Big Tech Spends Big On Ads; A Bad Quarter For Meredith

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

The Hand That Feeds

Big tech may be disrupting linear television and OOH, but it’s also supporting those channels with marketing dollars. As AdExchanger reported recently, tech giants are increasing their ad investments to burnish their reputations and maintain growth in an increasingly saturated and competitive environment. Axios notes that DTC brands have contributed as well, particularly in television, where they are applying data to execute more efficient campaigns. “Digital companies like Google, Facebook, Wayfair, etc., have been driving so much growth in the last two years in total advertising,” quoth Brian Wieser, GroupM’s global president of business intelligence. More.

Race Against Time

Meredith’s $1.8 billion acquisition of Time Inc. isn’t working out quite as planned. The publisher’s stock dropped 28% this week after a disappointing quarter, its largest decline since 1986. Meredith is now the world’s largest magazine publisher, but is less profitable than expected. The company will generate just $675 million this fiscal year, a big miss from predictions of $793 million. It’s taken “longer than expected” to elevate the performance of the Time assets and turn around advertising performance, according to CEO Tom Harty. “The number of low-margin magazine subscriptions we encountered inside the legacy Time Inc. brands were more than anticipated.” Bloomberg has more.

Team Dayā

A group of industry leaders is raising money to build a school in Nepal starting in about six weeks, with at least one more school lined up for 2020. One common thread among successful ad tech vets is a karma-like sense that they should invest in and pursue less commercial causes. But others have more personal reasons for joining. “Growing up in a family of educators who fought for education freedom, going to grade school in post-cultural revolution China was an undisputed expectation for me,” wrote Winnie Yang, senior manager at EY. “The community school was a two classroom, one storied, brick building that held 65 students each, each student would get desk space equal to his/her shoulder width, so we used every inch and relished in every minute.” Hasan Arik, CEO at Redmill Solutions, said he was “lucky enough to have a fantastic teacher in primary school who believed in me and my brain,” and who set him on his path. See more and donate here.

But Wait, There’s More