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Advertising | Innovation | Perspectives

DCN leads new era of quality content signaling with trust.txt

Since its founding, Digital Content Next has been at the forefront of emphasizing the importance of brands as proxies for trust and advancing the future of trusted news and entertainment. 

We share this message about trusted digital publishers with policy makers, advertisers, and the public. We share how the trust DCN members’ brands have built – both their reliability and integrity – is critical to their on-going relationships with advertisers and consumers. And today, we also share that message through an innovative new way – through the trust.txt framework.

What is trust.txt? 

The idea is disarmingly simple. 

Trust.txt is a machine-readable text string that enables any web-crawling robot to easily understand there is a relationship between DCN and our members who also choose to install a trust.txt file on their sites. The concept will be familiar to anyone familiar with robots.txt or the more recent ads.txt. Scott Yates, founder of JournalList.net is the caretaker of the trust.txt framework, along with a few members of his non-profit board. 

This simple idea helps to solve a long-standing challenge: Research has repeatedly shown that membership in DCN is a clear positive signal of trust to the industry, press and others.  However, that “trust signal” is not actionable for social networks, search engines, programmatic ad networks, researchers and others that wanted to transact only with trusted publishers. Over the years, platforms, agencies and advertisers have asked us to manage lists of trusted publishers however we’ve always been concerned those lists would be too narrow unless they recognized the entirety of the media ecosystem – not just DCN members. And that’s what the trust.txt framework does.

In support of this framework, DCN has placed a small text file on our website. You can actually look at it here.  

We recommend that all of our members install a similar file. It’s easy. And, significantly, it signals that the trusted publishers that do so have a relationship  to DCN. It confirms our association with each other in a decentralized and secure way. 

Why do this? 

As you likely know, DCN has consistently expressed concerns about how Google and Facebook have undermined the power of brands to serve as proxies for trust. We’ve held their feet to the fire in many ways. But they do have one valid excuse for why they do not send more users to more trusted publishers: They don’t have a way for their web-crawling robots to see that trust relationship. The same can be said for automated advertising systems and brand safety filters begging for automated inclusion lists.  

What they need are machine-readable signals that they can plug into their algorithms. With trust.txt they will have that and their last excuse for why they don’t more prominently feature trusted digital publishers evaporates.

When these trust.txt tags are on more trusted publishers’ websites, DCN will have a new way to hold the platforms accountable. We’ll also be able to use it with new and emerging advertising systems to encourage smart ad spending on trusted content creators. 

Trust us 

Members of DCN: I encourage you to install your own trust.txt file. The instructions to do so are here. I also encourage you to join JournalList.net, a member-owned cooperative that manages the whole system. It also means that Yates, the founder of JournalList, can help you get your trust.txt file built and installed.) 

DCN is pleased to be the first national organization to sign up for JournalList, and we encourage every other membership organization to start using this tool right away so that the network effect of trust will be visible as quickly as possible. The framework was built as a starting point that is truly open and available to all. DCN is, and will be, only as trusted as its  members. The same holds true for any other membership, whether it be a new coalition or an organization that has stood the test of time like the Associated Press. 

The last few years, and especially the last few months, have provided stark evidence that the underlying problems that plague society are made worse when the information ecosystem is weak. It’s time to strengthen our digital infrastructure with trustworthy information, We are hopeful that trust.txt is another powerful step in the right direction.

Advertising | Industry-Research | Perspectives

When Apple closes a door, malvertising opens a window

A lot of mobile app developers are looking toward March and sighing something along the lines of: “It’s been fun, but the salad days are coming to a close.”

As promised in the iOS14 update, Apple will begin enforcing the user consent requirement for apps to share its Identifier for Advertisers (aka IDFA) in March. This was delayed from September; however, it’s been a dark cloud rapidly approaching for anyone advertising or monetizing in the mobile app space.

IDFA was a giant boon to mobile advertising. Arguably, it kick-started in-app programmatic by enabling cross-app targeting and measurement for advertisers similarly to the way third-party cookies function in browsers. While third-party cookies are (reportedly) hitting the end of the road in 2022, Apple’s IDFA will live on. However, advertisers, adtech companies, and publishers alike are pessimistic about the percentage of users who will opt-in due to a rather negative permission window from privacy-centric Apple.

Eric Seufert, who has become somewhat of an IDFA whisperer with his Mobile Dev Memo blog, predicts that only 20% of app users will opt in to sharing IDFA. While Facebook and Google are both expected to take billion-dollar revenue hits in the next 12 months due to the privacy switch, this will be a calamity for app developers of all shapes and sizes.

Unfortunately, those developers may get hit with a double whammy. They face severe revenue loss and a storm of malvertising and malicious ads taking advantage of a drooping programmatic marketplace and mobile vulnerabilities.

Publishers’ incessant mobile troubles

Mobile has been a long, hard road for digital publishers. As more and more of their traffic creeped over to smartphones and tablets during the last decade, publisher revenue opportunities dwindled. Less screen real estate was available to show display ads, visitors scrolled by impressions at warp speed, and the available formats not only failed to satisfy advertisers, but also alienated audiences.

And that was before Apple’s Safari, the most widely used mobile browser in the US, introduced Intelligent Tracking Protection (ITP) and cut off third-party cookie support. Eventually, Apple plans to put even tighter restrictions on first-party collection.

At AdMonsters Publisher Forums, ad ops professionals described their mobile web environments like ghost towns. “Oh yeah, the advertisers know that iOS users skew more affluent and that we have solid first-party data segments. But they won’t bite without client-side measurement capabilities and attribution.”

