Paramounting Concerns
On Monday, the DOJ closed a months-long investigation of the merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery – but some staffers weren’t satisfied with the process.
Per the Wall Street Journal, career staffers at the DOJ hadn’t made a final recommendation, but were planning to challenge the bid over antitrust concerns.
The department released a public statement on Friday, promising that the merger will be good for competition, particularly in streaming. But some staffers objected to the statement, arguing that it would cause difficulties for state attorneys general who intend to challenge the merger in court.
While some DOJ staffers’ concerns have now been aired publicly, Paramount was not willing to air outside criticisms of the merger on its networks. Paramount blocked an ad from the Freedom of the Press Foundation that painted the planned acquisition in a negative light, according to Wired.
The 30-second ad spot – which was supposed to appear during the livestream of UFC Freedom 250 on Sunday night – quoted Trump calling journalists “the enemy of the people,” as well as citing concerns that Paramount Chairman and CEO David Ellison could sway CNN’s reporting on the president.
Hardly a day later, Fox acquired Roku, continuing to blur the line between political affiliations and (theoretically) neutral media corporations.
AI M&A
Ad tech has seen a slowdown in mergers and acquisitions this year. But Cannes could be a hot spot for dealmaking – particularly for deals that merge data platforms with AI.
That’s according to investment experts who spoke with Adweek about the state of ad tech M&A in advance of the Cannes Lions next week.
Outside of some blockbuster recent deals like Fox’s $22 billion acquisition of Roku and Publicis’s $2.55 billion purchase of LiveRamp, ad tech M&A activity was down 11% in Q1 compared to last year, says Luma Partners’ Terry Kawaja. But he expects deals to pick up coming out of Cannes, particularly around growth markets like CTV, retail media and the creator economy.
Meanwhile, despite some uncertainty around AI vendors’ financials, companies that bridge the gap between data and AI stand out as the most promising acquisition targets, says Brian Anderson at Atlas Technology Group.
With most platforms rushing to build their own AI capabilities, AI tech is quickly becoming commoditized, Anderson says. So, if companies can’t differentiate on their AI solutions, they’ll play up assets that can’t be so easily commoditized, such as strong underlying data spines. In other words, according to Anderson, retail media, ID vendors and measurement platforms remain strong candidates for M&A.
Clip It To Win It
Clipping has earned a bad rap among advertisers and publishers alike. Anonymous armies who churn out would-be viral clips with an eye on quantity, not quality, haven’t helped its reputation. But not everyone sees eye-to-eye.
“Good marketers have always done” some form of the practice, Zaria Parvez, director and head of social at DoorDash, tells the Wall Street Journal. It’s just the latest version of the blooper reel.
In 2016, Taco Bell used a similar tactic to introduce a “quesalupa” in Canada by filming a series of fan-featured comedy dating clips. Taco Bell turned the footage into shorter clips for social media – both paid and organic – and combined the best-performing clips to make TV ads, says Jacquie Kostuk, a social media strategist on the campaign.
Clipping is generally more effective if it’s distributed directly by creators and celebrities themselves, rather than paying pseudonymous users across the web to do it (a practice known as clip farming). Though, if your main goal is just to get as many eyes on your content as possible, farming has its upsides, Parvez acknowledged.
MrBeast seems to agree, having hired an agency called Clip last year to – well, you can probably guess.
Since then, Beast Industries has launched its own clipping agency called Vyro.
“The model needs to be professionalized,” Evan DeFilippis, general manager of Vyro, tells the WSJ. Clipping, he added, “is the future for sure.”
But Wait! There’s More!
Hightouch offers to buy LiveRamp’s identity business from Publicis for up to $1.2 billion. [Axios]
Netflix is getting more involved in M&A and is reportedly interested in acquiring Lionsgate after its bids to buy Warner Bros. Discovery and Roku fell through. [Semafor]
Florida sues TikTok for allegedly violating the state’s ban on under-14 users creating social media accounts. [Reuters]
Taboola opens up its DeeperDive generative AI product to allow third-party AI platforms to create performance-focused native ads. [Digiday]
Meta Threads hits 500 million monthly users and introduces new user preferences and community tools. [Quartz]
Why Oatly’s marketing went from wordy billboards to beverage events. [WSJ]
You’re Hired!
WPP Production appoints John Paulson as managing director, New York. [release]
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