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ADVERTISING
NBCUniversal announced a strategic investment and partnership with tvScientific to launch Peacock Ad Manager, a self-service ad buying platform with full-funnel attribution measurement. The end-to-end performance marketing solution enables marketers to enter their budget, choose their target audience and KPIs, upload their creative, and measure delivery as well as performance. “Peacock AX has been driving business results for the largest global brands, and now with the launch of Peacock Ad Manager, millions of performance advertisers, local advertisers, and small and medium-sized companies can more easily access premium CTV to grow their businesses,” said Krishan Bhatia, President and Chief Business Officer, NBCUniversal. “This partnership will allow us to unlock advanced targeting, performance insights, and attribution for the many advertisers who don’t have existing DSP relationships.” Peacock Ad Manager is slated to launch in the second half of 2022.
Tubi is working on an expansion of its current integration with Nielsen that will allow for enhanced and comprehensive measurement through Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings product. The integration with Nielsen DAR will advance advertiser need for third-party measurement in the ad-supported OTT space, including co-viewing measurement. “This upcoming device coverage replaces slim proxies with comprehensive and stable currency-grade measurement, allowing our advertisers to transact on audiences in a way that is apples-to-apples with traditional TV,” said Mark Rotblat, Chief Revenue Officer at Tubi, a division of Fox Entertainment. “
Samsung Ads has launched Samsung Ads Total Media Solution, a full-service offering that addresses fragmentation by providing buyers with holistic management and measurement of cross-platform media buys, inclusive of ad exposure on networks’ linear and digital streaming apps. With Total Media Solution, Samsung Ads provides advertisers with the ability to “bring-your-own media” (BYOM) for streaming app inventory that has been negotiated directly with TV networks, to Samsung DSP where Samsung Ads will manage and measure cross-platform campaigns using its programmatic adtech platform. “Agencies and advertisers need a simple way to understand and integrate linear and streaming buys to measure outcomes and increase efficiencies,” said Joe Melaragno, Head of Platform Sales & Agency Development, Samsung Ads. “With Samsung Ads Total Media Solution, we are providing an elegantly simple solution for the industry to serve ads, measure, and optimize within Samsung DSP.”
IAB Tech Lab announced the release of a new initiative called SHARC (Secure HTML Ad Rich-media Container). The release is open for public comment for a 30-day period. SHARC is a new standard that enables interactive ads to be served across different platforms in a secure iframe that prevents the ad from accessing sensitive data. It does this with the development of a new standardized “safe ad container” API that can be used in mobile-app, web, and other HTML-enabled environments. “SHARC’s ‘design once, serve everywhere’ approach saves creative agencies time and money, streamlines ad trafficking, and reduces creative load across the entire digital advertising supply chain,” said Shailley Singh, Vice President, Product, IAB Tech Lab. “Adoption of this standard will help drive the evolution of our industry by making interactive ads more efficient and scalable than previously possible.”
IRI has partnered with TikTok to deliver custom marketing and media mix effectiveness insights to consumer retailers and manufacturers that advertise on the platform. IRI will incorporate TikTok’s aggregated, privacy-centric advertising reports into its marketing effectiveness solution, IRI Marketing Mix. Optimized specifically for marketing mix models, the reports will help provide retail marketers with a granular and holistic view of their online and offline marketing efforts. “Partnering with leaders across the measurement industry allows TikTok to understand advertiser needs through advanced, privacy-safe modeling techniques and how companies are leveraging our platform to successfully engage their audience and measure success,” said Jorge Ruiz, Global Head of Marketing Science at TikTOk. “Our goal is to help clients reach their full potential with the TikTok community and maximize growth.
Datonics has launched its CTV data within the MadHive data ecosystem. “It’s an exciting time in the digital advertising industry, with increased opportunity for marketers to engage with customers in new ways that leverage data to add tremendous value,” said Michael Benedek, CEO, Datonics. “We are happy to partner with MadHive and offer marketers increased touchpoints and possibilities for engagement, as well as valuable insights for measurement and increased campaign ROI.”
Ninety percent of US streaming service consumers feel that their ad experience is better on digital streaming platforms than traditional TV when watching major sporting events, according to a survey from Integral Ad Science. “Game Day Digital Strategy” also found that consumers engage in a variety of activities in anticipation of major sporting events, which include increased online content consumption and use of ads to help plan for these activities. 43% of U.S. consumers find ads helpful when planning for activities leading up to a major sporting event; 47% increase their online content consumption leading up to a major sporting event. The most popular forms of online content include social media, articles, and video clips.
Roku is expanding its Measurement Partner Program to include media mix modeling, helping tie ad exposure data to outcome data on a household level. “We believe comprehensive media measurement is critical to understanding how effective our plans are at reaching humans with breakthrough ad experiences,” said Michael Piner, EVP of Advanced Media at Mediahub. “The addition of MMM in Roku’s Measurement Partner Program will allow us to more effectively measure the impact of streaming TV in media mixes through a zoom-out lens to ensure we’re delivering the optimal TV ad experience.”
