Project OAR is starting live market trials. Through a phased approached, members of the consortium of media companies created to establish a common technology for addressable advertising management for TV will conduct trials to evaluate how the open standard interoperates with existing sales, insertion and measurement workflows. In the first phase, beginning this month, Fox Corporation, ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal, The E.W. Scripps Company and AMC Networks will begin utilizing OAR to deliver more relevant advertising experiences within linear and on-demand formats on smart TVs. The second phase starts in mid-August, with Discovery, Inc., Hearst Television and WarnerMedia integrating and executing trials throughout the remainder of the summer and Disney Media Networks conducting its trials thereafter. Commercial availability and deployment will begin in Q420 across a subset of 10 million opt-in smart TV devices. “At Fox, we are committed to enhancing TV measurement and increasing ad efficiency and effectiveness,” said Dan Callahan, Vice President, Audience and Automated Sales, Fox Corporation, the first company to begin the trial. “Together as an industry, we are helping to advance addressable TV advertising, deliver relevant experiences for consumer audiences and unlock new opportunities for advertisers.”

Nexstar Digital, a subsidiary of Nexstar Media Group, has entered into a multiyear agreement with FreeWheel, A Comcast Company to use its Strata platform. “FreeWheel is committed to delivering easy access to premium OTT and digital video inventory directly in the user workflow while reducing transactional friction through applied automation in the ordering process,” said Jamie Donnenfeld, VP of Partnership Solutions at FreeWheel. “Nexstar Digital offers brands and advertisers broad consumer reach throughout the U.S., and we’re delighted to facilitate our clients’ access to Nexstar’s full digital inventory to drive accelerated performance across their video campaigns.”

In an open letter to the digital advertising industry, BPA Worldwide, which provides third-party audits of publishers audience claims, raises the issue of who owns bidstream data, asserting that it is intellectual property. The not-for-profit is asking that when audiences are made available for real-time bidding, the data would no longer be available to third parties who use it to create other opportunities. “Without publisher permission, third parties have no contractual right to use this data to create derivative works from the very assets that publishers have spent decades and billions of dollars to create,” says the letter. “They are being enabled by loose restrictions within some RTB platforms, which may ignore their responsibility and obligation to the publishing industry.”

Verizon Media announced its omnichannel DSP has received TAG certification against fraud, having met requirements to protect advertisers, partners, publishers and consumers against digital ad fraud. “As pioneers of the Internet, Verizon Media has decades of experience in combating advertising fraud for our customers, and we’re vigorously committed to the continuation of these efforts,” said Ivan Markman, Chief Business Officer at Verizon Media. “The Verizon Media DSP puts transparency front and center, giving our clients the confidence to know how their dollars are being spent and that their campaigns are being properly delivered.”

TV is the medium most likely to influence voter opinions and decisions, especially in a COVID-19 environment, according to Effectv’s 2020 political advertising report. Candidates can maximize the impact of their TV advertising by delivering their message across screens and using addressable advertising to reach potential voters, said the report, adding that candidates should rethink their advertising budgets for a more effective media mix, as well as adjust their messaging and tone to fit the current circumstances.

A study from Viamedia found 83% of companies have changed their marketing strategies in response to the pandemic, and 46% are offering incentives and promotions to drive sales. Additional findings from the research reveals new opportunities for local business advertising:
* Continued Investment in Marketing: 40% of respondents from various industries including auto, furniture, healthcare, non-profits, retail, real estate, and entertainment, among others, reported an annual marketing budget of at least $75,000 – 39% of which was allocated to advertising.
* Intent to Advertise: Business owners indicated a continued need for advertising, with 45% looking for creative incentives for advertising, and 28% wanting tips and insights to improve the effectiveness of their marketing.“The survey results clearly indicate that the prospects for advertising can be strong despite some conventional wisdom,” said Becky Jones, CMO and People Officer at Viamedia. “For many respondents, the need to power through the pandemic far outweighs the anxiety. And as we’ve experienced in the past, businesses that take the courageous path to advertise during a crisis often find great success on the other end.”

Ad fraud is on the rise on the CTV ad ecosystem, according to DoubleVerify, the software platform for digital media measurement, data and analytics. Between January and April of 2020, DV detected a 161% increase year-over-year in fraudulent CTV traffic. In 1Q20, DV detected more than 500 fraudulent apps, exceeding what they detected across the entirety of 2019, and the company currently detects over 500,000 fraudulent CTV devices a day. “Advertisers usually don’t know what apps or content they advertise in,” notes DV. “While programmatic deals typically include app information in the form of BundleIDs, this information usually doesn’t follow any industry standards and is highly unreliable. Any one app can have up to 15 IDs, and each could be a random number like ‘1234’. In fact DV has detected that only 23% of CTV auctions have app names that adhere to IAB conventions.”

