4As Creates Rebate Task Force; Roku's New OTT Ads

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Kickback Echo Chamber

Writing for Ad Age, 4As CEO Nancy Hill explains why the organization has formed a task force to tackle the thorny issue of media rebates. Speculation has fueled the debacle, according to Hill, but she sees an opportunity to revisit and define what transparency and trust means to the industry. “Our industry reflects many perspectives, and the task force will work to better communicate those views between agency and client,” she writes. “We expect to issue new best practices and guidelines resulting from this work within the next few weeks.” Read it.

Consolidating OTT Data

Innovid, an online video ad provider, has partnered with Roku to produce a new ad format for the OTT TV service. The ads have already rolled out on Crackle, CBS and VEVO’s Roku channels, and they enable marketers to add quizzes, games and retail sales, as well as to connect with smartphones via SMS. Roku is using this new ad, which is exclusive to the platform and built directly into its software development kit, and a recent partnership with Nielsen to bring more precise analytics to its data science and advertising teams. TechCrunch has more.

Dark Podcasting

The NYT’s Farhad Manjoo takes a deep dive on the Podcast boom and the ad biz that backs the medium. Podcast ads are effective, according to Ryan Stansky, marketing manager for Squarespace, which is one of the most prevalent podcast sponsors, but Stansky says that a lack of standards is fueling mistrust between advertisers and podcasters. “I’ve heard directly from sales reps in casual settings that [audience] numbers get lied about,” he said. “To me, that’s the most scary part of it all: that you’re paying for something that you’re not actually getting.” Read more.

Digital Pulse Check

In May, digital advertising and OOH drove 2% growth in the ad market, according to data from Standard Media Index. Last month, digital jumped 24% YoY, with nearly half of all digital budgets spent programmatically. “Digital continues to surge at the expense of other media,” said SMI’s chief commercial officer, James Fennessy. “Digital video continues to grow, and as audience measurement on mobile devices improves, we are confident that these gains will accelerate and positively impact the spend going to the major networks.” Read the press release.

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