Alyssa Boyle ( alyssa@adexchanger.com ) covers the TV ecosystem from linear to video and connected TV. She also writes about measurement and data privacy. Her journalistic passions stem from a background in language and translation. She received her B.A. in linguistics and Korean studies from Binghamton University in 2020. When she isn’t writing, she’s probably deep in a history novel or busy performing stand-up comedy.
CTV advertisers still don’t know much about what content they’re running against, other than the fact it’s on the big screen. And they’ve had enough of it already. Buyers’ lack of visibility into which network, program or distribution channel their ads are served is almost enough to wish for the good old days of program guides.
Magnite’s quarterly revenue was up 11% year-over-year in Q3, with a large chunk of its growth coming from streaming. Growth guidance is conservative for next quarter, but Magnite expects AVOD inventory and retail media to become bigger growth drivers for its bottom line.
Turkey brand Butterball wants to reach millennials because they’re the most likely to become first-time Thanksgiving dinner hosts soon, at least according to the company’s research. But younger generations are less familiar with the brand than older ones, so Butterball is leaning heavily on streaming and social media, particularly TikTok, in its video campaign leading up to Thanksgiving this year.
Disney is losing money faster than it’s adding subscribers. The media giant reported a $1.5 billion loss on its streaming business lines for the quarter, calling Q4 the peak of its operating losses. But Disney isn’t worried (or so it seems). It’s hanging on until the US launch of an ad-supported Disney+ tier on December 8.
Samba announced its merge with the St. Louis-based AI startup Disruptel to bolster its machine learning chops, namely in automatic content recognition (ACR). Samba plans to incorporate Disruptel’s tech, which is built on show-level content identification and analysis, into its ACR-based measurement.
Warner Bros. Discovery is rushing the launch date of its AVOD streaming service meant to combine WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and Discovery’s Discovery+. Combined, WBD networks lost 8% in total Q3 revenue, but the company doubled its streaming ad revenue, giving WBD hope as it smooths out its rocky post-acquisition start.
Like it did for the web, programmatic is transforming linear TV ad buying. But TV calls for a more nuanced approach. The programmatic technology that automates ad serving on TV will have to be different from the rest of the digital ad ecosystem, said Pooja Midha, EVP of Effectv, the ad sales division of Comcast Cable.
The future of TV is addressable, meaning one-to-one ad targeting to a device, across not just CTV but also linear inventory. Yet still, addressable TV remains a small piece of media buying, which the industry addressed at Paramount’s Addressable Now summit in New York City on Tuesday.
TAZO’s strategy under new ownership is to rebuild its brand on social media and its approach to media in general with a focus on sustainability, including a transition into product supply lines that are entirely regenerative by 2029, to help promote biodiversity. And that new strategy starts on TikTok.
Brands historically have stayed on the sidelines when it comes to hot-button social and political issues. But nowadays, American consumers often expect – and even demand – that companies form an opinion on issues they’re close to. Namely, consumers expect brands to stand up for women’s rights, especially following the recent Roe v. Wade overturn.
Everyone knows retail media is hot right now. But more and more retail ad dollars are also being sponged up by social media. Social networks like TikTok can drive incremental sales … when used correctly, said Jacques Hagopian, SVP of marketing for Procter & Gamble’s North American business, during a panel at the ANA Masters of Marketing summit this week in Orlando.
Multicultural markets are the single biggest growth opportunity for the media and advertising industry. At least according to Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer of Procter & Gamble, speaking at the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) Masters of Marketing Summit in Orlando, Florida, this Wednesday. The industry needs to step up not just because it’s the right thing to do, he said, but because multicultural markets could be “the economic growth driver for decades to come.”
Old El Paso launched an awareness campaign to reach new customers in the UK with personalized ad creative promoting “Fajita Friday” (because why stop at Taco Tuesday?). Specifically, the General Mills-owned brand saw an opportunity to reach incremental new households with more individualized messaging, said Aditi Hilgers, head of meals for General Mills in the UK, which is partnering with WPP-owned agency Mindshare and search intelligence company Captify on the campaign.
The Federal Trade Commission is making privacy a priority. But that’s hard to do without a federal data privacy law. In the meantime, the FTC hopes to fill in the gaps with new rulemaking to apply privacy practices to consumer welfare enforcement broadly, said Rashida Richardson, attorney advisor to FTC Chair Lina Khan, speaking at AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO conference in New York City this week.
Although Netflix lost roughly 1 million users in Q2, the streaming giant gained 2.4 million subs in Q3, which helped boost the company’s revenue by 6% year over year. The question is: What happens to Netflix’s subscriber count when it flips the switch on ads in less than two weeks?
