Our 2015 Spring Newsletter is here! See a few of our recent campaigns, learn more about podcasts, the NYTimes.com carousel unit, and more.
Next to Now: The Week in Reading Links
The Week in Reading Ending April 3
March 30, 2015
Digital natives would just as soon read it in print.
March 31, 2015
Mobile messaging apps are the one category of app that retains its users. While current advertising options are beyond the reach of most book publishers. We’re watching this space closely for developments in ad products and lower prices.
Here’s another reason to think about messaging apps: Over 50% of WeChat and Snapchat users are Mobile Shoppers. So get your mobile commerce on. (Via @PeterMcCarthy)
Here’s an interesting piece in the UK’s Bookseller about the potential connections between video game publishing and book publishing. Its insights about production and marketing are not applicable to all kinds of publishing, of course (no insights are true across a field as diverse as book publishing), but it’s worth thinking through.
As an advertising agency, we’re in the business of knowing as much about the users we’re sending ads to as possible. As an integral part of the book publishing ecosystem, we’re committed to both free speech and privacy. In both those roles, we were keenly interested in this interview between two brilliant legal scholars with a literary bent. It serves as a strong corrective to the endless praise for Big Data, secret algorithms, and behavior-shaping policies. (via Alexis Madrigal’s Real Future newsletter)
This ad industry news reflects broader trends and also is good news for one of Verso’s ad partners: WPP keeps up the acquisitions, adds to Xaxis’s capabilities with mobile-first company Action X.
Is it time for the ad industry to lose its reliance on cookies?
Media buyers are planning on upping programmatic spend by 21% this year, but media suppliers (web publishers, etc) said they only expected to boost their programmatic sales by 4% this year. Something’s gotta give, and it’s probably the quality of the impression.
The New York Times is ready to boil down the news to one sentence to better fit new devices. How do you write a one-sentence news story, as distinct from a headline and a teaser? That might be a good new class to teach in J-School.
April 1, 2015
You should take notes by hand, not on a laptop. (Via everyone, but we saw it first from @timoreilly)
April 2, 2015
Eric Greitens gives a mid-air reading from his book Resilience, then helps an ailing passenger with techniques from the book. People, this is how you do an event.
Great interview with design star Michael Bierut. Love the 100-day project! (Via Dark Matter by Almighty)
“Capitalism is at its core a diverse, intimate network of human and non-human relations.” Doesn’t sound so bad when you put it that way. Here’s a new perspective on what they heck we’re all doing at work every day from “A Feminist Manifesto for the Study of Capitalism.” (via Alexis Madrigal’s Real Future newsletter)
“I still read the newspapers and scream every morning.” Seymour Hersch thinks we’ll be OK in a world where BuzzFeed and Gawker are the future of journalism. Also, we’ll always have the New York Times.
“A team losing a game is not a ‘disaster.’” The AP Stylebook gets real about hackneyed sports cliches.
Next to Now: A Week in Reading Links
Links for the week ending March 27, 2015
March 23, 2015
Good piece on designing for how we read. It’s about designing responsive web sites, but has implications for anyone who’s making consumable information (including book ads!). Via @hawkt.
March 24, 2016
How’s your mobile strategy coming? According to this article in eMarketer, “Mobile Will Account for 72% of US Digital Ad Spend by 2019.” They think this will come about because of “consumer usage” (you think?) and better ad formats (an agency can hope!).
March 25, 2015
“It’s go-time for Facebook Auto-Play Video ads.” It’s a great format, but you have to have the chops for it.
Here’s an ad to inspire you. And by “inspire” we mean literally (“inspire: To draw in by the operation of breathing; to inhale”). It’s made out of water vapor you can breathe in, or blow away.
OK, OK, we admit it: this Fran Lebowitz interview is pretty great. (Via everybody on Twitter)
Good thinking on responsive design from the Associate Director of Audience Development at the NYT. I remain a pro-responsive design guy, but his arguments are worth a good think.
Great tips on setting the stage for productive feedback, useful for any creative enterprise, including ads! Via @Almighty
March 26, 2015
A new report on the US Digital Display Market says Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Yahoo own nearly half of all digital display ads now, and more to come.
CJR has a good take on Facebook’s move to take control of more news content, and its relationship to Snapchat’s Discover platform.
The CJR also has a good piece on podcasts that lays out the landscape for producers, listeners, and advertisers:
“But the real reason established media companies are starting to take podcasts seriously has more to do with the nature of their listeners. Podcast consumers, according to Edison Research, listen to an average of six episodes per week. Once they find a podcast they like, they tend to be devoted. The medium feels intimate. Unlike the audience online, which tends to click through and then bounce away quickly, podcasts draw people in for the duration of the episode. They feel a deep, personal connection with the hosts.”
Next to Now: Links for the Week’s News in Book-Relevant Ad Tech
Links for the Week Ending March 20, 2015
March 13, 2015
Looking for the hottest thing in mobile? If you’re cool with $100 CPMs, Snapchat’s the way to go! Partner with CNN, ESPN, Cosmo, People, Food Network, Vice. Keep your eye on Snapchat (but keep your wallet close).
