“Alexa, find my consumers.” Brands are trying to crack the code on voice as automated home assistants take root in American homes. Voice is sure to be a big topic again at CES this year, as marketers descend on Las Vegas on Tuesday to learn about the latest trends in consumer technology. While speech recognition […]
The past two years have seen a rush of consortiums, coalitions and ad tech products that all hope to standardize online IDs to improve match rates. But industry leaders, for-profit startup and nonprofit initiatives can have very different ideas on how to solve that problem. “The question is which one of these models will gain […]
Freight trains take time to build steam. That’s your metaphor for what’s to come in 2019 for the General Data Protection Regulation. “I think people were expecting a massive fine on Day One,” said Forrester principal analyst Fatemeh Khatibloo, “[but] these investigations take time.” Data protection authorities (DPAs) across Europe have their hands full fielding […]
Audio remained an exciting area for programmatic advertisers in 2018 as the medium moved further toward automation. The podcast industry began to mature this year as growing audiences garnered attention from radio broadcasters, streaming audio giants and big brands. But a lack of available audience data still hinders programmatic and measurement. Meanwhile, streaming audio and […]
2018 was a momentous year for the world of data and advertising. The implementation of GDPR created vast ripples that have obscured digital audiences and created new demand for addressable media. And even as ad tech companies embrace higher levels of transparency, every layer peeled reveals more auction tricks and data dealings, like bid caching […]
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 […]
2018 was the year Facebook’s skeletons really came skittering out of the closet, and the drip, drip, drip of bad news is seemingly endless. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that Facebook shared more data with more partners than previously disclosed, including contact information, private messages and friend lists. Facebook’s response to the Times […]
OpenX has laid off 100 staffers, a process that started weeks ago and included a massive round on Tuesday. It will also sunset its ad server by the end of the year. The departing staff includes engineering, product and tech employees, and OpenX will shift those roles to Krakow, Poland, which has strong engineering talent […]
Working with Amazon is about going in with your eyes open, said Charlie Cole, global chief ecommerce officer at luggage juggernaut Samsonite and chief digital officer at Samsonite-owned Tumi. “Amazon has a proven track record of creating brands in a data-centric way,” Cole said. “I’m always a little surprised when people on the brand side […]
Sovrn’s acquisition of VigLink last week will make 2019 Sovrn’s first year when subscription software services outearn its traditional advertising exchange. Sovrn began in 2014 as an SSP offering scale and analytics on its aggregated publishing data, growing to be one of the largest ad networks with tens of thousands of blogs and publisher clients. […]
Jay Seideman was a father, husband, athlete, musician and mentor. A guy who many said was hysterically funny, cooler than the other side of the pillow and could get others to rally behind his cause. Seideman, Oath’s SVP of advertiser demand platforms who drowned Dec. 7 while surfing at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, left a […]
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The old adage applies to the new media landscape, where sweeping technology changes have scattered US audiences across new devices but has also greatly increased the amount of content consumed per year. The average American adult watches 5 hours and 24 minutes per day of […]
GroupM said Wednesday that Wavemaker global CEO Tim Castree has been named CEO of GroupM North America. Castree does not yet have a successor and will stay on in an advisory role at Wavemaker until a replacement is named. Castree’s big task will be to get GroupM back to growth in North America, its slowest […]
Even before WPP’s restructuring announcement Tuesday, the holding company had already merged digital agency VML with creative agency Young & Rubicam, and digital agency Wunderman with creative agency J. Walter Thompson. It’s still unclear what that means for GroupM’s four large media agencies. WPP CEO Mark Read didn’t comment directly about the media buying arm, […]
The new WPP, as CEO Mark Read called it during a Tuesday morning investor call in London, will return to organic growth by reducing headcount by about 2.5%, consolidating agencies and investing strategically in technology. WPP expects to deliver annual savings of $346 million by the end of 2021 thanks to this strategy. Restructuring costs […]
