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☆ Apple has nabbed a key ad exec from NBCUniversal, and it points to its growing TV ad ambitions
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-08 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Apple has been making a string of advertising hires, more signs of its ambitions to grow its TV ad business. Crawford helped lead Apple's Major League Soccer ad sales pitch with Todd Teresi, who leads Apple's ads division. Cady will also likely work closely with Lauren Fry, a TV and video ad sales veteran Apple hired in February 2023 as head of video ad sales. Jacqueline Bleazey, who joined video advertising sales in October, from senior director of sponsorships and ad sales at FanDuel and ad agency roles before that, according to her LinkedIn. For advertisers, Apple TV+ is a small but highly-rated player that would let them reach an affluent viewing audience that has been off-limits to them.

Persons: Joseph Cady, Cady, Krishan Bhatia, Winston Crawford, Crawford, Todd Teresi, Lauren Fry, Jason Brum, Chandler Taylor, Jacqueline Bleazey, Ted Lasso, It's, Apple Organizations: Apple, Amazon, Google, Business, Major League Soccer, MLS, MLB, DirecTV, NBCUniversal, Cannes, Netflix Locations: Peacock

☆ Kirk McDonald, North America CEO of WPP's GroupM, will leave the company. Read the internal email about his departure.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-30 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Kirk McDonald, the North America CEO of WPP's media buying division GroupM, is set to leave the company, GroupM confirmed on Monday. Mindshare Global CEO Adam Gerhart will take on additional duties as GroupM North America CEO while the company searches for a permanent replacement, Juhl wrote. "He has also been a valuable partner to me and the global GroupM leadership community more broadly." Under McDonald's leadership, GroupM North America has sought to implement a "responsible investment strategy." He has also been a valuable partner to me and the global GroupM leadership community more broadly.

Persons: Kirk McDonald, GroupM, Christian Juhl, McDonald, Adam Gerhart, Juhl, Kirk, Mark Read, Read, Mark Read's bounceback, we've, Kirk McDonald's, I'm, Adam, He's, Christian Organizations: North America, GroupM Global, Mindshare, North, America, WPP, Adobe, GroupM, AT, Time Inc, CNET, Pacific Islanders, Mindshare's Global, GroupM North, Global, NA Locations: Canada, North America, GroupM, America, American, GroupM North America, New York

☆ The Trade Desk is exerting its power in the ad industry, and some insiders fear it's becoming more like Google
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-01 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

AdvertisementAdvertisementPublisher-focused adtech firms that traditionally work with The Trade Desk, which helps advertisers buy digital ads, are now in competition with it. The Trade Desk has been aggressively building products that will undercut the business of publisher-focused adtech companies, or "supply-side platforms," according to industry insiders. The Trade Desk has not traditionally competed with SSPs, which help publishers of online content price their ad inventory and make it available to buy. "By saying this publicly, The Trade Desk is throwing down the gauntlet." He added that other ad-buying platforms besides The Trade Desk have direct deals with publishers, similar to OpenPath.

Persons: SSPs, Ari Paparo, Matt Prohaska, Will Doherty, Prohaska, Rajeev Goel, Shiv Gupta, Gupta, Desk's Doherty, Magnite, PubMatic, Adam Soroca, they're Organizations: Google, SSPs, Marketecture, Prohaska Consulting, Trade, Exchange, Microsoft, Publishers Locations: OpenPath

☆ Infillion emerges as buyer for bankrupt adtech company MediaMath
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-22 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Adtech company Infillion is set to acquire the assets of bankrupt adtech firm MediaMath. US-based adtech company Infillion has emerged as the highest bidder for the assets of MediaMath, the high-profile adtech firm that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June, according to court filings. A sale hearing is scheduled to take place on Wednesday 8.30 a.m. Eastern Time in the Delaware bankruptcy court. London-based Genius Sports, a sports data and video-streaming company, made the second-highest bid for the MediaMath assets, according to the court filings. Infillion was formed in 2022 after Disney sold its video adtech asset TrueX to the location-focused adtech firm Gimbal in late 2020.

Persons: Infillion, couldn't, Sports didn't, MediaMath, Xandr, TrueX, Gimbal, Joe Zawadzki Organizations: MediaMath, Sports, Google, Disney, TrueX, Street, Amazon, Bank of America, Mobile, Phoenix Locations: Delaware, London

☆ Amazon is quietly building a publisher-focused ad product team to grow its $37 billion ad business
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-11 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The tech will help publishers sell ads on and off Amazon, according to job postings. The retail giant has 11 job postings for a new team called "PubTech" that will be part of Amazon Ads. The Amazon Ads' team is building products for first-party publishers that have channels on Amazon — like Twitch, FireTV, and Freevee — as well as third-party web publishers, according to the job listings. While Amazon does help publishers sell ads through a unit called Amazon Publisher Services, that unit is not part of Amazon Ads, and those services require publishers work with third-party SSPs. The core of Amazon's $37 billion ad business are search ads, and its ad division has mostly focused on building tools for advertisers.

