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NBCUniversal Joins OpenAP Consortium, Licenses Its Audience Graph To Other TV Nets Facebook’s Fischer On Adjusting To Life In A Post-Cambridge Analytica World Will Martin Sorrell’s Successor Be A Media Mogul Or Financial Outsider? WPP CEO Martin Sorrell Steps Down Uber, Ubisoft And Bayer Fine-Tune Their Approach To In-Housing Ad Rate Impact And Possible Regulation: Facebook Addresses Data Privacy Fallout Zuckerberg Faces Congress: We’re Sorry, We’re Responsible For Content, We’re Not There Yet Zuck’s Pledge To Congress: Political Ad Transparency, An App Crackdown And Big Security Investments How Broadcasters Hope To Make Money From Live Online Newscasts

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NYIAX And Rebel AI Team Up To Support A Blockchain Ad Model

by James Hercher // Posted on Friday, April 20th, 2018 at 12:54 pm.

The blockchain-based advertising marketplace NYIAX on Friday announced new leadership appointments and a partnership with Rebel AI, another blockchain ad tech startup, as it looks to scale.

Bill Wise, the CEO of Mediaocean, has gone from a NYIAX adviser to executive chairman of the board and Richard Bush, formerly the company product chief, is being elevated to president. He replaces and will report to Vice Chairwoman Carolina Abenante, who had been acting as president in recent months.

There’s a race on among blockchain advertising startups to gain a foothold with ad buyers and publishers, and ad tech stalwarts like Wise and Bush, who is the former general manager of publisher solutions at the bidding technology company Iponweb, make the company a sound choice for blockchain test budgets, said Vin Paolozzi, executive VP of innovation for the IPG agency group Magna Global.

The NYIAX ad marketplace, built in partnership with Nasdaq and licensing its exchange technology, enables buyers and publishers to trade media futures – guaranteed inventory contracts – on a blockchain ledger, improving budget reconciliation issues that have plagued the digital media supply chain.

NYIAX’s partnership with Rebel AI, a provider of blockchain technology to authenticate and deliver online ads, is necessary because “NYIAX's guaranteed contract marketplace in and of itself does not provide for delivery or the act of verification,” said Ben Feldman, NYIAX’s senior VP of strategy and innovation.

Online ad verification solutions on the market “are either probabilistic or based on only advertising exchange data,” said Manny Puentes, Rebel AI’s founder and CEO.

Ansira Chief Daina Middleton On Being A Female CEO: 'It’s Not About A Paycheck, But Being In A Position To Make Change'

by Alison Weissbrot // Posted on Friday, April 20th, 2018 at 11:09 am.

This is the latest installment in "PII," a series featuring the talent that makes the wheels turn in our data-driven advertising world.

Daina Middleton rose to the top at a time when there weren’t many female leaders in marketing.

Before her current role as CEO of CRM agency Ansira, Middleton spent 16 years working across marketing disciplines at Hewlett-Packard. She then went on to head social, data and analytics at digital agency Moxie before becoming CEO at Publicis’ Performics. She also briefly ran B2B marketing at Twitter and was a CEO coach at San Francisco-based PE firm Griffin Consulting.

Middleton is the author of two books, “Marketing in the Participation Age” and “Grace Meets Grit.” The latter explores being a female leader in the marketing and advertising industry.

It hasn’t always been easy, and lessons in resilience were tantamount to her success.

“It’s upon you to become astute at recognizing the most subtle signals and following up, and to not allow others’ opinions, or an adverse environment, [to] stop you,” she said.

She spoke with AdExchanger.

AdExchanger: How did you get interested in marketing?

DAINA MIDDLETON: I started in journalism, working at USA Today in 1985. I saw how as a journalist you could have a cynical view of the world, and I didn’t want to be that person.

I moved into PR, working for US West Communications, which became Qwest. Through that I became acquainted with executives at HP. I went in on the PR side, but wore a number of caps, from branding to advertising to sales and promotion. They reorganized about every two years, so I got to try something different. It was pivotal to my ability to grow and succeed.

Taking Control Of Your Publisher Reputation

by AdExchanger // Posted on Friday, April 20th, 2018 at 12:06 am.

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community.

Today's column is written by Rachel Parkin, senior vice president of strategy and sales at CafeMedia.

Imagine if every impression could find its perfectly matched buyer. Demand-side platforms (DSPs) are the ultimate gatekeepers for screening inventory, but publishers only see which bids and buyers come through the front door. There’s a lot of valuable information publishers don’t know that keeps buyers on the other side of those gates.

Restaurants have health ratings that are clearly displayed in their windows. Consumers see the rating before walking in the door, and restaurant owners also know the results and what it takes to move from a “B” to an “A.”

Why is it the case in media that only buyers see the scorecard on a range of metrics and pre-bid filters that determine which campaigns run on a site?

A media owner’s reputation in the market is critical in driving success, yet publishers are flying blind. Publishers need to take an active role in managing their external reputations to not only maximize demand, but also enable every opportunity for advertisers to buy programmatically.

Post-GDPR, Clients Will Own Data And Agencies Must Get Creative

by AdExchanger // Posted on Friday, April 20th, 2018 at 12:05 am.

“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 John Snyder, CEO at Grapeshot.

The upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides impetus for brands to take a stronger hand in the stewardship of the data that will be left to them.

