all over the world. The realization that we can use other people's platforms to build our business has quickly become a go-to strategy for most small, medium, and large businesses of all kinds.

You may be wondering what can change in influencer marketing which will affect your business even more positively? That's what I love about this industry. There is always a new innovator breaking through the walls of creativity to announce new plans which can build your business even faster.

Abtin Masseratagah is one of those people. This CEO of Northrn is one of the forward thinkers on influencer marketing proving his prowess by accumulating nearly near half a million last year and providing co op jobs from local universities. Abtin aspires with future goals of opening his course within an MBA program to teach this new world of digital marketing to further the reach of education in this industry.

Sit back as this interview shares some of Abtin's ideals and how influencer marketing can change the way you do business in the future simply because the game is changing itself.

Working with influencers

The amazing thing about working with influencer marketing is that it is so new. We are only at the start of scratching the surface of influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing is where we have the chance to work with such brilliant young minds, as many of them are typically found to be the ages of 13 through 25. These are the millennials that are working in a space that targets their own age group. They know what they want, they know what works, so why not ask an 18-year-old what will work with an 18-year-old? It's almost common sense! They'll have the best insights.

Abtin has been working within this industry since he was 13, and many of the techniques and strategies that he's created for his clients are all ideal campaigns that he would have believed to spark his own interest.

The great things about this model versus the traditional channel is the work done with influencer marketing allows brands which are still young and small to truly build up quickly without needing such a large budget. It allows the brand to give itself a reputation through its influencers.

Many of these brands can't afford the millions it would cost for celebrity endorsements, so if they can spend a couple hundred to have influencers team up to assist them, it becomes a no brainer.

Working within the influencer marketing arena has helped many businesses create a more solid foundation with their audience to create trust, authority, and build respect through the influence of someone who is on their side.

Using mobile apps & influencer marketing

As Abtin mentioned in our interview, the mobile app space is currently being absolutely dominated through the influencer marketing.

Every app that his company Northrn had the opportunity to work with, when performed through the proper campaign design and pushed through Northrn channels had cracked the top 100 of the app store at the minimum.

These are larger designed campaigns that the Northrn clients requested. Many of which have gone on to crack the top 50 or top 10 at points of the apps career.

Influencer marketing is the perfect fit for the work done within mobile app development because of how instantaneously it works. "Within seconds of a post going live, using influencer marketing, we can have upwards of a million unique eyes on it to generate instant curiosity of the app leading to a huge influx of downloads.", says Abtin Masseratagah.

Think about real connection

One of the main strategies in which Abtin and Northrn firmly believe in is the realization of the human connection between the brand and the audience.

Abtin says, "I believe that if you can create something which can generate discussion within the real world between individuals, rather than a simple ad the typical consumer will view for a few seconds and forget about, then we've truly done our job as marketers and storytellers by going above and beyond to create something MORE."

Abtin's role in the work Northrn has made to impact business models includes a human touch. Using influencer marketing, you can build a bridge of connection between your audience which takes the place of an impersonal advertisement or simply asking your audience to do something for you all the time.

IvoryElla, Stargaze Jewellery, Electric Family, Protocol Recordings, and Republic Recordings are just a few successful campaigns which have benefitted from the advanced human touch of this strategy.

When you begin to think about the real human connection in your marketing strategy you force yourself to learn about their wants and needs.

You begin to understand what their struggles are and how you can move your business to help meet those goals.

The willingness to connect places you in the epicenter of the individual's life which makes it more personal for both of you and creates an investment of all kinds of opportunities in the future.

Ready to change the game?

In the end, the use of an influencer marketing strategy for your business is up to you. The benefits of influencers working for you means you can build measurable statistics to launch from later.

There are many different variables in which you can determine if influencer marketing is right for your business.

Whether you're just starting your business or launching a brand new product, both of these are a great reason to start an influencer marketing strategy with someone who has the reach, the know-how, and the clout to serve your brand you know the way it should be served.

Your App Isn't Ready Without These Things

forbes.com

The desire to have an app available for users to adopt en masse can distract even the most diligent brands from providing what matters most -- apps that serve users.

