Before joining Dotdash Meredith, Roberts was a theoretical physicist focused on making dark matter predictions for the hadron collider at CERN and cosmic ray predictions for the AMS detector on the International Space Station. He also created the first-ever canon maps of Game of Thrones for Random House and George R. R. Martin’s “The Lands of Ice and Fire.”

 Roberts says that maps empower people to make decisions using data by helping them understand a way forward. 

 “Mapmaking is an exercise in data-powered decision making, whether it’s in the front of a fantasy novel where I’m helping the reader make a logical choice, or in business where I hand over information in a way that other people can then make informed decisions off a common understanding and framework,” said Roberts.

Just like maps, publishers face a great deal of data and decision-making as they approach the loss of third-party cookies. During his keynote at the AdMonsters Publisher Forum, “Publishers Take the Wheel: Effective Audience Targeting in a Cookieless World,” Roberts will share how publishers can leverage intent data for ad targeting at scale.

 Solving Problems From Physicist to Publisher

Roberts has been with Dotdash Meredith since 2013. As Chief Innovation Officer, Roberts oversees research, data science, and open market revenue. He was previously the President, Health & Finance, overseeing strategy for Verywell, Health, Parents, Investopedia, and The Balance, and has held various senior leadership roles, including Head of Data Science. 

Before Dotdash Meredith, Roberts spent ten years as a theoretical physicist, bringing that training to his current role.

“As a physicist, you must be confident to take on problems and believe they are fixable. That belief gives me the mindset to tackle publishing challenges with an impatience to solve them,” expressed Roberts. 

And right now, that challenge is solving ad targeting for publishers before the cookie gets deprecated in 2024. Roberts believes ad targeting that will work, and scale isn’t with identity targeting but with intent-based targeting. 

“Trying to rebuild an identity signal across a cookieless environment is going back and fighting the fight that’s already been fought and lost. I think targeting who somebody might have been four weeks ago is much less effective than targeting who they are right now. Non-identity or intent-based targeting unlocks the full scale of a publisher,” said Roberts.

Connecting at Key Moments of Intent

In May, Dotdash Meredith launched D/Cipher, a tool that provides intent-based ad targeting without cookies. D/Cipher is based on billions of Dotdash Meredith’s proprietary consumer interactions and content signals from its 40+ brands that help 30 million people daily, providing the publisher with a unique data set.

 “If we were a news publisher, we would tell the world what to care about. We are much more a service publisher, so the world tells us,” shared Roberts. “Our data gives us a heartbeat of the entire world every day.” 

D/Cipher reaches users on all devices and platforms, including Apple (iOS) audiences previously unreachable by advertising cookies for the past two years, estimated at more than 50% of U.S. digital users. 

So, how does D/Cipher reach the right person, at the right time, without cookies? 

Roberts gives the example of targeting a parent reading articles about family vacations versus looking for a Negroni recipe. The promise of cookie targeting is knowing that the person is a parent, but intent-based targeting is knowing a person is being a parent at that moment. 

“Engaging the parent with the right messaging when they’re in that mindset is powerful and requires no prior knowledge of the person. A drink recipe is when they’re specifically not being a parent, and they don’t want to see your messaging even if you got the targeting right,” explains Roberts. “We’ve removed the guesswork and only reach people when they’re ready to receive your message. It’s not surprising that we see vastly higher performance with intent targeting than with cookie targeting.”

Guaranteeing a Non-Identity-Based Approach

As part of the D/Cipher launch, the publisher announced the Dotdash Meredith Performance Guarantee, which promises performance lift versus cookie-based or other audience-based targeting for marketers using the D/Cipher tool. 

Roberts shared that the guarantee’s goal is not for advertisers to shift their entire buying strategy to only intent-based targeting. Instead, Dotdash Meredith wants advertisers to simultaneously test and then scale both a cookie-based or identity-based approach and a non-cookie and non-identity-based approach in the lead-up to a cookieless environment. 

“We can learn so much with a side-by-side comparison. We as an industry must get comfortable with non-identity-based targeting and measurement in the next year to 18 months so that when the cookie gets fully deprecated, you’re not trying to figure out how to do cookieless targeting in the second half of 2024 because you’re going to be doing it with little data to play with and a lot of disruption,” cautioned Roberts.

Roberts says that as America’s largest publisher, it means Dotdash Meredith is in a position to help the industry and is confident in its guarantee.

“We guarantee you that your intent-based campaign will outperform the cookie-based campaign. We know it works because we’ve been doing this a long time, and that takes the risk off the table,” said Roberts.

The post AdMonsters Publisher Forum Keynote Dr. Jon Roberts: Innovating Audience Targeting for a Cookieless World appeared first on AdMonsters.

But the identity conversation is loaded with BS because everyone talks about it like they know what the future holds. Worse, they’re presenting solutions based on what they “know.”

In reality, nobody knows what a post-identity world will actually look like because that world is still largely hypothetical. And because there is no “right” answer to what the world will look like, there are gazillions of “answers” masquerading as solutions!

That doesn’t mean these solutions are terrible and won’t work, it’s just important to recognize that they’re built on an assumption that certain hypotheses will come true when those hypotheses could easily turn out to be wrong.

What we do know is that the post-identity world will be shaped by developments in three arenas: regulatory policies for privacy, platform decisions around consumer data, and consumer sentiment. Each arena has complicated dynamics, but the picture becomes even more complex when you try to predict how it all fits together. In other words, a perfect storm for BS.

Let’s do a quick reality check on each arena to understand why it’s impossible, at the moment, to settle on a vision for a post-identity world.

Do you know where privacy regulation will land? I don’t.
Privacy regulation has been the elephant in the room throughout the history of ad tech. A few years ago, the elephant woke up and gave us GDPR. But remember, the first proposal for GDPR was in 2012.

It took six years and countless twists and turns before GDPR took effect in 2018. But that was just one privacy law in one region. Similar efforts in the U.S. and elsewhere have taken even longer to materialize. If the rest of the world catches up to the EU, there’s no telling how regional rules will come together to govern the global internet. Will IP be considered PII? Will first-party data be viewed like third-party data? Will companies be able to use encrypted email addresses? Will there be limitations on fingerprinting?

Ad tech vendors and marketers are stuck planning for a future where it’s impossible to say what the rules of the road will be, or which players will have a hand in setting those rules.

Do you know what the platforms will do next? I’ve heard rumors.
Compared to what we see on the public policy front, the big tech platforms move fast and break things like third-party cookies, device IDs, and other signals that ad tech relies on. In some ways, the pace of change is a blessing because speed creates an urgency to prepare for the future.

The trouble is, the platforms aren’t going to show us their plans, and unlike the regulatory process, there’s no mechanism to force transparency. Oh, and they have ulterior motives.

But it’s not as if the blueprint for the future is under lock and key inside Apple or Google. The platforms also face uncertainty because they need to balance the competing priorities of regulatory demands, positioning their brands for a privacy-conscious marketplace, and their advertising businesses.

In other words, it’s complicated. And while the trade press works hard to chase down rumors, there just isn’t enough solid information yet for marketers and ad tech vendors to act with certitude. Just look at Google. They literally change course on privacy weekly.