TV ad measurement has seen a lot of positive progress, but it’s still something of … a big fat mess. Luckily for advertisers, TV measurement is nowhere near as messy as it was just 12 months ago, said Kelly Metz, managing director of linear and advanced TV activation at Omnicom Media Group, speaking at AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O conference in New York City this week. Still, buyers aren’t getting the data transparency they say they need in order to make more informed media buys.
Media standards are needed to help guide buyers on where to invest and help publishers and platforms do better themselves. The “onus is on advertisers” to drive change,” said Eli Harris, EVP of global digital partnerships and media responsibility at MAGNA Global, presenting the fourth annual edition of the company’s Media Responsibility Index (MRI) at an event in New York City earlier this week.
Google, and every other ad tech company, is trying to figure out how to deliver personalized marketing without being creepy or violating a privacy policy. “First-party data is imperative,” said Michael Burke, managing director of Google’s branded luxury apparels business, at the IAB Tech Lab’s Brand Disruption Summit in New York City on Wednesday. “But the fallacy is the idea that [first-party data] needs to be used for one-to-one marketing.”
Netflix has ads starting in November. The Netflix Basic With Ads plan is launching in 12 countries on November 3, including the UK, Italy and Korea, and will cost viewers $6.99 a month. Netflix was originally planning an ad tier for 2023, but the streaming wars are moving full steam ahead.
The 2022 midterm elections are expected to see a record amount of political ad spend going to streaming, even compared to the 2020 presidential cycle. Almost all marketers love CTV for the granular audience buying it supports, but CTV wouldn’t have the political clout it has today if not for the media’s roots in legacy television.
Some business practices on the internet may not be against the law, but they undermine or manipulate consumer choice. Legal advocates have coined a new name for this practice: dark patterns. And dark patterns are next up on the enforcement docket both for the Federal Trade Commission and state-level data privacy laws.
Roku premiered “The Lesbian Bar Project” in New York City, a docuseries chronicling lesbian-owned bars scattered across the country. The three-episode miniseries was co-produced by Roku’s Brand Studio and German liqueur company Mast-Jägermeister, the title sponsor of the show streaming on The Roku Channel.
Video SSP Beachfront and Canoe Ventures expanded their ad-serving partnership across several more programmers. The two companies integrated their tech stacks in 2019 so broadcasters or streamers that work with Canoe can channel inventory more effectively to Beachfront’s programmatic pipes. Now, six more programmers, including Kabillion, Afro TV and TV One, are using the integrated solution.
To plan, target and measure media buys on TV, advertisers need to resolve identity at the household level, which calls for full media transparency, said Kelly Metz, managing director of linear and advanced TV activation at Omnicom Media Group. Kelly Metz will be speaking about the future of TV measurement at AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O conference on October 17-18 in New York City. Click here to register.
VideoAmp released a tool that allows publishers and advertisers to compare audience viewership second by second throughout the duration of a program. The purpose is to help buyers target their ads more effectively. Advertisers have been demanding discrete program insights for targeting and measurement planning, Jonathan Bohm, VP of product at VideoAmp, tells AdExchanger.
Budweiser is bringing a first-party data approach to its FIFA World Cup sponsorship, a sign of shifting priorities for many marketers. Budweiser’s recent focus on direct-to-consumer marketing is part of a broader effort to generate more first-party data to power its marketing, said Todd Allen, Budweiser’s global VP of marketing.
Roku became the second major CTV publisher to adopt Nielsen’s new ad deduplication tool for measuring its ads across linear and streaming video inventory, following YouTube this summer. The tool is designed to help programmers deduplicate audiences across linear and streaming by comparing reach across screens, Kim Gilberti, SVP of product management at Nielsen, told AdExchanger.
Automotive marketers were among the first major advertisers for legacy television. Now, they’re ditching their age-old audience demos for first-party audience data like everyone else. General Motors is the first brand to adopt NBCUniversal’s first-party data platform, NBCUnified – but the integration is just one of many stops on GM’s first-party data road map.
The US data privacy landscape is chaotic. The future of the recently proposed American Data Privacy and Protection Act is now decidedly up in the air, and states are passing their own privacy laws in the absence of a federal one, which makes compliance complicated. Federal agencies like the FTC are also trying to fill the data privacy rulemaking void.
Ad tech companies are being reincarnated as streaming services. But over-the-top (OTT) technology is a very different animal from digital. Programmers need to understand that there’s no easy button for monetizing their inventory, especially if they want to attract ad dollars from advertisers looking for specific multicultural audiences, says Isabel Rafferty Zavala, CEO of Canela Media.