(Chris Goodney/Bloomberg)

I understand the temptation to rush to market and have often heard this rationale from clients. The mobile app marketplace is crowded, and in the next few years, the number of apps ready for download in Apple's App Store is anticipated to grow to 5 million. Once you get on a user’s device, you’re competing for attention with numerous preloaded apps. The feeling is, generally: the sooner you get your app out there, the quicker users can engage with it and the faster you’ll see a return on investment. But what good is an app if it doesn’t meet basic user needs or include expected features?

Depending on the value your app delivers, you’ll have a number of boxes to check to make users happy. These are the must-haves I see overlooked most often:

Google Chromecast

If Chromecast, Google’s digital media player, can recognize your content, you’ll get in front of a lot of users. Getting your video content to larger screens is easy -- Chromecast streams video from Chromecast-supported mobile apps with a single tap on a mobile device. Shortly after Chromecast launched, we started seeing reviews in all our video apps that demanded Chromecast support. Users love it, and they started to expect to use it with their apps very quickly.

The Chromecast device, an inexpensive ($35) device that connects to televisions via HDMI helped Google ship more than 30 million Chromecast units and outsell Apple TV in 2016. iOS developers should also cater to these user needs. People want to consume content on bigger screens, and AirPlay on Apple TV can satisfy Chromecast holdouts. AirPlay lets users send music, photos and video to an Apple TV. Let Android and iOS users consume your content beyond mobile devices. After all, it’s what they want.

Notification Strategy

This has been common knowledge in the industry for a while, but pushing notifications every time you want someone to interact with your app just doesn’t work. Over-notifying pushes users away from your app. Users are so averse to being bothered by notifications that Apple and Google allow blocking notifications. But allowing notification blocking is also in the interest of developers. If your app does break the cardinal “relax with notifications” rule, a user blocking your notifications may end up helping your app stay on their mobile devices.

I tell my team to pay attention to user habits and be conscientious of people’s attention and time. Users worldwide use an average of nine apps each day, so you don’t want to be the app that intrudes on every other app experience. On top of that, most apps lose 77% of users in the first three days on a device, so engaging users is certainly important, but not being clingy is just as critical. Don’t give the user a reason to hate your app.

So how often should you notify? That depends on what your users expect. Here’s a helpful list of questions to help you create a foundation for an initial notification strategy. Of course, you should also consider the users themselves. Are they mobile-savvy millennials who organize their lives on phones? Are they middle-aged employees using an enterprise app? Notifications serve a purpose for both audiences (and every other one in between), but these audiences’ needs differ wildly.

If the idea of a notification strategy seems too scary now, there’s another way to get users’ attention: surprise and delight. Your app will still push notifications, but they will certainly be relevant this way. I’ve worked with brands to recognize user location, then offer these users something based on that location. Imagine your phone recognizing when you enter a restaurant, then triggering the restaurant’s app to offer a free or discounted item. That’s a fun experience with positive brand interaction that could generate loyalty. And it’s all done without prompting via notification.

The best notification strategy, then, is to play it cool. How you do that doesn’t rely so much on your prerogative as it does on the needs of the user.

Android And Apple Pay

I haven't seen Android or Apple Pay app integration as table stakes yet, but they likely will be in a year. Everything developers like me and my team do is in the interest of eliminating friction for users, and paying for items is a major friction point. By removing the friction of typing credit card information into a phone, I’ve seen users buy more often and purchase more items, usually to the tune of double-digit percentage increases.

I predict these forms of payment will be must-have app integrations in the near future because Apple Pay has become the most popular mobile payment service among U.S. retailers. And with Android owning the global market share, we’re seeing Android Pay’s availability expanding globally, extending to at least five more countries before the end of 2017. The number of U.S. banks supporting Android Pay is also growing. Android Pay features PayPal integration and now integrates with several banking apps. With Android Pay becoming more ubiquitous, widespread adoption of this technology looks promising.

I should warn you against adding a pay service at the wishes of just a few people in your organization. Instead, trust your users. Meet them where they are. Keep an eye on your app reviews to see what people want. Android Pay and Apple Pay are already integrated into their respective mobile devices, so every app on a device could potentially accept these forms of digital payment. Their availability in stores and growing adoption rate is too much to ignore. Dismissing these trends can quickly put you far behind.

