In this week’s Week in Review: WBD makes a first-party data play, YouTube’s ad revenues show its continued dominance of video, and a Thinkbox study shows TV produces disproportionate returns on spend. Top Stories Warner Bros. Discovery Launches First-Party Data Platform Olli Warner Bros. Discovery this week announced the launch of Olli, a new proprietary first-party data platform which will cover campaign planning, activation, and measurement across the media conglomerate’s entire portfolio of inventory. The company says Olli will help advertisers run more efficient campaigns, giving a clearer ..read more

Google has announced that it is once again pushing back its deadline for removing third-party cookies from its Chrome browser. The deadline, originally set for the start of 2022, was previously penned for the end of this year, having already been moved back several times. But Google has said that more time is needed, in order to take industry feedback into account and to give the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, which has regulatory oversight of Google’s decision, to review evidence. Now it says it expects to start ramping up cookie deprecation “starting early next year”. Is this a much ..read more

In this edition of the Buy-Side View, we speak with Harry Packshaw, Head of AV at Havas Media Network. Packshaw discusses the challenges of navigating a convoluted CTV market, the threat of ad fraud in the video ecosystem, and how Havas is working to curate trusted supply across smaller CTV publishers. What is your biggest bugbear when it comes to video and CTV advertising? I have quite a few bugbears when it comes to CTV, and when it comes to advertising in general, to be honest. But I think there’s probably two that really stand out as being the biggest. One has come about more recently with ..read more

Deutsche Telekom this morning announced that MagentaTV, the German telco’s TV offering, will enable addressable advertising from mid-2024. Addressable ads will be traded programmatically through Equativ, a French ad tech firm which owns an ad server, supply-side platform (SSP) and demand-side platform (DSP). The telco recently revamped MagentaTV, which offers live TV and on-demand content, including free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels. The platform carries a range of different broadcaster content, and the partnership with Equativ allows major TV broadcasters to market their own inve ..read more

CTV spending surged in the UK last year, according to the latest IAB Digital Adspend report, as advertisers look to invest in cookieless environments. Conducted alongside PwC, the study found that ad spend on CTV devices (£1.2 million) grew 21 percent YoY, accounting for 17 percent of all video spend in 2023. The reseach showed that the UK digital ad market grew 11 percent YoY, reaching £29.6 billion in 2023. The report notes the growth rate outpaces GDP at 0.1 percent, revealing the appetite among advertisers to capitalise on growing engagement in online entertainment, and its associated ..read more

Nordic streaming company Viaplay has reported a solid start to 2024, becoming the latest European broadcaster to indicate signs of recovery in the TV ad market. The company’s sales climbed 6 percent YoY during Q1, matching the quarterly growth rates of both MFE and ProSiebenSat.1. The recent run of results suggests signs of life for TV ad sales, following a difficult year for European broadcasters. And for Viaplay it was tougher than most, forcing the company to reverse its international rollout and exit several markets, including the UK, Poland and the Baltics. But the strategy of focusing on ..read more

Market research firm Ipsos this morning announced it will add UK viewing data from YouTube into its online audience measurement platform, Ipsos iris. The integration will allow media owners, agencies and advertisers to analyse viewing data across online video publishers in one place, according to Ipsos, enabling businesses to shape content and advertising strategies. Ipsos iris reports viewing across uniform demographics, and will provide YouTube measurement across more than 500 audience segments. “We are thrilled to bring YouTube’s rich data into Ipsos iris,” said James Oates, Head of Ipsos i ..read more

When Google first announced its intention to sunset third-party cookies, a lot of alternative identity providers rushed to position themselves as the one and only identifier needed to replace the cookie. Since then however, with no one solution having established itself at the top of the pile, most have started talking about themselves as one part of a portfolio approach. Not so with Utiq, the identity solution created by four of Europe’s biggest telcos: Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, and Telefónica. Utiq is currently rolling out across European markets, and is still in dev ..read more

RTL AdAlliance has been one of the most active European proponents on the sell-side of ‘total video’ – that is, thinking about video across all screens and devices as a whole, placing video into different silos. This, ultimately, is what sellers want says Sebastian Busse, Director of Partnership Development at RTL AdAlliance. The key is to make it as easy and simple as possible for buyers to access all video across digital devices from one source. And catering to the buy-side is an evolving process, says Busse. They want to be able to buy multiple broadcasters’ inventory from one source, spark ..read more

In this week’s Week in Review: Netflix reports on ad growth, Sony mulls a bid for Paramount, and Axel Springer’s CEO explains why he no longer fears Google: it’s already won. Top Stories Netflix’s Ad Tier Grew by Two Thirds in Q1, but Scale Remains an Issue Netflix said its ad membership grew by 65 percent quarter-on-quarter in Q1 this year, following two quarters of similarly high growth, as it continues to scale its ad offering. And 40 percent of new subscribers signed up for the ad-supported tier, in markets where that tier is available. Netflix didn’t give a specific number for how many us ..read more