Login
close
Login is restricted to DCN Publisher Members. If you are a DCN Member and don't have an account, register here.
Search

Digital Content Next logo

Menu

Tags containing: "supporter"

Advertising | Research | Supporter Spotlight | Video

5 Ad trends to know for Upfront and Newfront season

The largest TV networks and media companies are busy presenting their upcoming programming and ad inventory for the year ahead. A large portion of advertising budgets are typically allocated to TV advertising, so advertising shifts among top brands will impact the whole marketplace. In this article, we’ll explore some of the latest advertising trends and insights to keep in mind during the Upfronts, NewFronts, and beyond.

1. Digital takes the top spot

In 2022, nearly $144 billion was invested in digital, print and TV advertising. While TV still makes up 41% of total ad spend, digital was the top ranking format making up 47% of all buys. Over $68 billion was allocated to digital formats. These formats include display, online video, native, and paid social among other formats. This marks an opportunity for continued growth in digital media sales. 

2. Top categories investing in TV are also top buyers of digital 

Four out of the top five categories buying TV ads are top digital buyers as well. Not surprisingly big spenders from finance, media & entertainment, retail, and tech brands drive digital ad sales.  TV investment for these, with the exception of media and entertainment, is down YoY. 

However, each of these categories are up YoY in digital ad sales. Their combined digital investment still exceeds $36.6 billion and made up 53% of all digital spend. This represents a shift in the market towards digital advertising among top segments.

3. Few advertisers entering the market bought national TV spots

Only 1% of advertisers entering the market bought national TV spots. Despite looming recession concerns, MediaRadar observed 52k new advertisers (nearly 80k brands) entered the market in the second half of 2022. Not all of these advertisers purchased TV spots (530), but over 36k invested in digital display, video advertising and other digital formats. 

4. Online video advertising is up 

Online video advertising is increasingly more important to advertisers as it rose 86% YoY. A study by Hubspot says, “91% of marketers surveyed say they find video important to their advertising mix and 92% of them say online video produces a high ROI.” These feelings are likely contributing to the continued growth of video ad sales across media formats. 

MediaRadar observed 31.1k advertisers spend an estimated $28.2b in video advertising during 2022.  Top three categories advertised via online video during 2022: software ($1.9 billion), pharma ($1.4 billion), and film promotion ($1.4 billion). Combined spend nearly reached $4.8 billion, this is only 17% of total online video spend.

5. OTT investments increased despite concerns 

Just a few years ago, new OTT streaming platforms were being launched regularly and consumers were anxious to embrace them. Now, platforms struggle to match growth of 2021 and prior. To overcome challenges groups, like Disney+ and Netflix, have introduced ad supported versions at a reduced cost to mixed reviews. Despite the challenges, 5.7k brands increased their investment in streaming platforms YoY. Together their buys were nearly $1.3 billion. Most notably LinkedIn, eHarmony, Kohl’s, and Febreeze contributed to this YoY increase. 

While the Upfronts and Newfronts are an increasingly important time for large networks and media conglomerates, it is also an important time for all media sellers to understand the shifting marketplace and carve their niche into the new year. There is much opportunity to capitalize on the changing advertising landscape and continued digital growth. 

Advertising | Supporter Spotlight

How publishers can reclaim their audience relationships

Today’s advertising experience can feel like a daily exercise in pain and frustration as users navigate bizarre offers and deceptive ads promoted by shady advertisers.

The digital media industry faces mounting obstacles in building audience trust, largely stemming from deceptive and intrusive ad experiences. For media professionals, trust isn’t just another buzzword – it holds tangible monetary value. To regain trust and prevent any further damage, publishers must weed out deceptive ad experiences that threaten their readership. 

Dangers of false advertising in the digital age

According to GeoEdge research, misleading product offers and financial scams have become the primary tools for fraud. Publishers’ sites have been saturated with clickbait ads in recent months. 

In 2023, one in every 170 ad impressions in the U.S. contains a malicious ad. Due to daily run-ins with these ads, audiences approach digital ads – and content – with a healthy dose of skepticism. Frustrated readers who become annoyed with bad ads leave the site and seek out alternatives, which can spell disaster for publisher monetization. The fallout includes reduced engagement rates, fewer click-throughs on ads, and ultimately, diminished ad revenue. Additionally, the reputational damage may lead to declines in traffic over time.

What digital media gets wrong

The media industry started building a house by installing the latest and greatest programmatic technology, only to realize they forgot to lay a sturdy foundation of audience experience. Since then, advertising has become increasingly bizarre and dangerous as programmatic pipelines are susceptible to nonexistent products, counterfeit goods, and unrecognizable gadgets. 

Navigating ad experiences is a hurdle for many publishers. What does digital media get wrong?

  • Passing the responsibility of ad quality to upstream partners.
  • Treating the ad experience as separate from the user experience.
  • Failing to utilize technology to identify and remove misleading or clickbait ads.

So, the big question is: Who bears the blame for lousy ads and shoulders the responsibility for eliminating them?

How digital media can course correct  

Publishers must acknowledge that ad experience and user experience are intertwined, with one influencing the other. A negative ad experience can detract from the value of content, or prevent audiences from ever reaching publishers actual product: their content. 

Despite the high stakes involved, digital media professionals tend to shift the responsibility of ad quality onto Ad Tech partners up the chain, leading to a false sense of security. Relying solely on upstream partners to weed out harmful ads is wishful thinking. Publishers cannot depend on tech giants as gatekeepers for ad quality since they are often the same culprits responsible for delivering them.

GeoEdge analyzed ad quality ranking and malicious ad trends over the last 90 days by tracking impressions from the top nine global SSPs. The results revealed that 87% of all scam ads originated from just two SSPs. Yes, Google was one of them.  

