Alyssa Boyle ( alyssa@adexchanger.com ) covers the TV ecosystem from linear to video and connected TV. She also writes about measurement and data privacy. Her journalistic passions stem from a background in language and translation. She received her B.A. in linguistics and Korean studies from Binghamton University in 2020. When she isn’t writing, she’s probably deep in a history novel or busy performing stand-up comedy.
The Federal Trade Commission is making privacy a priority. But that’s hard to do without a federal data privacy law. In the meantime, the FTC hopes to fill in the gaps with new rulemaking to apply privacy practices to consumer welfare enforcement broadly, said Rashida Richardson, attorney advisor to FTC Chair Lina Khan, speaking at AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO conference in New York City this week.
Although Netflix lost roughly 1 million users in Q2, the streaming giant gained 2.4 million subs in Q3, which helped boost the company’s revenue by 6% year over year. The question is: What happens to Netflix’s subscriber count when it flips the switch on ads in less than two weeks?
TV ad measurement has seen a lot of positive progress, but it’s still something of … a big fat mess. Luckily for advertisers, TV measurement is nowhere near as messy as it was just 12 months ago, said Kelly Metz, managing director of linear and advanced TV activation at Omnicom Media Group, speaking at AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O conference in New York City this week. Still, buyers aren’t getting the data transparency they say they need in order to make more informed media buys.
Media standards are needed to help guide buyers on where to invest and help publishers and platforms do better themselves. The “onus is on advertisers” to drive change,” said Eli Harris, EVP of global digital partnerships and media responsibility at MAGNA Global, presenting the fourth annual edition of the company’s Media Responsibility Index (MRI) at an event in New York City earlier this week.
Google, and every other ad tech company, is trying to figure out how to deliver personalized marketing without being creepy or violating a privacy policy. “First-party data is imperative,” said Michael Burke, managing director of Google’s branded luxury apparels business, at the IAB Tech Lab’s Brand Disruption Summit in New York City on Wednesday. “But the fallacy is the idea that [first-party data] needs to be used for one-to-one marketing.”
Netflix has ads starting in November. The Netflix Basic With Ads plan is launching in 12 countries on November 3, including the UK, Italy and Korea, and will cost viewers $6.99 a month. Netflix was originally planning an ad tier for 2023, but the streaming wars are moving full steam ahead.
The 2022 midterm elections are expected to see a record amount of political ad spend going to streaming, even compared to the 2020 presidential cycle. Almost all marketers love CTV for the granular audience buying it supports, but CTV wouldn’t have the political clout it has today if not for the media’s roots in legacy television.
Some business practices on the internet may not be against the law, but they undermine or manipulate consumer choice. Legal advocates have coined a new name for this practice: dark patterns. And dark patterns are next up on the enforcement docket both for the Federal Trade Commission and state-level data privacy laws.
Roku premiered “The Lesbian Bar Project” in New York City, a docuseries chronicling lesbian-owned bars scattered across the country. The three-episode miniseries was co-produced by Roku’s Brand Studio and German liqueur company Mast-Jägermeister, the title sponsor of the show streaming on The Roku Channel.
Video SSP Beachfront and Canoe Ventures expanded their ad-serving partnership across several more programmers. The two companies integrated their tech stacks in 2019 so broadcasters or streamers that work with Canoe can channel inventory more effectively to Beachfront’s programmatic pipes. Now, six more programmers, including Kabillion, Afro TV and TV One, are using the integrated solution.
To plan, target and measure media buys on TV, advertisers need to resolve identity at the household level, which calls for full media transparency, said Kelly Metz, managing director of linear and advanced TV activation at Omnicom Media Group. Kelly Metz will be speaking about the future of TV measurement at AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O conference on October 17-18 in New York City. Click here to register.
VideoAmp released a tool that allows publishers and advertisers to compare audience viewership second by second throughout the duration of a program. The purpose is to help buyers target their ads more effectively. Advertisers have been demanding discrete program insights for targeting and measurement planning, Jonathan Bohm, VP of product at VideoAmp, tells AdExchanger.
Budweiser is bringing a first-party data approach to its FIFA World Cup sponsorship, a sign of shifting priorities for many marketers. Budweiser’s recent focus on direct-to-consumer marketing is part of a broader effort to generate more first-party data to power its marketing, said Todd Allen, Budweiser’s global VP of marketing.
Roku became the second major CTV publisher to adopt Nielsen’s new ad deduplication tool for measuring its ads across linear and streaming video inventory, following YouTube this summer. The tool is designed to help programmers deduplicate audiences across linear and streaming by comparing reach across screens, Kim Gilberti, SVP of product management at Nielsen, told AdExchanger.
