Immersv — an interactive ad platform for 360° and spatial ad experiences — announced Wednesday that Mountain Dew and its advertising agency, OMD, tapped Immersv’s Mobile 360 and VR marketing platform to drive significant consumer engagement for their ad campaign promoting the VR experience “The Professor Presents: #GotHandles.”

According to provided details, the ad campaign delivered exceptional results for Mountain Dew, driving 63 percent video completion rates and a remarkable 22 percent post-video click-through rates. By comparison, the average click-through rate for mobile video ad campaigns is a mere one percent, according to Innovid’s 2016 Global Video Benchmarks report*. The campaign also performed 32 percent better the Immersv network average of 15 percent click through rates in headsets.

“The #GotHandles Mountain Dew video was an innovative campaign that required an innovative approach to distribution, and Immersv was the right partner to help us get it in front of the right audiences,” said Dario Raciti, Director Zero Code of OMD. “Results, from engagement and completion rates to gaze-through rates for the call-to-action, showed consumers loved Mountain Dew’s VR content and Immersv was the right partner to help us promote it.”

Produced by Mountain Dew, the #GotHandles VR experience features Grayson Boucher, known as “The Professor” for his ability to “school” competitors on the basketball court.

“We commend Mountain Dew and OMD for recognizing the tremendous opportunity for brands to engage with consumers through Virtual Reality,” said Mihir Shah, CEO of Immersv. “The exceptional results from the #GotHandles campaign demonstrates the power of Mobile 360 videos and VR experiences, while proving that digital advertising is shifting away from traditional pre-roll videos to more interactive and immersive advertising experiences.”

To review the campaign’s ad creative, check out Immersv’s YouTube page here.

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“We realized there’s a huge gap in programmatic advertising solutions for local businesses and small companies,” Benoit Skinazi, district m’s SVP of Sales and mypixel’s Project Lead, is quoted in a statement emailed to MMW. “With mypixel, we are excited to offer all businesses the ability to create professional and sophisticated campaigns regardless of their size, budget or experience level.”

“The digital market is as critical to independent businesses as it is for large global enterprises and having a solid online presence will help SMBs stay competitive,” says Adrian Pike, district m’s Chief Marketing Officer. “Up until recently, you would need a serious level of experience and money to successfully execute programmatic campaigns. With mypixel, we want to level the playing field for small businesses and give them access to similar advertising opportunities as bigger companies.”

Globally, digital advertising spending which includes desktops, mobile devices and tablets, is expected to reach $269.85 billion in 2018 and climb to $335.5 billion by 2020.

Designed specifically for businesses who do not have the time, resources or experience to invest heavily in digital advertising, mypixel offers what we’re told is “an integrated ad builder as well as clear and easy-to-understand targeting options to help small business owners launch their campaigns effortlessly.”

Lastly, the platform is also equipped with an extensive reporting suite to enable users to track their campaign’s performance.

Want to know more? Click here.

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Ahead of the weekend, leading mobile monetization and marketing company ironSource announced the launch of the world’s first AR ads for games.

In development while ARKit was still in beta, these ads will now be available on hundreds of millions of smartphones worldwide, after Apple’s release of ARKit, and Google’s launch of ARCore bring AR capabilities to the mainstream, a company release explains.

The ads are designed and produced entirely in-house by ironSource’s Playworks Studio, a division in the company wholly dedicated to using game design and performance expertise to innovate around ad creatives.

“For mobile AAA games which are often 3D and filled with special effects, AR ads finally offer a format that can evoke the true nature and experience of the game in an ad experience. Couple that with the large scale supply enabled by our direct relationships with thousands of game publishers using our ad network, and the potential opportunity for massive game advertisers is huge,” said Dan Greenberg, Chief Design Officer at ironSource. “Ultimately, amazing creative experiences are not enough to guarantee campaign results. You need to be able to access large volumes of relevant users, and to live close enough to the data to iterate and optimize. As the first ad network offering AR ads, that’s something we’re able to offer mobile AAA games looking to grow their market share by leveraging this new format.”

To learn more about the offering in question, click here.

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According to a statement emailed to MMW, the new partnership will make PCH data available to all users of The Trade Desk’s platform – enabling buyers to more accurately target consumers based on age and gender segments at scale.

Through PCH’s unique, registration-based data collection methods – which include online games, commerce and its famous sweepstakes prizes – consumers willingly opt in and share data with PCH to win. The result for advertisers: 100 percent declared data on more than 110 million U.S. consumers.

“Many advertisers still use modeled data to target buyers, which is only a best guess to a person’s age and gender based on a digital footprint. Given the immense pressure to drive performance from media today, modeled data is no longer enough. In narrowly-defined market segments, declared data has proven to be two-three times more accurate than modeled data,” said Spencer Scott, Head of Media Platforms at PCH/Media. “In partnership with The Trade Desk, we are committed to helping advertisers generate higher returns, improve performance and eliminate waste.”

