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Amazon To Drop Dataxu From Fire TV DSP Service Nick Brien To Leave Dentsu Aegis, Jacki Kelley To Take Over As CEO Of Americas What’s In A Currency? Nielsen Releases Converged Linear And Smart TV Metric Google Will Limit Cross-Site Tracking In Chrome By Default Starting In February Hulu Launches Binge Ad Experience As Users Sour On Interruptive Ads Why Toyota Loves Distracted TV Audiences Verizon Media Brings DOOH Supply To SSP, Completing Its Stack For Outdoor Screens Netflix Keeps Agencies At Arm’s Length On Its Brand Tie-In Deals The IAB Finalizes CCPA Framework As Industry Readies For More Regulators

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Amazon To Drop Dataxu From Fire TV DSP Service

by James Hercher // Posted on Friday, December 13th, 2019 at 3:22 pm.

Amazon Publisher Services (APS) will remove dataxu from its Fire TV third-party DSP service, according to sources with knowledge of the change.

APS opened Fire TV inventory to third-party DSPs for the first time five months ago with integrations with The Trade Desk and dataxu. Less than two months after dataxu was acquired by Roku, it is slated to be removed from Amazon’s program.

Amazon did not respond to request to comment. Roku and dataxu declined to comment.

When APS released its Fire TV DSP partnerships in July, Jeff Green and Mike Baker, CEOs of The Trade Desk and dataxu, respectively, hailed the product as a potential game changer in programmatic video.

SSPs owned by broadcasters, like Comcast’s FreeWheel and AT&T’s Xandr division, have addressable TV inventory, but don’t auction impressions in real time.

And streaming services like Hulu and YouTube strictly control their advertising IDs so users can’t be profiled or tracked across other channels. Those platforms also reserve top-shelf inventory for their own media services.

Amazon, to an extent, is similar since its media properties like Prime, Twitch and IMDb TV aren’t in the Fire TV inventory program.

But Fire TV allows third-party DSPs to bid against the rest of the Fire TV inventory (except for YouTube) on even terms with Amazon’s own DSP, and they can use their own deal IDs. So The Trade Desk can use its cookie-based Unified ID solution to target Fire TV impressions, and use the data for frequency capping and measurement across other video suppliers. That’s a huge differentiator from most other major addressable video platforms, except for Roku, which owns dataxu.

Which, of course, is the problem.

Nick Brien To Leave Dentsu Aegis, Jacki Kelley To Take Over As CEO Of Americas

by Alison Weissbrot // Posted on Friday, December 13th, 2019 at 11:11 am.

Nick Brien, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network in the Americas, will leave at the end of the year after 2 1/2 years on the job, the company said Friday.

He will be replaced by Jacki Kelley, who joined Dentsu in March as president, chief client officer and CEO of creative in the United States. Kelley will report to Dentsu Aegis Network global CEO Tim Andree. Brien will stay on through Q1 2020 to help with the transition.

A spokesperson said Brien decided to leave the company voluntarily.

“Nick has attracted key talent to Dentsu Aegis, including Jacki, led many impressive winning pitches and as importantly, reignited the M&A momentum across the region,” Andree said in a statement. “He has successfully steered the Americas business back to growth.”

Brien’s successor Kelley is no stranger to running an agency group. She joined Dentsu earlier this year from Bloomberg, where she was chief operating officer, but previously she was the global CEO of UM and the CEO of North America and president of global clients at IPG Mediabrands.

What’s In A Currency? Nielsen Releases Converged Linear And Smart TV Metric

by James Hercher // Posted on Friday, December 13th, 2019 at 10:45 am.

Nielsen released a measurement solution on Friday that combines the demographic data from its TV audience panel, the People Meter, with Gracenote’s ACR data based on four million US households with LG smart TVs.

The data service, which opens to all buyers and broadcasters beginning in January, will mark the first time Nielsen has merged its national linear TV panel data with Gracenote’s smart TV data.

Amobee will be the first DSP to bring the offering to market, though Nielsen plans to add more ad tech partners later in the year, said Kelly Abcarian, general manager of Nielsen’s video advanced advertising group.

One of the big challenges for TV networks right now is that linear television reach is going down, but the number of people consuming broadcaster content is not, said Dan Callahan, Fox’s VP of audience and automated sales. Fox is a beta partner for Nielsen’s new data service.

Instead, people are watching on their phones, computers, OTT sticks and alternatives like video on-demand. But those numbers don’t register on Nielsen’s national TV panel, the currency of broadcast advertising.

OTT and CTV viewers also can’t be credited on age or gender demographics like with TV campaigns, where advertisers pay based on the number of, say, young women in a market Nielsen says viewed the commercial.

With linear and smart TV data attributed together, Callahan said Fox could back up its intuition that broadcast content and influence hasn’t diminished so much as spread to channels not credited by the Nielsen TV currency.

The 3 Changes Google Must Make To Truly Level The Playing Field

by AdExchanger // Posted on Friday, December 13th, 2019 at 12:05 am.

“The Sell Sider” is a column written for the sell side of the digital media community.

Today's column is written by Lucie Laurendon, senior product marketing manager at Smart.

Google’s surprising move to a first-price unified auction was met with cautious optimism and doses of skepticism. Dropping last-look advantage in Google Ad Manager’s second-price auction format in favor of a unified first-price auction was hailed as a significant concession. Logic would follow that all demand sources would bid first price with a common floor. However, a broad chorus of voices questioned Google’s capability, if not sincerity.

