Wall Street Unsubscribes
Once upon a time, in the distant, long-ago days of, like, 2021, investors were all clamoring for subscription businesses.
They wanted subscriptions from formerly free digital media publishers, old newspaper companies, broadcasters launching streaming services, retailers and technology companies.
Subscriptions were considered a bastion of reliability, compared to ad tech vendors, say, that must constantly earn their next meal.
Nowadays, though, Wall Street has practically written off the SaaS market as doomed to be cannibalized by generative AI coding. Bloomberg reports that Liftoff Mobile, acquired by the PE fund Blackstone in 2020, unceremoniously called off its pending IPO “given current market conditions,” per a Liftoff spokesperson. Bloomberg succinctly calls it a “software rout” on Wall Street.
Even mobile category darling AppLovin is year-to-date down 44%.
LiveRamp, which reported a better-than-expected quarter revenue-wise and for profit margin, faced a set of investors likewise preoccupied with the SaaS downturn.
“I just wonder if you could maybe give us some assurance that your customers are doing well, that everything is going well,” asked one investor about LiveRamp’s hub of SaaS partners – sounding not bearish, but genuinely concerned for their well-being.
AI For Ads Integrity
Business Insider reported last week that OpenAI is hiring a software engineer in its “Ads Integrity” unit.
“This team sits at the intersection of rapid revenue growth and responsible platform stewardship, designing systems that enable ads to scale without compromising user trust or safety,” per the job listing.
Although, as Tipsheet AI notes in a followup report, the whole OpenAI “Integrity team” moniker seems consistent throughout the organization. The label comes up in eight total job listings, only one of which relates to the Ads group.
“Integrity doesn’t seem to be just an ads aspiration,” writes John Ebbert. (“Hi, John!”)
As Tipsheet notes, incorporating “Integrity” into everything makes sense for a company with OpenAI’s spotlight. But being overly cautious or overly nice about advertising has risks, too.
For veterans of the ads business, it seems inevitable that there will be ChatGPT advertising blunders: contextual mishaps, privacy transgressions, overeager ad sales and just downright cringey moments.
Accept it.
Ebbert says he’d argue that “integrity is table stakes and this company’s ad strategy needs to move forward with urgency that must plow through the inevitable missteps early on.”
Bespoke Bowls
If a Super Bowl ad only airs on streaming media, is it a real Super Bowl ad?
Technically, yes, according to Variety – so long as the advertisers who buy that ad time don’t expect to reach the same audience of millions they would during the official telecast.
Streaming-only Super Bowl ads aren’t brand new to this year’s game, but NBCUniversal sure did sell a bunch of them on Peacock this year, placing them over the spots that would otherwise be reserved for local affiliate stations.
(Which feels appropriate, given that major companies sometimes buy targeted local ads for the Super Bowl as a way to save money, too.)
While NBCU was charging between $7 million and $10 million for a typical 30-second ad spot, it only charged $3 million for its Peacock-exclusive placements, an anonymous source tells Variety.
Once Disney gets its four-fingered, toon-gloved hands on the event for next year’s broadcast, it’s likely that there’ll be a lot more opportunity for targeted, streaming ad spots.
Heck, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro has been talking about designing and airing multiple audience-specific NFL broadcasts since as far back as 2021. Ad personalization is a much easier lift in comparison.
But Wait! There’s More!
The EU tells TikTok that it must change its product’s “addictive design” or face heavy fines. [BBC]
Over 880 workers at Google are publicly calling on the company to disclose and cancel its contracts with DHS and ICE. [Wired]
How e.l.f. Beauty used Super Bowl ads to seriously beef up its brand awareness. [Fortune]
Programmatic is drawing more brands to this year’s Winter Olympics. [Digiday]
Newsletter-based media company 6AM City eliminates about a third of its staff in the hopes of achieving profitability. [Adweek]
