Mobile Ad Traffic Picking Up

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Think mobile ad traffic is just starting to gain speed You haven’t seen anything yet.

Fierce Developer reports that AppFlood has posted new research that breaks down just how significant an increase there’s been in mobile advertising. It’s risen an incredible 9 percent in revenue year-over-year.

Through AppFlood’s Global Mobile Android Advertising Insights report, these numbers came together, along with the following statistics:

  • Personalization apps make a generous amount of revenue, raking in over two times more than general communication apps, although they still came in a close second.
  • 67 percent of mobile users from around the world come from three specific countries — Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.
  • Average mobile ad budgets on a global scale have increased by 24 percent month over month, from July 2013.

As you can see by the chart, the cost per install has dropped as well, going from $.43 in the third quarter of 2013 to just $.26 now — that’s nearly half down.

“It’s not a bad time to be a mobile advertiser as the appetite for apps grows around the world amid a growing supply of traffic outpacing demand,” the report indicates. “Install rates grew across the board in developing regions, suggesting positive sentiment for mobile app discovery through ads.”

It looks like a majority of the numbers show that the biggest increases are coming from the U.S. market, although there isn’t much mention in the Chinese one. At least, not yet — but advertising is likely continuing on a strong streak there as well, and likely to pick up even further next year.

Meanwhile, Fierce Developer also advises that this could be the time to allocate a marketing budget with the coming year. Some particular categories may not benefit as much as “personalization apps,” according to the site.

‘Warlords of Draenor’ Wreck New York

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It’s a big week for video games, between the likes of Halo: The Master Chief Collection for Xbox One, Assassin’s Creed Unity for next-gen systems and PC, Assassin’s Creed Rogue for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and a number of other titles. However, Blizzard is preparing its own holiday storm with the forthcoming expansion to World of Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor.

With this latest release due out on Thursday, the publisher has gone the extra mile with the game’s promotion. In addition to TV advertising taken from the incredible cinematics located below, it’s staged a special attraction right in the heart of Times Square in New York City to advertise the game.

A New York City cab is in the heart of the promotion, showing signs of being destroyed by the stars of the Draenor expansion. Both the hood and trunk are dented in, and a gigantic axe is buried right on top of the vehicle.

In addition to the cab, a sliced sign promoting Warlords of Draenor sits in front of the cab, and the entire area is surrounded by work poles and warning tape, which has the word “#Warlords” printed all across it.

It’s quite an eye-catching promotion, and pretty ingenious in fact, as photographers and tourists everywhere have stopped to snap a picture of the destruction, then hashtagging it “#Warlords” on their social media feeds.

Promotion for the forthcoming expansion is at an all-time high. It got big attention at Blizzard’s BlizzCon event over the weekend in Anaheim, and it’s also getting heavy promotion for its “level 90 increase,” which is being promised to all players who pick it up. Considering that World of Warcraft‘s subscriber count has dwindled a little bit, this is sure to bring quite a few players back into the fold.

Granted, they probably won’t take that cab…

Warlords of Draenor releases on November 13 for PC.

Pinterest Stars On The Rise

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There’s no question that some folks have made a living out of becoming social media superstars, whether they have a large presence through small Vine videos, put together YouTube programming that millions of fans watch, or even express themselves through lively Twitter posts. However, you can now add one more social media site to the fold, as “Pinfluencers” are on the rise.

Re/code posted a story talking about these up-and-coming stars, who consider themselves under that name, as well as “Pinstars” and possibly “Pinlebrities,” according to the article. “Pinterest actually likes to call them Pinterest Influencers,” said Kyla Brennan, the head of HelloSociety, a Pinterest-based talent agency – the largest in the world. “They don’t like any change to the word Pinterest.”

Pinterest is just gaining ground in terms of breeding such superstars, as it takes time to establish the right kind of outreach in posts (not just blind photos). However, according to Brennan, over 400 highly paid influencers are part of the site now – a huge feat considering the HelloSociety got its start two years ago out of her home in Littleton, Colorado.

At first, some folks might be confused by the idea of a Pinterest superstar. “I know. I totally understand the skepticism. People hear Pinterest star and they’re like, what !” she explains. “But after three years of doing this, seeing clients making hundreds of thousands of dollars and quit their jobs and pin full time, it’s real.”