Luckily, publishers aren’t in an unwinnable programmatic trench war. Implementing publisher-centric ad quality control allows them to prevent misleading ads from appearing on their sites. By filtering out clickbait ads, publishers can protect their audience from ad scams involving fake products or questionable cryptocurrency schemes.

The Journey of Responsibility 

The junk ad epidemic undermines the entire digital media industry, posing a significant threat to its sustainability. If digital media professionals continue to ignore the impact of clickbait ads, they risk driving away audiences and losing their credibility in the process. By implementing technology that prioritizes user protection and experience, publishers can regain control over the audience relationships. 

Failure to take action can trigger a chain reaction, starting with a decrease in ad clicks, followed by reduced engagement, eroded trust in content, and ultimately, far-reaching negative consequences for the wider ad supported media industry. 

The ads appearing on trusted sites must offer a guaranteed, risk-free experience. Publishers’ ad quality values must demonstrate that the customer’s content experience, which includes advertising, is their highest priority.

Advertising | Supporter Spotlight

How publishers can defend ad revenue from the threat of invalid traffic

In recent years, various fraudulent advertising schemes have resulted in significant financial losses for publishers and advertisers. The digital advertising sector alone suffered a staggering loss of $65 billion in 2021 due to ad fraud. According to Statista, this figure is expected to increase to $100 billion by 2023.

This situation is already concerning, but what makes it worse is that the reports fail to consider the percentage of violations that occur due to ad setup policies. These violations include ads that overlap with other content or ads (in part or whole), ads that are completely hidden due to display or CSS errors, or ads that fail to behave as intended. For instance, an ad may render off the page or obscure other elements when viewed at certain browser widths.​

Even considering invalid traffic alone, a leading industry report estimated that around $35bn of ad spend annually is wasted showing ads to bots or crawlers. In recent years, publishers have become much more aware of this problem. However, it is important to remain vigilant and defend against this problem and potential loss of revenue. 

How to identify and prevent IVT

When looking to limit invalid traffic. A good place to start is to identify your site’s audience and traffic sources. Use analytics to analyze traffic patterns, looking out for anomalies or spikes in the data that don’t seem organic. A page or domain might have been targeted if a lot of the traffic increase comes from a particular area or the time on site drops dramatically. 

Google recommends segmenting your traffic using analytics (or other similar alternatives) to help track and review traffic across your sites. This allows monitoring of visitors who view the pages and their behavior there. Segmenting your traffic by source will enable you to see how they perform relative to one another. This can again alert you to anomalies, allowing you to identify potential invalid traffic quickly. 

Publishers should also be very diligent when it comes to checking ad implementation. Every ad should follow Google and IAB guidelines regarding the space around ads, visibility, intrusiveness, display properties, etc. 

Exploring the automation alternative

However, many publishers are moving towards a more automated method of filtering. That’s because bot attacks are getting more and more sophisticated, and ad setup policy violations are becoming harder to eradicate (or easier to miss). 

Ideally, when choosing an automated IVT solution, you want to fully understand what the product is doing and how sophisticated it is. Many vendors break down invalid bot traffic into “general” (spiders, crawlers, and robots that can be identified based on their non-human behavior) and “sophisticated” invalid traffic. 

Sophisticated invalid traffic is a lot more technical and harder to catch. It usually requires advanced analytics and significant human intervention to identify, analyze, and prevent threats. These include bots and spiders that look like human visitors, hijacked devices, hijacked sessions with hijacked devices, invalid proxy traffic, adware, malware, fraudulent incentivized promotion, falsely represented sites that present themselves for legal purposes, cookie stuffing, manipulation/falsification of location data, and more. An automated solution should be able to deal with both types and be continuously updated as new threats arrive. 

You also want the product to alert you to ad setup page violations or ad placements outside of IAB guidelines. These can seriously impact the reputation of your site and the bids you might attract from advertisers. 

Some solutions only provide an ad fraud report post-auction, but that could be too late. Ideally, your solution should restrict ads from serving where it appears either an ad placement violation exists or invalid traffic is detected to prevent network ad bans and ad revenue deductions (clawbacks). An optimal IVT solution can help you better understand the traffic your website receives to help you minimize revenue loss.

Final thoughts 

While the threat of invalid traffic and ad setup policy violations may seem overwhelming, automated solutions can offer a more efficient and practical approach to addressing these challenges. As the landscape of invalid traffic and ad fraud evolves, it is critical to stay vigilant and proactive to avoid and address these challenges in order to optimize advertising revenue. 

About the author

Kean Graham is the CEO and Founder of MonetizeMore, a leading ad monetization partner for web publishers and app developers. Under his leadership and guidance, the company has scaled to 15B+ monthly impressions for over 1000+ publishers worldwide.

Advertising | Supporter Spotlight

Survey: Advertisers looking to attention metrics in 2023

Cookie deprecation is approaching and over the past few years the industry has been considering how to fill the gap. Publishers and advertisers are testing alternatives that will allow an ad-supported internet to continue to thrive. For the second time, we surveyed publishers and advertisers around the globe for an upcoming report examining the evolution of cookie deprecation on both sides of the industry. Here are a few of the key findings ahead of the full release later this month.

Attention holds promise as an advertising currency

Attention stands to benefit from the looming deprecation shifts, according to both sides of the industry. These solutions do not depend on third-party cookies, instead measuring exposure and engagement in a privacy-friendly way. Attention ranked 3rd for advertisers and 4th for publishers on a post-cookie solution ranking.

Among advertisers, 96% stated that they will rely on attention in either most or some of their ad buys in 2023. Publishers agree: 94% described attention-based capabilities as either “moderately important” or “very important” in 2023. Those same publishers stated that their offering was either “very good” (29%) or “good” (48%).

