YouTube has adjusted its YouTube Partner program to enable creators to make ad revenue on TikTok-like Shorts. In early 2023, creators will be able to apply for the program if they have 1000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views over 90 days – and earn 45% of ad revenue from their videos.

Meta is being sued by Facebook users who allege the company skirted Apple’s privacy update to iOS last year by using a loophole to monitor users. “Even when users do not consent to being tracked, Meta tracks Facebook users’ online activity and communications with external third-party websites by injecting JavaScript code into those sites,” reads the suit. “When users click on a link within the Facebook app, Meta automatically directs them to the in-app browser it is monitoring instead of the smartphone’s default browser, without telling users that this is happening or they are being tracked.” Meta labeled the accusations “without merit.”

Apple released an update to its new iOS 16 mobile operating system addressing an issue with the iPhone camera, which “may vibrate and cause blurry photos when shooting with some third-party apps on iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.” Other glitches that were addressed include repeats of a permission prompt, and VoiceOver not being available after reboot.

The fictional team in Apple TV+ comedy “Ted Lasso” has been integrated into EA Sports’ FIFA video game. “As long-time fans of EA Sports FIFA, having Ted Lasso and the whole AFC Richmond squad incorporated into the newest version of the game is truly a dream come true for myself and the rest of the fellas,” said Ted Lasso portrayer Jason Sudeikis. FIFA 23 launches September 30 for PlayStation5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Stadia, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Law firm Yorn Levine and Parrot Analytics are collaborating to help creators seek the highest possible paycheck by using Parrot’s suite of audience demand data products at the negotiating table. “It’s a complicated world we’re helping our clients maneuver. Parrot Analytics helps us cut through today’s fractured media environment and see the value our clients are bringing to the market with their work,” said Kevin Yorn, Managing Partner at Yorn Levine. “The insights we get from their platform are a truly powerful tool in our toolkit during negotiations.”

Meta announced a new Facebook Reels application programming interface that enables developers to integrate a “Share to Reels” feature so users can easily share Reels on Facebook pages. The feature will remove “friction for users previously using 3rd party platforms and then uploading at a later time to Facebook,” said the company in a blog post.

A reimagined ABC News mobile app includes new features, technological enhancements, and a refreshed design and user experience. Enhancements include a new video player, picture in picture and “docking” capability, and more seamless integration of ABC News Live. “We are excited the new updates to our signature digital app will deliver new ways showcase our world class journalism, take consumers deeper into our reporting, and add to the way that audiences watch and read everything from breaking news to our industry-leading election coverage and more,” said Lulu Chiang, VP of ABC News Digital Content.

Comcast Cable is going greener. At the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2022, the company announced plans to double its network energy efficiency by 2030, cutting the electricity per consumed terabyte of data in half. “We’re on the path to a greener internet,” said Comcast Cable president of Technology, Product, Experience Charlie Herrin. “The smart technologies powering our new network architecture are transforming how data is delivered, providing the industry’s best combination of speed, coverage, and control – all more sustainably.”

eCommerce is no longer attracting the same volume of new users, and rising prices are starting to take their toll on marketing budgets and planning, according to AppsFlyer’s State of eCommerce App Marketing report. Global insights include:
* eCommerce app marketers spent $6.1 Billion on user acquisition, but global ad spend nosedived over -50% year-over-year due to rising iOS media cost, post Covid relative return to normalcy, and other macroeconomic conditions.
* Android eCommerce app installs dropped -5% globally YoY (H1 2021 vs. H1 2022) excluding India which gained significant new traffic.
* Owned media conversion surged across platforms, jumping 360% YoY (July 2021 to July 2022). This reflects that marketers are now doing what they can to squeeze more value out of tight budgets.
* iOS CPI climbed 60% YoY to reach $4.2. In contrast, Android CPI fell 15% during the same time frame despite a 30% rise from April to June.
* Thirty day retention on Android declines 13% as mobile users continue to explore new apps and services. Meanwhile, iOS dropped 5%, while reporting better retention overall than Android users, in keeping with historical trends.

Instagram is working on a feature that will enable users to block unsolicited nude photos sent via direct messages. It’s a “nudity protection” filter that will screen out and hide such photos. There’s no timeline on when the feature will be available. “We’re working closely with experts to ensure that new features preserve people’s privacy, while giving them control over the messages they receive,” said a spokesperson for Meta, Instagram’s parent company, in a statement.

Consumers who are engaged with or interested in the Metaverse favor Music, Travel/Tourism and Shopping Virtual Stores as activities, according to research conducted by Reach 3 Insights. Older consumers are more interested in Travel and Tourism, while younger consumers are more interested in Fashion and Beauty activities. In relation to experiences that consumers are interested in participating with in the Metaverse, Travel/Tourism and Getting Together With Friends and Family were favored, with older consumers most interested in Travel experiences, while younger consumers are most interested in customizing clothes and jewelry. The study was conducted July 14 – July 22 among 401 US adults 18+ who engage with the metaverse or are interested in it.

