Tags containing: "mobile"

IAB Survey Finds Mobile Consumers Worldwide are Watching Long Form Video

June 9, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Mobile screens are becoming more popular for streaming longer-form video, according to “Mobile Video Usage: A Global Perspective,” a new survey of consumers from 24 countries around the world who watch smartphone video, published by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Whether short or long or in-between, substantial numbers of video viewers report their video consumption on smartphones has increased year-on-year in all of the study’s participating nations, with the most prominent upticks being seen in the U.S. (50%), Canada (42%), New Zealand (42%), South Africa (42%), and the U.K. (40%). This trend is also impacting traditional television viewing across the board, with consumers in China (37%) and Singapore (35%) reporting the highest incidence of watching less TV due to streaming more on mobile.

Among the IAB’s key findings:

36% of respondents said they watch videos that are 5-minutes or longer on their phones daily or more frequently.
22 % of respondents who watch traditional television regular doing so while watching video simultaneously on their phone.
At 62%, YouTube topped the list of common ways mobile video viewers discover digital video to watch on their phones. Social media ranked second at 33%.
Nearly half of respondents overall (48%) said that they “only” or “mostly” leverage mobile apps to stream video on their phones, with the UK (63%), Brazil (60%), and Turkey (58%) leading the trend.
By contrast, across the survey sample only 18% said they “only” or “mostly” use mobile websites to view video.
More than a quarter (28%) of viewers across the participating countries said that they often see ads on mobile video that they’ve already seen on TV.

Perspectives

Verizon/AOL Deal Focuses on Mobile, So What About Content?

May 21, 2015 Mark Glaser, Founder and Publisher – MediaShift

Something about AOL and buyouts always brings a strange sense of déjà vu. It takes us back to the glory days of the first dot-com era when then-upstart AOL bought media giant Time Warner for $164 billion in 2000. Fast-forward 15 years, and the shape of AOL’s identity is much more about ad technology—and popular content with Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget—than it is about dial-up Internet (though it still has 2.2 million of those subscribers too).

Last week, Verizon announced its plans to purchase AOL for $50 a share, in what amounts to a $4.4 billion deal. Some observers have noted that these numbers are pretty small for a company like Verizon, and that AOL continues to remain a major player online, especially when it comes to the future of online advertising: mobile and video. In fact, these are attributes Verizon is banking on to help it grow in mobile and video advertising as it builds its own mobile content collection as well.

What AOL stands to gain, however, may necessitate some soul-searching on its identity—or rather, how other parties view its services, and what those services have come to mean in our modern media environment. AOL owns several global brands such as Huffington Post, TechCrunch and AOL.com. Just like media giants Facebook and Google, it’s in the business of helping brands use sophisticated technology for online advertising. It’s also invested heavily in online video.

Spinning Off Content?
But will Verizon want to keep those content sites that have in the past been critical of the cell giant? The big rumor is that AOL has been in what Re/code calls “advanced discussions with a number of parties” to spin off the Huffington Post brand. It would bring in more money for Huffington Post, which has been expensive for AOL to maintain and monetize, especially against feisty competitors such as BuzzFeed and Business Insider.

According to Re/code’s Kara Swisher, the most serious talks were with German media company Axel Springer, as well as private equity firms. Her sources put a price tag of $1 billion on the Huffington Post group, but she couldn’t get a public confirmation of talks from CEO Tim Armstrong or others at AOL. “Sources said Verizon was far more focused on advertising tech and video and that some kind of spinoff or joint venture was far more likely for the Huffington Post,” Swisher wrote.

Ad Tech the Golden Goose
Indeed, AOL’s advertising business is showing positive signs: It’s reported a seven percent growth rate in this year’s first quarter, and as Trefis, a company which analyzes stock prices, noted, much of this growth came from its programmatic platform across the third-party advertising network. Trefis also estimated that third party display advertising made up nearly half—42.2%—of AOL’s value.

All of that is very good for Verizon, especially if it wants to take on giants such as Facebook and Google and plant its footprint more heavily in mobile advertising. As Farhad Manjoo wrote in his column for the New York Times, together those two online behemoths “control more than 55% of the $42.6 billion worldwide mobile ad market, according to eMarketer.”

