Xandr is making AT&T data available to buyers across all media types through AppNexus’s demand-side platform (DSP), which it has rebranded as Xandr Invest. Xandr Invest launched Monday and allows advertisers to layer AT&T’s first-party data when buying inventory available through the AppNexus exchange as well as inventory from Xandr’s premium video network, Community. Advertisers […]
The two minutes of television inventory sold by multichannel video players (MVPDs) – which can be made addressable by targeting through the set-top box – has historically been fragmented across providers, making it complex for a national advertiser to run addressable campaigns at scale. Today, MVPDs are jockeying to sell each other’s addressable TV supply, […]
A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…
AdExchanger Talks is a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. The godfather of programmatic has retired from advertising. Or has he? In his first interview since selling AppNexus to AT&T for an estimated $1.6 billion (and stepping down), former CEO Brian O’Kelley comes on the AdExchanger podcast for a nice long talk. O’Kelley, known to friends […]
Xandr just can’t deal right now, according to sources. When AT&T hired Brian Lesser to run its new targeted advertising business and acquired AppNexus as its anchor asset, the company signaled it might move quickly on more acquisitions. But the appetite for mergers has faded since then, and the company now plans to hold off […]
If Xandr wants to live up to its promise and create a programmatic marketplace for the TV industry, it’s going to have to convince agencies to buy what it’s offering. The AT&T-owned company recently hired Jay Askinasi for the job, and he joined Xandr in early February as VP, head of digital and agency partnerships. […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. DTC Playbook, Written A values-driven brand with the best X in its category launches on Facebook, quickly gains customers and uses data to improve its products and its marketing process. Ever feel like direct-to-consumer brands are all following the same unwritten set of rules? […]
AT&T is juggling a lot of business units at the crossroads of media, advertising and communications. Here are three takeaways from the company’s Q4 2018 earnings call on Wednesday that you can bring to the water cooler. DirecTV Now lost subscribers … but it’s all part of the plan? When AT&T scaled back on promotions […]
When AT&T bought Time Warner in June to create a programmatic exchange for the TV industry, many looked to Verizon’s purchases of AOL and Yahoo as a comparison. But the two telco’s strategies “could not be any more different,” said Xandr CEO Brian Lesser on stage at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview last Thursday. “Oath, I think, […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Brand Safe Enough AT&T is advertising on YouTube again after a two-year hiatus. The telco, one of the world’s largest advertisers, pulled spend from the video platform at the height of its 2017 brand safety scandal with a promise not to return until major […]
Turner will activate first-party data from AT&T’s 40 million set-top boxes to improve targeting and attribution for its linear TV offering, the company said Tuesday. The capability will be generally available Q1. AT&T’s set-top data, available through the Xandr ad unit, could already be applied to Turner’s digital properties, as of Q4 2018. These data […]
Cheddar CEO Jon Steinberg will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference on Jan. 23-24. AT&T began rolling out Cheddar across its video platforms DirecTV, DirecTV Now and U-verse TV last month. Cheddar has also broadened its reach on other media over the last few months. AT&T announced the Cheddar deal just days after Axios reported that […]
“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Lindsey Harju, co-founder at Blinc Digital Group. 2018 may look similar to years past, with cross-channel acquisitions a seemingly regular occurrence. But for me, 2018 will stand out in the history of advanced TV […]
Shorting Ads Verizon is inching away from the grand advertising ambitions it once had for Oath. The ad unit has a new chief, Guru Gowrappan, following Tim Armstrong’s departure in September, and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg, who took over in August, is more interested in network infrastructure than media. And after failing to meet ad […]
“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Ryan Christiansen, co-founder and CEO at Ntooitive Digital. The ability to track and effectively target consumer actions has never been more essential to marketers seeking to unleash the power of cross-platform digital advertising. With […]
