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.
Video creators like Tastemade are blurring the lines between short- and long-form video. Tastemade launched in 2012 to create food-focused video content for social media platforms, but the exploding growth in connected TV viewership triggered a transition for Tastemade to expand into a broader media company that includes streaming channels.
Social media has been a petri dish for live video shopping in China. But in the US, although social shopping is starting to pick up, it hasn’t gained much traction yet. Still, companies like the ecommerce startup CommentSold are betting that live shopping is finally about to take off — with the right tech and the right training in place, that is.
Clean rooms are ad tech’s answer to data privacy. But they can also give advertisers more accurate reach and frequency measurement through first-party audience matching. Disney has been building out its clean room for roughly a year, and announced an integration with VideoAmp on Thursday, which will bolster clean room measurement with VideoAmp’s TV viewership data.
TV advertising is complicated enough without also having to worry about child-focused privacy regulations. But buyers and sellers need to consider the nuances when it comes to reaching and engaging children, including content relevancy and ad messaging strategies that differ depending on age.
Lots of people are talking about addressable TV. “Data-driven linear,” though? Not so much. But despite the fact that data-driven linear (DDL) doesn’t get as much attention as its somewhat sexier addressable cousin, it’s becoming an increasingly popular choice for linear advertisers attempting to make more informed media buys.
The US Hispanic population is growing by leaps and bounds. But because of bad data, TV advertisers are still throwing darts at the wall to reach them. TelevisaUnivision unveiled a Hispanic household data graph during this year’s upfronts, and Omnicom Media Group is the first agency to include the new graph in its identity solution for campaign planning and measurement.
Despite transparency woes, programmatic buying on CTV is evolving. M&A is helping spur maturation in the market. Tremor International, for example, is a “much different business” now that it has integrated Amobee’s tech into its stack, said Chance Johnson, the company’s new chief commercial officer. The next step? Getting more data to plug into those programmatic pipes.
TV advertising is in the middle of a tectonic shift. GRPs are out, and impressions are on their way in. But plenty of advertisers still want to buy local and national spots based on region. And for small, local marketers accustomed to the relative simplicity of linear TV ad buying, the lack of standards in over-the-top (OTT) ad measurement is becoming a real pain in the tush.
To help solve TV measurement, NBCUniversal launched a “Currency Council,” a list of marketers who have committed to using alternate measurement currencies for at least a portion of their ad spend with NBCU. The program currently has about a dozen buy-side partners, including State Farm, Wayfair and T-Mobile.
Pixability started out contextualizing advertisers’ digital video buys on YouTube to make sure they ran in brand-safe environments. But now that consumers are watching more YouTube on TV screens than on web browsers (and CTV buyers are demanding media transparency with proverbial pitchforks), Pixability is expanding its brand suitability metrics to apply more broadly to CTV environments.
It’s almost impossible for advertisers to know who’s really sitting in front of a TV screen, and they typically aren’t told what content their ads are running against, either. TV measurement companies are turning back to panels for help. Panel-based measurement provider TVision announced a $16 million venture round led by alternative TV measurement provider iSpot.
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.
