Madison Avenue execs describe Apple’s ad sales team as “slow, cocky and downright stingy”

Apple is missing out on iAd sales opportunities because the company is too “slow, cocky and downright stingy” according to Madison Avenue media buyers cited in a piece in Advertising Age.

One exec told Ad Age that Apple doesn’t even have official sales targets for its ad business.

Cary Tilds, chief innovation officer for GroupM, said that Apple doesn’t have a big sales team. “It’s not their main focus to tell everyone in the world how amazing advertising in iAd is,” she said. “It’s just not as loud” … 

Apple came in for particular criticism for its unwillingness to share anonymized information about the behaviours of its customers, which media buyers say would be incredibly valuable when it comes to targeting ads at the right customers.

Apple’s refusal to share data makes it the best-looking girl at the party, forced to wear a bag over her head.

Apple had originally aimed iAds at big-name brands, with a $1M minimum spend, later reduced to $500,000 and then $100,000 before introducing the iAD Workbench program which allows micro-campaigns to be created from just $50.

Apple is believed to be focusing its ad sales efforts on iTunes Radio, with in-app sales taking a backseat.

- 9to5mac.com

Have music downloads hit their peak, with streaming taking over?

What do 1980, 1989 and 2003 have in common? They were the peak sales years for LPs, cassettes and CDs respectively. After that, a very slight resurgence in vinyl aside, it was all downhill.

Billboard magazine has an interesting piece in which they suggest that perhaps 2012 might join that list – as the year that saw peak sales for music downloads, with streaming services like Spotify, Rdio and now, of course, iTunes Radio the heir apparent …

The fall in music downloads is small so far, but the numbers do seem suggestive of a trend.

Digital purchases are down almost across the board this year. Track sales are down 4.4% through Nov. 24, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Track-equivalent albums, where 10 tracks equal one album, are down 2.1%. Total digital purchases — tracks and digital albums — are down 4%.

Track sales have been falling all year. In the first half of 2013, U.S. consumers bought between 23 million and 25 million tracks per week. In October and November, weekly track sales dropped below 20 million.

A piece in the NY Times quotes Doug Morris, chairman of Sony Music Entertainment, as seeing the same pattern.

The buying habits of music lovers are changing. Rather than buying physical records, or even digital downloads, consumers are starting to prefer buying music on demand from streaming services.”

In the same piece, Neilsen says that YouTube music videos are the most popular source of music among younger listeners.

Billboard points to catalog sales – everything other than new releases – as a key indicator of the state of the nation for a music format.

The current weakness in catalog sales mimics what happened with CDs, according to NPD Group analyst Russ Crupnick, who says consumers began showing “apathy” about CD purchases roughly eight to nine years ago. “People were starting to say, ‘I’m good. I have all the catalog I want. If you don’t ‘wow’ me with something new, I’m going to stay on the sidelines.’”

The big question being asked of the streaming services, of course, is whether their business model is sustainable. Of the 24M users Spotify reported back in March (the last time it talked numbers), only a quarter of them had paid subscriptions. Music downloads and physical media sales are still where the money is so far – generating $5.6B revenue against around $1B for streaming services – but that’s a pretty rapid shift for a format that, until recently, appeared to be much better at attracting listeners than parting them from their cash.

But if anyone is well-placed to make money from streaming music, it has to be the company which turned a break-even service designed to promote hardware sales into a multi-billion dollar business in its own right. Apple’s move into the streaming music business is looking like it was particularly well-timed.

Written by: Ben Lovejoy @benlovejoy December 16, 2013/4:43 am - 9to5mac.com

Report: Apple focusing iAd sales on iTunes Radio, building real-time exchange for in-app ads

Adweek is reporting that Apple is focusing the iAd sales department almost exclusively on iTunes Radio, rather than developing its in-app ad portfolio, which is how the service originally started. According to the report, Eddy Cue told the advertising unit that iTunes Radio advertisements are a top priority, presumably as Apple is preparing to expand the music service into more countries next year.

AdWeek quotes an ‘apple insider’:

“The message that came across was basically if you’re not working on iTunes Radio, you’re irrelevant,” an Apple insider said.

The report reaffirms suspicions that Apple is quickly expanding its ad sales managers for iTunes Radio, in the wake of news that Apple hired a terrestrial radio ad sales executive last week. The report indicates that although sales managers are focused on iTunes radio campaigns, Apple is quietly working on changing the dynamics of its in-app display advertising as well.

The report says that Apple is developing a real-time bidding exchange to automate the management and distribution of campaigns for advertisers. This system is similar to a stock exchange, where ads are bought and sold dynamically over time. This is a big departure from how iAds was initially envisioned as a platform for distinct, big-budget movie-like campaigns. Adweek speculates that the real-time system would make iAds more accessible both in terms of adversity diversity and price.

Written by: Benjamin Mayo @BenjaminZAMayo December 16, 2013/1:10 pm - 9to5mac.com