Viewable Impressions Discussed At Interactive Advertising Bureau

comScore CEO Dr. Magid Abraham spoke on the subject of ad impressions at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Annual Leadership Meeting. According to him, an unlimited number of display ad impressions hurts the economics of advertising.

“The solution is to introduce digital scarcity to the system,” he said. “[In order to achieve digital scarcity, companies should] only count impressions that reach a real user and have a chance to make an impact.”

He outlined four criteria for ads that should be standard: that the ad is not fraudulent, that it’s displayed in a brand-safe environment, that it’s delivered in its target geography and that impressions are only counted when the ad is in view. In particular the last criteria is important to the “Making Measurement Make Sense” initiative.

The effort is seeking to transition from counting served impressions in favor of counting viewable impressions; the thinking goes that advertisers shouldn’t pay for ads that consumers never scroll down and see. “There are more impressions than will ever be budgeted,” said Andrew Casale, vp of strategy at ad network Casale Media.

“To go to publishers and say, ‘We need you to cut your inventory in half’ when they are not selling out today [but] in hopes that they’ll now sell out is just reverse intuitive,” said Casale. “That’s going to be the biggest challenge.”

It’s a tough sell to ask publishers to reduce monetization opportunities, but Casale is a champion of viewable impressions nonetheless. “Less is more even in the [real-time bidding] exchange ecosystem because we have too much right now, so we have to cut away and something like a viewable impression really speaks to that,” he said.

Source: AdWeek

Crytek Working With Nexon For Warface

Crytek has announced that it has signed a deal with Nexon to publish its free-to-play shooter Warface in Korea and Taiwan. The German company has also secured publishing deals with Mail.RU and Tencent to publish the PC title in Russia and China, respectively.

“We’re excited to bring Warface to Korea and Taiwan together with Nexon, the best partner we could have wished for,” said Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli. “Nexon’s experience in running games-as-service combined with our high production values and hardcore gaming DNA, we believe we can revolutionize the genre that has been invented in Korea.”

Twitter Expands Promoted Tweets On Mobile

Twitter has announced that it is expanding its ad presence on iOS and Android phones. This update will allow Promoted Tweets to be visible in mobile apps and will start appearing in users’ timelines on mobile apps.

“Initially, a small number of users may see Promoted Tweets near the top of their timelines from brands they already follow,” said the company. “This will help ensure that people see important Tweets from the brands they care about.”

Source: blog.twitter.com

Facebook Timeline Finally Available For Brands

Facebook has finally rolled out its Timeline profile format for brand pages. This addition means that companies can take advantage of a wide-screen format and pin posts to appear in the Timeline’s top-left area for seven days.

The wide-screen post can feature photos and text to detail specific points in a brand’s history. Beth McCabe, vp and director of social marketing and technology at Digitas, believes that “brands that post a lot of engaging content are really going to win here.”

Timeline can be a double-edged sword, however, showing all of a Page’s historical activity both positive and negative. “God knows nobody wants bad times being rehashed again,” said McCabe. “There are absolutely some cases where brands have embarrassing moments or crises in community management.”

A new friend activity feature will automatically share any friend interactions with a brand page and the new brand pages also feature an admin panel for page managers to view notifications and page analytics, respond to messages and edit page content. Companies can now see a demographic breakdown of visitors’ age ranges, the most popular week for the brands and the cities driving the most visitor traffic.

Facebook will automatically update pages to the new format on March 30, but companies can push the update today, as Walmart, Dove, Red Bull and Lexus already have.

Source: AdWeek

PapayaMobile Makes A Social Splash

PapayaMobile has introduced their new development tool Social Splash. This tool allows developers to add Papaya’s social and monetization features to their games.

“This tool is for every developer that has felt abandoned by Flash and crowded out by Zynga,” said CEO Si Shen.  “We believe in helping HTML5 and Flash developers make the transition to mobile a seamless experience. Not only does this new tool decrease development time, but it also allows developers to launch their entire games catalog onto mobile without having to learn a new coding language.”

PapayaMobile also announced that it has surpassed 50 million users and seen 260 percent user growth in the last nine months.

Pac-Man 3D Show A Go

Pac-Man: The Adventure Begins, a 3D animated show, will debut in 2013 on Disney XD. Avi Arad-produced show will focus on high school-aged Pac-Man and friends as they go on wacky adventures.

“I am very excited about producing Pac-Man – The Adventure Begins, the 3D animated series, with Rick Ungar,” said Arad. “Pac-Man is one of the world’s greatest icons. He is funny and adventurous and will bring his tone and abilities to this beautifully executed animated series. For more than 30 years, Pac-Man has been a household name. Having this property on Disney XD is its rightful place to be.”