Here Are The 10 Most Innovative Digital Ad Products of 2014

Google, Snapchat, Facebook and the rest reshape the industryBy Garett Sloane

• December 26, 2014, 7:08 AM EST
• Technology

Instagram video ads, used by brands like Disney, were among the most interesting of the year.

It wasn't long ago when social media advertising just meant Facebook and digital advertising only reached desktop computers. Well, 2014 saw an explosion in the Internet ecosystem, which has become increasingly mobile with more media-rich formats than ever.

The largest players like Facebook and Google innovated and newcomers such as Snapchat offered ad space that theretofore didn't exist. So here's a look back at a year where fresh ad units routinely emerged onto the scene.

Google Shopping Campaigns

The search advertising giant showed that it wants to take on Amazon as much as any of its other rivals, and it developed its e-commerce platform to do just that, not only with services like home delivery but evolved search ads that more seamlessly include retail. In early 2014,Product Listing Ads, which show up in certain searches directing users to retailers online, were now rolled into campaigns. The new shopping campaigns give retailers more control over when their ads show up in searches and for what products. Google even has tools that let retailers indicate what products are available at the nearest physical store.

In September, Google also launched AdSense for Shopping, which shows product ads on third-party websites. It's all very Amazon, and all part of Google's one-stop shop to track everything from ad served to product delivered.

Snapchat's Sponsored Updates

The youth-focused messaging app didn't take long to get into advertising with sponsored snaps ("snaps" are what Snapchat legions call their momentary messages on the platform) that show up in users' inboxes. The Universal Pictures movie Ouija was the first to buy the new mobile video format, which opens a new channel for social media marketing—especially in terms of reaching young people.

Also, its live feed, which crowdsources Snapchat messages at events like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, now features commercials mixed in with the snaps from everyday users. For instance, Amazon sponsored Black Friday on Snapchat.

Instagram Sponsored Video

Now with more than 300 million users, Instagram had its first full year of advertising in 2014. Its newest ad product introduced autoplay sponsored videos, and brands from Disney to Electronic Arts to Banana Republic were the first to try them out.

The video offering comes on top of sponsored photos, which were first served in 2013. CEO Kevin Systrom is trying to cultivate a stylish advertising vibe not unlike the glossy pages of a magazine only this is digital, mobile and multimedia, and he still apparently approves all of the marketing on a case-by-case basis.

Facebook Premium VideoWhile tested in 2013, Facebook's Premium Video Ads didn't fully launch until March. These ads are autoplaying videos that are attracting a number of brands such as Macy's during Christmas.

Video is the future of Facebook, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and billions of videos from users and marketers are seen everyday. Facebook is trying to compete with everyone from YouTube to Yahoo to Twitter to AOL with video that can attract brands looking for top publishers.

Twitter App-Install Ads

The app-install ad was ever important this year, especially at Twitter, where the direct-response model of advertising now offers ways from brands to do more than ever on the platform. Yes, installing an app is one variety, but the ads also direct users to apps that have been dormant on their phones, a trick that Facebook and Google now offer as well.

Also, Twitter has e-commerce ads that have Buy Now buttons and video ads with View Now, and the list of potential actions is only growing.

Tumblr Sponsored Dot

Tumblr was full of new ad ideas this year, perhaps the most intriguing was the Sponsored Dot (that period at the end of its logo). Now, brands can buy it, dressing their logo as the punctuation mark for special occasions, like Starbucks did on National Coffee Day.According to parent company Yahoo, Tumblr is looking at $100 million in ad sales during 2015, so it laid the groundwork for plenty of other new products, too, including video, sponsored trends and app-install ads.

Kik Promoted Chats
This messaging app is just starting its ad business, much like Snapchat. However, it doesn't draw quite the same amount of attention even though it is popular with teens and consistently near the top of app charts. Kik says it has 150 million registered users, and it is attracting big brands and media/entertainment players looking to reach its young audience with Promoted Chats.

The paid chats launched this year and let properties like Funny or Die and electronics brands like Skullcandy to message one-on-one with followers who opt in. It's a new kind of marketing built for mobile and messaging, two increasingly relevant areas.