Scammers step in

No surprise then that the scammers saw a weak mobile programmatic marketplace and came to play. The current age of ad quality challenges started with omnipresent mobile redirect campaigns. For a while in 2018, it seemed like every weekend you could be greeted by scam announcements that you’d won a gift card if you dared to brave the mobile web.

Much has changed since then. Publishers have creative blockers at the ready for redirect barrages. But bad actors now seem to be favoring malicious clickbait slathered in cloaking code over the ol’ redirect.

And their interest in compromising mobile users has only grown. The biggest named malvertising threats of 2020, including LuckyBoy and IcePick, used fingerprinting to pinpoint mobile devices.

Late 2020 and early 2021, The Media Trust saw a dramatic rise in malicious ads on mobile devices. (And when we refer to an incident, we mean a specific malvertising campaign; the amount of infected impressions is exponentially higher.)

Malicious advertising on mobile—web and apps—skyrocketed at the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021.

As Pat Ciavolella, Digital Security and Operations Director at The Media Trust, explained on a recent webinar, “Mobile is a juicy target for bad actors…. Most people access the Internet through their mobile devices and malvertising is harder to detect. Malicious actors are starting there to make sure their code is working before expanding onto desktop and reaching anyone and everyone.”

A significant slide in in-app programmatic CPMs—due to unidentifiable or unmeasurable traffic— will simply open up new testing grounds for malvertisers.

Double whammy

So, the enforcement of consent for IDFA—with Apple messaging that’s likely to dissuade users from opting in—couldn’t come at a worse time. As noted elsewhere, even rosy opt-in predictions could have devastating consequences on app developers’ revenue. We know because we’ve seen how advertisers pull out when users are unidentifiable and unmeasurable on Safari. (On mobile and desktop).

And when benign advertisers step back, we’ve then seen how the malevolent ones step forward. A simple examination of the rise in malicious advertising during the early days of the pandemic is enough to set your hair on end. An explosion in supply with lowered CPMs is a scammer’s paradise. The scam opportunities around Covid will once again hit fever pitch as bad actors try to capitalize on vaccine distribution.

Rise in malicious advertising detected between Jan. 2020 and April 2020—the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

App developers face a dual threat. First, the are likely to see a serious drop in revenue as in-app programmatic CPMs decline when users fail to opt-in to IDFA-sharing. And then a host of bad advertisers will try to infect their users with malware or rope them into some kind of scam.

As tempting as it may be to send the programmatic bid floors to the basement, app developers – and mobile publishers in general– have to keep their guards up against malvertising. The must also demand better protections from their upstream demand partners. It’s never been more important to scan and track where bad ads are coming from.

In the long run, infecting your users with malware or a credit card skimmer could have far worse ramifications than a revenue shortfall.

Advertising | Perspectives

3 insider tips to enable unified cross-channel measurement

With billions of dollars transacted on metrics that didn’t exist a few years ago, precision and rigor in detailed measurement matter more than ever before. Yet connecting and rationalizing fragmented data across multiple channels remains one of the most significant barriers in advertising. This poses a pressing challenge when considering the unpredictability of this past year and how it has impacted consumption habits.

To deliver a successful cross-channel strategy, marketers and publishers require special insights about how to precisely measure the impact of advertising attention and optimize consumer experiences. It requires unifying all views of prospective consumers in the TV and digital landscapes.

Here are three insider tips that enable you to unify your view:

1. Monitor cross-platform saturation to avoid ad overload

The struggle to achieve visibility goals has flummoxed the most-savvy professional. This is in part because of the historical barriers to measure fragmented data regarding de-duplicated frequency between platforms. However, it is essential to span the measurement gap to ensure that activation strategies align with measurement capabilities. However, you would be surprised as to how often this falls short. For example: 

  • Marketers and publishers deliver on valid and viewable as the de facto standard. Yet reach and frequency are often being measured without this crucial filter in place.
  • When campaigns are delivered, particular audience segments are curated across 1st and 3rd party datasets. Yet measurement of that performance is based on demographic buckets that only roughly align to how your campaign was carefully targeted.
  • With the growing evolution and consumer adoption of connected TV (CTV) programming, it’s apparent that there’s a significant opportunity to access valuable audience share. Still, it’s challenging to unify your CTV strategy with the remainder of your digital and linear advertising approach. And this leaves you blind and unable to advance.

No one wants a wasted ad budget. Instead, leverage measurement solutions that enable detailed analytics of all ad buys across all households to work for you. They can help pinpoint hurdles or make inflight changes while the campaign runs. This degree of analysis on any-time intervals across a digital and TV portfolio will also help you develop best practices for future campaigns.

2. Pinpoint inefficient ads to untangle cross-platform performance

How can you tell when ad waste occurs? This question undoubtedly plagues our ad tech industry, which  faces epochal changes. Consumers encounter ads, even when they are off-target audiences. And relevant ads hit the same audiences ad infinitum. Learning to pinpoint inefficient ads and untangle cross-platform performance allows you to identify how much you spend efficiently sending real messages to real people.

Sophisticated cross-platform measurement solutions provide tools to measure trillions of impressions across TV and digital–and stop bad actors in their tracks. For example, the teams at Moat by Oracle recently uncovered StreamScam, characterized by forged household IP addresses, app IDs, and device models to make it look like ads were playing in digital environments when they weren’t. 

