Marketers

As opposed to brand safety, which the IAB defines as content that’s “generally considered to be inappropriate for any advertising and unfit for publisher monetization regardless of the advertisement or brand,” brand suitability is a more nuanced affair.

Nielsen’s recent missteps have been Comscore’s opportunity to make hay. At the height of the pandemic, Nielsen identified an unlikely trend that the amount of time American adults spent with media while stuck at home had actually declined. But Comscore’s data told quite a different story, says CEO Bill Livek on this week’s episode. When […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Rachelle Kuramoto, VP of brand and content at Dragon Army. Smart content marketers are thinking about new ways to use tried-and-true technology as well as ways to integrate new innovations […]

Blocklists are still a big problem for publishers, says Scott Gatz, CEO and founder of LGBTQ publisher Q.Digital. Way back in 2019, Gatz wrote a provocative column for AdExchanger with the headline, “Marketers, Do You Know What’s On Your Block Lists?” Unfortunately, the answer to that question is still … no. “I really wish I […]

The twentieth century saw very little disruption for category-leading brands. Del Monte fruit, Nabisco biscuits, Gold Medal flour, Sherwin-Williams paint, Gillette razors, Lipton tea, Ivory soap – across practically every consumer business, America’s top brands in 1923 were the same category leaders 60 years later. But nearly one century on, those rankings are starting to […]

Pokémon Oreos, limited edition Sour Patch Kids, Heinz Halloween outfits and McDonald’s BTS meals. As brands go all-in on ecommerce and digital data, there’s been a notable recent uptick in their efforts to acquire first-party ecom data by dangling personalized or limited-edition products. Savvy kids might even call them thirsty, even as they enter their […]

The direct-to-consumer cookware company Made In noticed its social media dashboards went a bit screwy after Apple tightened its privacy controls this year. Luckily, Made In uses all of its own dashboards – which didn’t go haywire – and tracks identity changes closely, CEO Chip Malt shares as special guest on this week’s The Big […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. After this exclusive first look for subscribers, the story by AdExchanger’s Allison Schiff will be published in full on AdExchanger.com tomorrow. Driving downloads is important. But Ben Webley, CMO of game developer Scopely, is looking for users who want to stick around. “We’re […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Deliver Or Delay The global supply chain crunch is hitting the ad industry, even before the Q4 holiday shopping season moves into high gear. Brands and their creative and media agencies plan campaigns months or a year ahead. But those campaign rollouts are being […]

Inmar Intelligence is adding mobile to its cart. On Thursday, the retailer-focused tech and data platform reached an agreement to acquire mobile ad platform Aki Technologies to take advantage of the high-growth retail media category. Aaron Kechley, Inmar’s GM of media and SVP of strategy, declined to share a deal price. But he did elaborate […]

“On TV & Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video.  Today’s column is by Joel Cox, Co-Founder and EVP, Innovation & Strategy, Strategus. If you buy it, they will come. Media buyers increased their ad spend on connected TV (CTV) during this year’s upfronts by almost 50%, according to […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Searching Social Google is negotiating potential deals with the parent companies of TikTok and Instagram, ByteDance and Facebook, respectively, to index posts on those platforms in Google search results, The Information reports. Right now, social video search responses are almost entirely sourced from YouTube. […]

“On TV & Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video.  Today’s column is by Dan Fairclough, Sr. Director, Agency and Brand Relations, Magnite. In my many years working with DTC brands, I saw firsthand how companies hustled to grow their brand visibility from the ground up using search and […]

You know you’ve won the lottery as a brand when you go viral on TikTok (for a good reason). Last year, it was Ocean Spray, and this year it’s Gap, whose vintage logo sweatshirts – the brown one, in particular – made a comeback on TikTok as an unexpected fashion trend of 2021. Gap capitalized on […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Contextual Seed The contextual ad tech startup Seedtag raised $40 million, Business Insider reports. The Spanish company plans to add 30 employees and expand its US footprint. Before this round, Seedtag had raised $6 million to date. But contextual targeting is a buzzy category, […]

