Why wait for users to find your Social Media channels, when you can bring the conversation directly to them?

Kontera Social Boost is a new Family of Social amplification ad products that connects advertiser’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or deal syndication messaging directly to qualified users.  Placed within highly relevant editorial content across the over 15,000 quality sites using Kontera, Social Boost is a great way to amplify word of mouth social sharing, increase the visibility of your brand’s social assets, and grow the number of fans and followers you have.  With Social Boost, brand advertisers are able to effectively combine their earned media marketing tactics with their paid media advertising tactics.

Here are the four types of Social Boost solutions that Kontera offers:

• YouTube Video Boost – Amplifies sharing and word-of-mouth buzz for an advertiser’s YouTube video content and their video channels. The syndicated YouTube videos are featured to interested consumers, within highly relevant editorial content across the web.
• Facebook Editorial Boost – Extends a brand’s social reach beyond the news feed to the broader web, through placement within highly relevant editorial content across thousands of sites. Brands are able to bring relevant and dynamic information from their Facebook wall, as relevant related information to the right editorial content.
• Twitter Editorial Boost – Syndicates the brand’s Twitter feed within relevant editorial content across 15,000 publishers. A brand’s “conversational” Twitter voice, when delivered alongside engaging branded creative, extends a brand’s social reach beyond the brand’s existing followers.
• Deal Syndication Boost – Accelerates online retailers’ and brands’ social commerce promotions by syndicating specific commerce offers within highly relevant content. Offers can range from time-limited deals to coupons and mini circulars.

An excellent example of Kontera Social Boost is Ritz’s Glee campaign, which was recently featured in articles by the New York Times and MediaPost.  As Ritz Crackers and the TV show Glee and are both brands associated with fun, Ritz built a promotion around the popular musical, giving away trips to meet the cast on set in Los Angeles. To enter the promotion, fans would have to “Like” Ritz’s Facebook page.  Kontera’s role was to create awareness of this Facebook promotion within editorial that was relevant to Ritz or Glee, and to expose the dynamic community to readers interested in these topics.

Here’s Sheeba Philip, the marketing director for Ritz explaining in The New York Times, the advantages of using Kontera for their campaign:

“A program like Kontera’s is really effective for reaching consumers with common and shared passion points,” Ms. Philip said. “It really was a push to drive people to Facebook to learn more about the brand.”

Kontera used a content sponsorship strategy across its many publishers, featuring a Related Social Content unit that dynamically filtered wall content for relevance to Ritz and Glee.  The brand’s relevant visually compelling information was placed within highly relevant editorial.

Kontera’s ability to identify qualified users based on their immediate interests unlocked a new audience for the brand’s social initiative.

To learn more please visit our Social Boost page.

We couldn’t be more pleased to announce Starcom Mediavest Group and BlackBerry as winners of the first ever Kontera Interest Awards for their BlackBerry PlayBook campaign!

This new quarterly award honors Advertisers and Ad Agencies for their in-content innovation. When it comes to taking full advantage of the creative possibilities and context driven results offered by Kontera, BlackBerry and Starcom are the clear winners.

The engraved glass award was presented by Kontera president Hal Muchnick, at a special dinner held recently in Chicago. Starcom’s Vice President and Global Mobile Activation Director Brandon Starkoff, accepted the award on behalf of the Starcom BlackBerry team. Attendees enjoyed delicious fare and celebrated with a toast to commemorate the evening.

So what set the PlayBook campaign apart? BlackBerry and Starcom collaborated with Kontera in creating a unique Product Freedom ad. Taking the customized shape of a Playbook tablet, the unit expanded to display a video carousel featuring content syndication ads that showed off the PlayBooks’ Internet, Flash, and Multitasking abilities. The immersive experience combined with great editorial placement, provided for an ad unit that was both memorable and effective.

Congratulations to both BlackBerry and Starcom Mediavest Group!

Is there a campaign currently on Kontera that’s particularly caught your eye? Let us know in the comments and maybe your nomination will win next quarter’s Kontera Interest Awards!

In a series of A/B testing conducted by Mike Rowe from the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs, the 2011 Ford Super Duty Truck was found to completely out perform its competitors in everything from fuel efficiency, towing abilities, torque and engine power. Ford wanted to showcase its winning truck using the video hosted by Rowe. Yet, for a truck with these many features, there was just too much to convey in just one video.

That’s why when Kontera teamed up with Ford to build an ad unit to educate consumers about the benefits of the 2011 Ford Super Duty, Kontera’s expert development and design teams created yet another In-Text industry milestone: the first In-Text multi-video ad!

This Expandable ad unit features a video carousel, presenting three 2-3 minute long video clips of the 2011 Super Duty in action.  End users interacting with the ad choose the video they wish to see, which is being played maximized to the full size of the expanded ad unit.

The innovative ad unit also offered a 15 second teaser video displayed before the ad expands to its full width, and provided multiple calls to action, linking to different Ford landing pages, from “Price & Build” to “Incentives & Offers”, and “Request a Quote”.

