A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM PREMION

PREMION
LEADING THE EVOLUTION IN LOCAL OTT & CTV ADVERTISING

New Study: 2022 Priorities for CTV/OTT Advertising
84% of advertisers say the value of
CTV/OTT is greater than, or equal to, primetime TV

DOWNLOAD COMPLIMENTARY REPORT

Premion is a 10x Industry Award Winner including
2022 Cynopsis Best of the Best Award for Best Ad Tech Solution

Google announced new features and tools to help developers showcase their Play Store listings. Improvements include new content-forward formats on Play homepages; screenshot support for ChromeOS; search device filters and remote install.

In more Google news, Donald Trump’s Truth Social app is now live in the Play Store. The app, blocked in August, was admitted after updating its moderation policies.

Apple has launched “Ask Apple,” enabling app developers to connect with Apple experts. Sessions run today through October 21, one-on-ones and group Q&As for members of the Apple Developer Program and the Apple Developer Enterprise Program.

Care for an NFT with that nice Chianti? Anthony Hopkins’ The Eternal Collection sold out in seven minutes, becoming the fastest primary drop ever for OpenSea. The NFT collection was created in partnership with Orange Comet. “Of all the scenarios we tried to predict with Anthony Hopkins’ NFT drop, breaking OpenSea wasn’t one of them,” said Dave Broome, CEO, Orange Comet. “We’re grateful to the amazing fans who have made this the fastest primary drop in OpenSea’s history.”

Updates to the TikTok Creator Marketplace, announced at the TikTok World event, include:
* Improved creator-matching results with precise and granular keyword searches.
* TTCM Match, a new recommendation functionality that automatically generate lists of creators based on a brand’s brief in under 10 seconds
* Open Application Campaigns, allowing brands to post details of an upcoming campaign on the TTCM platform for creators to proactively apply
* Invite Links allowing any brand or any agency to work with any creator
* Gaming Anchor, enabling creators working with mobile gaming companies to add iOS or Android app store links to download the game to their content
* Comment Anchor, allowing creators to add and pin a clickable link at the top of comments
* Enhanced post-campaign reporting“
* As we continue working with our community of creators, partners, and users, we’re committed to building solutions that bring even more creators into the ecosystem, making it easier for brands and creators to work together,” said the company in a blog post.

Amazon is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit claiming that the company wrongly uses voice recordings captured by Alexa to target ads. Amazon argues that the allegations in the complaint would only show that the company targets ads based on transactions people make via Alexa, not to record of users’ conversations. “In their complaint, plaintiffs conspicuously never allege facts showing that Amazon uses Alexa recordings to serve interest-based ads (because they have no good-faith basis for that allegation),” the company says. “The complaint instead uses the intentionally vague term ‘voice data’ for the notion that certain transaction data resulting from Alexa interactions is sometimes used for advertising. Yes, it is, and Amazon widely and clearly discloses that fact.”

Connected TV is the most promising development for 2022 elections digital marketers, according to a report from Basis Technologies. Findings include:
· 92% of political marketers say that programmatic advertising will be important for their campaigns.
· There are more respondents in 2022 saying “Voter file data” is promising than in 2020.
· A majority of respondents allocate between 25- 55% of budgets to digital.
· The overwhelming majority of professionals (92%) affirm that programmatic advertising is important.
· For two election cycles in a row, the most concerning factor for digital campaigns is “digital platforms shifting policies and restrictions on political ads.”
“Clearly, digital buyers have inventory and premium media on their radars. Actual voter issues are not the main concern for marketers,” concluded the report. “However, ultimately, they want voter turnout because elections have only two outcomes—you win or you lose.”

Video software provider Synamaedia announced that Malaysian content and entertainment company, Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad, has gone live with Synamedia Clarissa to gain a deeper understanding about how business decisions impact viewer behavior and content consumption. “Unlike traditional data analytics which start with the data to try and find value, Clarissa takes an insights-first approach which is already giving Astro the ability to better understand how its subscribers behave and how they interact with their services,” said Paul Segre, CEO at Synamedia.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM PREMION

PREMION
LEADING THE EVOLUTION IN LOCAL OTT & CTV ADVERTISING

New Study: 2022 Priorities for CTV/OTT Advertising
84% of advertisers say the value of
CTV/OTT is greater than, or equal to, primetime TV

DOWNLOAD COMPLIMENTARY REPORT

Premion is a 10x Industry Award Winner including
2022 Cynopsis Best of the Best Award for Best Ad Tech Solution

