A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM PREMION

PREMION

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First up for Apple’s “Shot on iPhone” marketing campaign: “Life Is But a Dream,” from acclaimed Korean director Park Chan-wook (“Oldboy”). The 21-minute film, shot on an iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone Pro Max, tells a surreal story of a wedding and a funeral. “It’s a story that I’ve always wanted to tell,” says Park in a behind-the-scenes clip. “A specific camera didn’t come to mind when I wrote it. What’s amazing is that we can capture such a story into a film with iPhone.”

Spotter announced $200 million in funding led by Japan’s SoftBank. Spotter, founded in 2019 by Aaron DeBevoise, acquires rights to the video catalogs of YouTubers. “This latest investment from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 is a testament to the creator economy maturing into a new era,” said DeBevoise. “Following years of development in technology and data collection, we’re proud that Spotter has emerged as the market leader in this progression — building the bridge that allows creators to transform their channels into their own individual enterprises.”

Google unveiled the Privacy Sandbox for Android, a multi-year initiative that involves phasing out the Advertising ID tracking feature while still allowing advertisers to show personalized ads to groups of users with similar interests. “These solutions will limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID,” said Google’s Anthony Chavez, VP, product management, Android security & privacy, in a blog post. “We realize that other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers. We believe that — without first providing a privacy-preserving alternative path — such approaches can be ineffective and lead to worse outcomes for user privacy and developer businesses.”

Snapchat will let users change their usernames, starting tomorrow, February 23. Users can’t use names that are already taken, and can only change their usernames once a year. Friends lists, Snap codes and the like won’t be impacted by a username change.

Snapchat’s been busy – the company also rolled a live location-sharing feature for friends, and introduced revenue sharing on ads inside Snap Stars creators’ Stories.

Twitter users experienced technical issues on Thursday morning, with most error reports related to accessing Twitter’s website. Users attempting to load their timelines and tweets got a message saying, “Something went wrong. Try reloading.” By 2p the technical bug was resolved. The issue follows a technical glitch on February 11.

Over three-quarters of US consumers who are interested in joining a metaverse are concerned about Meta owning the data, according to a study from Advokate Group. A future metaverse should exist on the decentralized blockchain, said 87% percent of respondents. The top activities participants wanted to pursue in the metaverse were gaming and socializing with friends.

The Gotham Group has launched an Emerging Technologies Department, with a focus on NFTs. First up: “Alien to Me,” a fully Web3 adult animated series from comedian and digital artist Connor Kerrigan. Only those purchasing NFTs can access the series.

NEP Group announced that its US Broadcast Services team has released a new mobile unit, SRT3, built to support NASCAR’s Shared Resources. SRT3 provides a scalable solution to connect to both the NEP and NASCAR centralized production environments. Its main functions include supporting all of NASCAR’s broadcast obligations, including the distribution of shared resource signals needed by various broadcast partners, the encoding of signals used for the remote production of world feeds, screen feeds, officiating, scoring and race control.

Mendix, an enterprise application development company, has announced an expanded go-to-market relationship with Amazon Web Services. To simplify the procurement and provisioning process for customers, three Mendix offerings are available in the AWS Marketplace: the Mendix low-code platform, Intelligent Automation for Banking, and Intelligent Automation for Insurance. Vertical solutions for other industries will follow. “Together, we’re enabling organizations to quickly build modern experiences that take advantage of intelligent automation, so they can accomplish more in less time, reduce costs, delight customers, and drive greater value from human capital,” said Tim Srock, CEO of Mendix.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM PREMION

PREMION

Viewers are as Dynamic as the Content they Watch
AUDIENCE FIRST

LEADING THE EVOLUTION
IN LOCAL OTT & CTV ADVERTISING

PREMION.COM/AUDIENCEFIRST

ADVERTISING

AMC Networks is offering addressable ad slots in every hour of its original programming on AMC and WE tv in 2022. Amazon is the first client to leverage this capability, with a year-long relationship across multiple shows. Offered in partnership with Canoe Ventures, the spots will run on Comcast, Charter and Cox cable systems. Three ad slots in every hour of original programming over the course of the year will be fully addressable. AMC will be using data company 605 to handle the attribution for the program to track and measure the results as the campaign progresses. “This is the culmination of years of work and planning, building most recently on the first national addressable campaigns we ran in partnership with Canoe in late 2020 and earlier this year,” said Evan Adlman, SVP of advanced advertising and digital partnerships for AMC Networks.

Vizio has expanded its Household Connect cross-device advertising platform that gives marketers the ability to extend their campaigns beyond TV to other touchpoints and devices. The expansion is fueled by a partnership with TransUnion to incorporate their TruAudience Identity and Data Marketplace into the Household Connect platform, building on Vizio’s partnership with Yahoo.

