Digiday Sunday
—Digiday A dynamic week of coverage as we inch closer to the heart of the holiday season. We wrapped our 2024 schedule of Summits with our Programmatic Marketing Summit spanning the first half of the week down in Nashville, Tenn. An overheard round up of off-the-record – and unvarnished – comments from programmatic marketers in attendance on the impact of AI-powered media buying quickly rocketed to our most-read piece perch for the week. A breaking news story looking at Roblox putting a Shopify integration into beta was well received as were stories that looked at the potential fallout scenarios of the Google antitrust trial’s pending verdict, brands stirring interest in Bluesky as the social platform sees a user surge post-election and the ad tech sector’s continued fascination with ad curation. – James Cooper
Story highlights
Tim Peterson Pulled together a very interesting overhead piece focused on AI impact on ad buying from the first town hall discussion during DPMS last week. As he reported, ‘When it comes to artificial intelligence technologies affecting the ad industry, programmatic marketers would naturally be toward the tip of the spear. After all, their roles originated as machines disrupted traditional buying methods. And now AI-based ad buying tools are similarly changing the nature of their roles. During this week’s Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit in Nashville, Tenn., agency executives convened behind closed doors and opened up about how the insertion of AI has impacted their abilities to optimize clients’ campaigns and how they are having to adapt and define the value they bring to the table. The executives were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor. It was the week’s most-read story.
Alexander Lee dug up a great daily exclusive that reported that giant gaming/metaverse platform Roblox had quietly put it integration with Shopify into a beta phase. As he reported, ‘After dipping its toes into e-commerce via early beta tests with sellers such as Walmart and Fandango, Roblox announced an official e-commerce partnership with Shopify at September’s Roblox Developers Conference. As of last week, the platform has allowed a select group of developers to gain access to Roblox/Shopify integration tools, including the creators of the Roblox experiences “Catalog Avatar Creator,” “Tower Heroes” and “Creatures of Sonaria,” with more experiences expected to launch their stores over the next few weeks.’
Seb Joseph had a great news analysis piece that broke down the myths and realities of the ad tech sectors topic du jour: Ad curation. As he reported, ‘Curation may be many things, but new isn’t one of them. It's been around for several years, spreading the term itself. Over time, it evolved into what we see today: a range of data-driven tools designed to curate impressions from the open programmatic market, where real-time auctions determine prices. Far from a fresh innovation, curation is more of a refinement of existing practices.’
Ronan Shields and Seb Joseph teamed up on a well-read piece that laid out the potential fallout of the DOG/Google antitrust trial as a verdict is pending. As they reported, [what’s probably realistic] ‘is a ruling that forces Google to adopt stricter, transparency-driven guidelines. For instance, Google could be required to make the decision-making behind its buy and sell-side ad technologies fully visible. This might mean separating its publisher ad server from its ad exchange in a way that ensures data isn’t hoarded–allowing other programmatic marketplaces equal visibility and access. In other words, no more closed-loop dominance. But even this measured approach comes with challenges. Implementing such remedies will be anything but swift.’
Alexander Lee reported on Twitch creator Kai Cenat's just finished a month-long nonstop “subathon” livestream and what is singles from Twitch in terms of the proximity of very high-profile influencers and advertisers. As he reported, ‘although Cenat’s stream was occasionally marked by PG-13 or R-rated behavior, Twitch did not take any public steps to shield its advertisers from his or his team’s more controversial content. The situation highlighted the divergent needs of some of Twitch’s largest streamers and the brands that advertise on the platform. Twitch needs to consider the needs of both its creators and its advertisers — but threading the needle between the two can be a delicate dance.’
Kimeko McCoy and Krystal Scanlon joined forces on a story brands’ stirring interest in Bluesky as the social platform saw a user surge in the aftermath of the U.S. Presidential election last month. As they reported, the platform is attracting users disillusioned with Elon Musk’s oversight of X — flawed moderation, questionable policies, and all. Since October, Bluesky has added over eight million new users daily, according to the company … Marketers, ever drawn to shifting attention, are circling. But slow growth for much of the year and no significant revenue streams make it more curiosity than contender for ad dollars right now. Even so, its decentralized, federated model offers a unique proposition that keeps it on marketers’ radars — for what it might become, not what it is today, according to 12 marketers interviewed for this story.’
Tim Peterson's edition of the Digiday Podcast featured a interview with Kat Downs Mulder, gm and svp at Yahoo News during which she discussed how news publishers are adapting post-presidential election “It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen in the future and whether increases will sustain and in what ways they are going to sustain. There’s readers who are leaning in; they want to know everything that’s going on. And then there’s readers who are leaning out, and they’re at that news avoidance,” she told Tim. Give a listen here
Here are the Digiday + Briefings for the week
—Future of TV Briefing: Ad-supported tiers are boosting streaming subs, but for how much longer?
—Media Briefing: Publishers’ strategy on Bluesky is TBD
See you next Sunday!