The Trade Desk CEO Green Walks Down Memory Lane; Facebook Closes Ad Loophole

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

What Might Have Been

The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green takes a walk down ad tech memory lane in an interview with Martin Kihn, Gartner’s VP of research. Read it. Before starting The Trade Desk, Green worked for AdECN, an ad exchange acquired by Microsoft in 2007 that tried and failed to keep up with Google’s DoubleClick and Yahoo’s Right Media. At the time, Green tried to convince Bing boss Qi Lu, now the COO at Baidu, to pivot away from competing with Google on search to competing on programmatic media. He failed to change Microsoft’s resource allocation, but before leaving the company he introduced Lu to AppNexus’ Brian O’Kelley … and Microsoft remains AppNexus’ flagship client.

Rebranded Content

Facebook is shutting down a loophole in its promoted stories offering that allowed paid advertisers to modify article headlines and the brief descriptions in link previews. Facebook disallowed users from modifying news posts in June, but enabled the feature for buyers until The Wall Street Journal brought some troubling examples to the platform. Stories about businesses or straight-up product reviews would become promotional messaging without the publisher’s knowledge. The toothbrush manufacturer Quip revised the headline and wording for a BuzzFeed story about its product, but according to one of its marketers, without the ability to edit links it will be less willing to spend on promoted stories moving forward. More.

Pritchard’s Crusade

Marc Pritchard is at it again, this time urging attendees of the Dmexco conference in Cologne, Germany, to acknowledge that consumers no longer have the attention span or tolerance for traditional ads. P&G has ditched the 30-second spot in favor of two-second ads that are personalized and contextually relevant to the consumer. “Looking at it through the lens of the consumer, how valuable are these ads?” he said. “People use social media to share things about their lives with each other. … Ads are annoying in that context. Bottom line, it is time for marketers and tech companies to solve the problem of annoying ads and make the ad experience better for consumers.” More at Ad Age.

Video Flop

Spotify’s push into video began two years ago with a slate of original content and media partnerships, but has fallen well short of its goal. Video was meant to be a growth revenue stream to support Spotify’s core music business while attracting new brands to the platform. Spotify struggled to bring its shows to fruition and those that did appear were hard to find. “They don’t market and promote [the original content] and treat video as completely separate from music,” an anonymous content partner tells Digiday. But Spotify isn’t giving up on video, with former Disney exec Courtney Holt added earlier this month to revamp its programming strategy. More.

But Wait, There’s More!