Is Google truly capable of and committed to fairness and a more equitable digital ad-trading dynamic? Only time will tell how transparent Google will be, but a more level playing field is within the realm of possibility.

After Google’s encouraging first moves, publishers must demand full and unrestricted control over their ad tech stack. This necessarily has to include:

Full control over pricing rules with no limitations on the number of possible rules
Full transparency from Google to publishers regarding all demand sources
Complete log-level data access

2019: The Year Brands And Publishers Began Taking Control Of Their Tech Stacks

by AdExchanger // Posted on Friday, December 13th, 2019 at 12:05 am.

"Data-Driven Thinking" is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.

Today’s column is written by Kerel Cooper, SVP of global marketing at LiveIntent.

Technology, obviously, has its barriers. It takes skill, patience, resolve and education to really compete and innovate in our complicated field.

For so long, it felt like the only companies that could really wield boundary-pushing technology in digital advertising were the tech platforms that specialized in hiring, acquiring and managing for it. It took resources and know-how, and no one had more of both than the triopoly of Google, Facebook and Amazon.

However, the barriers for dexterity in technology have declined over the years. What once required a background in data science or data analysis is now mitigated by platforms that employ user-friendly UX, essentially democratizing the ability to wield technologies. As a result, AI can be leveraged by nearly everyone, and brands and publishers are now exploring doing things on their own that used to be solely in the domain of the tech platforms. This was a trend that began to gain steam in 2019, and it will accelerate in 2020.

Nike’s acquisition of Celect is Exhibit A. At first glance, you may not be blown away by this acquisition. Ho-hum, a major brand made an investment in being able to personalize previously anonymous traffic to its site. But what’s impressive is that Nike would previously trust other partners to provide some level of personalization.

Comic: Santa's New Ride

by Nate Neal // Posted on Friday, December 13th, 2019 at 12:04 am.

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem...

Sam's Club To Acquire Triad; Chase CMO Kristin Lemkau Is Promoted

by AdExchanger // Posted on Friday, December 13th, 2019 at 12:03 am.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

Welcome To The Club

Sam’s Club has agreed to acquire advertising technology and some executives from Triad, its retail ad tech partner and sales rep, Ad Age reported. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Along with the technology, Sam’s Club will pick up much of the team that has worked on its account. Triad, a WPP agency, recently lost the Walmart account, but has other blue chip retail clients, including Staples, Kohl’s, Wayfair, The Home Depot and CVS. Sam’s Club, which is owned by Walmart, is following in its parent company’s footsteps by leaning on Triad to establish its in-house media operation. But unlike Walmart, it’s just subsuming the Triad tech and execs that it wants. More.

Market Makers

One of the world’s most visible CMOs, JPMorgan Chase’s Kristin Lemkau, has been tapped for a new role leading the company’s newly reorganized wealth management business. “Still think marketers can’t get president or CEO roles?” tweeted Salesforce strategy chief Jon Suarez-Davis after the announcement. The Wall Street Journal notes, “JPMorgan is facing an industry where big rivals and hot startups are fighting to appeal to millennials and first-time investors.” With that mandate in mind, putting a marketer in charge of the banking group makes more sense than a predictable choice from finance or sales. More.

Hulu Launches Binge Ad Experience As Users Sour On Interruptive Ads

by Alison Weissbrot // Posted on Thursday, December 12th, 2019 at 12:00 pm.

The advertising industry has a problem: People don’t want to be interrupted by commercials anymore.

Hulu is trying to fix that by offering new ad units that are less disruptive. On Thursday, the streaming service released an advertising experience designed to lighten ad loads for people watching multiple episodes of a show in a row.

The new binge ads are short videos that tease an ad-free episode or offer the viewer a coupon code that they can redeem online, depending on the advertiser’s business objectives.

Here’s how it works: Viewers will see regular commercial breaks during the first two episodes of a show. Before the start of the third episode, Hulu’s machine learning will trigger a binge ad experience depending on the user’s viewership behavior, the time of day and the program they’re watching. Binge viewers will receive a short video message from the brand teasing an ad-free episode or a coupon code before the show starts. Viewers do not have to use the coupon code or opt into any type of commercial viewing to receive an ad-free episode.

Hulu will cap binge ads at three times a day per person. The company declined to comment on pricing for binge ads.

“Because the binge experience starts at the very first episode, we have to anticipate who is going to be in that audience segment,” said Jeremy Helfand, VP and head of advertising platforms at Hulu.

The Big Story: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, It Will Be Streamed

by Ryan Joe // Posted on Thursday, December 12th, 2019 at 9:24 am.

The TV revolution is in full swing, as ratings decline, prices increase, viewers leave for non-ad supported services and new entrants offer video inventory.

This week on The Big Story, we look at recent ad forecasts showing that the ratings decline is catching up to the TV market. In other words, the high prices broadcasters charge can no longer prop up the industry – and some TV buyers are getting priced out.

But content companies such as Disney and NBCU are well aware that this shift is underway. Disney is working overtime to drive more subscribership to Disney Plus – new bounties for the Mandalorian. Disney also signed onto the Google stack a few months ago with an eye on possibly combining its digital audiences with its OTT and TV audiences. Similarly, NBCU also hopes to combine digital and linear by pushing open source measurement metric CFlight.

Meanwhile, TV manufacturer Vizio has stepped into ad sales. Vizio already sells data via Inscape, and now it has media to offer. This week we look at Vizio’s new offering, as well as the somewhat odd phenomenon of device manufacturers – including Roku and Samsung – branching out into ad sales.