Making life easier for publishers struggling to keep up with the explosion of ad networks - now numbering over 300 - and the determination of which network will yield the best results, is the Rubicon Project. Launched eight months ago by Frank Addante, the company, today, announced series B finding of $15 million bringing its total to $21 million.
We've seen a demo of Rubicon and its really fascinating. For a publisher trying to best monetize inventory, Rubicon, in a nutshell, does exactly that. A publisher joins with Rubicon, enters relevant information of their site and, poof, relevant ads are selected from the 300 or so ad networks in the system.
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Consumer Reports, which for a long time has helped people buy products that aren't crap, is now expanding its analysis of the advertising that pushes both good and bad products with the launch of CR AdWatch videos.
In a somewhat comical approach, host Jamie Hirsh takes a detailed look at the long-running Abe Lincoln/Beaver ad campaign for the sleep aid Rozerem. The analysis is level headed and if ads were required to provide equal time, this is the kind of advertising we might see on a regular basis. We review ads along the lines of how pretty they are and how effective they might be. Consumer Reports goes further and lets us know the other side of the claim.
In what it calls its "biggest and boldest marketing effort in company history," ASICS America Corporation tapped agency vitrorobertson to give us the "Sound Mind, Sound Body" campaign. More print here and here.
Maybe it's the soothing pastels. The ads are beautiful, don't get us wrong, but where BIG and BOLD are concerned they feel more like a Nike campaign on Zoloft. ASICS America could probably learn something about both "big" and "bold" from its overseas Onitsuka Tiger efforts, which -- we'd guess -- chose Ritalin as Drug of Choice.
Pro-femme magazine Ms. recently got a spanking in the Jewish community for rejecting the ad at left. It features images of three Israeli women in power: president Dorit Beinisch of Israel's Supreme Court, foreign minister Tzipi Livni, and speaker Dalia Itzik, above the words, "This is Israel."
The American Jewish Congress -- which submitted the ad -- said Ms. first approved it, then rejected it at the last minute under grounds it would "set off a firestorm," which, as often happens, it did anyway.
"Since there is nothing about the ad itself that is offensive, it is obviously the nationality of the women pictured that the management of Ms. fears their readership would find objectionable," deduced president Richard Gordon of the American Jewish Congress. (Because when people reject us without explaining themselves, it's obviously because we're brown.)
In response, Ms. pointed out Tzipi Livni's career and accomplishments are profiled in its current issue.
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