Breaking news: Google doesn’t need to break itself up to resolve its search monopoly, CNN reports.
Judge Amit Mehta ruled on Tuesday that Google must share search results and some other data with “qualified competitors,” meaning other rival search companies.
But Judge Mehta did not rule that Google must sell off its Chrome browser, which the Department of Justice had requested as a remedy for Google’s anticompetitive behavior in the search market. Google also doesn’t have to sell its Android operating system.
Oh, and the judge said Google can continue to pay other platforms to make Google their default search engine, citing the potential harm to downstream partners if that type of deal were banned. Google’s annual payments to Apple and Mozilla to be the default search engine for Safari and Firefox totaled $26.3 billion in 2021.
A couple of shoes have yet to drop for Google, though. Judge Leonie Brinkema’s remedies in the DOJ’s ad tech antitrust trial against Google are still pending; the remedy phase in that case starts later this month. There’s also another ad tech antitrust case brought by Texas and other states that’s on ice (for now).
But Judge Mehta’s finding that the government “overreached in seeking forced divesture” of Google’s assets in his case could put a damper on any potential breakup of Google’s ad business. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens in Virginia.
Foreign Agents
Publicis has outperformed other agency holdcos largely because of the tech and data businesses it’s acquired, which themselves have large agency clients.
This has been an uncomfortable arrangement for the past year or so. Retail media agency Flywheel Digital used to spend around $250 million annually with CitrusAd, Publicis’ retail SSP, one exec told AdExchanger last year. But since Flywheel’s acquisition by Omnicom in January, that’s petered out to near zero.
But CitrusAd is a minor player in this drama. It’s Publicis-owned Epsilon that agency buyers are most keen to avoid, as Adweek reports. For one, third-party SSPs like Epsilon’s are, no offense, highly replaceable. They’re the field-goal kickers of the ad tech roster. In other words, agency buyers can easily divert budgets.
Also, the combination of Epsilon’s brand-side data brokerage and supply-side ad tech means it, in theory, has intriguing info on what media and audiences other agency clients are targeting. That data would – again, highly theoretically – be quite useful to Publicis for RFPs.
The real reason this comes up now, however, roughly five years after Epsilon’s acquisition, is that agency buyers have no idea where they’re spending money in the programmatic chain. Or, as Adweek puts it, a handful of the world’s largest advertising holdcos “have funneled money and data to rival Publicis Groupe without knowing it.”
Perplexing
Until recently, Perplexity stood out from other LLM operators, such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Anthropic with Claude, because it embraced advertising without reservation.
Did you notice that we used the past tense there?
Late last year, Perplexity hired ad tech vet Taz Patel to grow its ad business – but the business never materialized. The company could count its number of ad clients on two hands and its ad revenue was a rounding error. Patel recently left his role after less than a year.
Now, Perplexity has shelved its advertising ambitions, Ad Age reports.
Perplexity faced a grueling uphill climb. Although big brands and merchants want in on generative AI search, Perplexity wouldn’t concede what marketers really want from an AI search engine: influence over what users see.
But advertisers had no say, let alone guarantees, when it came to the language or framing used to describe their brand or products in search results. Advertisers couldn’t pay to appear in searches more often or select the product reviews that might be referenced.
Perplexity was also trying to charge on a CPM basis and wean search advertisers away from the preexisting cost-per-click model. Tough slog.
“User expectations have evolved in the age of AI,” a Perplexity spokesperson tells Ad Age, “so it’s obvious that the traffic and clicks model of the internet is a dying one.”
Misplaying The Metaverse
The metaverse is dead; long live the metaverse.
Blockbuster online games like Fortnite from Epic Games still secure custom marketing deals, reports Digiday, but in-game advertisers are missing opportunities for cheaper, everyday activations.
Take a branded experience like “Road Test Royale” by insurance company The General. The number of branded experiences like it on Fortnite grew from 136 in 2023 to 270 last year, according to gaming data platform GEEIQ.
Typically, brands farm out designing a game like “Road Test Royale” to experienced Fortnite developers. Then they pay influencers to promote their games, like in this TikTok of T-Pain hyping his “Road Test Royale” Twitch stream.
These types of campaigns can run brands anywhere between $300,000 and $500,000, according to Digiday, and custom games often struggle to draw an audience. Or brands can just pay between $20,000 and $50,000 to be promoted by an already-popular Fortnite game.
But some brands are looking for more than on-platform engagement – and they’re getting it. The General, for instance, claims its Fortnite game amassed 50 million total views through influencer outreach.
Yet other brands prioritize ease of activation and smaller investments. That’s why Fortnite rival Roblox rolled out ad placements in popular experiences that can be purchased programmatically – with no need to build an expensive, custom gameworld.
But Wait! There’s More!
How Jared Collett of Major League Fishing used ad-refreshing JavaScript code to boost viewability from 55% to 89%. [AdMonsters]
Almost every state has its own anti-deepfake laws now. [404 Media]
The EU has paused its plans to fine Google for ad tech-related antitrust violations, fearing retaliation from the US government. [Bloomberg]
Kraft Heinz is splitting up. [Washington Post]
Nielsen’s streaming data could take up to three days to tabulate accurately during this year’s broadcast season. [Media Play News]
Disney will pay $10 million to settle a lawsuit with the FTC regarding its failure to designate certain videos as targeted toward children. [Axios]
You’re Hired!
Chloe Malle, previously editor of Vogue.com, will take over Anna Wintour’s role as the top editor of Vogue US. [NYT]
Criteo appoints Janine Flaccavento as managing director of Canada. [release]
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