Keith Weed announced Thursday that he will step down from his role as Unilever’s chief marketing and communications officer in April. Weed has worked for Unilever for more than 35 years, the last eight as Unilever’s top marketer. His departure, which he announced in a tweet, has been planned for more than a year. It […]
What do advertisers outside of China need to know about Tencent? For one, it’s got much more going on than just WeChat – the Tencent app with the most name recognition outside of China. Second, WeChat is more than just a social platform: It’s embedded into the fabric of Chinese life. “Global brands have heard about […]
From 7 pm to 7:45 pm on Tuesday, publishers saw mysterious yellow 300×250 ads blanket their sites. Paying CPMs north of $20, the yellow square ad elbowed out other buyers with its big spending. Hourly revenue spiked many times over publishers’ normal averages. Then it disappeared. Turns out, the yellow ad appeared across the United […]
Will privacy legislation be the death of the third-party data ecosystem? Not according to the IAB Data Center of Excellence. Marketers are on tap to spend $19.2 billion on third-party audience data as well as technology and solutions to manage, process and analyze all that data, according to a joint IAB/Winterberry Group report released Wednesday. […]
Forrester tried to acquire SiriusDecisions, a B2B market research and analytics firm, five years ago, so closing a $245 million deal for the company last week felt like a natural step. But SiriusDecisions was the third acquisition in the past half-year for Forrester, which historically buys a company every three years or so, said founder […]
After weeks of speculation, S4 Capital said Tuesday it will merge with programmatic agency MightyHive. S4, launched by former WPP CEO Martin Sorrell, will pay $150 million for MightyHive. The agency’s revenues grew 129% at a compound annual growth rate between 2015 and 2017. Revenues for the first nine months of 2018 were $40.7 million, […]
“Brand Aware” explores the data-driven digital ad ecosystem from the marketer’s point of view. Today’s column is written by Belinda J. Smith, global head of media at Electronic Arts. Over the past year or so we’ve seen every indication that in-housing will have as much staying power as “The Year of Mobile” – which enjoyed its […]
Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital said Monday it is in advanced talks to acquire programmatic marketing agency MightyHive, five months after it paid $350 million for digital production agency MediaMonks. MightyHive is valued at up to $200 million and brings in $25 million in annual revenue, according to Financial Times. Sorrell launched S4 in April after […]
GroupM and Magna both released global advertising spend forecasts Monday with very different findings. GroupM lowered its ad spend growth forecast for this year from 4.5% to 4.3%, reaching $543 billion. Magna, which measured 2018 in retrospect, said global ad spend grew by a record 7.2% this year to $552 billion. GroupM revised its 2019 […]
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 […]
LiveRamp, dataxu and Index Exchange launched the first commercial proof of concept for the Advertising ID Consortium on Thursday. The product places LiveRamp’s IdentityLink directly in the bidstream, skipping the cookie syncs typically required for a DSP and SSP to match against LiveRamp in a campaign. Additionally, Bill Simmons, dataxu’s co-founder and CTO, is joining […]
“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 Simon Harris, head of programmatic activation at Dentsu Aegis Network. Header bidding has made it common for a buyer to see the same impression several times, as most publishers now offer […]
The Big Story is a breezy podcast featuring a roundtable of AdExchanger editors talking about the biggest stories from the past week. It is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The Wild West days of ad tech are over. Any new startup that wants to stick around must show it can be a business first, […]
When people learned in 2014 that ad fraud was a $6.3 billion problem, many asked why no one had been arrested for stealing all that money from brands. Four years later, that day has arrived. “Finally, somebody gets arrested for this,” said Neal Richter, chief architect of Rakuten Marketing Platform. The FBI charged eight people […]
Until now, if an ad fraud scam was uncovered, the criminals behind it would usually fade back into the shadows with impunity, and shortly thereafter, they’d be back at it again – the seemingly eternal game of Whac-A-Mole. This time, there’s accountability. Two global botnets, Methbot and 3ve, are no more, and there are real people […]
