Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf?
The US v. Google antitrust trial is over, but nobody’s done with the drama. And the next main character could only be The Trade Desk.
TTD has long been the industry’s David to Google’s Goliath.
“However, no longer,” Lotame CEO Andy Monfried posted on X last week. “They became what they preached against,” he wrote, “and more to the point, once they got big enough, they became the new industry ‘bully.’”
Viant COO Chris Vanderhook expressed a similar sentiment in a recent LinkedIn post framing The Trade Desk as the new Google.
And Therran Oliphant, now SVP of ad tech and agency partnerships at Flashtalking, posted on X over the summer that “TTD is becoming a true hedged garden. Let’s see if they lay brick and control access to your performance data.”
But not everyone’s down on TTD. David Danziger, a LiveRamp exec (via the Habu acquisition) and The Trade Desk’s longtime head of data partnerships before that, has a LinkedIn rejoinder that can be summed up thusly: “I mean, please, c’mon.” His post is titled: “Monopolistic… Bully… The Trade Desk? Say It Ain’t So (and It Ain’t).”
In Danziger’s view, there’s Google, Amazon and Microsoft to deal with, and you’re saying this standalone DSP is the new top baddie? Nah.
We’ll see.
Primed
Amazon Prime took a heterodox approach when it started running ads in January.
Unlike Netflix, Disney+ and most other ad-free services that launched an ad tier, Prime Video started serving ads to everyone by default. Other streamers had taken to grandfathering in ad-free users, but with a cheaper, ad-supported option they could switch to. But Amazon forced ads and asked subscribers to pay more to avoid them.
The result is that Amazon has disproportionately more supply than other ad-supported streaming services with a similarly large share of attention. And Amazon will soon increase its Prime Video inventory again, the Financial Times reports.
Prime Video started with a “gentle entry into advertising that has exceeded customers expectations,” Kelly Day, Amazon’s VP of Prime Video International, tells FT.
Seeing as people are so thrilled about it, the Prime Video ad load will “ramp up a little bit more in 2025.”
Viewers might be frustrated with the increased ad load and point to Amazon’s reputation for always putting the customer first. But, actually, advertisers are Amazon’s more important customers in this equation.
Charter A New Course
Speaking of streaming TV ads, Charter just struck a deal with NBCUniversal for free access to Peacock’s ad-supported service for Charter’s Spectrum TV Select subscribers, Bloomberg reports.
For a linear and cable TV provider like Charter, this is an important win to iron out content access. Many of its subscribers are frustrated about double-paying for live shows and/or sports also available on the Peacock app.
This year, Charter signed similar deals with Warner Bros. Discovery to include ad-supported versions of Max (formerly HBO), Paramount+ and Disney+.
The streamers benefit from additional scale. They’re very anxious about their subscriber counts. Investors are backing companies with the most subs, even if there isn’t much ad revenue right now. Disney is a $170 billion company. Netflix’s market cap is $305 billion.
So having Charter give away free access is one way for a streaming service to raise its total number of accounts. The incremental ad supply doesn’t hurt, either.
Charter says its subscribers now get a $65 value just from the streaming services it includes.
Guess the new online skinny bundle truly is reverting back to the cable bundle.
But Wait, There’s More!
Roblox is starting to take programmatic advertising more seriously. [Digiday]
Nike left many retailers to go DTC. Now it’s struggling to regain that shelf space. [WSJ]
Someone integrated facial recognition tech with Meta’s smart glasses to instantly dox strangers. It kinda works. [404 Media]
