One Stop Shop
If you were seeking a sign that AI shopping is here to stay, look no further.
On Thursday, PayPal announced plans to acquire Cymbio, a startup that helps brands improve their presence in AI searches. (Not to be confused with Symbiosys, the retail search ad platform DoorDash bought last year.)
PayPal’s goal is to “quickly build up more features” for merchants to sell through chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, The Information reports.
Last October, PayPal announced an integration with OpenAI so that ChatGPT users could transact within the app. Apparently, PayPal is now ready to take that idea to other retailer chatbots.
Of course, now that ChatGPT is making its foray into advertising, other LLMs and chatbots are bound to follow suit, if they haven’t already done so. Walmart, for instance, rolled out ads in its generative AI agent Sparky earlier this month.
Trailer Trashed
One reason blockbuster ticket sales keep slipping is that Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to do good movie marketing.
A column in The Globe and Mail describes the phenomenon of “Black Hole Movies” – star-packed, mid-to-high-budget streaming productions that disappear into some lost vortex of time and memory not long after release.
These movies aren’t bad or even all that different from what might have led the box office 20 or even 10 years ago. But they simply fail to reach any critical threshold of audience knowledge or interest.
Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple, et al. spend tens of millions to snag names like John Cena, Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon, Will Ferrell and Chris Evans. “But then they release them into the world with barely a peep,” The Globe writes. “Why?”
Once upon a time, practically the entire US would know about the same upcoming big-ticket movies and what each was about, thanks to trailers and audience exposure to TV, radio and billboards.
But these days, all a movie might get are a few preferential placements on a streaming homepage – and not much else in terms of widespread promotion.
The streamers are excellent at self-promotion within their own environments. The problem is that relatively few movies escape the confines of their streaming fortress.
Join The Fiesta
Turns out, this town is big enough for the two of us – or for two TV currencies, at least.
On Thursday, the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) released a new report by industry leaders Manish Bhatia and Josh Chasin. The report, entitled “Funding the Fiesta” (because who says big data can’t be fun?), suggests that the US television and video advertising industry is large enough to support “at least two national, currency-grade TV measurement solutions.”
That conclusion may not sound revelatory at first blush considering that so-called “alternative” measurement companies like Comscore and VideoAmp have been nipping at Nielsen’s heels for more than a decade. But the likelihood of a commercially sustainable, multi-currency landscape further reinforces the idea that Nielsen’s long-held dominance is giving way to plurality.
Bhatia and Chasin also argue that currency providers don’t need to be “pure play” anymore and can rely on multiple products and services to stay afloat, rather than just being known for measurement ratings.
In recent years, Nielsen has unsurprisingly touted itself as a global leader in “marketing intelligence” alongside audience measurement and ratings.
But Wait! There’s More!
Dang, even Substack is trying to get into the CTV game. [release]
Grok posted between 1.8 million and 3 million sexualized images on X over just nine days, roughly 23,000 of which depicted children, according to analysis by The New York Times and the Center for Countering Digital Hate. [NYT]
Which raises the question: Why is nobody stopping Grok? [The Verge]
The US and China are finally close to signing the infamous TikTok deal. [Semafor]
Albertsons is expanding its network of digital advertising screens to more than a third of its stores. [Modern Retail]
Google’s AI Mode can now extract data from your Gmail and Google Photos account. [TechCrunch]
You’re Hired!
As part of a licensing deal, Google DeepMind has hired Hume AI CEO Alan Cowen, along with several of the startup’s top engineers. [Wired]
Digital privacy and ad security company Boltive brings on Pamela Slea as CEO and Catherine Mietek as CMO. [release]