Automotive marketers were among the first major advertisers for legacy television. Now, they’re ditching their age-old audience demos for first-party audience data like everyone else. General Motors is the first brand to adopt NBCUniversal’s first-party data platform, NBCUnified – but the integration is just one of many stops on GM’s first-party data road map.
The US data privacy landscape is chaotic. The future of the recently proposed American Data Privacy and Protection Act is now decidedly up in the air, and states are passing their own privacy laws in the absence of a federal one, which makes compliance complicated. Federal agencies like the FTC are also trying to fill the data privacy rulemaking void.
Ad tech companies are being reincarnated as streaming services. But over-the-top (OTT) technology is a very different animal from digital. Programmers need to understand that there’s no easy button for monetizing their inventory, especially if they want to attract ad dollars from advertisers looking for specific multicultural audiences, says Isabel Rafferty Zavala, CEO of Canela Media.
It makes sense that brands in sexy verticals like fashion and hair care turn to social media influencers. But banking brands hire influencers, too. Kasasa, a fintech company that launched in 2003 to help local credit unions and community banks open more user accounts, ran a recent video campaign with a twist on the “shop local” trend featuring YouTube creator Trey Kennedy.
Group Black, a collective that represents 200 Black-owned media publishers, launched in 2021 with a mission to make Black-owned media easier to buy. Now, it’s partnering with Magnite to help scale Black-owned inventory by making more of it available programmatically.
Olaplex, which launched in 2014 making premium hair care products, was content growing its biz purely by word of mouth among stylists online. But when it started investing in paid media earlier this year, the brand turned to TikTok primarily for brand building rather than sales lift, said Chief Marketing Officer Charlotte Watson, who was hired in January as its first CMO.
Streaming has a Hispanic underrepresentation problem. Hispanic Americans account for nearly 20% of the US population, but Latino actors were cast in only 5.5% of the roles in digital programming during the 2019-2020 broadcast season. The representation gap is even wider in streaming TV than it is in broadcast, where Latino actors accounted for 6.3% of all roles.
At the Next TV Summit in New York City on Tuesday, legacy TV companies and the technology providers that serve them pushed back against an early eulogy for broadcast television. As old players reinvent themselves and new ones join the scene, TV distribution is coming full circle — broadcasters are focused on getting their network signals to stream on mobile devices and connected TV (CTV).
David’s Bridal has been selling dresses since the 1950s, but it didn’t say “yes” to a social advertising strategy until 2019. Now, the retailer allocates one third of its spend to social media – and half that budget goes to TikTok alone. Next on the agenda is live shopping, which David’s Bridal tested in August with its “First Annual NashBlast.”
CTV scales. But does it perform? Matthew Koontz started his career at Arnold Worldwide before moving on to lead ad product teams at Hulu, Snapchat, Microsoft and Xandr (before the two merged) and WideOrbit. Koontz joined tvScientific in June, and he spoke with AdExchanger about why CTV is a “sweet spot” for performance marketers.
Smartify Media launched in 2020 as a digital out-of-home platform to allow small businesses in Boston to share real-time updates with customers during the pandemic. Now, the company is trying to create a retail media network with small businesses nationwide, like bodegas and other mom-and-pop shops, through its Small Business Revenue+ program.
Invisalign, which makes aligners and other alternatives to braces, launched its first marketing campaign in the metaverse in August. The purpose is to help Invisalign build brand awareness among a younger demographic, the same demo that spends a lot of its time playing games, said Kamal Bhandal, the brand’s VP of consumer and brand marketing.
Live television is back in style. And according to Magnite, there’s a surge in demand for linear addressable inventory from programmatic buyers. The net result is that SSPs are squeezing linear addressability into their tech stacks. Magnite, for one, ran a test campaign that points to programmatic addressable’s incremental reach potential.
Free, ad-supported TV (FAST) is the fastest-growing tier of streaming. To take advantage of the trend, Samsung relaunched its FAST platform, Samsung TV Plus, on Tuesday. The relaunch includes more channels from TV networks like A+E and AMC, more local news, and distribution across Samsung … smart fridges.
The European Parliament adopted the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in July. Although they were passed as one legislative package, they function as two distinct laws. But there is one common thread: Holding Big Tech providers more accountable for what happens on their platforms.
Fiverr is a site that matchmakes freelancers with companies looking to meet immediate, one-off business needs. But now that remote work appears here to stay, Fiverr realized it needed new messaging to get large businesses to hire freelancers on a longer-term basis, said Matt Clunan, Fiverr’s global head of brand and digital. And Fiverr decided TV is the best way to branch out.