Note the following industry-wide digital ad expenditures for reference:

  • 20% serves to bots only—and never end up on the screen
  • 20% serves an empty room
  • 25% serves inattentive viewers
  • 30% serves digital, 40% TV
  • 10% serves a saturated audience

3. Unlock sophisticated audience relevancy 

With the constant evolution in ad tech, sophisticated audience relevancy means something different now than it did even five years ago. With new and emerging channels, platforms, and technologies, reaching the people you care about and in a cross-platform capacity is both more important, and in some cases, more daunting than ever.  

Today we know that people have, on average, six devices from which they consume media. All of those devices present a fundamentally different engagement experience and are all vying for our attention.

Let’s be honest, when it comes to reaching people, a one size fits all approach rarely fits the bill. Relying on imprecise definitions measured only by age and gender audiences is one clear example of potential constraints. Focus on finding better alignment with your campaign goals. This requires more inclusive data on audience interests, family structure, past purchase behavior, and more—compared to a national industry-recognized baseline. 

It is critical that marketers and publishers earn how to leverage solutions to tie relevant audiences with a unified view from TV to digital. This will provide true cross-channel clarity and empower more informed decision-making for your next campaign.

Advertising | Perspectives

3 trends that will define media success in 2021

Covid-19 hit some sectors of the media industry hard (live sports, concerts and trade shows). The global entertainment and media industry saw its largest revenue decline in more than two decades. However, the pandemic has also presented an opportunity for companies embracing digital strategies that are aligned with consumer trends and expectations. 

Disney, for example, lost over $6 billion in revenue from the closure of its theme parks. But Disney+ reached 50 million subscribers worldwide two years ahead of schedule. In January, Fortune – once just a print magazine – announced its redesigned website, an immersive video hub, and other premium offerings. All of this strongly positioned them strongly to counteract the advertising slump that hit the industry last spring. In October, the company launched Connect, a membership community and online platform for purpose-driven, mid-career professionals. 

Here are three trends we’re likely to see this year: 

1. The relationship with the content consumer matters more than ever. 

Cookies were a convenient crutch. They were the building blocks for digital advertising and helped drive revenue for media companies as they transformed. Now that cookies are nearing their end, some companies are panicking while others are evolving. The ones that succeed will be the ones that focus on creating a continuing relationship with the consumer. This means engaging with them differently, through a soft or hard paywall, or as a curated member experience (e.g. Fortune Connect). This not only preserves advertising, which is a significant source of revenue, but opens the door to new, diversified revenue streams.

The ultimate death of the cookie will turn out to be a blessing for the media industry, even if it creates disruption in the short term. Necessity drives innovation. The cookie’s demise will revamp the way companies post content and interact with their consumers. In 2021, we will see even more innovative media business models that will define the coming decade. 

2. Pandemic-driven changes won’t revert. 

There is no going back, so let’s embrace the change. Let’s highlight some of those changes. In the first 28 days on Netflix, The Queen’s Gambit was watched by 62 million households. No, it didn’t reach M.A.S.H. season finale numbers of 106 million. However, M.A.S.H. aired on a major broadcast network at a time when there were only a few. 

We’ve seen an acceleration in media companies following in Netflix’s footsteps. Peacock is betting on a network show that first aired in 2005 – The Office – to drive premium subscriptions at $5 a month. Who is the largest audience for that show? People who aren’t old enough to have worked in an office. 

Just as the music industry needed to evolve and find new ways to engage and monetize consumers when streaming took off, so must media companies. Experiments bringing what would have been blockbuster movie releases like Mulan, Soul, and Wonder Woman 1984 to Disney+ and HBOMax will forever change, but not completely destroy, the theater industry. (Alamo Drafthouse-like experiences may well be the theater experience of the future). And let’s be clear, the definition of media is evolving. Consider Peloton: a fitness company? Sure. A hardware company? Maybe. A media company? Absolutely.

Successful media companies aren’t embracing a move to digital. They are disrupting their own legacy business models to become digital. Spectator events have become intimate digital experiences. (Think DJ D-Nice spinning to 120,000 live viewers including Diddy, President Joe Biden, and Janet Jackson on IG Live in the early days of the pandemic). 

Sporting events are better with fans in stands. However, sporting experiences can, and should be, complemented with connectivity to the players, drivers and coaches. Leagues have already embraced fantasy sports, but could they openly embrace sports betting? And are there opportunities to connect with online gaming to create a full-surround fan experience, digitally? 

It is critical to focus on the consumer and how they consume and where they consume and providing new ways to consume – directly. This will create new and stronger revenue opportunities.

3. Legacy media companies can succeed. But they have an uphill climb ahead. 

Legacy media companies have the most to gain from transformative change. However, they start at a massive disadvantage compared to new media companies like Complex Networks and Spotify. (Yes, Spotify particularly with the acquisition of podcast content companies such as Gimlet). 

These brands and what they represent have lasting value. However, they demand reinvention with a focus on digital channels, habit-forming digital products, multiple streams of monetization and libraries of content. When Maven bought Sports Illustrated last year, it did so with the intent of “revitalizing and strengthening” the publication for a new era by focusing on technology. 

Past the tipping point

A recent McKinsey report noted that Covid-19 has “pushed companies over the technology tipping point.” Media companies that want to succeed will have to rethink their digital business models in 2021. And they have no time to waste. 

While most software products were once developed on a 6-to-12-month timeline, the pace of change has accelerated. Consumer expectations are far more immediate. But with the right digital product strategy, the media industry could see a game-changing resurgence in 2021. 