ADVERTISING

FreeWheel and A+E Networks announced the launch of a new, enhanced unified yield set of capabilities for publishers, which includes the ability to give non-guaranteed, programmatic demand the opportunity to compete with “healthy,” direct sold guaranteed deals. “We developed this newly enhanced unified yield capability to address several current industry needs,” Katy Loria, CRO, FreeWheel, tells Cynopsis. “First, as programmatic advertising continues to grow, publishers need fluidity across their sales channels and to be able to boost programmatic demand over guaranteed, while honoring those guarantees. At the same time, we sought to simplify and reduce many of the inefficiencies in the overall TV ad buying process by unlocking new and previously inaccessible sources of premium video ad inventory for programmatic activation.”

Tubi is also in business with FreeWheel, integratring its Beeswax technology into its proprietary ad technology to offer mutual clients full access to programmatically acquire incremental inventory and extend audience reach in one workflow. The adoption also allows Beeswax customers access to Tubi’s first-party data targeting and measurement solutions, as well as real-time addressability via its earlier adoption of LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution.

IPG Mediabrands and its intelligence arm MAGNA unveiled the 4th issue of its Media Responsibility Index. The index allows for teams and clients to incorporate brand and consumer safety priorities into their investment decision-making for a variety of media types, from large global social platforms to local broadcast media outlets. Key highlights include:
· Social media platforms showed continued improvement across the four priorities (averaging +3-point in overall performance). Partners attained a ~10% increase in Inclusivity, driven by increased focus on internal accountability and creator equity.
· Safety is a standout priority for broadcast and cable, based in part on federal industry regulations forcing uniformity and 3rd party enforcement in safety standards.
· Tech proficient digital-first CTV partners are driving higher Data Ethics performance than their traditional-first counterparts.
· In a mixed marketplace for Sustainability practices, online video platforms showed strength in their ad-business emissions measurement + setting net-zero goals.
“The MRI is an important underpinning of our Media for Good positioning, putting responsibility at the heart of every media decision, as concern over the interplay and societal impact of advertising, media and misinformation increases,” said Eileen Kiernan, Global CEO of Mediabrands. “Our clients are increasingly pursuing ESG criteria within their own businesses and we are providing a resource to support these goals along with advocating for stronger, safer standards in media.”

IAB Tech Lab’s US State Signals Initiative has been released as part of the Global Privacy Platform. The US State Signals are a set of specifications for privacy strings for multiple US states that should be used in conjunction with the Global Privacy Platform. Currently specifications have been developed to support privacy signals from five US states: California, Virginia, Colorado, Utah, and Connecticut. The MSPA and US State Signals specifications are available for public comment until October 27.

Innovid and Fox Corporation are teaming to measure cross-platform viewing consumption across Fox’s portfolio of news, sports, entertainment, and streaming properties. Fox plans to use InnovidXP, Innovid’s cross-platform TV measurement solution, to further accelerate its efforts to unify and facilitate new ways of measuring ad delivery, impact, and performance across its portfolio. “As more viewers engage with content across multiple screens, it remains vital that we continue to work with our ad partners and provide them with the necessary data and insights that further display the value of converged TV and the engaged audiences and concentrated impact FOX delivers,” said Dan Callahan, SVP, Data Strategy & Sales Innovation, Fox. The deal is an expansion of the partnership that Innovid and Tubi, FOX’s streaming service, launched last year.

Emodo, the intelligent exchange creating connections through relevant advertising experiences, announced the launch of Adapt, a dynamically-optimized native ad offering that drives increased engagement and higher impact for brands and advertisers. “With its one size-fits-all approach, standard native advertising is no longer enough for advertisers and brands,” said Tom Anderson, Chief Marketplace Development Officer at Emodo. “Our innovative advanced native offering brings a richer and smarter approach to advertising, presenting brands with a dynamic, attention-grabbing ad format to drive engagement and performance, and publishers with a new revenue opportunity through an exclusive, differentiated ad format, as well as a better user experience that aligns with their website’s context and aesthetic.”

Tubular Labs has expanded its premium AI ContentGraph™ technology across its product suite. The feature enables brands to identify audiences across 1,500 different video categories, topics, and genres, and identify the most relevant trends. Videos and creators across the top social video platforms can be classified under multiple categories and topics to better arm brands and agencies with tailored content insights. “Enhancing the capabilities and structure of our content taxonomy is foundational to Tubular’s success,” said Greg Coleman, CEO of Tubular Labs. “By leveraging our technology, marketers and media companies alike can stay on the pulse of culture as it expands, to gain further insight into social video audiences throughout the customer journey.”