Persons: Twitch, Freevee —, Ameet Shah, Magnite Organizations: Amazon, Google, PubTech, Ads, Amazon Publisher Services, Prohaska Consulting, Exchange, Microsoft, Trade Locations: what's

☆ Former adtech unicorn MediaMath nearly saved itself from bankruptcy. Then its last hope vanished.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-06 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

The adtech company held panel sessions and meetings at the "MediaMath Penthouse." But behind the scenes, MediaMath CEO Neil Nguyen had barely been sleeping, according to three people familiar with the matter. "We collectively believed as a company, board, and advisors that we had a deal in hand," the statement continued. When advertisers or agencies buy ads through a platform like MediaMath, the adtech company must pay publishers immediately for their ad space. But the adtech company must wait — often 90 days or more — to be paid by the advertiser or agency.

Persons: MediaMath, Goldman Sachs, MediaMath execs, Neil Nguyen, Nguyen, Olivier Anrigo, Xandr, Joe Zawadzki, Ernest Hemingway, Searchlight wasn't, Neil, Houlihan Lokey, Zeta, Viant, Chris Vanderhook, Tim Vanderhook, Frederick M, Brown, MGI, Lionel Hahn, Remco Westermann, Gary Hershorn, MGI's, Westermann, they'll, Zawadzki, he'd Organizations: Cannes Lions, Cannes, Goldman, Searchlight Capital, Carlton Hotel, Google, IBM, Bain Capital —, Aperiam, Searchlight, Silicon, Zeta Global, Media, Games Invest, Verve, MGI's Verve Group, Getty, Verve Group, Trade, World Trade, Trade Center Locations: France, Cannes, hobnobbing, Delaware, Japan, Manhattan, New York City, MediaMath, AperiamVentures

☆ The digital-ad industry is spending the 4th of July holiday scrambling to recover funds lost from MediaMath's shocking bankruptcy
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-03 | by ( Ryan Joe | Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

One adtech executive believes MediaMath's bankruptcy is a sign of more pain to come. MediaMath's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection has sent shock waves throughout the digital-ad industry. Now MediaMath's creditors, who are cumulatively owed more than $100 million, are scrambling to figure out their next moves. It's likely that the unsecured creditors owed money by MediaMath would receive just pennies on the dollar once the bankruptcy proceedings are resolved. Bannister said Raptive was in the process of seeing how much money MediaMath owed it.

Persons: MediaMath, SSPs, Goldman Sachs, PubMatic, Ana Milicevic, Milicevic, It's, Paul Bannister, Bannister, Raptive, Scott Messer, he's, they're, Brian O'Kelley Organizations: MediaMath's, MediaMath, Fuel, Sparrow Advisers, Messer Media, YouTube, ANA Locations: MediaMath, there's

☆ Google is pressing ahead with its plan to kill off cookies. Advertising and privacy groups aren't convinced its cookie alternatives are ready for public consumption.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Google has laid out the latest timeline for its plan to kill off third-party cookies in Chrome. Google will take the next steps in its plan to kill third-party tracking cookies from its Chrome browser, the company said on Thursday. Google has missed previous deadlines to stop supporting third-party cookies in Chrome. Google's blog post also included quotes from adtech companies crediting the tech giant for soliciting feedback from developers who have tested the Privacy Sandbox technology. The Privacy Sandbox proposals have also faced privacy concerns.

☆ Amazon just poached a longtime Meta veteran to lead its growing adtech division
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon Advertising has hired Kelly MacLean as its VP of its ad buying platform. MacLean, who joined Amazon late last month, previously spent more than 11 years at Meta. Amazon Advertising has poached a longtime Meta executive to lead a key adtech division, Insider has learned. The Amazon DSP uses automation to let advertisers buy ads on Amazon properties like Amazon.com, Twitch, and IMDb, as well as elsewhere on the web. The Amazon DSP recently underwent an overhaul that was 18 months in the making to improve its machine-learning and predictive algorithms.

☆ PE firm Bridgepoint takes a majority stake in Equativ, valuing the adtech firm at around $370 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Bridgepoint Development Capital has taken a majority stake in the adtech firm Equativ. It values Equativ at 350 million euros, or $371 million, according to a person familiar with the matter. Private equity firm Bridgepoint has taken a majority stake in Equativ, the French adtech company formerly known as Smart Adserver, the pair said on Thursday. A person familiar with the matter said the deal values Equativ at 350 million euros, or around $371 million. Bridgepoint raised 1.7 billion euros for its BDC IV fund, while Croissance had raised 100 million euros.

