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Archive for the ‘Internet Advertising’ Category

The bottom line on Henry Blodget’s Business Insider

by Henry Copeland
Thursday, April 11th, 2013

Buried inside Ken Auletta’s recent New Yorker profile of Henry Blodget, there’s an ex-ray of the skeleton of Business Insider‘s P&L.

Six years on, the site projects $9.3 million in ad revenues for 2013. (Update: Henry B. wrote overnight that this figure was for 2012; I guess Auletta was interviewing Henry B in 2012, and their fabled fact checkers didn’t adjust the “this year” in Blodget’s quote.)

“That’s tiny. Ad rates are low. It’s tough to monetize,” says Blodget.

According to Comscore, BI has 9 million monthly US readers. (24 million global according to Google Analytics.) The rest of BI’s revenues (projected to total $11 million in 2013) come from conferences.

Anyone know how many editorial, sales and/or tech staff BI has these days? (Update: overnight Henry B. writes “~100.”)

#FTW: Blogads creation wins IAC “Best Advertising Online”

by Kate Studwell
Wednesday, March 27th, 2013

Blogads, Wieden+Kennedy, and ABC have been presented with the Internet Advertising Competition’s “Best Advertising Online Ad” award for 2013.

The award was given for a series of interstitial ads on PerezHilton.com that responded to reader behavior and tied into the theme of ABC’s “GCB,” which features former nemeses who hide their disdain behind the veil of Southern charm. The show starred Kristen Chenoweth and was produced by Darren Star (of “Sex and the City” fame).

If a reader wanted to tweet a PerezHilton.com story, a pop up reminded them “Thou Shalt Not Tweet More Than 140 Characters.” Other behavior on the site prompted similar commandments, such as “Thou shalt not look at sexy photos” or “Thou shalt not covet another man’s wife” when viewing stories about attractive married celebs.

A big congratulations to our sales, programming, design and project management teams for their work. Thank you IAC!

Blogads joins other IAC prize winners in other categories including The Coca-Cola Company, Target, Huge, and CNN.

[Image via reactiongifs.com]

Advertising with augmented reality: 11 #AR campaigns from 2011

by Nick Faber
Monday, November 14th, 2011

Augmented reality has an advantage over the QR code when it comes to branding. Rather than directing customers to a URL or video, they allow a brand to interact with the customer’s own world as seen through the viewfinders of mobile devices.

While the QR code will always need to rely on incentive to get people to scan (“free gift!” “uncensored video!”), watching cool stuff interact with your coffee cup or magazine is incentive enough for AR interaction. For now.

Here are 11 campaigns that make the customer’s world a little more CG. And a few that actually provide something useful. (more…)

The idiot wisdom of contextual advertising

by Nick Faber
Thursday, October 27th, 2011

Sometimes contextual advertising produces humorous juxtapositions. And sometimes the juxtapositions offer up a Delphic hint of wisdom, as is the case in this Netflix ad paired with an article by Henry Blodget about Netflix’s stock roller coaster. The Expendables image in the ad makes the perfect emblem for Netflix’s journey from confident competence to arrogant overreach to public humiliation.

Creepy Facebook Connect film is not a sinister marketing ploy — or is it?

by Nick Faber
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

The creep stalks Team Blogads.

The director of Take This Lollipop is just having a little fun, folks. Just in time for Halloween, TV director Jason Zada has created a very creeptastic interactive film about a Facebook stalker — and YOU. (more…)

Why did Facebook reject our ad? Jealousy?

by Nick Faber
Friday, October 14th, 2011

UPDATE 10/17: We tried to revert the ad’s landing page to the original URL (our Facebook page) and got the same rejection notice.

Wow, a funny thing happened today. Facebook rejected this ad promoting Blogads.com’s Facebook page:

We’d already been running the ad on Facebook for over a year, and 694 people had clicked through. Facebook only rejected our ad when we tried to update the landing page URL. Nothing too crazy.

Here’s what Facebook told us about our ad on their site:

The content of your ad or Sponsored Story does not adequately reflect the product or service advertised.

Doesn’t it, Facebook? Here’s what some Facebook users think of the ad:

(more…)

Google Maps add sponsored places to your travel plans

by Nick Faber
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011
I don’t want to go to there!

This week, a couple of us at Blogads HQ noticed some new Places cropping up on our Google Maps. They looked just like the places we were looking for — but blue. When we clicked them we realized that they were the same Place advertised in the left column.

What’s the hope here? That we would accidentally navigate to the blue dot instead of the place we really want to go to? And if so, what would we do when we got there?

"This is so much better than dinner, honey." "Totes."

I tried to recreate the results above today, but instead of a blue “Place” in the middle of Austin, I found a brown custom Google map icon, which, I guess, is the symbol for affordable movers:

This one I kinda get. If you’re looking at a map of a city without searching for a specific place, you might be thinking of moving there. Plus, the icon doesn’t look like the little red marker of the place you’re looking for, so it’s not as potentially confusing.

Seamless integration into content is something every ad strives for, but sometimes the line between integration and interruption is blurry.

Have any sponsored Places shown up in your itinerary? What did they look like? How relevant were they to your search?

Copywriter helps you write a cover letter to yourself

by Nick Faber
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Lisa Taylor, a Boston-area copywriter, wants to send you a cover letter. But she wants to make sure you like it, so she’s made it a truly interactive experience with the Cover Letter Customizer. In five easy steps, including some fun options like a casualness slider and a favorite word field, you’ll have a letter that was Taylor’ed just for you. (Sorry, that pun was just sitting there.)

Also, as Lisa says in her LinkedIn profile, no paper cuts. Unless you print it.

(via Ads of the World)

East Coast agencies to watch — that aren’t based in New York, part 3: Atlanta

by Nick Faber
Friday, August 5th, 2011

Atlanta — “The Big Peach,” “Hotlanta,” “ATL” — is a straight shot down 85 from our headquarters in Carrboro, NC. It’s the home of multinational corporations like Coca-Cola, Turner, Delta, and UPS, and it’s one of the fastest growing cities in the South. So it’s no surprise that the “New York of the South” has so many great advertising agencies, pumping some of the best campaigns on the East Coast.

Today, in the final installment of our series, we look at the work of four Atlanta-based agencies that made it to iMedia’s East Coast Agencies to Watch list, and which are not headquartered in New York City. (Part 1 | Part 2)

IQ – US Department of Energy “Lose the Excuse”

IQ has a penchant for fun videos and kick-ass web sites. For the “Lost Your Excuse” campaign, the US Department of Energy got both. Along with partner-agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, IQ built a media-rich offbeat site that shows kids how easy it is to save energy. Check out Baron Davis’s hilarious cameo in the “Malcolm” video. Makes you wanna change your light bulbs, doesn’t he?

(more…)

East Coast agencies to watch — that aren’t based in New York, part 2

by Nick Faber
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

We’ve dug into iMedia’s East Coast Agencies to Watch to find the best ad work outside of New York. In part 1, we looked at great campaigns from agencies in Washington, DC and Boston. Today, we avoid 95 altogether to check out two of New England’s top agencies.

Humongo (Danbury, CT) – ECKO UNLTD. “Indie for Life”

You may already know Humongo’s founder Darryl Ohrt for his industry blog brandflakesforbreakfast. Ecko turned to Darryl’s shop to get fans excited about its UNLTD watches this year. The campaign, “Indie for Life,” includes an incentive-heavy Facebook page with a series of live video interviews with indie entrepreneurs called ‘The Marc Ecko Time Chamber.'” The first interview is with “indie time-changer” Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos.com.

(more…)


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