Brands And Agencies Support TAG's Anti-Piracy Initiative; Instagram Advertising Optimism

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Arrgh Blocking

A bunch of brands and agencies have thrown their weight behind the Trustworthy Accountability Group’s (TAG) plan to avoid advertising on pirated media. Backers include Allstate, Amex, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg’s, MillerCoors NBCU and Unilever, plus agencies like MediaCom, MediaVest and Mindshare. The IAB recently estimated that media owners are hemorrhaging around $2.4B a year because of stolen content. More on that.

Instagram ROAS

The ROI potential on Instagram is pretty sweet. In the three months since Instagram opened up its ad API, Facebook marketing partner Nanigans has seen more than 30% of its DR customers start to use the platform, with gaming and ecommerce as the most eager verticals. According to Nanigans, Instagram trumps Facebook when it comes to CPI and CTR. “Coupling the performance of their DR products with a large, active user base that’s continuing to grow, Instagram is on track to become a core DR channel in 2016,” Nanigans VP Cheryl Morris told AdExchanger. SocialTimes has more.

Prime Partner

Amazon is giving Prime subscribers access to new TV content from a single “billing and distribution hub,” writes Peter Kafka of Re/code. Through its Streaming Partners Program, Amazon is bulking up on video content through providers like Showtime, Starz and A+E Network. It may be an uphill battle, though, because TV networks, after getting burned by the likes of Netflix and Hulu, “aren’t letting Amazon resell their most valuable stuff.” More on Re/code.

Head In The Cloud

Cloud infrastructure services are the new platform powerplay. This is a trend that’s been coming on for some time, and Snapchat’s outage on Tuesday shows why. Snapchat is rumored to be Google App Engine’s biggest client, but it got burned when its disappearing messages failed to appear all day, leading to lost revenue and user aggravation. It’s also a useful reminder of the immense data drain that video streaming puts on web networks. Just like with food, there’s a direct correlation between how much people enjoy something and how much strain it puts on the system.

But Wait, There’s More!