About the author

Chris Hansen is senior vice president of 3Pillar Global’s media and information services client service vertical.

Advertising | Innovation | Perspectives | Video

Preparing for advanced TV’s 2021 take off

The new year brings new cheer to the advanced TV advertising sector, with an exceptional outlook for 2021. Following months of accelerated change in 2020, a remarkable 84% of marketers across five European markets expect to increase their investment in advanced TV during the next 12 months. This positivity signals a recognition of the channel’s potential to reach highly engaged audiences in premium video environments that are on-demand, connected, and addressable.     

Media owners – whether programmers or distributors – have a golden opportunity to tap into this wave of optimism for a channel that includes multiple interconnected solutions and platforms. This includes video-on-demand (VOD), connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT), to audience-based linear, programmatic, and addressable. Here are just a few of the trends media owners should be aware of as they prepare for advanced TV’s take off in 2021.    

Unification of linear and digital

Linear TV and digital video have been on a convergent path for some years. However, in 2020 it became perfectly clear that viewers see no difference between the two. People switch effortlessly between channels, platforms, and screens to satisfy their appetite for video content everywhere, any time. Advertisers are adapting to this evolution. They want to deliver seamless experiences across all premium video environments, regardless of whether they are linear or digital.

In 2021, the ability to sell and deliver inventory across all devices and platforms in a unified way will be a top priority for media owners, enabling them to meet advertiser demand. Significant steps are already being taken towards achieving this goal, including the advance of linear schedule optimisation through digital ad decisioning tools. However, more still needs to be done to achieve greater unification over the coming months so media owners can make a greater portion of inventory available for advertisers to buy simply and holistically.

Availability of addressable inventory

Marketers are increasingly keen to target TV advertising at household level through the use of high-quality data insights. Traditional TV advertising is still the most effective option for achieving scale. However, marketers can supplement it with addressable advertising to access niche audiences and achieve incremental reach.

Across Europe, over three-quarters of marketers expect to increase investment in addressable advertising next year, with a 9% growth predicted overall. This does vary however, according to the maturity of individual markets, the technology capabilities and the availability of addressable inventory. Spain has the most optimistic outlook, forecasting a 13% increase in addressable advertising, while France is the most cautious at just 4% growth.

To take advantage of increased investment in addressable advertising, media owners should focus on making more of their inventory addressable. This will mean breaking down silos between TV and digital teams. It also requires exploring how they can effectively use first-party and second-party data – while complying with data privacy regulations – to enable richer targeting.

Preparing for addressable advertising will require a degree of collaboration and European media companies can take inspiration from the U.S. Across the Atlantic, industry initiatives such as On Addressability are driving progress towards simple, scalable addressable capabilities across TV formats. And project OAR (Open Addressable Ready) is establishing a common technology for dynamic, addressable advertising management.

Collaboration with competitors

The trend for cross-industry collaboration doesn’t just apply to addressable advertising, but to advanced TV as a whole. Advertisers demand more streamlined solutions that allow them to buy across channels, platforms, and devices. So, media owners will need to put aside traditional rivalries and take a collaborative approach. In this case, working with competitors well help them gain mutual advantage.

There are already examples of successful collaborations around addressable TV within European markets, including partnerships between FranceTV and both Bouygues Telecom and Orange, as well as the LOVEStv platform in Spain. In the U.K., Sky, Virgin Media and Channel 4 are all partnering on AdSmart. ITV has extended an open invitation to broadcasters to join its Planet V platform. More established cross-market collaborations are also in place, such as the European Broadcaster Exchange, which was established in 2017 between Mediaset, ProSiebensat.1, TF1 and Channel 4 to enable programmatic video advertising across multiple countries.    

Over the coming year, more media companies will form partnerships or join existing collaborations. This will allow them strengthen inventory offerings to allow advertisers to access premium, brand-safe advanced TV environments at scale.

After a turbulent year all round, the next 12 months look extremely promising for the TV and video ecosystem. Media executives will be poised to maximize the opportunity by embracing the unification of linear and digital and making more of their inventory addressable. If they also find ways to collaborate with partners and competitors across the industry, media companies can put themselves in the best position to make the most of advanced TV’s 2021 take off. 

Advertising | Perspectives

To thrive in the post-cookie era, web publishers must act now

As we enter a new year, most tech departments look to create a product creation and upgrade schedule for the year, which then gets divided into two or three-week sprints. As publishers undertake that process this year, I have two overarching thoughts:

First, recent events continue to suggest  that Google will deprecate the third-party cookie by the end of this year. As a CTO, it seems to me that publishers must deploy minimal but real changes to code-on-page to take advantage of new identity marketing solutions.

Second, most publishers declare a “code freeze” in the fourth quarter due to heavy advertising volume. Indeed, with its lower ad volumes, the first quarter is when publishers typically implement new technical capabilities.

These two facts lead me to recommend that web publishers immediately begin to deploy the code associated with new identity resolution services. This will allow them to capture the highest revenues, avoid hectic scrambling, and minimize technical risk.

Will Google eliminate the third-party cookie on schedule?

Early last year, Google announced it would eliminate third-party cookies “within two years.” Subsequently, Google officials stated that this timetable might be delayed, mainly if the industry’s replacement solution was not in-place.

At BritePool, we believe Google will follow-through with its original timetable. At a recent PRAM (Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media) meeting, Stu Ingis, chairman of the Venable law firm, discussed the urgency of completing PRAM’s work (in conjunction with the IAB Tech Lab) to be prepared for the elimination of third-party cookies.

