Big-name independent ad tech heavyweights are picking up sticks and heading to the walled gardens.
It might just be safer there.
Former IAB Tech Lab CEO Dennis Buchheim, who announced his resignation late last week, is heading over to Facebook as VP of advertising ecosystem, AdExchanger has learned. He’ll be starting in early summer.
Buchheim’s job will primarily be as a liaison between Facebook’s sales, product and engineering teams to make sure that their work is being informed by the conversations happening in the broader advertising world and across all of the different ad trade organizations.
In his new role, Buchheim will “lead our efforts in advancing increasingly complex industry challenges while furthering our existing engagement,” Graham Mudd, Facebook’s VP of product marketing for ads, said in a statement.
Increasingly complex, indeed.
The advertising ecosystem is being rocked by platform and regulatory changes with more on the way. Maybe the platforms – some of which are themselves triggering these tectonic shifts – feel, to some, like the safest place to be (along the lines of J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise, but hopefully without the eventual violent descent into chaos).
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The idea behind Ads.txt was simple: publishers create a public list containing the names of all the partners they work with, and buyers check that list before they buy.
But even the simplest of ideas can get complicated when they go from paper to reality.
Some publishers just said “yes” to every request to add vendors to their list, while others did remove partners from the list, but then continued to work with them.
In this way, publishers can amass thousands of lines of text, which is the opposite of simple.
Plus, errors happen. A publisher might wonder why a buyer isn’t purchasing its inventory – and the answer could be that the buyer made a mistake and the Ads.txt file and Sellers.json file (the buy-side version of Ads.txt) don’t match.
In order to help publishers simplify their Ads.txt files Primis developed a tool called Sellers.guide that they can use to check their Ads.txt files. The tool launched on Tuesday after a beta period.
Primis operates a video player on publisher sites. Because publishers had to add Primis to their Ads.txt files, the company experienced firsthand the burden that managing these files placed on publishers.
“Ads.txt and Sellers.json are great from a tech standpoint, they just aren’t accessible enough,” said Primis Co-CEO Rotem Shaul. “We started noticing our publishers were being manipulated into doing bad stuff or, from time to time, mishandling Ads.txt.”
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“So much in life happens over a beer,” says Richard Oppy, VP of global brands for Anheuser-Busch InBev.
And now that life is starting to return to some semblance of normality, AB InBev is pouring its efforts into a marketing strategy centered on getting people out of the house.
The theme of a recently launched campaign for Corona is to inspire reconnection with travel and the great outdoors, and AB InBev will soon roll out a new campaign for Stella Artois called “Your Table Is Ready” It features experiential activations to motivate people to eat and drink at restaurants.
“It’s been a tough 12 to 18 months, but we’re moving from a time of doom and gloom to a time of euphoria,” said Oppy, who has a wide purview. He works across the Stella, Budweiser and Corona brands in all markets outside of the US and on the Michelob Ultra brand globally.
“People want to get back to live music, to sports, pubs, night clubs – there’s so much to get excited about and there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
Oppy spoke with AdExchanger.
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“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 Terence Kawaja, CEO, LUMA Partners.
CAVEAT: LUMA Partners is a leading M&A advisor to the ad tech sector. Hammer >>> Nail.
The intersection of media, marketing and technology has always been a complex and dynamic place. M&A deal activity has been persistent as the sector became digitally addressable with the application of data and software.
We are now at an inflection point. We predict that the next 18 months will see the greatest surge in M&A transactions the sector has ever seen.
There are eight factors that support my thesis:
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Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Section Off
Late last week, two House Democrats introduced a bill that would require social media platforms to share and implement content moderation policies and would revise Section 230 by allowing the Federal Trade Commission to bring enforcement actions against tech companies that fail to adhere to those policies, MediaPost reports. The bill, called the Online Consumer Protection Act, is being co-sponsored by Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) and Kathy Castor (D-Florida). It would also empower consumers to bring their own private lawsuits. As a refresher, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is what shields web companies from legal liability for content created by third parties, including advertisers. The Schakowsky-Castor bill is only one of several recent proposals to call for revisions to Section 230. One thing Democrat and Republican lawmakers can agree on is that Section 230 needs a facelift – albeit it for very different reasons. Republicans argue that social platforms suppress too much speech, while most Democrats believe tech companies don’t do enough filtering.
Not Kidding Around
And here’s something else upon which bipartisan folks see eye to eye: they think Facebook’s intention to launch a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13 is a bad idea. On Monday, a coalition of 44 state attorneys general from both parties sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg – his inbox is overflowing with love notes from regulators these days – urging him to abandon plans for Instagram Kids. In the letter, the AGs expressed concerns over the harmful effects that social media can have on the physical, emotional and mental wellbeing of children. They also pointed to the use of Instagram by predators and Facebook’s less-than-stellar record protecting the welfare of children on its platforms. In one recent instance, Instagram’s algorithm mistakenly promoted diet content to users with eating disorders. “These alarming failures cast doubt on Facebook’s ability to protect children on their proposed Instagram and comply with relevant privacy laws, such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act,” the AGs wrote. Read the letter.
