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Monday July 12, 2021

President Biden signed an order, aimed at regulating monopolies and protecting consumers, that encourages the FTC and the Justice Department to challenge prior “bad mergers” that past administrations did not challenge. “Over the past 10 years, the largest tech platforms have acquired hundreds of companies — including alleged ‘killer acquisitions’ meant to shut down a potential competitive threat,” said the White House fact sheet. “Too often, federal agencies have not blocked, conditioned, or, in some cases, meaningfully examined these acquisitions.”

Apple’s privacy changes, enabling users to block apps from tracking them, are leading to a dip in mobile ad prices on iOS, reports The Wall Street Journal. With fewer than a third of users opting in to tracking, spending on iOS mobile ads dropped about one third between June 1 and July 1, according to measurement company Tenjin. In the same period, Android spending rose 10%.

Twitter appointed Vinay Prakash as its resident grievance officer in India, days after the Indian government alleged Twitter had lost liability protection on user generated content because the company had failed to appoint officials to address concerns. Facebook and Google had already appointed local compliance officers.

TikTok has launched a pilot job search program to help users “find their dream jobs.” Job seekers can create a video resume and submit it to one of the participating brands, including Chipotle, Abercrombie, Target and more. “CareerTok is already a thriving subculture on the platform and we can’t wait to see how the community embraces TikTok Resumes and helps to reimagine recruiting and job discovery,” wrote Nick Tran, Global Head of Marketing, in a blog post.

In a new antitrust lawsuit, 37 attorneys general accuse Google of engaging in conduct aimed at disincentivizing competition in Android app distribution. “For all apps that consumers obtain from the Google Play Store, Google requires that consumers purchase any in app digital content through Google Play Billing,” says the lawsuit. “By imposing this unduly restrictive and anticompetitive tie, Google can indefinitely collect supracompetitive commissions from consumers who purchase in-app digital content.” The lawsuit says Google prevents apps distributed through the Google Play Store from using, directing consumers to, or informing consumers about alternative payment processing options that may provide lower prices.

As Apple and Google draw criticism by some competitors for bundling their apps with their mobile operating systems, a Facebook-commissioned study by Comscore found that 75%percent of the top 20 most-used apps on iPhone were made by Apple, and 60% of the top Android apps were made by Google. Preinstalled services are most dominant in basics like weather, photos, and clocks.

The FCC’s minimum speed benchmark of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload, set six years ago, is probably not fast enough to meet the needs of many small businesses, particularly with regard to upload speeds, according to a report from the nonpartisan US Government Accountability Office. The report recommends that the Chair of the FCC solicit input from stakeholders and conduct analysis of small businesses’ broadband needs to determine the benchmark for broadband.

PREMION
LEADING THE EVOLUTION IN LOCAL OTT & CTV ADVERTISING

WINNER: 2021 TECH LEADERSHIP AWARD
Best OTT & Streaming Technology
WINNER: 2020 CYNOPSIS ADTECH AWARD
Outstanding Local Advertising Solution

TAG CERTIFIED AGAINST AD FRAUD

125+ Leading TV & Media Brands, Audience Targeting, Closed-Loop Attribution
LEARN MORE AT PREMION.COM

605 announced that it is the first to provide attribution services for all TV networks, advertisers and programmers participating in the Canoe addressable enablement initiative. Using 605 services, which will eventually include attribution product 605 IMP4CT, participants can analyze the effectiveness of their addressable TV advertising campaigns and measure their influence on consumer behavior. 605 can also combine ad exposure from Canoe enabled addressable campaigns with different delivery modalities, including digital, linear and data-driven linear, to provide unified cross-platform insights.

Nielsen has acquired Paris-based TV attribution provider and ad monitoring company TVTY to complement and expand its TV Attribution and Ad Intel services. “The acquisition of TVTY aligns to Nielsen’s strategy to deliver cross-media outcomes as a complement to audience measurement,” said Sean Cohan, Chief Growth Officer and President, International, for Nielsen. “TVTY bolsters Nielsen’s ability to size an audience with analytics….Together we will be powering a better media future for marketers.”

Maven announced the adoption of Verizon Media’s identity solution across its portfolio of digital media brands and sites, including Sports Illustrated and TheStreet. The partnership will service more seamless transactions for advertisers and facilitate greater transparency and control for consumers. “Just because the death of the Chrome cookie has been pushed out, doesn’t mean that many of the cookies aren’t already dead,” said Andrew Q. Kraft, Maven COO. “We are leaning into solutions that enable us to maximize our first-party data, while preserving consumer value and trust.”

Publicis Media’s Starcom London team said it has developed and implemented an automated media booking bot. Called ABACUS (“automated bot for amendments to campaigns and uploads”), the bot processes and verifies key campaign details overnight. “Automation is a key part of our new intelligence-driven strategy,” said Starcom CEO Nadine Young. “ABACUS allows us to liberate our teams from the more repetitive administrative tasks and unleash further opportunity to focus on more strategic and creative growth opportunities for our clients.”

