CTV

Disney+ continues to lose money but gain subscribers. The service is adding an ad-supported tier in just four months, with a US launch date of December 8. Disney+ AVOD will be available for $7.99 a month, the same price as Hulu’s Basic plan, and the current price of Disney+ with no ads. Meaning, Disney will hike the price $3 a month for viewers who want to continue avoiding ads.

The Trade Desk has been hammering the same messages about tailwinds in quarterly earnings calls the past couple years: hyping the CTV business first and foremost, along with the retail media segment and a dash of Google-bashing for good measure. The company’s investor call on Tuesday adhered to the trend.

Contextual targeting laid the foundations of TV advertising – particularly by ensuring that ads were stitched into content marketers considered “brand safe.” With the advent of CTV, buyers put context on the back-burner in favor of more granular, first-party audience targeting. Now, the pendulum is swinging back again. Why? Two words: signal loss.

Warner Bros. Discovery lost 1% in total Q2 revenue, closing out the quarter with $9.8 billion, $2 billion behind expectations. So it plans to do some belt-tightening of its streaming services. Specifically, it’s HBO Max productions that are getting the cut.

Many publishers are betting big on seller-defined audiences (SDA) as a centerpiece of their post-third-party-cookie monetization plans. Problem is, although publishers are eager to test the performance of SDAs, there’s still very little demand from the buy side. AdExchanger spoke with ad agencies and buy-side tech platforms to get their side of the story.

You can call it a heat wave – but Liquid I.V. sees an opportunity. The Unilever-owned brand, which makes powder that gets added to water to improve hydration (and taste), began its first national branding campaign a week ago, including its first TV, OTT and out-of-home media buys.

Roku’s total Q2 revenue was $764 million, up 18% year-over-year, but was relatively flat compared with last quarter, when revenue clocked in at $734 million. CFO Steve Louden was probably referring to that plateau when he warned of a TV ad spend hiatus. US advertisers are pulling back in reaction to inflation and supply chain shortages.

Fireside’s platform allows creators to distribute content across a range of media channels, including social media, CTV and podcasts, and monetize it how they see fit. Fireside recently partnered with influencer management firm Slash Management to create Slash Studios, a Fireside network dedicated to content that brings audiences behind the scenes of talent management and social media star making.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Googling Through The Headlines Google flooded the zone with news and interviews this week.  On the transparency front, one announcement that will impact ad tech is Google Ad Manager’s new “Revenue Verification Report.” GAM, the Google SSP, will look into buy-side gross revenue […]

The ill-fated (and relatively brief) love affair between telcos and ad tech really is over. On Monday, Singaporean telco Singtel finally sold mobile-focused marketing platform Amobee to Tremor International for $239 million. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter. (Read the release.) Tremor went public in June 2021. Its stock, which is […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Pronounced She-In, As In “Ooh … She In Trouble Now” The fast-fashion company Shein, a gigantic but secretive Chinese manufacturer of fast fashion, is getting a lot of attention. Which Shein both does and does not want.  On the plus side, Shein has […]

Netflix shocked the ad tech world with its selection of Microsoft to run its AVOD business. But the deal actually makes sense, and it’s helped calm nerves on Wall Street to boot. Plus: Why the IAB Tech Lab’s seller-defined audiences is slow to take off.

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Get The Net Netflix isn’t just vetting third-party vendors for its pre-launch ad business (though it is vetting vendors, to be clear).  The streaming leader is on the hunt for an executive to lead its incubating advertising business, The Wall Street Journal reports.  […]

Did you know Chicken Soup for the Soul now earns its keep primarily from manufacturing food, pet food and … streaming video? That also means Chicken Soup is partaking in the grail quest for cross-device CTV measurement solutions. Its streamer Crackle Plus renewed its partnership with iSpot to enable improved incremental reach through programmatic direct deals.

