The advertising model is interesting to follow because several startups are banking on it. As part of my promise to cover business models, I’m going to dive into advertising. Although the label “advertising” conjures a single moniker of representation, there are several nuances to its making. It’s not as simple as that. Just look at the Display Lumascape. A week ago, John Battelle reviewed recent advertising-related developments, Everybody's Going Native, to highlight that the ad industry was very alive and kicking with innovation, mergers and growth spurts. A few days later, additional significant developments have happened in the form of new funding or acquisitions, signalling that the wind is definitely blowing in the advertising industry’s sails.

• More brands are waking-up and realizing that the social medium hasn’t been as exploited yet, and they want to target the Millenials, age group 13-30

• Advertisers, publishers, PR agencies are rushing to help their clients create content for Web sites and social media platforms

• Native advertising, the model du jour is about to get really interesting because of the attention it is receiving from players who are placing their bets on it (I will cover Native Advertising further in another post)

• Programmatic ad buying has been paying off, as it's cheaper to operate, and that's a blessing at a time when unit values have come down, so we can expect more of it

Of course, the recent merger of Publicis and Omnicom was a head turner in the advertising industry,  but if you follow what these 6 companies are doing in online, social and native advertising, you will get additional clues as to where advertising is going.

• Adapt.tv a video advertising platform known for its leading edge programmatic ad buying, was acquired by AOL for $405 million. Why? Programmatic ad buying is on the rise.

• Inadco raised $11M in a Series B, enabling the creation of native ad units to serve consumers who have demonstrated intent for a specific product or service. Why? The intersection of capturing purchase intent in a native ad format is another frontier that makes a lot of sense.

• HootSuite raised $165M in a Series B. Why? They are going after the social ad business in a big way, as one of only five Twitter Ads API partners.

• RebelMouse raised $10.25M in a Series A, one year after a seed round. Why? They plan to start running native advertising on their (relatively) small network of 7 million uniques on social pages.

• YieldMo is a new breed of mobile advertising network, focused on placing native ad units in a growing real estate of prestigious mobile properties. Why? They could crack the code of native advertising on mobile.

• Federated Media just started teasing about their upcoming “Content Reachtargetting”, a blend of programmatic re-targeting, native units, and creative content marketing approaches that connect and engage brands with consumers. Why? They are pioneering the conversational Ad model, like the Levi’s Curve ID. (direct link

Innovation and experimentation are everywhere, with new models and new bets.

• Programmatic ad-buying is accelerating

• Social media will receive increased advertising

• Native advertising is the emerging model

• Marketers are becoming multi-media content publishers in a big way

• The accuracy and contextualization of targeting and re-targeting is increasing

David Ogilvy, the Father of "Soft Sell" Advertising is rolling in his grave.]]>