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Netflix Keeps Agencies At Arm’s Length On Its Brand Tie-In Deals The IAB Finalizes CCPA Framework As Industry Readies For More Regulators Google Will Integrate With IAB Tech Lab’s CCPA Compliance Specs By Jan. 1 Deadline GroupM Sees Highest Ad Spend Growth Rate Since 2000. Can It Last? Ad Buyers Starting To Use The Trade Desk DSP Over Google, According To Advertiser Perceptions Report Can Amazon Be King? How The Ecommerce Leader Could Surpass The Duopoly Google Exits Managed Services, Welcome News For Its Key Agency Partners New Salesforce Marketing Cloud CEO Adam Blitzer Doubles Down On CDP PayPal Drops $4B On Honey, A Browser Extension Rich In Shopper Data

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CBS Joins OpenAP, Whose Members Now Represent The Majority Of National TV Revenue

by Sarah Sluis // Posted on Monday, December 9th, 2019 at 5:40 pm.

CBS joined OpenAP, the companies said Monday. The move comes less than a week after CBS’ merger with OpenAP founding member Viacom closed.

With CBS joining, OpenAP’s members together represent the majority of national TV ad spend, as well as 92% of all US audiences watching TV.

“We heard from buyers that they wanted to have the majority of revenue in OpenAP. We can now say that confidently,” said OpenAP CEO David Levy. “Adding CBS, with its network and reach, adds a huge amount of scale.”

The added scale will help the OpenAP marketplace, launched in October, gain further momentum. This quarter, more than 50 campaigns have run through its platform.

The OpenAP platform lets buyers share and find audience segments across all member networks, and then buy digital video, CTV and linear inventory against those audience needs.

“Prior to OpenAP, you had to build your audience with every network, build your campaign and execute your campaign,” Levy said “We are doing it across all the networks in one place.”

Privacy, Cookies And Personalization: Ad Tech Needs To Get Over It

by AdExchanger // Posted on Monday, December 9th, 2019 at 11:06 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 Dan Linton, global data privacy officer at W2O Group.

Bemoaning the impending sunsetting of the advertising cookie and decrying the supposed cognitive dissonance of consumers wanting more personalization and privacy at the same time seems to be all the rage in ad tech right now.

“GDPR doesn’t work,” “CCPA will concentrate power even more into the large platforms,” “privacy laws are a datapocolypse,” “we can’t give consumers the personalized experiences they want” – the industry seems more interested either trying to maintain the status quo or coming up with some brilliant new technology that does the exact same thing as cookies.

My friends, I am one of you, and I say this with the love of someone who’s spent his entire career in marketing and analytics: Get over it.

Magna: Marketers Are Getting Priced Out By Skyrocketing TV Ad Rates

by Alison Weissbrot // Posted on Monday, December 9th, 2019 at 8:30 am.

TV viewership is now decreasing faster than linear TV inventory prices are increasing, according to Magna’s latest forecast.

This shift is causing the TV networks’ revenues to slip.

Global linear TV ad spend was down 4% year over year to $289 billion in 2019, according to Magna. This year for the first time, TV represented less than half of total global ad sales at 48.5%.

In the United States, national TV ad sales were down 3% year over year to $42 billion, and are expected to continue declining by another 1% to 2% in 2020 as the economy slows. Even factoring incremental ad spend for the 2020 Olympics, which will total a predicted $750 million, national TV ad spend growth will be down by 1% in 2020, Magna said.

“Cyclical events in 2020 are not enough to fully stabilize national TV ad revenues,” said Vincent Letang, EVP of global market intelligence at Magna.

Linear ratings have been slipping for years, but networks have been able to stave off revenue declines by using scarcity to increase the price of their inventory. Marketers have paid that premium, since no other channel can drive reach as efficiently as linear TV.

But marketers are now getting priced out of the linear TV market – especially overseas.

“The ratings erosion is accelerating, the CPM inflation is accelerating, but the pricing is not growing quite as fast enough to offset the decline in ratings,” Letang said. “The demand is struggling to follow.”

Netflix Keeps Agencies At Arm’s Length On Its Brand Tie-In Deals

by Allison Schiff // Posted on Monday, December 9th, 2019 at 8:26 am.