The company’s making more than you might think, too. HelloSociety has gathered $12.5 million in revenue last year, and employees 26 people full time. “Pinterest is commerce-based, it’s based on intent,” said Brennan. “Facebook, it’s still disruptive to see ads (there). Twitter’s not even in the conversation. Pinterest is built for commerce.”

“Pinfluencers” are more rare than you might think, though. “It’s much harder to get a huge audience in Pinterest – it’s just much rarer than something like YouTube, where you make one viral video and there you are,” she explained. “You’re not going to get one viral Pin and get a bunch of followers.”

However, they’re certainly on the rise – and even if some of them are odd, Brennan believes they should be welcomed just like “normal” folks. “In the early days, Pinterest suggested a few sort of strange birds who weren’t in their aesthetic. We’ve come across people who have all these followers for, I don’t know, like My Android Board or My Intergalactic Gemstones board. Or Frogs,” she said. “We’ve encouraged a lot of those Pinners to broaden their topics. Maybe branch out of frogs. Or do frogs but think about frogs in other ways.”

 

Obama Calls For Net Neutrality

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By Jessica Klein

President Obama’s come out with a statement in support of net neutrality, cementing his administration’s stance on the issue. In the statement, he calls for the FCC to reclassify consumer broadband service under the Telecommunications Act’s Title II, which will prevent the likes of “internet fast lanes.”

“We cannot allow internet service providers to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas,” Obama said.

Though he noted that the decision is ultimately up to the FCC alone, he called for them to consider such rules as “no blocking,” “no throttling” (when ISPs slow some content providers and grant speedier access to others), “increased transparency,” and “no paid prioritization.”

Of course, major players on both sides of the Title II battle include Netflix and Verizon. The former previously filed with the FCC in support of reclassifying consumer broadband service under Title II. Meanwhile, Verizon responded to the president’s statement, according to Variety, insisting that Title II would mark “a radical reversal of course that would in and of itself threaten great harm to an open internet.”

Watch President Obama’s Statement

This article was originally posted on VideoInk and is reposted on [a]listdaily via a partnership with the news publication, which is the online video industry’s go-to source for breaking news, features, and industry analysis. Follow VideoInk on Twitter @VideoInkNews, or subscribe via thevideoink.com for the latest news and stories, delivered right to your inbox.

Bringing Mobile Games To China

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The massive growth of mobile games is a phenomenon that’s occurring all over the globe, but nowhere faster than in China. Smartphone adoption is growing by double-digit rates, and the market is measured in hundreds of millions of smartphones and billions of dollars. Yet with all this rapid growth, Western game publishers haven’t had much success in bringing mobile games to the Chinese market. The Chinese app charts are dominated by Chinese mobile games, despite the large numbers of games developed elsewhere in the world that have generated devoted audiences.

This seems like a tremendous opportunity, and Golden Gate Games was formed precisely in order to take advantage of it. The company, founded by game industry veterans Keith McCurdy and David Zhu, helps developers and publishers bring games to China. “Working in China can be a challenge for all but the largest companies in the gaming industry,” Golden Gate Games’ web site proclaims. “With G3’s local knowledge, Shanghai game development studio, corporate and financial cross border structure, publishing team, and distribution connections, we can culturalize your game for the China market and publish it via a wide array of app stores and mobile operator channels.”

Golden Gate Games has already taken several games into China since its founding in February of this year, and more are on the way. The [a]listdaily spoke with co-founder Keith McCurdy about the company’s efforts to help Western developers gain a place in the vast Chinese market.

Keith McCurdy

[a]listdaily: What’s the state of the Chinese market for mobile games

Keith McCurdy: The market is exploding. It doubled in the last two years each year, some say more than doubled last year. It’s probably going to double again in 2014. It’s on a hyper-growth trajectory, and there’s lots of new smartphones being sold in China. There are 400 million new Android phones this year and another 400 million Android phones next year. That’s almost a billion empty Andropid phones. While some of them are low cost, they are still high quality. They’re dual core, big-screen phones that can play the type of games that 80-90 percent of the mobile gaming market covers just fine.

