advertising

The latest analysis of the effects of invalid traffic/IVT estimates that the problem will result in $72.37 billion in wasted ad spend in 2024 — up 33% from an estimated $54.63 billion wasted in 2022. The report, from marketing efficiency platform Lunio, was based on an analysis of 2.6 billion paid ad clicks and 104 billion impressions from more than 60,000 ad accounts across Lunio’s clients — all resulting from paid media campaigns — conducted between May 2022 and May 2023.

Innovid’s Dan Mouradian: “While conversations around attention metrics might grab your (ahem) attention, whether or not a consumer has ‘paid attention’ to your ad does not define your campaign’s effectiveness. What’s more, in an environment that has seen significant investment such metrics shouldn’t be your main focus when measuring performance in connected TV.”

The U.S. ad market expanded for its fourth consecutive month in October, rising 3.2% over October 2022, according to just-updated data from Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker. It was the biggest gain since July’s 6.2% gain, and is an indicator that the ad spending from the major agency holding companies and biggest independent media agencies has pulled out of recession — at least for now.

Internal documents show companies like Airbnb, Coca-Cola and Microsoft have halted ads, or may do so, after Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Of nearly 261 companies that spent over $1 million on advertising on X/Twitter from January 2022 to October 2023, 86% of them have reduced ad spending on the platform, according to estimates from MediaRadar. Brand-safety concerns remain a major problem, according to the advertising research firm. Top 10 advertisers — including AT&T, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Capital One, Nike, and Bank of America — have reduced spending by 70% to 97%, according to the report.

A federal magistrate judge on Tuesday recommended that Meta Platforms be awarded a $36 million default judgment against four residents of Hanoi, Vietnam, who hijacked the accounts of advertising and marketing agency employees in order to perpetrate an ad fraud scheme.

Supply-side platform/SSP OpenX is eliminating all resellers and removing all non-TV content from its ad inventory. The moves are part of the launch of TV+, a solution that OpenX claims combines the most powerful aspects of linear and programmatic buying models. The overall aim is to streamline and improve transparency in CTV programmatic buying.

Madhive’s Jon Kaplan: With mass audiences more difficult to reach than ever, ad strategy should focus on targeting segments.

Amy Lehman was promoted to senior VP of ad platforms at the Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology unit. Disney also said that Ajay Arora is getting added responsibilities as SVP of commerce, growth and identity. He had been senior VP of product, commerce and experimentation.

The newest surprise at Fox’s Masked Singer isn’t tied to an appearance by a mysterious celebrity. On Wednesday night, the popular reality-competition program will bring an advertiser into its format for the first time since launching in 2019. From the opening shot to the end of the contest, Singer will use characters and other trappings from Universal’s new Trolls Band Together movie, slated to open on Friday. Singer panelist Ken Jeong will even be spotted wearing a colored wig to make himself look more like one of the creatures in the animated film.

He will be responsible for managing the advertising sales team building strategies for the site as well as overseeing the growth of the business footprint across advocacy and corporate environmental, social and governance initiatives.

Also, Karen Kovacs is upped to president of client partnerships for the advertising and partnerships division.

The Federal Trade Commission is asking a federal judge to reject efforts by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and other outside groups to weigh in on Amazon’s side in a dispute over its alleged use of “dark patterns.” The Interactive Advertising Bureau last month argued in a proposed friend-of-the-court brief that the FTC’s allegations against Amazon amounted to an attempt “to regulate and punish truthful statements made in advertising.”

The Super Bowl isn’t the only big football property that will be crammed full of advertising. Amazon’s Prime Video has sold out all the commercial inventory attached to its new “Black Friday” game, the first event the NFL has earmarked for the day after Thanksgiving and the start of the holiday-shopping season, according to Danielle Carney, head of NFL ad-sales for the company. Amazon has also sold out of ad inventory in the Thursday Night Football games slated for Nov. 16 and 30, she says, in part because the company has tried to sell broader ad packages that connect an ad message across a broader swath of content.