Are consumers on board with this? Unclear.
A decade ago, the Web was wide open and consumers weren’t terribly concerned with privacy. Today, walled gardens are ascendent, fragmentation is increasing, and a critical mass of consumers aren’t just concerned about privacy, they’re taking action by using ad blockers, adjusting their privacy preferences, and even paying for content with fewer (or zero) ads. We can thank Cambridge Analytica, Apple’s heavily-funded privacy ad campaigns, and The Social Dilemma for that.

These developments represent significant risk to the value exchange at the center of the current model. But if it took 20-plus years for that value exchange to come together, why would we expect the next iteration of the value exchange to mature overnight? If anything, we’re at the start of an ongoing conversation where consumer sentiment and subsequent demands are a moving target.

How should we think about identity in the face of uncertainty?
Roll up the uncertainties around regulation, platforms, and consumer sentiment, and you see the challenge. We face countless variables, a wide range of hypotheses, and for each hypothesis, a corresponding solution. Prohaska Consulting & the MMA’s most recent count found more than 120 identity solutions across the globe – with more on the way.

So how do marketers and publishers future-proof their operations? Do you bet on a probabilistic solution? A deterministic one? Or, is the future a throwback to the days of contextual advertising?

Here’s a better question: do you know what any of that means? Do you understand how it all differs, how it’s similar, how it can all work together, how it can be done today, and how it might need to be done in the future? Could you explain it to a friend who doesn’t work in digital? Would you feel confident explaining it to your boss and running point on making strategic decisions on identity?

If your answer is ‘no’, that’s okay, you’re not alone. Pretty much everyone is in this boat. A good place to start is to educate yourself. All identity solutions have trade-offs, and no single solution is perfect. But if you understand the methodologies, applications, and commercial constraints of identity solutions, you’ll be able to understand those trade-offs and be better equipped to make decisions based on your hypotheses.

Equally important, the more marketers and publishers know about the strengths, weaknesses, and blindspots of the next generation of identity solutions, the more likely they are to build resilient systems and strategies for any future scenario. But it all starts with education, not a BS conversation.

To learn more about this topic, check out Shiv Gupta’s keynote — Calling BS on Identity: An In-depth Guide to Identity Solutions — at AdMonsters Ops on June 5, 2023.

The post Calling BS on Identity appeared first on AdMonsters.

While working in the digital media and ad tech industry, Gupta noticed a problem that wasn’t being addressed and was hindering progress. Industry professionals could not communicate effectively because of a lack of common industry knowledge and jargon, particularly those from different companies and even across departments in the same company. The solution? U of Digital. 

When U of Digital was founded in 2018, it was focused on specific areas of the industry, namely the areas where Gupta had previous experience, like sales teams at ad tech companies. This was because U of Digital started as a solopreneur business, with only Gupta to guide the ship. However, today U of Digital boasts an expert network who bring their knowledge and expertise to help educate learners on an ever-growing list of industry topics for all types of players in the ecosystem, buy side and sell side. 

We met with Gupta to learn how U of Digital has grown over the years, where the company is headed, and to find out more about what Gupta is planning to speak about at next month’s AdMonsters Ops in New York City. 

Realizing the Need for Industry-Specific Learning 

Five years ago, when Gupta started U of Digital, he had lots of experience selling ad tech and media. He noticed that people throughout the industry didn’t seem to speak the same language, and he knew it didn’t have to be this way. 

“I realized that the best salespeople bring value to marketers or customers through knowledge and education and help customers to navigate the industry. I saw that the best salespeople understood the industry’s landscape, rather than just their products, which was not typical for all salespeople,” explains Gupta. 

This led to the realization that making sales and account teams industry experts would enable them to assist their customers. Salespeople who could help customers more effectively were more likely to make a sale, generating more revenue for themselves and their business. Says Gupta, “Everyone should be able to benefit from knowledge and expertise.”

Gupta aimed to foster a unifying industry vocabulary – different jargon and acronyms are often used to describe the same things – and teach industry professionals overarching concepts that they may not have been previously exposed to. Within the industry, it can sometimes be difficult to learn about facets that you don’t directly have hands-on experience with. 

He explains, “There are so many niches and the industry is very fragmented. Working in the industry, you probably need to know about things that are adjacent to the work that you are doing, but because your day-to-day is so busy, you likely don’t know those adjacencies very well. You need to learn these things to do your job well, but how do you make that happen? This is the problem we’re trying to solve.” 

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: Increasing Industry Knowledge

Gupta began teaching others concepts he had learned himself through his time in ad tech and sales, first gaining teaching credibility as a guest lecturer at universities. Once he was more established, he began to build a team to help bring his vision to life. Five years later, U of Digital has an “expert network” of over 200 senior industry professionals who help educate learners. 

The company has evolved over the last five years to cover topics across the industry rather than relegating itself to ad tech and sales. “We’re working with those teams still, but we’ve expanded to product teams, engineering teams, operations teams, all folks on the sell side. We’re also starting to work with the buy side, including marketers, agencies, and consultancies. If we can help people get to a higher level of knowledge, we can help everybody make progress personally and professionally,” shares Gupta.

The North Star of U of Digital is to reach every learner possible, to help as many people as possible make the industry better. With this goal in mind, Gupta envisions the next five years will include more expansion of learning topics and reaching more people in other areas of the industry, including publishers, and adjacent industries like martech. As well, he hopes to reach people at companies of all sizes, no matter how small or large. 

De-Mystifying & Simplifying the Future of Identity 

One area of the industry that Gupta finds incredibly interesting is identity. “It’s a topic that isn’t that complicated, but that people like to make complicated,” he shares. “I find it exciting because I can help people understand it and show them that it isn’t so hard. I love geeking out about identity; it’s a lot of fun for me.”

Identity is exactly what Gupta will be speaking about in his keynote at AdMonsters Ops in June. The session is titled “Calling BS on Identity: An In-Depth Guide to Identity Solutions,” which he says is an exciting way to frame the topic. 

“The idea is that identity feels confusing and overwhelming for a lot of people, so we want to spend a good deal of time during the session demystifying it and bringing it back to the basics so that people can feel that it isn’t all that complex. Then we’ll talk about why there is chaos and confusion surrounding the topic of identity, which is causing people to be concerned that they won’t be able to solve this problem,” says Gupta. 

The session will then dive into the possible variables of what will happen with the future of identity and the solutions for these variables, including how to poke holes in them. Notes Gupta, “That’s why it’s called, ‘Calling BS on Identity.’”

Heading into Ops, Gupta is excited to get in the trenches and network with folks throughout the AdMonsters community. He enthuses, “I want to figure out if there are ways in which we can work together to help them and educate them; that’s what I’m looking forward to. It’s a different type of event with different types of folks interested in that level of discourse, which will be different for me. I’m gonna learn a ton, which I’m excited about. That’s what gets me pumped.”

The post Uniting an Industry Through Education: In Conversation with U of Digital Founder Shiv Gupta appeared first on AdMonsters.