It’s a huge and growing market, and they do like Western content. In the top ten games, five of them are Western games, things like Plants Vs. Zombies and Subway Surfers. There’s a huge, fast-growing market, and there’s a proven appetite for Western content. There’s just a couple of things missing in the equation. One, it’s very difficult for Westerners to deal with China, culturally, legally, product-development-wise, publishing, and otherwise. It’s also very difficult when you make money in China to bring it back to the West. It’s very hard to know what to do with your games; you can’t just localize by changing the language, publish it in China and expect to make money.

[a]listdaily: What is it that you have to do to mobile games for the Chinese market

Keith McCurdy: All the games that are making money in China are heavily culturalized. By culturalization we mean not just changing the language, but changing the some of the content — the graphics, the style, the user interface, the monetization mechanics, sometimes the difficulty level because Chinese like things different. There’s a lot of work to be done. Two years ago people thought it was a lot like porting. What David and I have found is it’s more like product development work, You have to really come to the table with a plan to take a Western game and change it in a way that will make money in China. There’s the fundamental bones of the game that will make money, but the outer-facing stuff will need to be adjusted in a very conscientious way to apply to the Chinese market. Stuff like changing what you sell, or how often you sell it, or how aggressively you push it, or changing the way the main character looks, or how you navigate the user interface. These are all easy things to do once you have a good game that’s accessible, but they take know-how in country — Chinese designers, programmers, artists — and you have to do it specifically for that market.

Romans from Mars

 

[a]listdaily: What are the biggest changes you see headed to the market in China

Keith McCurdy: There’s growth and what’s driving it, just the massive number of new handsets and new users, and and people upgrading from feature phones and to better smartphones. The other growth drivers is the move to 4G quality networks. China is really expanding that quickly, which is allowing people to download bigger apps, do more connected stuff, more video streaming, and stuff like that. Those are the growth drivers.

The other big change in China is around billing. Right now a lot of the billing in mobile gaming in China goes through the carriers. Even if you download a game from, say, the Baidu app store (which is one of the largest), you still have to pay for stuff. If you’re, say, a China Mobile subscriber (which is like being a Verizon subscriber) you can buy stuff in the game by using SMS billing, where it shows up on your phone. They charge a lot for that — they charge 30 percent for that billing. But there are a lot of people like AliPay and WeChat Pay and other systems that are integrated that are lowering that charge for billing to the publisher down to 10 percent or lower. That’s a huge bonus for us content guys that make games. Instead of paying 30 percent to collect revenue, you’re paying 5 percent to 10 percent.

That will make some channels and some games and some customers much more profitable on a percentage basis than even the West, where we pay 30 percent across the board. That whole transition is a big open thing — similar to the way app stores are fragmented, billing is fragmented.

[a]listdaily: How do you see publishers approaching the Chinese market

Keith McCurdy: I’ve talked to a lot of guys at some of the bigger publishers, and they all say ‘we want to work in China because we feel it’s a precursor of what’s going to happen in the West.’ This is an example of that. In China, the deep integration, the community, the sharing, that’s what drives all the revenue. We’re seeing that in the West now, but I think it started in China a year and a half ago. People in the West look to China and Asia in general to see the future of free-to-play, online gaming, and mobile gaming.

What’s going on with WeChat, Line, Kakao, is important. If you’re familiar with Xiaomi, they’re like the Apple of China. [Xiaomi is a rapidly growing smartphone maker with phones reminiscent of Apple — Ed.] Xiaomi is creating its own instant messaging social network and gaming is a big part of it. There’s a lot of stuff going on in Asia, and I think Western publishers look at it and say “We need to be doing stuff there and learning from there, because they are figuring out stuff at a faster pace than we are in the West.”

CREATIVE: ASOS Lets You Control The Colors

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Brands are having a whole lot of fun with video lately. From last week’s cinematic masterpiece from Honda to GAP’s interactive video letting you play with stripes. Now another clothing brand is exploring the possibilities and music is a huge part of it yet again.

ASOS has created a music video where the clothing, background and accessories are color-coordinated, where you can navigate each theme by clicking on your colors of choice at the bottom of the screen. It’s a fun and interesting way to reall showcase ASOS’ broad clothing collection for AW14. The whole thing is set to a song from London-based band, JUCE.

