Meta is ending news availability on Facebook and Instagram in Canada ahead of the implementation of that country’s Online News Act, which will require internet giants to pay news publishers for posting or linking to their content. “We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada,” said Meta in a blog post. There’s no need to act right now, tweeted Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez on Thursday, noting there will be a regulatory and implementation process.

WhatsApp has a new feature that automatically silences incoming calls from unknown contacts. The number will show up in notifications, so users can follow up if they choose.

The Weather Channel and Google News Initiative are teaming for the launch of a new SKYFX Camera Network aimed at gathering weather data and visuals. The SKYFX Camera Network will pair high-end 360-degree video cameras with individual weather stations to collect real-time meteorological data and live streaming video. The partnership stems from Google’s strategic relationship with TWC’s parent company, Allen Media Group.

The FTC has proposed rules making it easier for consumers to cancel subscriptions, and imposing penalties for companies violating those rules. The proposal would make canceling a subscription “at least as easy” as signing up for it.

Reels and AI were the hot topics for Meta at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The company said it is expanding ads on Instagram Reels to advertisers via image ads directly on Reels content, and bringing app promotional ads to Facebook and Instagram Reels. Talk about AI was more exploratory than newsworthy. “We think people will want to interact with lots of different AIs,” said the company. “And we believe it’s important to have a diverse array of AI Assistants to represent people, creators, and businesses’ interests.”

Truthset, the data validation-as-a-service offering, announced that Experian has joined the Data Collective, enabling Experian to evaluate its marketing data against industry benchmarks, enhance the accuracy of its marketing data assets, and provide its clients with validated data insights to optimize data-driven marketing campaigns against business outcomes.

AI

IBM and The All England Lawn Tennis Club announced new features for the Wimbledon digital fan experience that will launch at this year’s Championships. A new Artificial Intelligence feature, leveraging generative AI technology from IBM watsonx, will produce tennis commentary for all video highlights packages during Wimbledon. The IBM AI Draw Analysis feature will also provide a new statistic to define how favorable the path to the final might be for each player in the singles draw.

Omnicom struck a strategic collaboration with Google Cloud that offers the group unique access to the Vertex AI platform, including foundation models such as PaLM 2 and Imagen, which can be applied to various use cases in the fields of creativity, summarization of knowledge, discoverability, and automation. The models will be integrated into Omnicom’s open operating system, Omni, enabling agency and client teams to accelerate the content development process for marketing campaigns.

Mendix outlined new AI and machine learning capabilities, including context-aware AI developer tools, which will be available upon the release of Mendix 10. Mendix 10 features expanded AI capabilities in two major areas: empowering the enterprise to seamlessly integrate AI use cases with low-code applications using Mendix’s new Machine Learning Kit; and expanding expands the scope and functionality of AI-enabled application development.

AMA (A Million Ads) announced the launch of its AI-powered product features, Studio.AI, designed to further enhance the speed and precision of the AMA dynamic decisioning engine. The new solution intelligently syncs audio files with script lines and selects relevant data triggers for highly-personalized ad experiences and is available for use across leading audio platforms, including Spotify, Pandora, Acast and iHeart.

Salesforce has introduced AI Cloud, a tool aimed at helping marketers deploy generative AI across the enterprise. AI Cloud brings generative AI to Sales GPT, Service GPT, Marketing GPT, Commerce GPT, Slack GPT, Tableau GPT, Flow GPT, and Apex GPT, and features Einstein GPT Trust Layer, an enterprise risk-reduction capability.

Personalized, relevant content is the goal for brands now, and artificial intelligence plays a key role. Learn how to leverage the power of AI to build the kind of personal connections with consumers that drive business growth at the “Artificial Intelligence: It’s Personal” panel during the Cynopsis Big TV Conference in September. You can find event details here.

SUSTAINABILITY

The longer an ad is viewed on a page, the lower the carbon emissions, according to Attention x Sustainability: The Benefits of a Smaller Carbon Footprint in Media, conducted by MAGNA’s Media Trials in conjunction with Oracle. The study analyzed over one billion impressions across 55 countries through live campaign tracking and stress-tested findings by using AI-based, predictive eye tracking on approximately 350 display ads that appeared on 100 US websites. The resulting analysis proved that a spot that was in view for 10 seconds produced 64 percent less carbon emissions than a spot with a five-second, in-view time.