To dig into the details of what retailers need to know to stay competitive, we spoke with Eric Brackmann, Head of Commerce Media at Koddi. Brackmann helped illuminate why it’s important for retailers to invest in digital solutions, how to form partnerships, and how to stay ahead of the competition. He also offered some insight into how this sector will likely grow and change in the near future. 

Investing in Media Networks

Kacey Perinelli: Why is it important for retailers to invest in commerce media in today’s climate? What benefits and competitive advantages can retailers expect to see after investing?

Eric Brackmann: Companies that have built their own media programs or networks have seen that these programs are a huge driver of profitability. It will get harder and harder to compete with these companies, because they enjoy a margin advantage. For example, Amazon has the world’s largest private commerce media network, which delivered over $35 billion in revenue last year. When you look at Amazon’s profitability, nearly two-thirds comes from ads. Delivering something to your doorstep is not what makes Amazon money. Selling ads is what generates the profit they use for promotions and discounts, to acquire new customers, and to invest in their infrastructure.

With media and through digital channels, retailers can improve profitability starting tomorrow – especially compared to the risk and glacial pace of the traditional retail playbook of merchandise mix, store footprint, promotion strategy, and so forth. By adding media to your business, you’ve taken the prospect of losing money on an order to now making money on an order. You make a margin on media even when customers don’t buy a product from you. That’s super powerful. And, it’s what makes the kind of work we’re doing and the initiatives we’re working on C-level imperatives. This is what it takes to be able to manage the future of the retail business.

Driving Value & Fostering Organic Partnerships

KP: How are today’s retailers, commerce sites, and marketplace operators building media programs? Are there best practices for utilizing different types of digital ads based on company size, intended audience, etc.?

EB: We’re starting to see an evolution in the experiences that publishers offer to their shoppers or that marketplaces offer their visitors. Standard IAB-type ad units remain interesting because they’re what powers the public networks, but as consumer and advertiser expectations evolve, private network publishers can offer unique experiences and align those experiences with the value they’re driving for the folks visiting their site. 

When you think about the best practices, first take a step back and figure out what you are trying to do for your users. What are you trying to do for your shoppers? What kind of experiences do you want them to have? Don’t just put advertising in front of them because you think you need to or because that’s what you are supposed to do. Focus on curating better path-to-purchase experiences for your users and shoppers and let that drive your advertising decisions.

What are your suppliers asking for? What return metrics are important to them? How could you use media commitments to enrich your supplier and vendor relationships? These are important questions that commerce media raises, offering you the opportunity to deepen your ties with your best business partners.

When advertising is done right, everybody wins. The shopper has a better experience, as evidenced by their purchase behavior and feedback on the site. The advertiser is delighted because they’re seeing additional returns, and the publisher is seeing additional revenue. A rising tide indeed lifts all boats; if you’re doing better advertising, you can improve the whole business. This result holds true regardless of what your annual revenue is.

KP: How can retailers build relationships with a publishing partner to further their commerce media strategy? 

EB: We’re seeing retailers and marketplaces become publishers. So, how are you building strategic relationships to build better media networks? It comes down to if you can harness the power of your first party audience as a publisher to use that to drive better outcomes. And honestly, the fit is organic.

Think of a grocer, wherever you shop. They have a lot of information about you; they know what you buy, how you buy it, and when you buy it. Their ability to predict what you will put in your cart is insanely accurate. They’re placing ads on their sites so they themselves are publishers. They’re also using their audience data to enable non-O&O (owned and operated) media. Now, grocers are engaging other publishers worldwide to use their audiences to run campaigns across various mediums — both digital and physical. 

A toothpaste company like Crest may come to a grocer and say, “Hey, I want to run display ads against people who buy Colgate.” That grocer can create an audience of people who buy Colgate and put ads on their site targeting that audience. They can also go to the wider internet publishers and target ads on behalf of Crest to the same audience to influence their purchasing decision and encourage them to switch brands.

Publishers should consider how to build those partnerships when it comes to commerce media. As a media publisher, you should be partnering with commerce sites to take the first party data and advertiser relationships they have and combine it with your audience and first party data to build something bigger and better.

The Future of Digital Media in Retail & Beyond

KP: As more of their competitors invest in digital media, how can retailers stay ahead of the curve and set themselves apart?

EB: There’s been much research on this topic recently. It comes down to advertisers asking for transparency, access to data, and really moving into a value add space versus a pay-to-play space. One of the biggest knocks on commerce media over the last couple of years is that it has become pay-to-play (a “tax”) in some places. 

Today, the industry is progressing to a position where there’s an immense value add. It comes in the form of not just sales but data, partnerships, and transparency as well. If you want to set yourself ahead, it’s all about transparency, access to data, and new and innovative experiences you can provide to your shoppers through your advertisers. Again, this can improve your supplier relationships if you do it right.

KP: What do you see as the future of how digital media will grow and change in the retail space over the next few years?

EB: Commerce media networks will double down on their investment. There’ll be a ton of hiring, technology investment, training, and skill-building. Analysts are predicting that 20+% of digital media will be in the commerce media space by 2026. So think of all the people employed within digital media — 20+% will have to gain competency in commerce media. This is going to be a seismic shift for agencies and brands.

We should also expect growth in the demand side solutions, especially in the retail space. It used to be that you could log into Google and create a campaign, and as an advertiser, you would probably hit most of the internet. That was the way Google worked. On the other hand, if all of these marketplaces and publishers have built private networks, logging into each one and running campaigns will make managing all of them inefficient. 

What we’re seeing on the other side of the equation is that there are demand-side solutions that are building an aggregation of demand. There is now enablement of technology on the publisher side and aggregation of demand on the retailer side. The system is efficient when the two connect. I think those companies will do quite well. 

Retailers should be prepared for larger advertisers to start considering how they build competencies. Some companies, as a strategic imperative, will probably build their own commerce media centers of excellence where they will internally figure out the best way to manage these private networks, as well as how they will go to market across all new publishers. From the publisher’s side, the question will be how to tap into that. We’re going to see an accelerating new source of revenue that isn’t just Google and isn’t coming from agencies but instead from these new centers of excellence within the advertisers themselves. 

Growth will also slow down. The last two years have been a little bit crazy. There are only so many years an industry can sustain 30-50% year-over-year growth. We’ll see 20-30% growth over the next couple of years to hit the analysts’ projected $100 billion revenue by 2026. Additionally, there will likely be some consolidation of players in the space.

Overall, it’s going to be an exciting few years ahead in retail and commerce media. 

The post How You Can Tap Into Commerce Media to Create Long-Term, Sustainable Growth: Q&A with Koddi’s Head of Commerce Media, Eric Brackmann appeared first on AdMonsters.

And that is still having a significant impact on the top mobile trends for 2023.

We all know that Apple’s privacy move massively shook up the effectiveness and profitability of targeted advertising across mobile app ad land. And I don’t think nary a publisher has fully recovered since. But if ad ops is anything, it is resilient and resourceful. So now, publishers are baking privacy-first into their monetization strategies and focusing on putting the consumer at the helm.

