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Edition #474
Perplexity ads in the wild, things that make you go MMM and deals galore.
The second to last edition of the year! There will be a final note next week, with my schedule a bit jammed these last few weeks. Feels like a world of events have happened since the last note, which was just two weeks ago.
I was fortunate enough to spend Thanksgiving upstate, awaking to a day of snow, so naturally we made a snow man, went sledding and soaked it all up. I even graced the table on Friday with two kiwi favorites, a Mince and Cheese Pie and a Pavlova. For those in the know, 100% a kiwi invention (not Australian!).
Separately I continue to be blown away by the pace of change in AI tools, it feels like the only mode to be in, is to lean into it, keep learning, and see where it lands. I find myself in a mode of zooming in, then zooming out, then zooming in again.
This week there’s lot of deals of note, I’d suspect this will continue for the next while.
I’ve been doing some work on MMM’s recently, helping brands with attribution without cookies. They present wonderful opportunities for zero click based marketers to help unpack how their activity drives business results.
We believe this is the future of analytics, first party analytics and models. With models currently being the rapidly expanding and changing part of the market.
Notable stories this week
- OpenAI explores advertising as it steps up revenue drive.
- ^ Also from me, I saw Perplexity ads in the wild.
- Can you stop a teen from using TikTok? Australia is about to find out.
- Ad buyers double down on Walmart’s retail media business as it steps out of Amazon’s shadow.
- Will BuzzFeed solve its $124m problem?
- Threads is testing individual post analytics.
- Yes, that viral LinkedIn post you read was probably AI-generated.
- The Attention Economy.
- Perplexity adds The Independent, LA Times, Blavity, and others to tis publisher revenue-sharing program.
- NYMag is launching an app and the Verge is rolling out a $7/month paywall.
- Ad Product GPT, from Sovrn President.
- Jeff Bezos live at DealBook Summit.
- Complex revives print magazine.
- Gravy Analytics illegally tracked locations of a billion devices FTC says.
- Amazon eyes news partners for revamping AI Alex voice assistant.
- The Guardian US is following programmatic budgets to private marketplaces.
- OpenWeb’s ousted CEO who refused to quit speaks exclusively with BI about his battle with the board.
- 3 reasons why Pmax ads show up in shoddy places.
- Is the article doomed as video and AI rise?
- Audiobooks are booming, thanks to streaming subscriptions.
- [Smart take] Brian Morrissey on Incentives.
- [Long read] Can the legal system protect the vibe of a creator?
Deals/M&A
- Mediaocean gets investments from Interpublic, Omnicom & WPP.
- Experian acquires Audigent, well done to the team over there.
- Parse.ly founders secure $6.4m for new AI startup.
- Interpublic Group buys retail analytics company Intelligence Node in deal valued at nearly $100m.
- Onchain native advertising platform Slise to be acquired by W3M Ventures.
- Cinema ad firms – consolidate their programmatic offerings.
- Swedish startup Big Audience Machine secures 350k for on-brand content.
- Walmart completes $2.3b acquisition of Vizio.
- Fifth season partners Sugar23 to co-finance $100m of content via branded studio JV.
Campaign of the week
- Sainsbury’s BIG Christmas.
View all 2024 best campaigns.
Smartest commentary
- “You can set up an AI, and it will optimize everything. Theoretically, it will optimize everything perfectly; we can all go and chill and everything’s great. But where it really becomes limiting is if you want to expand beyond what you’re already doing. If you want to start testing into new environments, new technologies and mediums, then you really do need to understand the strategy: Who was I accessing, how was I accessing them, what resonated well with them? So that I can go and do something different with those learnings.” -Anonymous, Digiday.
Datapoints of note
- Testers found that the Attribution Reporting API reported 85% of the same unique converters as third-party cookies and an additional 3.7% that third-party cookies did not capture.
- 80% of sponsored posts on Instagram last month weren’t disclosed as ads.
- Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade hits all time high for second straight year.
Events
- Watch this space!
View all 2024 datapoints of note.
That’s it for this week.
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