In summary, remember to always serve the user above all else. Take pride in ensuring an amazing user experience, and always strive to surprise and delight users at every possible turn. That’s the secret to success.

The breaking down of walled gardens

fourthsource.com

Apple’s admission that it needs to address its monetisation system for publishers who distribute their content in the company’s News app is another crushing blow to the walled gardens of the digital media ecosystem. Tired of giving away proprietary content for free to Apple News, Facebook, and Google – closed platforms that offer immense audience reach but restrict access to lucrative advertising inventory and data – publishers are threatening to pull out unless their share of revenue increases.

Apple’s suggested solution would allow top media partners to use their own technology to fill the ad space on their content, effectively turning the News app into an extension of the publishers’ own website. This would mean publishers would make as much money from views in Apple News as they do on their own sites.

The demand for a more transparent and open digital advertising ecosystem will only continue to intensify. In 2016, Facebook and Google alone collected nearly half of the global digital advertising spend and now account for the lion’s share of spending growth in the online market. This helps explain why we’ve seen the Associationfor National Advertisers (ANA) call for the breakdown of walled gardens, with 90% of their members supporting independent audits of these platforms.

The realisation by publishers and advertisers alike of the existential threat posed by the Facebook-Google duopoly came to the fore amidst the rise of ‘fake news,’ as it became apparent that their closed supply chains are not offering advertisers a 100 percent brand-safe environment. Indeed, the Institute ofPractitioners in Advertising (IPA) recently criticised Google and Facebook for not moving fast enough to tackle problems with brand safety, viewability, and measurement, further amplifying appeals for greater control and accountability for ad placement.

Opaque and inefficient supply chains are two of the biggest challenges the open internet must address to stop a disproportionate share of advertising spend flowing to a handful of closed platforms. As the ecosystem continues to consolidate and products become commoditized, it’s clear that the industry needs to tackle issues of price transparency and platform openness.

First, it’s time to start thinking about viewability as the default currency, where advertisers only pay for viewable impressions. Advertisers lost a reported £606m to non-viewable adverts last year. If viewability were to become the standard—as we expect it will—advertisers’ budgets will go further in getting their messages in front of real consumers’ eyes.

Second, moving our industry towards delivering 100 percent viewable, fraud-free, effective digital advertising requires us to clean up the programmatic supply chain. We need to build an efficient marketplace that enables quality publishers to pocket the majority of advertising spend. That means cutting out low-value intermediary actors and directing spend along the most efficient path between buyers and sellers. Such an open ecosystem promises and prioritises giving advertisers and publishers a fair auction, resulting in a fair price. New technology like blockchain is also helping usher in greater transparency into the marketplace.

For publishers, header bidding has transformed their monetisation efforts. No longer beholden to Google’s DFP / AdX black box, they’ve been able to dramatically increase revenue. Header bidding was created to address a major pain point in programmatic advertising: publisher ad servers have historically been unable to efficiently evaluate bids from multiple demand partners at once. Moving away from the traditional waterfall setup, header bidding allows publishers to source bids from all of their demand sources at the same time by making ad calls to all of them simultaneously. This eliminates the inefficient hierarchy of the waterfall, ensuring every demand partner gets a chance to bid on every impression, and increases yield for publishers by allowing greater competition.

More recently, moving header bidding server-side has been shown to decrease latency, a user experience problem that may occur when a publisher has too many demand partners in their header bidding solution. Already, by using this disruptive technology, publishers are retaking control of their businesses and using independent partners to help them acquire, engage, and monetise their audiences across the open internet.

For advertisers, the creation of an ad tech consortium provides a standardised framework to utilise programmatic technologies outside of the Facebook-Google duopoly. By integrating identity resolution into programmatic advertising, this consortium will help marketers deliver the right content at the right time, enhancing the online user experience. This collaboration of digital advertising business is crucial for building a better, more efficient marketplace.