☆ Microsoft just laid out the $2 billion reason why it's going all in on ChatGPT
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Microsoft said it can add $2 billion in revenue for every 1 percentage point of search share it gains. Microsoft's ad business already grew to $18 billion in the last 12 months. And search advertising is such a lucrative section of the roughly $500 billion digital ad market that it almost doesn't matter if Microsoft barely dents Google's dominance. Even growing its share of search users by a couple of percentage points could grow its revenue by billions of dollars. "The moneymaker for search advertisers is short-tail, transactional terms," Goodwin said.

[1/3] A 3D printed Google logo is placed on the Apple Macbook in this illustration taken April 12, 2020. Apple Inc (AAPL.O), which is steadily growing its nascent advertising business and promoting it as privacy-focused, could be a winner if Google ads become less effective, said Brian Mandelbaum, chief executive of marketing firm Attain. With more options besides Google, publishers will have more transparency over how much they can sell ad space for, and could end up paying less in fees, Mandelbaum said. If Google loses access to data signals, advertisers could see their Google ads become less effective, said Nikhil Lai, senior analyst at research firm Forrester. While the lawsuit settled, the fight is credited with opening the way for other internet innovators, like Google itself.

The lawsuit tackles a business at Google that is responsible for 80 percent of its revenue. The Justice Department asked the court to compel Google to break up its ad technology business. Eight states joined the department in Tuesday's lawsuit, including Google's home state of California. The lawsuit says "Google has thwarted meaningful competition and deterred innovation in the digital advertising industry." In addition to its well-known search, which is free, Google makes revenue through its interlocking ad tech businesses, which connect advertisers with newspapers, websites and other firms looking to host them.

REUTERS/Benoit TessierWASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google on Tuesday over allegations that the company abused its dominance of the digital advertising business. "Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies," the government said in its antitrust complaint. The Justice Department asked the court to compel Google to divest its Google Ad manager suite, including its ad exchange AdX. The lawsuit is the second federal antitrust complaint filed against Google, alleging violations of antitrust law in how the company acquires or maintains its dominance. The Justice Department lawsuit filed against Google in 2020 focuses on its monopoly in search and is scheduled to go to trial in September.

☆ Apple is looking for a top sales executive to spearhead a giant advertising push in sports and streaming. Here are 16 execs who could score the job.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Claire Atkinson | Lucia Moses | Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

Netflix also conducted a search before hiring two Snap executives, Jeremi Gorman and Peter Naylor, to lead its new ads business. XandrLesser, a longtime digital ad executive, has extensive experience working on issues around the future of digital marketing. McDonald has a ton of other digital ad sales and publishing experience. She helped launch Modi Media, ad buying giant GroupM's addressable TV business, before joining TV adtech startup Cadent. UnivisionValentino runs Disney's digital ad business as EVP, client and brand solutions.

☆ From the digital ad crash to Elon Musk buying Twitter — these were the ad industry's 5 biggest shocks of 2022, and what it means for 2023
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Ryan Joe | Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The ad industry is crossing its fingers that Twitter is a safe place to advertise. 2022 was a volatile year for the advertising industry. DeGroote believes the 2023 ad market growth forecasts from major ad buyers like GroupM (5.9% growth), and Magna (5% growth to $822 billion) are too optimistic. Meta, has also seen its ad revenue decline, and has dumped $4 billion so far into building a so-called Metaverse, which hasn't driven any revenue yet. Elon Musk acquires TwitterMusk's acquisition of Twitter — and subsequent decimation of its employee ranks, including its revenue-driving advertising operations — shook the ad industry.

☆ From Amazon to The Trade Desk, experts predict these companies will be the most active acquirers of advertising businesses next year
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

There's a strong interest from acquirers in hot trends like commerce media and data consultancy. Experts predicted the companies most likely to be acquirers of advertising businesses in 2023. Many industry observers expect advertising industry M&A deal volume and value to be down next year due to volatile macroeconomic conditions. Experts across the advertising industry — from consultants, to agency executives, analysts, investors, and adtech leaders — named the companies likely to be active in the advertising M&A market in 2023 and why. Apple could make an under-the-radar adtech acquisition for its sleeping giant advertising businessIndustry insiders predict Apple has big plans for its $5 billion-and-growing advertising business next year.

