On Monday, CNBC confirmed that Samsung’s $99 Gear VR headset blazed its way to sold-out status at Amazon.com and BestBuy.com barely 48 hours after launch. It’s a stunning success, but one that the digital content crew at The New York Times has already experienced first-hand. Their publication’s VR app, we’re told, was downloaded “more times in its first four days than any Times app before,” says Kate Kaye of AdAge.

Okay, so downloads are one thing. What about engagement? As it turns out, Kaye explains, viewers “spent an impressive average of nearly 15 minutes using it.”

Initially panned by some critics and editorial rivals, the Times is now having the last laugh. Their project, Kaye notes, was “the biggest ever” for Cardboard, Google’s sophisticatedly simple VR viewer.

Perhaps nowhere is the groundswell of interest in VR more apparent and exciting than in the gaming market. According to an October 2015 report from Grand View Research, Inc., the global virtual reality in gaming market size is expected to blow past $9 billion by 2022. These projections are sparking a rush to market for app developers and gaming companies looking to capitalize on this nascent gaming genre’s potential.

With a majority of games downloaded today being free-to-play, the world’s foremost mobile ad players have already begun pioneering new in-app advertising and monetization solutions for VR games.

The most talked-about innovator in this arena today is VirtualSky, a new platform created by Airpush, a global mobile ad platform that presciently began working on its virtual reality ad network long before VR ad solutions were on any mobile ad company’s priority list.

Earlier this month during ad:tech New York, attendees were treated to demos of VirtualSky’s “Experience Ads,” which are placed at natural breaks in gaming content (between levels, for example) and transport viewers “into the world of the ad with 360 degrees of video and sound.”

With strong advertiser interest already apparent, VirtualSKY has begun accepting early advertiser campaign requests on virtualsky.com.

“Virtual Reality has received the endorsement and investment of the largest tech companies in the world today,” says Cameron V. Peebles, Head of Global Marketing for VirtualSKY. “From Google to Sony to Facebook, options for VR content development have exploded while any real monetization or advertising capabilities have yet to emerge. VirtualSKY is the first platform to offer both of these.”

These late-2015 successes have no doubt lit a fire under long-time VR doubters who have finally witnessed the mainstream virtual reality boom they never anticipated (or at least not this soon). But their challenge, as 2016 looms large, now includes playing catch-up to the pioneers who were among the first to plant their flags in this space and are currently reveling in the riches born of seizing the VR industry’s earliest opportunities.

The post VR Pioneers Paving the Way for Virtual Reality’s Takeover appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

This news comes from polling by HubSpot. The company asked B2C and business-to-business (B2B) marketers, including nonprofits, about their priorities and challenges in 2015.

“Finding the right technologies for their needs was the No. 2 leading challenge among B2C respondents, following only proving marketing ROI,” reports eMarketer. “That was also the biggest issue among B2C respondents, but for them, securing budgets and managing websites were bigger obstacles than finding the right marketing tech solutions.”

Notably, B2C respondents were 13 percent more likely than their B2B counterparts to cite this issue.

“The most popular sales tool (recently) was CRM software like Salesforce. In 2015, 18 percent of respondents worldwide planned to evaluate or purchase CRM software.”

And for these enterprises, the No. 2 sales tools were sales engagement platforms, which lapped sales enablement software. In third place? Business data software.

“According to other research, peers are the most likely source of research for marketing technology purchase decisions, so it’s likely respondents’ co-workers and industry acquaintances who are most influencing such shifts in software usage — as well as helping bring clarity to the confusion of many B2C and B2B marketing professionals,” explained eMarketer.

The post For B2C Marketers, ‘Finding the Right Technology is a Challenge’ appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

“Belly’s vision of making businesses personal has expanded today with the launch of Belly Complete,” the company says, calling it a comprehensive marketing suite.

With Belly’s customer loyalty solution as the driver, businesses can now “utilize their program’s data to connect their online marketing initiatives to their offline customer visits.”

This new product offering launches right after a major announcement from Apple. During the company’s July 21st earnings call, Apple CFO Luca Maestri mentioned that they are working with select mobility partners, which Belly is part of, to drive business transformation across iOS devices.

Belly’s integration with the other included technology companies, we’re told, will enable businesses to put the unique capabilities of iPad to work within their organizations quicker and easier. As a signed partner, Belly will “provide its expanded product to an even wider network of retail businesses.”

“By always focusing on building the best product for the businesses we partner with, we’ve redefined how businesses engage with their customers,” says Logan LaHive, CEO of Belly. “We’re excited to work with Apple to transform how retailers use their iOS devices to drive their business forward.”

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The result? Rocket Fuel is now bringing geo-targeted advertising to real-time emergency communications.

