Publishers

While some of digital media’s biggest stars and flashiest names make big cuts to make their businesses profitable, others are weathering change just fine. The difference? They’ve always focused on sustainable growth and profitability. Venture-backed companies typically made three key mistakes, according to these publishers. First, and most importantly, they grew costs before revenue. Second, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The New News News industry downsizing continued last week with layoffs at Vice and buyouts at McClatchy, close on the heels of similar painful cuts at BuzzFeed, Verizon Media and Gannett. “We are changing the size of the workforce to align with the revenue,” […]

Lately, one of the most popular pieces of apparel worn by professional football players and coaches is a t-shirt featuring NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wearing a clown nose. It’s a blatant sign of disrespect, and a popular way for people to signal their opinion of the unpopular NFL exec, particularly after he makes a controversial […]

Hulu viewers will soon start seeing ads when they hit pause on a show. Coca-Cola and Charmin are on tap to test the so-called pause ads, which allow advertisers to run static display ads on screen when viewers take a break. The ads, in development for most of 2018, will roll out with beta advertisers […]

Traditional broadcasters might soon bridge linear and digital ad buying. But first, baby steps. Before anyone reaches that holy grail, it helps if the ad inventory is trafficked through the same system. So in the spirit of unification, the video ad server FreeWheel said Wednesday that it will handle decisioning for NBCUniversal’s digital and linear […]

The New York Times once worked with thousands of advertisers, but it’s now narrowed its focus to the top 100 global brands. “The business is shrinking in terms of the overall number of advertisers, as there are more places to do longtail advertising,” said Sebastian Tomich, global head of advertising and marketing solutions at The […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Alysia Borsa, chief marketing and data officer at Meredith Corp.  As the industry clamors for more transparency in the supply chain, publishers should take the lead. Publishers are sitting on high-quality, proprietary data sets. Their […]

BuzzFeed, Verizon Media and Gannett all had layoffs this week, as the media business struggles to find its way in a digital climate. Over 1,000 jobs went away. BuzzFeed laid off 200 people (15% of its staff), Verizon Media laid off 800 people (7% of its staff) and Gannett laid off more than two dozen […]

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

After more than a year in beta, Facebook is letting advertisers use third-party vendors to manage brand safety on its platform. Facebook is putting a ring on its commitment to brand safety by adding a new badge for brand safety protection companies under its marketing partner program. DoubleVerify and OpenSlate are the first two verification […]

Cords are getting cut left and right, but TV still works … right? “We all know that TV does drive ROI, but there haven’t really been any proof points like there has been in digital,” said Donna Speciale, Turner’s president of advertising sales, at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview event in New York City on Wednesday. That’s […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Up The Funnel Amazon is giving marketers buying its Sponsored Brand Ads on its platform more insight into the consumers purchasing their products. Amazon released metrics this month that allow marketers to see how many Amazon purchases were made by people who had never […]

Remember when Hulu opened its automated private marketplace at the beginning of 2019? Turns out Telaria is the vendor that’s powering it. As part of a two-year deal, Hulu will use Telaria’s tech to enable its PMP for advertising across all screens, the video ad platform said Wednesday – from the big one in the […]

If you live in the United States, chances are you live in one of Nextdoor’s 190,000 active neighborhoods, which cover 90% of the country. But many in the advertising business haven’t yet worked with Nextdoor, which started selling ads less than two years ago. Leading that advertising push is Lauren Nemeth, a Google, AppNexus and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Viacom Nabs Pluto Viacom will acquire free, ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV for $340 million. The standalone app, which reaches 12 million monthly users primarily on connected TVs, will give Viacom a new audience to sell and a distribution channel for its content library. […]

Does the world need yet another tech company to combat malvertising on the internet? “Well, do you still constantly see malvertising when you browse the internet?” said Seth Demsey, co-founder of Clean Creative, an anti-malware company started by a handful of security experts and Oath vets who exited before the name change. Touché. Based in […]

Attention, broadcasters, SVOD services and tech companies in the midst of launching a streaming subscription service (or thinking about it): Netflix doesn’t consider you to be competition. “We compete so broadly with all of these different providers that any one provider entering only makes a difference on the margin,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said Thursday […]

Overcoming the banality of a standard banner ad in favor of a custom unit requires a lot of work. Buyers need to work with creative tech companies to build the units, and publishers need to adjust their ad setup to support the unusual formats. When header bidding became the norm, it cut off these companies’ […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Snap Safety Some marketers have complained about Snapchat brand safety issues now that it’s transitioned to a self-serve ad platform. Last week, an ad directed to a fake news story about Chrissy Teigen promoting weight loss pills, Digiday reports. And last year, an ad […]

Facebook will distribute $300 million across multiple news projects over the next three years to support local newsrooms and help publishers create new business models, the platform announced Tuesday. Donations include a $5 million endowment gift to the Pulitzer Center, $6 million for the UK-based Community News Project and a $20 million expansion of Facebook’s […]

Don’t tell Paul Slavin that book sales are stagnant. Slavin is the CEO of Open Road Integrated Media, a digital marketing company founded in 2009 by HarperCollins global CEO Jane Friedman. “When we put a book in front of somebody, when we market that book, you will see it grow,” said Slavin, who became chief […]

The company behind a cable channel for babies has built a thriving branded content business on social media. The against-the-grain strategy comes as many digital publishers de-emphasize social media, instead eying video and connected TV as their next big revenue streams. First Media made the switch in 2016, a decade after it was founded as […]

Nielsen went public with ratings for the Netflix hit film “Bird Box” on Tuesday, estimating that the blockbuster (so to speak) attracted 26 million US viewers in its first week. But wait, didn’t Netflix say 45 million accounts watched “Bird Box” in the first seven days? Netflix rarely discloses specific viewership numbers for any content, […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video.  Today’s column is written by Eric Berry, CEO at TripleLift. TV is a fundamental part of any marketer’s mixed media model. For many brands, TV is the highest performing inventory source. Yet the trends are unquestionably negative for TV […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Clear Your Desk The buy-side push for ad tech transparency has changed Xaxis, the GroupM trading desk with a black box ad-buying model. The business has made some concessions, like offering self-service products and disclosing its margins, reports Digiday. Xaxis has also embraced outcome-based […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is by Paul Bannister, co-founder and executive vice president at CafeMedia. 2019 promises to be the beginning of the next transformation in digital ad buying. RTB-driven programmatic advertising started in the late 2000s (2007-2009) and drove the initial burst in data-driven buying, […]

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. 5G Whiz This year we’ll see the first wave of commercial 5G cellular networks, which will revolutionize smartphones and the Internet. Although the biggest societal benefits of 5G will come in areas such as remote surgery and connected cars, 5G will also be a […]

This year’s theme was transparency. Marketers wanted transparency so they could make better decisions. Marketers, agencies and DSPs showed increased interest in the programmatic supply chain. They wanted to know the rules of programmatic auctions and the fees involved in advance, not find out hidden practices afterwards. They also wanted to know where to tread […]

If you had “something blockchain related” on your Christmas list this year (And really, who didn’t?), then consider Comcast Cable Advertising your very own Santa Claus. Comcast Corporation’s ad division unveiled Blockgraph on Friday, designed to help media owners and advertisers securely share data for addressable TV advertising. Blockgraph is winding down its pilot phase […]