18-34 year olds are 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 for help reaching audiences you can’t always find with tv. All placement is brand safe and bought upfront or during scatter with reliable delivery.

Source: Facebook data, Aug 2018, June 2019

A new Pixalate report indicates that in the first half of 2020, 66% of Android apps and 78% of iOS apps had no identifiable address of registry, making it impossible to determine where the apps are registered. The “H1 2020 Mobile Advertising: App Safety Report” also revealed 70% of Android apps have at least one “dangerous permission,” such as the ability to access a device’s precise location – which, given GDPR and other privacy regulations, could mean trouble for advertisers, who can be held responsible for consumer data they collect outside GDPR regions.

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter agreed to adopt a common set of definitions of hate speech and other harmful content, and to collaborate on the development of industry monitoring efforts that would help curtail harmful content being distributed in the future. The agreement, which comes after 15 months of “intensive talks” between marketers, agencies and digital platforms under the auspices of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, contains four key areas for action: adoption of GARM common definitions for harmful content; development of GARM reporting standards on harmful content; commitment to have independent oversight on operations, integrations and reporting; and commitment to develop and deploy tools that better manage advertising adjacency. Three other platforms, TikTok, Pinterest and Snap, have also given commitments to provide plans for developing similar controls by year’s end.

Daily time spent consuming content has doubled globally since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, from an average of 3 hours 17 minutes to an average of 6 hours 59 minutes, according to a new DoubleVerify report, “Four Fundamental Shifts in Media and Advertising During 2020.” Forty-four percent of surveyed consumers use CTV devices more, alongside 48% spending more time on social platforms according to the study, conducted with over 10,000 respondents across France, Germany, Spain, the UK, and the US. More key findings:
* Consumers are open to ads, but suitability is critical: Overall, 44% of consumers are trying new brands after seeing a relevant ad. Younger consumers prefer ads on social, while older groups indicate a preference on TV.
* Navigating news cycles and the risk of fake news requires nuance: 55% of consumers are less likely to purchase from a brand that advertised alongside fake news; 67% are more likely to look at an ad if it appears on a trusted news site.
* The future requires a contextual approach: Over two thirds (69%) of consumers are more likely to look at an ad that is relevant to the content they are viewing.“
These shifts highlight the critical challenges brands face this year and beyond,” said Mark Zagorski, CEO at DV. “Never has reaching audiences, in the right place and context, been more essential to drive campaign performance.”

Among the announcements at Amazon’s hardware event: A new line of Echo speakers are spheres instead of cylinders, and an Alexa upgrade allows it to become more personalized. A new Echo Show 10 has an on-board camera able to recognize people, and a base it can swivel on to follow them around the room. The new Ring has flying indoor drone cameras that can be scheduled to fly preset paths, as well as three devices for car owners. And an updated interface for Fire TV will support video calling and other video chat, including at a later point, support for Zoom.

Connatix, the video technology company for publishers, has launched Social Stories, a monetization product that enables publishers to generate a stories format from their own Instagram content, and embed onsite. Connatix creates a direct connection with the publisher’s Instagram account to build self-updating stories for their website. The story will showcase captions, likes and comments, and publishers can automatically refresh the content every hour to keep stories fresh. Created stories can be monetized through Playspace, which was designed with an integrated ad server and exchange to scale content and maximize revenue.

MarketCast is buying Deductive, a big data service provider to US media and consumer electronics companies. The deal is aimed at helping studio clients better predict audience behavior, including box office and PVOD consumption, and determine how best to target marketing dollars.

Verizon and AWS have brought mobile edge computing to Atlanta, New York and D.C., where businesses and developers can now build and deploy applications with AWS Wavelength. Verizon and AWS launched the mobile edge computing platform last month in Boston and the Bay Area and plan to add five more cities by year end. Mobile edge computing moves the data and processing done by applications and services closer to the end user at the edge of the network, which shortens the roundtrip data needs to travel, reducing lag time, or latency

Microsoft is acquiring ZeniMax Media, parent of game publisher Bethesda Software (Fallout, Elder Scrolls), for $7.5 billion. “Bethesda brings an impressive portfolio of games, technology, talent, as well as a track record of blockbuster commercial success, to Xbox,” said Microsoft, which expects the deal to close by the end of the year.

ADVERTISING

Despite the reduction in TV ad spend due to COVID-19, it’s set to recover in 2021 as a channel of advertising trusted by both consumers and marketers, according to Kantar’s Media Reactions. There is a decided difference in preference for newer media formats (consumers) versus more established ones (marketers), but both find social media stories, digital OOH and influencers innovative. While streaming TV, influencer content and podcasts are top of mind for North American marketers, while TV ads are still considered innovative by consumers. So what’s a marketer to do? They should frequently assess which platforms remain relevant for their target audience, advises Kantar.