The Trade Desk announced the launch of its new trading platform, Solimar, aimed at helping marketers optimize their digital advertising campaigns across the open internet. The result of more than two years of product development, Solimar addresses concerns including easy and secure onboarding of first-party data; the need to connect marketing performance to business growth goals; an increasingly cross channel digital media environment including CTV; and a rising focus on digital identity.

Two thirds of consumers show purchasing intent signals early on in the social commerce funnel with a pre “click” consumer behavior, according to a survey from social competitive intelligence and brand analytics platform BrandTotal. Sixty-five percent of consumers reported they engage (like, share, comment) with brand ad campaigns and from those who engage with the ads, and 90% are more likely to make a purchase from a brand they engaged with. When it comes to product discovery, 79% of respondents said they had discovered a brand they were not previously aware of via a sponsored post that resulted in a purchase, and 84% of those who discovered a new product purchased it in the last three months.

Ampersand announced a data and technology integration with data connectivity platform LiveRamp, giving clients the option to onboard their strategic audiences to build and activate custom audiences across screens via Ampersand’s AND Platform. Clients can build proprietary audience segments in the AND Platform using brand’s first party data, third party audiences from Polk and Experian, and/or Ampersand’s Viewership segments.

AdTech video platform QTT earned its third patent, for “Integrating Digital Advertising with Cable TV Network and Broadcast Advertising,” in its path to bridging the gap between linear TV and digital advertising. “Local and national television inventory suppliers own the lion’s share of premium, fraud-free video advertising inventory. But digital-only advertisers have not been able to access this premium inventory through the demand-side platforms where they currently purchase all other digital media,” said John Piccone, President of QTT. “There are many more digital advertisers than TV advertisers and this development allows all of those digital advertisers to access TV inventory and to avail themselves of brand-safe options that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their budgets.”

Spectrum Reach, the advertising sales business of Charter Communications, has introduced a new deterministic, cross-platform attribution solution with Blockgraph and TVSquared, providing its advertisers with aggregated and de-identified insights to analyze addressable, streaming and linear TV campaigns. The solution enables advertisers to attribute TV ad exposure to specific consumer actions on digital devices, conversions and sales.

Amazon streaming services Prime Video and IMDb TV struck a multi-year licensing deal with Universal Filmed Entertainment Group that gives Prime Video an exclusive pay-one window for UFEG’s slate of live-action films like “Jurassic World: Dominion” and “Ambulance” in the US, starting with the 2022 release slate. IMDb TV has secured an exclusive network-window for films from UFEG’s 2020-2021 theatrical slate, as well as rights to a package of animated titles. “Recognizing that all parties would benefit from a modernized windowing structure, this new agreement allows Prime Video and IMDb TV to benefit from UFEG’s vast library and diverse content like never before,” said Peter Levinsohn, Vice Chairman and Chief Distribution Officer, UFEG. “This agreement further delivers on our distribution strategy to monetize our unparalleled movie library across multiple services, while offering customers the most choice, control and flexibility in how, when and where they watch films.”

SeaChange has introduced StreamVid, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that supports business and technical functions including content ingestion, management, curation and monetization. “As a complete platform without third-party software components, StreamVid removes market entry barriers since it is being offered under a true, consumption-based, pay-as-you-grow SaaS business model,” said Chris Klimmer, SVP of global sales and marketing at SeaChange International. “As we understand the increasing importance of advertising business models within the streaming landscape, we put a particular focus on the integration with SeaChange’s ad tech components.”

NewsON, the streaming service for local news content, has completed the relaunch of its product offering across all supported platforms. The free app, which offers ad-supported access to live and on-demand news content, now features a redesigned user experience as well as a web-based offering. We’re continuing to expand NewsON’s offerings, streamlining the experience, building in more editorial capabilities and connecting viewers to the content they care about,” said NewsON General Manager Ron Stitt.

Three of Cinedigm’s channels are now available on YouTube TV as optional add-ons. The trio includes family-oriented Dove Channel, pop culture destination CONtv and Docurama.

Google Cloud and Call of Duty League announced ActivStat, an new capability for esports, that provides competitive statistics in real-time. Using ActivStat, live broadcasts will be enhanced with more depth and color-of-play while they’re happening. Call of Duty League plans to begin a roll out during the 2021 season.

It’s now or never: Cinedigm has teamed with Elvis Presley Enterprises for The Elvis Presley Channel, an ad-supported and linear streaming service expected to launch in 2022. The service will include Elvis Presley archival content and specials, as well as musical content from artists that inspired the music industry. The launch continues Cinedigm’s expansion into the legacy icon space which began last year through the launch of The Bob Ross Channel.