Michael Stone

Today is only the first day of the annual Licensing Expo in Las Vegas, but I am already struck by how many new brands and players are either embracing licensing for the first time or choosing to exhibit here for the first time.

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AOL and PBS introduced the Makers series in February 2012 as a video showcase for high-profile women such as Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and talk show host Katie Couric. Now Makers is broadening its scope to include women still rising in business. 

AOL plans to invite up to 100 companies to nominate three female employees each for the new Makers@ program and attend next year’s new Makers conference, according to the company. “I feel like this is the perfect way for companies to connect with the Makers in their organizations to elevate them and shine a light on them,” said Maureen Sullivan, senior VP and GM-lifestyle brands and women’s content at AOL.

Ms. Sullivan hasn’t ironed out how those nominees will be communicated to the broader Makers audience outside of their respective organizations, but AOL plans to at least spotlight the participating companies on Makers.com. The Makers@ section will remain, however, primarily a showcase. “We’re not trying to be a social network,” she said.

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Travis May

By acquiring ExactTarget, Salesforce just entered an escalating battle for control of the marketing-services field.  Data fragmentation poses a great problem for marketers as new technologies and data sources arise. 

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Bots are software that perform automated online tasks, such as web crawling. A botnet is a network or group of computers that run such software. Often bots and botnets can be used for nefarious purposes, such as click fraud, spreading viruses, or enabling fake ad impressions.

James Green, CEO of Search Retargeting Firm Magnetic on Bots:

What's a botnet? It's a combination of two words: robot plus network. The "robot" bit is code that resides on your computer to do something, and the "network" bit means that there are lots of them out there (thousands or more) and they are all coordinating to do the same thing.

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When indie music tastemaker Pitchfork Media and others posted about Disclosure on Twitter and Tumblr recently, lots of social media users shared praise for the British House band’s new album, “Settle.” However, while social media posts about musical acts might indicate appreciation, they don’t necessarily show intent to buy live show tickets. Entertainment ticket search engine SeatGeek thinks its data could be a better signal of popularity, and aims to help brands like insurer State Farm spot the next up-and-coming band.

By watching ticket sales and prices across the web, looking at the size of the ticket resale market for musical acts and the average ticket price, as well as measuring purchase intent, SeatGeek believes it can identify bands on the verge of popularity among the younger crowds that brands want to reach.

“We do care a lot about sports and music because those are the things that our customers are passionate about,” said Matt Johnson, digital media manager at State Farm. The company often sponsors live streams on Pandora, and has sponsored MTV’s revived Unplugged music series online.

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Facebook’s VP-global marketing solutions Carolyn Everson is headed back stateside after spending the last half year in London, but first, unsurprisingly, she’ll spend the week in Cannes. It’s a week filled with meetings for Facebook’s sales chief, and she’ll also convene the company’s “client council” of 18 top brand and agency executives on Wednesday morning to give them an inside look at what Facebook has planned and solicit their feedback.

Before leaving for France, she chatted with Ad Age about the growth of Facebook’s mobile ad business, the potential of Instagram, the drift away from social ads as Facebook’s unique value proposition, and the recently announced cull of over half of the social network’s existing ad units. 

Ad Age: In terms of what ads Facebook might retire, do you think right-hand rail ads might ever go away? It seems like marketers are much more enthusiastic about news feed.

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WPP's newly created ventures group run by AKQA chairman Tom Bedecarre has made its first equity investment in San Francisco-based mobile startup Muzy.

The deal comes a day after WPP announced that it had taken part in a $30 million investment round led by the Chernin Group for YouTube studio Fullscreen.

WPP didn't disclose the size of the round but Techcrunch pegs it at $4.4 million. The startup, backed by Andreessen Horowitz, will use the funds to expand from its current staff of "less than 10 people."

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Facebook’s hotly-anticipated video ads are likely delayed yet again -- this time, until the fall.

Earlier this spring, the social network had been busily shopping the ads around to agencies, looking to secure commitments for a July launch. The pitch centered around TV-like reach, and the asking price was into seven figures to secure a day-long “slot” targeting huge demographic swaths, like all men or women between 18 and 34, or even all Facebook users in the U.S. who signed into the service on that particular day. 

As of late last year, Facebook was prepping video ads for their debut in the first half of 2013, but the launch was pushed back to the summer. Now it’s unofficially been pushed back until mid-October, according to a source familiar with the product. The given reason is that there are new features Facebook wants to release concurrently with video ads, and they require more software development.

