Marriott International is using the Oscars telecast on Sunday to unveil the hotel company’s Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program. The new effort merges and rebrands the Marriott Rewards, Ritz-Carlton Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) programs under one umbrella.

The creative, developed with Observatory Marketing and Independent Media, highlights various properties, including the JW Marriott Nashville and W Verbier, while guests proclaim "Bonvoy" during activities, like drinking wine or playing golf. The campaign’s tagline: "Rewards Reimagined."

The ad will air during a dedicated 60-second commercial pod during Sunday's broadcast, a first for the award show.  “Rewards Reimagined” will run across television, digital video, mobile, print, social media, out of home, and cinema, as well as special events.

Thanks to the rise of enabled video and audio technology, it’s now possible to add another level of sensory experience to a brand interaction. Known as audio or sonic branding, this includes video, music, and sound effects that consumers can experience across all channels and interactions with companies that use the strategy.

A standout example of sonic branding is Intel’s iconic “bong” sound. Other audio branding moments include ones that can get stuck in your head -- like the McDonald’s “ba da ba ba ba, I’m lovin’ it” song.  

As thought leader Gary Vaynerchuk explains in a blog post, “Ultimately, sonic branding is the audio equivalent of a brand’s username. If a company plays their tag alongside advertisements or content that match their brand’s positioning, eventually that audio tag by itself will conjure up the intended feelings around that brand.”

Mastercard's Breakthrough Sonic Branding Effort

Mastercard has just introduced an evolution of the company’s brand identity that encompasses a comprehensive sonic brand architecture, which will become the audio cue for all consumer interactions with Mastercard.

Recognizing the growth in voice commerce and adoption of digital home assistants as well as the move to a smaller screen, Mastercard knew branding had to change to be relevant to the digital and mobile environment, said Raja Rajamannar, the company’s CMO and communications officer.

Two years ago, the credit card company began to create a sonic branding strategy.

“Adding sound brings another dimension to our brand,” Rajamannar said. “Since consumers are so bombarded already, this sonic branding and change to a more minimalist design helps keep us top of mind without overwhelming them.”  

Now, when consumers go online via their mobile device to buy something and checks out with their Mastercard, they will see a more prominent logo without the company name and enjoy the added experience of a melody.

A Sound That Changes with Genres, Applications, and Consumer Mood

Consumers will hear a contextually or regionally relevant version of the sonic brand. Rajamannar added, “The sonic brand architecture provides for this flexibility because it has been thoughtfully structured to be pleasant, simple, hummable, and, most importantly, adaptable.”

For example, it might be an electronic dance music version or it could be delivered in an operatic style. Overall, there is still a consistent, and recognizable, foundational melody. It’s this comprehensive sound architecture that the brand believes will set it apart as breaking new ground in leveraging audio to drive brand recognition.

On a cultural level, Mastercard also recognized the need to create a sonic brand that would be relatable around the world. “We’ve worked with musicians, artists and agencies from around this world," said Rajamannar. "This team included Mike Shinoda, co-founder of Linkin Park. The result was a melody that offers different instruments and tempos without making it complex and confusing to the listener.”

Sonic Branding at Every Touchpoint

Mastercard also recognizes the importance of introducing the sonic brand at every touchpoint -- but in a way that doesn’t inundate the consumer.

Rajamannar explained, “We have different places and formats where the melody will be used. First, it’s featured in the ad that we just launched for television and online channels. Second, the melody is now offered as a ringtone for consumers to download and use. Third, it is a brief sound that users hear as a payment confirmation when they do a transaction.”

In hearing the new tone from Mastercard, I’ve already caught myself humming along. Don’t you want your customers to be humming and tapping along with your brand?  

VIDEO

When implemented correctly, Facebook ads can be an ROI juggernaut. And placing your ads correctly is crucial for creating campaigns that convert. To get the best results for the lowest possible cost, it’s important to understand how Facebook’s algorithm optimizes. 

Facebook constantly innovates and updates its algorithm to give both publishers and users a great experience. And Facebook’s algorithm wants you to do well. When your campaign succeeds, Facebook earns more revenue. Opting into as many placements as possible maximizes your ad’s performance and ensures your users receive relevant ads at the right time.

Better Placements, Better Results

Facebook’s advertising marketplace is competitive. Placements make it easier for your ad to stand out and win more auctions, especially if you’re using placements other brands in your niche aren’t, like Audience Network.

Let’s look at key placement options for optimizing your campaign. 

1. Mobile and Desktop Feeds

These are the most basic placements available on Facebook, and typically represent the majority of your impression share and results. While competition for these limited placements is high, they tend to have the best performance.  

2. Audience Network

If you like running ads with Google Display Network, you’ll love Facebook’s Audience Network. This network shows your ads on third-party apps and sites through video, native, and banners. Audience Network is a great way to reduce your cost per click (CPC), but doesn’t always have the highest conversion volume. If you choose this placement, just remember it will only play a small part in your campaign’s success.

3. Instagram Feed and Stories

Facebook offers ad placements on millennial and Gen Z social media favorite Instagram. Choose between feed or Stories placements. Instagram’s feed ads function similarly to Facebook feed ads, while Stories ads are vertically formatted images or videos up to 15 seconds in length.

4. Automatic Placements

Facebook’s Automatic Placements uses its data and real-time user insights to give you the most bang for your buck, optimizing ads across all placements to attract the highest-quality user at the lowest cost based on your campaign’s objective.

Facebook shares this example on its site: You’re running automatic placements for Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network. You pay $3 on average per event, but you’re alarmed because you see your CPC for Instagram is so high.

However, when Instagram is turned off and you target only Audience Network and Facebook, the average cost goes up to $3.25 each. You pay more and get less exposure.