Omnichannel ad exchange Sharethrough announced two initiatives that will lower carbon emissions from ad campaigns while providing brands with a cleaner advertising ecosystem: removing Made-for-Advertising sites by default, and the availability of Low-Emission private marketplaces at no extra cost for advertisers. “The combination of our measure, reduce, compensate Green Media Product initiative and automatic removal of MFA sites allows advertisers to progress their sustainability and supply path optimization initiatives into what could be called ‘carbon path optimization’,” said JF Cote, CEO at Sharethrough.

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ADVERTISING

LG Ad Solutions announced a strategic partnership with customer intelligence company, Acxiom. “CTV advertisers can now reach their desired audience more accurately and efficiently, and at scale,” said Alistair Sutcliffe, Head of Product at LG Ad Solutions. “This game-changing collaboration combines LG Ad Solutions’ Automatic Content Recognition viewership data with Acxiom’s broad cross-industry audiences taxonomy, giving advertisers from all sectors a new level of incremental reach based on exceptionally high match rates without compromising flexibility or scale.”

Sixty-one percent of US marketers want retail media inventory that’s logged-in – which is tougher for fraudsters to manipulate and is largely protected from cookie deprecation on the open web – according to a study from LiveIntent. Advertisers also said they want retail media that goes beyond simply ads on a website, with 64% maintaining they want video inventory and 57% said they want CTV inventory. And 44% said they have difficulty measuring retail media effectiveness, a byproduct of the fact that so few log in to RMNs today. Adding logins will likely help, which is why logged-in media was popular with respondents.

Cirvana struck two new media solutions partnerships to increase the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. A new partnership with Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, enables marketers to leverage Circana’s purchase data in clean rooms that utilize Snowflake’s Data Clean Room Framework. And an expanded partnership with LiveRamp, the data collaboration platform, allows mutual clients to collaborate on RampIDs with Circana purchase data in the Snowflake Data Cloud.

Thirty-five percent of installs attributed to impressions take place within the first half hour, the next 19% up until the second hour, and another 9% between three and four hours according to Adjust report, “A Mobile Marketer’s Playbook for View-Through Attribution.” Adjust analyzed apps globally with VTA settings enabled to better understand the relationship between clicks, impressions and installs over time, and found that fluctuations don’t always go hand-in-hand. The guide explores:
· Share of VTA-based installs globally and by vertical. The top-five regions with the highest shares of impression-based installs are Japan (17%), France and Benelux (14%), MENA (11%), INSEA (10%) and the U.S. at nearly 9%. Food and drink apps have the highest proportion of impression-based installs globally, at 43%, followed by fintech (36%), travel (30%), e-commerce (24%), entertainment and social apps (both 11%) and gaming (5%).
· Industry VTA window benchmarks. As VTA window lengths vary across industries, verticals, business models and campaigns, Adjust recommends setting vertical-specific windows when kick-starting VTA efforts, spanning from 24 hours for gaming to 32.5 hours for fintech apps.
· Difference in install share by operating system. Android’s average share sits at 9.2%. iOS is significantly higher at 14.1%. This is largely because the app categories most commonly downloaded on iOS, such as e-commerce, food and drink, and lifestyle, are often more VTA-friendly.
· VTA for holistic CTV ad measurement. With ad recall at 46% on CTV vs. 9% on website ads, CTV is the most recommended channel for marketers looking to diversify their advertising mix.
“If VTA is ignored in favor of click-through-only attribution, advertisers can falsely reach the conclusion that a specific channel or ad isn’t converting, or that the attributed channel is doing all the heavy lifting on its own,” said Reggie Singh, Adjust Director of Partnerships. “By taking all ads that were served to end users into account with VTA, marketers can comprehensively understand which impressions influenced installs and conversions, where uplift has been provided, and which campaigns, ads, platforms and channels assist each other.”

Proximic by Comscore, provider of audience and content targeting solutions for programmatic activation, has new and expanded integrations with Adobe, Publica and Teads. “We’re already seeing such strong adoption of Predictive Audiences because the product is delivering,” said Rachel Gantz, Managing Director of Proximic by Comscore. “Proximic by Comscore’s Predictive Audiences are outperforming legacy data sets and giving brands the incrementality they need for growth. These new partnerships allow us to continue expanding reach for advertisers no matter which programmatic platform they choose to use.”