Coke, Chevrolet, Casio, Burger King, Reebok, Adidas, Old Navy.

Netflix content including “Stranger Things,” “GLOW,” “El Camino” and the animated Christmas film “Klaus” are increasingly fertile ground for in-show product placements and brand tie-ins. Originals serve as the inspiration for new consumer products.

But most of those deals are struck directly between Netflix and the brands themselves.

Agencies feel sidelined in their dealings with the streaming platform, which multiple agency executives tell AdExchanger prefers to own the brand relationship.

Netflix says that although it does mainly works directly with brands, this isn’t a stated policy. Netflix told AdExchanger that it’s fluid and will partner via agencies when it makes sense and depending on the situation.

We’ll take it from here

But Ad Land begs to differ.

“You’re unlikely to find anyone on the agency side who’s involved in one of these deals, because that’s not how Netflix likes to work,” said Noah Mallin, a managing partner and head of content and experience at WPP agency Wavemaker, who has met with the team at Netflix in charge of brand tie-ins.

Eyeota Brings In Co-Founder Kristina Prokop As CEO

by Sarah Sluis // Posted on Monday, December 9th, 2019 at 7:44 am.

Eyeota co-founder Kristina Prokop is returning to lead the data company as CEO.

She replaces Kevin Tan, who led the company as CEO for the company’s first decade. He stepped down for an undisclosed reason, but will remain on the board.

“There are different talents and types of leadership needed at different stages of the company. Kevin has done an unbelievable job building this company and bringing us to the place we are today, and all of us are thankful for that,” Prokop said.

Eyeota operates a third-party data marketplace, onboards offline data and helps partners use second-party data. Its business is split across Europe, APAC and the United States.

Prokop had worked at Eyeota since its founding 2010, most recently as Chief Customer Officer. She left day-to-day operations in May, but retained her seat on the board.

But when the investors wanted to name a new CEO with her depth of knowledge and experience with the business, she eagerly stepped back in.

More Critical Thinking Is Needed In TV Attribution

by AdExchanger // Posted on Monday, December 9th, 2019 at 12:05 am.

"On TV and Video" is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video.

Today’s column is written by Maggie Zhang, executive vice president of video research and insights at Dentsu Aegis Network.

Nowadays, anyone can easily find enthusiastic advocates for TV attribution at every turn, myself included. As we celebrate the newfound capabilities to understand and measure TV performance, more critical thinking by marketers is needed to differentiate what’s hype from what’s real and, more importantly, what does and doesn’t make sense for their brands.

What’s not to like about TV attribution? For the first time, marketers are able to quantify TV’s impact with more granular and timely data and garner actionable insights. They can evaluate performance against historical campaign benchmarks and across individual networks, dayparts, programs and creatives. The ability to conduct data-driven optimization finally puts TV on par with digital for ROI measurability and accountability.

As TV attribution gains traction and popularity, there have also been misunderstandings and misuses of this relatively nascent tool. To help brands avoid chasing the buzz for the sake of it, a robust learning agenda at both the marketer and industry levels is needed to allow for a measured approach to evaluating the relevance and feasibility of existing TV attribution solutions.

In many conversations with brands, three common questions consistently come up that require a deep dive:

How Influencers Drive Make-Up Sales; Amazon Ad VP Colleen Aubrey Joins Jeff Bezos' Inner Circle

by AdExchanger // Posted on Monday, December 9th, 2019 at 12:03 am.

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

Smoky Eye

How did eye shadow palettes worthy of a paint studio become the most sought-after item on teen wish lists this year? Influencers, of course. A YouTube tutorial, Instagram Story and a trending topic on Twitter powered more than a million purchases in a 30-minute span for some popular beauty and makeup influencers, The New York Times reports. These influencers have a keen business sense, typically pairing with a cosmetics brand for production and distribution, and using digital lines and limited editions to keep prices high (while many DTC cosmetics startups undercut classic brands on price, since makeup is relatively inexpensive to manufacture). Ashley Frazier, a high school senior in Chicago, has about 30 palettes, according to the Times. It’s not that she wears a lot of eye shadow, she said. “I collect them because it’s visually appealing and to support the influencers that cater to me.” More.

