Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
A Voyage Of Discovery
Newspaper publisher Gannett is suing Google for alleged ad tech monopolization.
Google, of course, disputes the charge. Dan Taylor, VP of Google Ads, tells The Wall Street Journal Google will “show the court how our advertising products benefit publishers and help them fund their content online.”
This isn’t a major philosophical battle about the benefits of advertising, though. The Journal notes Gannett isn’t claiming specific damages since it could “take substantial discovery in the case fully to understand Google’s misconduct.”
That’s a threat – and a reminder – that the theoretical payout Gannett could receive would be trivial compared to Google’s hazards of legal discovery, when emails and internal messages become PR fiascoes.
Regardless of whether the pending DOJ and state attorneys general’s suits against Google succeed, for instance, the true damage could be the discovery of information relating to Google’s efforts to circumvent header bidding.
Gannett may also have one particular plum concession in mind. The Journal’s story ends with the disclosure that News Corp., its owner, has special commercial agreements with Google to license content. Previously, News Corp. was an antitrust thorn in Google’s side. Gannett may be seeking a similar arrangement.
Cannes This Thing Measure?
Nielsen took Cannes as an opportunity to deviate from the recent trend of bitter competition among TV measurement providers, announcing a partnership to make Nielsen ONE audience data available to EDO.
In return, EDO search impact data will be available in Nielsen ONE for planning, measurement and optimization by next year, Ad Age reports. Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and IPG-owned Mediahub piloted the integration.
Rita Ferro, president of Disney Advertising, called the integration “a great step forward for our industry to see them join forces.”
Buddying up makes sense for Nielsen, which needs more data to stand out against at least a dozen other measurement companies. EDO also tends to measure outcomes, whereas Nielsen is laser-focused on audiences.
Most programmers and agencies still lean on Nielsen (even if reluctantly). But the partnership points to Nielsen’s acknowledgement that TV and streaming advertisers want performance metrics they simply can’t get from panels. Nielsen joining forces with EDO gives each measurement service a bit more credibility.
The DSP and SSP DMZ
There’s always been a contested space between DSPs and SSPs. The Trade Desk distinguished itself early on as a pure-play agency tool in stark contrast to AppNexus, which included the supply side and DSPs like Turn and Tremor, which tried leapfrogging agencies to deal with brands.
But the categories are collapsing inward.
Yahoo shuttered its SSP business this year to only now release an SPO integration so its DSP can sell publisher inventory directly. The Trade Desk’s OpenPath takes the same idea, and Magnite and PubMatic also launched mirror-image products cutting out the DSP margin.
This is a healthy trend not just in terms of programmatic margins, but because it should cut most made-for-advertising content (aka SEO spam and worse kinds of outright scams) out of the supply chain.
“There’s not aspiration to make it as big as possible,” Adam Roodman, Yahoo Advertising’s SVP of ads products, tells Adweek of the new SPO product, Backstage.
As marketers well and truly give up on the illusion of infinite online ad inventory, budgets should shift to pockets of scale among publishers and tech companies with names they know.
But Wait, There’s More!
How one of the most divisive figures in Democratic politics became an advertising mogul. [Semafor]
Warner Bros. Discovery adopts Unified ID 2.0 solution across Max and Discovery+. [release]
Economic uncertainty could accelerate programmatic podcast ad adoption. [Marketing Brew]
GoDigital, owner of Latino digital media brands NGL and mitú, readies a $300 million offer for Vice. [Axios]
Advertisers have returned to Twitter, but their brand safety issues are still rampant. [Insider]