Solution uncertainty challenges publisher revenue expectations

Despite the focus on experimentation, potential solutions may have a way to go before they gain trust in the marketplace. Three out of four professionals we heard from were still in some phase of the testing process. With only one year to go until Google’s latest deprecation deadline, there is clearly more problem-solving to be done.

One of the more telling year-over-year changes showed that this uncertainty is impacting how publishers are thinking about post-cookie revenue. Though publishers who thought their overall revenue would decrease were in the minority, the number of respondents who predicted an increase saw a steep drop. In 2022’s survey, 63.8% of respondents anticipated greater revenue, while only 48% thought the same this year.

Conclusion

With DV’s unique position as a partner for both publishers and advertisers, it’s one of our highest priorities to stay in tune with the trends and drivers of the digital advertising industry as a whole (as you’ll see from our ongoing research). With uncertainty and opportunity abound, few topics have been as prevalent to the entire community as the imminent deprecation of third-party cookies.

This is the moment to push for collaboration with advertisers while there is still time for both sides to adapt and compromise. Third-party metrics like attention are just one way that both sides can build trust and alignment by speaking a common language. The ad-supported ecosystem will be in a much better position to thrive in privacy-friendly ways as these solutions take hold and become more actionable by both sides.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Commerce has evolved. It’s time publishers did, too.

Consumer buying habits have changed.

The shift to online buying—a trend that was accelerated by the pandemic—has changed the face of commerce forever.

In the US alone, e-commerce sales reached $1.03 trillion in 2022, with 80% of consumers conducting product research online before making ​a purchase decision​. 60% of consumer touchpoints to drive purchases are delivered digitally, and 79% of consumers made an online purchase using their mobile device​ last year.

Looking ahead, $2.4 trillion​ of retail sales are projected to occur online by 2026, representing 40% of total retail sales​.

What do all these numbers tell us? Today’s shopper journey looks radically different from just a few years ago. From in-depth consumer research, multi-platform purchasing, online and offline touchpoints, and high-ticket purchases taking place on mobile devices, it all adds up to a new consumer paradigm.

So how can publishers capitalize on these changes to create new revenue opportunities?

Retail media 101

To understand the full extent of the commerce media opportunity for publishers, it’s important to first understand retail media.

Retail media—ads placed on a retailer’s e-commerce site or app at the point of purchase—enables brands to boost their visibility in the digital retail space and link ad spend directly to digital retail sales. In 2022, GroupM reported that retail media already represented $101B of global ad spending, with $37.39B in the US (eMarketer).

Commerce media takes retail media one step further, bringing together advertisers and commerce data to engage consumers where they are actively researching, browsing, and buying on the open internet, in addition to retailer sites. This means that brands can pinpoint consumers wherever they are in the customer journey, and wherever they are on the web.

It also opens the door to bring brands and media owners closer together to deliver immersive experiences for consumers and drive commerce outcomes for media buyers.

Partnering with retailers to drive commerce

Another crucial aspect of commerce media is how it brings publishers and retailers together.

Forward-looking publishers are choosing to integrate commerce-focused content with their existing output, while retailers are making it easier for consumers to complete transactions by placing commerce experiences directly on publisher sites.

Commerce media is becoming the new business driver for media owners. They’re tapping into the commerce boom to create new revenue streams and grow advertiser value. For example, Buzzfeed reported $92 million​ in affiliate revenue, growing 26% YoY through sponsored content. Hearst newspapers saw 675% growth​ in digital revenues tied to commerce budgets with first-party data growth​, while Future reported $1 billion​ in commerce sales for advertisers, up 56% YoY, by leveraging shoppable ad units​.

By 2026, $50B of new digital commerce ad dollars will flow to media owners, but where will this ad spend come from? 80% of advertisers say their commerce spend will come from channel shifts.

The anatomy of a publisher commerce media strategy

As budgets from other channels, such as trade marketing, shift online, commerce media will open up new revenue streams for publishers, allowing them to monetize their valuable first-party data and capture additional brand spend.

This also creates an advantage for retailers, whose inventory is limited on their own sites. And it’s here that commerce media really comes into its own.

In tomorrow’s commerce media ecosystem, retailers are the new media owners, with publisher partners fueling the customer journey. Publishers need to understand the position of their content within the shopper journey before starting a commerce strategy: Who is their audience? Can they influence user purchases? How close are they to retailers’ landing pages?

Once a publisher has a complete view of their audience, they can easily gauge their affinities with product categories. Publishers can then use these commerce affinities to tailor their content and affiliate marketing strategies to their particular audience while integrating relevant commerce placements, like native product recommendation widgets, shoppable creatives, and embedded purchase links.

Above all, a commerce media strategy will minimize disruption to the publisher’s user experience, ensuring relevant, tailored advertising without compromising on return visits.

Connecting commerce and content

So, what does the road ahead look like for publishers looking to tap into commerce media?

Looking at the industry, especially in light of the upcoming cookie deprecation, the die is cast: content and commerce will continue to converge.

How publishers capitalize on this paradigm shift remains to be seen, but it’s likely that many will orient themselves toward commerce-focused content. Expect to see more ad formats, like shoppable ad units, which drive users back to retailer experiences, as well as affiliate programs to push incremental revenue. Innovative publishers may also choose to use sponsored listings and curated digital storefronts tied to retailers which align with the unique interests of their users.

Innovation | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

How media innovators leverage the product mindset

With the rapidly changing media landscape organizations must constantly evolve or die.

In a recent BCG study, only 35% of companies achieved their digital transformation objectives.

Where are you?

Companies in the media ecosystem, including publishers, broadcasters, streaming platforms, and ad-tech providers, are under ongoing pressure to keep pace with the speed of innovation and new market demands. Many are struggling to sustain their business, which may support millions of users, while still innovating to stay ahead of the next technology wave. 

