Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
The Emperor’s Curated Clothes
Publishers are skeptical that “curation,” the ad tech industry’s new buzzword, is actually doing anything for them, Adweek reports.
The concept is simple enough. Advertising on the open web carries the risk of low-quality inventory and hard-to-reach audiences. And signal loss makes it harder to use third-party data. So SSPs and DSPs alike are offering packages that match first-party data from buyers and publishers in private marketplace deals.
Many SSPs tout their close relationships with publishers as a selling point for these solutions. But Adweek’s publishing sources admit to feeling underwhelmed by the resulting ad rates and worry that the whole setup cheapens their inventory, both in terms of price and reputation.
The advertisers aren’t super hyped either. Made-for-advertising sites are still sneaking into these supposedly premium packages, at least according to one anonymous buyer.
With buyer gripes around quality supply and publisher gripes about low CPMs, curation is starting to feel reminiscent of ad networks, where a middleman gets in between publishers and buyers.
In The Year 2025
Marketers should expect to see more legislation and more sports opportunities in the near future, according to Advertiser Perceptions, which shared its 2025 predictions for the ad, tech and media industries Thursday.
More state-by-state legislation feels likelier than a larger nationwide push, VP of Business Intelligence Eric Haggstrom said. But the federal government may create a dedicated agency to regulate AI next year, said EVP of business intelligence Stuart Schneiderman.
Meanwhile, advertisers will keep following the growth of women’s sports, according to EVP Sarah Bolton. Advertiser Perception’s VP John Bishop – who somehow predicted that breakdancing would dominate the 2024 Olympics news cycle (albeit not the unusual reason why) – thinks streaming platforms will take advantage of sports betting and individual athlete popularity.
Other predictions shared during the event: CTV self-serve platforms will continue to rise and retail media networks will need to get better at differentiating themselves from one another.
Barring all that, things look good, as far as economic growth goes. But, as always, the future is still “up in the air,” as EVP Nicole Perrin put it.
Digital Out-Of-Hate
Digital out-of-home (DOOH) billboards in a Chicago suburb were hacked to display vulgar, anti-Israel messages that local leaders condemned as antisemitic, Fox 32 Chicago reports.
The messages appeared Wednesday evening on two DOOH billboards owned by Outfront Media located along the Edens Spur Tollway in Northbrook, Illinois. They reportedly first appeared around 5:30 pm local time and remained live until 7 pm, when Outfront turned off the billboards.
The messages seemed targeted at the area’s large Jewish population and coincided with the start of the Jewish holiday Sukkot, showing clear antisemitic intent, Congressman Brad Schneider, who represents the 10th District of Illinois, told Fox 32.
Northbrook police conducted an investigation and determined the messages were not approved, indicating the incident may have been the result of a hack. Outfront is conducting its own investigation, according to a statement from the company.
Bafflingly, the messages claimed to have been “paid for by MrBeast,” an internet personality with the highest subscriber count on YouTube, reports Gizmodo. A representative for MrBeast condemned the messages and denied the YouTuber had paid for them to be placed.
But Wait, There’s More!
Spending on “experiential marketing” passes pre-pandemic levels. [Marketing Dive]
Has Netflix peaked? Wall Street thinks so. [Bloomberg]
The hot new trend for tech CEOs: writing an AI manifesto. [Axios]
AKQA Group founder and CEO Ajaz Ahmed resigned from the company. [Ad Age]