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The console wars are set to erupt again, and someone is going to get pwned -- but it's unlikely to be the media.

It's been seven years since Microsoft and Sony went head-to-head with new gaming consoles. Both Microsoft's Xbox 360 launch in 2005 and Sony's PlayStation 3 launch the following year were supported by strong ad budgets -- Xbox hiked its spending 21% in 2005, according to Ad Age DataCenter figures; Sony topped that with a 28% increase.

This year will differ in that the next generation of each, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, will go on sale simultaneously this fall in time for the holiday season. That sets the stage for a spending surge well above the $120 million the two spent collectively last year.

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Nearly every week brings news of an ad-tech firm getting ready to go public, and recruiters say ad-agency executives are increasingly eyed as advisers or board members for these high-flying companies. While such a position can offer prestige, insight and career growth, the arrangements can be fraught with potential conflicts.

Late last month, for example, a pre-IPO securities filing for Tremor revealed that Starcom Mediavest Group CEO Laura Desmond was granted hundreds of thousands in options in the video ad-tech startup for sitting on its board. The filing also showed that clients of her agency group provided a large chunk of the ad tech's revenue. Despite disclosures that Ms. Desmond recuses herself from any business involving both SMG and Tremor, observers decried her role as overly beneficial to her personally.

Ms. Desmond and SMG said they couldn't comment for this story due to a quiet period at Tremor.

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L’Oreal has named Firstborn its digital agency of record for its luxury portfolio of brands in the U.S., including Lancôme, Kiehl's, Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, Clarisonic, Giorgio Armani and Urban Decay.

The selection followed a competitive review during which more than 15 agencies responded to its request for information, the company said.

Interpublic Group’s R/GAis the incumbent on the account, which it won in May 2011. The shop did not participate in the recent review but will continue to work with its L’Oreal Paris client. 

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Microsoft is creating its own new native ad formats for Windows 8, not unlike Apple's iAd, which is designed to increase ad revenue in the iOS ecosystem.

The new ads -- which will be unveiled Tuesday at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity -- will revisit what a banner can be on Windows 8 devices, whether they're desktop computers, tablets or mobile phones. One question: do advertisers Windows 8 enough to do custom creative for it?

The software giant is showing off the prototypes developed with brands and agencies, including All Saints, Dell, Universal McCann and VML. 

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The brass at Publicis Groupe's VivaKi are logging an excessive number of miles in the first half of 2013, even for ad-agency execs. The reason: to prove to colleagues around the globe that their unit still has value even after achieving its original goal of pushing Publicis into the digital age.

Five years after the operating unit with the headscratcher name was formed, VivaKi faces an identity crisis. What is the role of a specialty unit created to inject digital into traditional agencies when digital savvy has trickled down into nearly every shop?

VivaKi CEO Frank Voris and Chief Strategy Officer Rishad Tobaccowala are in the midst of a road show to explain just that, hitting two Publicis agencies a week and making quarterly trips to India and China. Their pitch is that there's still a big knowledge gap in advertising that needs to be filled, and the new VivaKi can help solve client problems and boost business -- whether its media, creative, PR or research.

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Netflix, the dominant subscription video-streaming service, has agreed to a multi-year deal with DreamWorks Animation SKG to obtain original programming to lure subscribers.

It is the largest contract for original content in the history of Netflix, the company said in a statement. The deal covers more than 300 hours of new programming, including shows inspired by characters from DreamWorks Animation’s franchises, new feature films and its Classic Media library. DreamWorks Animation movies include "Shrek," Madagascar," "Kung Fu Panda" and "How to Train Your Dragon."

The first series are expected to be streamed in 2014 and will be available in all of Netflix’s territories, according to the statement.

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WPP may have found its next Buddy Media. The holding company’s stake in the social marketing company earned WPP $62 million after selling to Salesforce last year. Now its digital investment arm WPP Digital has taken a stake in digital video network Fullscreen, whose CEO and founder George Strompolos described it as “one part a new media company with a massive creator network but also essentially Buddy Media for YouTube.”

Former News Corp. president and COO Peter Chernin’s The Chernin Group led Fullscreen’s funding round -- adding to the group’s early 2012 seed-stage investment -- and was joined by WPP Digital and Comcast Ventures, the investment arms of their parent companies.

