Edition #380
Ghost writing VC tweets, CTV and WhatsApps ad in Piccadilly..
One big thing
Mike Shields pokes the box this week - questioning, is CTV big enough? As in most of streaming isn’t ad supported. And that that is, will be eaten up by Disney, Netflix and YouTube. Which is the opposite of how it was with mobile. For years it was going to be the year of mobile, and mobile attention outpaced advertising allocation. Mary Meeker would do her presentation, and yes we were still under. But now we seem to have the opposite.
Whether that is a reality, is hard to know, because measurement of the space is challenged. We also saw Bloomberg this week pull out of open web programmatic. So CTV appears to not be growing and not rushing to programmatic, unlike previous iterations of web advertising. What does this mean? There’s probably going to be a crunch in the space.
The analogy I give, it’s almost like the businesses that pop up surrounding a mall. Not technically part of the mall but benefit from all the traffic to and from the mall. That’s where a lot of these players are aiming, hey you’ve made the decision to buy direct from CTV, why not do some extension over here. And no its not for everyone but it will be enough to sustain some business. IF the measurement challenges can be solved.
The other thing I liked is this BI piece about superstar VC tweets, people freelancing and making good income working with VCs to write witty tweets, I mean why not. This person, writes the tweets, sends via Trelo, and the executive assistants will post them. If it’s a banger, it stays up, if not it gets deleted. The point is that, being relevant on Twitter is worth enough to these VCs to do just this. And I’m sure as a creative, its a fantastic brief.
Notable stories this week
Nick Wignall made $3.9k from his Medium posts in the last month.
I made $200k last year ghostwriting tweets for Superstar VCs.
YouTube launches data stories in its analytics. Very neat.
Twitter launches updated Professional Account analytics tab.
Netflix signs up to ratings body Barb in the UK and announces two ad verification partners.
Financial Times profit up after ‘strong rebound’ from covid-19. Digital revenue up 8% YOY.
Newsletters don’t stay newsletters.
^ Good point.
CMOS are on their toes and not conducting ‘business as usual’ as data privacy regulators get more assertive.
Former Google ads boss launches Web3 search startup.
DeliveryHero launches new own ad network.
Bloomberg Media is shutting of its open-market programmatic advertising.
Are we sure that ad-supported streaming is really that big?
Google will support your first party audiences. Continue reading
Ben Young
October 14, 2022