Online video is ripe with possibilities when it comes to creating interactive and augmented-reality experiences and brands are certainly getting attention this way.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=43rVGFnbK2A

GameStop Pulls Smashing Stunt

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What sounded like a story of inspiration revolving around a young player ended up being nothing more than a promotional stunt by the GameStop store chain to promote an upcoming game.

A ten-year old gamer, nicknamed “Karissa the Destroyer” as she played, took part in a gaming event at a GameStop location in California over the weekend, as part of a promotion for Nintendo’s forthcoming Super Smash Bros. release for the Wii U. Reportedly, Karissa was “owning” the competition left and right, destroying opponents and working her way up the tournament chain. Only . . . she wasn’t.

It turns out that the whole thing was, in fact, a publicity stunt. Earlier, before the event, the store chain was actually seeking actors to play a “faked-out” role in the tournament, as you can see in the listing below.

So how did it look like she was playing The fact is, she was mimicking the actions on a controller that wasn’t hooked up to the system, while someone else, obviously out of sight range, was playing the game for her. The video posted below show slight proof of this around the 1:50 mark, when Karissa is scratching her face as her on-screen Smash character is executing a devastating attack on foes.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=MQ_NF8sgN0I

It’s uncertain as to why Gamestop would rely on such a stunt to promote the Smash Bros. game, since it has earned critical acclaim from each of its appearances over the past few months. The 3DS version has also been a huge seller, clearing 3.2 million copies sold since its release last month.

Pixel Dynamo recently posted additional facts on the matter, such as how the actress confirmed her involvement through her Twitter account. Those can be found here.

“If you check the /r/smashbros subreddit you can see that feelings are mixed,” said one veteran Smash player. “It seems that most people aren’t upset at the actress, but are just disappointed that there is no such thing as a child prodigy. The story of a 10 year old girl coming out and beating all these top Smash players at their own game would make the game really hype and add flavor to the tourney scene.”

Gamestop had no comment on the legitimacy of the matter, but it’ll be interesting to see where the company moves forward on promotions from here. Maybe next time, just hold a regular tournament and watch the sparks fly. (And watch a real ten-year old player dominate, for that matter.)

Video Game Awards Show Coming Soon

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For years, Spike has hosted a yearly Video Game Awards show that’s been promising to focus on rewarding those in the industry who have set great accomplishments, while, at the same time, revealing new exclusive items to get fans excited. Over the years, though, the show has faded a bit, and last year’s online-only VGX show ended up being heavily mocked, mainly due to the snarkiness of co-host/comedian Joel McHale.

However, it appears that video games will once again be put into the spotlight, as Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and a handful of third parties have joined together to back The Game Awards 2014, a new event that will be held on December 5th at the Axis Theater in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The show will be produced like an awards show, with a similar format to the Video Game Awards, but obviously more legitimate. That means programmers and teams will be promptly rewarded for their efforts, while the show will have its fair share of exclusives, including world premiere trailers and other content.

Geoff Keighley, who’s been a co-host of the Video Game Awards shows on Spike, is providing his expertise to the show. It will be available for viewing across the web, not only on a mainstream site, but also through Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo’s site and Valve’s Steam.

“The ‘Game Awards 2014′ will celebrate our collective love of games and the passion we all hold in our hearts for this incredible entertainment medium,” Keighley said, speaking with Variety. “Gaming has never been stronger, and this year we will celebrate the fastest-selling launch year ever for new game consoles, the dramatic rise of eSports and mobile gaming around the globe, and preview the games that will make 2015 the biggest year yet.”

As mentioned above, several big game companies are involved with the show, including Konami, Ubisoft, and Electronic Arts. Said EA president Peter Moore, “Electronic Arts has long championed the way gaming brings together players with the talented teams behind the world’s greatest video games, and this event will be an exciting new opportunity to do just that. We look forward to supporting ‘The Game Awards’ alongside our friends in the industry.”

“’The Game Awards’ is a special event to honor the achievements in gaming, our talented developers and devoted fans. We look forward to celebrating the power of games this December,” said Ubisoft’s Guillemot.

Added Jennifer Kolbe, VP of Publishing at Rockstar Games, “We have long been believers in the potential for videogames to inspire, challenge and entertain, and we look forward to standing with the industry to celebrate the medium at ‘The Game Awards’ this year.”

We certainly wish The Game Awards the best of luck . . . and hope that the team avoids the same pratfalls that ended up hitting the VGX presentation from last year.

