CTV

After a reenergizing week at the Cannes Lions festival, here are six observations on how our industry is changing to meet its new challenges.

When it comes to the red-hot retail media sector, history doesn’t have to repeat itself. Here’s how to add accountability and transparency to a space where those attributes are sorely lacking.

What’s holding back progress in cross-media measurement?  Akhil Parekh, Chief Product Officer at Nielsen, explains what needs to shift to make it a reality.

There’s something about travel commercials – especially ones produced by tourism boards – that always make me want to pack up and go to whatever fun new location they’re telling me about.

Enjoy this weekly comic from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem … 

The Amazon DSP vs. The Trade Desk rumor mill; How SharkNinja has stayed sharp; Why nothing beats organic.

SiriusXM integrated with Innovid to provide advertisers with the type of impression-level data they get for other digital channels, facilitate more direct comparisons and spur more investment in digital audio.

In the early hours of Monday morning, Roku and Amazon jointly announced a partnership that will reportedly result in the “largest authenticated TV footprint” in the US.

AI-generated mystery pages are appearing on brand sites; Amazon Prime Video doubles its ad load; and bipartisan efforts to protect kids online get a new partisan focus under the Trump admin.

In the next two years, linear TV will be deprioritized so much that holding companies will begin outsourcing their linear buying.

Advertisers love new ad formats, especially on connected TV. Just look at how many platforms announced their own during the IAB NewFronts and TV upfronts last month. But it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

IAB Tech Lab to highlight the industry’s favorite CTV ad formats; how agentic AI could transform ad agency practices; and the Trump tariffs trigger an uptick in false “Made in America” claims.

Google’s pivot on IP addresses shows it fears competition; the FTC investigates media watchdogs for advising brands not to spend on X; and Mondelez accuses Aldi of copying its snacks.

Classify is entering a crowded space of AI-powered contextual curation offerings. But the company is already teasing some high-profile integrations thanks to its network of well-connected advisors.

The alternative currency bucket could use a rebrand. That referential and somewhat deferential phraseology – a reference to Nielsen – drives Peter Liguori, VideoAmp’s executive chairman, a little nuts. It stems, he argues, from the “absurd notion” that the TV industry “has almost 100% of its eggs in one basket.”

YouTube is winning the CTV race by not just focusing on TV; ads threaten the gen AI user experience; and sports still brings brands incremental reach.

You’d think the United States Congress would have bigger things to worry about right now than figuring out where and when football games are airing… and yet.

Viant is on an M&A tear, with two acquisitions – IRIS.TV followed by lockr – in less than six months. Although the rationale behind these deals might be obvious to ad tech insiders, Wall Street investors speak a different language, one that Viant CEO Tim Vanderhook has become fluent in as the leader of a publicly traded company.

Magnite’s SpringServe deal illustrates why SSPs need a video ad server; Google grapples with AI search’s impact on publisher traffic; and Anthropic’s AI assistant is a law enforcement snitch.

Even with the amazing storylines, this NBA season brought a steep decline in local TV viewership. While it’s tempting to frame this as waning fan interest, these drops are symptoms of a media ecosystem in transition.

Will programmatic buying inevitably lead to a repeat on CTV of what happened with digital media publishers? We asked Roku, Tubi and NCBU that question on stage at our Programmatic IO event in Las Vegas.

OMD’s Emily Proctor outlined the criteria the ad agency uses to evaluate alt IDs. She also shared which five IDs OMD uses most often and why.

TV dealmaking has shifted to “always-on” models; “activation” is a classic bit of ad jargon; ChatGPT is sending more traffic to publisher.

PubMatic’s new AI curation features are helping it forge closer relationships with ad agencies like GroupM that are ramping up their use of AI.

Amazon Prime Video rolls out new audience and contextual targeting; streamers wring more revenue from subscription-weary consumers; and AI is an app, so it must obey Google and Apple.

The era of fragmented, adversarial ad tech is winding down. A new paradigm is emerging defined by AI-first, end-to-end platforms and collaboration among buyers and sellers.

LinkedIn has been investing in video like nobody’s business. Lindsey Edwards, VP of product management, takes us inside the company’s video strategy, which now includes CTV ads and a creator rev share program. Plus: Why LinkedIn decided to host its first NewFronts presentation this year.

Now that all the dust and confetti has settled after the upfronts, negotiations between marketers, agencies, networks and streamers are only just getting started.

Amid the glitz of TV upfront presentations, advertising executives take the stage to talk about things like new audience targeting capabilities or to ballyhoo new ad measurement partnerships. How, though, are we supposed to focus on brand lift statistics when we can all hear Lady Gaga belting a vocal warmup offstage?

Political advertisers, by necessity, have built precise, privacy-conscious targeting strategies that work without relying exclusively on third-party data like cookies.