Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Retail Wags The Dog
CTV is a shiny object, but retail media is even shinier. Unlike CTV, which is a maturing channel, retail media is still floating down a river of optimism and the hype is swirling.
Retail media prices, for example, are absolutely crazy. They might not be Netflix-level CPMs, but they’re not far off. A very basic retail homepage takeover can be on par with primo CTV supply prices. One reason why is because there isn’t as strong a downward pressure on pricing in retail media. CPG brand distribution contracts commit a portion of store sales back to retail marketing initiatives, like in-aisle displays and coupons.
For that reason, unlike most other ad tech players, retailer-owned ad tech truly does want the end of third-party cookies. Without third-party tracking links, retail purchases become one of the only options to validate attribution. The delay of third-party cookie deprecation is holding back the category.
But the fact is that retail media is also just super new.
“Most of the growing pains come from the fact that retail media is at its infancy compared to more traditional forms of media,” MikMak Founder and CEO Rachel Tipograph tells Marketing Dive.
TikTok Finds A Marketing Head
Kate Jhaveri has some kind of magic touch for consumer tech and media.
After rising through Microsoft’s product and online marketing group, she held key brand-building roles during inflection point years for Facebook (2010-2013) and Twitter (2013-2016). Since then, she’s only held the CMO job at Twitch for two years and then at the NBA for three – which is like two lifetimes by CMO average tenure standards.
Until yesterday, that is, when she announced that she’s joining TikTok as global head of marketing.
Jhaveri is filling a marketing vacancy that’s been open since January, when former marketing head Nick Tran departed. Tran was apparently too interested in “marketing stunts,” like TikTok Kitchens, Web 3 partnerships and had a preoccupation with NFTs, and TikTok wanted a more staid approach, Ad Age reports.
What Are We Douyin To Kids?
Speaking of TikTok, a 60 Minutes report making the rounds about Douyin, the native Chinese version of the same app, underscores how different it is from its popular western clone.
“In their version of TikTok, if you’re under 14 years old, they show you science experiments you can do at home, museum exhibits, patriotism videos and educational videos,” says tech ethicist Tristan Harris (who’s featured in the documentary The Social Dilemma, which you perhaps saw on Netflix). Douyin also has a 40-minute limit per day. This is in marked contrast to the Western TikTok, which can be consumed nonstop and displays an endless feed of content that’s pretty much Pop Rocks for your brain.
It isn’t just Douyin, either. China just does things differently.
Last year, China shocked Western observers with new rules limiting video game play. People under 18 years old can’t play during the school week and are limited to only three hours per weekend day. That was a surprise move, because gaming is a huge business in China. It feels like a self-inflicted loss.
But that’s just it. China’s government is many things, but it isn’t completely indifferent to tech and media businesses. It must be seeing and reacting to some disturbing information about what games and social media do to the minds of young kids.
But Wait, There’s More!
Music labels want a bigger cut of TikTok’s earnings. [Bloomberg]
Elon Musk discusses putting all of Twitter behind a paywall. [Platformer]
AMC is turning movie theaters into Zoom Rooms for big-screen videoconferencing. [The Verge]
Meet two indie media agencies that tackle ecommerce in distinct ways. [Digiday]
You’re Hired!
Impossible Foods hires a marketing chief as it tries to win over meat lovers. [WSJ]
WPP’s CFO John Rogers will be replaced by Britvic finance boss Joanne Wilson. [Reuters]
Jason Webby is the new CRO of Newsweek. [release]
CafeMedia hires Rashmi Singh as SVP for affiliate commerce. [release]
