The people behind the open source (as in free) ad server OpenX has launched their own marketplace for online impressions. OpenX Market competes directly with Google AdWords and it’s a good thing, Google recently launched their own free ad server solution, so OpenX really needed a compelling reason for their users to stick around. At launch, OpenX Market already has a monthly run rate of more than one billion impressions.
Magazine advertising pages are down 26% in first quarter of 2009 according to the Publishers Information Bureau. Sporting magazines were among the hardest hit publications. Boating, Sporting News, Boating Life, and Sport Fishing all posted declines of around 50 percent.
A former Senior Partner has filed a lawsuit against WPP and Ogilvy. The company is accused of over-billing their clients and wrongful termination, lots of details to be had in this article at Media Bistro
WPP group is shutting down Enfatico the advertising agency formed to service Dell. The agency was derided from the outset for it’s business model (only one client) and constantly sent up by industry press for charging Dell a lot of money for not a lot of work.
The 118 year-old ad agency JWT Chicago is closing its doors for good according to Adage. What is most remarkable about this news is how dominant the agency was a very short time ago. As recently as 2007 JWT was the primary global ad agency for Kraft Foods. What a difference two years can make.
MySpace is attempting to tap into the quickly growing local online advertising market by partnering with IAC’s Citysearch. The new initiative is called MySpace Local and it will leverage Citysearch’s database of offline business to allow MySpace users to review and comment on them.
The worst days for display advertising are behind us according to a report filed by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.
The “Display advertising market stabilized in the first quarter and won’t be as bad for the rest of the year as many other people think.”
Wishful thinking or insightful analysis? We’re certainly hoping it’s the latter.
Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has a guest post over at TechCrunch titled Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet.
The gist of the article is that current web advertising is based on the more traditional push-style of information publishing which clashes with the more participatory nature of the web. It’s a great thought-provoking, if not 100% accurate article, worth the read and it currently has 572 comments.
The FTC is promoting the (actually free) AnnualCreditReport.com in the style of the (not at all free) FreeCreditReport.com. Too bad their ad isn’t infectious like the scam they are debunking!
Sample lyrics:
“All the others charge a fee
read the fine print and you’ll see
I should know it happened to me
For truly free, credit reports
there’s only one, authorized source”
Rupert Murdoch makes another newspaper acquisition in his efforts to become The Gatekeeper. This time it’s the independent newspaper, The Brooklyn Paper. Of course he’s singing the familiar tune of ‘I don’t want to change the paper, love it just the way it is’ which by now everyone knows is bullshit. Murdoch will dumb it down and it will probably make more money (not that it matters to him) and that is sad.
Agency Layoffs