In a search for what’s ahead for the rest of 2023, I tapped into my mobile mastermind group to gain insight into the top trends. We spoke with Amanda Dean, Head of Programmatic Partners and Strategy, IBM Watson Advertising; Adam Gray, Senior Director, Programmatic Growth, timehop & Nimbus; Ron Duque, Head of Advertising and Ad Tech Operations, WeatherBug; and Marc Santiago, VP, Programmatic Engineering, Nimbus; and Vanessa Eng, VP, Programmatic Revenue Strategy & Operations, Enthusiast Gaming. And guess what, privacy-first and consumer-first were two of the main themes that emerged from our conversations.

Top Mobile Trends 2023

A Return to Tried and True Targeting Strategies

Amanda Dean, Head of Programmatic Partners and Strategy, IBM Watson Advertising

“On the topic of mobile trends in 2023, I see a return to tried and true targeting strategies. Contextual, time of day, engaged users, viewable inventory — all these signals still have value and can tell you a lot about the user and their intent. I see value in other unique signals like Weather targeting to create that “right time” to put a brand’s ad in front of the right consumer.

We will see a shift to utility and value. Consumers are looking for more value from the apps and mobile websites they use, and how technology can actually improve their lives. For us at The Weather Company, we’re working to bring more interesting ways to present the data to consumers, leaning into emerging tech like XR and VR but in an organic way that isn’t gimmicky. In addition to delivering a forecast, we’re helping to explain what it means to them, to give users a deeper understanding of what’s happening and changing outside your door and across the world.”

Adam Gray, Senior Director, Programmatic Growth, timehop & Nimbus

“In the mobile programmatic industry, just as everywhere else, privacy concerns are gaining prominence and driving changes. Both publishers and advertisers are investing in privacy-focused technologies and partnerships that prioritize trust, transparency, and efficiency. This is driving the growth of contextual-based targeting, which has been challenging on the mobile monetization side.

Despite challenges, the mobile programmatic sector is expected to continue its growth trajectory, with an increased focus on privacy and the use of alternative targeting methods to compensate for the effect of policies like ATT on advertising effectiveness.”

Ron Duque, Head of Advertising and Ad Tech Operations, WeatherBug

“Privacy will continue to drive how mobile publishers drive further value and transparency for their customers. As Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) are more widely adopted — especially with computation that is performed on-device — they will provide additional layers of protection that mobile publishers should be investing in as part of their ad tech stack.

Leveraging certain signals that are available on the mobile device to build meaningful and actionable audiences in a privacy-first approach, will be critical. One type of technology will not solve all things but a combination of technologies will likely be the best solution for a mobile app publisher.”

Marc Santiago, VP, Programmatic Engineering, Nimbus

“With conversations around SDA, global and individual privacy laws and rights. I do believe that behavioral and generalized cohorting of supply will be paramount in the coming years.

This has to be approached with true transparency as well as respect for the individual. Marketers and agencies will have to adapt spend and targeting ideologies to meet this need. Controllers of supply will be responsible for both protecting those individual rights to privacy as well as providing buyers with confidence in the new data-free landscape.”

Follow the Consumers Lead

Vanessa Eng, VP, Programmatic Revenue Strategy & Operations, Enthusiast Gaming

The post Top Mobile Trends For 2023: Privacy Rules appeared first on AdMonsters.

At the start of IAB ALM 2023, incoming chair Alysia Borsa took the audience on a journey where she explored the current state of the industry and what we can expect for the rest of the year. 

To come up with these insights, the IAB reached out to brands and agencies to understand their core focus areas for the year. For many, they were measurement, first-party data, and leveraging creators. The media and marketing industry organization also contacted all of their members to learn what are the biggest challenges they expect to face over the next year or two. 

Unsurprisingly, measurement, the cookie apocalypse, loss of identifiers, inconsistent privacy regulations, brand safety, and consumer trust were the top themes to come out of the research. 

 IAB’s Tips for a Progressive 2023: Finding Opportunity in Challenge

2023 is all about continuing to address industry challenges and turning them into opportunities. Brands, agencies, and publishers can do this in several ways.

Keep a Consumer-First Focus 

By relying on third-party cookies, the industry has gotten away from putting the consumer first and building trusted relationships with them. It’s time to utilize a back-to-the-basics mentality and focus on the consumers’ significance in the advertising value exchange, which is very powerful and meaningful. 

The entire ecosystem plays a part in this. If publishers and platforms provide the best content and experiences, and then brands, agencies, and tech platforms ensure that they provide relevant and impactful advertising, consumers are engaged. Since we face economic headwinds, we mustn’t revert to old habits. Borsa encourages the industry to continue to reinform their value to consumers. 

To achieve this, we need to continue working on a few areas. First, we must continue to harness first-party data to ensure we understand the consumer. Then we need to build scalable cookieless targetable solutions.  And finally, we need to measure the performance. Performance is critical this year, but we need to ensure that measurement is accurate and cross-channel. And then we can continue to think through and evolve the correct measurement KPIs. 

“Last year at Dotdash Meredith, we saw the power and the benefit of focusing on the value exchange,” Borsa said. “We are now delivering higher quality intent-driven content paired with a better clear UX. There are fewer, less intrusive ads that are more performant. Consumer engagement and yield are up, so it really does work.”

The ecosystem needs solutions that solve for fragmentation. We need the ability to reach consumers across all channels, so it’s important to have an open ecosystem. In 2023,  attention is the new real estate and it’s all about reaching consumers and getting their meaningful attention. 

Invest in Growth 

Despite tight budgets, we need to continue investing in innovation and growth areas and prioritize what those areas are for your companies. There are a few significant growth areas worth the investment and they are:

• Streaming and Advanced TV – Consumers have flocked to streaming services way faster than expected, and advanced TV has so much growth and opportunity. It marries up the best of digital with the best premium experience of traditional TV to create advertising magic. The IAB pledges to take a role in fostering collaboration and building out standardization to build this marketplace. 

• Retail Media Networks – Retail media network ad spend will be over $50 billion in 2023, and over six in ten buyers said they have or will be executing media through these networks this year. Closed-loop attributions and purchase intent signals are impactful, and retail media networks create meaningful partnerships throughout the ecosystem. For example, Roku recently announced a  partnership with Kroger that is  “making the streamers’ journey the shopper’s journey,” according to Alison Levin, VP of Global Ad Revenue and Marketing Solutions at Kroger. The Kroger partnership is about marrying data so that TV buying can be more precise and accountable. 

• Ecommerce –  This is another growth area that is a big focus for the IAB, publishers, retailers, and brands. We are now seeing more hybrid commerce models where D2C brands are creating in-store shopping experiences. For example, Borsa highlighted ThirdLove as an example. They quickly opened up stores last year and saw a huge lift from a branding perspective, even more so than compared to revenue. 

Collaborate and Take Control

Throughout a time of constant industry upheaval, collaboration is key right now. It’s important to foster partnerships now more than ever. “We will happen to things; things will not happen to us,” Borsa stated.  She also encouraged people to adopt that mantra, especially as we consider all of the privacy shifts within the industry. 