This new marketplace will require unity across the industry and a shared commitment to changing the programmatic landscape for the better. The walled gardens in digital advertising are stumbling amidst technological innovations and collaboration amongst key ad tech players. Ultimately, the aim is a better internet that provides advertisers with open transparent alternatives, and publishers, the ability to regain control of their audiences and yields.Second, moving our industry towards delivering 100 percent viewable, fraud-free, effective digital advertising requires us to clean up the programmatic supply chain. We need to build an efficient marketplace that enables quality publishers to pocket the majority of advertising spend. That means cutting out low-value intermediary actors and directing spend along the most efficient path between buyers and sellers. Such an open ecosystem promises and prioritises giving advertisers and publishers a fair auction, resulting in a fair price. New technology like blockchain is also helping usher in greater transparency into the marketplace.

For publishers, header bidding has transformed their monetisation efforts. No longer beholden to Google’s DFP / AdX black box, they’ve been able to dramatically increase revenue. Header bidding was created to address a major pain point in programmatic advertising: publisher ad servers have historically been unable to efficiently evaluate bids from multiple demand partners at once. Moving away from the traditional waterfall setup, header bidding allows publishers to source bids from all of their demand sources at the same time by making ad calls to all of them simultaneously. This eliminates the inefficient hierarchy of the waterfall, ensuring every demand partner gets a chance to bid on every impression, and increases yield for publishers by allowing greater competition.

More recently, moving header bidding server-side has been shown to decrease latency, a user experience problem that may occur when a publisher has too many demand partners in their header bidding solution. Already, by using this disruptive technology, publishers are retaking control of their businesses and using independent partners to help them acquire, engage, and monetise their audiences across the open internet.

For advertisers, the creation of an ad tech consortium provides a standardised framework to utilise programmatic technologies outside of the Facebook-Google duopoly. By integrating identity resolution into programmatic advertising, this consortium will help marketers deliver the right content at the right time, enhancing the online user experience. This collaboration of digital advertising business is crucial for building a better, more efficient marketplace.

This new marketplace will require unity across the industry and a shared commitment to changing the programmatic landscape for the better. The walled gardens in digital advertising are stumbling amidst technological innovations and collaboration amongst key ad tech players. Ultimately, the aim is a better internet that provides advertisers with open transparent alternatives, and publishers, the ability to regain control of their audiences and yields.

The Rise of Streaming Won’t End Our Addiction to TV

fortune.com

You have probably heard that binge-watching television on platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime leads to depression, chronic illness, weight gain, sleep disorders, and even a suffering sex life. While those claims are still being debated against evidence that suggests cord-cutters are more engaged politically regardless of what they watch online, it is indisputable that television has changed drastically in form, interface, and content in the last decade.

Indeed, recent studies indicate that we are watching more TV than ever, mainly thanks to an increasing array of apps that are transforming TV into a fundamentally different process of production and consumption through engaging, sharing, and instantly commenting. With a team of researchers that I lead at Boston University, we call this TVing, and it is fast becoming the new normal in our always-on lives.

The media industry has shifted from a top-down hierarchical model of schedules and "must-see TV" at the time it is broadcast to apps that provide access to TV shows—often original series—regardless of where you are or when you want to watch. Recent high-profile examples include Apple budgeting $1 billion for producing original content, and Disney starting its own streaming service. But the field also includes other players such as Newsy, Cheddar, Sling, and many additional apps and services that deliver TV a la carte.

In a recent, still-unpublished study of 420 nationally representative college students that researchers and I conducted through the Division of Emerging Media Studies at BU, we found the appetite for such apps is nearly insatiable. Here, just 10 respondents (0.2%) reported not subscribing to at least one television-viewing app, and 97.1% subscribed to between one and five services to watch television. A much smaller percentage—2.9%—of respondents had from six to 10 online TV app subscriptions.

Not surprisingly, the most common apps were Netflix (86.2%), Amazon Prime (42.4%), and Hulu (36.2%), but also included iTunes or Google Play (21.2%), HBO Now (15.5%), ESPN Now (6.0%), and Crackle (6.0%). The most commonly binge-watched programs were Stranger Things, Orange is the New Black, and The Walking Dead, and 36.2% binge-watched more than three television series in the last month.

Altogether, when considering the average time spent viewing across screens, we found that our respondents spent a total of 15.36 hours streaming television per day on all of their devices—sometimes used simultaneously. The majority of time (3.36 hours per day) was on TV through online streaming platforms like Xbox One, Roku, or Apple TV, but included another 3.02 hours of TVing on smartphones, 2.88 hours on laptops, 2.80 hours on traditional TV through cable, broadcast, or dish, 1.71 hours on desktop computers, and another 1.59 hours on tablets.