All of that is very good for AOL as well. AOL honcho Armstrong said in a memo to employees after the acquisition announcement, “If there is one key to our journey to building the largest digital media platform in the world, it is mobile.” And Armstrong deserves all the credit in the world for turning around an online has-been into a digital powerhouse commanding a premium payoff.

So should AOL now be known for its brand, or for its platform? Another lingering question is what mobile advertising itself should mean now. Ads on a mobile device mustn’t just try to get a person to buy something; they must also utilize data and key information about that person to create a custom advertisement for that specific individual. As Manjoo put it, “People in the ad-tech industry said that in buying AOL, Verizon’s immediate goal may be to marry its data about customers to AOL’s capacity to serve ads to increase this sort of relevancy.” And data mining is what Facebook and Google already do so well.

Ultimately, this deal might be less about the booming AOL content business and a lot more about ways to serve mobile and programmatic ads into a lot more content.

Industry-Research

Pew Offers Insights into Smartphone Users and Usage

April 6, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Nearly two-thirds of Americans are now smartphone owners. And for many, these devices are a key entry point to the online world according to Pew Internet and Life’s latest research on US Smartphone Use. The report offers “A Portrait of Smartphone Ownership” and an examination of “Usage and Attitudes Toward Smartphones,” along with an innovative approach to analyzing smartphone usage called “A Week in the Life.”

Among the many insights uncovered:

Four-in-ten smartphone owners ages 65 and older use their phone at least occasionally to keep up with breaking news, half use it to share information about local happenings, and one-third use it to stay abreast of events and activities in their community.
68% of smartphone owners use their phone at least occasionally to follow along with breaking news events, with 33% saying that they do this “frequently.”
62% of smartphone owners have used their phone in the last year to look up information about a health condition.
30% of smartphone owners use their phone to take a class or get educational content.
75% of younger smartphone owners indicated using their phone to watch videos at least once over the study period, compared with 31% of those 50 and older (a difference of 44 percentage points).
64% of younger adults used their phones at one time or another to listen to music or podcasts — a 43-point difference compared with the 21% of older users who did so.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Marketer Perceptions of Mobile Advertising

April 1, 2015 Research Team—DCN

More than three-quarters (76%) of brand marketers consider programmatic buying in mobile advertising to be an important development, but despite this enthusiasm, relatively low numbers of marketers are currently purchasing ads programmatically, according to a new study commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence and conducted by Ovum.

The report also spotlights another development of interest to brand marketers: advertising opportunities with new-generation connected devices. Connected TVs generated the most enthusiasm (73%), followed closely behind by connected cars (69%), and wearables (66%), mobile marketers that rate themselves as fairly or very experienced at mobile seeing even greater potential for these new platforms (80% connected TVs vs. 78% connected cars vs. 75% wearables).

Key findings of Marketer perceptions of mobile advertising (Third Edition) include:

Marketers expect that their spending on mobile advertising will increase over the next two years: 14% anticipate it will rise by more than 50% while 57% expect it to rise by less than 50%.
About one-third of mobile advertising spend is substitution from other channels, with print media hit hardest (58%), followed by PC digital and TV.
Marketers in our 2014 survey show a high level of satisfaction with the results
of their mobile marketing activities. The majority is either satisfied (50%) or fairly satisfied (37%) while a further 8% completely satisfied.
Marketers show a strong interest in mobile programmatic, as 41% agree that it will help them reach target audiences. However, relatively few are actually buying mobile inventory programmatically today: 18% via private exchanges and 17% via open exchanges.
Marketer uneasiness over potential data privacy issues is pronounced. 37% of respondents in 2014 cited privacy as a very important issue compared to 22% in 2013.

Advertising | Industry-Research

comScore Looks at Shifts in Digital Consumer Behavior

March 30, 2015 Research Team—DCN

comScore has released its 2015 U.S. Digital Future in Focus. The report provides a year in review of the major shifts in digital consumer behavior that occurred in various online sectors, including mobile, social media, video, advertising, search and e-commerce. Furthermore, it examines what insights can be gathered from these trends and what that means looking forward to the year ahead.