AT&T’s ad tech unit Xandr has big hopes for TV advertising, but the company said Thursday during an analyst call that it’s also going to be heavily involved in powering online ads. “You will continue to see Xandr media business outpace the television market in 2019,” Xandr CEO Brian Lesser told investors. “And now what […]
Despite AT&T missing its projected Q3 earnings, the telecom giant’s new data-driven ad unit Xandr had “strong growth,” executives told investors Wednesday. Xandr’s ad revenue grew 34% YOY, fueled by AT&T’s acquisition of AppNexus. Excluding AppNexus, revenue was still up 22%. Xandr’s Q3 revenues were $445 million, and its operating margin was 74.8%. In Q3 2017, […]
Why is the industry still talking about linear vs. digital when to consumers, it’s all just content? That’s the question Donna Speciale, president of ad sales at Turner, is asking to galvanize long-awaited changes to how network TV transacts media. “At some point, we’re not going to say linear or digital,” she told AdExchanger. “We’ll […]
The Big Story is a breezy new podcast featuring a roundtable of AdExchanger editors talking about the biggest stories from the past week. It is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Two big tech and media players held their extravaganzas this week. The Relevance Conference in Santa Barbara was a coming-out party for Xandr – […]
AT&T’s promise to connect data, technology, distribution and content to make advertising better for all constituents is exciting. So exciting, in fact, that industry executives from both the buy and sell sides gathered in support of the idea at the Relevance conference in Santa Barbara, Calif., this week, willing to help make it happen. But […]
Two multibillion-dollar acquisitions and one Justice Department lawsuit later, AT&T’s advertising and analytics unit finally has a name: Xandr. AT&T revealed the brand at its Relevance Conference in Santa Barbara, Calif., Tuesday, a debutante ball for the new unit that gathered 300 top advertising and media executives at the lavish Ritz-Carlton Bacara. The name pays […]
AppNexus’s new telco owner, AT&T, has withdrawn it from the Advertising ID Consortium, a shared industry cookie ID it co-founded last year, along with other independent ad tech platforms. Adweek first reported the move on Thursday. Does the withdrawal spell curtains for the independent identity graph before it really got off the ground? The consortium […]
A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…
Development of the Advertising ID Consortium, a shared cookie-based ID service for programmatic companies, has stalled as two of the key backers, AppNexus and LiveRamp, undertake protracted M&A processes. The consortium is still moving forward, according to sources with knowledge of the nonprofit group’s product development, but the already complicated politics of ‘co-opetition’ are exacerbated […]
Turner inventory will soon be available through the AppNexus ad platform, AT&T top dog Randall Stephenson said at an event Wednesday. Speaking at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia conference in New York, Stephenson also told attendees how he hopes to expand HBO viewership and said that federal authorities must codify rules around privacy and net neutrality. Advertising is […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Time Will Telco There’s plenty of pressure on Brian Lesser to build advertising into a pillar of AT&T’s business and marry the wireless company’s customer data to the new WarnerMedia content assets. “But probably more than anything, I feel this sense of responsibility to […]
The Wall Street Journal’s revelation Friday that Tim Armstrong, leader of Verizon’s Oath media and advertising group, is in talks to depart the company is in stark contrast with the elevation of media and advertising at its biggest competitor AT&T. When Verizon first assembled Oath, many industry insiders wondered if it would create a new […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Retired, But Not Resting Justice Department appeal or not, AT&T is full steam ahead with its advertising platform plans. AT&T’s advertising and analytics group, run by Brian Lesser, officially closed its acquisition of AppNexus on Wednesday. Brian O’Kelley, co-founder and CEO of AppNexus, will […]
“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Ed Crain, president at Kingstar Media. With AT&T facing a federal government appeal of its $85 billion takeover of Time Warner, the headwinds facing the forces of media consolidation in the US may have […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Back To The Bench The US Justice Department is appealing the decision by Senior US District Court Judge Richard Leon to allow AT&T to acquire Time Warner. “Most legal observers believe the government faces an uphill battle in overturning the ruling,” reports The Wall […]