This task has been exacerbated by conflicting priorities of executives, value vs velocity, which leaves CPOs and CTOs in need of a desperate alignment to build an optimal foundation for an ecosystem of digital products.

You must build for outcomes

Fortunately, the path to solving these issues is achievable, albeit one that requires a fundamental change in thinking and execution. By taking a product mindset philosophy across the entire business, media leaders are able to design for outcomes such as: changing consumer behavior, making informed decisions, and growing top- and bottom-line revenue. This holistic approach for all stakeholders helps align priorities with outcomes to achieve results. 

The product mindset helps define individual product launches and conflicting stakeholder priorities. When applied to the entire enterprise, it can help media companies adapt for the future while also still serving their current customer base. 

How to achieve the product mindset


Defining the product mindset 

The product mindset establishes a link between product principles and company characteristics. It provides a shared experience that connects people at every level of an organization and allows them to communicate and make data-driven decisions. Central to the product mindset are three core concepts:

  1. Digital products must be self-funded.
  2. Digital products need to be chosen by the customer.
  3. Digital products are never done.

Thinking about products along these lines can help a company clear away some of the roadblocks and challenges of maintaining pace with media evolution. But putting them into practice can be a challenge. The following five steps can help make the product mindset the core philosophy across a media enterprise.

1. Define the vision 

Every product needs to create and communicate a clear vision that addresses a market problem, and every company needs a vision for what it aims to do. Does every product unite under a single vision that the company wants to push forward? If a product doesn’t fit the vision, then CTOs, product leads, and even CEOs need to have the discipline to say “no” to a new idea. 

2.  Prioritize customer needs

User-informed products solve specific problems for specific target customers. The more a business knows about its target customer, the better it can define its overall business strategy and, specifically, its product strategy. This requires careful research into questions that may seem obvious, but aren’t asked often enough in the development process. Who is the customer? What are we solving? What’s the best design to achieve the goals? Solid research ensures companies solve the right problem in the right way.

To fuel this line of inquiry, media companies must develop a strong user feedback loop that tests assumptions early, often, and regularly, through the use of analytics, UX testing, and user surveys. These are repetitive, quick, and inexpensive methods that will point the way forward for product development and revenue opportunities.

3.  Practice a lean and agile mindset

The goal of any organization is to practice its core values to the point that the process becomes invisible. The agile mindset requires predictable development and deployment processes. When all products have to unite under the umbrella of a single vision, serve a target customer, and are built on predictable processes, then everything starts moving like clockwork. 

The lean build process operates similarly. Products are built in the smallest, fastest way possible, without being tied to specific commitments. That helps spot failures early, resulting in less time lost and fewer wasted resources as companies move to evolve.

4. Excel at change

The need for the product mindset is ultimately about the need to get really good at the constant change within the media industry. The companies that will define the future can quickly reinvent themselves based on how their users and market change. 

When assessing a change, ask, “does the benefit generated from change outweigh the cost?” Again, everything should be based on data and serving the end users, not chasing shiny objects. The more an organization can justify the change to match the vision, the easier the change will be.

5. Employ strong, skilled, empowered teams

The best way to apply the product mindset across an enterprise is to build cross-functional teams that open the door to wide-scale innovation. Encourage smart failure, where ideas are tested well in advance. Sometimes the data shows that a product may be needed, but the development doesn’t quite match the need. That’s OK, as long as the red flag is raised early in the process. By empowering teams, media companies make it quick and easy to change, ensuring that they can maintain their current position while building for the future.

Navigating the future at the speed of change

Media is evolving at a breakneck pace, shifting because of changes in consumer and customer behavior and needs. Even with all of the disrupting factors at work, most enterprises should be able to maintain – if not grow–their audiences in the future. 

Maintaining the product mindset will help media businesses find new revenue opportunities, but also excel at change in the future, ensuring that they are ready to embrace the next evolution of media.

Industry-Research | Supporter Spotlight

How publishers are building connections with young audiences

For publishers and media companies, the need to focus on younger audiences for future growth, especially Gen Z (16-25) and young millennials (26-32), is well documented. Most publishers have put significant resources and effort into engaging and staying relevant to the newest generations of readers, viewers, and listeners. But are their tactics working? 

Digiday and Arc XP surveyed 116 publishers and 114 Gen Z and young millennial consumers to understand the tactics publishers are currently using to attract these generations and how they match up with the preferences of these audiences.

The good news is that, according to our State of publisher audiences report, publishers are already attracting and engaging with Gen Z and young millennial audiences. Nearly half (47%) of publishers say Gen Z makes up 41% or more of their digital audience, and more than half (50%) say young millennials consist of 41% or more of their audience.

Challenge

However, the survey results indicate that publishers might be missing opportunities to  build long-term, loyal relationships with them.

For example, when asked which content channels are the most successful in driving young millennials and Gen Z audiences to their website, publishers said they are seeing positive results from Facebook (66%) and then a tie between Twitter (48%) and YouTube (48%).

That said, when we asked Gen Z and young millennial respondents what channels they prefer, Facebook came in fifth place, and Twitter in seventh. YouTube was the number one preferred channel by a substantial margin.

What causes these differences? Why are publishers so enthusiastic about Facebook, while younger consumers have a significantly different short list of go-to channels? One answer may be in how publishers analyze the data that is telling them which channels work. Their analytics capabilities and data sources may not have caught up with where the consumer is now.

Opportunity

The survey also uncovered an opportunity for publishers to create content formats that better match Gen Z and young millennial preferences. Publishers say that short-form video (78%) and a combination of text and video (62%) are the best formats for engaging younger consumers, with short-form text (40%) and a combination of text and audio (40%) tying for third place.

