Google, Facebook Dabble In Interoperability; AT&T Pitching Xandr To DirecTV Carriage Partners

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Hello Walls

A series of quiet changes to Google and Facebook’s code in the past month show the two major walled gardens cooperating in unprecedented ways. Facebook has started firing Google AdWords pixels for retargeting on the news feed, as Zach Edwards, founder of the analytics firm Victory Medium, caught in the wild earlier in March. A few days later, Edwards spotted Facebook’s marketing landing pages passing data to AdWords as well. Last week, Facebook updated its login page so people who enter an incorrect password are prompted to use Google’s stored passwords. It’s another change that consumers wouldn’t notice, but raises eyebrows among technologists. And it isn’t just the internet giants tying together their platforms. At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, the four largest wireless network operators, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, promoted an initiative called “Project Verify” to offer a shared sign-on service that would allow them to compete more effectively with Google and Facebook with their logged-in app users.

The Carriage Trade

When AT&T and Viacom reached a deal this weekend to carry Viacom networks on AT&T’s DirecTV pay-TV service, it included a new wrinkle. “[AT&T] asked Viacom to buy advanced ad products and sales services from Xandr, AT&T’s advertising group,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Pay-TV distributors usually get two minutes of ad time per hour for networks they carry, but AT&T’s requests for Viacom to use its ad products were above that baseline. Viacom execs also say they reached similar agreements in recent carriage negotiations with Altice and Charter. AT&T needs non-WarnerMedia inventory to prove to buyers that its ad business can impartially drive better results. But network execs aren’t persuaded yet. “Although the promise of a data-rich, automated marketplace for the traditional TV-ad business is intriguing, it is far from a reality, according to media executives familiar with the discussions.” More.

Digital’s Sunny Forecast

Global ad spend is expected to grow 4.7% in 2019, up from 4% growth predicted at the end of 2018, according to Zenith’s Advertising Expenditure Forecast. “We have upgraded our forecasts after internet ad spend markedly exceeded our expectations in 2018,” the Publicis agency wrote in its new forecast. Read the release. The fastest-growing channels are online video and social media, expected to grow by 19% and 14%, respectively, though there’s considerable overlap in those categories. The United States, the largest single market, is also propelling global ad growth. By 2021, the United States will add $32 billion to the ad market, with China adding $16 billion and India, the third-largest market, contributing another $5 billion. Offline channels are being helped by the internet as well, with ecommerce and direct-to-consumer challenger brands moving into TV and out-of-home.

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