Programmatic Spend Grows In UK; Advertisers Not Bothered By Ad-Free Hulu

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A Programmatic UK

Programmatic display ad spend in the UK is slated to grow 66.2% and hit $2.96 billion this year, eMarketer reports. At that rate, programmatic will make up the majority (59%) of the country’s total display ad market. “It hasn’t been an easy journey, but initial trepidation is being replaced with a realization that programmatic can deliver the inventory, partners and prices that marketers want,” said eMarketer analyst Bill Fisher. Hold the phone for mobile. eMarketer predicts mobile programmatic display ad spend will account for 68% of all digital display spend this year and will hit 75.5% in 2016. Read on.

Hulu’s Nonissue

The Journal’s Mike Shields follows up with advertisers on Hulu’s quasi ad-free streaming service, which surfaced on Wednesday. The consensus? Advertisers aren’t too bothered. “There aren’t that many people in the US that are going to shell out $12 a month to avoid ads,” said Kris Magel, CIO for media-buying firm Initiative. “I don’t believe this is going to wipe out their ad business.” Ditto Razorfish. “As far as the volume of premium content to run ads alongside, you’d be hard pressed to find a larger aggregator of that than Hulu,” said Brian Leder, Razorfish SVP for North America. More.

‘H’ Is For Hegemony

Writing for TechCrunch, Sojern CEO Mark Rabe offers an insider’s look into how data and technology are upending the travel industry. In what Rabe describes as “World War H” (“H” as in “hotel”), Rabe writes that RTB, SDKs, DMPs, DSPs and online booking portals are intensifying competition over consumers. “In our war analogy, Google’s entry into the market may be the equivalent of a nuclear arsenal,” Rabe writes, adding that Google, “armed with more web traffic, more data on their users from which to determine the perfect offer and an infrastructure to manage millions of hotel clients profitably,” is uniquely positioned to corner the market. Read on.

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

Digital-native companies like Vox, BuzzFeed and Mic should seemingly be panicking over ad blocking, which is disproportionately common among their younger audiences. But instead, Ad Age’s Tim Peterson reports that those companies have embraced branded content, from native ads to video production houses churning out sponsored videos. Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff thinks the risk (and blame) goes to ad tech companies, which slow down page loads and seed privacy concerns over user tracking. Read more.

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Daily Mail Launches A Social Media Agency; AI Eats The Food Blogs’ Lunch

All Over APAC

Adknowledge Asia broke into two APAC markets on Thursday through the acquisition of Komli Media’s Southeast Asia operation. Adknowledge Asia is a joint venture between a subsidiary of Asian telecom firm Axiata and Adknowledge, a digital marketing tech firm. With existing teams in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Hong Kong and South Korea, Thursday’s acquisition gains Adknowledge access to Thailand and the Philippines. According to a press release, Adknowedge’s Axiata partnership “opens the door to responsibly monetizing telecom companies’ vast user data to serve more relevant and appropriate ads.” More.

The Product Pace

Google’s been busy blogging about ads over the last two days, with three posts underlining the growing importance of connecting campaign metrics and strategies across marketing channels. Twin posts Tuesday and Wednesday announced that native Gmail ads and ads in the TrueView video format be can now be managed via AdWords. The most recent post demonstrates new tools for comparing and optimizing campaigns on the go – as well as how the interactions between channels impact the larger campaign. More.

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