Mr. Strompolos declined to disclose specifically how much funding Fullscreen has taken on with this round, but people familiar with the matter said it was in the ballpark of $30 million. All Things D had reported in April that Fullscreen was closing a $30 million round but only named The Chernin Group and Comcast Ventures as investors, suggesting that WPP’s stake is relatively small and in line holding companies’ typical minor strategic investments like the $5 million put into Buddy Media. WPP had previously invested in addressable TV advertising company Invidi and TV ad analytics firm Ace Metrix.

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Samsung is conducting a PR agency review to promote its consumer electronics business globally, according to multiple execs familiar with the matter. 

The move is intended to build a united brand for the group at the corporate level and across regions, the execs said. Samsung's consumer electronics department encompasses smartphones, TV, tablets, cameras and laptops.

The Korean company's representatives in the U.S. didn't respond to a request for comment by press time.

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Microsoft is teaming up with Best Buy to promote machines with its latest Windows 8 operating system as the software maker and electronics retailer try to combat the worst personal computer slump on record.

Microsoft is setting up its own Windows stores inside 500 Best Buy outlets in the U.S. and 100 sites in Canada, the companies said Thursday. Other Microsoft products including the Windows Phone and Xbox gaming machine will also be featured as part of the alliance.

Windows 8, an overhaul of Microsoft’s flagship operating system released in October to appeal to mobile users, has failed to reignite the ailing PC market, where shipments plummeted by their largest margin on record in the latest quarter, according to research firm IDC. Best Buy, the world’s largest consumer-electronics retailer, posted an $81 million first-quarter loss amid mounting online competition.

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Foursquare has partnered with Samsung for My History, a new feature that will provide users with infographics based on their check-in histories.

The individualized heat maps are branded with Samsung's logo for its latest high-end smartphone the Galaxy S4 and features a tab titled "The Next Big Thing" in which users can receive recommendations on places to visit based on where they've checked in before. The partnership is worth seven figures for Foursquare, according to an executive familiar with the terms.

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MTV is starting a digital content lab called MTV Other to produce short-form programming that will live on its new iPhone and iPad app as well as MTVOther.com.

The network described the studio as it introduced the app, which will also let viewers stream full episodes of shows like “Catfish” and “Teen Wolf” and interact with programming as it progresses. But the shorts will be available to anyone, while the series from TV will be restricted to users who also subscribe to cable or satellite TV.

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MySpace is making its relaunch as a social discovery service for musicians, artists and creative types "official" with a new iPhone app, the removal of the "beta" label from its revamped website and its first TV commercials.

The 30-second spots -- edits of the 90-second clip you see here -- will begin airing tonight on Comedy Central, MTV, MTV2, Fuse, BET, Adult Swim and ESPN as part of a seven-week broadcast and cable campaign, a Myspace spokeswoman said. They will also appear Thursday during Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

The TV buy is part of a broader $20 million campaign that includes radio and digital media as well, a spokesman said. MySpace owner Specific Media, which developed the spot in-house, is also having the celebrities who appear in it distribute the original 90-second cut in their social feeds.

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Facebook is now officially launching hashtags, a seminal Twitter feature that’s permeated pop culture.

It’s a move that could eventually put the two companies in more direct competition for real-time ad budgets, an area of heightened attention for marketers recently, but Facebook won’t be profiting from its hashtags out of the gate. Advertisers won’t be able to target people posting hashtags about a particular TV show or live sports event, and they won’t be able to sponsor a hashtag in the vein of promoted trends on Twitter.

Upon clicking on a Facebook hashtag, users will see a box that layers above the Facebook page they’re currently on and casts it into shadow. In the box, they’ll see the people and pages in their network that have used the hashtag in chronological order. They can also see mentions from people outside their network whose Facebook pages are public, but the focus is on people or brands that users have chosen to connect to.

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Sony premiered its first TV commercial for the heavily-anticipated PlayStation 4 gaming console during the NBA Finals last night, and like all PS4 marketing to date, the creative portrays the PS4 in stark contrast with its most immediate competitor, Microsoft’s Xbox One. 

The commercial features a greasy-haired, purpled suited man speaking directly to the camera, trying to inspire viewers to achieve video game greatness. Riddled throughout the 90-second tracking shot are Easter eggs about forthcoming PS4 titles -- “Killzone: Mercenary” and “Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag” chief among them -- a nod to PS4’s focus on the gamers.

“We give [gamers] what they want. We don’t give them everything, because we don’t think they want everything,” PlayStation CMO Guy Longworth said, in an interview Tuesday.

