Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Starting Small
Paramount is in the throes of major company changes following its merger deal with Skydance. But it’s got a long way to go to compete with the likes of Disney and NBCUniversal (which is the whole point of merging).
On Wednesday, Paramount launched a self-serve ad manager for small and midsize businesses that generates streaming media plans for Paramount+ and Pluto TV. Those campaigns carry tiny minimums of $500, and advertisers can simply generate video assets from existing images, text and videos.
The new campaign manager is part of a trend of broadcasters launching self-serve ad platforms to attract small and local businesses. But Paramount specifically wants to woo SMBs that “have never even thought about TV advertising” before due to the costs involved in creating and running TV commercials, Emily Huo, SVP of SMB advertising, tells AdExchanger.
Disney, by contrast, pitches self-serve campaigns mainly to linear TV advertisers that are new to streaming but not to TV.
Later this year, Paramount Ads Manager will also launch a tool that converts social media ads into streaming assets.
Funny How, Like a Clown?
Nothing makes sense anymore, so why should comedy?
That’s the basic explanation for Gen Z’s collective absurdist sense of humor. Some even call it “Neo-Dadaism,” after the 1920s art movement similarly marked by weird, nihilistic and anti-capitalist rhetoric. (Not to mention that there was a global pandemic at the time, too. Everything old is new again!)
As Ad Age notes, experimenting with this edgier style of comedy in marketing can be difficult – remember the “anti-capitalist” bit? – but if a brand can manage to nail it, the ROI is through the roof.
Of course, funny is easier said than done and requires the right talent to make creative that actually resonates without feeling formulaic, derivative or, heaven forbid, cringey.
A perfect example: Branded social media accounts posting irreverent nonsense used to be a refreshing novelty, and now even hating on that is so tired that it’s become its own meme.
But you never know. There’s a brand-new humor category at Cannes Lions now, after all, and one of this year’s Grand-Prix prizes went to the ritual sacrifice of an enormous edible Pop Tart. So anything’s possible.
Private Parts
Apple created “Private Browsing” for Safari back in 2005, precipitating major subsequent changes across browsers.
But we’ve now reached a new era for web browsers.
And so Apple has “decided to take Private Browsing further and add even more protection beyond the normal Safari experience,” a contingent of WebKit product leaders, including John Wilander, wrote in a blog post this week.
There are a couple of good shots at Chrome in there, too. For example, Chrome’s interpretation of Incognito mode is referred to as outdated and one of the reasons why Apple says we need a 2.0 version of Private Browsing.
And the Topics API – an important but contentious proposal within Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox – also gets put through the wringer for doing what the Safari team considers the exact wrong thing for a browser to do. In their words: “It is key for the future privacy of the web to not compound the fingerprinting problem with new, fingerprintable APIs.”
It’s a long and technical post, but a notable moment early on explains why Safari considers it to be the browser’s responsibility to make so many default changes that users don’t really understand or opt into – and which deeply affect the web.
“Entering Private Browsing,” they write, “is a strong signal that the user wants the best possible protection against privacy invasions, while still being able to enjoy and utilize the web.”
But Wait, There’s More!
A colossal Wreck, boundless and bare indeed: Ozy Media is officially guilty of fraud. [Ad Age]
Data firm Alliant hires a bank to pursue a potential sale. [Adweek]
“It’s in Google’s best interest”: Sources urge more formal Privacy Sandbox legal terms. [Digiday]
The Brandtech Group is launching a residency program for generative AI artists and creators. [Business Insider]
