Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Pod Patrol
The CTV ad experience is a hot topic at CES this week.
Streamers and brands are exploring interactive ad units, while platforms are still trying to determine the optimal streaming ad load.
But no matter how advertisers prefer to engage viewers, “the ad experience shouldn’t be irritating to consumers,” Comcast Advertising President James Rooke tells AdExchanger at CES.
According to recent findings by FreeWheel’s innovation lab about how TV viewers respond to different ad loads and new ad formats, an ad frequency cap of two or three exposures per program can positively impact brand recognition and purchase intent (compared to the veritable ad bombardment some people experience on streaming services).
Also among the findings: Grouping ads by creative length within a pod increases brand favorability, because consistency makes the commercial break feel shorter.
Ad breaks of two minutes or less also improves brand perception because, well, consumers actually see the ads. (Serve an ad break longer than two minutes, and your viewers have left the room or taken out their phones for sure.)
Mobile Incoming
Eric Seufert of Mobile Dev Memo published his annual mobile gaming predictions, and there’s a number of interesting angles for ad tech in particular.
He starts off with a bang by predicting that Microsoft will launch a mobile game ad product in 2024 – either as an ad network or its own gaming app store with search ads.
Microsoft has the Xandr SSP, Seufert notes as one synergy.
Also, while most Microsoft services (Teams or LinkedIn, say) do not incorporate their data into the Microsoft Advertising identity graph, Xbox log-ins do sync with the ad identities.
Separately, he predicts that in-game mediation changes will continue – essentially, mobile games are serving more ads in real-time open auction formats, and thus getting more programmatic demand. There will be an opportunity for SSPs to sell more in-game ad inventory, as developers look for ways to demonstrate value and try new units that are better proxies for engagement (since popular games have great audience attention times but relatively few ad opportunities, and those units link people away from the game).
Supply Is Demand
YouTube is in its programming prime (no pun intended). It commands the largest share of TV viewership compared to any other service. And there’s an endless supply of new content with no production costs.
It straddles a wide range, though. YouTube TV includes the NFL Sunday Ticket package, the most premium TV inventory there is, but there’s also CTV inventory on videos uploaded by a creator like MrBeast, who brings high production value, along with YouTubers with far lower standards.
“I am challenging myself, as my New Year’s resolution, to figure out how I classify [YouTube] to clients,” one anonymous agency exec tells Digiday.
YouTube is by far the greatest provider of CTV inventory scale. It’s also the most data-driven, in the sense of biddable, real-time inventory.
But aside from displaying content on the same smart TVs as the other top streaming apps, YouTube’s user-generated CTV supply doesn’t translate in quite the same way as the professionally produced content packaged by traditional broadcasters and new studio operators, like Netflix, Apple Studios and Amazon Prime Video.
YouTube TV can be an uncomfortable mirror for broadcasters, too, who see that the premium attached to their studio names doesn’t translate to reliably higher CPMs.
But Wait, There’s More!
Amazon is cutting hundreds of jobs across Prime Video and MGM Studios. [The Hollywood Reporter] The cuts come one day after about 500 layoffs at Twitch. [Bloomberg]
TikTok Shop sellers say its AI moderation has gone rogue, doling out ‘bogus’ violations and freezing products without clear explanations. [Business Insider]
OpenAI’s new app store could turn ChatGPT into an everything app. [Wired]
Top retailers are taking over CES now that retail media is a thing. [Ad Age]
You’re Hired!
Nick Cuniffe joins OpenX as VP of product, CTV. [release]
Quorum adds Diane Wiley as programmatic account manager. [release]
M&C Saatchi Performance promotes execs to leadership roles. [release]