Media consultancy Exverus Media has formed a strategic partnership with advanced TV platform Futures Media to power the agency’s Prexision media solutions. Futures Media’s platform enables Exverus to evaluate and bid on linear TV inventory alongside digital video inventory through Futures Media’s unified bidding platform, drawing insights and discovering connections between clients’ first-party data and TV viewership data. “Futures Media’s technology, services and relationships allow us to treat linear television planning with the same data-driven approach that we expect from other channels, creating a seamless plan that brings linear and connected TV together in a real-time environment, improving effectiveness and maximizing cost efficiency,” said Talia Arnold, Head of Strategy, Exverus Media.

Discovery, Inc. has acquired the assets of AdSparx, the ad-tech start-up offering a cloud-based technology platform that provides server side in-stream dynamic ad insertion across live and on-demand streaming. Discovery will also onboard employees of Novix Media Technologies, which works with AdSparx on their DAI platform. “This acquisition is part of a larger strategy to develop a robust portfolio of digital products, as we continue to scale-up our DTC proposition with locally relevant video experiences in key international markets,” said, Avi Saxena, CTO, Global Digital, Discovery. “We are also delighted to expand our footprint in India with a strong technology organization and view the country as an emerging key development hub in the future for our global DTC portfolio.”

Amobee announced a global social data partnership with Lotame, provider of data enrichment solutions, for enhanced audience targeting and activation across major social networks. Amobee’s identity solution converts Lotame’s taxonomy of unique and privacy-compliant third-party audiences into audience segments that advertisers can use to enhance audience targeting across Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and Twitter. “Everyone wants that 360-degree view of a consumer’s digital life,” said Andy Monfried, CEO of Lotame.” Our partnership with Amobee supports our mission to help marketers deepen their understanding of the changing consumer and engage with customers meaningfully and respectfully across digital platforms and channels.”

605 signed an agreement with Walmart to provide television advertising insights via 605 Platform, a TV measurement and audience analytics platform for national television networks, advertisers and agencies. The companies will work to enhance Walmart’s TV planning and analytic capabilities across a range of brands, products and retail initiatives. “Walmart is widely recognized for their efforts to attract consumers across all of their brands with a focus on providing value and choice,” said Kristin Dolan, CEO and Founder of 605. “We are excited to work more closely with their marketing and advertising teams to explore the opportunities of overlaying Walmart’s deep understanding of their customers with our deterministic dataset of more than 21 million US households.”

The inconsistency of key television attribution inputs used by providers, not technology, is the main cause of variance in outcome measurements, according to a report issued by the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, in conjunction with the 4A’s Media Measurement Task Force. The analysis looked at the practices of eleven leading TV attribution providers and found that more stringent media measurement standards are required to ensure attribution results that are consistent and comparable from provider to provider, with exposure data, more than occurrence data having the biggest impact on outcome results. The report calls for the addition of standardization, such as commercial IDs similar to Ad-ID, for identifying occurrences and in defining exposure and reach. “Getting Attribution Right: An Exploration and Best Practices for Television Data Inputs in Attribution Modeling” was presented as part of The ARF’s AudiencexScience virtual event.

With Comscore planning to integrate smart TV data into its ratings, the measurement company has teamed with cross-screen TV data and analytics provider Samba to expand Comscore’s CTV and cross-measurement capabilities globally, starting with Italy and Sweden. “With the rapid shifts across TV viewing behavior, advertisers and publishers can no longer expect their legacy approach to accurately quantify the size of audiences or the effectiveness of advertising,” said Samba TV CEO and Co-founder Ashwin Navin. “This partnership is a game-changer for global marketers.”

STREAMING

Sling TV introduced a co-watching feature that includes real-time video and chat interactions. The feature is currently available to existing Sling TV customers on Google Chrome web browsers via laptop and desktop computers. A beta preview running through September 30 allows guests to join a Sling Watch Party by creating a free Sling TV account. “We know that for so many, it’s not just about what you are watching, it’s who you are watching with. Sling Watch Party is all about bringing people together to share in the moments that matter,” said Jon Lin, VP of Product for Sling TV. “We could all use more time together to enjoy our favorite sports and entertainment, which is why we created this amazing new feature.”

NBCU streamer Peacock is now available on the Roku platform, following a distribution deal that took months to reach. “Roku customers are engaged streamers and we know they’ll love access to a wide range of free and paid content,” said Maggie McLean Suniewick, President, Business Development and Partnerships, Peacock. Roku reaches households with an estimated 100 million people.

GOING GLOBAL

Nativex has launched its global creative branch, the Topworks Creative Studio. The studio’s goal is to deliver high-quality ad creatives, produced locally in the markets advertisers want to target. TopWorks Creative Studios has teams in 30 countries around the world, with each team connecting and managing 5-10 other local creative studios and production agencies.

Havas Media Group has selected FreeWheel’s Strata platform to power its media buying and management business in the UK and France. The partnership offers Havas a global platform with end-to-end capabilities from media planning through activation, optimization and reconciliation.