TV outcomes company EDO has launched its latest innovation to increase TV ROI for brand and network advertisers. EDO’s Creative Rotation Optimization™ allows advertisers to reallocate in-flight creative weight with no additional media spend or changes required to their media footprint. “Advertisers invest millions in TV, and they are reliant on expensive, traditional survey and sentiment research methods to assess creative effectiveness,” said Kevin Krim, President & CEO, EDO. “Most existing creative measurement solutions are costly, slow, and provide results too late or infrequently to make a meaningful impact on TV advertising campaigns. With increasing pressure to make TV advertising as responsive and efficient as digital, Creative Rotation Optimization™ is an innovation that’s long overdue to ensure actionable TV intelligence for in-flight campaign optimization.”

Advertising software platform Madhive has signed a definitive agreement with the Private Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management for a $300 million investment in the company. The partnership with Goldman Sachs will enable Madhive to further accelerate the growth and adoption of its CTV platform, most notably within the local advertising market, as well as expand new channels such as national / direct-to-consumer advertisers and retail media networks, who are looking to modernize and scale their CTV offerings.

Video and CTV adtech company Tremor International announced the rebranding of the products and platforms within its portfolio as Nexxen. The new identity encompasses the combined demand-side platforms Amobee and Tremor Video, the supply-side platform Unruly and the CTV ad server, Spearad. Moving forward, these business units will operate as the Nexxen DSP, Nexxen SSP and Nexxen Ad Server, respectively. The Nexxen SSP and the Nexxen Ad Server will go to market collectively as Nexxen CTRL.

Dreamscape has entered into an agreement to acquire Mediaocean’s global media planning tool, Lumina. Lumina helps improve media plan workflow and visibility between brands and agencies through an end-to-end system. In tandem with this, and following the previous strategic acquisitions of Standard Media Index and SQAD, Dreamscape has rebranded to Guideline.

DatafuelX announced the launch of M3, a full-service SaaS platform designed to support and advance the TV industry’s shift to a more audience-centric, multi-currency marketplace. The optimization engine allows customers to optimize by audience GRPs, impression, eCPMs, index, and reach. The platform is data agnostic and easily integrated with TV viewership data which helps identify advanced targeting opportunities across linear, addressable and streaming. Already working with Nielsen, NielsenOne, EDO, and VideoAmp, with plans to add iSpot and Comscore in the coming months, M3 can be leveraged to buy across all new currencies.

MEASUREMENT

The U.S. Joint Industry Committee gave a progress report on its measurement efforts at the JIC Summit at Cannes Lions. Two key updates: The JIC provided transparency into its measurement certification efforts by unveiling the Scoring Rubric that will be used to evaluate the RFI submissions received from Comscore, InnovidXP, iSpot, SambaTV, VideoAmp, and 605; and unveiled new details on the roadmap and architecture design of its Streaming Data Service. “The need for standardization in cross-platform measurement has been the catalyst for both buyers and sellers to work together to create a modern measurement ecosystem that captures media behavior of today’s consumer,” said Helen Katz, EVP of Research at Publicis Media. “We have applied considerable rigor and thoughtfulness into designing a robust scoring rubric that will serve as the foundation to allow us to determine currency readiness for transaction at scale, and we’re pleased to give the industry transparency into our progress.”

Nielsen intends to make its Nielsen ONE audience measurement data available as an input to EDO’s predictive outcomes solution for mutual clients, while EDO will make its outcomes measurement data available as an input of Nielsen’s Media Impact planning software for mutual clients. “For a century now, Nielsen has provided great value to the industry with measurement data made available through our own products,” said Deirdre Thomas, Chief Product Officer at Nielsen. “With EDO, we are taking the first step towards extending that same value beyond our own tools and allowing the power of our audience measurement to be integrated alongside other datasets and enhance other applications. We believe this interoperability will drive the next era of impactful, responsive media and advertising planning.”