Gen Z and young millennial consumers named short-form video (61%) as their most preferred content format, matching publisher expectations. They also appreciate short-form text (40%). However, long-form text (32%) came in third in their preferences. Contrary to popular wisdom about their extremely short attention spans, Gen Z and young millennials like to read and even don’t mind long-form content. That’s good news for publishers, especially those publishing words over video.

Future focus

Publishers who reflect Gen Z and millennial audiences’ views and values will have a better chance of keeping them and growing new segments of younger readers, viewers, and listeners. Fortunately, 88% of Gen Z and millennial consumers surveyed say that publishers are somewhat to extremely aligned with their values and opinions.

Yet respondents indicated that publishers still had some work to do to on representation. Only 21% said that their political views were well represented in news and entertainment content channels. Representation of ethnically diverse demographics and LGBTQ+ demographics were graded even worse, with only 11% and 5% of respondents saying those demographics were well represented.

When asked how their editorial teams are learning about the values of young millennials and Gen Z audiences and the topics they’re interested in, 31% said they are hiring more employees from these generations and 31% said they are monitoring comments from younger users. Only 4% said they aren’t taking any specific steps. So, despite some disconnects, the survey found that, given publishers’ tactics for engaging younger audiences, it’s clear that they continue to make real investments in understanding these consumers.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight | Video

Technology moves fast. Automation helps publishers keep up

Technology is an essential tool for enabling efficiency in today’s fast-paced media landscape. This is especially true of new media platforms—including retail media networks, connected TV (CTV), and streaming services—whose rapid growth has left publishers with little time to reevaluate and optimize their ad monetization processes. Most of these platforms are utilizing legacy ad ops processes as a result, the majority of which are highly manual and not suited for the pace of digital media.

The consequences of this trend have led to mounting challenges for publishers, including delivery delays, higher error rates, increased makegoods, and slower revenue recognition processes. To eliminate these inefficiencies and enable growth at scale, publishers must leverage automation. If your business struggles to keep pace with the rapid evolution of new media and ad revenue models, here’s how automation can help you streamline your manual workflows and future-proof your ad ops processes.

Out with the old, in with the new

The ad ops processes that have worked for long-standing, traditional publishers cannot meet the needs of today’s modern digital media players. They need to be run continuously to keep up with rapidly evolving ad revenue models, which is challenging because they employ time-consuming manual processes such as audience targeting and data analysis.

Unfortunately, many media players continue to adopt these legacy workflows because they have been the norm for so long and are the path of least resistance. But this is simply not sustainable. The demand for targeted audience reach, coupled with the speed at which these platforms are growing, means that workflow inefficiencies will only increase. At the same time, ad ops teams are put at a major disadvantage because they typically work on parallel campaigns across multiple platforms and ad servers. This creates siloed and fragmented data and makes tracking and analyzing campaign metrics extremely difficult.

Automating manual processes is the key to eliminating workflow inefficiencies and increasing productivity. It’s also essential for enabling career growth and professional development. When ad ops teams use automation to relieve members of repetitive and menial tasks such as data entry and reporting, they can turn their attention to the higher-value jobs that require strategic thought and therefore can only be carried out by human beings. Rather than seeing automation as a threat to job security, it can be viewed as a tool for skill expansion and professional growth.

Using automation to support the foundational needs of media companies

The benefits that both new media and traditional publishers can gain from automation are plentiful and help support three foundational needs:

  • Unity. Automation can integrate internal platforms, improve communication between teams, eliminate data silos, and enhance data visibility.
  • Performance. Automation can streamline manual tasks to reduce errors, makegoods, and delivery delays. It can also boost campaign performance and improve client satisfaction by allowing campaigns to be optimized in flight.
  • Guidance. Automation can be used to develop user-friendly systems that improve internal knowledgeability, as well as create platforms that notify teams of potential errors so they can troubleshoot before mistakes occur.

Automation also helps increase profits by allowing teams to focus on revenue-boosting activities like business growth strategy and client management. It frees them up to run more campaigns, which is a win-win for everyone: Advertisers appreciate the maximized brand exposure, and publishers benefit from the incremental revenue. Finally, automating order-to-cash processes allows for quicker invoicing, which means faster revenue recognition and more cash to reinvest into new business initiatives.

The time to automate is now

While the current economy has forced all industries to do more with less, efficiency has always been a necessity for publishers. Now that advertising has become a key revenue model for new media players, it’s essential for them to leverage technology to enable productivity and scale. The time to automate is now, as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation tech become more accessible and affordable. Publishers — especially new media players like retail media networks and CTV companies — must take advantage of this time to implement automation or risk getting left in the dust.

Innovation | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

3 tools to make media companies stand out in the age of AI

Artificial intelligence chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s BingGPT have generated lots of buzz lately, much of it centered around how helpful or harmful these tools might be for media companies. While the helpful camp welcomes the benefits of assisting reporters with initial research, aggregating data and performing basic copy editing, others argue that these programs may also accelerate the spread of misinformation and fake news sites, which can compete with legitimate publishers for readers’ attention and advertising.

While newsrooms have been using AI tools to some degree for years, the technology has recently become more advanced and widespread, making it harder to determine whether copy was written by a human or generated by a bot. Publishers committed to industry standards and best practices need to find ways to stand out from lesser quality websites.

Oddly enough, even ChatGPT agrees that publishers need to find ways to distinguish themselves from non-human creators. When asked how digital publishers can stand out from AI-generated content, it responded:

“As AI-generated content becomes increasingly prevalent, media companies must find ways to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. While AI can produce articles and other types of content at a rapid pace, there are certain aspects of digital publishing that only a human touch can provide.”

What are those human touches? Fact-checking, vetting sources and objective reporting, to name a few. As a legitimate digital publisher, you already do these things, but do you get credit for them?

Here are three initiatives designed to help media companies stand apart from artificial content and get more credit for their good work.