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The Trade Desk beat its own expectations for Q1, but Wall Street wasn’t pleased.
The stock is currently tumbling, down more than 25% in the hours after the earnings call.
The Trade Desk reported revenue of $219.8 million and adjusted EBITDA of $70.5 million, which is 32% of revenue. The company said its adjusted EBITDA was a record, both on an absolute basis and as a percentage of revenue. CTV revenue doubled year over year.
So, what happened?
The Trade Desk warned investors that in the year ahead it will face tougher comparisons, especially against its very strong Q4. And, beyond The Trade Desk, tech stocks overall have been on a downswing following many months of exuberance.
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“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 Alex Bauer, head of product marketing at Branch.
Have you seen a tweet, blog post or news article in the past few weeks about “ATT opt-in rates,” perhaps accompanied by apocalyptic commentary about how that number proves we’re nearing the end of advertising as we know it?
Or perhaps you’ve come across someone hopefully noting that the rate actually might not be quite as bad as many were expecting.
So … which is it? Well, this is the mobile ecosystem’s newest hot debate.
Now that iOS 14.5 is finally out the door – and Apple's new AppTrackingTransparency policy along with it – everyone is breathlessly digging for clues about the impact. Will users choose to opt out of “tracking” in overwhelming numbers as many observers have predicted? Or will the reality be more complicated? (Spoiler alert: the reality is, indeed, more complicated.)
Let’s investigate why the numbers you're seeing vary so widely, how they're being calculated, and get into ways you can use this data to inform your own decisions.
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"On TV & Video" is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video.
Today's column is by tvScientific CEO and co-founder Jason Fairchild.
The fastest growing segment of the $72 billion TV ad market is CTV advertising. There are dramatic changes happening within TV advertising, which has traditionally been dominated by roughly 300 national advertisers. But with new connected devices, advertising technology is integrating with these platforms to make ads on CTV accessible and measurable for all businesses.
I talk with marketers every day about CTV and get to do a bit of pattern recognition around what issues, questions and concerns arise in multiple categories, from Fortune 500 brands to large direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses to the local garden store. These are the five most common questions or themes that come up in conversation:
1. As an awareness channel, has CTV hit critical mass in terms of audience scale?
Recent data from Samsung points to an astonishing statistic: 63% of all TV viewing time now happens on streaming services.
With this data in mind, CTV is an absolute must buy in order to reach TV viewers at scale. If you want to reach certain demographics that are more correlated to "cord cutters," it’s even more vitally important.
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Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Upfronts Back In Front
Streaming dollars are becoming a key part of upfront negotiations as the market bounces back after a tough 2020. Last year, uncertainty reigned. Sports were on pause and marketers wanted flexibility. But this year, the market is on the rebound and inventory is scarce. Marketers with older target audiences (think pharma) will continue to spend big on linear TV, but marketers whose products appeal to younger audiences will largely opt for streaming. It’s going to cost them, though. Longtime TV advertisers with grandfathered-in pricing discounts can’t get the same discounted rates for streaming ads, according to buyers interviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Unloved
Where is the love? After debuting on the New York Stock Exchange in mid-April, shares of AppLovin “have shown few signs of life,” Bloomberg reports. According to Bloomberg, the app-focused mobile ad tech company’s IPO is the worst-performing IPO of its size and just one of two US listings that had raised at least $2 billion this year and is now trading below its IPO price. AppLovin’s stock has dropped 29% since its debut and now stands at around $57, which is significantly lower than its offering price of $80. So, what gives? A few things, actually. Apple’s iOS 14.5 changes are still causing uncertainty and AppLovin faces difficult year-ago comps after the pandemic supercharged the gaming industry in 2020. But the news isn’t all bad. Wall Street is still optimistic about AppLovin’s long-term growth potential, and the stock’s post-IPO drop brings the company’s valuation back in line with its peers, such as Zynga and Playtika. AppLovin reports its first-ever earnings call on May 12. [Related in AdExchanger, AppLovin CEO and co-founder Adam Foroughi makes his case: “It's IPO Day For AppLovin, And CEO Adam Foroughi Explains Why First-Party Data Helped The Company Get There.”]
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AdExchanger has learned that the IAB Tech Lab’s CEO Dennis Buchheim is resigning.
He assumed the CEO role in February, and his last day will be on May 21. But it sounds as if Buchheim, at least, may remain close to the debate.
Although the exact nature of that what he’ll be doing is not yet clear, a blog post announcing his departure notes that his next move is “an opportunity to collaborate with the industry from a different, and important, perspective.”
Before Buchheim’s four-month stint as chief exec, he held a variety of key positions at the Tech Lab since joining in 2017, including president, executive VP and general manager and senior VP and general manager. Before that, he served as SVP of data and ad effectiveness and GM of the IAB’s Data Center of Excellence.
Shailley Singh, the IAB Tech Lab’s SVP of global products and programs, will serve as the interim general manager.
Buchheim is the second top executive to exit the IAB Tech Lab in less than two months.
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