Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Sweet Tooth
In an alternate universe, perhaps, Chrome met its original deadline, and advertisers are 18 months beyond third-party cookies.
But here we are, two can-kicks down the road, and some industry observers think Chrome won’t make its 2024 deadline either, Insider reports.
The first two delays were expected. Chrome and the Google ad tech business clearly didn’t have commercial-ready replacements, nor anything close. They still don’t, mind. But the structure is in place, and Google Ads and Chrome are doing things – like pressing adoption in public forums, documenting new products and opening Chrome’s APIs to general users – that would presage cookie deprecation.
Doubters say time is past. And they have a point.
Google’s plan is for the CMA, the UK antitrust regulator, to evaluate the Privacy Sandbox solutions over six months. Once the CMA approves, there’s a three-month weaning period while Chrome actually deprecates cookies. (They don’t flip a switch, but, over three months, the life span of a third-party cookie placement will shrink from weeks to days before disappearing.)
Realistically, it must be done before Q4 2024, too, since force-shifting people off cookies during the holidays would bring down fire and brimstone on Google Ads.
The Safety Squeeze
Brand safety tech still demonetizes sites that cover hot-button news or topics.
Last week, G/O Media shut down feminist news site Jezebel, ending the site’s 16-year run. “Our business model […] did not align with Jezebel’s,” says G/O CEO Jim Spanfeller – meaning G/O had trouble monetizing with ads.
Brand safety was “one of the biggest factors,” Jezebel’s interim editor-in-chief, Lauren Tousignant, tells 404 Media.
Jezebel’s coverage of topics related to abortion, for instance, has taken on increased importance as recent US elections have hinged on abortion access. But it’s a no-go for advertisers, who use keyword-blocking tech to prevent ads appearing alongside keywords like “abortion, “Roe” and “Dobbs” (the case overturning the Roe v. Wade decision).
The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which categorizes media on behalf of brand safety vendors, identifies “partisan” coverage of “debated social issues” as “high risk.” And the WFA recently warned brands against running afoul of rising political polarization.
As a result, the ad industry is backing away from journalism “at the very time when news has become more important to keep the electorate informed,” says Ad Fontes Media’s Lou Paskalis.
Check Yourself
Americans may not have heard of Booths, a 28-store grocery chain in northern England. But it’s potentially an early mover in a new trend: Retailers giving up on self-checkout and reverting back to humans, The New York Times reports.
It’s an interesting calculus. Self-checkout saves time – although individuals hate it because machines are apt to misread an item or fail in some way and require human assistance anyways. It also saves money on headcount, but, on average, it more than doubles the loss rate (i.e., the products lost or stolen).
Another factor in their favor (from the retailer point of view) is that self-checkout is a major boon to data-driven ad businesses. To secure a discount, people are far more likely to give their phone number to a machine than to a person.
Walmart removed all self-checkout lanes from three stores in Albuquerque, Insider reported in September. But it seems to be doing tests of different levels of cashier and store-associate involvement in the market.
That likely doesn’t factor into Booths’ decision, but don’t expect to see a widespread reversal of the self-checkout trend.
But Wait, There’s More!
Gen Z and millennial Americans are more open to brands taking political stances, but most adults still want brands out of politics. [Marketing Brew]
BuzzFeed is restructuring publications as it auctions off Complex and seeks a growth trajectory. [Digiday]
With Hollywood strikes over, TV networks scramble to salvage their Q4. [Bloomberg]
