Is Undertone over the Top?

I’ve had a number of interesting conversations with advertisers in recent weeks regarding brand safety and our guarantee. Whether at the iMedia Agency Summit or as part of 2010 upfronts, it’s been an interesting topic now, given the wave of new to market page level content filtering and ad verification technology.

What’s compelling is that the feedback I received was pretty consistent. Brand marketers today are very interested in the quality of the publisher and the position of the placement - and a bit less concerned about page content that may result from audiences providing feedback to or joining in with the conversation about the content in “live” sections of the web page. This is a direct response to the acceptance that we now live in a world where media is social and consumers expect to have the opportunity to interact with the content. Of course, this whole premise is based on a fundamental assumption that starts with publisher quality and the quality audiences attracted to this content. Marketers understand that the ecosystem today is very democratic.

Of course, if a marketer had a very specific concern (think airlines and disaster-related content on top-tier news sites) then we could and would deploy one of several off-the-shelf content filtering technologies now available to both agencies and networks (and I was happy to see a few of those companies participate at the December iMedia conference in Arizona). But, after running thousands of campaigns, page-level content filtering requests are limited. It’s just not as relevant when you’re running only on top-tier publishers.

Follow up discussion revolved around the Undertone Guarantee. When asking our customers why the Guarantee is important to them, I hear the following: Long before there were verification and content filtering technologies, Undertone built technology and just as importantly, a process, to monitor the quality of the publishers we work with, the effectiveness those publishers demonstrate at delivering our clients’ messages, and the emphasis those publishers put on the quality of the content on each page – whether professionally produced or user-generated. We have and will continue to put our money where our mouth is as we evolve to meet our growing customer base. The marketplace responds in kind to that message. When it comes to our passion for quality, some may actually say that Undertone is over the top!

We’re happy to see that our customers and competitors are responding to our positioning on quality and our guarantee. It’s an important conversation, and in fact it’s really gratifying to have our competitors join in the dialogue – even if they can’t match our guarantee.

Yahoo shutting down DMX

Approximately two weeks ago, I provided a contrarian perspective on the influence and impact of Right Media for AdExchanger.com. My central point being that, rather than being a vehicle that competed with ad networks, Right Media ended up being a major factor in the ad network explosion of 2006-2007 with DMX-the Direct Media Exchange.

On Monday, Yahoo officially announced that they were shutting down DMX in an effort to try to position the exchange as a more up-market solution. This is a significant announcement for two reasons:

1. DMX was the platform that many second- and third-tier ad networks built their businesses on. It provided access to inventory as well as an ad serving solution. Without DMX and particularly the ad serving capability, we may see the ad network shakeout that many have been predicting.

2. Yahoo would not be shutting down this business if it was an immensely profitable money maker. Closing DMX shows just how difficult the exchange business is.

We won’t have to wait long to see what happens as a result of this move. DMX will be officially closed in less than two months on January 31, 2010.

The Berkshire Hathaway of Display

A recent POV in MediaPost triggered a visceral response. The Efficient Frontier of Display ROI: UGC, Porn, & Torrent Sites? draws an apt analogy between media buying and stock trading. In fact, in the context of all of the emerging tools in the display space (DSPs, exchanges, analytics), I agree that there are several parallels that can be made.

However, I adamantly disagree with the assertion that user generated content (UGC), porn (adult) sites, and torrent sites should be included on any type of media plan (re-targeting or otherwise). Despite the low CPMs, the content on adult sites is a completely inappropriate environment for any legitimate advertiser (DR- or brand-focused). Torrent sites are widely known to facilitate the practice of illegal file sharing - ask any marketer’s legal counsel about their view of sponsoring that content. And finally, two clicks in on imageshack.us provided some content that was at best extremely NSFW. The CPMs on these sites are low for a reason!

Frankly, I was amazed at the ads I was seeing after a few refreshes on the page. One of which was for a 200-year-old, high-end men’s clothing retailer whose flagship store is right up the block from Undertone headquarters on Madison Avenue. I’d be shocked if the brand manager for this conservative company was happy with this placement.

The good thing here, from my perspective, is that it seems that many advertisers know what’s going on, and are specifying that these types of sites be excluded from the plan from the start, as you mention. However it seems that some, as evidenced by the results of my imageshack.us experiment, are not.

It’s simply incorrect that advertisers should have to give up control and environment to drive results. There are companies (like Undertone) that are focused on delivering not only results, but in the highest quality environments. In the spirit of your finance analogies, call them the Berkshire Hathaways of online display: focused on only the best companies (sites) and, more often than not, beating index funds by a wide margin.