H-commerce, the fusion of online and offline shopping, is the gold standard in modern day shopping, according to “Brand Disruption 2023: The IAB Annual Report on the Evolving Consumer Ecosystem.” Brands and retailers should ensure they are connecting the technological convenience of digital with the tactile nature of a physical presence, advises the report. Other insights include:
· The seismic shift in consumer and brand interest driving the Creator Economy is redefining what consumers watch, how advertising is executed, and how consumer products are born. Brands and retailers should embrace a mix of creator-driven and professionally-produced content.
· Beyond the hype, the metaverse will be a shopping medium. Brands and retailers should be testing its potential now and building plans to prepare for the shoppers who will be appearing at their virtual stores.
· Privacy legislation is increasingly threatening businesses both large and small. Successful companies across the entire digital ecosystem are those that utilize tools and technology to recoup signal loss in a privacy-compliant manner.

Vevo has launched Out Loud, an advertising solution for brands to target audiences enjoying official music video content from LGBTQ+ artists. With the offering, brands can align their messaging with LGBTQ+ music videos and connect with the audience of viewers who seek out and watch LGBTQ+ content on Vevo. “The celebration and acknowledgement of this community does not stop at Pride Month. Our data shows that nearly half (47%) of LGBTQ+ Vevo viewers watch music videos daily, 365 days a year,” said Julie Duhen, Director, Media & Distribution Marketing, and Out Loud Creator, Vevo. “This new, exclusive ad product blends Vevo’s editorial curation with the power of data science, and ultimately gives brands the ability to elevate and engage with the LGBTQ+ community by shining a light on the influence, success and importance of queer artists and fans all year long.”

EMX by Big Village, an SSP and end-to-end programmatic technology focused on the planning, buying, and measurement of CTV and omnichannel media, has struck a partnership with Scope3 to bring an ever green media product to open exchange programmatic media buying. EMX’s Open Exchange GMP (Green Media Product) is a carbon-neutral media product powered by Scope3, offering media buyers the opportunity to measure and compensate for the carbon emissions of their advertising campaigns.

Clinch, creator of Flight Control, the omnichannel campaign activation platform, has struck a new relationship with Sojern, provider of digital marketing solutions for travel, to bring enhanced workflow automation and omnichannel dynamic creative optimization capabilities to travel marketers. Clinch’s platform Flight Control streamlines the process of building, serving and measuring complex, data-driven campaigns across all channels, which complements Sojern’s multichannel travel marketing platform.

Social media users are regularly seeing out of home advertising creative in photos across their feeds, led by TikTok users, who report that they frequently notice OOH ads while on the platform (82%). Users of Instagram and Facebook are close behind (81% and 80%, respectively), while 78% of Snapchat users and 76% of Tweeters also report often seeing OOH ads in their feeds, according to “OOH Consumer Insights & Opportunities Q4 2022: Social Media,” a new research report from the Out of Home Advertising Association of America. “It is impressive to see how organically-shared OOH ads on social platforms prompt brand engagement from users,” said Anna Bager, President and CEO, OAAA. “This research underscores the deep connection between great out of home creative and social media – a connection that can supercharge a marketer’s OOH investment.”

Data analytics solutions company Ocient announced the Ocient Hyperscale Data Warehouse is generally available in AWS Marketplace. Customers may engage directly with Ocient in AWS Marketplace, or with Ocient partners and resellers who can now offer Ocient deployed on AWS to their network of customers.

Advertising and measurement and optimization platform Videoamp has released “Second-by-Second Ads Viewership,” enabling TV publishers and advertisers to better assess advertiser performance and benchmark against program averages. Leveraging actualized results with inputs from both Smart TV ACR and STB viewership data across more than 39M homes, advertisers and publishers gain access to second-by-second commercial performance data in a flexible user interface. Count BET, which leveraged the new metrics to understand key moments during the 2022 BET Awards, as a believer. “Our teams utilized this transformative data to identify the most compelling program elements, such as show performances, commercials, host presentations, and more,” said Berj Kazanjian, SVP of Ad Sales Research at BET. “These advanced metrics allow us to enhance our content, further our reach, and deepen our engagement with our community.”

Smart TV advertising platform Vizio Ads announced it has concluded its upfront season with more than $200 million in direct advertising commitments from agency holding companies, brands and studios, a 100% year-over-year increase. The company attributes the growth to audience migrations from linear to streaming along with better targeting and measurement direct-to-device advertising deals, and an expanded library of programming on VIZIO’s streaming service, WatchFree+.