In terms of what people actually do while TVing, 98.6% reported multitasking in something else, with the most popular activities including eating (98.1%), browsing the Internet (96.9%), and interacting with friends via texting or online chatting (95.5%).

These findings suggest that engaging with streaming platforms, which use algorithms to personalize content options to users, is a substantively different activity from simply seeing “what’s on” broadcast or cable television. Rather than just watching TV in a more passive model of traditional TV consumption, streaming viewers are using a system that lets them watch whatever they want, whenever and wherever they choose.

These transformed processes of producing and using TV translates into agency, but also dependency, and effects. Our research thus far suggests that there are actual residual benefits of TVing more frequently, like engaging with and talking about politics more often, but just as importantly, it is clear that the marketplace for TV-watching apps will continue to grow, and audiences love them and the flexibility they provide.

Of course, this means that the market share for each will be less, and users will come and go more easily, but they will watch more apps and more television more often across more devices. More really is more, especially when it comes to TVing.

In-App Advertising: A Promising New Frontier for Brands in a Mobile Saturated World

brandinginasia.com/

It is the middle of the night. The lights are off, and underneath your blanket, you are engrossed watching a ‘ghost sightings’ video on an app rated highly by your friends.

The moment on the video is racked with suspense. As your throat runs dry and your heartbeat starts to escalate anticipating the impending arrival of the poltergeist, the sudden appearance of another entity ruins it all: An in-app ad displaying Amazon’s latest sales bonanza!

Dammit! The impending poltergeist appearance vanishes from of your mind, only to be replaced by irresistible deals on a plethora of goods!

Oh, the power of a 30-sec in-app advert.

According to the latest figures, the number of available apps in the Google Play Store was 3 million as of March 2017. From virtual games to stocks to news, people are hooked on apps for literally everything.

While the web itself is an enormous playing field for brands trying to get noticed, apps are a subset of this universe offering a personal, more customized world.

Thus, for advertisers, the writing on the proverbial wall has never been clearer: in-app advertising is the go-to spot in order to grab eyeballs and build brands.

In-app advertisers consider India an untapped treasure trove, and the increasing number of mobile phone users is a significant reason. India’s mobile user base at the end of June last year was second only to China. With a connection-per-100 citizen ratio of 91.08, mobile phones arguably form the most integral part of the Indian social fabric these days, breaking across multiple social and economic layers.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that mobile phones have become the most-preferred screen for users to purchase products as well. As a result, brands are finding it much easier to promote themselves on mobile in the hinterland as well as in urban spaces, rather than via conventional media such as print, radio or TV.

The effect of in-app advertising can be gauged from the fact that Amazon has offered an incentive to mobile developers to motivate them to carry Amazon’s advertisements on their on-screen applications. In-app advertising ensures that your product remains visible in the user domain as with every app download, users would view the in-app ad and recall the brand as well as the product.

In-app advertisers make customized offers to users based on the data accumulated, which leads to micro-targeted advertising and minimum waste of the marketing budget.

While the web itself is an enormous playing field for brands trying to get noticed, apps are a subset of this universe, offering a personal, more customized world. Every app download provides extremely useful data regarding the tastes and preferences of a user, and implementing predictive analytics on the data generated through in-apps helps to identify micro-target groups better and easily.

Thus, every online advertiser works on two aspects; the first is to inform consumers regarding the product or service through various channels and then specifically ensuring an access path through in-app advertising as it is the only interactive tool that consumers are using almost 24×7. Advertising via applications helps to generate a loyal customer base as users engage with apps almost every day.

Additionally, in the era of Big Data and predictive analytics, advertisers have access to the specific demands of customers. In-app advertisers make customized offers to users based on the data accumulated, which leads to micro-targeted advertising and minimum waste of the marketing budget.

A user also knows other users in need of similar products or solutions, which combined with the hyper-connectivity of online platforms, creates a marketing chain comprising only users that enhance the reach and productivity of the advertisement manifold.