LiveIntent, the people-based marketing platform powered by the email address, announced the findings of an internal study that showed that, in contrast to the trends seen in online advertising in the wake of COVID-19, some LiveIntent publishers have seen a dramatic rise in revenue from the ads their email newsletters. The analysis showed that the growth for publishers is being driven by an increase in email opens and ad engagement in those emails. “As more Americans are staying home and longing for trustworthy content to engage with, those Publishers who have invested in the email newsletter are reaping the rewards of investing in real journalism, and not handing all of their inventory over to platforms that swim in User Generated Content,” said LiveIntent Founder and CEO Matt Keiser. Within the LiveIntent network, Publisher newsletters in the Shopping, Home and Garden, Style and Fashion (+20%), and Business (+15%) categories have seen the biggest increases in opens from readers since the start of quarantine (March 1). Readership for newsletters related to Home and Garden and Shopping are both up by 85%.

A new study from data intelligence platform Clickagy suggests COVID-19 has caused a major shift in how people consume content online. According to the “COVID-10 Status Report,” a study conducted between December 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020:
· 49% of users used mobile devices and tablets in March, as compared to 70% in December.
· In the remote conference war, Zoom beats out Google Meet (also Hangouts) by volume.
Alcohol research was over-indexed in most states, suggesting an overall increase in consumption.

TECH TALK

Microsoft has added new features to Edge that make the number two browser an appealing alternative to Google’s Chrome. The Windows 10 May 2020 update is showing memory usage reduction of up to 27%, and the redesigned Microsoft Edge Add-ons website helps users more easily discover and find extensions. The search was redesigned to offer more insights into the search results while improving navigation. “We’re continuing to learn and grow – and this is just the beginning,” said Microsoft in a blog post. “In the next few months, extension developers will also get an improved and simplified experience at the Partner Center to better manage their extensions.”

Deluxe Entertainment Services announced the launch of One VZN, a new cloud-based IP delivery solution distributing major studio and independent content to movie theaters and. Developed in collaboration with Amazon Web Services, One VZN is an enhancement to the Deluxe One platform, the company’s cloud-based solution that unifies the media supply chain. “One VZN is poised to be one of the most important innovations in digital cinema distribution in the past decade, fundamentally changing not only the economics of film distribution for exhibitors and studios around the globe, but also enabling new theatrical experiences for viewers as well,” said Andy Shenkler, Chief Product & Technology Officer of Deluxe.

SiriusXM announced the acquisition of podcast management platform Simplecast. The Simplecast solution, paired with the monetization platform of AdsWizz, the adtech subsidiary of SiriusXM, creates an end-to-end solution aimed at enabling creators to publish and generate revenue from their podcasts. “Our goal is to provide audio publishers with state-of-the-art platforms and give them everything they need to be successful,” said Alexis van de Wyer, CEO of AdsWizz. “Empowering podcasters of any size to create, distribute, analyze, and monetize their work is the next natural step in pursuing our vision.”

Watch party app and virtual event platform Kast has partnered with SeriesFest Season Six, taking place June 18-24. The annual festival, reimagined as a virtual event, will “Fest/Differently” with six days of streaming events including competition screenings, panel discussions, workshops, and television premieres. The partnership marks an expansion into the festival scene for Kast, which launched in 2019 as a watch party app and is currently extending its business line to include working with festival organizers globally as more continue to move their in-person events and conferences to virtual platforms.

Xilinx introduced two real-time computing video appliances for video transcoding applications. Based on the new Xilinx Real-Time Server reference architecture, the new appliances are aimed at enabling service providers to deliver applications such as esports and game streaming platforms, social and video conferencing, live distance learning, telemedicine and live broadcast video to optimize video quality and bitrate at the lowest cost per channel for TCO savings over both software-based and fixed-architecture approaches. The Xilinx RT Video Appliances are currently available through an authorized Xilinx value-added reseller or server OEM.

Megaphone TV announced the launch of Talk Show, a broadcast tool for creating live and recorded TV shows or video content in the social distancing era. Among the features are real-time video conferencing with less than .5 sec delay; isolated recordings available minutes after broadcast finishes; isolated camera feeds for live production in traditional or software switchers; teleprompter display panel; and roll clip/audio to participants.

CancelCovid, a volunteer collaboration of individuals from MIT, King’s College, ViralGains, Mavrck and Science Bounty launched help stop the spread of COVID-19 by educating people who have suddenly lost their sense of smell that it is a common symptom of the virus, and that they should stay at home and self-isolate. CancelCovid’s first initiative consists of two key pillars: a social media awareness campaign titled the #CancelCovidSmellChallenge, driven by influencer marketing platform Mavrck, and a ViralGaines survey gathering anonymous population-level data that will allow public health professionals, researchers, and others to aid in predicting, treating, and managing the virus.