Demand for high quality third-party audience data jumped by 25% over the last two years, according to data solutions provider Lotame. While the U.S. did not see growth in the first half of 2022, the market continues to be the largest in terms of overall data sales. All other regions experienced tremendous growth from 1H 2021 to 1H 2022, with APAC (55% increase) ranking at number two and outpacing EMEA (36% increase) for the very first time. The LATAM market greatly ramped up its data investment, with a 229% increase from 2021 to 2022. “As an industry, digital advertising overachieved on a global scale last year with marketers upping their investments while consumers were largely at home,” says Andy Monfried, CEO of Lotame. “The market is beginning to normalize as brands return to normal spend levels. What remains constant, however, is the enormous opportunity for third-party data enrichment of marketer first-party data.”

Data technology company Versium has expanded its suite of open source tools to enable developers, data scientists and marketers to create models to better predict which prospects and customers are most likely to convert. “We have heard firsthand from data scientists and marketers using visualization platforms that they don’t have the best attributes or algorithms to unlock customer insights,” said Kevin Marcus, CTO, Versium. “We are making our modeling data and scoring engine available to all to reduce manual work and help businesses reach their ideal customer faster.”

STREAMING

QVC and HSN have launched their streaming service on Cox Contour and Contour Stream Player. It’s the first livestream shopping app on either platform.

Netflix could draw 7.5 million subscribers to its ad-supported tier in 2023, projects JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth, and $600 million in ad sales. By 2026, the estimate jumps to 22 million subscribers and $2.65 billion in ad sales. “Given Netflix’s recently muted sub growth, advertising is critical to re-accelerating revenue, expanding Netflix’s SAM [subscription addressable market], and driving greater profitability,” said Anmuth.”The Netflix narrative has shifted from slow/no sub growth on the current business to advertising and paid sharing coming in 2023.”

YouTube is introducing handles on channel pages and Shorts, to make it “simpler and faster” for users to mention each other in comments, community posts, video descriptions and more. For every existing channel, the platform will create a matching URL that will direct visitors to the channel page.

OOH network Barvanna inked a multi-year agreement with DIRECTV for Business, expanding the sports and entertainment network’s reach to more than 300,000 businesses across the United States. Barvanna specializes in short-form sports and entertainment content designed specifically for out-of-home consumption.

Penthera, provider of video streaming solutions for OTT providers, has received three new patents from the U.S. Patent Office: U.S. Patent 11438673 is for Presenting Media Items on a Playing Device; U.S. Patent 11438675 is for Subsequent Look Media Presentation on a Playing Device; and U.S. Patent 11418768 is for Features of Video Ad Downloads to Mobile Devices.

MyBunde.TV, the online platform connecting consumers, streaming services, and broadband providers with tools to simplify streaming television, has entered into a partnership agreement with the National Content & Technology Cooperative. The agreement gives the cooperative’s members the ability to deploy a range of tools that simplify the world of streaming TV. The MyBundle.TV platform works in conjunction with NCTC members’ own video offerings or as a standalone broadband solution.

Sony Pictures Networks’ FAST channel Sony KAL Hindi has launched on Xumo in the US. The general entertainment destination features drama and comedy television series from India.

DEALS

SmartMedia Technologies announced the acquisition of three companies: Switzerland’s BLOCKv Solutions, Australia’s Geronimo and the UK’s Austella, strategic acquisitions enabling SMT to expand their Web3, Metaverse and NFT offerings across APAC and Europe. They will now operate under the SmartMedia Technologies brand. “Our Enterprise clients demand an end-to-end, purpose built solution, spanning technology and services; and they need it globally,” said Tyler Moebius, CEO of SmartMedia Technologies. “They also need the expertise and technology capabilities to bridge the chasm between what they’re doing in Web2 to Web3. These acquisitions significantly boost the talent on our team, extend our platform features and ultimately accelerate our ability to deliver better business outcomes leveraging the power of Web3.”

Blue Ant Media has acquired Canadian CTV marketplace in Canada Media Pulse. Both companies are partners of Column6, an ad platform built for a CTV publishers across the Americas. Media Pulse’s CTV exchange is powered entirely by Column6, and Blue Ant Media uses Column6 for CTV ad serving and ad break management for some of its FAST channel inventory. Under the Column6 umbrella, Blue Ant Media and Media Pulse came together to make this acquisition possible.

Cynopsis Team