From the report:

While most of the growth in digital media consumption over the past four years has occurred on smartphones (up 394 percent) and tablets (up 1,721 percent), these mobile platforms are not eating into aggregate time spent on desktop, which has still grown 37 percent over this time period. The digital media pie continues to get bigger and Americans engage with screens during more occasions throughout the day than ever before.
Across every age demographic, there is a substantially higher percentage of multi-platform and mobile-only internet users than the previous year. More than 3/4ths of all digital consumers (age 18+) are now using both desktop and mobile platforms to access the internet, up from 68 percent a year ago. Mobile-only internet usage is also becoming more prevalent, driven largely by the 21 percent of Millennials who are no longer using desktop computers to go online. Meanwhile, the 55-years-and-older consumer segment is actually the fastest growing faction of mobile users, increasing its combined multi-platform and mobile-only share of audience from 60 percent to 74 percent in the past year.
Because people prefer different devices depending on the online activity or task, the desktop vs. mobile skews by content category can vary widely. Categories such as Photos and Maps are more often than not used on the go, lending themselves to heavy mobile usage, while the Portals and Business/Finance categories comparatively index much higher on desktop devices. Although Portals function as an accessible hub of information on desktop, the mobile environment is markedly different where apps have taken on the role as the gateway to the web.

Key topics covered in the 2015 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report include:

The implications of an increasingly multi-platform digital population
The fastest growing digital media properties and mobile apps
The continuing disruption of mobile in all facets of digital
How the major social network audiences stack up against each other
Digital advertising’s transition to transacting on viewable impressions
The continuing growth of online video and emergence of mobile and over-the-top video
How total web searches are distributed among desktop, smartphone and tablet devices
The unrelenting growth of digital commerce and emergence of mobile commerce

Advertising | Industry-Research

Mobile Ad Spend to Overtake Desktop by End of 2015

March 27, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Mobile advertising will soon capture the majority of digital ad spend, according to a new report from Marin Software, provider of a cross-channel performance advertising cloud. Driven by rapid consumer adoption of mobile devices, and a corresponding surge in mobile ad clicks and conversions, the report finds advertisers will spend more on mobile than desktop ads by the end of 2015.

The benchmark report, “Mobile Advertising Around the Globe: 2015 Annual Report,” includes statistics and trends uncovered through an examination of the Marin Global Online Advertising Index.

Findings from Marin Software’s Global Mobile Advertising Report include:

Mobile device adoption amongst consumers continues to grow relative to desktop. Consumers spend more time and attention on mobile devices than desktop now,1 and advertisers have been shifting spend away from desktop towards smartphones and tablets to reach consumer attention. Due to this digital advertising paradigm shift, mobile advertising budget is predicted to exceed desktop advertising budget by end of 2015.
Consumers are more likely to use mobile devices for product research than desktop. Smartphones and tablets are used by consumers for research and represent the top of the funnel, while desktops are where they go to convert.
With 40% of all online adults starting an activity on one device and ending on another, it’s important to retarget ads seen on mobile to desktop or tablet in order to ensure maximum view-time by engaged consumers. Use a third party tracker to track users across device and channel to fully optimize advertising spend through retargeting ads.
However consumers are still much more likely to convert on desktop. Desktops are still the primary conversion-driving device; however research has shown that many consumers use mobile devices as upper-funnel research, and convert in-store or on desktop. Mobile conversion attribution for these cross-device and offline conversions must be tracked and recorded to properly create the link between mobile clicks and conversions.

Innovation

All You and Health Partner with eMeals to Do the Meal Planning For You

March 27, 2015 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Time Inc.’s All You and Health brands have partnered with eMeals to deliver weekly meal plans. Clare McHugh, Group Editor, All You and Health says that her team is always on the lookout for new ways to provide content that their audiences will find useful. They were familiar with eMeals’ reputation for delivering customized meal plans to more than 1 million subscribers so when eMeals approached them to launch its first-ever branded meal offering, McHugh says they immediately saw an opportunity to deliver something the readers of All You and Health would find truly beneficial.

McHugh describes the Health audience as busy people who are focused on making small changes that help them live happier lives: “They are doers; they take tips and put them to work.” Fans of All You, she says, are women trying to make the most of their time and money. While both audiences increasingly engage with the brands digitally, the All You reader “does everything on her smartphone—it’s her camera, travel planner, newsstand…her total life organizer.” Both groups are pressed for time, but want to make healthy decisions about what to eat and how to feed their families, so these brands were ideal for developing eMeal plans.

