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

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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]