Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
IPO Craze
Another day, another IPO. The latest ad tech company seeking to go public is Altice’s programmatic platform Teads, which filed with the SEC to trade on the Nasdaq, The Wall Street Journal reports. Teads is looking to tap investors while they’re hot on ad tech. The company, which is based in France, made $540 million in total revenue last year, up from $509 million in 2019. According to the filing, the IPO will allow Teads to deepen its push into connected TV by investing in new tech, as it looks to clinch a share of the billions in ad spend flowing into the space. Teads invented the “outstream video” category, which is when video ads load outside of a video player. So expanding into CTV is a necessary vehicle for growth in video overall. Teads’ filing comes within a month of AcuityAds, Taboola and Integral Ad Science going public. Outbrain also filed plans to IPO, while ad server Innovid said it will go public via a SPAC merger. Those companies follow public offerings by AppLovin, DoubleVerify, Pubmatic, Viant and Zeta Global.
Regrettable Experiences
The spread of misinformation and hate speech may seem like old news, but it’s still very much a problem, especially on YouTube. Mozilla’s “YouTube Regrets” study – an effort launched in 2019 – collected responses from more than 37,000 browser users who shared their experiences on the platform. Read the report. One standout issue that shows up in the report, and one which Mozilla can track since it logs full site browsing data, is how often problematic videos are surfaced by the YouTube algorithm. “[Seventy-one percent] of all regret reports came from videos recommended to our volunteers by YouTube’s automatic recommendation system,” the report states. “Further, recommended videos were 40% more likely to be reported by our volunteers than videos that they searched for.” In some instances, YouTube even violated its own community guidelines. Business Insider has more.
Just An Instant
No company has surfed internet trends as effectively as Facebook. It started as a site, but moved fast to become a mobile-focused app player when developer ecosystems started to grow. It picked up Instagram as a photo-editing tool that mostly made other photos look good, and quickly turned it into a social media powerhouse. Facebook was a fast follower into the Stories format and, now, is transforming into something more like TikTok: an entertainment app that curates and connects users with whatever’s trending. Some users won’t like that Instagram surfaces videos from accounts they don’t follow, just like users and advertisers grumbled when Instagram abandoned the chronological feed, writes Ben Thompson at Stratechery. In both cases, the company is following the market, even if the market complains. Instagram is about preserving moments in time, “but it has never been a service particularly concerned about getting stuck in them.”
But Wait, There’s More!
Ogilvy’s global strategy chief Ben Richards is leaving. [Campaign]
B2B marketers are increasingly turning to sports partnerships as a way to connect with consumers. [The Drum]
TikTok is testing a new product called Shoutouts as a rival to Cameo. [Business Insider]
DISH Media and Oracle partner on CTV audience data [release]
A new Comscore study, commissioned by Facebook no less, found that Apple and Google apps (shocker) dominate iPhone and Android phones. [The Verge]
Speaking of Comscore, brands can reach cannabis and CBD users via a data partnership with Fyllo. [Ad Age]
Monaker Group has closed its acquisition of HotPlay. [release]
Dataseat published an overview of Apple’s recent iOS 15 announcements at WWDC, along with implications for advertisers and mobile ad tech. [blog]
You’re Hired
Crystal Eastman hired by Zeta as its first chief marketing officer. [release]
Imre hired Jennifer Kurowski as SVP of creative. [release]
Katie Soo joined KiwiCo as chief marketing officer. [Ad Age]