Ad-ID has announced a new partnership with Univision to support advertising asset identification and tracking for Univision’s media portfolio. “Effective advertising is a crucial aspect of our work to entertain, inform and empower the U.S. Hispanic community,” said Donna Speciale, President of Advertising Sales and Marketing at Univision. “We are confident that our new partnership with Ad-ID will provide direct benefits to our brands, advertisers and consumers. We look forward to growing our work together in order to improve advertising outcomes for all of our constituent groups in this increasingly complex environment.”

ViralGains has released a new cookieless tool that creates dynamic interactions within an advertisement to cater the brand experience to the viewer based on their input. The privacy-friendly product is available within the ViralGains Odyssey platform and allows advertisers to prompt ad viewers to share their preferences, sentiment, interests and other actions within an ad. The remainder of the interactions within the ad then adapt in real-time based on the viewer’s feedback.

People-based advertising software company Viant Technology announced a new partnership with Commerce Signals, focused on payment-based insights and ad effectiveness solutions. “Commerce Signals’ expertise in consumer credit and debit card transactional data is an important component in elevating our existing solutions,” said Tom Wolfe, SVP, Business Development, Viant. “Actionable metrics including incremental return on ad spend and lift in buyer penetration provide key insights that ultimately drive customer success.”

Clinch, provider of AI-driven omnichannel personalization across CTV, OTT, Programmatic, Social, Native, DOOH, and Audio, has partnered with LG Ads Solutions, provider of LG smart TV native ads and audience targeting data, to enable dynamic creative optimization across its CTV media ecosystem. “Our partnership marks another milestone in our ongoing evolution toward the future of omnichannel innovation,” said Oz Etzioni, CEO at Clinch. “We’re taking many of the same principles that drive success in digital and applying them to CTV.”

Yahoo announced the launch of Next-Gen Solutions for web, an advanced contextual targeting solution that uses machine learning and real-time data signals to provide omnichannel targeting and buying across non-addressable inventory in the Yahoo DSP. “Yahoo’s integrated approach is addressing identity’s biggest challenges,” said Iván Markman, Chief Business Officer at Yahoo. “Respect consumer preferences and create a better value exchange, maintain advertiser and publisher relevance and reach, and support a thriving open web ecosystem.”

IAB Tech Lab shared its key priorities and roadmap for the organization in 2022. They include:
* Creating technical standards, frameworks and open-source initiatives across a portfolio of addressability solutions, balanced against consumer privacy needs, and ethical data sourcing and usage
* Developing the technical standards needed to accelerate the ongoing growth of Connected TV supporting the upfront and consistent audience measurement
* Advancing technical standards to combat ad fraud, supply chain transparency, and security”
The world has changed in the last 24 months, and so has the digital advertising ecosystem. To maintain a vibrant and open internet, we must work together to address our most pressing challenges,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab.

PubMatic announced results from its partnership with programmatic media partner MiQ. The companies have leveraged new and sustainable addressability solutions to drive increased advertiser ROI in environments without third-party cookies, while enhancing consumer privacy. “Our results show that people-based identifiers leveraging authentications can complement cookie-based strategies, providing efficient, incremental reach in new environments and increasing addressability rates,” said Lara Koenig, Global Product Lead, Performance at MiQ. “Leveraging PubMatic’s technology has been highly effective, and has helped us – and our clients – solve for identity resolution roadblocks to increase the reach of first-party data for advertisers.”

The Trade Desk announced the launch of OpenPath, a new product designed to provide advertisers with direct access to premium digital advertising inventory. Initial publisher partners to join OpenPath include Nexstar Digital, Reuters, The Washington Post, Gannett | USA Today Network, Conde Nast, McClatchy, Hearst Magazines, Hearst Newspapers, Advance Local, MediaNews Group, Tribune Publishing and CafeMedia, among others.

Crytpo brand Coinbase had the biggest “Day-Two” success post-Super Bowl, according to Decision augmentation company Signal AI. Coinbase was followed by Amazon, FTX, Crypto.com and Toyota. “When it comes to spending on the Super Bowl, advertisers are not just attempting to win during the event, but have an impact that delivers sustained media visibility,” said David Benigson, CEO and co-founder of Signal AI. “And thanks to both mainstream buzz as well as some highly memorable slots – like Coinbase’s QR code ad – the cryptocurrency industry clearly won the overall media battle.” Planet Fitness received the smallest boost in Day Two coverage.

On a related note, technology, most clearly around QR codes, has changed what Super Bowl ads are being used for, according to data from ListenFirst. Coinbase didn’t mention their name in their Super Bowl ad, they just shared a QR code bouncing across the screen, which redirected to a signup page offering $15 worth of free Bitcoin to new customers. There were 134,826 Tweets mentioning Coinbase on Super Bowl Sunday, the third most for any Super Bowl advertiser on the day. 10,702 Tweets on February 13 mentioned Coinbase’s servers being down, as they were unprepared for the amount of traffic their site got.

