Platforms

How should brands think about advertising in the metaverse? The question is a little hard to answer when there’s no consensus about what exactly the metaverse is or what it might become

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Shopify Is ‘Just Browsing’ Ads Shopify held its twice-annual road map update event this week. Shopify Editions, as the get-together is called, offered up a handful of tantalizing tidbits for industry observers awaiting news of a consolidated Shopify ad platform.  In May, there […]

Aflac launched its first-ever campaign on TikTok, dubbed #DuckVibes, to engage younger consumers with what it considers a mid-funnel-focused strategy. The new campaign, which will run throughout the summer, uses catchy music, lyrics and visuals involving the eponymous Aflac duck to encourage “duets,” a split-screen feature TikTokers use to retroactively “respond to” other creators’ videos.

Foundry, formerly known as IDG Communications, wants to shed its old identity and build a new reputation not as a digital publisher but as a provider of data and marketing tech, according to Foundry President Kumaran Ramanathan. Ramanathan spoke to AdExchanger about why Foundry walked away from open-web programmatic, how it’s fusing its first-party data with a marketing and data tech stack and its M&A ambitions.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Get Connected The coveted prizes in programmatic right now are exclusive CTV contracts.  In Cannes, the crème de la crème for handshakers and lunch-takers is Netflix. Google is meeting with Netflix there, Ad Age reports, and is an obvious choice as Netflix purportedly […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. One Plus One Plus One Plus One Plus …  Snapchat is testing a paid subscription service called … wait for it … Snapchat+. It would cost about $5 per month or $50 per year. Details were first posted to Twitter by mobile researcher Alessandro […]

The platforms taketh away – but sometimes regulators can giveth back. Google is seriously flirting with the idea of reopening YouTube inventory to appease European regulators and Criteo just won its 2019 case against Meta over being booted from the Facebook Marketing Partner program.

Google may open up YouTube to outside programmatic demand as a bargaining chip to EU regulators. And a looming recession won’t deflate digital advertising – although don’t expect pandemic-level growth.

Back in 1997, when the oldest Gen Zers were born, Liz Smith joined a Silicon Valley startup called Yahoo! What started off as a group of misfits on the internet turned into a “Frankenstein’s monster” of sorts, said Smith, who left Yahoo! for film school and captures the effects of technological submersion on the next generation in her latest movie, I Am Gen Z.

The IAB, in collaboration with the IAB Tech Lab and the Media Rating Council (MRC), released its first update to in-game ad measurement standards since 2009. The new standards reexamine the metrics for counting a valid in-game ad impression and add criteria for measuring ad placements in 3D and virtual environments. They also define in-game measurement terms in alignment with cross-channel measurement efforts.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Google’s $18 Billion Offer Almost exactly one year ago, the EU began an antitrust inquiry into whether Google restricts access to the cross-site web and app data it uses to benefit its own products. Specifically, the European Commission examined how Google forces advertisers […]

As clients look for alternatives to third-party cookies, ad agency Dentsu can steer them to its in-house Contextual Intelligence tool, which launched today. Although contextual targeting is often considered inferior to demographic or behavioral targeting, it can drive performance. Jewelry retailer Pandora piloted the tool during the 2022 Valentine’s Day season. Ads placed using the solution represented 2% of campaign spend, but drove 36% of revenue, a 24x return on investment.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Brick By Brick-And-Mortar The march of the retail media networks cannot be stopped.  Dollar General on Tuesday announced a rebrand of its advertising business, now DGMN (for Dollar General Media Network), to extend its data to ad-buying across the web. According to the […]

CreativeX will use the funds to broaden its offering beyond its current focus on providing feedback on social media creatives. The company will also launch new measurement capabilities, including solutions for rating a campaign’s accessibility and sustainability. And by upgrading its API, marketers can integrate creative data into their existing data lakes more easily.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. So Sue Me One of the myriad sticking points standing in the way of a US federal privacy law is the question of whether people will be able to sue tech companies in open court. Terms of service often stipulate that signatories give […]