Aubrey Ascendant

Amazon’s VP of performance advertising, Colleen Aubrey, was added to the company’s “S-team” executive suite. The inner circle of 22 executives has direct access to CEO Jeff Bezos and a hand in strategic directions at the company. With Amazon since 2005, Aubrey will guide the next chapter of Amazon’s advertising business, according to GeekWire. That said, she is not the first Amazon advertising leader to join S-team. Paul Kotas, SVP Amazon Advertising, preceded her in the club. More. Shameless plug: You can hear from Colleen Aubrey directly in a fireside discussion at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference.

The Big Story: Amazon – From Third To First?

by Ryan Joe // Posted on Friday, December 6th, 2019 at 11:49 am.

As much as Amazon’s advertising platform has grown in recent years, will it ever surpass Google or Facebook?

This week on The Big Story, the AdExchanger team looks at that question, and addresses some of the factors holding Amazon Advertising back – from availability of inventory, availability of data and the usability of its technology.

Of course, how Amazon values its advertising revenue is very different from how Google and Facebook value theirs – especially when one considers that at Amazon, advertising is a line of business rather than the line of business. So even though Amazon is likely aware of these issues, it might not be incented to devote its considerable resources toward solving them.

Put another way: Advertisers will keep using its platform, regardless of its clunky interface, or whether Amazon is activating the targeting mechanisms that ad buyers want.

One can clearly see, for instance, that buyers are still using Amazon’s DSP, which is among the top in consideration according to Advertiser Perceptions’ latest report. The gang also delves into that report.

In recent quarters, Amazon’s DSP has risen as a major challenger to Google’s. Most recently, The Trade Desk has also elevated itself in consideration.

We’ll look at how competition from Amazon and The Trade Desk have hit Google’s DSP, and why that might not be a bad thing for the search giant.

Sprinklr CEO Explains Why It Will Completely Rebuild Nanigans’ Code

by Sarah Sluis // Posted on Friday, December 6th, 2019 at 12:05 am.

As it prepares for an IPO, Sprinklr made its 12th acquisition Tuesday with the purchase of Nanigans’ performance advertising business for an undisclosed price.

Sprinklr will completely absorb Nanigans into its “front office platform,” and it will no longer be available as stand-alone offering.

Beyond paid media, Sprinklr connects mar tech to ad tech with functions that span workflow management, research, campaign planning, analytics and optimization. Sprinklr solely focuses on large enterprises that must wrangle their social media efforts across multiple platforms.

To make its product seamless, Sprinklr doesn’t integrate tech – it rebuilds it onto its own platform. Nanigans engineers will rewrite their code from the ground up to fit into Sprinklr. Nanigans has 12 core features that Sprinklr lacks, according to Sprinklr CEO Ragy Thomas.

“Most CTOs love the opportunity to take 10 years of learning and start over,” Thomas said.

With an IPO looming in the next 12 to 24 months, 10-year-old Sprinklr sees itself as a consolidator of the social media point solutions that emerged over the same period – including Nanigans.

Thomas spoke to AdExchanger.

A Subprime Content Crisis

by AdExchanger // Posted on Friday, December 6th, 2019 at 12:05 am.

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

Today's column is written by Brendan Spain, vice president of advertising for the Americas at the Financial Times.

The subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 came to a head when mortgage-backed securities that had received AAA ratings were jammed with high-risk mortgages. When the market crashed, it nearly took down the entire global economy and introduced us to the concept of quantitative easing and never-ending low interest rates.

More than a decade later, among widespread digital consolidation, the two largest content recommendation companies merged. Against the backdrop of this merger, which was announced in October, I see a reflection of the mortgage banking environment in late 2007 and 2008.

The similarities between cheap CPMs with worthless impressions and cheap mortgage-backed securities with worthless mortgages are numerous. So the question isn’t whether we are in a subprime media crisis, but what will trigger a correction? Like the bond traders of the 2000s, some programmatic buyers have propped up long-tail, sometimes authorless websites, with the edict that context and editorial do not matter as long as the right ad is being shown to the right person.

That tide is changing as client-side marketers become more inquisitive about how and where their budgets are being deployed, with some of the same buyers now extolling the philosophy that there is no such thing as remnant, with all programmatic being premium.