Similarly, eMarketer recently spoke with industry experts to review the changes confronting advertisers and publishers that will have “significant effects on how they do business.” This list prominently included “Google’s planned deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome by early 2022.”

But won’t Google provide a lengthy notice period?

Google’s initial announcement included a schedule, with a two-year period, for the adtech ecosystem to prepare for the demise of third-party cookies. There is no reason to believe Google will provide an additional lengthy notice period before acting. It is easy to imagine that at the start of this year’s fourth quarter, Google will simply confirm that by the end of the year, it will eliminate third-party cookies, as planned.

How does this fit into privacy reform?

BritePool’s COO previously wrote that a Democratic election victory would lead to national privacy legislation. Now, Republican concerns associated with social media “censorship” mean a bipartisan consensus for legislative reform is developing.

In this firmament, we believe Google will conclude that it will benefit by following Apple with privacy-centric browser management. Moreover, Google officials who suggested the possibility of delay indicated Google would act when the industry is ready.

Now, multiple industry solutions are available.  For example, BritePool and LiveRamp have both demonstrated the viability of their cookieless identity resolution offerings. And PubMatic has launched its Identity Hub.

My advice? Act now

eMarketer concluded its review by stating, “It’s critical for advertisers to start testing approaches to targeting these types of users and measuring results now—while the traditional signals are still available for them to make comparisons.” My advice for web publishers is the same: It is critical to start implementing new cookieless targeting capabilities.

Acting now benefits publishers in multiple ways. It eliminates the high technical risk potentially associated with scrambling to adopt identity resolution services late this year. Publishers gain experience by running pilot campaigns with these new capabilities and can optimize their offerings for 2022. Finally, it increases the CPM’s for programmatic traffic throughout this year, in part by accessing the users of Safari and Firefox browsers, which currently block third-party cookies automatically.

Editor’s note: This article was submitted, and set for publication, before this week’s Wall Street Journal article confirming that Google would eliminate third-party cookies. This Journal reporting reinforces the significance of the related analyses in this article.
Advertising | Perspectives

Supply path optimization: only the best for publishers and advertisers

Just this past week I was buying lemon sole for dinner at our local seafood market.  My friend Joe D, the proprietor, has been running this business for more than 30 years. Yes, you will pay a premium for his tuna, crab legs, oysters and salmon. But as the saying goes: “You get what you pay for.”

Sure, Stop and Shop, Acme and even Whole Foods are cheaper. But when the family sits down to dinner it is worth that extra 10% or so to benefit from the highest quality supply path to your table. That’s the kind of optimization you can taste!

Complexity deconstructed

It occurred to me while thinking about this article that our sole meunière might be a nice way to demystify the sometimes overly complex language and the digital advertising industry’s fascination with jargon and acronyms. After all isn’t what we want just a better experience for our audiences, publishers and advertisers?

There are so many things right about the incredible content that can be discovered and enjoyed on the internet. And our industry has rightfully become the largest advertising marketplace on the planet as a result. Nevertheless, some aspects of the business are due for renovation. Apologies for extending the cuisine theme again, but let’s face it, there are too many cooks in our kitchen. We have every reason to ask ourselves why we tolerate an overabundance of SSPs who are largely undifferentiated sources of the same impressions.

Quality vs. commodity

A successful SPO strategy will benefit publishers who consistently deliver the highest quality content, engagement, audience, and impression value. Time on site, viewability, editorial excellence, desirable demographics and psychographics will be worth more to buyers. These publishers will capture share and increase revenues.

Simultaneously, we must build more effective and more efficient methods for buyers to identify, select and purchase only good, better, and best content within the internet’s marketplace of ideas. In effect, we must de-commoditize supply. This will go a long way toward eliminating fraud, increasing transparency, and reducing the non-media leakage of third-party fees.

Only buy the best

Industry leading programmatic consultancy Jounce Media states:

Supply path optimization is an emerging technique by which programmatic buyers bias their bidding toward a short list of preferred pathways that enable high scale, high efficiency inventory access.

Therefore, when shopping for the highest performing supply available buyers should pay special attention to the pathways they choose. Supply Path Optimization done right will focus on tangible qualities such as viewability, IVT and scale enabling KPIs to be met with fewer wasted impressions and greater efficiency.

About the author

Bruce Brandfon is Chief Media Officer of Duration Media. Prior to that he was EVP of Webspectator, and before that VP and Managing Director at Publicitas. Before joining Publicitas, Bruce was VP and Publisher of Scientific American. He has also held leadership positions at The Philadelphia Media Network, Newsweek, and Time Inc. Bruce is Director of the Board of Advisors at Planet Forward, and an Adjunct Professor of Media Studies at Westchester Community College.

Ping Bruce if you’d like to know more about why and how Duration Media consistently outperforms almost all other Supply Paths in the programmatic ecosystem. (And, yes, he’ll also tell you where Joe D’s fish market is.)

Advertising | Industry-Research | Perspectives

Media industry predictions for 2021: OTT, video, social, and more

There is no doubt that 2020 was a year for the books. The pandemic turned nearly every aspect of life upside down, affecting many industries. While some were severely hurt, others greatly benefited. The advertising industry was no different, experiencing ups and downs. 

Looking ahead to this new year, we predict there will be some major turning points, particularly in OTT, social media, video and conferences. Here at MediaRadar we’ve taken a look back at 2020’s unique advertising trends and predicted what 2021 will bring. 

