Home Ad Exchange News Wall Street Bullish On ViacomCBS’s Streaming Ambitions; New CEO Gives IAB Tech Lab A Push

Wall Street Bullish On ViacomCBS’s Streaming Ambitions; New CEO Gives IAB Tech Lab A Push

SHARE:

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

Swimming Up-Stream

Wall Street is coming around to streaming revenue as a long-term priority. Or, rather, as a source of heavy immediate investment. ViacomCBS has done well enough out of the gate with its Paramount+ streaming service to inspire Wells Fargo to “move from historical bears to constructive bulls,” according to an analyst note. The TV and film giant now merits a “Hulu-esque valuation,” with streaming advertising and subscription revenue estimated to reach $8 billion next year, per The Hollywood Reporter. That gives ViacomCBS the backing to double its production budget for Paramount+ in 2022, up from about $15 billion this year. This will also eventually spread to how shows and films are judged by investors. Currently, there’s a measurement gap because success is still pegged to box office sales and Nielsen ratings. In time, factors like new subscribers and contribution to user retention will be more important.

Keeping Tabs On The Lab

Two of the IAB Tech Lab’s senior leaders left this year, SVP Jordan Mitchell and CEO Dennis Buchheim. But Anthony Katsur, the ad tech vet named the new CEO of the IAB Tech Lab in July, wants the organization to be a more forceful, productive industry hub for engineering and technology standards. The IAB Tech Lab is in a thankless spot. It ranges from brands to publishers, with every three-letter acronym company in between. And the reality is, decisions made by the Tech Lab often go against important constituencies of the group. On top of that, the organization needs to corral developers, some of whom are openly frustrated and none of whom work for the IAB, to come to agreements on standards. It’s easy for stakeholders to drag their feet and ideas end up dead in committee. “The feedback I’ve had so far is that the Tech Lab has been too consensus-driven and hasn’t taken a position on the important issues,” Katsur tells Digiday. “We’re going to change that.”

iO-SOS

Facebook published a blog post urging advertisers to update their practices on the ad platform following Apple’s privacy changes. It’s important to be familiar with new products and techniques before the holidays. For one thing, advertisers should consider lengthening their optimization windows to three days or more, writes product marketing VP Graham Mudd. That allows more time for data collection, which is important, because Facebook’s attribution will use more modeled data, as opposed to one-to-one attributed sales via a site pixel or app SDK. Facebook used to optimize individual creative elements – sometimes even hundreds or thousands simultaneously. Now the advice is to “analyze the campaign, not the creative.” With less data coming in, demanding the same level of granular optimization based on demographic data could mean days-long delays. Facebook is underreporting iOS conversions (sales and app installs) by about 15%, according to Mudd. Though that’s an estimate. Who knows?

But Wait, There’s More!   

Why you can’t always trust ratings on sites like Amazon and Tripadvisor. [Fast Company]

Minute Media, FanDuel expand partnership with new funding. [Axios]

MediaOcean’s Flashtalking launches Video+ to advance TV and video ad serving. [release]

Subscribe

AdExchanger Daily

Get our editors’ roundup delivered to your inbox every weekday.

Giving users more transparency into their Google ad experience. [blog]

Supply-chain issues threaten ad spending comeback. [Ad Age]

Ad expansion slowed in August due to tougher comps. [MediaPost]

Evercore’s Mahaney says Facebook and Instagram users are unhappy with the UX. [Insider]

You’re Hired

Verve Group names new executive appointments. [release]

GroupM’s Wavemaker makes two c-level appointments. [MediaPost]

FCB names Vita Harris as global chief strategy officer. [Ad Age]

Reprise hires Glen Conybeare as global head of Reprise Commerce. [Campaign]

Must Read

Google Rolls Out Chatbot Agents For Marketers

Google on Wednesday announced the full availability of its new agentic AI tools, called Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor.

Amazon Ads Is All In On Simplicity

“We just constantly hear how complex it is right now,” Kelly MacLean, Amazon Ads VP of engineering, science and product, tells AdExchanger. “So that’s really where we we’ve anchored a lot on hearing their feedback, [and] figuring out how we can drive even more simplicity.”

Betrayal, business, deal, greeting, competition concept. Lie deception and corporate dishonesty illustration. Businessmen leaders entrepreneurs making agreement holding concealing knives behind backs.

How PubMatic Countered A Big DSP’s Spending Dip In Q3 (And Our Theory On Who It Was)

In July, PubMatic saw a temporary drop in ad spend from a “large” unnamed DSP partner, which contributed to Q3 revenue of $68 million, a 5% YOY decline.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

Paramount Skydance Merged Its Business – Now It’s Ready To Merge Its Tech Stack

Paramount Skydance, which officially turns 100 days old this week, released its first post-merger quarterly earnings report on Monday.

Hand Wipes Glasses illustration

EssilorLuxottica Leans Into AI To Avoid Ad Waste

AI is bringing accountability to ad tech’s murky middle, helping brands like EssilorLuxottica cut out bots, bad bids and wasted spend before a single impression runs.

The Arena Group's Stephanie Mazzamaro (left) chats with ad tech consultant Addy Atienza at AdMonsters' Sell Side Summit Austin.

For Publishers, AI Gives Monetizable Data Insight But Takes Away Traffic

Traffic-starved publishers are hopeful that their long-undervalued audience data will fuel advertising’s automated future – if only they can finally wrest control of the industry narrative away from ad tech middlemen.