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Monday December 14, 2020

NBCUniversal is expanding its available digital inventory, addressable products, and advanced targeting by scaling NBC Spot On across One Platform. Launched in February 2020, NBC Spot On was designed to give local, regional CTV and OTT access to premium, brand-safe video inventory from the company’s portfolio as well as from a marketplace of premium video partners. NBCUniversal will now open up these opportunities across Peacock, YouTube, and Apple News to local marketers, and more digital and streaming inventory will be made available through NBCU’s OneApp, which encompasses NBC, Bravo, E!, USA, Oxygen, MSNBC, and SYFY.

“By opening up more of our owned and third-party digital inventory to local advertisers, we’ve transformed NBC Spot On into a supercharged local digital sales offering,” said Krishan Bhatia, EVP, Business Operations & Strategy, NBCUniversal. “Small and medium businesses have long turned to NBCUniversal for their local advertising needs, and the sales team has always delivered premium content alongside geo-targeted audiences. Now, we’re bringing even more must-watch content on dozens of platforms to advertisers who want to reach audiences at scale in a specific region.”

Snapchat users can now directly share public tweets in a Snap, via a deal aimed at boosting engagement on both Snapchat and Twitter. Users on iOS can now share tweets from Twitter’s app to Snapchat, with the feature coming to Android soon. The update “makes it easier and faster to share tweets to Snapchat and connects more people to the conversations happening on Twitter,” said Snap. Twitter announced it is launching a small test of a similar feature that would enable users to share tweets of Instagram Stories.

Hyundai has taken a controlling interest in Boston Robotics, maker of quadruped Spot. “Boston Robotics will benefit substantially from new capital, technology, affiliated customers, and Hyundai Motor Group’s global market reach enhancing commercialization opportunity for its robot products,” said Hyundai. The deal gives Hyundai Motor Group an 80% stake, and SoftBank 20%.

Google and Amazon found themselves in hot water with the French National Data Protection Committee last week. Google was fined $121 million and Amazon $43 million for violating France’s privacy law by setting non-essential cookies without users’ consent. “When a user deactivated the ad personalization on the Google search by using the available mechanism from the button ‘Access now,’ one of the advertising cookies was still stored on his or her computer and kept reading information aimed at the server to which it is attached,” said the CNIL, which also found Amazon’s explanation of how cookies are used for ad targeting insufficient. A Google spokesperson said the decision “doesn’t account for the fact that French rules and regulatory guidance are uncertain and constantly evolving,” while an Amazon rep said the company complies with “all applicable laws in every country in which we operate.”

ViacomCBS and Amazon Web Services struck a deal that will have ViacomCBS migrating operations for its entire broadcast footprint to AWS. “With AWS, we will be able to automate and streamline our processes for content production, licensing, and distribution to consumer streaming services and innovate faster to deliver improved customer experiences,” said Phil Wiser, EVP and Chief Technology Officer at ViacomCBS. “We are thinking and acting aggressively to build on the major disruptions that ViacomCBS is bringing to the market with our leading global content and services.”

The Federal Trade Commission has asked a federal court to force “divestiture or reconstruction” of Facebook assets including Instagram and WhatsApp as independent businesses. “Facebook has maintained its monopoly position by buying up companies that present competitive threats and by imposing restrictive policies that unjustifiably hinder actual or potential rivals that Facebook does not or cannot acquire,” said the commission in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Washington, D.C. In another antitrust suit, a group of states’ attorney generals have signed onto a complaint about anticompetitive practices.

Meanwhile, Facebook’s WhatsApp has taken issue with Apple’s new privacy labels, which require outside developers to state how their apps collect and use data so it can be presented in the app store in an easy-to-understand format. WhatsApp called foul, noting that Apple’s messaging service, iMessage, is pre-installed. “While providing people with easy to read information is a good start, we believe it’s important people can compare these Privacy Nutrition labels from apps they download with apps that come pre-installed, like iMessage,” said a WhatsApp spokesperson.

ForeVR launched as a gaming company dedicated to developing mass market virtual reality gaming experiences for all ages. “As in the early days at Zynga with social games, we see a huge opportunity in lowering barriers to entry to games,” said Marcus Segal, ForeVR CEO. “We want to make VR games that grandparents can play with their grandkids.” ForeVR is developing its first game scheduled to release in early 2021 on Oculus.

PREMION
LEADING THE EVOLUTION
IN LOCAL OTT & CTV ADVERTISING

WINNER: CYNOPSIS ADTECH AWARD
OUTSTANDING LOCAL ADVERTISING SOLUTION

TAG CERTIFIED AGAINST AD FRAUD
125+ Leading TV & Media Brands, No Open Exchanges
Audience Targeting Across All DMAs, Website & Location Attribution

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Entertainment technology and data company Spherex announced a strategic partnership with Cinedigm to accelerate Cinedigm’s international expansion. The companies are partnering on global content localization and compliance, deploying Spherex’s AI and machine learning capabilities. Through an integration with its proprietary Matchpoint platform, Cinedigm is tapping into Spherex’s global metadata solution to adapt its digital content across a growing number of subscription video on demand, advertising-based video on demand and Smart TV streaming platforms worldwide.

