Don’t Hate, Iterate
One way to frame the evolution of ChatGPT ad units is on a sliding scale from transparency to obscurity.
Initially, ChatGPT ads were in clearly delineated pillboxes with darkened backgrounds. But then ads lost the heavy shading, as well as the blatant “Insert Brand” and “Sponsored” copy.
Now, the ads don’t even have the structured box (h/t to Marketplace Pulse founder Joe Kaziukėnas for flagging the latest version). The ad appears as text, more in line with normal ChatGPT responses.
But if anything’s to be learned from forerunners like Google Search and Microsoft Bing, it’s that constantly changing ad units aren’t moving toward any ideal or stable type. The amorphousness is the point.
Google and Bing never stop swapping out new colors or ways to disclose that the placement is an ad or the boldness or fuzziness of the fonts. Really, there’s no limit on ways to recombine the ad unit to look new and fresh.
Most likely, the rate of turnover in ad iterations represents how long it takes a common denominator of users to unconsciously phase the ad units out. It’s a roller coaster more seasoned ad platforms are well acquainted with.
Anyway, welcome to the ride, OpenAI!
The Express Train
Chinese online retail giant AliExpress (owned by Alibaba) is expanding an affiliate marketing partnership with YouTube beyond South Korea. The deal between the two companies will now cover the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Brazil.
The integration means YouTube creators can apply insights to AliExpress’ product catalogue to find items their audience might be interested in buying, per the release. And any products the creators feature in YouTube videos will be linked to an AliExpress checkout.
The release does not mention whether AliExpress merchants or sellers have the ability to strike deals with YouTube creators directly through the program. So they probably don’t have that ability. Affiliate programs are impersonal as a matter of course.
The partnership makes sense for YouTube, which wants to cultivate live shopping and purchases via YouTube. But live shopping is paddling upstream in the US, where it doesn’t have the same cultural cache as it does in China.
Relatedly, last week, Alibaba ended Amazon’s four-year streak atop Ad Age’s annual advertiser tracking report. And it wasn’t even close. The top three went Alibaba ($30.2 billion), Amazon ($23.5 billion) and then Temu parent company PDD Holdings ($16.3 billion).
That’s another reason for YouTube to ride the wave of Alibaba marketing budgets.
Don’t Be Smart With Me
In a delightfully ironic twist, developers want you to use artificial intelligence to make your hardware and software less intelligent.
Two solutions, dumbtv and cleanyourtv, promise vibe-coded solutions for getting rid of undesirable CTV elements like sponsored ads, tracking features and TV operating system bloatware, TechCrunch reports.
Many DIY types are already using Claude to recode their Smart TVs to remove advertising (with mixed results). Think of it as removing all the connectivity elements that make a smart TV, well, “smart.”
The dumb TV products also take aim at automatic content recognition (ACR), a key data collection method underpinning CTV advertising.
Smart TV ACR systems are always-on mechanisms that identify what content is playing on the TV and if/when people are in the room. That data is packaged to advertisers and is also used by smart TV providers to determine which ads to serve to viewers and when.
Removing those data connections could “have the potential to disrupt the smart TV ad industry,” TechCrunch writes.
So it’s official: Ad blocking is coming for the big screen in the living room.
But Wait! There’s More!
Fewer than 10% of Target Roundel advertisers use incrementality measurement. But the retailer wishes they would. [Adweek]
Pepsi is most prominent among the classic American food and beverage brands that are in a nosedive right now. [WSJ]
OpenAI’s ad business is growing fast and may surpass $1 billion this year. But it’s well short of lofty goals. To make good, OpenAI is on an ads team hiring spree, poaching from Meta especially. [The Information]
In worse news for OpenAI, state attorneys general are piling on the AI behemoth with new lawsuits. Recent suits with Meta, Alphabet and Amazon have only whetted their appetite. [Tech Policy Press]
Disney bought CharacterAI’s software, but not its legal hassles. [Ars Technica]
President Trump claimed at a recent rally that “Google wouldn’t have taken my call in the first term. Now they kiss my ass.” [The Verge]
TikTok “permanently” suspended the ad account for a new Elon Musk documentary as the film was set to expand to nearly 500 theaters this week, but then reinstated it after being accused by the director of censorship. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Meta says it temporarily suspended the Instagram account for the anti-Trump “No Kings” protest movement during a planned protest on Sunday after an internal tool erroneously flagged the account’s use of a Claude account reading tool as bot activity. [Business Insider]
In other Meta news, the company reportedly paid 29 anti-LGBTQ content creators as part of its invite-only Facebook Content Monetization program. [The 19th]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
