We’ve recently announced Kontera’s Freedom Ad units, enabling advertisers to display In-Text ads in the shape of the product or brand they advertise. Freedom Ads received raving reviews and we wanted to share one of the more exciting success stories with this new Ad type.

Many of us are familiar with the “Quaker Man” – the gentle smile and old-world attire of the Quaker brand logo. Quaker is a household name that’s been around for over 130 years and is one of the most popular brands in the world.

Quaker needed something to reinvigorate the product and get consumers excited about oatmeal again. Kevin Ryan, of iMedia Connection, gives Kontera and OMD (Quaker’s ad agency) kudos for taking oats to the next level, making them just a little bit sexier.

Click to view demo

In an ad shaped like the Quaker Oatmeal package, that included recommended recipes, Quaker succeeded in engaging with consumers for 12 seconds (!) while they review the content of the ad, achieving Click Through Rates as high as 15.6%. The Quaker In-Text Freedom Ads delivered the highest CTR across the entire campaign, across all other media types.

Pranav Pandit, Group Director of Digital Strategy at OMD, acknowledges the success of Kontera’s In-Text advertising solution in tying unique and engaging creative with relevant context to help users connect the dots from Quaker to a rich oatmeal experience.

In-Text advertising has always delivered performance because of its superior relevancy and unobtrusiveness – as the website visitor has to trigger the launch of the ad by hovering over the highlighted keyword in the text, and the ad is closely tied and extremely relevant to the content of the page and to the user intent behind it.

In the online advertising world, where banner ads are almost universally ignored by consumers, getting extremely low click through rates of 0.7%, In-Text ads, which are actively triggered by consumers, who want to engage with the content, deliver impressive average CTR of 10% and above. In an industry measured by advertisers on conversion and campaign ROI, and by publishers on the CPC paid for each of those clicks – high CTRs and user engagement mean big business all around.

Go on, awaken your sense with Quaker oats and take a look at the demo of the Quaker Freedom Ads.

Download the presentation given at the iMedia Brand Summit on the Quaker Case Study.

Watch the short video interview with Ammiel Kamon, Kontera’s EVP Marketing, given at the iMedia Brand Summit held last month. See what makes Kontera’s In-Text advertising solution unique.

Check out more of our latest videos on YouTube

At the recent iMedia Brand Summit in Las Vegas, we announced our newest ad family: Freedom Ads.

Freedom Ads offer Kontera’s large brand advertisers a unique way of capturing the consumers’ eye and imagination, while delivering record-high engagement, brand response rates, and CTRs.

Freedom Ad units are highly-relevant rich-media in-text ads that appear in the actual form of the product they advertise – thus bringing these products to life through an engaging out-of-the-box experience.

For example, when advertising its newest mobile phone and its video capabilities, Samsung chose to have the ad itself shaped like the actual mobile device, simulating its capability to stream live video coverage of the Winter Olympics. Consumers immediately experience the Samsung phone, its unique product design and video capabilities. The ad also conveys the Olympic experience and associates the Samsung brand with the Olympic spirit.

There are two types of Freedom Ads; the Product Freedom Unit, and the Brand Freedom Unit.

The Product Freedom Unit delivers an elegant, instantly recognizable visual depiction of the advertiser’s product, directly from within a highly relevant key phrase. Product Freedom units employ a clean design, and are ideal for product focused advertisers like Consumer Packaged Goods, Automotive, Apparel, Beauty, Consumer Electronics, and Retail.

The Brand Freedom Unit brings to life elements of the brand that are instantly recognizable, and it delivers a unique and holistic brand experience through tasteful interaction that engages, educates, and delights the consumer.

In a survey conducted among 15 brands and agency teams who launched campaigns using the new Freedom Ads, all of them replied that they would use the Freedom Unit again! This great advertiser reception is indicative of positive consumer results, and it is translating into a positive financial impact for Kontera’s publishers.

Other advertisers that have used the new Freedom Ads include FedEx, Adobe, the Republic of Ireland and Curel. See these campaigns and experience the Freedom Ads for yourself on our demonstration page.

