Reach today’s hard-to-reach audiences on Facebook Watch.

140 M people around the world come to Watch every day for at least one minute.

And of those people who visit daily, they spend an average of 26 min in Watch.

Reserve top-tier videos across Facebook and Facebook Watch to reach today’s hard-to-reach audiences. All placement is brand safe and offers relevant and engaged viewing at scale.

Source: Facebook data, Aug 2018, June 2019

TikTok and Oracle have reportedly agreed to become business partners, in a deal structured as a partnership rather than a sale to address tensions between the US and China. President Trump gave ByteDance until September 20 to sell TikTok, declaring it a national security threat because of its ties to China. Chinese officials opposed a forced sale of TikTok’s US operations by ByteDance, and would have prefered to see the app shut down in the country, Reuters reported last week.

Reports of the Oracle deal surfaced after Microsoft announced its own offer for the short-form video app was rejected. “We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests,” said Microsoft. “To do this, we would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation, and we made these principles clear in our August statement. We look forward to seeing how the service evolves in these important areas.”

Addressing the shortage of poll workers needed to staff voting stations in the upcoming election, Facebook has launched a poll worker recruitment drive. In addition to messages at the top of the News Feed to people over 18, Facebook is offering free ad credits to state election authorities to recruit poll workers.

Twitter is taking new steps to prevent misinformation about the 2020 election like unverified claims about election rigging, ballot tampering, vote tallying or certification of results. Tweets which “cause confusion” about the process, or are from a candidate that claims victory before election results have been certified, will be removed. “We will not permit our service to be abused around civic processes, most importantly elections,” Twitter said. “Any attempt to do so – both foreign and domestic – will be met with strict enforcement of our rules, which are applied equally and judiciously for everyone.”

605 has formed new data partnerships with Catalina, PlaceIQ and Polk Automotive Solutions by IHS Markit, aimed at enabling marketers, advertisers and programmers to better access insights regarding the consumer journey. The move introduces shopper intelligence (Catalina), geo-location (PlaceIQ) and automobile data (Polk Automotive Solutions) to the 605 dataset.

OOH org Geopath announced that measured inventory available in the Geopath Insights Suite increased by 50% since the integration of place-based screens into the platform in April of last year. With 48 place-based members to date, Geopath’s place-based measurement provides impressions, reach and frequency, across thousands of audience segments for place-based advertising. “Buyers and sellers of OOH advertising can better justify spending in the channel when there is a unified, apples-to-apples currency across all forms of OOH, DOOH and VOOH,” said Kym Frank, President, Geopath, the not-for-profit provider of industry standard currency for OOH advertising. “We worked with a committee of buyers and sellers to develop a methodology that provides accurate measurement for each unique screen across a multitude of venues that is on par with the data we provide our roadside and transit members.”

Meanwhile, Nielsen has shut its place-based video networks service, launched in 2008 and more recently part of its “Total Audience Reports,” effective October 1. The service, which estimates traffic for place-based networks like airports, bars, restaurants and hospitals, “is different from our currency-grade out-of-home measurement that estimates viewing content outside of the home,” said Nielsen. “The decision to close this branch of analytics is aligned to the company’s portfolio optimization strategy.”

Vizio data unit Inscape and TV intelligence platform Kinetiq are collaborating to enable new measurement and attribution use cases for Inscape customers. “Inscape data licensees rely on us to provide accurate and timely viewing data. Integrating Kinetiq’s extensive ad library enables us to offer marketers and content owners new options for comprehensive ad detection, while also reducing the need for our clients to have to source and send us ad creatives,” said Greg Hampton, VP, Business Development, at Inscape. Kinetiq gets access to Inscape’s household-level, second-by-second viewing data from 15 million Vizio smart TVs.

In a rollout starting in February, Facebook will limit how many ads a page can run at any given time. Small and medium-sized pages that spent under $100,000 in their highest-spending month over the past year will be capped at 250 ads; pages that spent between $100,000 and $1 million will be allowed to run up to 1,000 ads at a time; large pages with ad budgets between $1 million and $10 million will have be capped at 5,000 ads; and pages that spent more than $10 million in their highest-spending month, will be allowed to run 20,000 ads at once. With Facebook layering more automation into its ad products, limiting the number of ads per page should improve ad performance and reduce ad prices, said Graham Mudd, VP of product marketing for ads.

Looking at a cookie-less future, 75% of marketers will modify their use of different advertising channels and 43% will focus on audience targeting solutions to replace third-party cookies, according to a study from people-based marketing platform LiveIntent. A survey of advertisers and publishers during July also found that with changing consumer behaviors, 80% of marketers have increased their advertising investment since quarantine began, and 62% of marketers have seen an overall increase in their sales.

US cable companies operating as mobile virtual network operators had more than one million wireless retail customer net additions during the first half of 2020 – 25% more than the postpaid phone net additions reported by the three nationwide wireless operators, according to GlobalData. Said Tammy Parker, Senior Analyst at the data and analytics company, “Operating as mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), Altice Mobile, Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile and Charter Communications’ Spectrum Mobile have each created unique selling propositions, enabling them to poach customers from their own partner networks’ retail subscriber bases. Well-known brands combined with simple and affordable pricing make the cable MVNOs’ offers highly attractive.”

