The Drought is Over

Thankfully, this work week doesn't have extra innings. After 108 years, and 10 innings in game 7, the Cubs are finally the World Series Champions again. Sounds like a feature film in 2018. Needless to say, the city of Chicago - and fans who watched the game outside of Wrigley Field (seriously, you need to check out that link) - were thrilled.

This week we share some good news stories, our interns talk engagement and metrics, we share our favourite costume of 2016, and we wrap up with the usuals. Oh and ICYMI here is last week's update.

London for the Holidays?

Like Prince Harry's relationship status (a spy claims that he was actually here in Toronto over the weekend), the Star digital gift guide that was part of the 2016 Holiday Opportunities is "taken".

Where did it go?

Happy to report, after months of pursuit, OLG has finally extended their print buys to digital.

To coincide with their print campaign and their gift card offering, OLG decided to make the right decision to purchase the Holiday Gift guide on thestar.com.

To target the "O" in OLG, for this opportunity, the Holiday Gift Guide content is geo-targeted to Ontario.

What all was included in the buy?

• Native Inline Ads (Star)
• Featured Native Ads (Metro and Star)
• 300x600 ROS (primarily Star inventory)
• 300x600 (SMM - Audience Extension)

We saved the best for last

After months of pursing OLG to extend their print buys to digital, not only was this program sold, but they also moved forward with a mobile buy for their holiday campaign as an extension to their print buy. Did I mention this is brand new revenue?

Koodos to Jennifer Dixon-Burling, Andrew Toso, Barb Anie, and others

The good news continues

There are still a number of opportunities available for any client looking for alignment to holiday-themed content. Oh and the decks have been updated.

4 More Days...

November 8th is quickly approaching. In case you have been living under a rock for the past few months, Donald Trump is running for president, against Hillary Clinton, who would be the first female POTUS. With all of this excitement, our friends down south are election-crazy, and some are even threatening to move to Canada. Even if we don't have the best healthcare (thanks, Trump).

Remember how we thought everyone was finally getting over Clinton's email scandal? Ya, not so fast.

What happened now?

Last Friday, the FBI let congress know that they found more relevant Clinton emails and will take the appropriate investigative steps.

What makes it even more complicated, is that more than 17 million people have already cast their vote.

Did you read about this on thestar.com?

Well, if you did, the people putting on Sousatzka are happy. After running a homepage takeover, the client was delivered way more impressions than predicted. Why? Breaking news means more users checking out our site to get the scoop.

As we approach November 8th, remind your clients that people rely on trusted brands like ours to find out about breaking news. So, on election day if they do a homepage takeover, they will probably be seen by a lot of eyeballs.

Ask the Interns

More Metrics Murray asked, the interns have answered.

Recap: More Metrics Murray wanted to WOW his clients with performance data. He was happy to share their CTR rate and delivered impressions, but he wanted more. Here is what the interns are suggesting:

Hey Murray, we like your enthusiasm. And we agree, the more data you can use to back up your claims about good performance, the better. Aside from CTR, delivered impressions, and delivered clicks, wouldn't it be great to give them more?

Let's introduce them to some new metrics: in-view %, in-view time, universal interaction %, Universal Interaction time, total exposure time, and total ad dwell time?

Slow down, what do these metrics means?

Well, if you attended MOAT training, you could rhyme these off no problem. Basically, these metrics show that not only was the ad viewable, but also how users engaged with the ads.

This is very important these days. After Google brought to light that an ad served doesn't mean the ad was viewed, and GroupM stated, "advertisers are tired of paying for ads that nobody actually sees". MOAT is a total game changer for your clients.

Did we mention the heat maps?

Aside from the numbers, heat maps provide insights into how users engaged with the ad, and how the creative performed. This could be really useful to help your client see what worked with their ad creative, and what they could do better next time to improve their performance.

This is great. How do I get one?

That's easy. Reach out to your research analyst. Oh and make sure you send them over the final IO and the KPI/objectives of the campaign. The report will take 7 days to turn around, so make sure you keep that in mind when you are asking for one.

I'm a McDonald's. Duh.

This year for Halloween, Burger King made dressing up as a ghost cool again. All it took was a really large sheet and a Burger King in Queens, New York turned into the ghost of McDonald's on Monday. It even included a sign that read: "Boooooo! Just kidding, we still flame grill our burgers. Happy Halloween". Sassy.

What's New This Week

See something you need to have on Instagram? Well, now you can buy it. Instagram announced earlier this week, that shopping for the products you love on Instagram is going to get a lot easier. They are testing the new experience with 20 US-based retail brands including Kate Spade, JackThreads, and Warby Parker. It sounds like a catalogue for the 21-st century.

WOW: Word of the Week

Dynamic Ad Insertion

You know when you fill your shopping cart and then get pre-buyer's remorse and ditch it all? Do you ever feel like those items are haunting you? Those cute shoes keep popping up? Can't escape that jacket? That was not an accident.

That would be a dynamic ad. If you want to get exact, here is the official IAB definition.

The process by which an Online ad is inserted into a Webpage in response to a user’s request. Dynamic ad placement allows alteration of specific ads placed on a Webpage based on any data available to the placement program. At its simplest, dynamic ad placement allows for multiple ads to be rotated through one or more spaces. In more sophisticated examples, the ad placement could be affected by demographic data or usage history for the current user.

ps. Content suggestions/feedback/questions go here.