Coincidentally, the IAB recently released its State of Data 2023 report and found that companies don’t fully realize the impact of privacy legislation, the loss of cookies, and data changes within digital media and ad tech. 

The message from Borsa was clear, in 2023 everyone should come together and push for the proper privacy measures that help the industry to flourish. Together, we need to test and learn new privacy, contextual, and addressable solutions. We cannot just wait for the  IAB — W3C or Prebid or anyone else — to spoonfeed the industry solutions. We are all in this together and we all need to work together.

The post When Life Throws You Lemons, Make Lemonade — IAB’s Tips for a Progressive 2023 appeared first on AdMonsters.

There was much to learn from many credible and seasoned ad tech professionals, advertisers, and publishers. Here are some highlights that stood out. 

1. Linear, Still the Leader

Keynote Jon Steinlauf, Chief U.S. Advertising Sales Officer at Warner Bros Discovery, emphasized the influence of Linear TV and highlighted that it is still in the lead. For Warner Bros Discovery, ad sales bring in about $10 billion in gross sales, of which around 80/20 linear to non-linear. When it comes to non-linear, less than half of it is streaming, including Bleecher Report, March Madness LIVE, and CNN.com, to name a few.

Regardless of the noise we hear from other publishers talking about dismantling their linear business due to “cord cutting,” Warner Bros Discovery is still looking at linear first.

“We think linear is really the primary focus of at least my part of the company, and a lot of the content people feel the same way,” Steinlauf said. “It’s $8 billion on the ad sales side, and it’s about as much or a little bit more on the distribution side because of the sports rights, the sports fees, the CNN fees. We think of that 80 million home sector of the country that has the bundle, we think of them as our best customers, and we’ll never take our eye off that ball.”

• Publishers can learn a lot about reach from WBD
  During his keynote, Steinlauf focused on sports and how it makes up a large portion of their business. The network has a 40-year relationship with the NBA, thanks to Ted Turner, who initiated the NBA’s relationship with cable. They have a 22-year arrangement with the NCAA that they are currently in the middle of, and that tournament lives on CBS, TBS, TNT, and True TV. They are the only publisher with this type of reach in the sports department.

2. Invest in Minority-Owned Media

2022 Caroline Sinno Photography

In 2022, multicultural ad spend is still not where it needs to be, and it seems there is a long way to go before some advertisers see its value. For example, Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group is suing McDonald’s for racial stereotyping in advertising spending, and he’s promised to sue more companies to level the playing field if necessary.

Executives like Royal Jackson, CCO of Impact Network, Rori Peters, SVP of Content Distribution & Marketing at TV One, and Fernando Romero Head of Ad Sales at Fuse Media, are true game changers at their outlets. They explained how investing in these audiences is crucial to advertisers’ bottom lines. 

Here are two big reasons to invest in minority-owned outlets from their perspectives:

• TV One and Impact Network have very loyal audiences. So brands looking for consumers to purchase their products should invest in minority-owned media and media companies with a majority multicultural audience. Multicultural audiences over-index on digital media consumption, yet digital ad spend targeting these audiences is still very low. These media outlets deliver content that resonates. Peters, SVP of Content Distribution & Marketing at TV One, revealed that her company reaches 82% of the black population daily through TV Networks, radio stations, syndicated radio, and digital sites.
• When we talk about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, we’re talking about eliminating historical structural and cultural barriers to multicultural groups obtaining access to the same resources as the mainstream. “When talking about housing, voting, media ownership, etc., it goes across the board,” said Royal Jackson, Chief Creative Officer at Impact Network. “The American Dream is broad, and if we focus on equity and everyone having a share in that area, and to be able to compete at the same level as the majors, it’s very important to have that equity showcased through the investments.”

 Some advertisers are already seeing outstanding engagement with multicultural audiences and investing in minority-owned media companies because the audiences are so loyal and are much more likely to take action on relevant advertising.

Investing in minority-owned media shouldn’t be viewed as a one-off buy but as a mutually beneficial partnership. The multicultural audience has a total of $5 trillion in buying power, with $1.6 of that represented by the African-American audience alone. That’s 9% of the nation’s total buying power, so that’s nothing to sneeze at. Minority-owned media outlets are looking for a sustained commitment, and rightfully so.

3. Measurement Vs Currency

2022 Caroline Sinno Photography

Measurement and currency are not interchangeable, but the magic is found in speaking about both in the same language, or “love language,” as Roseann Montenes, VP of Precision & Performance Advertiser Partnerships at A&E, would call it. Here are three findings about cross-platform TV measurement from publishers actively growing their ad tech businesses in those areas.

• Make your first-party data interoperable
  A common challenge that many publishers are seeing is the massive fragmentation of CTV. Maggie Zhang, SVP of Measurement & Operations, Advertising & Partnerships at NBCUniversal, explained how there are over 300 digital endpoints at NBC, making it impossible to rely on a single panel to measure CTV. Fortunately, publisher networks are increasing their first-party data and identity resolution.. NBC understands that first-party data is crucial to gaining a deeper understanding of their audience’s consumption habits. At the same time, Zhang clarified that the company’s goal is not to create a walled garden but to make their first-party data interoperable. NBCUniversal has found this truly game-changing for CTV measurement. They can measure across platforms, ads, and programming available the next day, which helps them set the bar high for speed and accuracy.
• Learn the “Love Language”
  Often, publishers try to figure out each vendor, the mythology, and the data, versus what matters most to their clients. Montenes explained how A&E Networks was the first to do a guaranteed against business outcomes—they put tracking in store locations, website visitation, and, more recently, viewability. All of this is specific to a particular advertiser, their KPIs, and what will drive their day-to-day.” In terms of alternative currency, publishers need to make sure they are speaking the same language and the same truth no matter which clients you are talking to,” Montenes said. “It’s challenging for a publisher to find the same love language as their clients, but being upfront, clear, and transparent is really what is driving the conversation.”
• Nielsen’s way of empowering a better media future
  With diversity at the forefront, Nielsen is putting a ton of energy into empowering a better media future for everyone as they recognize the significance of hitting and measuring different ethnic backgrounds. They plan to see new heights in cross-platform currency through Nielsen ONE, which launches this December. Nielsen ONE will provide cross-streaming across linear TV, CTV, computer, and mobile. This is one metric deduplicated so you can transact seamlessly across all platforms. In measurement, expect to see Nielsen introducing the same granularity that comes with digital, thus creating a vital commonality. Nielsen sees Nielsen ONE as the identity system to bring currency and measurement together.

4. Identity’s Role in Addressable TV

2022 Caroline Sinno Photography

These days identity plays a significant role in today’s dynamic TV advertising landscape thanks to the growing use of first-party data. Seema Patel, SVP of Data Partnerships at TelevisaUnivision, provided great insight into what her company is doing in that regard. She examines how identity is very effective when used correctly and in a privacy-first way.

