The Fire Hose
Amazon debuted a major redesign of its Fire TV operating system and interface, Adweek reports.
One prime beneficiary (pardon): Amazon Ads.
New impressions also include rotating spots around featured content, or if Fire TV goes into a screensaver mode. Most of the ads can be bought programmatically via the Amazon DSP.
Fire TV is now more effectively targeting moments “when customers are browsing and deciding what to watch next,” says Charlotte Maines, Amazon’s director of devices content and advertising. “That’s a high-intent moment where brands can connect with them.”
Media and entertainment companies are intuitive advertisers for this inventory. A Fire TV viewer is choosing what to watch next, not adding items to a grocery list.
Amazon’s redesign of Fire TV, including its ad inventory, brings to mind a very different redesign, if you will: OpenAI’s new ad-supported interface. The Information reported last month that OpenAI is fundraising with revenue forecasts based on $13 billion in consumer revenue in 2025 growing to $60 billion in 2028. That’s the category that will include ChatGPT advertising.
The problem is – even if you have the ad tech and the data and the intent – where are you going to find room for all those ads?
Refusing A Deal With The Devil
Anthropic’s refusal to acquiesce to the Department of Defense’s demands earned it the unprecedented label of “supply chain risk” – never before attached to a US company. But what has the company earned, too, in the form of earned media and marketing?
In the days after OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon, ChatGPT’s downloads increased by 3.7%. In the same interval, Claude downloads increased by 69.2%, according to Similarweb. Claude, previously outside the top 100 apps, topped the app store charts for the first time, dropping ChatGPT to No. 2, as Digiday reports.
Before the deal was finalized, Anthropic’s “positive narrative score,” a metric ranked by Pulsar, was 61.2 out of 100, compared to OpenAI’s 55.5. After the deal, the rankings landed at 63.9 and 49.3, respectively.
Aside from the evening news political drama, Anthropic’s rise speaks to a broader level of competition in the AI search and LLM market. ChatGPT’s share of the mobile app market has dropped from 57% to 42% since last August, per Apptopia data. That’s opened up space for Google Gemini, Grok and Microsoft Copilot to gain share, not just Anthropic.
Mall Mice
Can anything save the US shopping mall?
Big operators like Simon have tried advertising, first-party data monetization and customer data platforms to make malls a thing again. There’s even a Simon+ rewards program.
Somehow, that didn’t do it.
Nothing, it seems, could prevent the glacial decline of shopping malls. Except, perhaps, for Gen Zers, The Wall Street Journal reports. Teens and young 20-somethings have recently reversed more than a decade-long streak of mall shopping declines.
One reason, speculatively, is that a generation that came of age during the COVID quarantine era enjoys the crowd and novelty of massive shopping malls. In-store shopping has also regained appeal with people looking for deals, as retailers price things down to clear shelves or because they don’t have shipping costs.
And, of course, malls and big mall-based retailers are aggressively courting influencers. One store operator, Edikted, offered $150 worth of free clothes, for example, for social adepts to attend store events and post pictures and videos.
Also, the ecommerce need-to-have-it-now mentality has come all the way around to favoring stores. Walk in empty-handed; walk out with your item.
“I don’t really like online shopping,” one 24-year-old mall shopper tells the Journal. “I’m an instant-gratification girl.”
But Wait! There’s More!
Marketers are increasingly using “synthetic influencers” – aka AI-generated avatars – to sell products online. [NYT]
Long-form creator content is finding its way to TV devices. But advertisers aren’t exactly following. [Digiday]
The Department of Justice settled its antitrust case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster. [Axios]
Anthropic is suing the Department of Defense over being labeled a supply-chain risk. [TechCrunch]
President Trump purchased more than $1.1 million in Netflix bonds at the height of the streamer’s bidding war with Paramount Skydance for WBD, government disclosures indicate. [Reuters]
OpenAI has acquired Promptfoo, an AI security startup. [TechCrunch]
You’re Hired!
European ad platform Azerion promotes Roxanne Harley to VP of strategy and growth. [release]