☆ Retail advertising surged in 2022 — but in 2023, these new ad businesses will need to steal TV ad budget to survive
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Retailers will face more competition for ad dollars with smaller ad budgets from marketers in 2023. WPP's media buying unit GroupM said that retail media brought in $110 billion this year and is on track to generate $160 billion by 2027. But 2023 will be the year that determines which retail ad businesses will win and which will lose. But some retailers are trying to grow their retail media businesses by separating those two, so retail ads are no longer part of the distribution deal. Retailers are coming for TV budgetsIf retail media budgets increase, other types of ad budgets must get cut.

☆ How Microsoft can double its ad business to $20 billion
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Jordan Parker Erb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

As the ad industry braces itself for what's sure to be a challenging 2023, we're taking a look at what Microsoft will need to do to achieve its ambitious goal of doubling its advertising business to $20 billion. Microsoft plans to grow its advertising business to $20 billion. In an interview with Insider, Microsoft Ads chief Rob Wilk shared plans to double the size of the company's ad business. Were Microsoft to reach $20 billion in ad revenue, it would overtake Chinese tech and media giant Tencent to become the sixth-largest digital ad seller worldwide, based on Insider Intelligence's estimates. Gyasi Calhoun, a front-end software engineer and developer at Twilio, said there's perks to the job, but that the industry can be stressful.

☆ Microsoft has laid down a plan to double the size of its advertising business to $20 billion
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Microsoft Advertising has ambitions to double the size of its ads business to $20 billion. Today, Wilk heads up Microsoft Advertising, a $10 billion business. Microsoft is now looking to double the size of its ads business, Wilk said, though he didn't offer a timeframe of when it might hit that target. If Microsoft Advertising were to grow into a $20 billion business, it would overtake Chinese tech giant Tencent. Gaming could become an important Microsoft Advertising assetGaming will become another key driver of Microsoft's advertising growth.

☆ Netflix has launched its ad-supported tier — here's everything we know about how the streaming giant is pitching advertisers
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Lauren Johnson | Elizabeth Pham Janowski | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Netflix launched its ad-supported tier in the US on November 3. The new ad-supported tier does not have the full Netflix catalog and will offer video quality up to 720p. NetflixThe ad-supported tier is initially offered in 12 countries, beginning with Canada and Mexico on November 1. Netflix has been pitching advertisers with aggressive pricing, according to advertisers briefed by Netflix. Advertisers said they expect prices to drop after Netflix's ad-supported tier launches, as has been typical with other streaming services like NBCUniversal's Peacock.

☆ Data-management company InfoSum has laid off staff as its tech struggles to gain traction in the US, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Sources said the company had struggled to gain traction in the US and missed revenue targets. Data-management company InfoSum had a recent round of layoffs, the company confirmed. Founded in the UK in 2016, InfoSum is a software-as-a-service platform that offers companies tools to store and manage their data. Another person familiar with the matter estimated the layoffs hit 12% of Infosum's staff, or about 20 employees. The company didn't hit its revenue goal last year and these people said it was unlikely it'd hit its 2022 target either.

☆ Kroger-Albertsons Merger Would Create a Big Player in Retail Advertising
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Patrick Coffee | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

It also would create a big player in so-called retail media, one of advertising’s fastest-growing sectors. Kroger and Albertsons entered the retail advertising market in 2015 and 2021, respectively. Kroger and Albertsons don’t break out the ad revenue generated by their Kroger Precision Marketing and Albertsons Media Collective divisions. The merger of Kroger and Albertsons would create a fourth market leader at more than 13% market share, Mr. Lipsman said. For marketers, that would help simplify the retail ad market for consumer-goods brands and other advertisers who currently confront a rapidly increasing number of offerings.

☆ Netflix says that its new ad-supported tier is 'nearly' sold out — here's everything we know about the November 3 US launch
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Lauren Johnson | Elizabeth Pham Janowski | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Netflix will launch its ad-supported tier in the US on November 3. The new ad-supported tier will not have the full Netflix catalog and will offer video quality up to 720p. NetflixThe ad-supported tier will be offered in 12 countries, beginning with Canada and Mexico on November 1. Gorman said that partners like Microsoft will only be able to use data collected by the ad-supported tier for targeting within Netflix. Advertisers said they expect prices to drop once Netflix's ad-supported tier launches, as has been typical with other streaming services like NBCUniversal's Peacock.

☆ These 15 top Microsoft Advertising execs are behind the company's plan to double its ad revenue to $20 billion
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Ryan Joe | Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Microsoft posted $10 billion in ad revenue last year and it's positioning itself to double that to $20 billion. It's signed a deal to sell ads for Netflix and is building out its Xbox ads division. But recently, Microsoft has shown signs it's regaining its advertising mojo. Microsoft posted $10 billion in ad revenue last year, and Wilk recently told Insider he plans to double that number to $20 billion, though he didn't say when. And ads are a feature in Microsoft's pending $68.7 billion deal to acquire "Call of Duty" games publisher Activision.

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