Digiday

Nearly half of marketers will use Amazon as a sales channel during the holidays this year: 46% of brand, retailer and agency pros told Digiday that Amazon will be part of their holiday strategy in 2024. And about half of marketers also said this year that Amazon will grow more important to their businesses during the holidays this year: 49% said the retail giant will be more important to their sales as shoppers make holiday purchases in 2024.

Over the last few years, Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) deals — and the ads promoting them — have creeped up earlier and earlier. The extended sales window can be difficult to manage for brands and media buyers. In the latest edition of our Digiday Confessions series, in which we exchange anonymity for candor, we hear from a media buyer on how the extended sales window means brands need to get more creative and the challenges of deeper discounting.

The Trade Desk’s decision to develop a connected TV platform is weird. Weirder even than a chicken sandwich chain creating a streaming service. But apparently it’s happening. The ad tech firm no average Black Friday shopper has ever heard of plans to power smart TV sets next year and take a cut of the CTV platform market away from household names like Amazon, Apple, Roku and Samsung Electronics. As much as that may sound like a lame April Fool’s Joke, it’s November. So clearly there must be good reason that a company worth $63 billion thinks getting into the CTV platform business is a shrewd move. And that reason has to be better than just what TTD cited in its press release of its CTV platform — named Ventura — solving for “inefficient advertising supply chains, and content conflicts-of-interest,” right? For the sake of TTD’s shareholders, hopefully. What exactly that reason may be, though, has eluded me ever since August when Lowpass broke the news that the ad tech firm was developing its own CTV platform. So let’s use this week’s briefing to try to understand the realistic case for (and against) Ventura. Story by Tim Peterson

For some marketers, Thanksgiving presents a chance for more than just turkey. It’s an opportunity to put Amazon Prime’s recently debuted shoppable ad formats to the test. Five media buyers and marketers told Digiday they’d be experimenting with the new formats on their media plans over the long weekend. They’ll be looking at whether viewers actually use the interactive ad formats to purchase items, and what impact they can have for their brands. As such, they’re setting aside small experimental budgets — in most cases, less than 10% of their monthly media spend — to use on the formats. In this piece by Sam Bradley, we speak to Steven Frey of Noble People, Brett Fischer of Collective Measures | Media & Analytics, Brian J. Fitzharris of Fisher-Price, Inc., Alex Walker of Havas Market UK, and Mark Zamuner of Juice Media.

For the remedies phase in the Google search antitrust trial, the giant has subpoenaed three of its biggest rivals — OpenAI, Perplexity, and Microsoft. The subpoenas, sent in October, were made public on Monday through legal filings from all four companies. The disclosures came just hours after the Google ad-tech antitrust trial wrapped up closing arguments from lawyers representing Google and the Department of Justice. When asked for comment, Google and Microsoft did not immediately respond to Digiday and spokespersons for OpenAI and Perplexity declined to comment. The new legal filings also shed light on what Google hopes to uncover and why it’s gathering fodder from rivals to convince the court that its search monopoly doesn’t include the emerging sector of AI-powered search. Many of the materials Google is asking for relate to rivals’ efforts around search and advertising. In this piece by Marty Swant, we speak to Adam J. Epstein of adMarketplace, Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf of EMARKETER, and Ari Paparo.

Only a few days left to submit an entry to this year's Digiday Awards Europe. Don't miss the chance to recognize your team in front of Digiday's global audience of decision makers. The last chance deadline is next Friday, November 29.

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During the 2023 and 2022 holiday seasons, marketers cautiously planned for seasonal revenue growth of 10% or less, according to Digiday’s previous holiday surveys. This year, however, brands and retailers are expressing more optimism about 2024 seasonal spending. More than one-third of survey respondents (35%) said that they expect their 2024 holiday revenue to increase 11% to 30% in comparison to their actual 2023 holiday revenue.

Pop-ups are becoming a popular marketing tactic for emerging brands, and Digiday set out to analyze how these brands are approaching such activations. For young CPG brands, year-round investment into standalone pop-up events isn’t feasible. Although the majority of CPG startups included in Digiday’s sample invested in a pop-up event last year, the capital and resources required to continuously host these events throughout the year are just out of reach for the growing marketing budgets of these startups. Instead, these new brands are showing up at large events as sponsors or investing in exclusive parties for brand partners and influencers, rather than hosting multi-day pop-up activations for the public. In fact, over a 12-month period, these startups sponsored more large ticketed events like music festivals, expos and professional sporting events — and hosted more private invite-only brand parties — than they held standalone pop-ups for the public. Story by Dania Gutierrez-Flores

Throughout 2024, one marketing trend has continued apace: Brand collaborations. To name a few: Oreo and The Coca-Cola Company; Airbnb and Mattel, Inc.’s Polly Pocket; Grubhub and Amazon; Scrub Daddy, Inc. and Dunkin'; multiple feature films (Wicked and Beetlejuice, to name a couple) and several brands (CarMax, Google, Crocs, Stanley 1913, Starbucks). Marketers seem keener than ever to partner up and collaborate with another brand as a way to generate attention for both brands. The approach isn’t just a way to save ad dollars (a reason for brand collaborations in the Super Bowl in previous years) but to help boost the likelihood that people will actually notice what the brands are doing in an increasingly cluttered and fragmented landscape. In this piece by Kristina Monllos, we speak to Laurie Lam of E.L.F. BEAUTY, Olivia Newman of Campbell Ewald, Jonny Shaw of VCCP, Rafael Pitanguy of VML, and Paul Furia of Media by Mother.