The All You– and Health-branded meal plans are delivered by email or through the free eMeals mobile app and provide main dish recipes for seven dinners per week designed for a family of four. The Health recipes are made with whole foods and loaded with good nutrition. The All You recipes are balanced, designed to please the entire family and cost less than $3.50 per serving. The All You plan also offers a bonus dessert recipe and a cost-per-serving breakdown for each meal. Subscribers to both plans also receive interactive shopping lists and a nutritional analysis of each recipe.

Both All You and Health have a long history of providing recipes suited to readers’ lifestyles and expectations. In addition to nutritional information, it is noteworthy that recipes feature “regular, not obscure or intimidating, ingredients.” At the same time, they can be relied on to offer healthy, easy-to-prepare and, in the case of All You, affordable meals for the whole family. “We’ve tested all of our recipes, so people know you can trust them.”

Maintaining that trust was important as the All You and Health eMeals offerings were being developed. In fact, McHugh tested the plans out herself, “I went to the store on Sunday with the weekly plan and made all of the recipes during the week. I experienced such a sense of relief that all of the meal planning and grocery lists were already done…I love the eMeals approach. It does so much of the hard work for you.”

McHugh points out that women’s magazines have been in the business of helping women run their lives more efficiently “as long as there has been a republic. Though the mediums continue to evolve, the fundamental needs don’t change,” she says. Thus, this latest offering is a natural extension of what women’s magazines have always done. “We’ve taken a print expectation—cutting out great recipes and putting them in a recipe box—and brought it to the digital age.”

Innovation

Forbes Pictures a Social Future for its Apps with Camerama Acquisition

March 17, 2015 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Forbes Media has announced the acquisition of the private photo sharing app Camerama. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Effective immediately, the founder of Camerama Salah Akram Zalatimo will join the company as VP of Mobile Products, reporting to Forbes Media Chief Product Officer Lewis D’Vorkin. According to D’Vorkin the move does not signify an interest by Forbes to be in the photo sharing app business. Rather, Zalatimo will assume the responsibility of building on Forbes’ mobile strategy by developing a platform of apps for the company that leverages their core technology and feature set—such as profiling, notification, and sharing–which served as the foundation of Camerama.

According to D’Vorkin, “We have a vision for a platform of niche, or vertical, social apps where we build an experience around passionate members of communities, which is very different from a strategy to develop just another distribution channel for what we already have.” That strategy, says D’Vorkin includes creating an opportunity for like-minded groups of professionals to “discover each other, communicate, and be part of each other’s professional lives under the Forbes umbrella.”

He and Zalatimo discovered that they were like minded when they met socially last year and found that they were interested in each other’s businesses and in exploring the possibility of working on the future of mobile together. D’Vorkin points out that, given its DNA, Forbes is always interested in those with entrepreneurial vision and he admires both Zalatimo’s technological acumen, but also his business savvy and background, which includes stints at McKinsey & Company, Sony Music Entertainment and Bain.

That business savvy will come into play as he develops the Forbes mobile strategy D’Vorkin alluded to. “Advertisers like scale and reach,” he says. “They also like to reach targeted audiences.” With this acquisition, and with the addition of Zalatimo to the Forbes team, D’Vorkin sees a future that will allow his company “the ability to provide scale as well as targeted audiences in a social app setting.”

Industry-Research | Perspectives | Research

Sharethrough Takes A Neuroscience Perspective to Look at Mobile Native Advertising

March 11, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Sharethrough, a software company that enables leading websites and apps to manage their in-feed, native ads, commissioned a study “A Neuroscience Perspective: Asessing Visual Focus, Message Processing & The Ability To Strengthen Associations Through Mobile Native Advertising” from Nielsen to determine how consumers visually process mobile ads. What’s interesting about this particular study is that instead of the usual survey-based research, it applied eye tracking and neuroscience—the study of subconscious reactions in the brain—to mobile advertising.

According to Sharethrough:

Unlike survey-based mobile measurement, which evaluates a consumer’s conscious reactions to ads, neuroscience taps into the brain’s subconscious reactions as well. This is critical: the subconscious is the motivating force behind many of our actions, including which brands we buy from.