Every individual, through their own friend lists, has created a core group of people who form a closed network of buyers that ratify purchases. Likewise, in-app advertisers try to find out the common preferences of such groups and then seek approval/concerns regarding the product. The ready target audience combined with direct feedback gathered makes it comfortable for advertisers to keep upgrading the product.

Finally, advertising on online media and apps allows marketers to maintain a systematic feedback mechanism. Through analytical tools and data reports, marketers can easily quantify the productivity and ROI of marketing efforts. App and mobile oriented advertising brings in quick, action-oriented and quantifiable results, a correct analysis of which can be the make or break determinant of a product’s success or failure in the competitive marketing environment of today.

Context effect: How to assure brand safety in the digital ecosystem

thedrum.com

In cognitive psychology, 'context effect' holds that an event or object is more favorably perceived and remembered when the surrounding environment is comfortable and appealing. For advertisers and marketers, this means a brand’s value can increase or decrease in worth based on the context in which it’s seen, or by what’s next to it. Context effect can be a positive force when ads are placed alongside premium content, but it cuts both ways: Since the dawn of advertising, buyers have been concerned about damaging their brand equity if they are inadvertently juxtaposed against something unseemly. This concern has been put on overdrive with the rapid expansion of digital advertising.

With the digital ecosystem growing rapidly, threats to brand safety are everywhere. Baby food ads can appear next to hate speech; global luxury campaigns can show up on a fake news site; airline banners can appear alongside reports of a grisly plane crash. And if the digital advertising business feels big now, it’s still growing: US digital ad spend is expected to reach $77bn this year, marking the first time marketers in the U.S. will spend more money on digital advertising than on television ads. As a result, brands have more reason than ever to seek reassurance that their marketing dollars will improve consumers’ perception of their brand image rather than put it at risk.

In a programmatic world where advertising transactions occur in milliseconds, billions of times a day, across millions of websites and mobile apps, with countless intermediaries - protecting brand safety can seem like a daunting, even overwhelming, challenge. But while there’s no magic wand that brands can wave to wish away the problem, there are several concrete things brands can do to help minimize risk.

Site and App Whitelisting

A fundamental step that brands can take is whitelisting, or specifically enumerating the environments where it’s safe to run ads. Whitelisting provides better protection than blacklisting, or excluding environments that are known to be inappropriate, because thousands of new ad-bearing sites and apps, some of them questionable quality, crop up daily. It’s safer to assure the worst, and run ads only in verified locations, rather than assume something that hasn’t yet been evaluated will be safe and then block it only after finding the opposite.

Whitelisting sounds like it can be a lot of work, but it doesn’t have to be. Brands can rely on an exchange that has a rigorous inventory approval process to do the heavy lifting. At Rubicon Project, we enforce strict inventory quality guidelines that require human review and pre-approval of new publisher relationships and new sites or apps within existing relationships. Sites and apps that aren’t approved by our inventory quality review team aren’t able to monetize on the exchange.

Transparency and Spoofing Protection

A brand’s ability to avoid being placed on a problematic site is only as good as the transparency and accuracy of the data it has about a placement. So ensuring that inventory attributes are passed transparently and accurately is critical. While Rubicon Project allows certain inventory sources, notably the publisher co-ops that are common media aggregators in some regions of the world, to offer inventory to bidders in a masked form, our platform ensures that inventory is transparently available to us and meets our inventory quality guidelines before we offer it for purchase in the programmatic auction.

Buyers can also be deceived by spoofing -- when a seller labels inventory as belonging to a property it’s not really from. One way spoofing can occur is when a seller misrepresents a domain; to protect against this possibility, work with an exchange that only allows domains to monetize through the accounts it knows to have rights to monetize on that domain. (You’d be surprised to know how often sellers approach us claiming to have inventory on premium sites we have direct relationships with and that vigorously prevent others from reselling.) Widespread adoption of the IAB’s recently announced ads.txt specification will help prevent several common forms of spoofing and misrepresentation.

Partner Up

Third-party tools can help provide additional confidence when it comes to brand safety. When it’s not enough to know you’re running on a generally safe site - if you want to avoid specific controversial articles on a premium news site, for example - you can use the page-level brand safety scores available from several vendors to help make a more fine-grained decision. These same vendors can also check placements at render time in a user’s browser to verify that they ran where you thought they did. One area that’s still challenging for most brand safety vendors is measuring brand safety in mobile app environments.