Showcase your commitment to journalism standards and ethics

As more publishers use AI tools, questions may arise about whether they followed journalistic standards during the content creation process.

The Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI) is a certification program launched by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to help quality media outlets demonstrate their commitment to creating transparent, ethical journalism. The program includes certification against the JTI Standard – a set of transparency standards developed to measure media outlets’ production of trustworthy content.

“It’s really important to be able to distinguish between trusted news and misinformation,” said Beth Potter, Ph.D., U.S. regional manager for JTI. “We as journalists are not marketing ourselves well enough. We need to stand up as a group and let the world know we have rules and policies in place that lesser-quality content providers do not have.”

The three-step JTI certification process includes a self-assessment, a public disclosure in the form of a Transparency Report and a third-party audit to confirm the organization’s adherence to the JTI Standard. Once certified, media outlets can display the JTI mark to let advertisers know they are committed to following industry standards that lead to the creation of trustworthy content.

Recognize your industry connections and memberships

Quality media outlets often take an active role in the industry and participate in groups like Digital Content Next and the Alliance for Audited Media to promote quality media and industry standards.

Trust.txt is a framework developed by non-profit organization JournalList to help organizations earn recognition for their relationships with trusted industry organizations and associations. Similar to Ads.txt, publishers place a Trust.txt file on their websites that publicly lists industry memberships, owned domains and social media accounts. Industry organizations are also encouraged to create a file listing their members. The goal is to help search engines recognize the legitimate connections between media companies and industry associations.

“A great many of us depend on unreliable mechanisms to find reliable news online,” said Mark Stencel, executive director of JournalList. “Tech companies shouldn’t be the ones who decide what is and what is not ‘news.’ Journalism organizations should. JournalList’s Trust.txt files are a simple and efficient way to make that possible.”

Get certified for creating balanced, reliable content

Brand safety has been an increasing concern as advertisers find ways to prevent their ads from running on websites that don’t align with their brand values or create misleading content.

Ad Fontes Media developed its interactive Media Bias Chart® in response to increases in misinformation and media polarization. By creating a methodology to rate sources for reliability and media bias, Ad Fontes offers a tool to help advertisers and consumers find trusted sources of news and information. The group rates everything from websites, linear and connected TV, YouTube channels, podcasts and newsletters. 

“When people say they don’t trust media, they lump quality news sources with those that create questionable content,” said Vanessa Otero, CEO and founder of Ad Fontes Media. “We want to elevate quality publishers and showcase their good work and commitment to transparency.”

The Alliance for Audited Media recently partnered with Ad Fontes to create a custom media bias chart featuring AAM-audited publishers, which Otero says tend to be among the most reliable, trustworthy sources Ad Fontes rates across the news landscape.

“Advertisers use the chart to create inclusion lists based on media bias and reliability ratings,” Otero said. “The chart helps advertisers support reliable and trustworthy sources while safeguarding their brands.”

Advertisers also use our AAM Audited Domain List, a list of digital publishers who have completed the AAM Digital Publisher Audit, to create inclusion lists and direct more of their investment toward publishers that have been vetted by a third party. The audit gives media companies another tool to help stand out for their adherence to industry standards and best practices for sourcing website traffic.

The future is in publishers’ hands

As AI technology continues to evolve, it will only continue to become more challenging to separate content written by humans from articles generated by chatbots. It’s even challenging for ChatGPT, which when asked about its ability to identify AI-generated content, replied:

“As an AI language model, I can analyze and generate text, but I cannot determine with 100% accuracy whether a piece of content was generated by a human or an AI system.”

While publishers may not be able to prevent the spread of chatbot-sourced content, they can control how their websites appear to readers, advertisers, and search engines. By implementing industry initiatives, publishers can do something the chatbots can’t do: prove that they are committed to standards and best practices and provide transparency about how their content was sourced and developed.  

Marketing | Supporter Spotlight | Video

The benefits of bringing maps and weather data into your video content

Sometimes the weather is the story. However, weather also impacts many of the stories journalists tell –  from sports events to celebrity weddings, groundbreaking ceremonies, and more. Maps and weather data can be powerful tools to create more memorable and impactful videos. Digital publications and platforms can leverage these elements to illustrate location, specify routes, and provide predictions regarding the potential impact of current and upcoming weather to create more engaging content.

There are many benefits of incorporating maps and weather data into video content, and all it takes is adding this capability to the existing software stack. Let’s take a look.

Why maps and weather enhance storytelling 

When it comes to video content, it’s important to have tools that make it easy to enhance coverage of breaking news quickly. Maps can make it easier to visualize stories, such as election news and big-city races. Creating custom maps for breaking stories helps your viewers feel like they are involved rather than just passively watching. As a result, digital publications can increase engagement and viewer loyalty. 

They can even provide coverage on a street level, which helps personalize a reporter’s video stories. By offering street-level viewing, your publication can go beyond generic maps. This personalization adds a level of depth to your storytelling that many other publications lack, making your stories unique and compelling for your viewers. 

Additionally, weather data can be used to provide further context and insights to stories of all kinds. Companies can use weather to illustrate the role wind may have on a football game or how the path of a storm might affect an outdoor event. Since weather impacts almost every decision, this content has immense value for audiences.

5 ways map and weather content improves video storytelling

By bringing maps and weather data into video stories, journalists, reporters and content developers can provide more comprehensive, engaging videos. Here are just a few of the ways that maps and weather data can improve your digital video content:

  1. Generate maps for specific stories.
    Maps can be generated for specific stories with the right tool. They can be customized to support the story with stunning visuals.