To understand the effectiveness of mobile advertising, the study (conducted in accordance with Nielsen’s proprietary methodology) compared native ads and banners, both placed in-feed. Nielsen worked with ﬁve premium advertisers, including Boeing, creating mock ads from similar creative elements that were optimized for each format. Study participants were shown a video simulating the experience of scrolling through an editorial feed. The feed is paused and the participant is shown either a native ad or an in-feed banner. Using a combination of EEG data— measurements of neural activity in the brain—and eye tracking, Nielsen quantiﬁed where and how the participants’ focus was being directed.

Among the key findings, which Sharethrough explores in more detail, are:

Native Ads Appear to Receive Two Times More Visual Focus than Banners
Banners Are Processed Peripherally
Native Ads Are Being Read
Native Ad Headlines Can Be Optimized to Trigger Associations
Brand Assets Impact Brand Resonance Lift

Quartz’ Alice Truong takes a look at the research in her article:
Scientific proof that no one pays attention to banner ads

Industry-Research

Lack of Consumer Trust Slowing Growth of Mobile Content Industry Finds MEF

February 13, 2015 Research Team

Trust remains the largest single obstacle to growth in the mobile content and commerce industry, according to the 2015 MEF Global Consumer Trust Report. The third annual study, supported by AVG Technologies N.V. analyzes data from 15,000 mobile media users in 15 countries across five continents. The Global Consumer Trust Report explores trust, privacy, transparency and security to identify their impact on mobile consumers in areas from purchasing a new device to downloading apps or paying for goods and services.

Some key takeaways include:

49% of all consumers surveyed say a lack of trust limits the amount of apps they download, compared to 37% last year.
40% of respondents indicated that a lack of trust is the number one factor that prevents them from downloading items more often.
72% of mobile consumers are not happy sharing personal data such as location or contact details when using an app.
34% say trust prevents them from buying more goods and services using their mobile device.

Alongside this growing mistrust, the study also revealed an increase in resistance to sharing personal information such as location, address book details or health records, with apps.

According to the findings:

72% of mobile users said that they are not happy sharing such information and 39% say that they never to do so.
30% of respondents said that improving the way apps communicate about the data they collect would foster greater trust in the mobile platforms.
63% said that they considered transparency important or extremely important (compared to 49% last year).

Andrew Bud, MEF Global Chair, said that “Trust is the most important asset of any business, and consumer confidence must underpin the mobile ecosystem. The sustainability of the mobile industry depends on it. As mobile devices and services evolve, consumers will hold business ever more accountable … Consumer trust must be earned by consistently applying high levels of transparency, security and privacy to every mobile interaction.”

The full MEF Global Consumer Trust 2015 Report is available only to members only. Non-members can download a copy of the Executive Summary.

Industry-Research

Cisco Releases Mobile Forecast Offering Worldwide Behavior Predictions

February 9, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Cisco has released its VNI Mobile Forecast highlights, 2014-2019, which it presents in an interactive map that allows users to filter by region or country.

Among the many data highlights offered are:

Mobile Data Traffic

In North America, mobile data traffic will reach 3.8 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 956 million DVDs each month), up from 562.5 Petabytes per month in 2014.
In Middle East and Africa, mobile data traffic will reach 3.0 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 761 million DVDs each month), up from 199.5 Petabytes per month in 2014.
In Latin America, mobile data traffic will reach 2.0 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 509 million DVDs each month), up from 200.9 Petabytes per month in 2014.
In Western Europe, mobile data traffic will reach 2.4 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 604 million DVDs each month), up from 341.4 Petabytes per month in 2014.
In Asia Pacific, mobile data traffic will reach 9.5 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 2,376 million DVDs each month), up from 977.4 Petabytes per month in 2014.
In Central and Eastern Europe, mobile data traffic will reach 3.5 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 874 million DVDs each month), up from 242.3 Petabytes per month in 2014.

Percentage of Smart Connections

In North America, 60% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 72% in 2014.
In Middle East and Africa, 41% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 11% in 2014.
In Latin America, 61% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 20% in 2014.
In Western Europe, 66% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 48% in 2014.
In Asia Pacific, 53% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 24% in 2014.
In Central and Eastern Europe, 58% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 18% in 2014.