Leverage Private Marketplaces

If the digital ecosystem feels like the Wild West at times, private marketplaces can offer a more civilized environment. Private marketplaces give buyers and sellers the opportunity to explicitly negotiate their terms of engagement, then execute deals efficiently over familiar, high-scale programmatic infrastructure. Because private marketplaces are based on a direct relationship, it’s easier to build trust and to establish and enforce any special quality restrictions you may have. This additional safety is one factor driving increased demand for private marketplace deals, especially for premium inventory such as video and audio on top-tier sites and apps.

Use Common Sense

Finally, listen to your gut. A deal that sounds too good to be true probably is. For example, quality pre-roll video is in short supply in programmatic marketplaces, and often has clearing CPMs over $10; if someone claims to have premium video inventory at a much lower price, be as suspicious as you would be if someone in Times Square offered you a great bargain on a Rolex.

More than ever before, brands are seeking protections and guarantees to assure their confidence as they grow their investments in digital. By working with partners that combine strong policy, technology, and business processes committed to the service of transparency and brand safety, brands can win at the 'context effect' game even in the fast-growing and rapidly-evolving programmatic world.

13 Brilliant Ads That Know How to Grab Your Attention

bandt.com.au

Sometimes an advertisement that you watch leaves such an impact on your mind that it remains etched in your memory forever. Advertisements have the power to move you, motivate you and bring about a change. Let us take a look at 13 brilliant advertisements that left us intrigued, and figure out what worked for them:

1.    The Google App and The Voice

Google partnered with an immensely popular show called The Voice. This was done in an endeavour to aid the Aussie Millennials discover the true power of the Google App. Over 9 weeks, 29 unique spots were created, some of which responded to the show in real time. Google took live footage of the show, edited it instantly and made it available to its viewers in less than five minutes. It also made the process of voting easier and the final announcement of results a little more dramatic. Google featured the most memorable moments from the show on social media. The results were phenomenal with brand visibility of Google uplifted by 19.4% among Australian millennials. The campaign was awarded with “The Media Campaign of the Year Award” by AdNews Agency of The Year Awards.

Check out the links below to understand how video clips from the show were used to promote the Google App.

2.    Snickers Hungerithm Campaign

Mars Chocolate Australia and Clemenger BBDO Melbourne came together to create an algorithm that lowered the price of a snickers bar with an increase in the anger quotient on the internet. The philosophy behind the same was simple: you’re not you when you’re hungry. The angrier people got, the cheaper got Snickers. The price fluctuated about 140 times a day and plummeted as much as 82% of Snickers’ normal shelf price. Hungerithm worked based on a 3,000-word lexicon that recognized even angry slangs and sarcasm. Analysis of about 14,000 social posts a day determined the revised price of snickers. In order to claim the bar, users were simply supposed to log on snickers.com.au to generate a bar code to be used at any 7-Eleven store.  This brilliant idea was given the “Digital Campaign of the Year” and “Best Use of Data” awards by AdNews Agency of The Year Awards.

3.    Meet Graham Campaign

Clemenger BBDO Melbourne created an advertisement for TAC (Transport Accident Commission), Victoria, to illustrate how vulnerable drivers are in the face of a rising road toll. Graham was demonstrated as the only person designed to survive on their roads. His physical appearance signified how the human body would need to metamorphose in order to survive a car crash. Using an interactive sculpture, medical research, and several years of road safety data, the impactful campaign was designed with an endeavor to educate drivers on road safety. A theme of evolution corroborated by evidence was used by a team of 3: a road safety engineer, a trauma surgeon and a renowned artist, who came together and pulled the act that won the prestigious “Ad Campaign of the Year” title.

4.    You Never Lamb Alone

MLA (Meat and Livestock Australia) launched its Spring Lamb Campaign last September. The campaign demonstrated lamb as the meat that did not discriminate and brought together people from varied races, castes, sexual orientation and walks of life to celebrate modern Australia. The Monkeys did a fabulous job in demonstrating the Aussies as an inclusive and welcoming lamb-loving society. They showcased a large group of people getting together over a lamb barbecue. The advertisement successfully stirred the emotions of the public and acquired a special place in their hearts. It was also awarded with the title of “Ad of the Year” by AdNews Agency of the Year Awards.