The OTT shakeout will play out faster than expected

Last year, we predicted that the numerous OTT launches would lead to a crowded, overly competitive market. Since then, we’ve seen a significant movement of advertisers to the new platforms and the pandemic has been a large catalyst of this shift. 

For 2021, our prediction remains, although we think the process is accelerating. What’s causing it to speed up? 

Competition in the OTT space is bruising. HBO is going to get a seat at the table, as they’re bringing blockbuster movies directly to their platform. Like a game of poker, they are raising the stakes. Moving forward, it will be more expensive for others to win if they don’t match the quality and breadth of offerings currently in the market.

Disney and Netflix are also consuming a disproportionate share of the winnings, with Disney’s growth happening much faster than expected. These platforms’ tremendous success, however, may leave fewer consumers able to buy alternate paid subscription services (SVOD), as households won’t subscribe to every OTT service.

Many of the top firms, including Disney and AT&T, are saddled with meaningful debt. This will encourage firms to sell their under-performing or less-core assets. For example, AT&T sold Crunchyroll to Sony in December 2020. Wall Street Journal reported, “Crunchyroll is the latest asset that AT&T is cutting loose to trim the debt load.” 

Years worth of change in the OTT space were squeezed into 2020. This means the endgame will arrive faster than anticipated.

Social will remain powerful in 2021, but year-over-year growth will be tepid

While 2020 disrupted many types of business models, social media was not one of them. 

In 2020, Facebook’s ad sales performance was tremendous, as seen in its stock ending the year up 83% from their March lows, while popular app TikTok claims to have reached almost 20% of Americans every single week.  

But, 2021 will offer fewer advantages. Take away the mandatory stay-at-home quarantine, as well as the most generous presidential election ad spend ever, and what is left could be more challenging. There could also be a hostile regulatory environment, with bi-partisan support to curb ad targeting. Apple has already promised to disable the ability to track and target users across apps on iPhones in early 2021.

Time spent on video will decline

Online video certainly benefited from the increased time people spent at home during the quarantine. But, as the population is vaccinated, the amount of time spent away from our  screens will increase.  

Based on Alphabet’s quarterly filings, YouTube revenue was up 30% year-over-year (YoY) in Q2 2020 to $5B. In the summer of 2021, it will be a challenge to reproduce these numbers, especially in Q3 when people spend more time outdoors. 

The return of in-person events will bring much-needed relief 

Live events have proven to be the hardest area of life to migrate online during the pandemic.  This is not a case where people feel virtual has been a positive substitute.

In business, live trade shows allow for professional and social interaction, facilitating deal-making, etc. Without the ability to meet in person, the demand for lead generation has increased significantly. 

Luckily, we expect the second half of 2021 to be a major turning point for the conferences industry, with in-person events returning en masse. Informa, one of the largest event companies in the world, saw its stock price shoot up 21% in a single day when the efficacy of early vaccines was announced. 

Advertising trends will look more like 2019 in the second half of 2021

The popular logic today is that the world has changed and, even when vaccines are administered and the world begins to emerge from Covid-19, we will not be returning to what we knew before. However, it will not be as radically different as some have hypothesized.

In 2020, we saw markets like live events, travel, and restaurants drastically reduce their ad spending as they cut costs to survive. Meanwhile, children’s toys, food subscription boxes, RV’s, and communication services like Microsoft Teams accelerated their advertising to capitalize on opportunities in the market. 

However, we do not expect this to last, especially as we get into the second half of the year. For example, we expect travel companies to begin advertising soon, to attempt to lure consumers and capitalize on pent-up demand. China’s Golden Week holiday offered a preview, as over 500M people traveled during the holiday, 80% of pre-Covid levels.

Looking ahead 

Not only will 2021 bring the much-needed Covid-19 vaccine, but also some much-needed relief for businesses of all kinds. In the advertising space, we look forward to seeing the industries most impacted by the coronavirus return to more stable advertising spending. 

The “Streaming Wars” will be interesting without quarantined consumers, the return of live, in-person events will restore a key part of the B2B market, and much more. Most importantly, we look forward to the breath of fresh air that this new year will undoubtedly bring.

Advertising | Innovation | Perspectives

The 4 most important questions to ask when evaluating identity solutions

The identity solution landscape is growing fast. I can count at least 10 solutions that launched last year alone. Third-party cookies are approaching their final exit. Identity is seen as a viable and sustainable way to keep digital advertising running and help large and small businesses alike survive. That’s all good news.

But like most things in adtech land, parsing through how technical solutions differ often requires an advanced degree and a good translator. It is technical for a reason. However, that doesn’t mean technology can’t be accessible and approachable.

I’ve spent the bulk of the last two years working on an identity solution, so I have some opinions. I’ve also spent a good deal of that time talking to other identity solution providers. There are a lot of smart people working on very difficult problems from a multitude of angles. If you’re not excited about the amount of innovation happening at this tremendous clip, you may be in the wrong industry.

For those not steeped in the tech parlance, however, vetting identity solution partners is daunting. So, in an effort to provide clarity, I’ve culled my top four starter questions that every identity solution partner should be able to answer. Frankly, these are questions every marketer, publisher, SSP, DSP, and data provider should ask.

Four critical questions to ask identity solution partners

1. Does your solution support the authenticated or open web?

The authenticated web refers to those users that register and login to a site, app, or platform. Email address is the most common form of authentication, and that identifier then becomes the key to accessing content or other services. Early estimates predict that publishers can achieve at best 10-20% of authenticated users by 2022. That’s great progress to be sure. But what about the other 80% of consumers? Capturing their attention is just as important as authenticated users. This is particularly true for those businesses interested in top funnel activities like prospecting. For maximum scale and coverage, consider leveraging both authenticated and open web identity solutions. 