• Gather various types of inventory and ensure accuracy of that data
  It’s more important now than ever to bring together various types of inventory across different endpoints for TelevisiaUnivision, that includes cable, broadcast, CTV, streaming, and audio. Patel ensures that her team finds solutions to bring all of those inventories together to facilitate cross-platform campaigns in a unified way. However, the heartbeat of everything lies in the accuracy of that data. Accuracy is the only way to be 100% sure that you have successful outcomes for your ad campaigns. Today, media measurement routinely undercounts the Hispanic value, which causes a sharp misrepresentation of a valuable consumer group with over $2.7 trillion in spending power. TelevisiaUnivision continues to spend a lot of time and investment in its data and working with its partners to ensure that they accurately represent this group in an ecosystem where many third-party providers do not have the coverage for that accuracy.
• Take advantage of your partnerships
  In this marketplace, Patel reassures ad tech professionals to locate as many partnerships as possible and to be flexible. “There is no one-size-fits-all here,” she says, “so please continue having conversations in terms of partnerships, and at the end of the day, remember that the partnership can depend on the use case regarding your data, in terms of what data you choose to share, how you share it, and whom you share it with.”
• Publishers should utilize brand’s first-party data too
  Brands sometimes have their own data and usually end up activating against that data. Sometimes their general market segments don’t necessarily always translate with publishers. For this reason, TelevisiaUnivision works in a consultative way with brands to augment/hydrate brands segments with their data. For instance, they recently worked with an auto partner, where they helped to expand the deciles of the segment to broaden it. Publishers should work consultatively to help clients bring their data, leverage their data, and leverage their own first-party data to reach the best consumers for their objectives.

5. Don’t Sleep on TikTok

2022 Caroline Sinno Photography

TikTok hit the ground running, even before the pandemic turned everyone into avid watchers of short-form video. Publishers need to wake up, smell the coffee, and stop sleeping on TikTok’s capabilities for growing traffic and audience consumption. For example, Brittany Mehciz, Head of Social Media at Hulu Originals, pointed out a time when the social media platform boosted its subscribers out of nowhere. It started with the Hulu original “Run,” starring Sarah Paulson from “American Horror Story.” The film premiered in November 2020, but a viral TikTok from March of this year made the film pop. 

“That film popped on TikTok, and it was like a pivot,” said Mehciz. “A year and a half later, we traced it back to a TikTok where someone was just taking a video recording of their laptop watching “Run” and just had quick commentary. That drove subscribers for the week like crazy a year and a half later. So I think that’s a great example.”

Recent findings at Tagger Media LLC show that user-generated content gets about 1000% better engagement, reach, and impressions than branded content. On TikTok, that number increases to 3300% better than branded content.

6. Tackling Targeted TV

2022 Caroline Sinno Photography

The Power of addressability in media is undeniable. Noah Levine, Head of Advanced Advertising at Warner Bros. Discovery, called addressable “synonymous with audience targeting.” Jamie Power, SVP of Addressable Sales at Disney Advertising, emphasized how important it is for publishers to share as much data as possible.

“I think the agency buy-side tools are built on the legacy thinking in a world that streaming is now a part of linear,” Power stated. “Newer metrics are essential because they show advertisers how you are reaching and how efficiently you are reaching them, and what’s this myth of linear versus streaming, and how do you mix the plan.”

It’s all about how we enable audiences with the most scale, and clean rooms have been a way that Disney has allowed that. We see this through their recent partnership with the Trade Desk, in which they have a clean room that is accessible, so if the Trade Desk needs to reach audience X, Disney does not need to know who that is. Yet, they can activate that audience format.

7. Gaming Publishers Have the Power of Linear

The gaming industry has been on the up and up for some time now, and gaming publishers are beginning to see the value in what they have to offer advertisers. 

• Gamers extend beyond Gen Z
  My 72-year-old aunt is a die-hard Candy Crush player. Some days, she just sits on the couch, and that is all she does. Does she consider herself a gamer? No. Is she a gamer? Yes! Gaming publishers need not underestimate their audiences and the data they can gather from their consumers. Sean Kiely, Head of Gaming & Esports at Fandom, pointed out that they do not refer to their audience as gamers but as entertainment fans. Now don’t get it twisted. Kiely did highlight how Gen Z brings them a ton of money. Still, gaming publishers shouldn’t shortchange themselves by honing in on their Gen Z audiences because you can also monetize Boomer gamers.
• Gaming is like TV
  Fandom can see how gaming fans visit movie and TV communities across their platform. Seventy-three percent of TV viewers on Fandom have also played a game in the past month. Those who play Halo are 18 times more likely to watch “The Expanse” on Amazon Prime. t It is truly all about understanding the gaming audience, their tendencies, and other entertainment avenues they love.

8. Driving Revenue in the Cross-Screen Era

Currency isn’t just about counting, and when it comes to measurement, there is undoubtedly more than one way to skin a cat. We know that both are very important to the role of future TV. Andrea Zapata, EVP, Head of Ad Sales, Research, Measurement & Insights, at Warner Bros Discovery, and Sean Muller, CEO & Founder of iSpot.tv focused on why and how publishers can make the most of both. 

• Demonstrate your value to drive revenue
  Value can come in several different ways; it can come in your sheer metrics, like how many people you reached. How many times did you reach them? But at the same time, it can also come in the world where it’s inherently linked to efficacy. Publishers need multiple partners to adequately measure all KPIs and the value brought to the table for your advertisers. It would help if you had partnerships that allow you to be nimble and make recommendations on doing campaign reach frequency smarter and better across portfolios. Getting richer insights has never been more effortless, which is the value publishers need to hone in on. 
• Education is a challenge when it comes to operationalizing a new currency
  We have been trained in one currency since the beginning of time, and we’re used to seeing things on a panel. Broad strokes, right? Using content as a proxy to reach audiences fundamentally changes the game.

Key Measurement Takeaways of WBD’s ad tech business : 

1. Standardization
2. Identity resolution
3. Transaction capabilities
4. Personalization

The post Publishers, Take Notes On These 8 Big Findings From That Big TV Conference appeared first on AdMonsters.

While ATT has improved privacy and cut down on fingerprinting, it has made it immeasurably harder for pubs (and even big tech) to monetize their apps. That’s why we invited Ron Duque, Head of Advertising and Ad Tech Operations, WeatherBug, to come to PubForum Montreal on August 15, 2022, to talk about Solving for Mobile Addressability.

We heard his company has put some serious thinking behind finding a sustaiable solution to help publishers survive the wrath of ATT, and potentially the loss of Google’s AdID as well.

I caught up with Duque to learn more about his ad ops career, what publishers should be thinking about in a post-IDFA world, and whether the promise of 5G has any significant impact on a publisher like WeatherBug. One thing I learned was that while change is inevitable, it doesn’t always take blue sky thinking to master it. Oftentimes, the solutions to our challenges are laying right in front of us.

Lynne d Johnson: Over the course of your career, you’ve worked in ad ops at MEC, AOL, Vibe Media, and now GroundTruth and WeatherBug. What have you learned in your nearly 20-year career in ad ops that has helped you lead a team to handle the constant change of the ad tech industry?

Ron Duque: My ad ops career started at MEC when it was The Digital Edge (TDE) and through GroundTruth and WeatherBug, the single most consistent element that I could rely on has been changed.