Blockgraph has struck a new partnership with Cadent. Through the new integration, companies using Cadent Aperture Platform will be able to match and activate TV audiences using aggregated and de-identified data across addressable households within the footprint of participating distributors using Blockgraph’s Identity Operating System. The agreement enables marketers to more efficiently plan, target and measure campaigns across the CTV landscape.
EARNINGS REPORTS
Meta reported earnings per share of $2.72 and average revenue per user of $9.54, beating analysts’ estimates. Daily active users in 1Q22 were 1.96 billion, versus expectations of 1.95 billion. However, a 7% rise in revenue to $27.9 billion fell short of a forecast of $28.2 billion. The company will still spend billions on metaverse product development unit Reality Labs, but it will “slow the pace” of some investments, said CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the 1Q22 earnings call.
Amazon reported a loss of $3.84 billion in the first quarter, versus a profit of $8.1 billion in the year-ago quarter. “The pandemic and subsequent war in Ukraine have brought unusual growth and challenges,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. “Today, as we’re no longer chasing physical or staffing capacity, our teams are squarely focused on improving productivity and cost efficiencies throughout our fulfillment network. We know how to do this and have done it before. This may take some time, particularly as we work through ongoing inflationary and supply chain pressures, but we see encouraging progress on a number of customer experience dimensions, including delivery speed performance as we’re now approaching levels not seen since the months immediately preceding the pandemic in early 2020.”
Apple reported a record-breaking fiscal second quarter, with a year-over-year revenue spike of 17%, to hit $19.8 billion. Apple set all-time records for the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Care and cloud services, it and its video advertising and payment services set March quarter records. “These impressive results reflect the impact of our continued investment in improving and expanding our services portfolio and the positive momentum that we’re seeing on many fronts,” said Luca Maestri, Apple CFO.
Twitter hit 229 million users as of the end of 1Q22, with revenue up 16%, to $1.2 billion, beating Wall Street expectations. With the acquisition of the company by Elon Musk pending, Twitter skipped a conference call and said they “will not be providing any forward looking guidance, and are withdrawing all previously provided goals and outlook.”
Alphabet reported earnings per share of $24.62, lower than the $25.91 expected. YouTube advertising revenue $6.87 billion did not meet the $7.51 billion forecast. On the up side, Google’s cloud business grew an estimate-beating 44%, though the division is still losing money, reporting an operating loss of $931 million, compared to $974 million last year.
STREAMING
Charter and Comcast have formed a 50/50 joint venture to develop and offer a next-generation streaming platform. The partnership will offer a flex streaming platform that includes voice search on a variety of branded 4K streaming devices and Smart TVs through national retailers, and give app developers, streamers, retailers, operators and hardware manufactures the opportunity to reach customers in major markets across the country.
Google and Crunchyroll have struck a multi-year strategic partnership to accelerate and support Crunchyroll’s global scale ambitions with improved viewer experience and content innovation; expanded distribution; and unique ad-supported content. Google’s existing partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment includes collaboration across Android, Google TV and Android TV OS, YouTube, Google advertising solutions, and Google Cloud. Crunchyroll Is an independently operated joint venture between US-based Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Japan’s Aniplex.
Jonathan Sposato, co-founder and chairman of GeekWire, has launched JoySauce Network. The new ad-supported multimedia platform is aimed at the “American Asian” and its allies. The site, which went live Wednesday morning, features “multiple channels of vibrant digital programming dedicated to celebrating both new and established American Asian talent.”
Prime Video has struck a multi-year deal with ONE Championship for exclusive live coverage of martial events in the US and Canada. Prime Video will broadcast 12 live ONE Champion events annually; the first will be announced later this year.
The US may have reached peak stacking, according to Kantar’s Entertainment on Demand service. The proportion of US households who have video streaming services has stalled at 86% (up 0.4% points quarter over quarter), after seeing substantial growth 4Q21. While flat overall, there are growth differences across the streaming tiers. SVOD is down 0.2% points to 81.4%, but AVOD grew by 2.2% points to 20.2% household penetration. FAST grew by 0.9% points to 25.3%. Expect to see a greater rate of churn and switching as consumers are more selective about what they watch, says Kantar, which advises that for streaming platforms, now is the time to ensure they keep streamers engaged after they finish a piece of content through their easily navigable interface and content recommendations.
New movies will be released every Friday on streamer AMC+, featuring titles from AMC Networks sibs IFC Films, IFC Midnight, RLJE Films and Shudder. AMC+ will be the exclusive streaming home of the company’s slate of films following theatrical and digital distribution, 90 days after release, with select titles premiering day-and-date in theaters and on AMC+. The last Friday of the month will be branded “The Final Friday,” with a new horror film from Shudder. The subscriber benefit kicks off on Friday, May 6 with the streaming premiere of “Clean” from IFC Films, starring Adrien Brody.
Roku and Lionsgate have inked a multi-year deal that gives The Roku Channel an exclusive streaming run of Lionsgate feature films after they air on Starz. “This agreement affirms the great demand for first-run studio movies across a broad array of platforms,” said Jim Packer, President of Worldwide Television Distribution at Lionsgate. “This partnership with The Roku Channel shows our ability to capitalize on opportunities in today’s complex television landscape with a multifaceted, layered approach that meets everyone’s needs.”
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