Generative AI for ad creative is coming to Meta’s Ads Manager.

On Wednesday, Meta announced it’s starting the process of rolling out three of the AI-powered tools that it’s been incubating within its AI Sandbox so advertisers can implement them for ad campaigns.

The tools will gradually be made available to more and more advertisers through next year.

Meta first introduced the AI Sandbox in May as a “playground” for testing early versions of new AI features before they’re distributed out more widely. A small group of advertisers and media buyers, including Publicis, has been helping Meta test the tools, said Matt Steiner, Meta’s VP of monetization, during a press briefing on Tuesday. (more…)

The CPG Guys, a brand and retail industry podcast, started as a way for ecommerce expert Sri Rajagopalan and data analytics specialist Peter V.S. Bond to stay on top of industry news during the pandemic.

Initially, Rajagopalan and Bond, who began their careers together at the CPG data and analytics company IRI more than 20 years ago, tried a YouTube video series.

That was no good.

They “quickly discovered video may not be their medium,” said Bryan Gildenberg, who came on as the podcast’s first guest when he was heading up strategy for Omnicom’s shopper and commerce marketing groups. He became the third CPG guy soon after hanging up his shingle as the founder of commerce consultancy Confluencer Commerce about a year ago.

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With over 100M active users in just four months after its launch, ChatGPT claimed nearly half of all unique visitors to Microsoft’s Bing search engine within its first month. 

Moreover, Snowflake recently announced a number of capabilities to bring generative AI and large language models (LLMs) directly to customers’ proprietary data through a single, secure platform. The allure of this generative AI technology is its speedy, seemingly effortless results that allow for creative assets to be created at scale. 

So, what’s the catch? (more…)

You never forget your first acquisition.

On Monday, PMG acquired Camelot, an independent media and marketing agency that specializes in buying video, OTT and CTV.

This acquisition marks PMG’s first since its founding 13 years ago. The bootstrapped indie media agency, which has roots in programmatic, performance and digital media, declined to disclose the financial details of the deal.

Camelot’s video-focused buying, strategy and measurement capabilities, particularly its expertise in video-based ad units, fill a critical gap for PMG.

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