AdExchanger is officially on the ground in Cannes (on the beach, rather, or La Croisette to the initiated), with all the news and gossip from the south of France.
Check out the missives from editors Sarah Sluis, Allison Schiff and Lynne d Johnson in our separate Cannes briefing (a great way to combat the FOMO, for the folks at home)!
Take A Flyer
A couple of years ago, AdExchanger reported a small but interesting investment in the retail media startup Topsort. The investment was notable because the investor Moloco competes directly with Topsort.
Now, Axios reports that a similar deal on a far grander scale has taken place, with Google, Meta, Unity and Moloco all investing in the mobile measurement and optimization company AppsFlyer. The individual investments were not disclosed, though the round totaled more than $1 billion, per Axios.
There is no preferential status or exclusivity for the new AppsFlyer investors. They say their interest in the platform is solely an attempt to establish independent, cross-channel mobile measurement tools with credible claims to third-party transparency.
The deal might be seen as shots fired at AppLovin, another major mobile ad network operator, and one which has placed great emphasis as of late on its consumer and ecommerce ad business.
Although it’s more likely that the real catalyzing force behind all these mobile ad players throwing in with one another is Apple’s upending of the mobile measurement market – as AppsFlyer Co-Founder and CEO Oren Kaniel foreshadowed in an AdExchanger Talks podcast from 2022.
Rock The House
NBCU is kicking off Cannes by unveiling Rock Studios, a creative studio for brand integrations, from product placements to sponsored programming. Naturally, the studio is connected to NBCU’s data, commerce and tech pipes, Adweek reports.
The branded content pitch is nothing new. Brands see content integrations as an intuitive way to advertise without bombarding people with traditional commercials. But NBCU says it can tie its branded content to measurable performance impacts, which is No. 1 on nearly all advertisers’ wish lists.
Rock Studios worked with more than 400 brand partners last year on a variety of projects, which NBCU says drove high engagement as well as more tangible results among viewers and fans. For example, Coffee-Mate’s brand integrations on Peacock’s “Love Island” Season 7 drove 92% lift in brand favorability and 93% lift in purchase consideration, according to NBCU.
But brands beware: Consumers don’t appreciate it when their TV shows look like commercials.
Reddit users criticized the Coffee-Mate integrations, partly because the coffee creamer brand isn’t exactly endemic to “Love Island” dating drama. “At least the Maybelline one made sense,” one poster commented. Another called the sponsorship an obvious money grab.
Which, yeah. That’s advertising for you.
Not Everyone Gets To Be TV
Ever since Meta (née Facebook) bought Instagram in 2012, the app has made a sharp practice of copying its competitors.
Vine got popular; Boomerang launched. Snapchat got popular; Instagram Stories launched. TikTok got popular; Instagram Reels launched.
Buried in that timeline is the brief period when Instagram tried to compete with YouTube. “IGTV” was a video platform where Instagram users could upload 10-minute videos. It launched in 2018 before being sunsetted in 2020 after failing to make a dent in YouTube’s popularity.
Now, YouTube considers itself to be as big as (if not bigger than) TV. And Instagram is going back to its copycat roots.
Meta unveiled new features for its Instagram for TV app on Monday. The app previously allowed users to watch vertical Reels videos from their televisions. Now it’s adding a horizontal video component intended for longer-form, episodic series, The Hollywood Reporter notes.
Meta has flirted with CTV advertising for months, but so far the rumors have revolved around audience data expansion models, not content distribution or production. So this is a big step forward for Meta as a CTV publisher.
But advertisers still aren’t sure if even YouTube counts as TV. So Instagram has some convincing to do if it wants to win TV ad budgets.
But Wait! There’s More!
Samba TV acquires creative automation platform Bestever AI and appoints its CEO and co-founder Apoorva Govind as Samba’s director of product. [release]
Amazon releases conversational display ads across the open web. [Adweek]
Many of the winning bets that social media users claim to make on Polymarket are fake – and the users themselves were paid to post. [WSJ]
A UK consumer group calls for more transparency from social media ads that feature AI-generated influencers. [The Guardian]
AI data center backlash has gotten so intense that even electricians are feeling it. [Wired]
Spectrum’s intelligence arm has a new platform designed to help buyers plan campaigns at the household level based on cross-device activity. [release]
You’re Hired!
Meta hires Kunal Shah to take over as WhatsApp’s new leader. [TechCrunch]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