“The new partnership will give our customers the ability to accurately target PCH’s highly-engaged users, at scale,” said David Danziger, VP of Data Partnerships at The Trade Desk. “The addition of this audience combined with the ability to activate declared data across digital ad campaigns greatly benefits our advertisers.”

To learn more, click here.

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MMW has learned that through this technology, AdSpruce has massively upgraded its rich media ad offering, providing brands and agencies dynamic, interactive creatives that engage users in fresh new ways on the mobile web.

“This bespoke advertising production suite is fueled by creativity, with AdSpruce providing a creative team that houses a diverse mix of talent, including award-winning filmmakers and sound designers, artists, UX designers, graphic designers and mobile experience developers,” the company tells us.

HTML5 Ad Studio 3 has already been used by select AdSpruce partners to bring creative campaigns to life and ramp up user engagement.

Upon the launch of HTML5 Ad Studio 3, AdSpruce CEO Ian Mullins expressed optimism about the future direction of his company.

“The creative and engagement potential that AdSpruce’s new HTML5 Ad Studio brings to brands is unparalleled,” Mullins says. “With a whole host of interactivity and visual options, brands and agencies will be able to connect with users like never before. I believe we have some of the best-looking ad creatives on mobile devices that grab the user’s attention immediately.”

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The respected brand recently launched the PowerBar Clean Start campaign – its first 360-degree campaign in 10 years.

The campaign, we’re told, officially kicked off with the release of new digital advertising creative, starring Olympic Gold Medalist Ryan Lochte.

In the spot, Lochte reflects on his journey and desire to wipe away the past and start clean in 2017.

The 360-degree campaign will span multiple touchpoints including digital, social, public relations, sports marketing, consumer promotions, in-store retail and influencer outreach.

The Clean Start campaign, featuring the PowerBar Clean Start Pledge, is designed “to inspire and motivate consumers to put the past behind them and move forward in 2017.” Upon taking the Clean Start Pledge on PowerBarCleanStart.com, each person will receive one free Clean Whey Protein Bar to provide the energy needed to begin his/her Clean Start. The new Clean Whey line embraces the brand’s clean start through evolved products and improved nutrition, with high-quality protein and no artificial flavors, colors or sweeteners.

“The Clean Start Pledge arrives at the perfect time of year,” the company says. “According to a recent survey conducted on behalf of PowerBar, the majority of goals and targets for the New Year will drop by mid-January, with the average resolution failing within just 15 days. The survey also found that two-thirds of Americans are in need of clean start in 2017 after 2016 didn’t play out as hoped.”

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The study was carried out by Nielsen Research and conducted in partnership with POST Cereal, PETA and Charity:Water.

To pull it off, researchers turned to scientifically accepted methodologies as a means to quantify advertising effectiveness metrics on both virtual reality and traditional digital video formats.

For Airpush, creator of the industry leading VR ad platform VirtualSKY, the report and its findings couldn’t be more important or instructive.

In particular, the study was undertaken as a way to better understand the consumer impact of VirtualSKY’s ExperienceAds (an exclusive interstitial ad unit that delivers 20-45 second, 360 degree advertisements to consumers at natural breaks in other VR apps).

The research was focused on gauging the effectiveness of VirtyalSKY’s ExperienceAds against that of “more traditional advertising environments” (e.g., VAST video, online video and broadcast television) in terms of driving brand lift in what Airpush calls four key metrics that brands consistently use to assess advertising effectiveness (Content Engagement, Brand Perceptions, Brand Behaviors and Brand Integration Perceptions).

“The results of the study demonstrated that advertising in Virtual Reality was between 1.5 and 18x more effective than more traditional video advertising, depending on the content and metric,” reads the report summary shared with MMW. “Highlights included brand recall, which was at least 8x more effective across all brands when immersive VR ads were utilized, as well as intent to share, which was at least 2x.”

“We launched the VirtualSKY platform in early 2016 because we instinctively knew that VR was the most effective medium ever created for brands to reach out to consumers,” explains Seth Socolow, SVP Strategic Partnerships for VirtualSKY and Airpush. “However, the results of this study far exceed even our expectations for VR, and are a huge validation for the VirtualSKY platform that can easily deliver this kind of engagement to any advertiser at scale.”

According to the provided report data, Airpush’s brand partners seem to agree with the positive outlook for VR advertising and the big wins that advertisers can score in partnership with VirtualSKY.

In July, Post aimed to capitalize on the marketing power of virtual reality when the venerable breakfast cereal brand launched the largest targeted interstitial ad campaign ever with VirtualSKY.