Teads has released attention metrics in Teads Ad Manager, its dynamic programmatic buying platform. The integration embeds Lumen’s attention measurement natively and gives clients the ability to measure attention similarly to how they measure viewability. Teads is also teaming with TVision to enable attention measurement across screens. TVision will now be integrated in Teads’ Attention Program. “Attention measurement validating CTV inventory is critical to holistically inform strategies for brands across all screens,” said Neala Broan, SVP, Strategy and Insights, Teads.

Allen Media Group and VideoAmp inked a ten-year currency agreement, making VideoAmp AMG’s primary and preferred currency. “Reliable big data measurement is much needed and will save the industry. This is something we have been waiting on for a long time – a company to come along and break the mold, to take us to the next level and to measure our channels properly,” said Byron Allen, Founder/Chairman/CEO of AMG. “For Allen Media Group, that solution is VideoAmp.”

National CineMedia struck a deal with Adelaide, focused on attention-based media measurement, bringing Adelaide’s attention transaction metric to the cinema advertising industry. “Eye-tracking studies have shown that cinema media captures attention at rates that far exceed other paid media channels. We’re proud to bring AU measurement to NCM’s exceptional video platform,” said Marc Guldimann, Adelaide CEO. Adelaide’s AU is an omnichannel media quality metric representing a placement’s probability of attention and subsequent impact, generated by a machine learning algorithm trained to proxy full-funnel outcomes from awareness to sales.

First-party data experience platform Qonsent struck a partnership with Optable, a Software-as-a-Service data collaboration platform and clean room solution. The collaboration aims to offer a privacy-safe and consented data collaboration experience by seamlessly enabling first-party, consented data for media activation and measurement purposes.

Circana has launched Circana Lift for Snap Inc. Circana Lift enables consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers to accurately measure how their Snapchat advertising campaigns drive offline sales. “Our partnership with Snap bridges the gap between online media exposure and offline sales lift, empowering advertisers to unlock the true potential of their advertising efforts and drive measurable results in today’s complex and competitive market,” said Amy Marentic, President, Global Solutions, Circana

Integral Ad Science announced a significant expansion with TikTok, bringing its Total Media Quality brand safety and suitability measurement product to advertisers in 23 new markets. The expansion further adds to the seven countries where brand safety and suitability measurement went live in October 2022. “TikTok is committed to building a safe environment where communities can express themselves and be entertained,” states Chen-Lin Lee, Global Head of Measurement and Data Partnerships. “We look forward to continued collaboration in providing transparency and confidence in TikTok’s ability to present brand messages in safe and suitable environments.”

DoubleVerify announced an expansion of its quality solutions with Meta to enable media measurement and help maximize advertiser performance on Facebook and Instagram Reels. This release will leverage DV’s technology to help advertisers on Meta Reels ensure their video ads are viewable, by a human being and are safe from Fraud/Invalid Traffic. “The explosion in short-form, user-generated content is offering advertisers a high-engagement environment to connect with passionate online communities,” said Mark Zagorski, CEO, DoubleVerify. “We can now provide media authentication, and help maximize campaign impact and performance for our mutual advertisers.” DoubleVerify and TVision are also joining forces, to combine DV’s scalable ad exposure data, including viewable time and screen share, with TVision’s viewer presence and eyes-on-screen ad attention signals.

SEE YOU IN COURT

Gannett is suing Google, claiming the company violates federal antitrust laws. “Google controls how publishers sell their ad slots, and it forces publishers to sell growing shares of that ad space to Google at depressed prices,” says the complaint. “The result is dramatically less revenue for publishers and Google’s ad-tech rivals, while Google enjoys exorbitant monopoly profits.” Gannett publishes over 200 daily newspapers, including USA Today.

Amazon is being sued by The Federal Trade Commission, which claims the company tricked consumers into signing up for its Prime subscription service, and employed a “labyrinthine” process that made it hard for subscribers to cancel. “Amazon used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as ‘dark patterns’ to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions,” said the FTC complaint. Amazon called the FTC’s allegations “false on the facts and the law.”

The government of Malaysia is prosecuting Meta for Facebook’s failure to comply with requests to remove content. “Meta has failed to take sufficient action to address the issue of undesirable contents on its platform and has not fully cooperated with efforts to remove such contents,” said a statement from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. “Meta’s response, which has been sluggish and unsatisfactory, has not met the urgency of the matter and has led to increasing public concern and scrutiny.”

Cynopsis Team