In that time, I’ve learned it’s important to listen more to my peers and others in the industry about what is impacting their businesses most and what solutions work for them the best. It doesn’t necessarily mean that what is best for them will be the best for me or my team but it gives me a roadmap to plan how to get to my best solution. I’ve tried to weave that into all of the teams that I’ve worked with throughout my career.

LdJ: You’re primarily working in mobile now and although privacy challenges are disrupting the entire industry, things in mobile seem bad.  What are some of the changes happening post-IDFA and what should publishers be thinking about to help them move forward?

What publishers should be thinking about is how to look beyond ID-based digital advertising and consider alternatives that are already available within the current devices that we use every day

RD: I don’t feel that things are bad for mobile right now, it’s just another phase of change. Although it’s one of the biggest we’ve faced as an industry, it’s still a challenge we’ll be able to solve collectively. Change is inevitable and from it, comes progress.

The obvious change that we are seeing in a post-IDFA ecosystem is a sharp decrease in identity and addressability which makes it difficult to monetize inventory. What publishers should be thinking about is how to look beyond ID-based digital advertising and consider alternatives that are already available within the current devices that we use every day.

LdJ: Overall, has mobile monetization gotten much harder than desktop? 

RD: Not necessarily harder but certainly more complex. [Editor’s note: We’ll elaborate more on this topic at Publisher Forum Montreal.]

LdJ: For years we’ve been hearing about the promise of 5G, especially in regards to congestion and latency. While 5G provides monetization opportunities for Communications Service Providers, there are opportunities for publishers as well. Has 5G has impacted your business? 

RD: While it hasn’t had any immediate or significant impact on our business, we continue to explore the benefits 5G can help deliver to our users. It certainly provides us different opportunities for how we can improve the overall user experience and how they can engage more with our dynamic content.

Join us on August 15, 2022 in Montreal for Ron Duque’s Keynote Fireside Chat, Solving for Mobile Addressability.

The post Mastering Change in a Post-IDFA World: Q&A with Ron Duque, WeatherBug appeared first on AdMonsters.

Thanks to social media, we are all living vicariously through Twitter to see all that is going on, and boy is it is quite the fiasco depending on which world you delve into.

Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is the most extensive professional gathering for the creative marketing community. There were many exciting and impactful discoveries if you’re in ad tech land like us. From the talks surrounding Google and Netflix to the yachts, which were back this year like they never left, the festival is undoubtedly one for the books. Especially with many people fresh off of quarantine times.

For those of you who are still back at the office, unable to be there physically, and too swamped in work to tap into social to visualize the happenings, we put together a list of some of the most important news relevant to what publishers do. Here are ten highlights from Cannes related to the advertising world.

1. The Yachts Are Back — Amazon and Tik Tok pop out for the first time

The 2022 Cannes Yacht LUMAscape is out. What recession? pic.twitter.com/hxFSJTQQMx

— Terence Kawaja (@tkawaja) June 20, 2022

The yachts are yachting, and this year, some new kids are on the block trying to get in where they fit in along the Cannes coast. It’s no surprise that Amazon, given who they are, came with their big go-hard or go-home full-throttle energy. They didn’t pull up in a Yacht; Amazon has the entire Vieux Port de Cannes! They are also hosting a Twitch apartment space outside of the port area.

Tik Tok and Roku are new to the coast and trying to make their mark at the big fest. TikTok has a cabana across from the Palais, and Roku has a cabana near the Pointe Croisette. Of course, veterans of the festival Meta, Google, Pinterest, and Spotify were all there in their usual beachside spots. However, Amazon docking a fort is huge.

2. Addressability and Identity Were Big Themes

“Proving the value of addressability is there. What’s missing is addressability’s value prop vs other video” – Kevin Arrix, @DISHMedia at the #GoAddressable panel at @FreeWheel beach at @Cannes_Lions with @ComcastAd @Make_it_MM @Make_it_MM @TeleUniPRTeam #CannesLions2022 pic.twitter.com/HQq4XC3fVJ

— Spectrum Reach (@SpectrumReach) June 22, 2022

When it comes to solving ad ops problems, addressability and identity are at the top of publishers’ list. Like a Rubik’s cube, pubs have been twisting and turning to find color matches for addressability and identity. At Cannes, pubs were encouraged to shift gears from thinking about cookie deprecation as a bad thing and instead just find new strategies for solving for addressability.

“For publishers to thrive in a cookieless world, it’s vital that they seek a solution that places people and their privacy at its centre,” said Travis Clinger, SVP, Addressability and Ecosystem at LiveRamp. “We’re likely to see publishers and marketers forming closer partnerships as they start to work together on strategies that have addressability at their heart.”

3. Gary Vee Says Reach and Impressions Are a Lie

The advertising industry has been lying to itself on internet consumption…@garyvee gives his thoughts on internet reach… (language warning )

Get exclusive digital access to #CannesLions2022 with a digital membership. https://t.co/1HYBSRqbL5 pic.twitter.com/HkQESeD3re

— LIONS | The Home of Creativity (@Cannes_Lions) June 21, 2022

Welp, Gary had no problem letting us know how he feels, and he’s got a point. We knew there were shady things happening in the industry. (More like Meta misrepresenting ad reach for years than that Gannett flub a couple months back.)  A 20-year-old problem will most likely be challenging to alter.

On the flip side, engagement may be the real key to solving this problem. With the end of cookies, pubs need to consider that maybe attention metrics aren’t such a crazy idea afterall.

4. Netflix Chatted With Google About Their Ad Business

Netflix is ‘talking to all’ potential ad partners, Ted Sarandos tells Cannes https://t.co/Q4VGCaW4JQ pic.twitter.com/U6pRuLacy4

— Agency Loft (@Agency_Loft) June 23, 2022

As the tweet says, Netflix has met with a few potential partners like Roku and Comcast, but Google is the biggest contender right now. Google makes most of its money from ads, and we all know they have the pipes so, of course, they have what it takes to steer Netflix in the right direction. Much of ad tech land was anxiously awaiting Co-CEO of Netflix Ted Sarando’s big panel discussion on Thursday, June 23, in Cannes. Ironically his appearance was scheduled before news broke of Netflix’s devastating Q1 numbers. Still, we are sure Soarando’s will probably update everyone in Cannes about how business is really going and maybe even who they’ve chosen as an ad partner. 

5. IBM’s Big Anti-Bias in Ad Tech Announcement

Today at the @Cannes_Lions International Festival of Creativity 2022, IBM and other industry leaders committed to improving fairness in marketing campaigns. Learn more and check out IBM’s Open Source Toolkit to help mitigate biases in advertising: https://t.co/fyt9twIbas pic.twitter.com/MH2puuy3T4

— IBM News (@IBMNews) June 20, 2022

IBM announced their latest commitment to mitigating ad tech bias, and Delta Air Lines, WPP, Mindshare, 4A’s, IAB, and the Ad Council are standing beside them in solidarity. Last year IBM launched a research initiative to explore whether or not biases exist in ad tech, and the research confirmed that biases are more than prevalent. The study also discovered that as much as algorithms are at the center of ad tech bias, AI tools can be used to look at segmentation results to rule out biases.

