Post GDPR Ad Spend Recovers; WPP Faces Short Sellers

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The GDPR Pipe Cleaner

Programmatic ad spend has rebounded a bit in Europe after contracting a month ago when GDPR came into effect. Clients cut programmatic by as much as 50% in the days following enforcement, since many publishers lacked consent technology and advertisers were nervous about potentially noncompliant campaigns. Now buyers are throttling programmatic by more like 20-30% and publisher opt-in rates are getting up to 75%, executives tell Digiday. One notable difference, however, is the attention on data quality, which has trimmed the amount of third-party data flowing through the programmatic ecosystem significantly. “The third-party data pot has declined aggressively, and advertisers are telling their agencies that they need more first-party data in order to be [GDPR]-compliant and brand-safe,” said Chris Ashton-Green, founder and chief revenue officer at Regit.cars. More.

A Short’s Sharp Shock

Uncertainty about a potential new direction and more than $1 billion in short-seller bets against WPP is putting pressure on the agency holding company already reeling from the tumultuous departure of longtime CEO Martin Sorrell. The number of WPP shares on loan, a proxy for short selling, is up 16% in the past year, according to the UK newspaper The Times. A year ago, short sellers made up less than 1% of the company’s overall shareholder base, according to data from the market research company IHS Markit. Now, they hold more than 6% of company capital. More (with subscription).

Play To Win

Sports sponsorships are getting more data-driven and more closely tied to performance goals. Budweiser, for instance, has an incentive-laden deal with the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves that pays the team based on metrics like in-market share, beer purchases, whether the team makes the playoffs and how many views of Budweiser-branded videos the team gets on social media. “Simple awareness no longer cuts it, because those audiences can be found in less expensive ways, like through targeted digital media,” AdAge reports. More. The NFL recently developed a centralized data co-op for online sponsorship extensions, like retargeting a team’s site visitors for a sponsor or helping a partner like Electronic Arts, which produces the “Madden NFL” video game series, dynamically target audiences based on NFL fan data. [AdExchanger has more on that.]

But Wait, There’s More!