ADISN

one more thing ...

1/2 way through the article mentioned below (which, you should READ) the Clearspring widget network decided to implode which in-turn hung newsweek.com.  which makes reading an already obnoxious web-page / website that much more obnoxious (T-Mobile … are you reading this??)

Story Time: The Homeless Ad

One day while working at ADISN I stopped at a nearby ad exchange to drop off another batch of happy advertisements on their way to satisfied customers.  While there, I noticed quite a few ads milling around looking somewhat sad and disheveled.  Seems like this had been happening more and more often, so I decided to stop in and talk to a few of them to see what was going on.

As I sat down with one of the ads, my heart grew heavy as his story unfolded.  “People don’t understand me,” he said. “I have a message to deliver, an impression to make, a place that I would like to call home, but while trying to get from point A[1] to point P[2], I just keep getting bounced around from exchange to exchange, sleeping at the cheapest places I can find where people just dismiss me without a second thought.” At this point he broke down in tears and I strained to make out his muffled words. “I’m important, and I know there is someone out there who actually cares about me but instead I’m spinning around on this merry go round without a purpose, sometimes I don’t even know who I am anymore!”

I was silent, unsure if these were the last words of a suicidal case.  He wiped away the tears and stared at me longingly “Please tell me there’s a better way”, he pleaded, “I don’t want to wait around anymore for a train that doesn’t know where it’s going.  I am smarter than this!   I know where I need to go, but I just can’t seem to find anyone to help me find the right path, can you help?”   I had no idea things had gotten so bad, the ads at ADISN always seemed so content but now I saw and heard first hand the troubles some of these homeless ads go through.  At that moment I knew I had to help , I stood up and exclaimed, “YES!”

“See these ads here I brought with me smiling and bouncing around like giddy schoolchildren?  They are excited because they know we look carefully at all the options and help them use the exchanges to find a good home.[3] They know ADISN makes sure they always end up in places where people actually care about them what they have to say.[3] We prepare them with everything they need to make a great first impression no matter where they end up.  They all have lots of great outfits to wear and we even trained them on witty and interesting things to talk about so they feel comfortable in any situation[5]

I looked back at the ad and there were tears of joy in his eyes and a warm feeling swept over me knowing ADISN would be able to help another ad find it’s way.

[1] Advertiser

[2] Publisher

[3] REAL-TIME BIDDER

[4] RELATIONSHIP TARGETING TECHNOLOGY

[5] DYNAMIC CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY

ADISN Leveraging Data Across The Social Web To Target Display Ad Placements

http://www.adexchanger.com/social-media/adisn-target-display-ad-placements-says-ceo-moeck/

AdExchanger.com: Why did you start Adisn?

ADISN: We started ADISN because we were tired of seeing ads or having ads served to us with zero relevance to what we were doing and interested in at that time.  From that point, we saw a few BIG opportunities.  (1) By leveraging all of the great data that was being created across the Social and Conversational web and using that data to infer display ad placement; why wouldn’t every brand want that?? (2) Online marketing will become a huge player in overall marketing and messaging to the world; why not make sure the ads understand your needs by basic behavior/pattern online within immediate sessions?  We suspect the online advertising world will grow immensely in a short amount of time and will need ADISN’S innovative technology.

Could you give us a sense of momentum at Adisn?  Any strengths or weaknesses in the ad business in general that you see these days?

ADISN is moving along quite nicely.  We have been growing revenue about 300% quarter to quarter – We don’t see much weakness but it definitely takes a bit more time / work to close deals.  What used to take 30 days now takes 90 days but in general the budgets are still there (even test budgets).

In order to explain ADISN in the past, you’ve used a diagram of a human brain and its interests and inputs with the caption “Meet Relationship Targeting.”   Bring it together for us. What do you mean? And how do you differentiate from other social targeting companies such as 33across and Media6degrees that are going after the “birds of a feather” audience?

The human diagram is an analogy for how we operate, fashioned in a visual example that conveys the human touch and a level of personalization we can offer with our dynamic creative. As for the process, we begin by [EAR] listening to users across the internet; through social media networks, blogs, and articles. We take this information and [BRAIN] store it, forming relationships between words that are often associated with each other on the web by hundreds of millions of people every day. When serving ads, [EYE] we see words that match ones we have stored and look to the other words we have related to them in our system. Putting two and two together, we [MOUTH] serve up a relevant ad that speaks to the user based on our relationship-targeting. Coupled with our dynamic creative (ad layout personally customized, not template-based), it makes for an outcome which is incredibly tailored and extremely relevant per user.

Who is your target client base and why? Also, please describe your revenue model.

Individual advertisers as well as advertising agencies of all sizes.  Agencies use us as they would an ad network (to make their media buys) to make their media plans perform, however we also operate as the agency of record for a number of clients.

Are their advantages to the ad exchange model that social media advertisers and publishers may be able to leverage?

We are a big fan of the ad exchange model because it levels the playing field and ultimately allows the market to decide what inventory is worth.  We are big supporters of what Google is doing with their DoubleClick Advertising Exchange in moving to a real time bidding model allowing us to maximize our technology without having to enter into biz-dev contracts with thousands of publishers.

Are there unique inherent difficulties of attribution related to media buying on the social web?

Attribution is a bit of a sticky issue in general in the market right now.  If a media buyer decides to use 5 networks to run a campaign, the one with the most budget and highest reach is naturally going to be attributed with the ‘last impression’ more often.  The individual networks are competing with each other blindly to try and be the last one to cookie the user.  It encourages gaming, trying to tag the user with cheap media buys, manually overwrite other networks’ cookies, etc.

How do you see real-time bidding within the exchange model playing out?

Real-time bidding combined with the exchange model is going to have an enormous impact on the publisher world in general.  Initially the impact will be minor, but we see the exchanges integrating more and more data to be made available to the real time bidders so they can make intelligent decisions.  We feel like the trend will be to make more and more data available to bidders, which will further distinguish what the ‘real’ price should be for that inventory.  Eventually this opens the door for publishers to put their premium inventory directly on the exchange to cut down on their cost of sales.  We see this dynamic lowering overall CPM rates on the web, but also lowering costs for the publisher.

In general, how is the media buying agency model going to need to evolve?  Will it need to be more technically savvy, for example?

We feel like agencies that invest in technology will be able to provide a significant advantage to their advertisers vs. those who are just doing traditional media buying.

Is this a good time to be an entrepreneur?  Any advantage to being an entrepreneur in a struggling economy?

This is an outstanding time to be in a company that knows how to streamline operations and move as quickly as possible to profitability.  It’s not a good time for companies who spend like a drunken sailor on unnecessary infrastructure or personnel.  There are plenty of companies that will fail during this economy, and being one of the ones that succeeds is a testament to the team we have put together and knowing what it takes to be profitable.

Follow ADISN (@adisn) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

See a million dollar Masterpiece

This Friday will be a rare viewing of the Aston Martin One-77. Straight from the Pebble Beach Councours d’Elegance; this is the closest you will get to the million-dollar race-ready supercar.

When: Friday, August 21, 2009
6PM-8PM

Where: Aston Martin Newport Beach Showroom
1540 Jamboree Road

RSVP at jpeacock@amofoc.com or call 800.793.9560

Good Advice for Growing Agencies

Borrowed from this article, here are some solid points —-

Stand for something.

Have a competitive DNA.

Create a strong culture.

Evolve.