Prompt Partners
There’s a well-worn playbook for big media owners entering programmatic. First, they pick one exclusive or preferred platform partner. Think Walmart and The Trade Desk or Netflix and Microsoft Advertising (née AppNexus).
Then, they branch out and add partners, sometimes whole partner programs for creative, measurement, media buying and analytics. Once they’re sophisticated enough to bring those services in-house or consolidate them, they cut the vendor roster back down.
At first, ChatGPT Ads seemed in no hurry to move past that first phase.
Well, now it’s speedrunning the playbook. This week alone, Equativ and Quartile joined its technology partner program. Earlier this month, Adform signed on to sell ChatGPT’s agentic conversation ads in Europe. Oh, and Amazon Ads is now beta testing ads in ChatGPT.
So who’s missing? The Trade Desk. Rumors of a ChatGPT Ads-TTD partnership have been swirling since around the time OpenAI hired Samantha Jacobson, TTD’s former chief strategy officer, as its VP of partnerships.
Yet the biggest independent DSP is one of the few that still hasn’t announced a ChatGPT deal.
Beyond The Big Mac
Thought you could at least grab a Big Mac in peace? Think again.
McDonald’s is testing ads on the digital menu boards at its drive-thru windows. The ads will display during the mouth-watering minutes between customers ordering and waiting for their food, Bloomberg reports. A spokesperson said the company plans to “share post-purchase content” about what customers buy after they visit a McDonald’s location.
McDonald’s will also feature items from other brands, although the specifics are still under wraps.
It’s not surprising that McDonald’s would eventually decide to serve up an ads business. Introducing advertising is a popular and high-margin strategy for many restaurants, grocers and other companies in the food biz trying to monetize their rich, first-party customer data.
But McDonald’s has had its eye on those menu boards for a while. In 2019, it bought personalization company Dynamic Yield to tailor drive-through menu recommendations, before selling it to Mastercard in 2022.
So why now? McDonald’s is contending with higher costs, softer foot traffic and a record slowdown in sales growth. A new revenue stream couldn’t hurt.
Livin’ The Stream
Neal Mohan’s goal of turning YouTube into the next incarnation of TV is going well.
On Wednesday, at Google’s Made on YouTube event, the platform announced new features that will allow Shorts creators to turn their videos into series and viewers to leave comments using their TV remote.
More than half of YouTube’s top 100 creators “now have TV as their most watched interface,” Kurt Wilms, senior director of product management at YouTube, tells TheWrap. So accessing a “Show Feed” with all the episodes of a series in order will be a boon for viewers.
Another change announced at Made on YouTube is homepage feed curation, not just algorithmically but using natural language prompts. Wired’s Reece Rogers reports that after prompting for a feed of “gooey macaroni and cheese recipe videos, Caleb Hearon clip compilations, and crystal singing bowl videos under 15 minutes,” he received exactly that.
If that isn’t enough, YouTube also announced a streaming rights deal to be the sole livestreamer of Coachella through 2030, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
“We’re excited to bring the energy of the desert to millions of music fans around the world,” says Mohan. Or, perhaps more aptly, to millions of living rooms.
But Wait! There’s More!
Why do LLMs cite YouTube so frequently? [Digiday]
Stanford’s residential and dining services violated university policy by using generative AI to replace an image of an actual male Hispanic student with a completely fabricated Black woman in advertisements. [San Francisco Chronicle]
Disney plans to raise prices on several of its streaming subscriptions within Disney+ and Hulu … again. [WSJ]
Relatedly, Pluto TV has a new ad campaign as it tries to remind people it’s one of the only free streaming services in town. [Bloomberg]
Scope3 changes its name to Apostra and is officially not about sustainability anymore. [Adweek]
All Financial is rethinking its CMO role. [Ad Age]
You’re Hired!
AI ad optimization startup Scowtt names ad tech vet Ben Trenda as CRO. [release]