Whenever there’s a sociopolitical or economic crisis, the lowest rung of online marketers finds a way to prey on the vulnerable and disenfranchised. The pending overturn of Roe v. Wade is no different – it’s creating a new class of online audiences that are potential prey, and publishers can stand to take more steps to filter out misleading ads (like donation scams and brand infringement) that harvest and sell users’ personal information.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. WWD-See It To Believe It Ad tech is on tenterhooks waiting for privacy-related news from Apple’s upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference next week. Sandwiched between glitzy announcements about shiny new products and hardware, many expect a momentous mention as to whether Apple will start […]

With the lines blurring between traditional TV content and streaming media, YouTube made its upfronts debut this year. YouTube VP Debbie Weinstein explains why.

TikTok’s content relies heavily on influencers and creators. As prime ad real estate for targeting younger “video native” audiences, TikTok is using its market positioning with brands to capitalize on both the creator marketplace and ecommerce through shoppable video trends, said Melissa Yang, TikTok’s head of ecosystem partnerships, speaking at AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O conference earlier this week.

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

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Since You Asked … When the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) asked what tech companies thought of Apple, Meta happily chimed in.  Meta, which has lost billions of dollars due to Apple’s new tracking prompt, says its ability to innovate has been […]

CTV is a no-brainer for political advertising today – viewership is up, it costs less, there’s more ad inventory, it’s addressable and it allows incremental reach on top of linear spend, writes Iván Markman, Yahoo’s chief business officer. The sooner political campaigns get serious about CTV, the sooner they can gain valuable insights about what their video strategy needs to look like in the future.

The advertising industry is taking a few hits these days. Legislators are looking hard at treating ad platforms like utilities. Nefarious state actors have hacked our political discourse and even our understanding of facts. But this isn’t the first time the ad industry is facing choppy waters. The ad world is in desperate need of a new position: the Chief Morality Officer, writes Marilois Snowman, CEO and founder of Mediastruction.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Oh, Snap Snap warned investors this week that it will miss its one-month-old revenue target, tumbling shares by more than 40% in what may be a harbinger for the industry, CNBC reports.  “Since we issued guidance on April 21, 2022, the macroeconomic environment has […]

The IAB’s Podcast Upfronts in May touted advancements in dynamic ad insertion, measurement and attribution and brand safety and suitability, as well as the rise of podcast networks. But ad agencies say the technology powering podcast-based marketing is not sufficiently developed to deliver what advertisers need to effectively target impressions and measure campaign effectiveness. And they believe the industry should do more to address brand safety concerns around podcast content.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Vibe Wars TikTok has launched an ad product called Branded Mission, which identifies potential influencers and puts paid media behind content even if it isn’t part of a campaign.  “Turn top-performing videos into ads,” is how TikTok puts it in a release. […]

Independent record label EMPIRE is well aware of the crossover appeal between video games and certain subgenres of music, including rap. So the label recently partnered with in-game ad platform Anzu to promote Babyface Ray’s new album, “FACE,” among young male rap fans in targeted geographic locations.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Four-Minute Mile Details of the new Disney+ ad-supported tier are leaking as Disney lays the groundwork for its upfronts sales pitch.  For one thing, Disney+ will carry about four minutes of commercials per hour, with zero ads for preschooler-aged accounts, The Wall […]

A rose by any name will smell as sweet, sure. But attribution by any name doesn’t work the same. Call it what you want, the problem of channel-based incremental testing is important. Measured raised $21 million last week, as it expands in the post-attribution attribution category, alongside other startups like Triple Whale, which raised $24 million a month ago, and Northbeam.

SmileDirectClub was “born in the classic digital DR space during the Facebook heyday when that channel was super effective,” CMO John Sheldon tells AdExchanger. “Since then, we’ve focused on diversifying our spend to mitigate risk, but also as a way to chase performance across multiple platforms.”