As a result, the power dynamic between agencies and brands will further evolve: The growing importance of first-party data and diminished availability of third-party data mean agencies may have lessened ability to serve as data brokers. By some estimates, GDPR will remove access to up to 75% of third-party data, and what is left will be more expensive.

The good news is that advertisers can still do a lot of targeted marketing without third-party data. The GDPR offers both financial and functional incentives to unlock customer insights with the data they already possess. The only reason most brands haven’t already done this is because it’s a pain; their data is often split among silos, giving them a fragmented view of the customer.

Comic: Sorrell Out

by Nate Neal // Posted on Friday, April 20th, 2018 at 12:04 am.

WPP Denies Break Up; Court Tosses Axel Springer Suit

by AdExchanger // Posted on Friday, April 20th, 2018 at 12:03 am.

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

Business As Usual

WPP’s interim leadership is denying reports that it will break up the company as a result of CEO Martin Sorrell’s exit. “We don’t believe this makes sense,” co-Chief Operating Officer Mark Read told staff in a memo Thursday. "WPP is a great business with outstanding people, world-class agencies and most of the world’s leading companies as its clients and partners. Nothing that’s happened in the last week has changed that.” But analysts are skeptical of WPP’s behemoth model and enticed by what shareholders stand to gain in the event of a breakup. Selling Kantar could return almost $5 billion in cash to shareholders, while separating the ad giant’s digital advertising, market research and other assets could raise its share price by 40%. "The problem isn’t replacing Martin," Alex DeGroote, an analyst at London brokerage Cenkos, told The Wall Street Journal. "The problem is that the model doesn’t work." More.

The Full-Court Press

The Berlin-based news giant Axel Springer had its case against Adblock Plus (ABP), the ad-blocking browser and app developer owned by Eyeo, thrown out by the German Supreme Court on Thursday. Axel Springer’s numerous assets include Business Insider and Bild, Europe’s highest-circulation newspaper. The decision overturns a lower-court ruling that said ABP’s paid whitelisting program is “tantamount to unfair competition,” Reuters reports. Springer will continue appealing the case to the German Constitutional Court, which oversees federal legislative affairs, on the grounds that ad blockers violate freedom of the press by upsetting the financial viability of news publishers. More.

Podcast: Kavata Mbondo Stays In The Picture

by Zach Rodgers // Posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2018 at 6:42 pm.

Welcome to AdExchanger Talks, a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here.

Kavata Mbondo presided over Time Inc.’s ad business during a period of dramatic upheaval for traditional media companies. When she started there, the iPhone didn’t exist, Facebook was a young scrapper and programmatic wasn’t quite a thing.

Mbondo recently left Time Inc. for a new venture: helping Getty Images launch a consumer-facing media business called FOTO. In this episode, she reflects on her years in digital media and describes the new publishing venture.

Getty Images is a B2B destination, but more than 95% of its visitors weren’t there to buy its assets. They were arriving primarily through searches for news, sports and celebrities.

“We have this large population of consumers who are showing up at a site that isn’t designed for them,” Mbondo says in this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks. “The goal of FOTO was to create a destination for those Getty Images visitors who come in to be entertained.”

The site launched with programmatic monetization and is now expanding into sponsorship sales linked to events. In the episode she goes deep on the ad model, distribution and data assets.

AT&T’s Stephenson Takes The Stand In DOJ Suit, Citing Need For Data-Driven Ad Business

by James Hercher // Posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2018 at 5:20 pm.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson testified on Thursday in defense of the company’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, which is being contested as an antitrust violation by the Justice Department.

Stephenson reiterated AT&T’s defense that without strong content to incorporate into its mobile, streaming and linear distribution, the telco is being left behind by online platforms like Google and Amazon.

“If you miss one technology cycle, it may not kill you, but it will make you sick for a very long time,” Stephenson said.

With improved data-driven targeting across AT&T’s TV and mobile networks, Stephenson said a stronger advertising business will allow AT&T to bring down the price of subscriptions, which is the potential consumer blowback the DOJ is targeting in this case.

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, who testified Wednesday, said online video players dealt his business a “double whammy” by pulling subscribers out of TV bundles and ad dollars into digital.

Stephenson, during his testimony, said the DOJ’s argument that AT&T would leverage Time Warner content by restricting it from competitors doesn’t make sense, since Time Warner’s value is tied to its wide distribution.

Publicis Sees Opportunity In Facebook SNAFUs And GDPR, Despite Unknowns

by Alison Weissbrot // Posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2018 at 2:05 pm.

Despite consumer outrage aimed at Facebook, Publicis Groupe’s sentiment about the platform is status quo.

“The impact is not material on our business in the short or medium term,” said Steve King, CEO of Publicis Media, on the holding company’s Q1 2018 earnings call Thursday. “Facebook is a very important partner to us. They have incredible technology capabilities, fantastic engineering and great leadership.”

Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun agreed and posited that Facebook’s mishaps are a boon for agencies, which have an even more important role now in policing content and helping clients leverage their first-party data.

“Facebook is a great company and very important partner to us,” he said. “It’s legitimizing our role as agent by making sure our clients own their own data by building individual profiles, which we all know is the future.”

But Facebook’s trust issue with consumers could hurt advertisers in the long term, King acknowledged.

“There is a big challenge for Facebook to reestablish that trust post-Cambridge Analytica,” he said. “I suspect the next few months will determine whether that trust is reestablished.”