The prevalence of algorithmic bias is more lamentable than it is surprising considering the dearth of diversity in the computer science field specifically and in STEM professions more broadly. “The impact of algorithms is something that’s hiding in plain sight, but many of us are only just becoming aware of the effect it has on […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Podcast Talk Podcasting has heated up, with big M&A deals in recent years, including Amazon’s acquisition of Wondery for $300 million and Spotify’s $235 million deal for Megaphone. Podcast advertising is forecasted to exceed $2 billion by 2023, according to emarketer, which revised up […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Disrupting Who?  Warby Parker and Allbirds, two DTC standouts, filed their pre-IPO S-1s last week. It was a reminder of the challenges facing digitally native vertical brands (DNVBs). Each company had its best sales year in 2020, with strong growth rates and retail businesses. […]

​​”Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Sharon Harris, Global Chief Marketing Officer of Jellyfish. Data privacy is front and center in every digital technology conversation today. CMOs are now the stewards of the brand-consumer relationship and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. They See Me Rollin’ Uber tapped former Sizmek CEO and Amazon ad exec Mark Grether to lead its advertising business, Business Insider reports. Poaching Grether is a big deal for Uber as it stands up a global advertising strategy. Though Uber’s ad revenue isn’t […]

Ad verification and measurement provider DoubleVerify is set to acquire Berlin-based ad tech company Meetrics, a deal that will help fuel the newly minted public company’s global expansion. The all-cash purchase is expected to close in the third quarter of 2021. DoubleVerify CEO Mark Zagorski declined to disclose the sale price. Meetrics was founded in […]

The “big two” in brand safety both went public this year. Over the next two weeks, AdExchanger will publish podcast interviews with both companies’ CEOs: Lisa Utzschneider of Integral Ad Science and Mark Zagorski of DoubleVerify. Utzschneider is up first. We kick off with a discussion of IAS’s acquisition of Publica, an ad server and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Publisher Action  Forbes is jumping on the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) bandwagon as a route to go public, CNBC reports. The business publisher announced plans to IPO at a $630 million value. The cash infusion will help Forbes’s “digital transformation,” and CEO Mike […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Vizionary Vizio Ads made big gains during the recent upfronts negotiations, where Roku has been the CTV champion in recent years. Vizio announced in a press release that it locked in more than $100 million for 2022, quadrupling its total from last year (which […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Under Pressure NBCUniversal is turning the screws on Nielsen as the MRC considers stripping its National TV rating. Nielsen has long dominated TV ratings but is under fire for underreporting viewers and missing visibility into streaming, mobile and desktop. The Olympics on NBC underwhelmed […]

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Erik Huberman, CEO and founder of marketing consultancy Hawke Media, has some pretty strong – if not outright harsh – words for most media agencies out there: “They’re full of [expletive].” Before founding the Los Angeles-based company in 2014, Huberman launched and sold two commerce companies – Swag of the Month and Ellie – and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. BuzzKill As he prepares to take his company public via SPAC, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti has made concessions to irate shareholder NBCUniversal that could put him in the hot seat, according to The Wall Street Journal. To summarize: NBCU stands to lose money in […]

Nielsen’s potential loss of its accreditation by the Media Rating Council as early as this week could fuel greater adoption of alternative measurement currencies that use advanced data and analytics rather than the traditional panel-based surveys the measurement giant is known for. Nielsen has long been accused of undercounting TV viewership. Recently, networks have expressed […]

Can YouTube Make Shorts Happen? YouTube launched one of its biggest brand campaigns ever this week to promote Shorts, The Drum reports. YouTube Shorts, the aptly named short-form video format (i.e., a TikTok clone), have taken over consumption on the platform. Though that’s largely because YouTube is pulling all the levers it can to make […]