Promoted PinsPinterest entered the realm of social media advertising with Promoted Pins, which are served when users search for specific categories and keywords. This is the pinning platform's first ad product, which launched fully earlier this year after being tested in late 2013.

Brands like Kraft, Dell, Home Depot and Walmart are paying to boost their Pins, and there are now self-serve tools, too, for managing marketing campaigns on the platform.

Sponsored ListeningStreaming music was an important area for advertising in 2014 with Pandora, Spotify and iTunes all going after brands. Pandora introduced video ads with this Sponsored Listening product, which offers users ad-free listening for an hour in return for watching a sponsored clip. In October, Fox helped promote new shows on Pandora with the help of the format.

Google Giferator

This was a custom ad unit made for EA Sports' Madden football video game, but it shows that Google is allowing advertisers to be more creative on the digital platform. The Giferator was generating dynamic ads in real time that could be highly targeted to select audiences.

The ad technology was developed as part of Google's Art, Copy and Code program, where it tries to blend the creative and technical sides of digital advertising. Also, the Giferator let users create their own Gifs, a format that marketers couldn't get enough of this year.

AmEx Generated 10 Million Instagram Impressions in 2 Weeks With Guest Photographers Influencers increased engagement 23%

 By Lauren Johnson

• December 29, 2014, 11:53 AM EST
• Technology

For the past year, American Express has experimented with turning over its social accounts to influencers for short bursts of time to pick up followers and buzz. And it appears to be working—at least based on some results from a recent two-week Instagram campaign.

On Nov. 9, AmEx gave six Instagrammers the keys to its account as part of the #MyAmex campaign. The posts were created by graphic designer Ann Kim, chef Christina Tosi, Patrick Janelle (who won the CFDA's first-ever Fashion Instagrammer of the Year award this year), fashion designers Oleema and Kalani Miller, Team Epiphany managing partner Coltrane Curtis and designer Timo Weiland.

The group posted a series of pictures (see examples below) depicting how AmEx impacts their businesses.

According to AmEx, the #MyAmex posts generated 23 percent more engagement than the brand's other Instagram pictures. AmEx also doubled its average number of daily Instagram followers for two weeks. In total, the campaign generated more than 10 million impressions and 40,000 engagements.

The social takeover followed another campaign from earlier this year that told the story of a fictional card member named CF Frost. The character was based on Charles F. Frost, an ad executive who worked at Ogilvy & Mather in the 1960's and has been prominently featuredin AmEx ads since.

"In this case we decided, Why not have our card members tell the story themselves?" said Mona Hamouly, vp of social media communications at AmEx. "So, we thought about people who have really interesting walks of life who have an affinity for the brand."

This was the first year that the brand turned to influencers to churn out social content, according to Hamouly. Artists such as Andy Hau and Supermundane created Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Vine posts this summer, and during New York Fashion Week, fashion bloggers posted sketches on the brand's social accounts.

Take a look at some of the campaign's top-performing posts below.

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7 Data Points Proving What Works on Instagram

Shiny new social media toys come and go, however Instagram has come into its own as a mainstay for the digitally savvy. As Instagram grew in popularity, marketers began circling the mobile app like sharks circling prey. Many marketers have dove into the app and tested out engagement strategies that largely depend on the use of hashtags and flooding feeds with as many images as possible. This approach works if you have the resources to pull it off, however a majority of marketers do not.  When resources are limited, it’s ALWAYS a good idea to summon the power of data to help maximize the impact of your efforts.  Luckily for us, Simply Measured shared a study that featured some great data points to help marketers make the most of their Instagram efforts.  Let’s take a look at the data and the insights of this illuminating study.
The Data

• 73% of the top brands on Instagram post photo or video content at least once per week.
• 50% of comments on top brands’ content came within the first 6 hours of the posting.
• The average caption on content was 138 characters long, however there was no overlying correlation between caption length and engagement.
• Posts that feature another user’s handle in the caption nab 56% more engagement, however only 36% of brands included these mentions.
• 88% of the top brands on Instagram used at least 1 hashtag in their posts.
• Photo and video posts that use at least a single hashtag see 12.6% more engagement.
• Only 5% of posts on Instagram tag a location, however posts that do tag a location get 79% higher engagement.