You might pay a little more for specific placements, but you’ll see an overall increase in conversions and decrease in cost with Automatic Placements.

The Bottom Line

Ad placements are all about experimentation. To find what works best for your audience, select all placements. Over time, Facebook will help you optimize your campaigns to reach your ideal audience. This will help you see a real ROI with smarter placements.

DoubleVerify’s acquisition of Zentrick, a digital video technology, enables the creation of a video-blocking and measurement tag to protect brands and measure quality across desktop, mobile app and OTT video platforms.  

The transaction, an all-cash-and-stock offer of an undisclosed sum, closed on February 15, 2019.

Wayne Gattinella, CEO of DoubleVerify, says the acquisition strengthens the company’s online video-advertising capabilities. The combination of the two companies will enable DoubleVerify to offer what he calls “a universally deployed video blocking and measurement tag.”

By 2022, mobile video will represent 79% of global mobile data traffic, up from 59% in 2017, according to the Cisco Global Mobile Traffic Forecast.

Zentrick technology builds on DoubleVerify’s competency in media quality, by addressing breakage in the video ad delivery chain, an issue that’s particularly acute in emerging areas of mobile app and connected TV video advertising.

Zentrick’s middleware technology helps to prevent video breakage and shortens load times by eliminating multiple types of latency.

Eliminating this breakage has a direct effect on the performance of online advertising by ensuring more ads are delivered, viewable and engaged with by viewers, Gattinella said.

Breakage refers to the inability of an ad to execute due to issues in the ad-delivery cycle. Issues that result in breakage include incompatibility of multiple playback standards and latency delays in the video ad load.

When breakage occurs, advertisers forfeit impressions they intended to buy, and publishers forego monetization, Gattinella says, so solving breakage drives the successful delivery of targeted impressions for brand, as well as helps publishers fill the gaps.

The engineering team that built the technology will continue to operate from offices in Ghent, Belgium, but the technology and brand name will dissolve into DoubleVerify.

Frederik Neus, Zentrick co-founder, will remain to oversee the Belgium operations. 

If you spend as much time on your mobile phone as I do, you will likely appreciate a Google algorithm update now allows advertisers to see the load speed times of more mobile landing pages.

The mobile speed score update, announced earlier this week, requires fewer ad clicks to generate a score and appears on the advertising console.

The score is evaluated on a 10-point scale, with 1 being very slow and 10 being extremely fast. The mobile speed score is based on a number of factors, including page speed and potential conversion rate.

Google introduced the mobile speed score in July 2018, to enable marketers to see the landing pages providing the fastest mobile experience and alert them to one that might need attention.

Now the company continually tracks performance. Google internal analysis suggests that 53% of visits to a mobile site are abandoned if the page takes more than three seconds to load, according to Prashant Nair, product manager, Google Ads, citing data from 2016.

A bad experience on a landing page not only can harm its capability to convert site visitors, but can also affect ad performance, since Google takes landing page experiences into the auction pricing models.

Google offers a report for common performance metrics such as conversions and statistics on all landing page URLs for Search, Display and Video campaigns.  

In addition to a mobile speed score, there’s a rating that indicates how mobile-friendly the pages are based on a test. There’s also a valid AMP click rate score that indicates how often pages load as valid Accelerated Mobile Pages.

Joining the march of internet-delivered services of live, linear TV networks, cable system operator Charter Communications is starting up a low-cost service called Spectrum TV Essentials.

The $14.99 service will include more than 60 live, linear TV networks from the likes of Viacom, Discovery, A+E Networks, AMC Networks, and Hallmark.

Charter says it will be available exclusively in Charter’s cable operator’s footprint for consumers who do not subscribe to Charter’s traditional Spectrum cable systems services.

The entire TV Essentials lineup will be available through the Spectrum TV App, on all supported mobile and connected devices, iOS and Android phones and tablets, Apple TV, Roku, Xbox One, Amazon Kindle Fire, Samsung Smart TVs and desktop computers via SpectrumTV.com.

In the coming months, Charter plans to introduce a Cloud DVR service on the Spectrum TV App.

Charter’s efforts come just after NBCUniversal said it would be launching an advertising-supported and advertising-free direct-to-consumer streaming services.

Comcast Cable and Sky plc, the European TV broadcaster Comcast recently acquired, will provide the service to 52 million U.S. and global subscribers. An ad-free version will be available for a fee.

TV Essentials will join other internet-delivered services of live, linear TV networks such as Sling TV, DirecTV Now, Hulu with Live TV, Sony PlayStation Vue, fuboTV, YouTube TV, and Philo.

PubMatic, a leading developer of programmatic advertising technology for the sell-side, today announced a move into app publishing.

The solution, dubbed OpenBid, enables app publishers and developers to tap into demand-side budgets from advertisers seeking mobile app audiences.

The move comes a year-and-a-half after OpenX made a similar push and signals a maturation of the mobile app ad marketplace as more if its inventory becomes available for programmatic exchanges.

“OpenBid is a programmatic-first SDK [software development it] that is optimized for improved user experience and offers increased competition for app inventory. Flattening the waterfall with header bidding and real-time pricing data helps publishers grow yield and revenue, above and beyond demand from current mediation partners,” PubMatic Senior Vice President-Product Management Evan Simeone said in a statement announcing it.

By “waterfall,” Simeone is referring to the hierarchy digital publishers use to “monetize” their audiences -- from “direct” premium sales down to the lowest programmatic CPMs.

The waterfall for app developers differs somewhat from other digital publishers in that they often incorporate models that go beyond using advertising to monetize their users, sometimes getting them to participate in research (polling) or reselling their data and/or attention to other third-parties that monetize it indirectly.

PubMatic said the appeal of its OpenBid solution is that it leverages its relationships with more than “200 demand sources.”