Why wouldn’t DSPs want to secure the best possible access to OTT inventory through programmatic while accessing the impression commitments and set pricing provided by direct deals? If DSPs want to compete with more traditional advertising platforms, they will need to do just that, writes Doug Huntington, CEO of FatTail.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Paid Upfront NBCUniversal says this year’s upfronts was its highest-grossing since Comcast acquired the programmer in 2013.  Unsurprisingly, streaming media helped break the record. Of NBCU’s $7 billion in ad commitments, per a release, $1 billion is earmarked for its AVOD service Peacock […]

Google’s decision to delay third-party cookie deprecation until 2023 came the day before Salon CRO Justin Wohl’s wedding. Salon had converted its ad business to an open-web programmatic model a few years earlier, so the brief reprieve from signal loss came as a huge relief and another reason to pop some champagne. Since then, Wohl has been laying the groundwork for effective post-cookie monetization on the open web.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Personalization Delusion The ability to dynamically scale creative and A/B test dozens – even hundreds – of ad campaign permutations, all potentially targeting specific audience types, has led marketers away from making a single piece of creative that stands alone and appeals to as […]

Although advanced, addressable and convergent TV might sound like synonyms, they are distinct concepts. Think of advanced TV as the umbrella term for anything that is not traditional, over-the-air broadcast TV, with specific techniques including addressable and convergent TV, data-driven linear and OTT. To make the most of TV’s advancements (get it?), it’s important to understand the nuances.

The emergence of the streaming era has led to a transformative shift in M&A activity in media and entertainment. Streaming platforms are about to look vastly different as consolidation continues, giving rise to new monetization models and measurement tactics, writes Matt Papa, SVP of business and corporate development at Captify.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Get Connected The coveted prizes in programmatic right now are exclusive CTV contracts.  In Cannes, the crème de la crème for handshakers and lunch-takers is Netflix. Google is meeting with Netflix there, Ad Age reports, and is an obvious choice as Netflix purportedly […]

Everyone is getting into streaming. Even ad networks are launching their own streaming networks. In May, Columbia-based company Adsmovil, which started life in 2012 as a mobile ad network helping US brands connect with Hispanic audiences, announced plans to launch an ad-supported streaming service called Nuestra.tv.

Instead of a funnel that slows traffic, we need to create a ubiquitous, always-accessible “sales superhighway” that provides countless on-ramps. This change of perspective will impact both how we define our potential audiences and the speed with which we have meaningful interactions with them, writes Lance Porigow, EVP of growth at The Shipyard.

Rising inflation, flagging consumer confidence and uncertainty due to ongoing supply-chain issues have economists predicting a recession. But, based on GroupM’s and Zenith’s mid-year forecasts of the global ad market, the recession fears may be unfounded. Still, after the record highs of 2021, ad spending will see a deceleration in 2022.

The market is not being kind to digital media companies. The nearly 40% drop in BuzzFeed’s stock price on Monday and the decline of its valuation from $1.5 billion when it went public in December to roughly $300 million now is no doubt causing other digital-native publishers to rethink their IPO plans. But any doom and gloom about the long-term viability of digital publishers in public markets is likely overblown.

The growth of connected TV advertising isn’t simmering down anytime soon – but the lack of an industrywide standard for campaign measurement is making it a rocky road. Several executives at AdMonsters’ Ops conference in New York City discussed how interoperability between TV publishers can help solve for some of the standstills stemming from the lack of consensus.

As clients look for alternatives to third-party cookies, ad agency Dentsu can steer them to its in-house Contextual Intelligence tool, which launched today. Although contextual targeting is often considered inferior to demographic or behavioral targeting, it can drive performance. Jewelry retailer Pandora piloted the tool during the 2022 Valentine’s Day season. Ads placed using the solution represented 2% of campaign spend, but drove 36% of revenue, a 24x return on investment.

Marketing typically depends on the thoughtful and strategic allocation of limited financial resources. Creative matters, but putting money behind the channels that will truly drive growth is the key to success, writes Cory Davis, VP of media and madtech at Infutor – which is why marketers will have to continue testing, learning and adjusting to new channels as they grow their businesses.

With the lines blurring between traditional TV content and streaming media, YouTube made its upfronts debut this year. YouTube VP Debbie Weinstein explains why.