Mobile Traffic Per Capita

In North America, mobile traffic per capita will reach 10,259 megabytes per month by 2019, up from 1,571 megabytes per month in 2014, a CAGR of 46%.
In Middle East and Africa, mobile traffic per capita will reach 1,933 megabytes per month by 2019, up from 142 megabytes per month in 2014, a CAGR of 69%.
In Latin America, mobile traffic per capita will reach 3,106 megabytes per month by 2019, up from 322 megabytes per month in 2014, a CAGR of 57%.
In Western Europe, mobile traffic per capita will reach 5,692 megabytes per month by 2019, up from 816 megabytes per month in 2014, a CAGR of 47%.
In Asia Pacific, mobile traffic per capita will reach 2,303 megabytes per month by 2019, up from 247 megabytes per month in 2014, a CAGR of 56%.
In Central and Eastern Europe, mobile traffic per user will reach 8,299 megabytes per month by 201

Perspectives

The Biggest Challenges Digital Media Faces in 2015

January 5, 2015 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

We asked a few of our members:
What do you think will be the most significant challenge for the business of digital media in 2015?

Here’s how they replied:

In 2015, I expect that most brands with a mobile presence will create offerings that better meet customer needs on the go. Presently, most mobile experiences simply mirror the desktop experience, but when we’ve reviewed customer insights we can easily see that behavior is different on the mobile platform. I predict that there will be a marriage of “big data” and mobile that allows marketing and product development departments to really grasp the opportunity to create meaningful and relevant mobile moments. This will require innovation, skill and the thoughtful application of user data, but it will be well worth the effort as it will generate more loyalty for the brands that do it well. Especially as mobile continues to grow to its inevitable domination of the online experience, we all need to be paying special attention to what more we can be doing to meet customer needs in this unique space.

—Michelle Denogean
CMO, Edmunds.com
@michadv2000 @Edmunds

According to the ANA, the marketing term of 2014 was Programmatic. There is no doubt that Programmatic is important and here to stay; however, consumers don’t follow programmatic. They don’t get excited about programmatic or curl up with programmatic…they do that with content. In 2015, it is time for content to get back in the driver’s seat. Premium content should never be viewed as a commodity and top publishers should be sending that message in every meeting they have.

—David Morris
Chief Client Officer, CBS Interactive
@CBSi

The biggest challenge for the digital industry is proving the efficacy of display advertising. Digital still remains the most measurable and trackable form of mass media and with the right metrics and methodology, it can provide marketers with much more insights than other media. But due to the oversupply of ad inventory, unscrupulous tactics by publishers and marketers to force feed ads down users’ throats, and the lack of progress the industry has made to show effectiveness beyond sheer click thru rates, we are at a critical juncture where we need to change how we do business. The scale, efficiency and targetability of digital still makes it an incredibly powerful tool for marketers. But publishers need to work harder to prove that digital ads “work’” and rethink some of the age old practices that have led to user blindness.

— Brian Colbert
CRO, About.com
@aboutdotcom

The challenge in 2015 will be around standardizing measurement for ad viewability. Right now, there are so many different sources to obtain campaign data, much of which lies with agencies; however, some of this lies with publishers and with third parties. There’s no real consistency on how the overall industry measures results. The publishing industry is working hard to deliver the maximum value to advertisers for their investment. The issue we all face is how to move forward efficiently without getting bogged down in the act of reconciling the various measurement services.

—Mark Howard
Chief Revenue Officer, Forbes Media
@markdhoward @Forbes

Finding the right way to structure the product management function in the organization. As we saw several times in 2014, media companies struggle with this. It’s easy to see why: product management works across editorial and commercial, to focus on the users’ needs, the business’s goals and the organization’s capabilities. Helping editors understand product managers and vice versa and teaching them to work well together is absolutely essential for the success of digital media.

—Eric Hellweg
Managing Director, Digital Strategy,
Harvard Business Review
@ehellweg @HarvardBiz

The most significant challenge for digital media advertising in 2015 will continue to be dealing with the operational issues that need to be addressed as more advertising moves through programmatic channels. Publishers need to understand how to get the greatest yield from this channel of demand while evolving custom programs that can deliver value and performance beyond what can be bought and sold on the open market—with enough scale to make it worth the marketers time to consider. Marketers need to master the tech stack and techniques required to get real value from programmatic buying but not become so consumed by the complexities that they miss out on other digital advertising opportunities that can offer greater value.

—Mike Kisseberth
CRO, Purch
@mikekisseberth @PurchGroup