Now that we have not one but two reporters covering the CTV advertising space, we thought we’d try something different and share the roundup newsletter this week! Check out the conversation we had about last week’s IAB NewFronts presentations below:
Victoria McNally: Hello, Alyssa, and welcome to our first experiment with a new post format! Trust me, this was very popular among digital media publications in the pre-Gawker lawsuit days. (Which, admittedly, I did have to explain to you and the rest of our Gen Z co-workers when I pitched this idea, because none of you had heard of Gawker before.)
In any case, we’re definitely not here to talk about the bygone days of the pre-TikTok internet – just the opposite, in fact. We spent all last week at the IAB NewFronts, and I want to dig into what we saw there. To start, what was it like coming back to this weeklong marathon of presentations after missing out last year?
Alyssa Boyle: When you told me what Gawker is, I was hearing “goccer,” which I thought must be a new term for girls’ soccer. And, hey, with all the attention on women’s sports, should we trademark that?
Anyway, it’s funny you ask that question, because the first piece I wrote when I returned to the writer’s desk was how little the streaming ad industry had changed in one year. But the NewFronts are an example of an important change that I can see now. (And I can’t see much clearly right now – I’m writing this from the waiting room after getting my eyes dilated.)
The lines are blurring between NewFronts and upfronts – which is why YouTube, Comcast and others participate in both – but it’s clear that they serve two distinct purposes. NewFronts are where companies take up space to talk about their shiny new tech, data and product announcements. The content is almost an afterthought. Whereas the upfronts work the other way around. They’re so content-heavy I feel like I’m watching movie trailers in a theater before I get to see what I came for (for me, the nerdy ad tech stuff). Which is all to say, don’t forget to swap out your swear jar for your “content is king” jar in May.
Do you think this difference explains why NewFronts now happen so much earlier in the year?
Victoria: Probably! As I mentioned during this week’s Big Story podcast episode, a lot of upfront conversations are happening earlier (if not year round!). With Possible becoming a big marketer hub in late April, that’s a lot of major events back-to-back, so it makes sense that the IAB chose to switch things up this year.
But I also want to push back on the idea that the content was an afterthought, because there was also a huge focus on creators this year. Pretty much every presentation I attended included some kind of new or updated product that connects creators and advertisers: TikTok’s Pulse Tastemakers, YouTube’s Creator Partnerships Hub and Meta’s Partnership Ads, to name a few. Heck, even Tubi and Uproxx announced creator collabs, and they don’t have UGC businesses at all. So maybe the content isn’t “king” at NewFronts, but it’s a member of the landed gentry, at least.
Anyway, let’s bring it back to ad tech. Was there anything that stood out to you with regard to the topics we typically cover, like measurement or performance outcomes?
Alyssa: I have heard the word “performance” more times than the phrase “good afternoon.” If anything, performance was the main through line across all the presentations. Which validates the TV industry’s insistence that it can and will turn streaming into a performance channel.
Performance marketing, or “outcomes,” was the top theme in nearly every presentation I saw. It was especially interesting to see streaming distributors tout new ad formats like home screen ads and pause ads as a way to create outcomes – and to generate enough data to prove that those actions happened.
Another good example of “performance TV” taking over NewFronts was Walmart and Vizio’s first NewFronts event together. Smart TVs with Vizio’s operating system will require Walmart accounts to sign up and activate their TVs. Centralizing customer data this way should vastly improve their ability to connect ad impressions to purchases.
Let’s end on this, Victoria. You were all over the creator marketplace last week. How do you expect influencer marketing and ad tech to intersect this year?
Victoria: OK, it’s hot take time.
Influencer marketing can be a glorified form of creative outsourcing. For better or worse, you’re basically hiring someone to do a lot of the work that an agency team might otherwise have done to produce a typical ad. And the industry’s focus on algorithmically matching brands to creators is starting to feel a bit like the media-buying version of that phenomenon. Like, you’re not directly trying to reach women ages 18-49 who like soccer – instead, find a creator who appeals to that audience and buy the inventory around her videos.
I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing! Contextual advertising worked on TV for a very long time, after all, and it’s definitely less creepy than tracking viewer behavior all over the internet. But at the same time, platforms are still gathering all the relevant user data – how else would they know what kinds of audiences the influencers attract?
Based on what I saw at the NewFronts last week, it seems like the big platforms will keep offering creators and advertisers tidbits of data and revenue that keep both parties reliant on the platforms in the process. Does that make sense?
Alyssa: Yes! Especially the part about digital platforms relying on their greater view of the data to maintain their position in advertising workflows. It’s all fun and games to criticize and bemoan the walled gardens, but when marketers are facing this much pressure to justify every campaign, they invest in inventory sources that have shown consistent results.
Here’s my hot take: Pause ads are all the rage for publishers and advertisers – and came up in several presentations this week, including Tubi’s – but they miss the mark from a user-experience perspective.
Publishers market pause ads as a non-disruptive ad format that’s respectful of the viewing experience. But as a viewer myself, I expect these user-friendly formats to reduce the unbearable volume of traditional CTV commercials. Instead, publishers keep upping their ad load while also slapping pause ads into video streams. So there’s something missing in the value exchange.
Also: Pause ads aren’t great for people who watch TV in foreign languages, like yours truly. I love watching K-dramas and I pause streams often to read the subtitles – but it’s hard to do that when the subtitles are blocked by QR codes.
Victoria: Agreed! Personally, I think there’s no such thing as a non-disruptive ad. But that’s a discussion for another time. The upfronts, perhaps?
Thanks for reading! Like this format? Want to see us do it again? Send us an email at victoria@adexchanger.com (it was her idea) or alyssa@adexchanger.com.