2. Does your solution support enriched or empty IDs?

An enriched ID is exactly what it sounds like. These solutions were built with data enrichment at the core with the goal of helping marketers and publishers execute more relevant and responsible advertising. Some IDs offer up to 200+ behavioral attributes within their IDs. This offers a treasure trove of privacy-compliant, pseudonymized data for targeting, optimization, reporting, frequency management, and more. But not all identity solutions are created equally. Many others are empty. They exist to leverage first-party data alone, which may sacrifice accuracy based on a single contextual visit or single point of view (the publishers), as well as scale. Additionally, some require a fee to use them and charge additional costs to coordinate and attach relevant data for addressable advertising. Weigh all of these costs and factors when evaluating your identity partners.

3. Where privacy is concerned, is your ID transparent or opaque?

You could ask “Is your ID privacy compliant.” However, the above question will tell you much more about a company’s actions when it comes to compliance. Until U.S. federal law exists, I’d advise to look to Europe’s GDPR, some of the strictest regulation around consumer privacy, for guidance on how to vet an identity partner.

GDPR prioritizes control, transparency, and accountability when it comes to consumer data. In that spirit, look for a solution that makes it easy and accessible for consumers to access, request, and delete their data. Further, seek a partner that minimizes its data collection and communicates accountable IDs to every channel. This ensures a clear, auditable trail as opposed to opaque providers who obscure themselves to users, reduce the ability to see data sharing across platforms, and hide tracking methods.

4. Is your ID solution interoperable or siloed?

You may be wondering with so many ID solutions out there, can they and how will they talk to each other? That’s an excellent question. This is a critical area to dive into with your partners for several reasons. Number one, there may be translation activity fees you need to build into your budget if the ID solution is not interoperable out of the gate. Second, if the ID isn’t freely accessible, you may experience some technical difficulties with sharing across various platforms in other regions. And, third, if the solution doesn’t permit communication across and between IDs, all that rich consumer profiling and segmentation work you did on the front-end may be lost in the lack of translation.

All the right answers

If, however, you find a solution that does all of the above — true interoperability across channels, platforms, and other IDs — that means your portfolio approach will be working most effectively. I trust these four questions will lead to lively and transparent conversations. We all need to be talking more and more openly to solve for a post-cookie, privacy-first world. What questions are you asking identity solution partners? I’d love to hear what’s top of mind for you as you navigate this landscape

Advertising | Industry-Research

Publishers accelerated diversification strategies in 2020!

As publishers reflect on 2020, most will agree that Covid-19 took center stage. The year was filled with business struggles, but it also offered some growth opportunities. What’s New in Publishing’s (WNIP) year-in-review, Media Moments 2020, identifies “diversification” as the paramount lesson from 2020. Importantly, the report makes it clear that publishers who are dependent on advertiser revenue need to rethink their strategies and include consumer revenue streams.

WNIP’s report covers the industry’s focus on “trend acceleration.” Certainly, while there has been marketplace disruption the past two decades, nothing has accelerated market shifts quite like Covid-19. Media Moments looks at 2020 to showcase these market changes and identify winning publisher strategies.

Notable 2020 highlights

Print final shift to digital

Any print publisher who survived 2020, will need to go fully digital in 2021. In fact, Poynter reports that nation­al newspaper circulation in the U.S. is down 30% since 2016 and 60 newsrooms closed recently due to the impact of Covid-19.

Launching a differentiated digital brand with fresh content is vital in this marketplace. Revenue diversification is key for sustainability. Offering virtual events, newsletters and podcasts are important touchpoints to broaden revenue opportunities as well as develop consumer loyalty.

Audio is an expending revenue source

Audio has proved to be a strong and viable business for publishers and they look to expand their audio businesses in 2021. Some have their business by producing dedicated podcast content while others grew through acquisitions. Many publishers are testing new formats for podcast integrations in content outside of news. Other examples include a new commentary format from AMC to complement their video business and Marvel’s experimenting with fictional content.

Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Apple are a few of the leading podcast platforms. While Spotify is among those building their content portfolio of content, others are building their podcasting infrastructure like iHeart.  This year alone, Spotify acquired content producers Gimlet and The Ringer. iHeart, on the other hand, acquired podcast analytics company, Voxnest. Even given the coronavirus’ negative impact on advertising spend this year, podcasting did not register large declines. PwC’s updated predictions approximate $814M for podcasting ad revenue, just 6% below PwC and IAB’s original forecast.

Publisher exercise first-party data

In January 2020, Google announced that Chrome would phase out support for third-party cookies in the browser within two years. This didn’t come as a big surprise, given that Mozilla FireFox and Apple’s Safari made similar announcements in 2019. Of course, this trend will mandate reducing digital advertising’s reliance on cookies. As a result, an already tough seller’s marketplace for publishers is getting tougher. Fortunately, many publishers acted early and started to develop first-party data strategies, benefitting from their trusted relationship with consumers.

Once again, publishers are touting the merits of contextual advertising.  And many publishers are building the tools to serve contextual advertising better than ever before. In fact, Vox Media launched Concert Ad Manager, a self-service tool for publishers to build and implement ad campaigns across the marketplace. Publishers using this tool include NBC Universal, Penske Media, Quartz, and others. This type of tool is extremely helpful to small and medium size publishers.

