Verizon Media is launching Yahoo Shops, a marketplace destination featuring a native shopping experience including shoppable video, 3D try-ons, and more. Yahoo Shops is also pledging at least 15% of merchants will be Black-owned businesses, with plans to increase inclusion of other underrepresented groups in retail.

Music groups including the RIAA and the National Music Publishers Association, among others, wrote a letter Congress’ House Energy & Commerce Committee to complain about Twitter’s “failure to meet the most basic standards of responsible moderation with respect to other illegal activity – specifically, the rampant theft of creative works on its platform.” The letter was dated March 25, the day Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testified before the committee.

Google announced the formation of the Android Ready SE Alliance, aimed at ensuring new phones will be able to support digital alternatives for items like mobile driver’s licenses, IDs and more. First up: the launch of the General Availability version of StrongBox for Secure Element, an applet qualified and ready for use by Google’s OEM partners.

Friend MTS, a provider of content protection services, has launched 4th Generation ASiD, an enhanced set of subscriber-level watermarking solutions that address a range of content protection scenarios across broadcast and OTT devices, clients and apps. Friend MTS has also included ASiD OTT Edge-switched, a new smart server-side A/B variant solution with an additional method of watermarking premium content that works to protect Live and VOD assets from illegal redistribution. “We are at the forefront of developing and deploying real world end-to-end content protection solutions at scale for our valuable sports and entertainment customers, which is important now more than ever as the pandemic continues to shape the piracy landscape as well as the technology needs to combat this prevalent issue,” said CEO Jonathan Friend.

Adults spent 1 hour and 5 minutes per day with connected TV in 3Q20, up from 55 minutes in the third quarter of 2019 and 47 minutes in the third quarter of 2018, according to Nielsen’s latest Total Audience Report. Adults spent 12 minutes watching video on a computer, up from 7 minutes the past two years. But overall, the amount of time the average American spent using media each day declined 16% in the third quarter of 2020 versus 3Q19, according to the data. Nielsen said it enhanced how it measures media usage on Android-based smartphones in May 2020, resulting in “a significant decrease in smartphone duration on Android devices and a trend break from data prior to Q2 2020,” explained Nielsen SVP-Audience Insights Peter Katsingris in the report. “However, while duration did decrease as a result of these changes, smartphone reach metrics remain unaffected.”

Google, Facebook and Amazon drew the majority of all US ad spending in 2020, according to data estimates from GroupM reported in the Wall Street Journal. “These companies that are data-science-driven get stronger and faster with a tailwind of usage — and Covid was a hurricane,” Tim Armstrong, founder of The DTX Company, told WSJ. Google was estimated to account for $65-70 billion in US ad revenue, Facebook had $30-35 billion, and Amazon drew $15-20 billion

As the cookie crumbles: Verizon Media announced that CafeMedia, a network of over 2,900 premium content creators, will adopt identity solution Verizon MediaConnectID, enabling publishers to manage, monetize and navigate their audiences without the need for cookies, and connect them to unique advertisers through the Verizon Media Ad Platform. “As we look ahead at a world where third-party cookies will disappear from browsers, working with partners like Verizon Media ensures we are prepared for that future,” said Shobha Doshi, VP Programmatic Strategy & Operations at CafeMedia. “Verizon Media ConnectID protects audience privacy options while enabling addressability for our advertisers and creators.”

Marketing research firm Decision Analyst and audience insights platform DISQO announced a new systems integration partnership expanding Decision Analyst’s sampling capabilities. By integrating with DISQO, Decision Analyst will be able to conduct online research using DISQO’s sampling technology and also build approaches to qualitative research and in-home usage tests.

Enterprise Customer Data Platform ActionIQ announced that it extended its Series C financing, bringing the total capital raised in the round to $100MM. Between the capital infusion and a more than 100% uptick in revenue year-over-year, the extension increased the company’s valuation by over 250% in the last 12 months.

OUTFRONT Media and Broadsign are teaming to deploy Broadsign’s out-of-home marketing platform as part of OUTFRONT’s OOH network. As the Broadsign Direct inventory and sales management system and Control content management system are onboarded for OUTFRONT’s in-car displays, the company will be able to streamline media sales and operations across this inventory while also improving the media buyer experience.

Creative studio Mindworks announced the launch of a new feature for its playable ad platform Playturbo that allows advertisers to use a wide range of pre-built playable ad templates to facilitate playable ad creative production, and to improve mobile campaign performance while reducing production costs.

Integral Ad Science is taking media executives to school – literally. The digital ad verification company has launched IAS Academy, a globally accredited training program designed to empower digital advertising professionals to become experts in digital ad verification and its implementation during campaigns. The training program covers digital ad verification topics such as brand suitability and ad fraud, media quality measurement, programmatic, and advertising channels and environments including mobile, video, CTV and more. “In a fast-paced environment where technology evolves quickly, we’re proud to offer this program to the industry, helping marketers better control their media investments and deliver optimal outcomes for their campaigns,” said Tony Marlow, CMO, IAS.