The video field is getting crowded. Who has the edge for mobile advertising going forward? Business Insider produced a good (pro- YouTube) breakdown on the differences between mobile advertising via YouTube, FB, and Vine.
It’s a supply and demand lesson: More advertisers going programmatic means programmatic prices are going up as supply goes down.
March 17, 2015
Programmatic advertising makes sense for book publishing—at least in certain cases. But it also represents great potential for fraud. ClickZ’s “6 Good Questions to Ask Your Programmatic Partner” are a good place to start any new relationship.
March 18, 2015
We like what the designer of the new Seattle Times site says about respecting reader experience—and how it’s good for advertising. For those of us who specialize in advertising things to read, that good sense goes double for us. Here is Mike Monteiro on “All the News Where It Needs to Fit.” (via @HawkThompson)
March 19, 2015
Podcasts: the perfect marriage between close attention, bookish demos, and mobile-friendly environment. Here’s eMarketer on growth in the podcast market.
This CJR report on Millennials and news has direct implications for the future of publishing. Pay attention to how the new generation is establishing its information gathering.
Winter 2015 Newsletter
The 2015 Winter Newsletter is here. Learn more about the future of sharing, ad options to watch, and more.
Join Us at Digital Book World
Going to Digital Book World? Verso’s Tom Thompson will be speaking 3-3:50PM on Thursday, January 15 on “Strategies for Digital Advertising and Managing Paid Media Campaigns” with paid media experts from Penguin Random House, Scholastic, and Hachette.
Verso Advertising Welcomes Martha Otis
September 3, 2014
New York, New York
For immediate release
Verso Advertising, Inc., a New York-based full service advertising agency specializing in the publishing industry, announces today that Martha Otis, Senior Vice President, Advertising, of Hachette Book Group, will be joining Verso Advertising as President on October 1, 2014.
Otis has been at Hachette (formerly Time Warner Trade Publishing) since 1994, managing a 30-person in-house advertising agency, where she handled all media-buying, creative, and execution for thousands of ads and almost 2,000 New York Times bestsellers, including nearly 350 New York Times #1 bestsellers. Prior to Hachette, Otis served as Vice President, Advertising and Promotion for the Simon & Schuster trade group.
Denise Berthiaume, President and owner of Verso Advertising, will relinquish day-to-day management responsibilities for the agency to become Chairman and owner as of October 1st.
Michael Kazan, Vice President and Managing Director, will be retiring from Verso after ten years with the agency. During his tenure at Verso, Kazan has had a vibrant and decisive role in building the business to become the pre-eminent advertising agency serving the book publishing industry.
Says Berthiaume of the transition, “This is the perfect match of experience and drive to lead the agency to a whole new phase of growth. Martha brings with her more than 30 years of marketing and advertising experience, and a thorough understanding of the role advertising plays in breaking out new voices and taking bestselling brand names to a new level. She has played a critical role in the publishing of such major bestselling authors as James Patterson, Nicholas Sparks, David Baldacci, Joshua Ferris, David Sedaris, J.K. Rowling, Tom Wolfe, Donna Tartt, Kate Atkinson, Sebastian Junger, and many others. We can’t wait for Martha to join the Verso team, and we anticipate she will hit the ground running on October 1st.”
Founded in 1989, Verso Advertising has built its reputation on successfully helping publishers market their books. Led by veterans of the book advertising industry and complemented by a young, talented staff drawn primarily from publishing and the arts, the agency has a current client list of more than thirty trade and academic accounts, including some of the most distinguished names in publishing.
Spring Newsletter
The Spring Newsletter is here. Check it out for new ideas in data-driven marketing.
Seamus Heaney
In Memoriam: Seamus Heaney
1939-2013
There are the mud-flowers of dialect
And the immortelles of perfect pitch
And that moment when the bird sings very close
To the music of what happens.
—from “Song”
Summer Friday Links for August 16
How to Stand Out in a Crowd (of Crowdfunders)
Wattpad gives writers (and their fans) a funding platform. Given the number of literary projects that have been popping up on Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, this seems like perfect timing and a great way for beginning writers to develop a writing community from the ground up.
Facebook Ads as Market Research
We have been using non-book comparisons as a way to identify and reach audiences for years, but Peter McCarthy has an interesting twist on the idea by advocating using relatively inexpensive Facebook ads to test different comps. It’s a good idea if you’ve got the budget to do it.
The New Yorker’s Running Full-Tilt
We see the numbers, so we knew that the New Yorker’s digital reach took a huge leap forward in 2013. This article does a great job explaining why.
Gorgeous Branding for a Favorite Bookstore
One of our very favorite indie bookstores within lunch-break distance is Idlewild, so we are thrilled to see them get press for their brand redesign. And such design! As in all the best branding, Andrew Colin Beck simply brought out qualities that were already present, but oh boy did he bring them out! The perfect combination of books and looks.