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Time Warner Cable and other pay-TV companies are offering incentives to media companies that agree to withhold content from web-based entertainment services such as those pursued by Intel and Apple, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The incentives can take the form of higher payments, or they can include threats to drop programming, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

Cable companies are seeking to keep customers by ensuring access to exclusive content while fending off competition from upstart Web providers. Favoring programming that's exclusive may not be a surprising business tactic, but could cross lines if taken too far.

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Where you can see Chelsea Clinton, Tracy Morgan, John Legend and Nina Garcia all in one place? You can either attend Samsung's 13th annual Hope For Children gala in New York City on Tuesday, or you can watch the red carpet live stream on "What's Trending" with host Shira Lazar starting at 5:30 Eastern time below.

Hope For Children is a philanthropic endeavor undertaken by Samsung to promote children living "smarter, healthier and more sustainable lives." Last year it raised $31 million for programs in 500 schools and charities, showing that all those tablets, TVs and smart phones really do have a higher purpose. Samsung is also sponsor of YouTube talk show "What's Trending," and tapped YouTube stars iJustine and Destine to have their fans compete for $25,000 donations to the charities of their choice.

"As social media grows in importance, we look to work with partners that are great at raising awareness of these charities through these channels," said Samsung director of consumer engagement Matthew Moller.

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After acquisition talks between Facebook and social driving app Waze broke down last month, Google has snapped up the Israeli startup that has gained popularity by having people crowdsource traffic conditions as they use the app to navigate.

A Google spokesperson said Waze will remain a standalone app but declined to disclose the deal’s price. Israeli publication Globes reported on Sunday that Google would pay $1.3 billion for the app, and The New York Times reported on Tuesday its cost was $1.03 billion.

“We’re excited about the prospect of enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google’s search capabilities,” Google’s VP-geo Brian McClendon wrote in a company blog post announcing the acquisition.

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Twitter is partnering with publisher Everyday Health to deliver public-health alerts and to sell ad packages related to health topics.

The publisher, which owns a host of health-related properties like Daily Glow and Jillian Michaels, will be able to scour the 2 million health-related daily tweets in the U.S. to see if anything is overindexing in a region to suggest that there’s an impending outbreak (which could include mental-health issues). The deal is similar to host of partnerships with the likes of ESPN, A&E, Conde Nast and Major League Baseball.

It’s not the first time a tech giant has used its massive pool of real-time user data to provide a public-health resource. Google has a flu tracker that uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity.

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Coca-Cola Co. may not have been able to find a direct sales impact from social-media buzz, but McKinsey & Co. has -- on the negative side.

The consulting firm found bad buzz for an unnamed telecom client hurt signups by 8%, "offsetting their entire TV spend," McKinsey principal Jonathan Gordan said in a presentation Monday at the Advertising Research Foundation’s Audience Measurement 8.0 conference in New York.

Mr. Gordon’s remarks come a little more than two months after a Coca-Cola Co. executive at another ARF conference said the packaged-goods giant could find no statistically significant sales impact – positive or negative – from online buzz after an extensive cross-media study.

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Southwest Airlines is conducting a digital agency review, according to people familiar with the matter.

WPP's Kansas City-based VML is currently working on the airline's digital business. WPP's Wunderman also works on various digital tasks. Southwest and its digital shops didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

The review follows the appointment in April of Craig Maccubbin as Southwest's chief technology officer and Randy Sloan in May as the company's chief information officer. 

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Amid an escalating data-collection scandal within the Obama administration, the investigative arm of Congress is conducting a study of data brokers.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., commissioned the study of information resellers by the Government Accountability Office, the non-partisan research and investigative arm of Congress. The GAO confirmed the study, to be completed in late summer. The GAO is “is looking at what laws and regulations regarding the privacy of consumer information held by information resellers, and what gaps, if any, exist in this legal framework,” according to Chuck Young, the GAO’s managing director-public affairs.

The study will also cover “the advantages and disadvantages of key policy options that have been proposed to improve consumer data privacy,” he said.  

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Mobile advertising is continuing to grow, but it's doing so at the cost of desktop ad spending, according to a new study.

While research firm eMarketer predicts U.S. digital ad spending to grow 14% this year and reach $41.9 billion, much of that incremental growth ($7.7 billion) will be driven by spending on mobile, not desktop, ads. In fact, spending on desktop ads is expected to decrease after it hits its peak in 2014.

Desktop ad spend will reach its pinnacle in 2014 at $35.39 billion, after which it will steadily decline to $35.26 billion in 2015, $34.4 billion in 2016 and $32.51 in 2017, eMarketer projects.

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