Our content optimization system was developed with our partners at UpRoxx.

This IAB standard 300×600 unit is sponsored by Verizon to promote its FiOS tie-in with the Iron Man 2 franchise earlier in the year.  The ad can be seen now at Fandango.com, Movies.com, and any of CDE’s affiliate sites like ScreenRant and Film Drunk.  Early response to this ad unit and it’s content has been very positive.  Due to the fresh nature of the headlines, users have been highly engaged with very impressive click-through rates.

This  CDE product is now available to all of our partners.  It can be utilized by any brand advertiser to leverage the best original content from our enthusiast driven web-sites – making your brand part of the conversation in the exciting world of movies and entertainment.

Through the technology and relationships offered by Topspin Media, CDE can now include a customized streaming audio player in the ad unit to tie in with our partners’ advertising creative.  Users can click through to a landing page where the tracks are available for download in exchange for a tweet or an email address.

CDE worked with Hint water as our inaugural ad partner for the launch of this new ad unit.  Hint’s product and messaging are prominently featured along with the customized streaming player that integrates with their look and feel.  The player features 6 songs from top new artists (The Static Jacks, Theft, Jennifer Knapp, Anberlin, Garrison Starr, and John Carpenter) and can currently be seen on Screen Rant, Film Drunk, and others sites within our portfolio.

The ad unit features one module for returning showtimes and another for returning “On the Border” restaurant locations.  Modules in the ad unit are generated on-the-fly by pulling data from the Fandango API.   This is the same technology used to power CDE’s previously released “Showtimes & Ticketing Widget”.  The data returned in both modules is real-time and geo-specific based on the user’s zip code.  This means a multitude of local showtimes to choose from and all the information needed to contact and locate the nearest “On the Border” restaurant.

This new ad unit is an IAB standard 300×600 and is currently running on Movies.com and CDE affiliate sites like Screen Rant, Film Drunk, and MovieWeb.  It is now available within our suite of products and we look forward to future partnerships with restaurants looking to offer a great dining experience to our hungry user base of entertainment enthusiasts.

Comcast Digital Entertainment recently launched a Fandango branded/powered showtimes page on Screen Rant. As you can see, the page is in Screen Rant’s main nav so it will  generate a pretty decent level of impressions (Screen Rant is approximately 800k monthly Comscore unique visitors). We will be rolling similar pages out across the CDE affiliate network in the coming weeks.

The benefits of the pages are

• Branding and traffic/ticket sales for Fandango (with affiliate revenue sharing for Screen Rant)
• Brand lift for the affiliates – when new advertisers are evaluating the affiliate sites they will have a more premium feel.
• More valuable showtimes inventory to sell to endemic advertisers
• A better user experience for the Screen Rant community

The modules on the page are generated on-the-fly by pulling data from the Fandango APIs and caching the data on Akamai.  The Showtimes and the Nearest Theaters widgets are pulling zip codes from a geolocation web-service.

So go ahead and see the Screen Rant  Showtimes page for yourself at http://screenrant.com/showtimes.

This IAB standard 300×600 unit is sponsored by Sprint to promote the hot summer release of the new HTC EVO™ 4G.  The ad can be seen now at Fandango.com, Movies.com, and any of CDE’s affiliate sites like ScreenRant and Film Drunk.  Early response to this ad unit and it’s content has been very positive.  Due to the fresh nature of the headlines, users have been highly engaged with very impressive click-through rates.

This new CDE product is now available to all of our partners.  It can be utilized by any brand advertiser to leverage the best original content from our enthusiast driven web-sites – making your brand part of the conversation in the exciting world of movies and entertainment.

These data confirm the CDE strategy of only working with hand-picked, premium content sites in the context of integrated partnerships.  The findings show that ads on original content sites consistently had significant effectiveness in raising awareness, creating message association, generating brand favorability and driving purchase intent over portals, ad networks and the overall MarketNorms ® average. In addition:

• Ad networks (Examples include Advertising.com, Broadband Enterprises, Glam Media, Gorilla Nation, Specific Media, ValueClick and Vibrant Media) were shown to provide advertisers with the smallest change across ad effectiveness metrics.
• The most popular ad sizes – medium rectangles, leaderboards and wide skyscrapers – perform significantly better on OPA sites than MarketNorms® on most metrics
• Video ad impact on premium content sites represented by OPA members was greater than the MarketNorms average, and had the greatest impact on purchase intent and awareness metrics
• Consumers are more involved with interactive ads on premium content-focused sites evidenced by their significantly higher awareness, message association, brand favorability and purchase intent

See the full press release here .and download the full report here

The widget serves within an IAB standard 300×600 unit and is now an official CDE product available to all of our partners.  Our studio partners can use it to promote their film openings, and other brands can use the widget to align themselves with a fun night out at the movies.  Visit one of our publishers to see the widget to purchase advanced tickets for Iron Man 2 before it sells out!

We have a few products in development to help our publishers leverage the Twitter platform to increase traffic and expand their analytics capabilities.

Two funny hosts + young Hollywood actors + battle of the exes (Kathryn Bigelow vs. James Cameron) = Oscar success! Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin sporting 3D glasses (searching for the Avatar director), the co-hosts chilling backstage in matching Snuggies, and Ben Stiller presenting the Best Makeup award in a full Na’vi getup were the funniest moments of the evening. In case you missed this year’s telecast of the Oscars, our publishers have you covered—from the winners list, best and worst dressed photos, exclusive Red Carpet interviews to Oscar trivia.

• Hollyscoop – 2010 Oscar Best & Worst Dressed
• E! Online – Oscars Red Carpet Videos
• First Showing – Complete Oscars Winners List
• Screen Rant – Oscars By Numbers and Oscars Triva
• Fandango – Oscars Buzz

Moviegoers and trees in San Diego can rejoice at the news that Fandango’s mobile movie ticketing program is now available at select theaters in the market.  Fandango Mobile Ticket allows consumers to send their movie tickets directly to their cell phones via a text or picture message and bypass the ticket line by scanning the bar code at the podium.  No papers, no lines, no fuss. This nifty technology may not be available in your city yet, but hang tight because Mobile Ticket will roll out to additional theaters very soon!

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