    For example: Local digital publishers may choose to cover a 5K race or marathon. Incorporating maps into the story would allow teams to graphically showcase the route, and bring in “guests” at certain points along the map.
  1. Illustrate the impact of weather on the story.
    In the case of a big event such as the Boston Marathon or New York City Marathon, publications might include commentary from elite athletes. Since weather can influence the outcome of races, content creators could showcase the impact of tailwind and humidity and include commentary and predictions about how the weather conditions will impact the race.

    Weather was a major factor in the Ineos 1:59 Challenge, in which Eliud Kipoge broke the 2:00 marathon. Kipoge noted that “One of the biggest factors in running a fast marathon is the weather – temperature, humidity, precipitation, wind speed and direction will all have a significant impact, even the air pressure has some effect.” The addition of this unique perspective on how the weather impacts potential outcomes – and makes reporting more engaging.  
  2. Display live conditions. 
    Content producers can illustrate the impact of weather on all sorts of current events such as outdoor sports games, state fairs or festivals, graduation ceremonies, holiday community events, and more. (For example, check out this bike race coverage.
  3. Bring stories to life with guests & visuals.
    Display the impact of weather for upcoming event stories and bring in local meteorologists as expert guests. With weather graphics, teams can discuss the impact a hurricane will have on a community or how snow will affect the morning commute.
  4. Drive revenue with weather-related ads.
    In addition to providing context and engaging more viewers, this form of storytelling can also be used with sponsors to drive revenue. For example, an owner of a tire company can sponsor the video and provide tips on what type of snow tires are best to buy when winter weather is approaching. Local advertisers – such as hardware stores during BBQ season or local caterers during graduation stories – will also find that the weather tie-in makes their advertising more relevant.

Real-life examples of combining weather data and map overlays

Wondering how to combine weather data and map overlays in videos? Here are a few use cases:

  1. Election coverage
    Election coverage always draws a large number of viewers. It risks falling flat however, if high-quality graphics are not incorporated. With the right tools, journalists can enhance their election coverage by showing counties graphically. Digital publications and channels can bring reporters in at different polling locations, providing on-the-ground coverage for a more comprehensive and detailed viewing experience.
  2. Marathon, parade, or other coverage of big events
    Marathons and races cover a large area, which can be difficult when there are only a few available team members. With advanced video tools, however, teams can use a distributed workforce, which allows reporters to create, publish, and live stream content at any time from any location along the race route. The same goes for parades or any events that would be enhanced by maps and weather data. 
  3. Telethon coverage
    The right video tools allow team members and sponsors to create and publish videos without requiring them to use specialized skills, complicated hardware, or expensive equipment. As a result, publications of any size can have the ability to host telethons or fundraising events. With the right tool, guests can easily participate from a remote location. Maps can then be used to showcase which areas have contributed the most and to set goals across a specific demographic.

Final Thoughts

Scaling video production with maps and weather can make videos more engaging since these provide more context to the stories already being told. They can also help audiences understand the scale of a story, or make it more personal through localization. By combining live map and weather data, digital publications and channels can provide real-time, up-to-the-minute coverage to viewers, with all the insights, credibility, and professionalism consumers expect. 

About the Author

Jim Politis is part of the Max Weather solutions product management team at The Weather Company, where he focuses on Max Velocity, Max Engage, and Max Social. He was first part of the Max Quality Assurance team, and over the last decade at The Weather Company, Jim has been involved with nearly every product within the Max ecosystem. Prior to joining The Weather Company, Jim served as a broadcast meteorologist in Iowa, where he experienced many extreme weather events, from blizzards to record floods to tornadoes. One thing Jim appreciates about working at The Weather Company is that he no longer needs to present important information while hearing a tornado siren through the building walls! He has a bachelor of science degree in meteorology and an associate’s degree in computer science from Northern Vermont University-Lyndon.

Advertising | Supporter Spotlight | Video

Maximizing audiences’ unique relationship with TV

Consumers appear to be more engaged with media than ever before. Social platforms, podcasts, and games have found their way into consumers’ daily lives. However, TV’s place at the heart of the household lives on, appealing to the masses and capturing audience attention for almost 3.5 hours a day.

That said, TV no longer just occupies one screen. Advanced TV channels such as video-on-demand (VOD), and free ad-supported streaming services (FASTs) are accessible on many devices. While this proliferation of distribution channels has changed how brands connect with audiences, viewers’ relationship with TV and Advanced TV is unique. Here’s why.

1. It’s grounded in high quality content

The period since the turn of the millennium has been dubbed the “Golden Age” of TV, which is characterised by the growing choice over not only what viewers watch but where, when, and how they engage with TV. Advanced TV (comprised of VOD, CTV, OTT, and addressable linear TV) is home to premium, long-form video content that — due to its strong entertainment value — will always attract highly engaged audiences.

It is, in fact, viewer demand for premium content that is the driver of the diversification of the TV landscape, as new platforms and services are launched to capture eyeballs. Although Ofcom’s Media Nations (2022) report found that UK viewing habits have been readjusting after their peak during the pandemic, it highlights that broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) services are bucking the overall trend and the time audiences spend with them per day is rising. So, how do consumers feel about maturing Advanced TV channels?

2. Linear TV’s reputation is preserved by Advanced TV

According to 36% of CTV viewers who participated in FreeWheel’s 2022 Connected Viewers: All Eyes on Streaming study – which surveyed consumers in the UK, Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands (EU6) – ad-supported Advanced TV services give them access to an appealing mix of quality video content. To reach these audiences, who are increasingly adopting VOD and FAST services, industry players are implementing ad-funded models, but viewers’ expectations for quality extend beyond the content and apply to advertising as well.

That’s because linear TV, alongside setting the standard for premium content, has also established advertising as an expected part of the viewing experience. Research indicates that TV advertising creates memories among audiences due to its long-form video formats, giving brands strong storytelling opportunities and the chance to boost ad recall. In line with this, two-thirds of respondents to Freewheel’s study who watch CTV find its TV-like ad experience to be the most attention-grabbing.

