Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Snack Attack
Snacks have taken over American culture and media. How?
An essay in The Atlantic explores that question and often finds advertising at the heart of the change.
The ball started rolling with loosened restrictions on advertising in the ’80s, meaning processed food could be hawked by mascots and cartoons. The consolidation of grocery chains and the rise of data-driven services accelerated the trend.
Small or regional grocers have been replaced by big chains or are themselves “now working with national and international snack-food companies with bigger advertising budgets,” The Atlantic writes.
One might expect snack food to fall under an impulse buy, almost like candy and gum, which sell ineffectively online. But some snacks have an ecommerce edge.
Wonderful, the largest pistachio and nut seller, says its bags of BBQ pistachios can be targeted to someone searching for BBQ chips and be marketed as a low-sodium option with protein.
It’s easier to leap over the aisle online, so to speak, Wonderful’s marketing VP, Diana Salsa, recently told AdExchanger. In stores, Wonderful’s snacks are slotted in among fruits and vegetables, not next to potato chips.
Brazilian Ax
Brazil’s ban on X is having an impact on more than just Elon Musk.
As Business Insider reports, there is – or was, more accurately – a huge contingent of Brazilian “stans” (shorthand for a certain type of extreme fan) on X who were passionately posting about celebrities, from fandom-specific memes to meticulously archived paparazzi photos.
Culture reporter Taylor Lorenz went deeper into the phenomenon on her Substack late last week, claiming that some music labels and PR agencies were reportedly “scrambling on Friday night to assess the impact the ban might have on their talents’ fandoms.”
Marketers have already been wary of allocating their budget to X for brand safety reasons. According to a recent Kantar report, a quarter of those polled plan to further reduce ad spend on X in 2025.
But even when Stan Twitter was still intact, overall engagement was already down 20% in 2024, per social analytics site Rival IQ. Maybe it’s past time to give up the notion that X is still effective for maintaining an organic follower base.
So what’s next? Most of Brazil’s stans went to Bluesky, if you feel like following them there – but for the marketers out there, Threads is more likely to develop an ad network first.
New Ads On The ’Blox
Roblox announced a slate of updates to its ecommerce and advertising offerings at its annual developer conference on Friday.
Starting in early 2025, Roblox will give all creators and brands the ability to sell real-world products through virtual storefronts. Roblox is pursuing ecommerce partnerships, and it named Shopify as its first integration.
In terms of new ad inventory, Roblox introduced search advertising to its platform last month. Roblox also plans to unveil video ad products later this year to supplement its existing video billboard and Portal placements. These new products will include takeover-style video ads that load outside of gameplay, including on launch screen menus or within virtual storefronts.
There’s more, though. Roblox announced a new revenue sharing model for creators who facilitate purchases that use real-world currency, rather than Roblox’s proprietary Robux. On desktop, creators will keep between 50% and 70% of revenue from purchases paid with real money – a much better share than the 30% they get for purchases made using Robux.
The split may be less generous in-app, however, since those purchases are still subject to Google’s and Apple’s respective app store fees.
But Wait, There’s More!
How The Trade Desk is using smart TVs to protect its ad-buying business. [Ad Age]
YouTube has a new set of AI detection tools for music and faces that are meant to better protect creators. [TechCrunch]
No, your phone isn’t secretly listening to you for ad targeting. [Mobile Dev Memo]
Far-right cable network Newsmax plans to go public and confidentially filed for its IPO. [Fortune]
