Mondelez invests heavily in digital video, signs major deal with Google
Snack food giant Mondelez is following up on its promise to spend half of its marketing budget on digital by 2016, with a new plan to shift 10% of its ad budget to online video this year. To underline that commitment, it has signed a global agreement with Google to spend millions on online video, which Mondelez said is its biggest media deal ever. The new investment in online video adds to a commitment in 2012 to put 10% of spend into mobile. Last year Mondelez spent 25% of its spend on digital. Read more at Ad Week.
New fraud squad spans three major trade orgs
The Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Association of National Advertisers and the American Association of Advertising Agencies have banded together once again, this time to put the brakes on rampant fraud in digital advertising. The three associations announced at Ad Week that they’ll form a new organization tasked with developing mandatory guidelines for technology companies across the digital supply chain, as well as monitoring and enforcing those policies. The new organization will be operational by the end of the year and policing the industry by early 2015. The same three organizations joined forces to back the Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative to develop viewability guidelines, and also on the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) to help the industry self-regulate consumer privacy. Though there’s no name for the new anti-fraud group yet, we’re hoping for “Fraudbusters.” (Who you gonna call?) The Wall Street Journal reports.
Yahoo reinvests chunk of Alibaba windfall into Snapchat
Despite Snapchat’s scandalous refusal to make a big money exit – most notably from Facebook – investors still think it plans to sell or IPO eventually. Yahoo is the latest company rumoured to be in investment talks with Snapchat. Flush with cash from Alibaba’s recent IPO, Yahoo is reportedly planning to put $20M towards another investment round with everyone’s favourite self-destructing instant mobile messaging app. Does that mean Snapchat is getting closer to a monetization strategy? All these social networks must know something we don’t. Read more at The Wall Street Journal.
Google wraps GDN data in red tape
Ensuring that its data protection policies are followed to the letter, Google Display Network has restricted third-party data management providers (DMPs) from running tracking pixels on ads they’re not paying for and serving themselves. That means specialized DMPs like Krux and eXelate — which act as a third-party surface layer for collecting data, and don’t actually do any ad buying — are out of luck. So if you’re a marketer using one of those platforms to try and get a high-level overview of your entire online campaign, you won’t be able to include ads bought through GDN. (Though DoubleClick Ad Exchange is still on the table, for now.) Adweek reports.
Havas launches ‘Meta DSP’ for juggling multiple providers
Havas’s global trading desk, Affiperf, has developed a technology layer that integrates with multiple third-party demand-side platforms, enabling traders to use different tools for different clients and campaigns. Though Havas is calling it the world’s first “meta-DSP,” it sounds a lot like The Exchange Lab’s Proteus platform launched last month. In fact lots of trading desks have built proprietary technology that help keep track of all DSPs, but not all of them are created equal — and trading desks that don’t will probably get left behind. Read more at Media Post.
Big deals
Acquisitions and partnerships shaping the industry
- Hearst offers programmatic direct ads through MDC’s Varick
- Yahoo buys mobile messenger MessageMe
- DSP Quantcast buys personalization tech startup Struq
- eBay to spin off PayPal
Around the web
Must-read features and opinion fresh this week
- A brief history of audience targeting (Media Post)
Still at Ad Week, analyst Brian Wieser put the practice of audience targeting in a historical context — dating back to the 1920s - How much of your data would you trade for a free cookie? (Pro Publica)
To better understand how well consumers protect their data, investigative journalism group Pro Publica asked people on the street for personal information, in return for — you guessed it — free cookies. People were surprisingly comfortable giving up their name, address, even parts of their social security numbers for a yummy snack.