AND THE SURVEY SAYS…

Eighty-four percent of developers said their teams are prevented from deploying more often, according to research from Rollbar, citing the time it takes to fix errors and bugs as the top reason. “Developers want to have an idea, write it in code, and have the user experience that idea,” said Cory Virok, CTO and co-founder at Rollbar. “But the reality is that the code that’s meant to deliver these experiences is often riddled with errors and bugs. In an effort to provide a stellar customer experience, developers are spending up to 40% of their time on testing and quality assurance.” Of the 86% of developers who said that new capabilities would help them iterate faster:
* 47% said that seeing where each error originates would expedite those efforts
* 34% said that real-time capabilities would allow for quicker code improvements
* 33% said that access to rich contextual information on each error would be beneficial
* 33% said that new capabilities that aid in quality assurance would enable faster iteration
* 22% said that open API access would allow them to move the needle on iteration

Optimizing addressable TV and other emerging channels is a top priority for brand and agency execs, according to new Forrester research, but using addressable at scale is still an issue. Optimizing strategies for emerging media channels was a primary objective for 46% of the 522 decision-makers surveyed, along with better defining/understanding key audiences for media campaigns (36%), improving or performing attribution on campaigns (34%), and better understanding media investment ROI. All of the respondents said that they’ve experienced at least one challenge in implementing addressable at scale, including convincing other stakeholders of its importance, fragmented platforms/lack of interoperability, lack of adequate measurement, and lack of skilled personnel.

More than two-thirds (67%) of UK advertising professionals think connected TV is a more effective ad channel than linear TV, according to new research from Unruly. However, around half of brands (45%) and agencies (50%) report wanting a clearer understanding of how CTV fits into their campaigns and more information about measurement and attribution. Brands are much more likely to want training on the benefits of CTV (48%) and audience-specific insights (48%) compared to agencies (23% and 31%, respectively).

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GET WITH THE PROGRAM(MATIC)

Havas Media Group has partnered with social display leader Spaceback to bring the creativity of social advertising to programmatic on a global scale. This partnership will allow marketers to distribute social experiences using programmatic infrastructure, adapting any posts from across the major platforms in seconds. “In the future, meaningful media will power all media plans, not just social plans,” said Casey Saran, CEO and co-founder of Spaceback. “Our new partnership with Havas unlocks the true potential of programmatic and will inspire brands around the world to revisit their siloed approach to media channels.”

Verizon Media is partnering with OOH supply platform Place Exchange, granting Verizon Media DSP access to all addressable programmatic DOOH inventory within the US and extended access into Canada. Place Exchange operates a network of OOH displays spanning digital billboards, urban panels, transit shelters, and many other place-based inventory, and supports third-party measurement partners to track DOOH impression delivery. “Having access to Place Exchange’s premium supply, alongside existing DOOH inventory from Vistar, Broadsign, VIOOH, Magnite, and the Verizon Media SSP, establishes our DSP as the only omnichannel buying platform with full coverage of the US programmatic DOOH market,” said Iván Markman, Chief Business Officer, Verizon Media.

Programmatic video platform Tremor Video announced the May launch of its data-driven TV Intelligence offering, a solution that will allow advertisers to reach relevant consumers with precision using a greater breadth and depth of audience data assets. “This announcement represents the next phase of our leadership within this ever-evolving space,” said Ofer Druker, CEO, Tremor International. “We’re excited that our enhanced offerings will empower our clients to remain ahead of the curve when it comes to reaching modern TV audiences in impactful and measurable ways.” Tremor Video’s TV Intelligence solutions will leverage an expansive set of television viewing and audience data coupled with video creative.

Seventy-eight percent of US households are reachable via CTV programmatic advertising, up 56% year-over-year, and there has been a 122% increase in global programmatic ad spend in CTV over 2020, according to ad fraud intelligence and marketing compliance platform Pixalate’s “Connected TV Ad Supply Trends 2020.” Other findings include:
* 24% of CTV programmatic advertising was invalid traffic (IVT) in Q4 2020
* 46% of programmatic ad spend in CTV went to Roku devices. Samsung, Apple, and Amazon come in at second, each with about 10% market share
* Apple increased its ad market share by 379% from Q120 to Q420

STREAMING

Visual art streaming platform Loupe struck a distribution deal with Samsung TV Plus. Loupe’s immersive visual art channel in 4K on will feature works from rising international artists synchronized to instrumental music. “At Samsung, we’re thinking far outside the traditional ‘TV box’ of movies and shows by expanding our content slate to include digital art,” said Takashi Nakano, Head of Global Business Development for Samsung TV Plus.

Americans who turned to streaming services as they sheltered at home may be tweaking their streaming behavior, according to Hub’s newest “Predicting the Pandemic” research, but they’re not giving it up. Highlights from the study include:
* Among those who have added a TV service during the pandemic, post-Covid loyalty is strongest for Disney+ (77% of those who signed on since Covid say they’ll keep it; only 7% say they’ll drop) and Netflix (73% vs. 4%)
* 77% of TV viewers in February 2021 say they’re watching more TV now than before the pandemic, 7 points higher than in November 2020.
* 44% of all TV consumers added at least one TV service during the pandemic,10 points higher than in November.
* At the same time, 25% have dropped a service, a proportion that has also been increasing since last summer.“
What’s been most interesting to us in our pandemic-related research has been trying to determine which pandemic-induced changes in TV behavior will persist once life begins to return to normal,” said Peter Fondulas, principal at Hub and co-author of the study. “This wave of the study strongly suggests that Americans have grown more than just accustomed to the TV viewing adjustments they’ve made during the pandemic, and are ready to embrace a new, streaming-centric normal.”

Netflix is losing about $6 billion a year in potential revenue due to password sharing, estimates Citi analyst Jason Bazinet. That’s about a quarter of the total amount streamers are missing out on due to cheating. Hence Netflix’s testing of a feature to crack down on password sharing. “This test is designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so,” said the company.

Rakutem Viki, a streaming service for Asian content, is introducing a new TVOD (transactional video-on-demand) movie rental service, delivering Asian films within weeks to a few months of their origin country debut. Viewers will also be able to access a library of earlier films.

Cynopsis Team