Providing a fully immersive, multi-video experience, Kontera has once again expanded the limits of what an In-Text ad can be. Thanks to our exclusive Topical Targeting capabilities, Kontera can predict user intent and match it to advertisers preferences; delivering advertisers a qualified and engaged In-Text audience at scale.

With Kontera superior contextual technology and innovative Ad units, The Ford Super Duty multi-video campaign has proven extremely successful in delivering Brand Awareness lift, Message Recall and a considerable increase in relevant consumers’ Purchase Consideration.

A recent comScore study also found similarly impressive results when measuring the impact of Kontera In-Text ads for other Brand engagement campaigns. In this comprehensive study, Kontera In-Text ads were found to deliver Brand Lift 5X the norm!

To learn more about the impact of Kontera In-Text advertising on key brand measures and on brand-related consumer behaviors, as well as on end-users’  attitudes to In-Text ads- visit our comScore Research Results page.

Carriers and cell-phone makers are always looking to differentiate themselves, to increase public’s awareness of their brand and to engage with consumers.

With the fierce competition in the Telecom sector, these companies look for the most effective online campaign strategies – turning to Kontera’s In-Text advertising solutions to successfully meet their campaign objectives (scroll down for some cool examples!).

Telecom carriers and handset makers are stepping up their online competition, as Cell-Wars heat up on the Kontera Network.

In the last months we’ve seen a substantial increase in In-Text campaigns being launched on Kontera for major telecom and phone manufacturers, such as AT&T, HTC, Samsung, Sprint and BlackBerry.

These companies benefit from Kontera’s brand engagement rates that range from 5% to 8%, our advanced semantic targeting, and unique creative ad units. Increasingly, these carriers and phone makers are also adopting In-Text advertising units that incorporate Twitter, Facebook and links to related information and articles.

With carriers and handset makers directing more of their advertising dollars to Kontera, the revenue from directly sold advertising campaigns in the Telecom sector more than tripled in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009. Meanwhile, the average campaign budget was more than twice as large compared to campaigns a year earlier.

So who will win this escalating battle for our hearts, minds, and SIM cards? It’s unclear, but with these In-Text Telecom campaigns receiving such great response rates from consumers, and the market-leading CPC and record high CTRs of those premium ads providing our publishers with the spoils; the telecom wars aren’t even close to being extinguished. However, if a victor does finally emerge, you can be sure that it’ll happen right on the pages of the Kontera Network.

Freedom Ad Campaign for AT&T showcasing the product.

Video Integration for SAMSUNG and for Sprint.

We’re happy to introduce a brand new series on the Kontera blog, highlighting a new and innovative campaign recently launched on the Kontera network. We hope this series will give our readers a taste of Kontera’s unique combination of sophisticated contextual technology and exceptional creative capabilities.

To kick start our blog series, we’re opening with one of our most innovative Ad Units yet – as we step up our game even further for the gamers! We teamed up with Microsoft on a campaign launching the much-anticipated Alan Wake video game for Xbox 360.

Alan Wake is a creation of Remedy Entertainment, the company behind the hugely successful Max Payne series. Already drawing rave reviews from outlets like IGN and VideoGamer.com, the episodic Alan Wake is a likely the scariest video game ever created, using cinematic lighting and a ruthless tone to create an atmosphere invoking Stephen King’s best work.

This ad unit fully immerses you in the world of crime novelist Alan Wake, as he investigates the mysterious disappearance of his wife in a small town where nothing is as it seems.

The Alan Wake campaign builds on the Expandable ad unit, which expands upon user interaction. The wide panoramic view, alongside the rich-media and interactive features of the Expandable unit, enable brands to feature additional information, to engage users and creates a rich branded experience.

This Alan Wake expandable ad demonstrates a couple of exciting capabilities:

1. An image gallery fully packed with game screen shots, allowing users to experience the feel of the game and Alan Wake’s dark world.
2. A complete video trailer, which, for the first time, can be viewed either within the video player, or maximized to the full size of the expanded ad unit.

All the design work for the Alan Wake unit was done by Kontera’s in house Design team, who is proudly expanding what people think an In-Text ad can be.

Our custom, engaging creative solutions are designed to maximize the impact of each campaign. In addition, these premium ads, exclusive to the Kontera network, also provide an additional revenue streams for our publishers, and a great user experience for web visitors who interact with these campaigns.

Kontera’s In-Text ads bring a brand’s message to consumers when they are most engaged and receptive – while reading the text of a page – resulting in highly relevant and effective advertising messaging. We’ve been getting great reviews as users interact with the Alan Wake ads, experiencing the game and its exceptional chilling atmosphere, delivering a unique brand experience and awareness amongst both hard core and casual gamers!

A word of warning to our publishers: If you have suitable content in entertainment, gaming, gadgets or the gamers community – For the near future, you might want to keep a watch out, as Alan Wake might be making an appearance on a web-page near you!