The Insights

• Instagram is not a set it and forget it type of social network. Marketers need to consistently post photos and videos to Instagram to see any impact. It would be ideal to try to set a loose content calendar to organize your efforts and keep a consistent frequency of posting.
• Content lasts a few days on Instagram. Keep tabs on how long your content continues to receive engagement to determine what your minimum posting frequency should be.
• Provide captions but don’t go crazy on the length of text. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words.
• If your post involves another user be sure to mention them in the caption and tag them in the image if necessary. Be sure to spread the love!
• Hashtags help your content get discovered. Be sure to use them!
• Make sure you use location tags when appropriate. This is especially important if you are a hotel, restaurant or any other brick and mortar business.
• Don’t forget that Instagram and Twitter make an incredible 1-2 punch for distributing your content!

Digital Video Viewers Keep Eyes on PCs Mobile hasn't taken over digital video

• Dec 17, 2014
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The US audience for digital video—that is, video consumed on any digital device—will pass 200 million in 2015, making up not quite two-thirds of the entire population, according to a new eMarketer report, “US Digital Video Audience Profile: Who’s Watching, How They’re Watching and What Screens They’re Watching.” It’s a large audience, but one that is not likely to increase much further. We estimate that growth will run in the low single digits over the next few years.

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The most common screen for digital video consumption is the traditional desktop or laptop. Many digital video viewers use multiple screens over time (and even simultaneously), but computers remain the most popular access point.

A survey of US internet users by HUB Research found that use of mobile devices (and smart TVs) for video viewing grew in 2014, but significantly more respondents still used computers to do so.

Similar patterns can be seen in data from TNS, which found that laptop computers were the most common device used to stream videos. TNS’s survey showed a much smaller—but still significant—gap between computers and other devices for video viewing.

Another view, this from server data gathered by Adobe, suggests an even sharper tilt toward computer viewing. In Q1 2014, almost three-quarters of US digital video starts occurred on computers, while just over one-quarter occurred on mobile devices.

Looking at smaller-screen audiences, eMarketer estimates that there will be 89.7 million smartphone video viewers in the US in 2014. That total is about half the size of the overall digital video audience.

Although there are fewer tablet users than smartphone users, the size of the US tablet video-viewing audience is nearly as large as that of the smartphone video-viewing audience, reflecting the fact that the tablet is associated with leisure-time activities such as content consumption.

In addition, there is the connected TV audience.

This year, eMarketer estimates, about 46% of US households will have some form of connected TV (defined as a TV set connected to the internet through built-in internet capability or through another device such as a Blu-ray player, game console or set-top box—e.g., Apple TV, Google Chromecast, Roku).

And by next year, nearly 56% of households will have at least one connected TV.

While the size of the mobile audience is considerable, the numbers also point to how nonmobile video—computers and connected TV—is still going strong. That’s essential to keep in mind when planning and executing ad campaigns to balance against the hype that “mobile is taking over everything.”

- See more at: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-Video-Viewers-Keep-Eyes-on-PCs/1011712/3#sthash.SIrFDRhg.dpuf

14 Brilliant Outdoor Ads That Rocked the Real World in 2014

Beautiful, subversive, playful and magical By Tim Nudd

Article

• December 17, 2014, 6:57 AM EST

• As usual, many of this year's most inspired and delightful advertisements weren't found on TV, in print or online. They were found outside, where marketers played off the real world to bring completely new dimensions to their brands.
  Below, check out 14 of our favorite out-of-home executions from 2014—all of them a potent reminder that outdoor can make brands instantly relevant and incredibly cool.
14

Smart Car

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  Skinny car, skinny ad. Contrapunto BBDO put this Smart ad on the narrow side of an outdoor display. Text reads, "Siempre hay un hueco," which means, "There's always a space."
13