6. 1st Party IDs Outperform 3PC in Programmatic Ad Campaigns

#adtech Twitter, how are y’all feeling about this news?

Data shows first-party IDs outperform third-party cookies in programmatic ad campaign @adform @Cannes_Lions @PwC https://t.co/sjHuTr3Sjx @lauriesullivan

— lynnedjohnson.eth (@lynneluvah) June 23, 2022

Adform used its ID Fusion technology to conduct research they released in Cannes showing that first-party IDs delivered more scale on programmatic campaigns. But ad tech Twitter is asking, “But, how Sway?”

The results reveal that utilizing the ID Fusion solution on an ad campaign contributed to a 669% increase in the addressable audience, and a 161% increase in click-through rates, resulting in higher viewability and superior eCPM.

First-party IDs had higher ad viewability at 80% compared to 75% for third-party cookie traffic. While IDs are being seen as one of many solutions to the end of third-party cookies, we have to be careful to test and test again. As one Twitter user responded, when it comes to testing ID solutions, there are good results out there in the wild but there are also caveats-on-caveats.

7. 40 Activist Climed Cannes’ Palais Des Festivals

BREAKING: @greenpeacefr activists have scaled the venue of the @Cannes_Lions to call on a fossil ads and sponsorship ban https://t.co/mAZbS2D9DT #BanFossilAds

— Greenpeace PressDesk (@greenpeacepress) June 23, 2022

The activists never come to play. This instance reminds me of the two women who protested the recent abortion speculations by removing their clothes during a Joel Olsteen church service. When they come, they always make a large statement. This time Greenpeace France activists pulled up in a fire truck in hopes of symbolizing the burning fossil fuels that contribute to the intense amount of global heating that we see today. They requested that ad firms cut ties with the fossil fuel industry altogether, as parts of Europe have been flaming hot this week.

Greenpeace activists are pushing a European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI) petition that calls for an end to fossil fuel ads and their sponsorship in the EU. The way the EU has been looking out for its civilians lately by protecting their privacy and going after big tech, these activists just may end up getting what they are fighting for.

8. Gen Z’s Significance to Future Brands

.@Shutterstock are doing very interesting things with 3D imagery “you have to talk to the new generations in their language, they are social media driven”…”they don’t look at the brand, they look at the story” Jamie Elden, CRO, Shutterstock #CannesLions2022 pic.twitter.com/X1zhynKxgx

— What’s New in Publishing (@wnip) June 20, 2022

We knew that the kids were the future after discovering all the new things they were doing with social media during the heart of the Pandemic. Shutterstock isn’t the only platform targeting Gen Zers; Tik Tok is their platform of choice without even trying.

“If you want to reach Gen Z consumers, it’s got to be part of your portfolio,” says Chris Brandt, chief marketing officer of Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. The chain says it has doubled its spending on TikTok each of the past three years. TikTok could very well become the next big platform, given the way Meta’s ad revenue has been falling off lately. Plus, there’s lessons upon lessons here for publishers looking to court this market.

9. 5 Tech Giants Receive More Than Half of Global Ad Spend

.@Cannes_Lions sobering fact #1: Globally, advertisers will spend almost $800 billion on advertising in 2022. Five companies will receive over 400 bn of those ad dollars > Google, Meta, Amazon, Bytedance, and Alibaba. @GroupMWorldwide @AdContrarian #BigTechDominates #CannesLIONS pic.twitter.com/CUODBKANlT

— What’s New in Publishing (@wnip) June 20, 2022

These five tech conglomerates are always apart of the conversation, and yes many pubs and advertisers went to Cannes knowing this fact and will also leave Cannes with the thought of it in the back of their heads. According to Group M’s prediction, 2022 is already over for any pub hoping to knock any of these five out of their top spots, especially with open internet supply becoming more concentrated.

10. There Were Many Calls for More Diversity

Issa Rae Challenges Advertising Industry To Follow Her Mandate For More Diverse Sets: Cannes Lions 2022 https://t.co/uJwvAzmI4n

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) June 22, 2022

Some clear insights from @alinecsantos and @Unilever with the Unstereotype Alliance @un_stereotype resulted in a big shift in mindset for Unilever brands.

97% of all advertising is now considered unstereotypical, up from 50% in 2016. #CannesLions2022 pic.twitter.com/Y0X7UCwDQG

— LIONS | The Home of Creativity (@Cannes_Lions) June 21, 2022

At @Cannes_Lions this week?​
.
Nicky Buss, Global Planning Director, WT, will be joining a panel alongside P&G & Canal+ to discuss, ‘Purpose in the industry: Sustainability, Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion in Media and Advertising’.
.#CannesLions2022 #WTCannes pic.twitter.com/Gs4qs0pJse

— Wunderman Thompson (@WunThompson) June 23, 2022

If we’ve said it once, we’ll say it again, diversity is good for business.

The post ICYMI: 10 Advertising & Ad Tech Highlights From Cannes appeared first on AdMonsters.

That explains a lot about how the triopoly has been able to maintain its stronghold of the majority of ad spend (roughly 85%), even though it’s getting much harder to target the people who actually want to buy stuff. Together, they know a heck of a lot about all of the people that advertisers want to reach and their walled gardens have been the most effective way of reaching those people for cheap. Especially Amazon, which owns the customer experience all the way from product discovery to checkout.

But we’ve seen Facebook and Google’s latest revenues dampened by privacy restrictions. And we can expect them to prioritize their own ad businesses over making any major investments in the future of the open internet (which means publisher survival).

So what does that mean for the rest of the open web?

If open internet media companies want to continue to grow, they’re going to have to reduce their dependence on the triopoly and they’ll also need to diversify their revenue.

“Big publishers have some very structural advantages in their ability to hedge against some of these risks for Google, Amazon, and Meta — but just more generally to build a durable source of revenue,” says Chris Kane, Founder and President, Jounce. “And, I think what that sets up is that the open internet supply is going to get more and more concentrated with a relatively small number of publishers.”

Considering about 1 million properties get transacted programmatically, it might be easy to think of the open internet as this very fragmented supply.  But really only a small number of media companies control the vast sea of properties that comprise the open internet. In fact, the 10 largest web publishers capture half of all web spend.

Check out the following chart, from Jounce’s 2022 Market Outlook, which plots the distribution of programmatic web, mobile app, and CTV spend by publisher:

Companies like Disney, NBC Universal, and Warner Media operate diverse multi-channel portfolios that concentrate open internet supply. Scaled media companies like these have technical sophistication, sales presence, negotiating leverage, and data richness at their disposal helping them to catch more programmatic dollars than their media peers. And with all of the recent M&A activity we’ve seen happening in the industry, the supply is only going to become more concentrated.

To learn more about Open Internet Supply Concentration, as well as Walled Garden Coopetition and Supply Chain Compression, head over to Jounce and download: The State Of The Open Internet: A Data-driven Perspective On The Forces That Will Shape The Ad-supported Open Internet In 2022.

The post Supply Concentration: Handful Of Media Companies Capture Majority Of Spend appeared first on AdMonsters.