Furthermore, audiences are not the only ones with high expectations for Advanced TV. Ad buyers have become familiar with TV’s standards for high impact creative and competitive separation. The benefits of TV advertising go further than delivering impressions, and this is underscored by the latest iteration of measurement tools that enable marketers to gain insight into how TV affects audiences in the mid- and lower-funnel. TV advertising can encourage consideration and drive traffic to websites and apps, increasing sales opportunities.

3. Audiences trust broadcasters and media owners

Since viewers generally consider broadcasters and media owners to be the source of quality video content, they tend to have a close connection with providers in the TV landscape — one grounded in trust. On the basis of these relationships, broadcasters and media owners have access to valuable first-party data, which lays the groundwork for informed and highly effective audience-based targeting.

Advertisers and agencies depend on this information to reach desired audience segments and boost engagement. However, it also helps sellers improve the advertising experience for their viewer bases. If broadcasters and media owners can ensure they serve relevant, contextualised ads, they can meet audience expectations for a quality viewing experience. Over one-quarter of audiences surveyed in Freewheel’s study claim they have a preference for ads which align with the content they are watching, 24% value ads informed by geolocation, and 20% prefer ads relate to their interests.

As a result, the ability to create a relevant viewing experience can be a key differentiator for media owners in the competitive TV landscape. It will capture viewers while also maximizing the appeal of their media offering to ad buyers. This creates a positive feedback loop, as uplifts to ad revenue can further improve advertising operations and help fund the production of quality video content, which in turn attracts bigger audiences, making premium video inventory even more valuable. Media companies are responsible for communicating this trade value to viewers, so they understand that by sharing their data they are unlocking a better experience in exchange.

Audiences’ trust, familiarity, and high levels of engagement with TV is what makes it such a valuable ad environment to build brands. TV’s evolution will undoubtedly demand advances in measurement, standardization, and tools that can connect the dots between fragmented audience segments. However, every development in these areas from, both buyers and sellers, must keep viewers at the heart of the innovation process. Doing so is absolutely critical for preserving audiences’ unique relationship with TV.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight | Video

It’s time to modernize Advanced TV. Here’s how

Online video offers tremendous reach and growth potential for advertisers and publishers alike. But disparate technologies and fragmented metrics have been longtime pain points. There’s a clear need for a solution that can bring standardization, interoperability and improved efficiency to the industry.

That solution might finally be on its way with the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s unveiling of their ambitious Advanced TV initiative. Built alongside standards that have already been approved by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), the IAB’s work could prove to be a significant step toward universal addressability, both for the myriad of devices and online services that make up the ATV ecosystem, and for the elusive bridge to linear TV measurement as well.

Standardizing and unifying all these different outlets of buying and selling ads in a way that allows everyone to compete means that everyone can win, including consumers. We have seen in the past that these types of issues are resolvable when the industry comes together and comes up with a solution that works for everyone. This could be the start of something truly transformational.

Advanced TV explained

Before diving into the IAB’s plan, it’s important to understand what Advanced TV is.Namely,Advanced TV is an umbrella term that refers to any TV device or service that isn’t part of traditional broadcast channels (or Linear TV, with some exceptions). Those products and services are often distinct from one another in subcategory, but they’re all considered a part of Advanced TV as a whole.

From an advertising perspective, the key divide between Advanced TV and traditional broadcast is addressability, which isthe ability to serve targeted ads to viewers based on their individual data, and track the success of whole campaigns based on various observable metrics. Standardizing and streamlining that process across Linear and Advanced TV is the crux of IAB’s initiative.

The grand plan for Advanced TV

The IAB released a three-year roadmap that outlines the implementation of their vision. In it, they listed five key objectives that they will use to chart its success:

  • Interoperability for frame accurate ad delivery and ad break management
  • Universal addressability and reconciliation for audience measurement
  • Full auditability for advertising campaigns delivery
  • Ad measurement for delivery and viewability verification
  • Omnichannel sales management for programmatic buying and selling of upfronts as well as spot buys

To accomplish these objectives, the IAB outlined the technologies that they will be deploying over the next three years to modernize the medium.

Standardized Video Watermark Signal Utilizing OM SDK

Working within digital standards like OM SDK, the IAB’s open watermark signal will collect vital measurements like viewability verification across the breadth of ATV’s services and devices. It will also allow for universal ad break management and frame-accurate ad insertion or replacement for video publishers. This is all in hopes of achieving a better ad experience for consumers who are otherwise forced to view the same ad many times over due to poor targeting capabilities.

Universal Asset Identification (Ad-ID)

In conjunction with IAB’s watermark, a universal ad identification system will be key to auditing campaigns and creatives. This will provide the much-needed ability to track both throughout the supply chain, so any ad can be identified and attached to its respective campaign. Ad-ID will also be a crucial component of bridging the tracking gap to linear channels.

2+ Impression Currency

This technology and methodology will reconcile audience measurement based on data from multiple delivery channels, including linear ones. In the future, this will standardize tokenization and reconciliation, improving universal addressability.

Programmatic Upgrades via OpenRTB

To ensure scalability on a programmatic level, IAB’s watermark will integrate with OpenRTB signaling over the next three years. This will also include developing live streaming ad break management and publisher safety guidance.

Conclusion

If IAB’s initiative can deliver on its objectives, the Advanced TV landscape could be on the verge of a sweeping evolution. One that will turn the current disparate jumble of technologies and metrics into an interconnected, holistic, and truly universal measurement system across both linear and non-linear channels. The task is great and the days are early. But it’s hard not to be excited about the possibilities, and we’ll be among those watching the IAB’s progress – and the evolution of Advanced TV – with keen interest over the next few years.

©2024 Digital Content Next. All Rights Reserved.