Barry Levine says, “Welcome to the age of cognitive advertising. IBM’s The Weather Company is today announcing Watson Ads that enable consumers to conduct remote brand-related conversations with this expert computer, via free-form text or voice. “We believe this will transform advertising,” Weather Company global head of sales Jeremy Steinberg told me. I saw remote demos of a couple of prototypes, although no images are yet available for the public. In one, for allergy medicine Flonase, a consumer can type any question, such as: “Is this safe for my son?” The HTML5 ad, available... [...]

Mike Sands says, “I don’t know a marketer today who doesn’t marvel at the pace the industry is moving. But ask any CMO what his or her priorities are, and chances are good that a key focus today was also on the priority list five, 10, even 20 years ago — and will continue to remain so for years into the future. What marketing goal could possibly stand this test of time? The answer: connecting with customers. Consumer behavior has evolved, and the technologies available to marketers seem to multiply by the day. But the true purpose of marketing is and has always been to help brands get... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “In August last year, Adobe and PageFair reported that the global number of ad-blocking users had grown from 21 million in 2009 to just under 200 million in mid-2015. Earlier today, PageFair (and Priori Data) released a new mobile ad-blocking report that asserts there are now roughly 419 million mobile ad blockers around the globe. In other words, the numbers have doubled in about a year. Approximately 22 percent of smartphone users worldwide are blocking ads. Asia is where ad blocking is most widely practiced. It’s “less developed” in North America and Europe, according... [...]

Rustam Singh says, “Three, a major player in UK’s telecommunications and internet service providers, is about to be the first in the country to test out network backed ad-blocking on its mobile internet services. Starting 13th June and till 20th June, volunteering half a million users of the service will be trying out what could (hopefully) mark a trend of internet services across mobile networks. The company said it wants to give the customers “control, choice and greater transparency” over the content they consumed on the internet. This sparks yet another debate on the way we consider... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “With the news that over half of the trillions of Google searches happen on mobile, Google announced Tuesday that it will soon change the way advertisers set bids for targeting ads by device type in AdWords. Other coming changes announced at Googler Performance Summit in San Francisco include an update to Google text ads on all devices and responsive mobile display ads that can access native mobile ad inventory on the Google Display Network. The change in bidding is significant in that it accomplishes two things: 1. Untethers desktop and tablet bids; and 2. Allows advertisers... [...]

Patrick Kulp says, “Google’s advertisers may soon figure much more prominently into the terrain of the company’s maps feature. A new type of ad offering will let companies buy the ability to place a small logo image over their physical locations on Google Maps, the search giant announced on Tuesday. Such ads are already available in Google-owned navigation app Waze. Other new ads within Google Maps will allow retailers to peddle in-store discounts on specific products or display an inventory search of a nearby store when users search relevant terms within Maps. If someone were... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “According to researchers at Stanford, highly targeted ads may not be all they’re cracked up to be. Based on a mathematical model they built based on game theory, the researchers instead suggest that advertisers “prefer to remain in a state of partial willful ignorance so as to preserve communication credibility.” Eilene Zimmerman explains… In this case, the researchers were looking at cheap talk in retail, for example, an ad promising ‘Lowest Prices in Town’. That can be credible when it’s used to draw in appropriate customers;... [...]

Jonha Richman says, “Ads are the content producer’s and business owner’s best friend, but the Internet surfer’s and online consumer’s worst nightmare — well, at least for some people. You’ve seen ads on your favorite sites, as well as on your search engine results. People have mixed views about online ad placements; some users don’t mind having a couple of ads show up onscreen, but others hate that they ruin their user experience and browser performance. Ad blockers were invented for those who want their Internet experience to be free from advertisements. However, not all... [...]

Alex LePage says, “Despite last year’s declaration from some industry pundits that the death of digital advertising is here, we think digital advertising will survive and can even thrive. For the industry to survive, though, we need to take a realistic look at how digital advertising hasn’t exactly kept pace with changing consumer habits and attitudes. As a result, we’ve had to face what have rightly felt like existential crises, with perhaps none drawing as straight a line between now and potential oblivion as the rise of ad blocking. Marketers should resolve to create better experiences... [...]

Ryan Skinner says, “In the context of writing a report on the native advertising technology landscape, I was looking at many publishers’ native advertising products when it occurred to me: Nobody uses the same damn name for native ads, no one calls it ‘advertising’, and almost no one calls it ‘native’. Here’s a word cloud of all the names used for native advertising products by 20 leading publishing houses . Not a single name for this product was repeated publisher to publisher. Let me repeat that: Not a single name for this product was repeated publisher... [...]