KitKat

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  Americans think of "Gimme a break" as KitKat's slogan, but its more famous global tagline, dating to 1958, is "Have a break … have a Kit Kat." JWT London found a fun new way to illustrate that line this year—with a half-finished billboard.
12

Gold TV

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  What better way to advertise a Monty Python reunion than with a dead parrot? To promote the live TV broadcast of a July performance by the comedy troupe, British network Gold TV and sculptor Iain Prendergast created a massive fiberglass parrot, which was suspended from a crane and laid talons-up in London's Potters Field.
11

McDonald's

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  TBWA Paris created some beautifully minimalist outdoor posters for McDonald's this summer, with clean, simple drawings that turned the products into actual icons.
10

Flower Council of Holland

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  For this lovely Valentine's Day stunt, ad agency Kingsday installed 1,500 cute little red boxesaround Paris, modeled after emergency boxes—but containing single red roses. "In case of love at first sight, break glass," the boxes said.
9

Nissan

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  TBWA\Chiat\Day orchestrated this fun stunt for client Nissan, which had offered to sell the Versa Note on Amazon. For three lucky buyers, the vehicles were actually delivered in giant Amazon boxes.
8

Yaocho

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  People literally drinking until they drop, and sleeping on the street, is a persistent problem in Japan. Ogilvy & Mather, Geometry Global and bar chain Yaocho addressed it by turning the passed-out patrons into impromptu PSA billboards—framing them within squares of white tape and adding the hashtag #NOMISUGI, which translates to "too drunk."
7

Coca-Cola

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  When Coca-Cola introduced mini cans of Coke in Germany, it fittingly opened some adorable mini kiosks in five cities to sell them. They even had a pint-size vending machine. "It's the little things in life that make us happy," said the campaign's tagline.
6

OBI

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  This German home-improvement chain advertised its renovation products by actually renovating homes—well, parts of them. Ad agency Jung von Matt/Elbe measured out billboard-size sections of run-down buildings and fixed them up, delightfully showing the before and after of an improvement project.
5

Ikea

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  German agency Thjnk and production studio I Made This created this brilliant "RGB billboard" for Ikea—and like the client's furniture, it makes the most of limited space. Three different headlines are superimposed on each other in cyan, magenta and yellow. At night, red, green and blue (RGB) lightbulbs shine on the board—revealing the different headlines. (Red illuminates cyan; green lights up magenta; and blue-purple makes yellow visible.) That's how you turn 9 square meters of ad space into 27 square meters.
4

Netflix

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  For the launch of Netflix in France, Ogilvy Paris created 100 different GIFs—some of which "reacted" to current events and even things like the weather—and installed them on outdoor boards. They're undeniably eye-catching in ways other digital video just isn't.
3

Ikea

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  More Ikea. Agency Ubi Bene helped the chain celebrate the opening of its 30th store in France by building an apartment into a vertical rock-climbing wall in the city of Clermont-Ferrand. The wall was 9 meters high by 10 meters wide and fitted with steps and grips, allowing the public to navigate among beds, cabinets, tables, chairs, sofas and accessories.
2

Apolosophy

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  This fantastic digital subway ad in Sweden for a hair-care line of products was rigged up to recognize when trains entered the station—and then showed a woman's hair blowing all around, as though windswept by the train. Simple, playful, responsive and seemingly magical, the execution—by agency Akestam Holst and production company Stopp—blurred the line wonderfully between the real and virtual worlds. (And this homage to it, with a twist, wasn't bad either.)
1

Google

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  Our favorite outdoor campaign of the year was this series of Google ads playfully and subtly woven into the fabric of New York City. 72andSunny worked with various organizations and proprietors to create a host of wonderful site-specific ads—each one like a mini-installation. The ads, for Google's rebranded mobile app, were all about looking about familiar landmarks in a new way—asking questions about them, which the app can answer. It was truly inspired work, and it was great to see a giant company like Google doing such joyfully detailed advertising work on the ground. See more of the ads below.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Topics: Out Of Home, Creative, Agency