You can also check out some of our additional Freedom Ads resources:

• The Official Kontera Press Release
• Freedom Ads Covered on MediaPost
• Download the PowerPoint presentation presented at iMedia Brand Summit
• See this and other Ad types in The Kontera Ad Gallery
• Watch the short video interview with Ammiel Kamon, Kontera’s EVP marketing, given at the iMedia Brand Summit about the future of in-text advertising

It is the dawn of 2009, and just before we make the final step and shift into a brand new year, we thought it important to recount the many great things that happened in 2008. The final conclusion: 2008 has been an incredibly productive year at Kontera and we believe for our publishers, advertisers and users as well. We’re confident that 2009 will be even better stronger for all parties involved.

In order to keep this post concise, we had to narrow it down to 8 top products and services launched by Kontera that were focused on existing and prospective publisher base, so without further ado , here are the chronologically ordered top Kontera launches of 2008:

1. KnowledgeBase- Launched January 21- The KnowledgeBase surrounds a wide range of information about Kontera optimization, publisher payments, and technical issues. The KnowledgeBase was another move in our push to give Kontera publishers greater independence through accessibility to information. The knowledgebase proves very helpful and accommodates an impressive amount of publishers daily.
2. Publisher Center- Launched January 31- the Publisher Center offers Kontera partners a range of high end capabilities and control over ContentLink ads on their sites and their accounts. What’s even more exciting is the fact that the Publisher Center is continuously undergoing upgrades and updates since its initial launch. It will continue to improve in order to give Kontera publishers a greater control and more possibilities over their In-Text ads.
3. The Kontera Hybrid- Launched March 25- Kontera’s newest advertising solution, a completely customizable, In-Text media layer that simultaneously displays relevant content alongside advertisements. The Hybrid layer enhances a webpage by presenting links to related content, videos, and images alongside advertisements in one cohesive unit. The Kontera Hybrid is currently only available to select publishers.
4. Invite a Friend Program – Launched March 31- Through this program, publishers can send their friends an invite to join Kontera. For each friend who becomes an active member, you receive a $25 bonus award. The Invite a Friend program has been very successful in expanding the Kontera family and it will continue with us well into 2009.
5. New Plugins for WordPress, Joomla and Drupal – Launched throughout May – These plugins are an important milestone in our efforts to simplify ContentLink implementation for use on various platforms. The plugins allow the setup of ContentLink ads, without the complications of modifying your site’s code. Have a look at our WordPress plugin video tutorial.
6. Blogger Widget- Launched June 10- Much like the plugins mentioned above but even simpler, the Blogger widget allows you to implement ContentLink on Blogger blogs with just one click. Login to your Kontera account, click on the “Kontera It” button and the Kontera tag will be automatically added to your pages. Monetizing your blog has never been easier.
7. Kontera on Pluck-On-Demand partnership- Launched November 20- Through the partnership with Pluck, Kontera ContentLink ads are automatically generated within the Pluck-on- Demand content widget creating an additional revenue stream for publishers. Publishers get the whole package: free and relevant content populated with targeted ads.
8. Holiday ’09 Cash Bonus – Launched December 18- Our latest promotion, recently advertised and still going strong. If you are not yet a publisher, there’s no better time to join. Sign up with Kontera by Jan 15, 2009 and as soon as you reach $75 in earnings, we’ll round your balance up to $100. That’s an extra $25 on us!

Happy 2009!

We are excited to present our new blog face, refreshed and uplifted.

The Kontera blog has been up and running since June 22, 2007.  It hasn’t always been easy… but with much care and fun, we have proudly made it to POST 99!

And on this festive blog occasion, we’d like to remind you of posts that have gained more attention, and other posts that we really like… and you may have missed:

• Why Google Adsense and Kontera ContentLinks are a Perfect Combination

• 5 Things Kontera’s Top Earners Have In Common

• 3 Reasons Why Your SEO Efforts and ContentLink Optimization Go Hand in Hand

• The Comprehensive Kontera Guide for Payment Info

• Creating In-Text Relevance

• Video Tutorial- Setting Up the Kontera WordPress Plugin