Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
A Store Of Value
Instacart was profitable for a couple of months in 2020 when it became a need-to-have for people in quarantine. But Instacart hired expansively to meet demand. As online shopping rightsizes, it must readjust.
Instacart needs revenue aside from its fee on online groceries to reach sustainable profitability. The main priority is Instacart Ads, which ramped up this year with content integrations and ads served to retailer-owned media.
But Instacart just debuted another revenue line called Connected Stores. Created for grocers to improve their physical store experiences, the suite of in-store solutions includes smart carts, scan-and-pay functionality and what Instacart calls Carrot Tags, which light up along shelves to identify a specific product, say, or if the shopper searched for “kosher” or “organic” items.
There’s an overlap between Connected Stores and Instacart Ads. For one, the grocers Good Food Holdings and Schnucks are pilot partners for Connected Stores and Instacart’s ad tech.
And that’s because focusing on online grocery won’t cut it.
“The biggest opportunity is that US retailers have not leveraged their store assets nearly to the degree they should,” Evan Hovorka, head of product and innovation for Albertsons’ retail media business, recently told AdExchanger.
After all, that’s where the sales happen.
Go Long On Shorts
2020 and 2021 saw an influx of “creator funds” from Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter. Some were paltry; others dished hundreds of millions or even low billions of dollars overall.
What they have in common is that none stood the test of time. Even before the market downturn, the most generous funds amounted to lottery-style payouts, sometimes even handsome wins, but not what creators could build a business on.
Which is why YouTube Shorts may be a powerhouse, TechCrunch reports. YouTube offers the dependability of a revenue share, a huge draw for creators.
YouTube Shorts’s engagement numbers are already ridonculous. More than 1.5 billion logged-in users watch Shorts per month, YouTube Ads Director of Product Management Nicky Rettke told AdExchanger last week.
Of course, since it’s YouTube, if it wants everyone to see a post, it can simply make that happen. Its focus on funneling viewers to Shorts was a response to TikTok: Oh, you think you’re the only one who can manufacture hundreds of millions of “organic” viral views? Watch this.
While creator funds bite the dust, YouTube’s ad rev-share model anchors it with creators. And not just with social influencers. The ad rev-share is also how YouTube fell ass-backwards into being the biggest podcast advertising platform.
Meta Movies? WhatsApp With That?
WhatsApp produced a short film.
Nope, not a joke. Just branded content.
Meta’s social messaging app released a trailer for a short film about NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo. It’ll be released Wednesday on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube and other social platforms, Android Central reports.
WhatsApp isn’t the first social app trying out studio production. TikTok released a mini docuseries in June. And now it says it isn’t a social media platform, thank you very much; it’s an entertainment company.
Why would WhatsApp commission a short docuseries on an NBA star?
“The project is really a piece of branded content seeking to capitalize on Antetokounmpo’s worldwide fame and communicate the message that WhatsApp can bring people together,” according to Variety.
Don’t mistake WhatsApp’s film for Apple’s or Amazon’s legit expansion into the Hollywood production biz. But by releasing the film on its competitors’ platforms, WhatsApp is strengthening its cross-social-media bonafides. TikTok has shown that there’s a lot of brand value in its content being shared and discovered on various platforms (with that TikTok logo on the bottom).
Aside from the YouTube distribution, “NBA Twitter” is a huge promotional vehicle that guarantees some traction there, too.
But Wait, There’s More!
The FTC’s lawsuit against Kochava raises serious questions about location data. [Marketing Brew]
Google’s Privacy Sandbox faces skepticism. [Ad Age]
Swiftly Systems, a retail media tech startup, raises $100 million at a more than $1 billion valuation. [release]
Apple flexes its muscle as quiet power behind the App Association. [Bloomberg]
Inside the thriving underground market for used Amazon seller accounts. [Insider]
Publishers are struggling to keep commerce shops open, despite the tempting opportunities. [Digiday]
You’re Hired!
IPG adds sustainability role to its C-suite and taps company vet Jemma Gould for the job. [MediaPost]