Audio network Westwood One has turned to Placements.io to create a custom operating management system that will integrate with Megaphone, the podcast hosting and monetization platform, as well as their other hosting platforms. The new system is aimed at improving the ease and scalability of Westwood One Podcast Network’s advertising sales operations. “Podcasting is on fire, and we desperately need automated advertising technology to support this growth, much like those evolutions that have happened in the digital, video, and display worlds,” said Suzanne Grimes, EVP Marketing, Cumulus Media and President, Westwood One. “With Placements.io, we’re pioneering a uniquely powerful and flexible system that improves our ability to serve our advertisers seamlessly, at scale, across our podcast network.”

OpenVault, provider of industry analytics and SaaS technology solutions for broadband operators, announced an expansion of its relationship with Inter Mountain Cable, a provider of high-speed internet, digital TV, telephone and commercial services. Under the expansion agreement, Inter Mountain Cable will leverage OpenVault’s cloud-based Marketing Dashboard to better understand subscriber broadband usage behavior and needs, and use that data to help identify power users and other subscribers who would benefit from higher speed plans.

Kubient, which offers cloud-based programmatic platform, Kubient Audience Cloud, has joined OOH trade marketing association DPAA. “Kubient is an exciting, fast-growing company that will help accelerate the availability of DOOH inventory for omnichannel marketers, which in turn will help grow the entire DOOH category,” said Barry Frey, President & CEO, DPAA.

E! founder Larry Namer has been appointed COO of FanVestor, a fintech investment platform that allows fans to invest in celebrities, sports figures and talent brands. “Larry is one of the industry’s most creative thinkers and visionaries, making him the perfect addition to our senior executive team,” said FanVestor founder and CEO Michael Golomb. “Larry has moved from his role as an advisor to COO, as he has witnessed FanVestor rapidly gain momentum with talent and management teams.”

The Consumer Technology Association has moved the dates for next year’s CES by a few days, from January 2-9 to January 11-14. The trade show’s first virtual event will be open to media only on January 11, and open to all registered attendees the next two days.

STREAMING

Free streaming options are increasingly attractive to Americans in the second wave of COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, according to research from tubi. One in four Americans ages 18-34 stated that they’ve canceled an SVOD service in favor of using an AVOD service in the past few months, and 37% surveyed would try a new streaming service with ads to discover new content. To save money, one in four respondents reported starting a free trial and cancelling it before paying the subscription fee, with the average person who employs this tactic doing so three times. Meanwhile, 17% have shared passwords with others in order to gain access to streamers they don’t subscribe to, with 38% of respondents 18-24 and 31% of 25-34 participating in password swaps.

Adelphic surveyed Americans who subscribe to at least one streaming channel and found that the number who plan to do their holiday shopping online rose by 62% from past year. Other key findings include:
* More than half of the streamers (57%) surveyed said that COVID-19 has changed their holiday shopping plans.
* Over 70% of those surveyed said they plan to spend the same or less than they did last year.
* Respondents expect to spend an average of $818.57 this holiday shopping season, significantly less than the $1047.83 consumers were expected to spend on holiday shopping in 2019.

Video ads and brand experiences together generate 4X greater purchase intent than video advertising alone, according to “Valuing the Value Exchange,” a new study from MAGNA, Roku and IPG Media Lab. The study found brand experiences felt less intrusive than most video ads, provided greater differentiation from traditional advertising, and seemed more fun. Key findings include:
· 60% of those surveyed were more likely to take advantage of a brand experience when the offer was relevant, and more relevant offers also served as a catalyst for driving more positive brand opinions.
· 61% of streamers who reported interacting with a brand experience were more likely to notice the ad; 48% were more appreciative of brands who served the brand experiences; 33% were more likely to consider buying the advertised product.
· Video ads communicate brand attributes leading to improved opinions, while brand experiences offer utility and free content, and ultimately, trigger purchases.
· Streamers with more frequency on branded experiences reported higher purchase intent (75%) and brand favorability (87%).
“The growth in TV streaming has become a CMO-level priority,” said Dan Robbins, VP of Ad Marketing & Partners Solutions, Roku. “Marketers can go beyond the video ad to engage with streamers and use branded experiences to drive more brand affinity, purchase consideration and intent. Media plans that miss this opportunity only give brands one piece of the puzzle.”

Mexican boxer Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is suing DAZN and promoter Oscar de la Hoya, claiming breach of contract and fraud. Alvarez alleges adequate plans were not made for his fight schedule, despite his willingness to accept payment below the guaranteed amount due to pandemic disruption.

Verizon Media announced the launch of two new Yahoo features. Watch Together is a co-viewing experience available in the Yahoo Sports app, with NFL as launch partner. Yahoo Sports PlayAR offers graphical replays of key plays in near real-time, by layering the NFL’s Next Gen Stats proprietary tracking data on-screen with enhanced games stats for players who are part of the play.

Vizio announced that customers in the US and Canada can now access the Apple TV app on SmartCast TVs. “With the Apple TV app coming to Vizio SmartCast TVs, customers can enjoy an even broader range of exciting entertainment, including the popular and award-winning Apple TV+ service,” said Mike O’Donnell, Chief Revenue Officer of VIZIO. “Knowing the important role the TV has in the home, VIZIO continues to expand the entertainment available for consumers to discover.”