Supply Chain Shortage Hitting Ad Industry Hard; Google Bans Climate Change Misinformation

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Deliver Or Delay

The global supply chain crunch is hitting the ad industry, even before the Q4 holiday shopping season moves into high gear. Brands and their creative and media agencies plan campaigns months or a year ahead. But those campaign rollouts are being put on pause in some cases, or reined in due to supply chain issues, Business Insider reports. Sometimes, fewer products can be manufactured and delivered, so ad budgets need to come down or the media will be too high a percent of the overall cost of sales. In other cases, brands rethink creative. Audi changed its electric vehicle ad campaign to focus on more top-level branding and reaching potential future customers or brand identifiers on platforms like TikTok that are new for the company. That’s because the car maker doesn’t have the raw materials it needs right now to actually make and sell new cars – the point of the original ad campaign. “We’re finding ourselves going into planning sessions many times a year that were not budgeted for,” says one agency exec. “It’s more cost on the clients and more labor requirements for us.”

Tough News

Google seems to be taking a sharper, more editorial stance on content moderation on YouTube, Google Search and its ad network. Last week, YouTube banned a handful of notorious anti-vax activists, and will now ban anti-vax content for all approved vaccines, not just as a coronavirus-related response. Google announced this week it will ban ads that distribute or promote climate change misinformation, a policy that applies to search responses and for ads across the Google publisher network. Google is also working on a live news curation service called Big Moments, The Information reports. Google lost the thread on live news; when news breaks, Google is supplanted by Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat or TikTok. One challenge is getting Google out of its comfort zone – indexing and algorithmically ranking – and making subjective choices. Another obstacle for real-world implementation is the inevitable political quagmire, since live news means hot-button issues, and Google would decide which news stream or story is best – and is showered with traffic.

Sound On

Brands will soon have more options to use music and sounds on TikTok via new partnerships, TechCrunch reports. TikTok is teaming with KARM, MassiveMusic, The Elements Music, Epidemic Sound, Songtradr and UnitedMasters to offer custom sound capabilities. Music and audio features are a big part of what makes TikTok, well, tick. The new TikTok audio toolkit helps advertisers create jingles, say, or remix trendy sounds. The company said 65% of users want original sounds in branded content, while 68% remember a brand if the ad includes a catchy tune. “Brands need to embrace music and sound in order to show up authentically on the platform. Our new Sound Partners have a proven track record of helping marketers develop strategies for TikTok, and offer scalable options for brands of all sizes,” TikTok’s head of ecosystems, Melissa Yang, said in a blog post.

But Wait, There’s More!

Marketers need to earn a seat at the table. [Destination CRM]

Local TV news giants are coming for CNN’s national ad dollars. [THR]

Ad execs: Contextual is king, again. [MediaPost]