Howdy Partner
OpenAI has been following the classic walled garden platform playbook for its ChatGPT advertising business. But people often forget that the first few pages are about opening up ad inventory to third-party intermediaries – before the walls go back up, of course.
YouTube allowed third-party ad serving … for a time. Facebook bought and then quickly shuttered the Atlas ad server. Amazon Prime once had a DSP partner program with full third-party programmatic visibility – but then dataxu, one of its partners, was acquired by Roku (so, buh-bye). The Trade Desk, the only other vendor in that program, was quietly cut off a few months later.
OpenAI may now be at that same early point in the cycle. The Information reports that Magnite and PubMatic have signed deals to “fill unused ad space” for ChatGPT. And they’re just the latest additions to OpenAI’s growing roster of ad-tech partners, which already includes LiveRamp, Criteo, StackAdapt and even Amazon Ads.
But this partner push has a pointed subplot: OpenAI’s VP of partnerships, Samantha Jacobson, was until recently The Trade Desk’s chief strategy officer. Jacobson announced her departure in May amid TTD’s painful exodus of senior executives. Now she’s helping build partnerships at one of the most coveted new media platforms in the world.
At TTD, the reaction may very well have been: “Don’t be a stranger. Seriously.”
Shillpilled
Prediction markets Kalshi, Polymarket and Novig want to be household names. So they’re trading on the reputations of their celebrity spokespeople.
The sheer number of celebrities signing on to promote these controversial companies proves that the concept of “selling out” is officially dead, writes Amanda Mull at Bloomberg.
Consider a star-studded ad campaign Polymarket launched in September, featuring sports megastars Lebron James, Derek Jeter and Eli Manning, actors John Leguizamo and Alexandra Daddario, director Spike Lee and supermodel Emily Ratajkowski, to name a few. Or Novig’s headline-grabbing campaign with actress Sydney Sweeney.
It makes sense for Polymarket and Novig to associate themselves with these names, Mull writes. A March poll by Ipsos found that just 20% of respondents were familiar with the platforms, despite extensive marketing.
But what makes less sense is why celebrities would promote these companies, Mull argues. The same Ipsos poll found that, among consumers familiar with prediction markets, 40% viewed them as bad for society, while 60% thought they were no different than gambling.
Celebrities used to avoid tying themselves to such brands. But in this era of intensely devoted fandoms, “celebrities and influencers announce new ad campaigns and brand sponsorships to excited, congratulatory fans as though they are awards,” Mull writes.
So, if every celebrity is selling out, there’s nothing to criticize, she adds. “Maybe that’s why so many people agreed to be in that Polymarket ad at the same time – safety in numbers.”
Slowing The Search
Ad buyers are scrutinizing their Google search budgets more than ever, Digiday reports. And for good reason, too. Now that AI Overviews are encouraging users to click through at lower rates, those ads aren’t performing as well as they once did despite higher CPC rates.
One marketing expert told Digiday that he’s seen some advertisers reallocating 10% to 30% of their Google search budget into other channels. Others claim that some of their clients have started moving money into Meta and ChatGPT or into other Google products, including AI Max, YouTube and Demand Gen.
That shift in advertiser spending seems to mirror similar trends happening at Google overall. Last week, Alphabet’s stock price dropped over 10% after the company’s latest earnings report revealed a slowdown in search advertising revenue growth, which SVP and Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler attributed to lower monetization of its AI Mode.
Meanwhile, Google is sticking to its assertion that AI-powered advertising campaigns and a more “conversational” search experience will ultimately provide greater value to advertisers in the long run. Which assumes the company won’t run out of money by then – a pretty fair assumption, given that it earned $127.6 billion in Q3 this year alone.
But Wait! There’s More!
Publicis officially closes its acquisition of LiveRamp. [release]
AdImpact data suggests that CTV ad spending overtook cable for the first time during this midterm cycle. [Adweek]
Anthropic only made $17 billion in revenue last quarter, but still plans to spend more than $895 billion in the coming years. [Bloomberg]
“NFL RedZone” anchor Scott Hanson says league executives are to blame for commercials being added to the channel in 2024 and for its ad load steadily increasing since then. [Yahoo! Sports]
The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and several other publications are suing the makers of web browser Brave for unlawful AI scraping and bypassing paywalls. [The Verge]
An anonymous group of advertising execs wants the UK government to do more to prevent the industry from funding hate speech on social media. [The Media Leader]
You’re Hired!
OpenX hires Robert Horler as its new CEO. [release]
Netflix brings on Darshan Kantak as VP of ads platform. [TheWrap]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
