It seems that book readers are finally ready to upgrade their bookshelves. Just a few months ago, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) announced that e-book sales increased by an impressive 169%, compared to a 25% increase for print books.  At Amazon.com, the manufacturer of the Kindle e-reader, sales of e-books have already exceeded those of paper.  The shift from ink to bits has profound consequences for publishers, and can offer new and innovative business models that can augment revenues from book sales with advertising.




Despite the revolution in book publishing, sales are still based on a traditional model of charging for every e-book copy as if it was in print.  This model does not take into consideration one of the advantages of digital—the ability to easily place and track ads.  E-books are similar to other online products such as websites, social networks and online games, all of which monetize content through advertising.


The challenge is that popular e-readers do not allow yet placing in-book advertising.  Therefore, in order to circumvent these restrictions, publishers should offer their own ad enabled book apps.  The app/book can be adapted to the different devices, and be completely independent.


In-book advertising may allow publishers to lower the price of a book, and garner additional revenue through ads.  Lower selling price should reduce the risk of buying an unknown book, and entice more users to download the app, and tryout the book.  Each publisher can balance the book’s cover price and the amount of advertising.


In-book advertising, which is similar to advertising on mobile apps, is showing great potential. It’s a “win-win” situation in that e-reader users would be able to enjoy a discounted or free book that is “paid for” by advertising.  Furthermore, it can be assumed that if advertisers utilize ad optimization, the typical user may even find that the e-book ads are relevant and even useful. It’s not surprising that the Mobile market (including Smartphones and Tablets) has shown a higher CTR performance and is enjoying growing amounts of spending from advertisers.

In-book advertising offers new opportunities to publishers.  To generate more revenue, publishers should not settle for the traditional pay-per-book method, and should consider integrating online advertising into their marketing mix.



Etay Liberman, MediaMind Research

MLOVE 2011, Ariel Geifman Keynote from MLOVE.com on Vimeo.

How will mobile change your future?


The MLOVE ConFestival has been named a ‘TED for Mobile’ and a meetup of the ‘IT avantgarde’ with an engaging and inspiring format in the setting of a 19th century castle in the former Eastern Germany. The MLOVE ConFestival focused on innovative mobile opportunities for brands, entertainment and advertising and the impact of mobile as a social catalyst for positive change.

MediaMind teamed up with digital marketing agency Clemenger Proximity Melbourne and Melbourne game developer Millipede to launch what may be a world first – a digital game app that works across billboard, computer and smartphone advertising platforms.


The Yellow Pages Yellovator computer game launches this week on outdoor interactive billboards in major Australian cities Melbourne and Sydney. People standing nearby the billboards can use their smartphones to control the game. Users can also use their smartphones to join and play the Yellovator game in their browser or in a web banner on their computers on Ninemsn, Yahoo and Bigpond sites.





Yellow Pages is targeting the game at younger tech-savvy Australians as part of campaign to dislodge perception that the Yellow Pages directory is mainly a paper door stopper, and instead is now on more devices than ever before.


Carolyn Bollaci, MediaMind’s Country Manager ANZ, said: “Yellovator shows the market just what digital can do to create really rich and engaging brand experiences for audiences. This innovation is a collision of great talent, advanced ad platforms and adventurous clients and it shows just how the market is breaking beyond traditional display ads.”


Chris Howatson, Group Account Director at Clemenger Proximity, said: “Yellovator is an entry point into the brand for younger segments who are yet to have a heavy need for Yellow Pages or for digital natives who may have historically rejected the brand. Through entertainment, we’re reconnecting with these audiences and, in doing so, seeking permission to be relevant in future usage occasions.”


To play the game, a person stands in front of the billboard and waits for the billboard to detect their phone and give them a player number. They can play Yellovator by themselves or against others.


The billboards are at high traffic spots in Melbourne and Sydney, and the campaign will run until 30 September.

Meet Dr. Patrick Dixon, one of 20 of the most influential business thinkers alive (according to a survey in The Times). Chairman of trends forecasting company Global Change Ltd and founder of the international charity ACET – tackling the stigma of AIDS – Dixon is a renowned optimist about the capacity of human innovation to solve complex challenges. As the keynote speaker for MediaMind’s Digital Experience Days, you can expect a hugely motivating keynote charting macro-trends in consumer shifts that will take us beyond behavior into identifying the global opportunities for multi-channel marketing.


What is a futurist and how did you become one?