Specifically, Rocket Fuel will provide a new outlet for targeted AMBER Alerts.

Distributed by law enforcement and redistributed to a network of partners by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), AMBER Alerts display geographically targeted information about child abductions to the public through practically every communications channel available.

Robert Hoever, Director of Special Projects for the Missing Children Division of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, says, “When a child is abducted, fast action can be critical to a safe recovery. Rocket Fuel’s partnership with FIA will help to quickly reach the right people at the right time and place with information about an abduction, helping communities work together to rescue children and save lives.”

The post Ad Tech Titan Tackles The Critical Cause of Child Safety appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

These ad-tech companies have teamed up with Epsilon-owned Conversant to distribute emergency alert notifications to both desktop and mobile devices.

“I would look at this as an advancement in PSA campaigns,” said Jason Bier, chief privacy officer at Conversant, who helped spearhead the Federation for Internet Alerts initiative in 2013.

“FIA is a collective of ad networks and exchanges that sends out weather warnings and missing-children notifications through Conversant’s hub, which draws in the alert data through several publicly-available feeds from law-enforcement entities,” noted an AdAge story on this development.

Smartphone users are familiar with such messages, which largely arrive as text notifications, often accompanied by a vibration or warning sound. The FIA system sends the same messages through digital and mobile ad units.

“It’s just using technology for good,” said Bier. “Impending tornado in someone’s vicinity? In that case, we’d prefer to serve that person with a tornado warning more than an ad.”

Each partner decides how to approach its giving, through an existing RTB platform with which Conversant may already connect. Each company also determines the number of ad impressions it wants to donate for such alerts.

Why aren’t even more ad networks and exchanges involved?

“None of those that we’ve asked has flatly said they’ll never join,” said Bier. “I think it’s just a matter of time.”

In the meantime, FIA — together with its partners — has been responsible for more than 500 million geo-targeted AMBER alerts sent to more than 100 million devices about 686 abductions. FIA also delivered more than 8.5 million tornado warnings. It’s no surprise, then, that the organization has been named the winner of this year’s Webby for public service and activism in advertising and media.

The post Making a Good Impression: Ad Tech Companies Help Deliver Critical Messages appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

That’s the recap from an advance panel discussion among industry heavyweights in Australia. It was an opening salvo to this year’s Ad:Tech Australia conference set for March.

Big Mobile Group founder and chief commercial officer, Graham Christie, thinks matching the right skills to analysis of their digital delivery and technology is one of the biggest challenges modern marketers face.

“The basics are an issue, because there won’t be the basics in two or three months’ time,” Christie said. “Are marketers really providing themselves with the best chance of getting the best talent around this? We see a lot of senior marketers who are not ‘digital natives’ and have a more traditional background. They’re not entirely sure how to staff up teams and create a new organizational design around digital. That is a recipe for poor results.”

Keeping an eye on the customer is what matters to AIMIA CEO Robert Wong.

“There is fragmentation of media, and lots of marketers are struggling with technology, the complexity in customer touchpoints, new technology in terms of retail touchpoints and so on,” Wong said. “There are so many things you could do [with ad technology], you need to bring it back to the fundamentals of what will deliver value to your customer.”

Clive Dickens, recently appointed chief digital officer at Seven West, disparages how the industry “pits diverse, traditional advertising and media avenues such as newspapers, out-of-home, and TV, against digital as one lump entity.”

“Let’s break down the digital media into its component parts and start talking about what it is – classified, social, search – and compare those, rather than beating up the traditional ads industry,” Dickens said. “We all participate in this and we have to stop.”

The recap by Nadia Cameron appeared at the Australian website CMO and is worth reading in full by digital marketers worldwide. To check it out, click here.

The post Ad Tech, Marketing Bigwigs Believe Most Marketers Not Mastering Basics of Digital Advertising appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

According to Sullivan’s insightful commentary, the buzz in the industry suggests that CMOs will take greater control of tech budgets from IT.

And there’s data to back up that projection.

Research firm Gartner now estimates that by 2017, CMOs will spend substantially more than CIOs.

The CMO now takes accountability for market success, not just market perception, Sullivan explains. It’s no longer about having a vision, but rather about listening to consumers to adapt the game plan. CMOs also have (or should have) better knowledge about how much various marketing initiatives cost and what is required to get adequate return on investment.

One of the biggest challenges for marketers in the current environment, the post deduces, is learning more about emerging technology, such as beacons. New tools are destined to change the marketplace in interesting ways.

Whether or not CMOs rise to the occasion to make the most of the opportunities ahead remains to be seen.

To check out Sullivan’s writing in its entirety, click here.

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