Last Week in Digital Media (03/09 - 03/13)
new reddit ads, IGTV ads, NBC exits Snapchat, Quibi legal dispute, TikTok Transparency Center, and more
Hello
Here’s your Last Week in Digital Media.
GENERAL
the 2020 New Fronts will be streamed, and there is a lot of detail on the IAB website about the plans. The New Fronts joins several other events that will be streamed over the coming weeks.
reddit is introducing a new ad product called “trending takeover” with Spotify an early beta tester of the ad product. reddit’s trending takeover works similar to promoted trends on twitter. reddit has processes in place to ensure that trends that appear alongside trending takeovers are brand safe.
twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, has come to an agreement with the activist investors seeking his removal. There’s a detailed press release from twitter (PDF link) outlining the agreement. Details include appointing 2 new board members, a share buy-back, and a CEO succession plan.
NBC Universal sold its US$500MM stake in Snapchat. Despite the sale, NBCU claims it is still committed to the partnership including content for the Tokyo Olympics.
VoxMedia and Google (via the Google News initiative) have launched an ad network called “Concert Local” focused on local digital advertising. The network includes non-Vox Media publishing partners such as Hearst.
VIDEO
YouTube is allowing a “limited number of channels” to monetize YouTube content on the Coronavirus. If you have questions about this, please reach out.
in response to a few people asking, here are more public details on Quibi’s advertising offering. There will be 25 brands at launch, ads are pre-roll and non-skippable, ads will be either 6, 10, or 15 seconds long, and there will be 2.5min of ads for every 1 hour of content.
separately Quibi is in a legal dispute with a company called Eko. Eko claims it, not Quibi invented Turnstyle video. Quibi denies the validity of complaints. This is all worth noting (and watching) because Eko is also looking to prevent or delay Quibi’s April launch.
Verizon has launched a cross-screen planning tool integrated with the Verizon Media DSP. The tool uses both Verizon Media’s own identity graph, as well as Nielsen Smart TV viewership data.
YouTube is renaming the Trending tab in their app to Explore. The functionality will also change, providing access to both Trending content but also the promotion of other content (organized by category). The app update will roll out to all users over the coming days.
ads will be coming to Instagram TV. Instagram has started reaching out to creators inviting them to be part of a test and offering to share 55% of ad revenue. The IGTV ads product will start testing in Spring.
eSPORTS
ComScore and twitch have struck a deal on eSports measurement. The agreement is for the US and Canada only (for now) and will provide third party insights into the twitch audience.
AUGMENTED / VIRTUAL REALITY
Magic Leap, a company that has spoken of as leader in the development of virtual and augmented reality is reportedly for sale. Facebook and Johnson & Johnson have been mentioned as potential suitors, although both declined to comment to the media.
according to the source code of Apple iOS 14, there will be new Augmented Reality (AR) capability. Codenamed “Gobi” it will have the ability to integrate with other apps via an API, with AR experiences triggered by marker tags. A suggested use case is improving the retail experience and allegedly trials are already underway at Starbucks.
REGULATION
there are calls from 2 US Senators for the DOJ antitrust investigation into Google to also include online search. The request comes after a recent judiciary hearing where Yelp executives expressed concern about competition in the local search market.
PRIVACY, TRUST, and SAFETY
there is a lot of industry talk about possible brand safety risks given Coronavirus and related coverage. I have many thoughts, including the need for the industry to collectively better respond to a crisis, but specific to brand safety, avoiding the topic is not sustainable when every media outlet and is covering the issue. If your or your clients need help navigating this, please contact me.
TikTok is looking to address continued US concerns about privacy, by opening a Transparency Center for content moderation and data use. The TikTok Transparency center is scheduled to open in May 2020. Separately, the company has appointed executives to oversee China so that TikTok’s founder and CEO can better focus on the US (paywall).
separately, a US Senate bill has been introduced that would ban the installation of TikTok on Federal employee work phones. The full draft of the “No TikTok on Government Devices Act” can be found here (PDF link)
Criteo is being investigated by France’s data regulator. The investigation is a result of a complaint by Privacy International, a UK-based organization focused on privacy as a human right.
the Australian Office of the Information Commissioner (AOIC) has commenced legal proceedings against Facebook in regards to Cambridge Analytica. There’s some fun math you can do based on the AOIC announcement, with Australia claiming there were 311,127 Australians impacted and the penalty is up to AUD$1.7MM per each affected individual. Making for an attention-grabbing headline of a theoretical maximum penalty AUD$529B (~US$326B) Yes, that’s B for Billion which seems very unlikely as it’s more than Australia’s tax revenue.
That’s all for this week, please be safe and take care of yourself, your family, and your community. We’re all in this together.
Joshua
PS. Amongst all of the concerns in the world right now, a distraction is needed. Here’s a video of an invisible Rube Goldberg machine that is genuinely impressive.