Most regular internet browsers for content may perhaps be au fait with ‘remnant advertising’ while many others may still be oblivious to this phenomenon. Hitherto, remnant advertising has been just able to place a number of ads on the site only to fill up unsold ad inventory.

In order to ameliorate the system and turn remnant advertising into premium advertising, a high profile founding team that includes Jim Heckman and Ross Levinsohn, both former Fox Interactive execs have founded a startup called 5to1 by raising $4.5 million. It was launched today at TechCrunch50.

The company aims to provide a service that will do away with both the publishers and advertisers of the extremely ineffective ad campaigns that are only beneficial to the networks selling them. Much to the delight of the publishers, 5to1 system allows them to get in between the remnant networks and the ad inventory. This gives them more control over what will appear on the site, where and when.

Jim Heckman, the CEO of the company puts it in his own words, “Match.com meets iTunes for advertising” as it allows publishers to dynamically create ‘playlists’ of ad units and easily run both proper ads and potentially placeable remnant ads on variable places on their website(s). The ultimate goal of the company is to provide a quality service so that content publishers can easily increase the quality. Only time will tell us how this whole thing works in favor of the publishers.

Via: TechCrunch

This could come as a shock but most advertisements, which target children’s eating habits, still lie and cheat their target audiences. The British Hear Foundation has accused that Kellogg’s, Dairylea and Nestle of showing wholesome bread in the advertisements to suggest a complete meal where as the actual product has not much nutritive value.

The foundation also suggested that many companies mislead their young audiences in to believing that the junk food they eat are actually good for their health. Much of these food products are related to high carbohydrate and fat levels and also artificial coloring and flavors when they claim otherwise. In fact, legal action against offending advertisers is an option being considered by many in the picture. Advertisers in Britain have been particularly been subjected to criticism and that too rightfully. One may remember the instance of iPhone 3G’s advertisements being called off for making false claims.

Perhaps the ad industry must focus on ethical marketing and selling instead of luring the customers with tall claims and causing damage and injury to the consumers. A strict enforcement of ad guidelines and ethics could perhaps build confidence among the target audiences and also renew faith in advertisers.

Via: BBC

Glam Media, a women’s (and men’s) site publisher and ad network has finally joined the club of delaying payments to the publishers like others in the business. With the financial slow down and plunging ad revenue, Glam like everyone else has taken measures to shore off their finances as well. Glam will implement a different payment schedule and extend the time from 60 or 90 days to 120 days to the publisher due to the significant slow down in the collection from the advertisers.

Like traditional form of media, the advertisement first runs with the publisher, and then the advertiser receives the bill, which is paid to the agency they work with. Finally the publisher gets their payment. In case of ad network, the agency gets a check from the agency then the publisher who ran the ad gets paid. The system of payment works on float management. In simple words, it means collecting the money before they pay it out to the partners. Everyone wants to hold on to their money for a bit longer to enjoy the interest they can earn on partner’s money.

With this new transition in Glam, a rippling effect will definitely be seen with the loss of 2-4 months revenue for the partners. The writers will have to bear the brunt as well. Layoffs and other cost cutting measures are bound to happen sooner than anticipated. Although the publishers may take an offense, they are more likely to stick to Glam, which makes payments on 3-4 month basis where as other networks, do on 6-7 months basis as the economy is facing a real recession and during this crisis time all big networks are finding ways for their own survival. It would be interesting to study how the writers would actually react.

Via TechCrunch