That is a good question. I didn’t realize I was one until they put it on the screen at a CNN interview…
Actually, all of us are futurists. Every leader has to think about the future because you can’t lead without vision. I have written 15 books on a wide range of topics, all to do with the future. (Latest books include SustainAgility and Futurewise.) All of the books are about the future and helping us to develop strategies for future growth.


What is the primary change you foresee in digital advertising?
I think you can summarize it as a shift from mass market to customized advertising. And while people have been talking about that trend for the last decade, we are now seeing a really big shift in a short space of time. For example, in the ‘old’ days, you would have a mass market campaign full of hype/how fantastic our product is. Then along comes social media, which reveals truth. Social media sites are getting much more attention by consumers than the official sites of companies that drive campaigns. So we are going from mass market to customization. And there is a big shift from hype to information to revelation. Customers are not to be blasted at.


So advertisers now need to ask themselves, “How can we get the precise information to the customer? How can we reveal the extraordinary truth? How can we surprise the customer with facts about the product?”  It is about discovery and education rather than mass marketing. A shift away from invasive advertising. Invasive advertising interrupts you when you are surfing – it gets in the way of what you are doing, especially on TV. People are now resistant to that. That is why email and SMS are so popular. Phone calls are so last century. Young people prefer social networks because they don’t interrupt. But marketers have traditionally spent their lives interrupting. They look increasingly ‘last century’ – the idea of taking a break for advertising is suddenly offensive. It is a model that is out of step with the digital age. In the digital age, people are not going to take a break for the advertiser.


We need to understand what the customer is doing right now. In order to be customized, you need to understand the customer – not just what they are doing, but how many things are doing. We have a fantasy that our customer is watching our banner ad – he is also on the beach, on vacation, his wife is talking to him and he has a kindle in his hand trying to read a book. We need to understand the context of the small banner ad in his world. You can see how far away that is from traditional marketing campaigns. So we need to ask, “How can I get inside the mind of the individual?” Probably not using a big TV ad. However, you may get there a very clever message, which is on their mobile, which happens to relate to the things they were looking at earlier.

We are entering a very exciting world.


Is it about divergence or convergence?
It is not about convergence. It’s an integrated world. We think of converging technologies, but what I am talking about is marketers catching up with the integrated lives that our customers actually lead. It is a holistic view of how that customer is. We need to be constantly reinterpreting the universe of the customer.


What impact will this change have on the consumer?
I hope advertising will become less irritating. It should be subtle, reliable, appropriate, and sensitive. Brands whose campaigns aren’t like that will lose to the competition.



Tell us about your efforts to use Media to Stop AIDS. How did it start and how can I help?
I was first confronted with the AIDS epidemic in 1987 as a practicing physician. People were dying in my own country due to bad attitudes. I also became aware of the devastation in Africa. I started ACET – AIDS Care Education and Training – which now has programs in over 20 countries providing compassionate care to those who need it and are often in terrible situations. I don’t know any other diagnosis where people are killed because of a label on their medical records.
We have also been involved heavily in prevention, which is obviously the answer. In most parts of the world, the rate of new infection is falling. Over 30 million people are living with HIV and there are 7,500 new cases every day, mainly in the poorest nations and amongst the most vulnerable.
We are seeing a tremendous response and in the 23 years since we have been working, we have seen a transformation, which is very encouraging. It is about getting out the message. Mass market campaigns are not effective. It is all about customizing the message to the class of high school students, to the village.

Media is at the heart of saving lives.

The Telecom vertical is the second largest spender on online display advertising. Advertisers in the field are uniquely positioned to benefit from online advertising—plans and services can be easily sold online, and many consumers start researching plans and phones online.

Within display advertising, Rich Media has proven very successful in delivering the message to users. Telecom is the second highest vertical in terms of ad engagement. Out of every one million impressions that are served, 70K impressions are Dwelled, and 1,800 impressions are clicked on. Overall, every million impressions generate 5,300 conversions.


MediaMind research has now released a study to help Telecom advertisers understand what works best. The research analyzed billions of impressions that were served in the past year to develop best practices for generating the highest performance. These insights include:
• The best performing online placements and online environments.
• Which ad formats generate more breakthrough, and which engage users for longer.
• Which ad sizes receive the highest performance.
• The optimal number of exposures to avoid ad saturation.

In addition, the research contains detailed Telecom performance benchmarks by ad format and size for dozens of countries. These benchmarks show the expected performance from an online campaign. With the second highest rate of online engagement, Telecom display is proving an effective way to reach consumers—and to get a return call.

To download the full research, click here.