Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
No Kidding
The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued TikTok on Friday over its handling of kids’ private data.
The DOJ alleges TikTok’s data-gathering practices violate the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and that the social platform failed to adhere to commitments it made in 2019 to protect kids’ privacy, The New York Times reports.
TikTok doesn’t allow users under 13 to register an account. But it does offer a Kids Mode for under-13 users that is meant to limit data collection. However, the DOJ claims TikTok collected the email addresses of users logged into Kids Mode without notifying their parents.
The DOJ also alleges TikTok failed in its responsibility to check whether kids are active on the platform. The lawsuit claims TikTok representatives spend just five to seven seconds on average evaluating whether accounts belong to children, which TikTok’s own employees flagged as an issue.
The suit is just the latest legal drama between TikTok and the US. TikTok is also suing the US over a law passed in April mandating that the company be sold to a non-Chinese owner. The FTC also fined TikTok $5.7 million back in 2019 over kids’ privacy violations, leading to the commitments the DOJ now accuses the company of failing to honor.
Upfronts On The Up And Up
And that’s a wrap for Disney’s upfront negotiation period.
Its volume of ad deals is 5% higher than last year’s upfront, Variety reports. Which is good for the Mouse House, considering new entrants like Netflix and Prime Video arguably made this year’s upfront season the most competitive one yet.
Pricing rollbacks were one tactic Disney tried in an effort to stay ahead of the competition. During negotiations this summer, Disney lowered the cost of ads on Disney+ by between 10% and 15% in some cases, which ultimately helped it secure bigger deals across its TV and streaming portfolio.
Streaming ad commitments were 10% higher than last year for Disney, in part because it started letting advertisers buy combined campaigns for Disney+ and Hulu earlier this year. TV advertisers want to put their upfront budgets in the broadest media portfolios they can find.
Last but not least, Disney also cites sports as a factor in its upfront success. Multiyear sports deals grew by double digits, according to the company, which would explain its heightened emphasis on ESPN.
Affluential Intelligence
Companies are ramping up ad spend on AI this year, Digiday reports.
More than $107 million was spent on ads for AI products in the first half of 2024, compared to only $5.6 million during the same time period in 2023. So far, 54% of that spend has gone toward TV advertising.
Of course, just because there are more ads doesn’t mean the AI business will be booming forever. Remember that crypto companies spent upwards of $54 million just on Super Bowl ads in 2022 (including $6.5 million from FTX alone, and we all know how that turned out).
But it certainly helps that, unlike the crypto boom, most AI advertising is coming from large tech companies that already had plenty of money to burn, like Meta, Intel, Google and Alibaba.
Although, the advertising did backfire for Google, which just pulled its Gemini-focused “Dear Sydney” ad from airwaves after its Olympics premiere drew criticism. In the ad, a girl uses AI to write a fan letter, which comes off as impersonal and, well, written by AI.
But where AI marketing as a category is concerned, it remains to be seen whether the “Dear Sydney” misstep is an exception or an ill portent of more backlash to come.
But Wait, There’s More!
Between July 21 and 27, political advertisers spent $27.8 million on Meta and $26.3 million on Google. The Harris campaign outspent the Trump campaign on both platforms by 20x. [FWIW]
One year after Meta blocked Canadian news from its platform in opposition to a revenue-sharing law, news engagement by Canadians on social media is down 43%, and 30% of Canadian local news orgs have become inactive on social media. [The Canadian Press]
The Washington Post is building a social media division to court Gen Z under new CEO Will Lewis – despite the difficulty Lewis’s previous company and other media orgs have had monetizing their social followings. [NYT]
Retail sites fail to identify 85% of customers, according to Bluecore research. [MarTech]
NBCU partners with Instacart and Flowcode on an Olympics campaign that lets viewers order food using onscreen QR codes. [Adweek]
Be kind to your project managers – they’re more likely to suffer from burnout than any other type of worker. [LinkedIn News]