The Future Of Banner Ads

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Banner ads have been in advertising for a great period of time now, but there’s a question revolving around whether they remain as effective as other means of native advertising. This past week, that argument arose once more, as Farhad Manjoo published a story titled Fall of the Banner Ad: The Monster that Swallowed the Web, which appeared on the front page of the New York Times.

In that story, Manjoo explained how banner ads were preventing certain economics revolving around online content, with Andreessen Horowitz’ Chris Dixon adding, “It’s almost like a prank that was played by the technology industry on the media industry 20 years ago.”

The story, posted by Pando, went back and forth, with IAB president and CEO Randall Rothenberg responding to Manjoo’s accusations. “Banner ads are the Mark Twain of the Internet: reports of their death are greatly exaggerated,” he explained. “Farhad Manjoo has built a lengthy piece on a ridiculous premise.”

With that, the lines are still divided over the usefulness of banner advertising, especially considering the other means available. Sharethrough CEO Dan Greenberg had his own thoughts on the matter, speaking with Pando and explaining that advertising revenue could be greatly generated with a larger audience – and banner ads actually got in the way of that, even being irrelevant to a fault. “It created a shell game, circling ads on top of ads on top of ads,” he said.

One example Greenberg brought up was the Suggest.com page, which consists of click-through countdown articles, like “8 Starlets Rejected From Playboy.” The site is filled with a number of banner ads, including a noticeable one for Braintree.

“I was on the Braintree website earlier in the day. They don’t care where I am on the Internet. They’re just trying to remind me they’re there,” said Greenberg. “Banner ads forced the New York Times and Suggest.com onto an even playing field. But they also made it worse. Because it’s cheaper for Braintree to reach me on Suggest.com than it is the New York Times.”

Meanwhile, native advertising remains on the rise, such as the Red Bull-sponsored clip that featured Felix Baumgartner free-falling a whopping 128,000 feet from space. It’s a clip that garnered hundreds of millions of views, leaving viewers awestruck at its tranquility.

“If I said to you, watch this clip of an eagle flying with a camera strapped to its head, or watch this video of an eagle flying with a GoPro attached to its head, you’re more likely to watch the GoPro clip, because they’ve built up a reputation of making great stuff,” explained Greenberg.

The argument over the banner ad is likely to continue for some time, but, for the time being, it seems more and more companies are accepting mainstream advertising to move their companies forward.

 

Oculus Rift Teams With Mountain Dew

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The team behind Mountain Dew is doing quite a bit of innovative stuff these days – odd soda flavor “Dewritos” not withstanding – but along with delivering new products, it also wants to immerse its audience in a great new virtual experience.

Back in September, the team announced the production of a new live-action, 360-degree experience that utilizes the Oculus VR headset to create a virtual “Dew Tour Brooklyn” experience. Those in attendance could put on the headset and check out skateboarder Paul Rodriguez taking part in a run alongside the “Mtn. Dew” skate team for a two-minute period.

With the experience, which you can view in the video below, Mountain Dew director of brand marketing Jamal Henderson explained, “This is not an advertisement. This is an experience.”

According to Adweek, this is just the first collaboration that Mountain Dew has with the VR headset, as it’s looking to create a number of videos for users to download and enjoy, placing them in the shoes of other extreme sports athletes, as well as other parties.

“When you think about the consumer — and it all starts with the consumer — they’re consuming more media. In our feeds, we want to see more content. The more we can be a part of that editorial and a part of the feed and not disruptive pre-roll, I think that’s the way for our brand to tell our story,” said Henderson.

This would put Mountain Dew into competition with the likes of Red Bull and GoPro, each of which have a large stake in extreme sports in one form or another, with video footage and other sponsorships in play.

This isn’t the first time that a major company has taken advantage of the Oculus VR headset for promotion, as a number of movie studios utilized it for projects at San Diego Comic-Con, and Marriott recently hosted a special “virtual tour” of dream vacation spots in certain locations.

Mountain Dew faces a large uphill battle against its competition, but Henderson believes the company will score big. “Brands that target millennials are going to be in that ‘lean-in experience’ space,” he explained. Oculus VR “is the next iteration of that. I 100 percent think that this is where brands are going. I just hope they don’t do it as fast as we do.”