Author Archive
Congrats to Digitas’ Keira Lorentzen, the winner of our Xbox giveaway!
Last month, we held a contest for a Xbox 360 Kinect. We’re happy to announce that Keira Lorentzen, Vice President, Group Director, Digitas, is the winner.
Congrats, Keira!
Below is a short Q&A we did with our contest winner about her years in advertising, how Digitas approaches mobile and more. Keep reading!
How long have you been in advertising?
I have been in advertising for almost 15 years now. I started my advertising career as the Marketing Director at a small statistical software company. I then went on to business school and landed at Digitas where I have been for the last 11+ years.
I am an analytical person at heart. I love the analytics and research side of advertising and consumer behavior. I joined Digitas after business school because data-driven strategy and analytics is a big part of what makes us the world’s leading integrated brand agency, with digital at its core. By understanding and engaging consumers, we are able to develop winning ideas and creative that drive business results year-after-year.
Mobile is an incredibly important part of our work today. As we move towards a post-PC digital era, we focus on mobile first for a lot of our campaigns. In fact, our mobile practice grew over 130% in 2011. And in Boston, we recently opened the Digitas Mobile lab, a place where employees and clients can touch and test the newest mobile technologies, and then apply them to their work.
I’m excited for all the innovation we’ll see in the advertising industry this year. In particular, there will be a lot of growth for both social and mobile commerce. For social commerce, as more and more brands find the right technologies, their followers on social networks will also become more comfortable with both the convenience and the offering of shopping on social channels.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway contest!
Employers embrace sleeping on the job
Last night, CBS ran a clip on how napping is being embraced by employers for health benefits and to increase productivity. Guess who appeared in the interview? You guessed it! Pontiflex employees. CEO Zephrin Lasker, technology and user interface guru Nick Herman and media diva Danielle Phillip appeared napping in the clip. Zephrin and Nick also were interviewed. The best part is that we’re not alone in our prop-napping policies! According to CBS, companies such as Google and Nike also encourage napping in the office. Read more about the benefits of office napping here.
Apple Will Crack Down On Those Manipulating App Store Rankings
When it comes to its App Store rankings, Apple don’t play. According to moconews.net, it only took one allegation that some app developers are using download bots to boost their rankings for Apple to respond quickly. According to a developer’s post on Touch Arcade Forums, some third-party services are offering app download bot treatment for $5,000. Services are also offering to place positive reviews on apps.
Apple posted a response to this on its developer site, in an attempt to caution developers against manipulating Apple App Store rankings.
“Once you build a great app, you want everyone to know about it. However, when you promote your app, you should avoid using services that advertise or guarantee top placement in App Store charts. Even if you are not personally engaged in manipulating App Store chart rankings or user reviews, employing services that do so on your behalf may result in the loss of your Apple Developer Program membership. Get helpful tips and resources on marketing your apps the right way from the App Store Resource Center.”
But how would Apple go after all the companies offering these services?
Time will only tell. But app developers should be aware that by using services to inflate app rankings, they are risking being banned from the Apple App Store. They should also come to know that while using incentivized ads may inflate rankings, they won’t lead to an app’s success in the long term.
In fact, a recent Harris Interactive survey found that incentive-based ads aren’t popular amongst app users. Among people interacting with incentivized mobile apps, only 3% use those apps often. Also, 37% said they uninstalled the apps after redeeming the incentive, and 25% never used the app at all.
These survey findings should make developers think twice before attempting to inflate their app rankings. Once they do, they’re sure to find the risks outweigh the benefits of using incentivized app services and mobile ads.
Marketer Survey Reveals Mobile Ads Are Out of Sync with Marketers’ Priorities
(Click to enlarge the chart)
By the time you’re reading this blog post, you’ve most likely heard about eMarketer’s predictions for mobile advertising spending growth in 2012 (and if not read about them here). Since marketing dollars continue to flow into the mobile bucket at an eyebrow-raising rate, we thought it’d be a good idea to survey marketers to find out where they are with mobile advertising.
And that’s exactly what we did. In January, Pontiflex surveyed 200+ marketers to ask 10 simple questions about how they are using mobile.