2022 BIG TV Conference

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ADVERTISING

IAB Tech Lab has released updates to Secure Interactive Media Interface Definition 1.2 (SIMID 1.2) and Video Ad Serving Template 4.3 (VAST 4.3). “IAB Tech Lab has been in deep review with the industry about simplifying video ad delivery and addressing the challenges of Advanced Television for buyers and publishers of TV content. These updates are intended to make video campaigns more scalable and reduce the costs of executing them by further automating the process,” said Shailley Singh, EVP, Product and Chief Operating Officer, IAB Tech Lab. “They will also empower advertisers to make better use of valuable CTV advertising space with improved measurement and tracking capabilities and will increase the security of publisher content.” The updates are open for public comment for a 30-day period until October 22, 2022.

ID5, the identity provider for digital advertising, in partnership with Sovrn, provider of advertising, affiliate marketing, and data products, announced that publishers leveraging Sovrn Signal and the ID5 ID can unlock a near two times greater lift in eCPMs. Sovrn ran a test where Sovrn Signal matched participating publisher first-party IDs to consented and permissioned hashed emails (HEMs) in the Sovrn Data Collective. Publishers then passed the HEM to ID5, which attached it to the ID5 ID and passed it to all SSPs supporting the identifier. Sovrn linked permissioned, first-party data from the Sovrn Data Collective on each applicable user visit to an ID5 ID, which was then passed to buyers for evaluation. “The outcome of this test demonstrates that there are privacy-safe solutions for publishers to leverage data-sets to enrich and segment their first-party data,” said Morwenna Beales, VP Strategic partnerships at ID5.

“As the media funnel continues to collapse, advertisers are realizing the opportunity to reach shoppers on leading platforms where they are increasingly spending their time,” noted Walmart in a blog post on Tuesday, introducing “Innovation Partners” TikTok, Snap, Firework, TalkShopLive, and Roku to support advertising and marketing services. “Together, we will work with each partner to more deeply connect advertisers with customers throughout key moments in the shopper journey in order to provide the best solutions for advertisers,” wrote Seth Dallaire, EVP and Chief Revenue Officer, Walmart U.S.

Viamedia announced a long-term partnership with HolstonConnect. The deal allows the operator to seamlessly integrate local ads using Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) tools into the TiVo Managed IPTV Service streaming platform and expands Viamedia’s ad sales representation into Knoxville and the Tri-Cities region.

Data collaboration platform InfoSum announced an agreement with Acxiom, the customer intelligence company, to enable customers to use Match Multiplier to leverage Acxiom’s addressable recognition data to enrich their owned data and increase match rates with partner data within InfoSum’s first-to-market interoperable Secure Data Clean Room. “Acxiom’s Match Multiplier greatly enhances the ability for InfoSum customers to maximize the value of their first-party data assets,” said Brian Lesser, InfoSum Chairman and CEO. “Our joint approach to privacy-first data collaboration will help offer our customers increased flexibility, security, and control over their data as they reach more inventory across a network of media owners.”

Teads has added connected TV to its suite of media to expand audience reach and better deliver business outcomes for brands. Known for its inRead video and display formats, Teads’ addition of CTV gives advertisers and their agencies the ability to seamlessly buy a new array of quality media to deliver and quantify business outcomes.

MEASURE UP

The Media Rating Council has published the final version of the industry’s “Outcomes and Data Quality Standards,” including guidelines and definitions for audience measurement. “These standards represent the realization of a new and critical phase of a long-term effort by MRC, in cooperation with other industry trade associations, to enhance advertising measurement,” said MRC executive director and CEO George W. Ivie. “This initiative began more than a decade ago with projects designed to standardize measures of ad delivery, and has now progressed to the measurement of business outcomes that are associated with ad exposure.”

Comscore announced a partnership with dentsu enabling the agency network to shift local TV buying to a Comscore-based currency. dentsu will be the first agency network to place buys in local markets using advanced audiences across its three US media agencies, Carat, dentsu X, and iProspect, adding a new addressable solution to the agency network’s toolkit. Comscore and dentsu will conduct test buys on behalf of two clients in top 10 local markets based on impressions delivered to advanced audiences built in dentsu’s proprietary audience-building platform M1, with buys planned to go live in early 2023. The partnership will expand to additional markets throughout next year. All major broadcast stations in the markets and local cable inventory will also participate in these buys.

