Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
The Pub Trawl
With generative AI tech, publishers are speeding through decades’ worth of web monetization cycles, which is a fancy way to say publishers are making the same mistakes.
Last month, Jessica Lessin, founder and CEO of The Information, published a column for The Atlantic arguing that media companies made critical errors by licensing their data too early to OpenAI, Google and other generative AI tech companies. A week later, The Atlantic signed another such deal with OpenAI.
Business Insider CEO Barbara Peng sent a memo to employees saying Google’s longtime role as “helpful librarian” to the internet is going away, and news companies in particular will see less traffic from the search engine. Peng is justifying BI’s own deal with OpenAI (via parent company Axel Springer).
Treating generative AI crawlers like search engine crawlers, which publishers generally allow, makes intuitive sense.
However, search crawlers don’t rampantly plagiarize content.
The latest example of plagiarism involves Perplexity AI, which was found regurgitating articles by sites like CNN, Bloomberg and Forbes without credit.
Part of Perplexity’s pitch is that it features source attribution, in contrast to OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini.
Ad Spend Reading
GroupM has big expectations for ad spend growth this year.
The agency predicts global ad revenue will grow 7.8% in 2024 to $989.8 billion, up from its December forecast of 5.3% growth.
The agency revised up its forecast thanks to two shiny objects: retail media and connected TV.
Retail media remains the fastest-growing segment of digital advertising, according to the report. By 2029, it should comprise 17.5% of total ad revenue.
“There are likely aspects of commerce across most advertising dollars,” according to the forecast. That’s because plain ol’ upper-funnel branding isn’t cutting it anymore. Buyers and sellers are forcing more attribution and performance metrics onto TV and streaming.
Speaking of which, CTV ad revenue is expected to grow 20.1% this year to $38.3 billion. This optimistic forecast is in part due to GroupM’s recent decision to increase the ratio of YouTube inventory it considers CTV, rather than just digital video.
And a little YouTube can go a long way. YouTube now makes up nearly 10% of total TV viewing hours, second only to Disney.
Driving Change
Ad tech experience can come in handy to identify other thorny areas of data collection, surveillance and consent.
“Rob Leathern, a tech executive in Texas, was surprised last year when he got an email from Toyota saying he could get ‘big savings’ from Progressive because he’d been identified as a safe driver, based on information collected from his 2023 Sequoia,” writes Kashmir Hill in her newsletter for The New York Times. She focuses on how carmakers and insurance apps quietly collect info on drivers – Driving late at night? Braking? Speeding? – to decide insurance rates.
Leathern, a longtime programmatic vet, most recently served as privacy tech leader at Facebook and then Google. And he wanted to know how Progressive decided he was a safe driver.
“It took a month of emails, phone calls and data privacy requests to find out that a data broker affiliated with Toyota called Connected Analytic Services had a Microsoft Excel file with second-by-second records listing every time [Leathern] had driven faster than 85 mph, slammed on his brakes or accelerated rapidly.”
The point is it takes experience and insider knowledge to parse what’s happening with marketing data purposes based on a Progressive insurance promo.
But Wait, There’s More!
What it will take for advertisers to finally get ready to let go of the third-party cookie. [Digiday]
Google TV introduces FAST advertising options. [StreamTV Insider]
How the digital-native olive oil company Graza made it in retail. [CNBC]
Yahoo is releasing its answer to Google’s PMax or Meta Advantage+, but it’s offering more transparency to advertisers. [Adweek]
You’re Hired!
LG Ad Solutions promotes Dave Rudnick to chief technology officer. [release]