Omnichannel ad exchange Sharethrough is introducing CTV Dynamic QR Codes aimed at providing advertisers with the ability to maintain audience attention during the commercial break. With the tool, QR codes are automatically inserted into all CTV ads on the Sharethrough Exchange, equipping marketers with the potential to improve attention by 12%. “Through our research we were able to confirm a majority of TV viewers turn to their phone during commercial breaks,” said Sharethrough CPO Curt Larson. “Tapping into the use of that second screen can provide advertisers with the opportunity to keep viewers’ attention and resonate with them, resulting in greater ROI and more successful advertisements.”

PODCAST POSTS

Spotify is muscling up in the podcast space, with the acquisitions of podcast advertising measurement service Podsights and podcast analytics platform Chartable. “We believe we’re still in the early chapters of digital audio and the opportunity for advertising in this space remains significant,” said Spotify chief content and advertising business officer Dawn Ostroff. “Our acquisitions of podcast technology players Podsights and Chartable are important steps in our pursuit of taking digital audio to the next level, underscoring the powerful impact it delivers for advertisers and publishers, respectively.”

iHeartMedia struck a deal with Veritone to use Veritone’s synthetic voice solution to translate podcasts into other languages, starting with Spanish. Veritone offers stock voices in 119 languages. “Being able to easily offer our podcasts in other languages, in the talents’ unique style, will be an awesome and innovative way to grow market share in the global marketplace,” said Conal Byrne, CEO of iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group. The companies are also teaming to develop synthetic voices for other content.

STREAMING

TelevisaUnivision unveiled plans for ViX, its much-touted global streaming service created specifically for the Spanish-speaking world. ViX will offer more than 50,000 hours of Spanish-language content across genres including original series and movies, live sports, live news and current Televisa and Univision hits. The service is debuting in stages. The free AVOD product arrives in the US, Mexico and most of Latin America on Thursday, March 31 with 100 EPG channels and VOD experience. The SVOD option, ViX+, which adds premium content including “ViX+ Originals” and exclusive soccer, is slated to launch in the second half of 2022. The company’s existing streaming options, including PrendeTV, Blim TV and the legacy VIX AVOD service acquired in 2021, will be incorporated into the new ViX platform in the coming months.

Sixty-eight percent of CTV viewers use at least one live TV streaming service, and 44 percent of cable TV subscribers said they would cancel cable within the next six months if they could access live sports through streaming, according to Magnite’s new report “CTV Live Streaming: TV’s Next Big Moment.” Other insights: Live sports streamers are likely to watch multiple ad-supported services with an average of 3.6 sports apps, and advertising is a key part of the live sports viewing experience, with 49 percent of live sports streamers agreeing with the statement “TV ads are an important part of my TV watching experience.” “Anecdotally, we know that live TV, especially live sports, is unparalleled in its ability to get people engaged and we commissioned this study to better understand how people access and interact with this content,” said Sean Buckley, chief revenue officer at Magnite. “One of the findings from this study is that engagement with live content extends to the advertising that airs alongside it.”

Topic, the streaming service from First Look Entertainment, is now available in the US on Comcast entertainment platforms including Xfinity X1, Xfinity Flex and XClass TV, as an add-on subscription priced at $5.99 per month.

Demand Africa, the global streaming service that hosts original and acquired content from the African Diaspora, has launched as a FAST channel on The Roku Channel.

Chicken Soup for the Soul has inked content deals with Kin and Reel One Entertainment to deliver original programming for its upcoming AVOD service. “When planning the launch of the Chicken Soup for the Soul AVOD streaming service, we set the bar very high,” said Jeff Meier, Head of Programming for Crackle Plus. “We’ve exceeded our own expectations and are excited to be launching with a robust slate that features lifestyle TV staples, fan-favorite personalities, and engaging movies and originals.”

Telemundo’s TPlus is expanding its programming slate on Peacock with three scripted shows: “Madres. Amor y Vida,” “La Verdad,” and “Los Relojes de Diablo.” The series join Tplus’ slate through a distribution agreement with Mediterráneo Mediaset España Group, representing a new partnership, and the first commercial agreement between the two companies to date. Tplus’ initial programming slate will launch on Peacock’s premium tier later this year.

Electric Entertainment has partnered with Samsung to deliver ElectricNOW’s FAST channel on all US Samsung Smart TV’s and select mobile devices.

Fox News International has expanded distribution into Africa, increasing its reach to 44 countries worldwide. The service is available in Egypt, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Zambia.

Cynopsis Team