Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
In The Market
The “Marketect” has struck again.
By which we mean that Ari Paparo, founder of advertising info resource Marketecture (and of Beeswax back in the day), has snapped up another ad tech-y property. This time it’s Ad Tech Explained, a newsletter by Trey Titone, NBCUniversal’s VP of product management for programmatic channels.
In June, Marketecture acquired two other social and newsletter-based ad tech commentators: AdTechGod and Jeremy Bloom.
“My empire grows,” Paparo DM’d to AdExchanger yesterday. Or, as the Marketecture account put it on X, it’s “collecting ad tech influencers like Pokémon.”
Wonder who’s next? (Ari, DM us when you buy Digiday!)
In all seriousness, though, the conglomeration of ad tech info resources – and the overall lack of new journalism-based sources of information – represent an important macro trend in B2B publishing.
Only last week, search optimization platform Semrush acquired Search Engine Land, a respected SEO trade publication.
Search Engine Journal, SEL’s category rival, relished the news. “SEJ is the honey badger of SEO journalism: We report what we want, when we want, how we want,” wrote SEJ CEO Jenise Uehara the next day.
Marketecture also has a product to sell, but it’s primarily a Paparo passion project. Semrush by comparison is taking a more treacherous approach by taking on the responsibility of owning a news room.
Learning The SAX
Spotify is launching an SSP and ad exchange, Axios reports.
Its name? The Spotify Ad Exchange, shortened to SAX. [Come on, people.]
Spotify started testing SAX with its partner The Trade Desk last week. But here’s an unexpected detail: SAX will focus on video inventory to start, not audio or podcast ads, which would be the obvious go-to for an audio streaming service. (Audio inventory will come next.)
But video ads make sense – and generate far more demand. Spotify could potentially even become a big CTV seller, since people can stream it from their TV.
Separately, Spotify is also beta testing a version of its app that plays music videos. This would, again, help generate video ad supply. Ads that play in between music videos are an absolute workhorse revenue generator for YouTube, so it’s no wonder Spotify wants a piece of that market.
Back to SAX, when the exchange officially launches, Spotify will also become an OpenPath client of TTD and integrate with Unified ID 2.0.
Chaos Packaged Goods
Years ago, CPGs began an odious trend of gimmicky product releases to seize people’s attention – and capture their first-party data.
Tropicana orange juice toothpaste, Heinz mayo ice cream and ketchup-flavored sprinkles. These and other such abominations now exist in our timeline.
Now brands are taking it to the next level. Call it “chaos packaging,” writes The Wall Street Journal [h/t Michael Miraflor].
The idea is that one-off marketing gimmicks and limited releases are being immortalized through odd new design features.
Some have gone mainstream. Graza hit with the innovation of olive oil in plastic squeeze bottles, and Liquid Death put water in a tallboy can.
But now the new digital-native products one might find in a grocery aisle include tampons sold in ice cream cartons, coffee packaging that might be Band-Aids, bright blue perfume in what looks like a cleaning or disinfectant spray bottle and suntan lotion from a whipped-cream can.
“Investing in design is even more important now that other forms of storytelling and awareness-building have become not just expensive, but very crowded, so if the algorithm doesn’t find you, you’re in big trouble,” says Craig Dubitsky, co-founder (with Robert Downey Jr.) of the aforementioned coffee brand. “But the shelf is curated.”
But Wait, There’s More!
Advertisers and publishers call on Apple CEO Tim Cook to suspend the iPhone’s new Distraction Control feature. [Business Insider]
Disney retakes the top spot in Nielsen’s media distributor gauge, as ABC and ESPN football broadcasts help put it back in front of YouTube. [release]
Why retailers like Kroger and Walmart are adding streaming services to their membership programs. [Digiday]
Sports streaming platform Fubo announces its own standalone subscription services. [release]
Insignia Capital has agreed to buy two podcast agencies simultaneously: Veritone One, for up to $104 million, and Oxford Road. (No deal price on the latter.) [release]