5.    Pocket Patrol, Samsung

Surf Life Saving Australia and Samsung came together to develop Pocket Patrol. This first of its kind app displayed exact positions of beach perils. Its unique AR algorithm is used by Lifesavers to prevent accidents at the beach. The app inputs real time data of shallow sand banks, rip currents, sudden drop offs and stingers. This useful information is instantly passed on to everyone on the beach. The app is a blessing for lifesavers, who are able to save valuable time and focus on monitoring the beach. This powerful tool helps beach lovers identify dangers. This helps them modify their swimming behaviour accordingly. The campaign was, thus, awarded with “Best use of Mobile” title.

6.    From Apathy to Action: NSW Rural Fire Services

This campaign designed by J. Walter Thompson Sydney aimed at encouraging people to develop a safety plan against fires. The campaign illustrates that what fire fighters fear the most is apathy. People need to learn to be their own saviours and protect themselves as well as their families. The ad demonstrates the urgency of creating a survival plan, procrastination could be catastrophic. The campaign won an award in the Government category of the prestigious “Effie Awards”.

7.    Free Puppies Forever Campaign

A division of Vision Australia called Seeing Eye Dogs Australia came up with an incredible campaign to recruit puppy careers. As a part of this campaign, you get a puppy for free along with free vet care, food and even boarding for while you’re away. You get the pup when it’s 8 weeks old and send it off for training when it’s 12-15 months of age. You could then get a new puppy, all over again. The primary purpose is to find people who can care for the dogs until they are old enough to be trained as service animals for the visually impaired.

8.    Push for an Equal Future

This national campaign by ANZ promotes gender diversity. ANZ launched an entire range of initiatives to encourage women to grow financially and build an equal future for them. The theme is simple. It highlights how girls end up way behind boys on the financial front, even though they outperform the latter in many other facets. The film that was shown online depicts bright, young girls being faced with brutal inequality. The follow-up videos of this advertisement showed how women can make extra income through ANZ’s initiatives. The advertisement struck a chord with men and women alike.

9.    #MyFamilyCan

Leo Burnett Melbourne designed a small budget campaign for SPC Ardmona. The labels of SPC’s brands were redesigned and a new series of cans was created. This series was called #MyFamilyCan. The ad comprised of heartfelt content that successfully triggered an emotional connect with the audience. Australian farmers were featured in the ad, thus giving them a platform to voice their stories. The campaign became a massive hit and won an Effie award in the “Small Budget Ad” category.

10.Lucy The Robot

Atomic 212° was successful in launching a telepresence robot created by the company Double Robotics in the most innovative manner. The purpose of the campaign was to create brand awareness and generate leads for sales. Thus, the robot was given a human story so that people would relate to it. This gave birth to Lucy, a girl excited to get the new iPhone 6s in possession. However, instead of standing in long queues waiting for her turn to buy one, she sent her telepresence robot to make the purchase for her. Lucy thus became one of the first few people to be able to buy the iPhone, creating much hype. As a result, brand recall and favorability shot up by 780% and 1200% respectively.

11.Captain Risky

Budget direct was able to successfully demonstrate how they offer effective phone claims service to their customers, through this campaign. The ad clearly demonstrates that the services are provided round the clock in the face of an accident. Others, who are not insured by Budget Direct, bear the brunt, just like Captain Risky.

12.This Bike has Multiple Sclerosis

MS Limited Australia has been organizing a 50 KM Cycle riding event in support of patients with Multiple Sclerosis, for a decade. The ad campaign aimed at generating awareness about the same and eventually attracting participation and funds. It was successful in doing so by virtue of its simplistic portrayal of the disease. The campaign served as an educational tool for all to understand and help those living with MS.

13. Shonky Savers

RaboDirect Australia launched a humorous campaign depicting a television news program exposing shonky savers. This is the term given to describe those unfortunate souls who deposit their money in low-interest-bearing transactional accounts. The campaign reinforced the brand promise of empowering customers to make the most of each penny saved. It was awarded with the Bronze prize in the “Financial Services” category at the prestigious Effie Awards.