Ghost Tweets

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.

• 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.

• Nielsen completes $16b sale to private equity consortium.

Campaign of the week

• WhatsApp’s new ad in Piccadilly Circus. As Matt says, watch to the end.

• ^ This is one, where I feel like it is a legitimate execution for brands to promote the online video, of their offline execution.
• The role of recycled metals on the road to decarbonization. Great example of thought leadership from Schnitzer.

View all 2022 best campaigns.

Smartest commentary

• “We’re 18 months from lots of B2B brand staffing teams of creators to build both their employers brands AND their own” –Jay Acunzo

Datapoints of note

• BeReal tops 53m installs but only 9% open app daily.
• Return on ad spend on Facebook down 37% since IOS 14.5 took effect.

That’s it for this week.