Zoom Media Inc., through its new product Fashion Frame, which partners with retailers to advertise in fitting rooms, is launching a campaign for Byly, a brand of waxing strips. It includes a sample with each purchase.iStockphoto/Getty Images/iStockphoto
1. The change room in a bathing-suit store is a fraught place for women. But as ladies get ready for pool season, at least one advertiser is drawing attention to the upkeep they may have neglected during the winter months. Zoom Media Inc., through its new product Fashion Frame, which partners with retailers to advertise in fitting rooms, is launching a campaign for Byly, a brand of waxing strips. It includes a sample with each purchase. The advertising "brings the need for the depilatory strips into an intimate context," said Martyne Rioux, vice-president of Fashion Frame said in a statement. Whether women will resent the imposition is another question.
2. AOL Inc. , the company that got people online in the 1990s and introduced them to the concept of email, is hoping to increase ad sales – by acting more like a TV broadcaster. This week, it announced it will be using Nielsen campaign ratings to sell ads by gross rating point, a measure that tracks the ad's reach with a target demographic. The approach replaces the traditional online model of counting impressions (or number of people who see an ad) and clicks to count effectiveness. "With online video increasingly playing a role in traditional TV upfront buying and selling, consistent cross-platform metrics are becoming more and more critical to proving the true value of advertising on a site," said Steve Hasker, Nielsen's president of media products and advertiser solutions.
3. While advertisers are selling online more like TV, Web videos are keeping up by looking more and more like traditional television. Long-form, professional content such as full episodes of television shows contain an average of 5.5 video ads, according to a study released this week by Adobe Systems Inc. The research sampled 2.5-billion ad impressions on Adobe's video ad management system. It found mid-roll ads that interrupt a video, similar to traditional commercial breaks, are watched through to the end 87 per cent of the time. That's a 30-per-cent better rate than pre-roll ads that run before the video starts. Adobe suggested he data shows there is an opportunity for traditional broadcasters looking to generate more revenue from ads in a new media context.
4. New-York based agency , which works with Budweiser globally, opened an office in Canada this week. The Toronto expansion follows a recent launch in Amsterdam; it also has an office in London. Anomaly, part of the MDC Partners Inc. network, rolled out the red carpet in Canada with a Super Bowl ad this year designed just for the Canadian market, and featuring a mob of fans surprising a rec hockey league in Port Credit, Ont. (It also courted controversy by using amateurs instead of unionized actors.) Global business director Franke Rodriguez moved from New York to Toronto to lead the office as president. Other clients include Procter & Gamble, Converse, Marriott Group's Renaissance Hotels, Nike, and Umbro.