CTV leads in the share of impressions by device, with 39%, according to Extreme Reach’s Q3 Video Benchmark Report. Other findings include:
* 30-second ads remain the preferred ad length for advertisers: Data from the report indicates that 30-second ads accounted for 81% of ad impressions served by Extreme Reach in Q3 2020, compared to 79% in Q2 and 66% in Q3 2019.
* Desktop benefits as WFH continues due to COVID-19. In Q3, desktop accounted for 21% of ad impressions, a 40% year-over-year increase. Video completion rates for ads on desktop remained steady at 70%, though lower than rates seen for mobile app and CTV (where skipping ads is generally not an option).
* Media aggregators hit a new high. Similar to the growth seen in 2Q20, media aggregators surged to 47% in Q3, an increase from 35% in Q2 and just 20% in Q3 2019. While premium publishers still lead in share of impressions served, at 53%, this is the lowest percentage reported for premium publishers since Extreme Reach’s first report in Q1 2017.

Music video platform Vevo is expanding its reach in the connected TV space with a deal that will see it included in Vizio SmartCast TVs. Vevo’s catalog of 450,000-plus music videos and content already are available via partners including Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku and YouTube.

Genius Brands International’s Kartoon Channel! is now available for free across all LG Smart TVs. With its second TV manufacturer deal in place, Kartoon Channel! and Kartoon Classroom! now reach nearly 100% of US television households.

HyperX, the gaming division of Kingston Technology Co., launched the HyperX Partner Program for influencers and streamers in the US. The program enables partners to earn commissions and incentives through their online activities that lead to sales on the HyperX Shop.

Snap appointed Liz Jenkins, CFO of Hello Sunshine, to its board of directors. She’ll serve on the audit committee. “We’re all thrilled that Liz is joining the board. We’re confident we will benefit greatly from her vast experience and knowledge,” said Evan Spiegel, co-founder and CEO of Snap. “She joins us at an exciting time and we are grateful for the opportunity to learn from and collaborate with her.”

ADVERTISING

IAB Tech Lab’s Open Measurement SDK is now available for web video advertising. Previously, the Open Measurement SDK was only available for mobile applications. The web video expansion will enable advertisers to use one VAST (Digital Video Ad Serving Template) tag to measure all their video ads as opposed to having separate measurement tags per platform. “Part of IAB Tech Lab’s mission is to develop products that can be broadly adopted to bring consistency and transparency to the industry. Open Measurement SDK does just that. It is a move to improved, seamless, and transparent video measurement,” said Shailley Singh, VP, Product, IAB Tech Lab. “Expanding Open Measurement SDK to web video ads also lessens the dependency on VPAID, which is being phased out as a request from the industry.”

A consortium of suppliers of DOOH advertising introduced a simplified standardization of the major DOOH formats. The initiative includes both “demand-side” and “supply-side” platforms reduces the naming conventions of various biddable advertising formats by about two-thirds. “The hope of this framework and the way the group has approached it is for this to be an evolving standard,” Leslie Lee, vice president of marketing at Vistar, which helped organize the initiative. Trade associations including DPAA and OAAA have endorsed the effort.

Video platform Dailymotion is introducing “Vertical Video,” a format that spans the full length of a user’s mobile device to help advertisers seamlessly integrate content with the user experience while delivering their message, extending vertical campaigns to a premium, non-social and suitable environment. The format allows the use of existing vertical creative assets or the ability to develop custom units that drive attention and brand recall through Dailymotion’s internal creative studio, NROLL.

Ad security provider GeoEdge has launched AdWatch, aimed at enabling publishers to view potentially offensive ads in real-time. The tool is part of the company’s solution for protecting the programmatic ecosystem with multiple detection engines that examine the ad’s underlying code.

Adelphic, the Viant people-based DSP for omnichannel advertising, announced its integration with Killi Ltd., a consumer-facing privacy ecosystem that pays consumers directly for their use of their data. As part of the integration, Adelphic becomes the first demand-side platformto integrate Killi’s ethical Fair-Trade audience taxonomy into their platform. Anytime a Killi audience is used, 50 percent of the data costs is redistributed back to the Killi consumer that provided their data. “This partnership further enhances our integrated data footprint for our people-based DSP,” said Jon Schulz, CMO of Viant. “We have always pursued opportunities that provide our clients with valuable data that can better inform their advertising campaigns, and in turn, drive ROI.”

Redbox is bolstering its free streaming platform with the launch of Redbox Free On Demand. The AVOD service debuts with hundreds of titles, with more added weekly. Free On Demand is available on Roku, iOS, Android mobile and TVs, and Vizio with more devices including LG, Xbox and Samsung to come. Earlier this year, Redbox launched Free Live TV, its first free streaming offering.

AMC Networks’ UMC, the streaming service focused on Black television and film, is getting a rebrand. The Robert L. Johnson-created service in January will become ALLBLK… In related news, UMC and Sundance Now inked a deal for the North American, Caribbean, Canadian and UK rights to South African horror series “Dead Places.”

Free ad-supported service Pluto TV is expanding its empire with launch this week in Brazil. The ViacomCBS Networks International service has a global audience of nearly 36 million monthly active users, and an international footprint that spans three continents and 24 countries.

CBS All Access has been added to Comcast’s Xfinity X1 pay-TV offering. Xfinity earlier this year had integrated the subscription streaming service to its Flex broadband video bundle.

Audible formed the Emerging Voices Advisory Board, comprising artists, podcasters, producers, and writers who will develop and advise on talent opportunities. Board members include Lena Waithe, Emmy-winning writer and actor; Malcolm Gladwell, author and “Revisionist History” host; and Marshall Lewy, chief content officer at Wondery… the company also launched the Audible Podcast Development Program to commission original podcasts from emerging storytellers around the globe. The program will source material through both direct outreach to creators and project submissions, with original podcasts expected to begin releasing in summer 2021.

New OTT channel Hallmark Movies & More is launching on Xumo, marking parent Crown Media Family Networks’ first AVOD partnership. Hallmark Movies & More features a lineup of 120-plus titles from the company’s archive of original content.