As the pandemic transformed our world, consumers searched for news and information to help them navigate the crisis. From dropping paywalls to record traffic, publishers responded, and they were reminded of the trust consumers place in them. By concentrating on consumer value, publishers can prioritize a consumer-first strategy and register growth in consumer revenue.

Advertising | Perspectives

Why cohorts is a privacy detour the media industry should avoid

With the end of cookies and Mobile Advertising ID’s fast approaching, there is no shortage of discussion about ways to maintain some form of user identification. We need to figure out how data-driven advertising will work within the scope of privacy regulations and technical possibilities. Lately, this debate has revolved around two very different strategic approaches: shared user IDs and cohorts.

Shared user IDs

Shared user IDs aim at solving three main issues related to third-party IDs (and their disappearance):

  • The inefficiencies related to cookie matching and the drop off between platforms using different identification framework. This renders up to 50% of web-based user data and inventory to be unusable.
  • The need for user IDs to be accessible to 3rd parties to the main web server. Instead, these will be replaced by a shared first-party ID, which the server itself provides.
  • The need for greater control around the usage of IDs and associated data, particularly concerning privacy preferences expressed by users.

On paper, shared user IDs are a very efficient and privacy compliant replacement for cookie-based IDs. Their main challenge is adoption by publishers and technology platforms as a scalable alternative to third-party identifiers. Like any currency, their value grows exponentially with usage. This implies a limited value to start with and a difficult take-off (the infamous “chicken and egg” challenge). The next few months will be critical for shared identification solutions to establish themselves as viable and scalable alternatives to third-party identifiers.

Cohorts

On the other hand “cohorts” approaches aim at grouping users into segments to avoid user-level data distribution. They have become a topic of discussion following Google Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox experiments. Cohorts have even been presented as the solution to privacy concerns. They are not.

Cohorts are merely a way to avoid the problem. The approach aggregates people’s data  to pretend that we are treating them as groups rather than individuals. However, no regulation prevents marketers and publishers from addressing individuals. Instead, it requires those individuals to be informed about the data that is collected on them, how it is processed, the purpose of that processing, and to say whether they are ok with it.

A personal approach

Is it better to harass a group of people who have seen a particular product on a website until they buy it? Or is it better to engage in conversation with a single person to understand whether they are truly interested in the product and should be shown the ad?

Personal data is not the problem; it is how we use it that matters. Circumventing privacy by grouping personal data into “cohorts” and pretending we’re off the hook is a way to trick the letter of the law. However, more importantly, it is a way to trick users from the transparency and choice they deserve. And also, maybe, this is a way to trick the Open Web into using suboptimal methods to identify people and leverage marketing data to power advertising investments.

Another critical issue is that this may provide an opening for the large platforms to – in all impunity and under the disguise of (forced) consent — to exploit the largest “personal data vacuums” ever created.

The road to a privacy-first shared user identification future is a bumpy one. Using cohorts may seem like a safe way to avoid the bumps on the road. But they are merely a detour. And as often, taking a detour is longer and less efficient. This is particularly true if that road is controlled by an entity that can raise the toll price at will.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Checklist for effective advertising environments: brand fitness, quality, trust

It is essential for marketers to question the efficacy of the outlets where they place their advertising campaigns. They must choose channels that provide a positive impact on the brand message the audience receives. Past industry studies from comScore, WGM and IAS have all found that  that brand effectiveness and brand lift are highly correlated to the quality of the content channel. In fact, the consensus is that running ads on premium publisher sites had significantly higher brand effectiveness and brand lift compared to non-premium sites. The positive lift is attributed to the “halo effect” from the premium environments.

New research, Signally Success, from Richard Shotton and house51, looks at the halo effect across different media platforms (TV, newspapers, magazines, radio, social media, and video sharing sites). However, it is important to note that while social media and video sharing sites are included in the research design, digital publisher sites are not. That said, the research does expand on the halo effect, offering characteristic details about brand lift and the how they differ between advertising channels.

The findings include:

Optimum signals for brand advertising

Signaling is the driving force in every advertising campaign. Therefore, it powers each consumer purchasing decision. Shotton’s analyzes showcases advertising’s ability to drive fitness and social signals.

  • Fitness signals show signs of financial health, product confidence and overall brand quality. Communicating strong fitness signals informs the consumer about the financially viability associated with the brand.
  • Social signals include brand fame, popularity, and success. Social signals allow consumers to assess if they will form a  relationship with a brand.

Each media brand’s ability to communicate these signals varies greatly. Quality content, representing financially independent and socially successful brands should be top choices for campaigns. Again, selecting the right channel for the right brand is a critical part of the equation.

Emotional trust is a brand asset

Building and maintaining emotional trust is crucial for any brand. This creates the connection point between consumer and product. Moreover, the emotion of trust is stronger than rational thoughts and can often last beyond one experience. Consumers with high levels of emotional trust are willing to give a brand a second chance even after a negative brand experience.

Brands build their reputation and deep emotional trust through years of positive product experiences (including advertising) and nurturing relationships with their consumers. Media channels must compliment the emotional trust sentiment and not distract from it.

Shotton’s research calls our attention to human behavior and the influence of psychology in media planning. It questions the methods of hypertargeting, personalization, and the cost-efficiency practice of buying low-quality content channels. It calls for marketers to identify and advertise in quality and trusted media brands. Importantly, it recognizes the positive lift from the premium environments as a key driver of necessary brand signals.

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