By far the most compelling survey finding is depicted in the chart above (click to enlarge the chart). According to the survey results, 44% of marketers utilize mobile apps and mobile advertising to extend the reach of their digital marketing campaigns, 23.3% utilize them to grow their email marketing database and 18.3% use them to grow their social communities. Only 22.9% said that they use mobile apps and mobile ads to drive mobile app installs.
Since most mobile advertising is geared towards app discovery, these survey findings reveal that most mobile ads don’t align with marketer priorities. This means there is an imbalance in the mobile advertising world.
With consumers spending so much time on mobile devices, marketers must be able to use mobile ads to accomplish a variety of goals just like they would with TV or online media. Unfortunately a lot of mobile advertising is not aligned with marketer objectives. Marketers have spoken. The mobile ad industry must now listen.
Mobile Ad Spending Could Reach $2.61B in 2012
The industry is a buzz this morning with new mobile predictions made by eMarketer.com.
According to AdAge, eMarketer predicts that mobile ad spending in the US will grow 80% this year to reach $2.61 billion. This is a revision from a previous projection that mobile ad spending would reach $1.2 billion in 2012. Also according to eMarketer, mobile ad spending reached $1.45 billion in 2011, up from $769.6 million in 2010. Google is accredited with getting more than half of the pie.
No wonder so much attention is being paid to the mobile ad landscape. And these figures predict that the trend will continue.
Laos in Harmony
Just last week, we wrote that Pontiflex’s Kilvin Johnson is now appearing on Discovery ID’s television show SCORNED. Well this week, we have more news to share about one of our employees! Clinton Regis, our very own Systems Administrator Extraordinaire, shared with us today that his group, Laos In Harmony, just released a single on iTunes and Amazon MP3. Laos in Harmony is a gospel music ministry based in Brooklyn, New York. The group’s name is derived from the Greek word “Laos” which means “people,” hence “Laos in Harmony.”
To hear the single on iTunes, click here. To listen on Amazon, click here. For more information, visit Laos In Harmony. You can also “Like” the group on Facebook and follow them on Twitter (@laosinharmony).
Pontiflex’s Kilvin Johnson Appears on SCORNED
According to the Discovery ID website, SCORNED: LOVE KILLS uncovers “crimes of passion sparked by a spurned lover’s snap from provocative paramour to predacious threat.” Wow. That sounds juicy. And to make it even more exciting, Pontiflex’s Kilvin Johnson will be appearing on the show!
Without giving too much away, let’s just say that Saturday night’s episode will get pretty steamy when Kilvin’s character, Jeff Wilson, gets involved with a married woman. Will Wilson survive a love triangle? Will his love affair end tragically? Oh, we’re beside ourselves with anticipation…
Tune in to Discovery ID at 10 PM EST to find out what happens to Jeff Wilson (and Pontiflex’s Kilvin Johnson) on SCORNED.
In the meantime, watch a clip of the show.
Kindle Fire: A Tablet to Watch
According to GigaOm, the Kindle Fire represented 12.5% of all devices registered on Christmas day and 17% of new users on the day after Christmas. As shown in the above chart, the Kindle Fire has less market share than the Android and iOS devices. However, it has gained market share very quickly for a new device.
Speaking of the Kindle Fire, Pontiflex recently announced the new Pontiflex AppLeads Smart SDK, which includes support for iOS 5 universal applications, as well as Android tablets, such as Amazon’s Kindle Fire, the Samsung Tab and the Motorola Xoom. Read more about the new Pontiflex AppLeads Smart SDK here.
70% Of Mobile Users Access Facebook Via Mobile Apps
Here’s some great news supporting the power of mobile, which will surely increase as 2012 unfolds. According to Moconews.net, Enders Analysis analyst Benedict Evans reports that the monthly active users of Facebook’s mobile apps surpassed 300 million in the last quarter of 2011. “In other words, 70 percent of mobile users and 30 percent of all users used apps to access Facebook,” Evans writes. At Pontiflex, we’ve been touting the power of mobile apps all along. Learn more about our in-app mobile ad solution, AppLeads.
Arun Krishnan
Jason Penta
zlasker
Roshan Bangera
Jordan Cohen
eadlman
Geoff Grauer
Jerrie Gullick
Jon Beardsley
Nick Herman
Stacy Huggins
Tiffany Sumner
Avantika Banerjee
Daniel Egan
Lisa Khan
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