advertisers

Samsung took top ad honors during Oscars, firm says

Samsung ruled the roost with its advertising during last Sunday's Academy Awards broadcast, analytics firm Ace Metrix said today.

According to individuals polled by the firm, two of Samsung's advertisements came in with top honors: one for the Galaxy Note, and the other for the company's SmartTV product line.

Trailing in third place was Google for its Google+ commercial. And further down the list were other tech companies like Apple, Sprint, and AT&T, and non-tech companies like retailer JC Penney and Subway sandwiches. … Read more

Twitter's ads bounce to cell phones

By way of advertising, Twitter's mobile platform is about to look a lot more like its Web site. The microblogging giant announced today that "promoted" tweets and accounts will appear in Twitter timelines on mobile apps for iPhone and Android.

"Today, we are taking an important next step in making our Promoted Products available to those users," Twitter wrote on its blog today. "This will help ensure that people see important Tweets from the brands they care about."

Before today, Twitter's mobile users saw limited advertising in its search function, but now … Read more

Flite 3 lets advertisers integrate apps, tweak campaigns on the fly

Display-advertising company Flite today unveiled Flite Platform 3, marking a shift away from static ads to one based on a real-time, app-driven world. Flite 3 enables two fundamental innovations: real-time updates to live campaigns and the ability to integrate Web applications directly into online ad units.

This means that advertisers can tweak campaigns based on real-time analysis of how users are responding to ads, including interaction rates and how much time users spend seeing an ad, but also the ability to edit an ad on the fly based on what the analytics data shows the advertiser.

Flite 3 also enables … Read more

Chrome to support Do Not Track privacy feature

Google has agreed to build support for Do Not Track into Chrome so its Web browser can tell Web sites when people don't want advertisers scrutinizing their behavior.

The Do Not Track technology modifies communications between browsers and servers so people can signal that they don't want their browsing behavior to become the basis for ad targeting.

Mozilla developed Do Not Track and built it into its Firefox Web browser. Microsoft followed suit not long after with Internet Explorer, Apple has enabled it as an option for developers in Safari 5.1, and Opera is building it into the forthcoming Opera 12. … Read more

Facebook readying new premium ads?

Facebook is expected to launch an upgrade next week to its premium ads program that will target the friends of advertisers' fans.

The new ads, which will launch February 29, will be created from content posted organically to pages, according to a purportedly leaked document (see below) obtained by GigaOm.

"Anything you can post to on your page, you can turn into an ad," the document says. "Upgraded ads can be targeted to anyone you want."

When the users seeing the ad are friends with fans of the page, Facebook will automatically expand the ad and … Read more

Twitter expands ad platform with 10,000 more businesses

Twitter moved one step up from its beta self-serve ad testing today and will now allow tens of thousands more self-serve ads on its site, according to Ad Age.

In a new promotion with American Express, Twitter will let AmEx cardholders and merchants who accept AmEx buy ads on its site. American Express will supposedly give each buyer a $100 advertising credit to get started placing ads on promoted tweets and accounts.

In December, Twitter announced it would start testing self-service ads with about 100 advertisers. The aim, Twitter said, was to make it easier for small- and medium-size companies … Read more

Browser maker Opera acquires two mobile ad networks

Taking another step to diversify its revenue sources and extend into the mobile market, browser maker Opera Software said it's acquired two mobile ad companies, Mobile Theory and 4th Screen Advertising.

The Norwegian company announced the deals today in conjunction with reporting fourth-quarter financial results. In that quarter, revenue rose from $33.4 million the year earlier to $43.6 million in 2011, while net income of $0.9 million rose to $7.4 million.

The two companies Opera acquired offer demand-side ad networks, Mobile Theory focused on U.S. advertising and 4th Screen focused on Europe. Demand-side ad … Read more

Apple slashes iAd pricing again as AdMob onslaught continues?

Apple's iAd platform is in deep trouble, and the iPhone maker has decided to try new pricing to boost its popularity, according to a report.

Advertising industry watcher Ad Age reported yesterday, citing sources, that brands wanting to use iAd to promote their products will only need to put up $100,000 to start a campaign. When Apple launched iAd in 2010, the company required brands put up $1 million. Back in December, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple had reduced that requirement to $400,000.

To quell some unrest among developers who hated the policy, Apple has … Read more

Samsung flubs its Apple Super Bowl dis

commentary Samsung wants fanboys to leave Apple's lines...only to get into another queue?

That's the footnote on an otherwise entertaining TV ad by Samsung that aired during the Super Bowl yesterday.

As it's done before, Samsung's pitch was effectively "why wait in line when you could have this, and have it right now?!" going so far as to say "the next big thing is already here...again." In this case, the only problem with that is that the product being advertised is not out yet.

The Note, the gadget that's … Read more