07/15/19:

Good morning. It’s Monday, July 15, 2019 and this is your first Media Tech Update. Join us every Monday morning!

Nielsen is launching the Nielsen Podcast Listener Buying Power Service through its Nielsen Scarborough division, with iHeartMedia, Cadence13, Midroll, Westwood One and cabana as charter clients. The new service will provide podcasters and brands with insights that match listeners by genre with their buying habits. The service has an effective sample of nearly 30,000 respondents and uses targeted questions on more than 12 podcast genres, more than 2,000 retail/plan-to-buy categories and hundreds of advertisers. The reports will be generated via web-based software and will be released twice a year.

Content logistics company MAZ announced a new partnership with Flowplayer, an online video platform designed for publishers. MAZ will offer clients access to Flowplayer’s video player, while Flowplayer’s users will have access to the distribution channels provided by MAZ. “With this partnership, video creators and publishers can get more reach from each piece of content,” ssys CMO Wayne Congar. “They can upload once with Flowplayer and distribute everywhere with MAZ.”

Google made real-time triggers available in Display & Video 360 to all advertisers on Wednesday. The automated tool allows advertisers to target display and video messages in response to live-TV or real-world events like baseball and soccer games. Marketers can set predefined triggers across devices that run simultaneously as moments occur. In addition, they can use Programmatic Guaranteed deals to secure a variety of connected TV sports inventory to build a stronger connection with fans.

To spur growth, TikTok is offering users the chance to collect points they can redeem for rewards like Starbucks, Uber and Walmart gift cards. They earn points in return for inviting friends to the app. It’s not the company’s only effort to drive downloads – in addition to the rewards offer, TikTok has spent heavily on advertising, nearly $1 billion this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

TiVo has renewed its agreement with Canada’s Shaw Communications, in a deal that expanded Shaw’s Rovi patent portfolio IP license deal to also cover the TiVo patent portfolio. “We’re happy to renew our agreements with TiVo, which reinforces our commitment to providing advanced entertainment offerings to our customers across Canada,” said Jay Mehr, president of Shaw Communications.

Instagram is battling online bullies with two new features. In the first, artificial intelligence will be used to flag comments that “might be considered offensive,” giving users a chance to undo a nasty comment before it posts. The second will allow people to restrict users looking at their account, without resorting toblocking. “We’ve heard from young people in our community that they’re reluctant to block, unfollow or report their bully because it could escalate the situation,” said Instagram head Adam Mosseri.

President Trump cannot block Twitter users. This according to a ruling yesterday by a federal appeals court, which found the action would violate the First Amendment rights of users. In a 3-0 decision, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan determined the Constitution does not permit Trump to limit access to his account. In response, the Department of Justice Department called the ruling “fundamentally misconceived.” Seven Twitter users filed the original lawsuit via the The Knight First Amendment Institute after Trump blocked them from his account in 2017.

XITE’s music video experience is now available on Roku devices in the US. XITE gives viewers access to music videos available through major and indie music labels, and the option to choose from curated channels.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

That Big TV Conference

SESSION SPOTLIGHT >OTT: It’s an AVOD World

The ability to deliver relevant ads to the right consumers makes AVOD an increasingly attractive business model – evidenced by Viacom’s $340M purchase of AVOD platform Pluto TV. Advanced advertising is enabling brands to get messages in front of engaged consumers, but it’s a fast-evolving landscape with unexpected risks & rewards.

We will unpack it all for you.

Sponsors: Sinclair – NY Interconnect – iSpot.tv – Friend MTS – NCC Media – Simpli.fi – TV Time – Tubi

FACEBOOK

Facebook announced changes to help users get more information about ads they’re seeing on the platform. Updates will allow users to see more “detailed targeting,” including interests or categories that cause you to see an ad. It will also be “clearer” where the information used to target users is coming from.

The Federal Trade Commission on Friday voted to fine Facebook close to $5 billion for violations of its consumer-privacy rules, which amounts to the biggest privacy-related fine in the agency’s history. That figure represents less than Facebook reported in net profit ($5.43 billion) for Q1 2019 alone, and Facebook brass in reporting Q1 results had told investors it expected it would have to pay as much as $5 billion as a result of the FTC probe.

Facebook will generate $67 billion in ad revenue this year, notes Nicole Fung, Product Manager, Polar, in a new report – and it’s not just about targeting. Fung suggests the reason advertising on Facebook is so effective comes down to the creative. “Advertisers believe that Facebook works due to targeting and targeting alone,” says the report. “We think there is more to the story.”

Creatives on Facebook are better than ever, says Polar, with 11 different creative ad formats, including video, carousel and Stories. Brands and users can turn phones into image ads, with the option to add a caption, which is ideal for increasing brand awareness. Polar also notes brands can upload a video and transform in into an ad, and link to outbound pages directly from the social post. The average user on Facebook clicks on 10+ ads a month, and 78% of American consumers discover retail products to buy on the platform. “We believe this impressive engagement is in large part due to the creative brands feature on Facebook,” says Polar.

YOUTUBE

YouTube at last week’s VidCon conference trotted out enhancements to the ways content creators can generate revenue on the platform. Among them: enhanced channel memberships, through which creators can set up to five different price points for memberships, each level carrying different incentives; expanded Merch Shelf partners, including Crowdmade, DFTBA, Fanjoy and Rooster Teeth; Super Stickers, which enable fans to purchase animated stickers during live streams and premieres; new feature Learning Playlists, which enable educational video creators to divide videos into chapters; and fundraising tool YouTube Giving.

Children’s advocates are pushing the Federal Trade Commission to force Google to remove kids’ content from YouTube. “It is crucial that any proposed consent decree with YouTube or Google require the structural separation of the child-directed channels and videos, substantial civil penalties, and other relief,” said lawyers for the Center for Digital Democracy and Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood in a letter to the FTC. “It is unclear whether a child-directed channel on YouTube can prevent the collection of personal information from their viewers and subscribers,” the groups write. “It appears that by using advanced settings, a channel can opt to disable interest-based advertising…But it is not clear whether turning off interest-based advertising actually stops the data collection and tracking of the child via Google’s GMP [Google Marketing Platform] system.”

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