Five months after joining Elon Musk’s X, the former NBCUniversal ad-sales boss is leaning on her three decades in the media industry in her turnaround effort. Yaccarino has hired several executives with TV experience, including two from NBCU as well as the former general manager of the cable channels TNT, TBS and TruTV, as she tries to acquire new content that is palatable to advertisers. (John Staley photo)

London-based research giant Kantar Group this morning announced the sale of competitive ad spending intelligence unit Vivvix to New York-based advertising intelligence platform MediaRadar. Terms were not disclosed, but the sale includes political ad tracking unit, CMAG (Campaign Media Analysis Group), and marks another new owner for storied ad-spending services that originally began life as LNA (Leading National Advertisers, BAR (Broadcast Advertiser Reports) and ultimately CMR (Competitive Media Reporting), which was relaunched as Vivvix by Kantar in January.

Paramount Global said commercial inventory for CBS’s telecast of the 2024 Super Bowl is virtually sold out. The sellout comes amid a soft market for linear TV in which sports appears to be one of the bright spots, particularly with the SAG-AFTRA strike limiting the amount of original content on the networks.

Another TV network group, Hallmark Media, has added VideoAmp as a “currency’ to make deals for advanced audiences and demographic guarantees. A year ago, VideoAmp said Hallmark Channel posted the best cable TV network results for its holiday season of programming in the fourth quarter for households with persons 18 years and older — as well as being tops among viewers 18-49 and 25-54, females 18-49, and females 25-54. VideoAmp says this ranking excludes broadcast, news, sports and kids’ networks.

AMC Networks has enabled advertisers to buy live linear inventory programmatically on three of its networks — an industry first, according to the media company. Starting this month, programmatic buying is fully operational on AMC, WE TV and BBC America. The company worked with FreeWheel, The Trade Desk and Canoe Ventures to implement the technology.

The U.S. ad market rose just 0.1% in September vs. the same month a year ago, but it nonetheless marked the third consecutive monthly gain, following a protracted period of sequential declines. While not necessarily great news amid growing concerns that the macro economy remains uncertain, including speculation over another U.S. and possibly global recession, it’s not terrible news either.

Conservative media company Blaze Media has shifted its news website and video content to an ad-free, subscription-only model, a choice made in part to “avoid the censorship” it says comes along with Big Tech advertising.

The self-service system is available with no minimum spending commitment.

Demand-side platform/DSP The Trade Desk has integrated a new suite of AI-powered audience segments from Proximic by Comscore that allow for capturing TV ad exposure down to the local level for political campaign audience targeting.

UFC has struck a multiyear marketing partnership with Anheuser-Busch, with the brewer set to become the exclusive official beer partner of the mixed martial arts powerhouse starting in January.

Agencies report that the wrong ad creative is served to the wrong consumer nearly one in every three times, according to new research. The joint study from Advertiser Perceptions and Claravine fielded in August analyzed the impact of not having a data standards and a strategy in place. It showed how advertisers and agencies struggle with brand safety and in the process, found a connecting line between data standards, brand safety and ad targeting.

So-called “pause ads” — they only turn up a few seconds after a viewer has decided to halt the programming, and not every time one does — are seeing new movement in the streaming world, with the format appearing more frequently on Hulu since July. Pause ads are also in motion in venues such as NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max.

The premium plan is set to launch in Australia, Canada, Brazil and Mexico on Nov. 16, the entertainment conglomerate said Monday. Premium subscribers can use four concurrent streams and view content in premium quality formats, including 4K UHD, HDR10, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. “Additional markets will follow,” Paramount said.

The impact of the global economy is expected to keep most business categories down. Without the expected political bonanza, the increase for the U.S. Local Ad Forecast in 2024 is only 2.2%.

The end of the writers strike and the return of original shows to late night have been a boon for advertisers, according to EDO, which tracks the effectiveness of ad campaigns.

The season 49 premiere of NBC’s Saturday Night Live was the show’s most effective episode for advertisers since EDO began tracking engagement in 2015. With former SNL cast member turned Taco Bell spokesman Pete Davidson as host, consumers were 102% more likely to engage with ads, and the show was 8.5% more effective than the next most-engaging episode on a per-person per-second basis.

Comcast NBCUniversal said 2024 Olympics and Paralympics advertising sales are pacing ahead of the $1.8 billion generated by the  previous summer Olympics in Tokyo, which were moved to 2021 from 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. All of the advertising inventory in the live coverage of the Paris opening ceremony is already sold out. Also sold out are all of the planned halftime sponsorships for team events, such as basketball and soccer, across NBCU’s platforms,