Running on all major VR platforms (including Google Cardboard, HTC Vive and Oculus), the campaign brought water guns and dodge balls to the most important meal of the day through immersive 30-second pre-roll spot for Post’s Fruity Pebbles “Yabba Dabba Doo” campaign.

“The Pebbles Cereal VR experience was born out of the spirit of the Yabba Dabba Do! campaign that if you can think it, you can DO it,” says Oliver Perez, Pebbles’ Senior Brand Manager. “It was uncharted territory for us, but a real reflection of the campaign’s ethos and we were thrilled to partner with Airpush’s VirtualSKY network to distribute the spot. We had a hunch if external distractions were eliminated and viewers were part of an immersive experience, metrics such as brand affinity and purchase intent would increase – which is exactly what Nielsen and Airpush confirmed through this study. It goes without saying Pebbles will continue to explore this medium to truly connect with our consumers.”

The complete findings are documented in Airpush’s “Virtual Reality Advertising Effectiveness Study” available here.

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The company recently selected AerServ to serve as the mobile mediation platform and SSP for their mobile games.

“In addition, the partners are pleased to share initial results with fill rates increasing 32.29% since launch, a large increase since switching from their in-house solution to AerServ,” a provided statement reads.

According to a study by eMarketer, “By 2020, 77.0% of mobile phone users and nearly 64% of the U.S. population will play games on their phone at least once per month.”

This partnership equips WildTangent with AerServ’s unique monetization tools while also exposing their inventory to thousands of brand advertising campaigns, allowing marketers to execute their ad campaigns on premium, brand-safe, viewability- and fraud-free inventory.

“We couldn’t be more excited to partner with WildTangent in an effort to monetize their mobile audience. At AerServ, we view our customers as partners, not just numbers. We work extremely hard to ensure their needs and monetization goals are met,” said Josh Speyer, CEO of AerServ.

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The company is aiming to provide better monetization solutions for small and medium web publishers.

“There’s currently a major disconnect between what the average website can offer and where advertising is headed,” said Hyaat Chaudhary, founder and chief executive officer of Outstream.com. “Advertisers are shifting spends from TV and banner ads to digital video and can’t find enough quality inventory.”

Outstream.com is an innovative outstream video platform for web publishers. Unlike traditional online video advertising that plays before or after a video, outstream is online video advertising that plays in-content.

The company says digital video advertising spending nationally is predicted to quadruple from $6.84 billion in 2015, to $28.08 billion in 2020.

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Diverging from the beaten path of app monetization through advertising, Airpush has pioneered a path to new revenue streams through the creation of a unique mobile data marketplace that facilitates what AdAge calls a more direct relationship between user data and dollars.

At a time when the publishing world is growing increasingly anxious in its battle to curb massive ad blocker revenue loss, Airpush’s freshly unveiled platform could prove vital in that effort. MOBI.INFO, which can be used on top of other monetization strategies, enables publishes to potentially grow their revenue without changing a thing, Airpush says. The platform lets publishers reap the rewards of additional revenue streams through the collection of their anonymous user data, which is then uploaded directly into the global data marketplace.

In effect, MOBI.INFO is a place where companies have the ability to purchase these diverse and highly sought-after data sets. To just scratch the surface, this includes everything from beacon data and encrypted email addresses, to device identifiers and app install and engagement data.  “The result is the world’s first dedicated mobile data marketplace, allowing mobile publishers and data companies to quickly make transactions at scale,” says Airpush.

Contributing to one of Airpush’s deep-seated goals of helping publishers tap into reliable new revenue streams born of properties not previously monetizable, the Los Angeles-based mobile advertising powerhouse says MOBI.INFO restructures the familiar ad network model by replacing advertising CPMs with revenue generated from “valuable data.”

And there’s valuable data everywhere in mobile. According to AdAge, apps that integrate the standalone MOBI.INFO SDK will be able to “distribute the so-called data exhaust created when people use their apps and turn it into revenue when it meets a buyer’s criteria.”

“The idea is to give mobile app publishers a way to feed their data wares into a buying hub that could help them monetize the data generated when people open and interact with their apps, whether or not an ad is served into the app,” summarizes Kate Kaye of Advertising Age in this morning’s report.

Publisher and advertiser benefits aside, MOBI.INFO may ultimately be just as helpful to consumers.

“The platform, which protects consumers via a transparent end-user opt-in, has the ability to reduce the number of overall ads that a user sees, and increase their relevance, overall effectiveness and consumer value,” explains Seth Socolow, SVP of Strategic Partnerships at Airpush. “MOBI.INFO also includes a deep integration with Freckle, a leader in the location and attribution marketing space. Freckle’s integration helps advertisers gain more valuable insights out of the consumer data generated by the platform, and obtain additional data sets from its beacon technology.”

To learn more and get the jump on MOBI.INFO, click here.

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