Kantar is expanding its YouTube measurement services, enabling the company to include YouTube in CrossMedia Brand Lift measurement including TV and other media channels. “This new set of data capabilities will enable Kantar to better serve advertisers as the demand for more insightful and more comprehensive cross-publisher ad effectiveness measurement” said Will Bordelon, Kantar CEO, North America. “Advertisers are more empowered than ever with this level of insight, allowing them to better justify their advertising budgets using proven third-party effectiveness measurement and cookieless solutions.”

605 has reached an agreement with streaming analytics company Conviva to bring de-duplicated, standardized data to video and advertising industry customers, enabling full-census measurement of content and advertising across premium video. The agreement leverages Conviva’s census-level, streaming analytics pipeline, which standardizes, cleanses and normalizes in real time, and 605?’s? linear and time-shifted data, to create content and advertising measurement and attribution outputs for publishers, agencies and brands.? “For too long measurement in the U.S. has been fragmented and incapable of giving either the sell-side or the buy-side a consistent view of ad and content consumption in U.S. households,” said Kristin Dolan, CEO, 605. “Through our collaboration with Conviva we will provide programmers, brands and agencies with timely and meaningful metrics to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their content and advertising.”

iSpot.tv and Conviva have also inked a deal, to add TV network streaming data into iSpot’s cross-media program and advertising platform. The move is aimed at creating a unified service that includes second-by-second, onscreen verification for all programming across a TV network’s footprint. Kelly Abcarian, EVP of measurement and impact for NBCUniversal, noted, “iSpot and Conviva’s collaboration has shown how to set a new bar for speed, accuracy and completeness.”

STREAMING

Netflix’s second livestreamed Tudum event included teasers for new series and films, new seasons of series and blooper reels. Among the announcement highlights were a streaming start date of November 4 for “Enola Holmes 2”; confirmation of a second season of “Hellbound”; a first look at “Bridgerton” prequel “Queen Charlotte”; a premiere date of November 24 for “Wednesday”; a behind-the-scenes from “Pinocchio”; a December debut date for “The Witcher: Blood Origin”; and the launch of the “Oxenfree” game on Netflix. As for “Squid Game,” director Hwang Dong-Hyuk offered an unreleased clip from season one, while promising season two will be “filled with new stories.”

Attention shoppers: QVC and HSN have launched their interactive streaming service on Samsung Smart TVs. The QVC+ and HSN+ combined streaming experience offers live, on-demand and streaming-only content together in one fully shoppable app. The QVC+ and HSN+ streaming experience combines QVC’s and HSN’s five linear broadcast channels – QVC, QVC2, QVC3, HSN and HSN2, offering 50+ hours a day of live vCommerce content – with three digital-only linear channels and approximately 20 original, streaming-only shows.

Gen Z consumers are engaging with brands that use interactive live video through their own platforms or via third-party apps, like TikTok, Twitch and Instagram, according to a study from Agora. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said they would be more likely to engage with a company or brand that uses interactive live videos and experiences to connect with audiences. Bad internet connection (56%) and video quality (54%) were the most recognized challenges Gen Z noted about using mobile app-based live video experiences. Forty percent see glitches, bugs and crashing as a challenge, as well as phone hardware (36%) and data usage costs (30%). “Gen Z consumers want brands to embrace the technology they use everyday – including interactive live video and streaming,” said Tony Zhao, Co-founder and CEO of Agora. “Whether they use interactive live video through their own brand-centric platforms or through third-party mobile apps, there is a huge opportunity to connect with Gen Z on their terms using this technology.”

Streaming is now the #1 video ad channel for CPG brands, according to a new report from Innovid. The findings were included in a CPG report on key trends and challenges for video advertising, analyzing over 103 billion video ad impressions. Among the key findings: streaming tops mobile and desktop. For the first time, CTV now accounts for half of all video ad impressions (52%), overtaking mobile (37%) and desktop (11%). In addition, over half (53%) of all CPG CTV advertisers run advanced video creative in their ads, like QR codes.

IMAX Corporation has acquired SSIMWAVE, which enables streaming and broadcast providers to deliver images on any device for on-demand and live video. The acquisition is expected to be accretive in 2023 and have minimal financial impact in 2022.

Expanding beyond music and podcasts, Spotify has started offering audiobooks. A catalog of over 300,000 audiobooks are available on a pay-per-download basis. Spotify closed a deal to buy global audiobook distributor Findaway in June.

Animation studio ZAG has launched ZAG Stream, a new division established to drive forward the company’s direct to streaming content business to be led by Maria Doolan, ZAG’s SVP of TV Content. The first project from ZAG Stream is the animated superhero fantasy series, “Fairyon,” a reimagining of famous fairy tale characters told with a superhero twist.

Cynopsis Team