BuzzFeed

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. State Of The Unions “Prestige doesn’t pay the bills.” That’s the rallying cry in the editorial offices of several big-name publishers seeing labor organizations form among their workforces. On Tuesday, 350 Condé Nast employees signed a letter requesting recognition of their union, The […]

As audiences shift away from Facebook, BuzzFeed is betting its investments in short-form vertical video for social media platforms like TikTok and long-form video for streaming will yield big returns, CEO Jonah Peretti said during the publisher’s first earnings presentation since going public in December.

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. Swiftly Goes The Retail Long Tail The retail media startup Swiftly raised $100 million, on top of $20 million raised since 2019. It’s an eye-popping number, despite no valuation, and will cheer other retail advertising startups that hope smaller chains can seize the […]

Leaf Group CEO Sean Moriarty talked to AdExchanger about why the publisher made ecommerce central to its brand philosophy, its efforts to change its perception in the digital publishing sphere and what the future holds for the publisher as part of Graham Holdings’ larger portfolio.

Mergers and acquisitions, the industry’s slow-motion pivot away from third-party data and the expansion of commerce-based business dominated the headlines for media and sell-side ad tech in 2021. What does the industry predict for 2022? More of the same as these trends continue to play out in the year ahead. First-party first In 2022 and […]

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

The Vox Media/Group Nine deal is only the most recent example of the consolidation trend in digital media. Publishers have been turning to M&A as a method to grow their audiences and increase their ad revenue, in addition to boosting their valuation for further deals down the road.

BuzzFeed’s debut on the public market disappointed, but its advertising business is growing (and it’s planning more acquisitions). Plus, digital advertising in 2021 grew faster than it has in the history of advertising. We explain why.

Amazon The Impervious Google and Facebook are reeling from data privacy changes. Tim Cook warned investors that Apple underestimated part shortages and would not meet demand until next year. Macy’s slimmed its store inventory. Disney’s production schedules are delayed by months and even years. And Amazon is – doing great. The ongoing supply-chain drama, COVID-19 fallout […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Sting Like A VAB Days after the Media Rating Council stripped Nielsen of its accreditation for National and Local TV Ratings, the Video Advertising Bureau is getting in another dig. The industry group kickstarted Nielsen’s MRC drama in July with a call to remove […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The SPAC Attack Online publishers are popular takeover targets for special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), which promise a route to IPO without the typical pre-IPO roadshow – the well-known brand merges with an already-public shell company. First-party data and ad tech companies have boomed […]

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 […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Buzz Words Talk about a potential media juggernaut. BuzzFeed announced Thursday that it has acquired Complex Networks and went public via a special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC). Read the release. BuzzFeed’s merger with Complex, a style, culture and music publisher, is part of a […]

When BuzzFeed ramped up its affiliate business recently, one group of products consistently popped up in its top ten: sex toys. Though some might blush, BuzzFeed was proud of its nuanced, sex-positive coverage of sex toy product recommendations. BuzzFeed wasn’t trying to sensationalize, but to be inclusive of all sexual orientations and body types in […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Breaking The Rules Some big tech companies in China are apparently taking that old adage “rules are meant to be broken” to heart. According to the Financial Times, ByteDance and Tencent are testing a tool to bypass Apple’s new privacy rules and continue tracking […]

The majority of BuzzFeed’s ad deals – 65% –  now use its first-party data to target ads. And the publisher also provides data matching, insights and optimization powered by data from its 104 million monthly users. To make these data capabilities easier for advertisers to access, BuzzFeed is collecting them into one product, dubbed Lighthouse. […]

Verizon revealed during its earnings call Tuesday morning Verizon Media Group had a solid Q4 – total revenues jumped 11.4% to $2.3 billion YOY – marking the first quarter of year-over-year growth since the wireless giant acquired Yahoo in 2017 for $4.48 billion. Growth in the quarter was fueled by strong advertising trends, with revenue […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. SPAC Bandwagon Content recommendation engine Taboola became the latest tech company to exist via SPAC when it announced plans to go public on Monday by merging with special purpose acquisition company ION Acquisition Corp, per Business Insider. The deal, which will value Taboola at […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Let’s Make A Deal HuffPost finally has a home. After being on the market for quite some time, the Verizon-owned publisher was acquired by BuzzFeed on Thursday in an all-stock deal that unites two of the larger players in digital media, The Wall Street […]

As Americans head to the polls, advertisers and publishers need to remain agile with their paid media strategies. There’s a lot we can’t know about what comes next. “As we’ve seen throughout several points this year, it’s all about staying flexible, making sure messaging is relevant and appropriate – but not going dark,” said Ken Blom, […]

Here’s a little good news from the publishing world for a change: BuzzFeed will restore staff salaries this month and end a program that cut union members’ schedules and pay by 20%. In late March, BuzzFeed was one of the first publishers to announce pandemic-related cost-cutting measures with tiered 5% to 25% salary cuts, followed […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Cloud Bundle Google is forging major cloud infrastructure deals. In some cases, it’s attracting new business using classic tactics, like rolling out new features for Google Cloud Platform, The Wall Street Journal reports. But one interesting fact about the GCP toolkit: “Pricing varies […]

The mobile commerce marketing company Button on Wednesday unveiled a product suite called Evolution, including pilot partners Uber Eats, Groupon and BuzzFeed, with more tools for attribution and personalization. For some marketers, the word “affiliate” has such a reputation for banality, it’s like Voldemort — nobody wants to hear the name, said Button co-founder and […]

The type of content that matters to people has completely shifted as Americans stay home in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital media companies are quickly evaluating what’s doing well or falling flat and adjusting their content production strategies. They’re also figuring out how to produce video content and replace live events as their employees […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Out Of The Blocks Mobile ad blocking is on the rise. More than 527 million people around the world have an ad blocker installed on their mobile devices, up 64% since 2016, according to a report from PageFair and Blockthrough. In the United States, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Buzzing  After racking up more than $50 million in losses last year, BuzzFeed is working its way toward profitability. The digital media company laid off 250 staffers and is benefiting from new revenue streams. Sponsored content, once BuzzFeed’s crown jewel, now makes up just […]

Change seems constant in the media business. A chain of digital media consolidations in 2019 has created new scaled players: Group Nine Media and PopSugar; Refinery29 and Vice Media; and Vox Media and New York Media. Besides a greatly transformed competitive landscape, 2020 will see publishers wrestling with new challenges. Privacy and regulation, for instance, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. CMO A Go-Go Dunkin’ CMO Tony Weisman will step down in December after a busy two years at the company. Weisman oversaw a major rebrand (from “Dunkin’ Donuts” to its more general coffee and food focus today), as well as the first overhaul of […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Move Over Rick Welday is stepping out of his shoes as Xandr president and likely right into a position at either AT&T or WarnerMedia. The change comes as AT&T begins to bring the three pillars of its new media empire – communications, advertising and […]