AdTech News Round-up

FTC pause on Microsoft-Activision deal rejected

Microsoft’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard received a boost yesterday (11th July) after a US judge dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) attempt to block the deal. Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley concluded that the FTC had not provided sufficient evidence to suggest that the purchase would undermine competition in the video game industry to the detriment of consumers.?

Judge Scott Corley denied the regulator’s request for a preliminary injunction, which would have put the deal on hold to allow the FTC to challenge it in court. The decision is a major knock back for the FTC, which has sought to crack down on alleged anticompetitive behaviour among large tech and communications companies.

Twitter traffic sinks in wake of changes and launch of rival platform Threads

Twitter’s website traffic is “tanking” according to the chief of internet services company Cloudflare, amid signs users are migrating to alternative platforms such as Threads, BlueSky and Mastodon.

On Sunday, Matthew Prince posted a graph from Cloudflare’s ranking of the most popular websites in the world showing Twitter has been in decline since the start of 2023, not long after Elon Musk took over the platform.

The graph shows a significant drop in Cloudflare’s domain server ranking for Twitter in mid-2023 coincided with unpopular changes Musk made to the site, and the launch of the Meta-owned rival platform Threads.

It’s Time for Interoperable Data Clean Rooms

The IAB Tech Lab released a private audience activation specification named “Open Private Join & Activation (OPJA)” alongside the “Data Clean Rooms (DCR) Guidance” for public comments in February 2023. Since then, we have seen immense interest and received some great feedback from the industry.?

Key concepts outlined in the guide include:

• Glossary of commonly used terms
• The core features of a DCR
• Advertising use cases
• Capabilities and limitations
• Techniques used to guarantee privacy

Check out our blog post: What Is a Data Clean Room and How Does It Work?

A New Kind Of Series

Netflix just upped the ante to woo advertisers with more interesting ad formats and products.

The streamer is in talks with buyers about “episodic” campaigns that would allow them to create miniseries-type ads using multiple sequential and related spots, rather than showing the same commercial every break. Buyers can also filter ads to avoid certain titles or types of violent content.

How brands are leveraging RMNs’ in-store capabilities to engage shoppers

As brands and agencies continue investing in retail media networks, teams are increasingly turning to RMN-driven in-store ads to influence customers’ purchase behavior and drive sales.

According to a recent study, in-store retail media offers access to audiences an average of 70% larger than digital audiences. These in-store ads connect brands with engaged consumers and influence shoppers while they are actively making purchase decisions.

“Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen increased trends that are linking the digital experience and in-store shopping closer together, such as buy-online-pickup-in-store,” said Romney Allen, senior product owner, onsite advertising at Best Buy Ads. “Ads within a store environment connect those brands directly to the customer while they shop.”

Check out our blog post: What Is Retail Media & Retail Media Networks (RMNs)?

Coca-Cola believes in music in ads so much it is growing its own studio to record original songs

Typically, marketers get into music culture by working with a musician to either license a song or feature that musician in a campaign. That’s evolved in recent years, as marketers want their brands to have watercooler moments and become part of culture rather than the annoying buzz around it. Coca-Cola is looking to take it a step further.

With Coke Studio, its music platform, the beverage behemoth wants to move beyond just working with artists for advertising by creating original songs from various artists with a range of backgrounds. In recent weeks, Coke Studio rolled out the first of roughly 25 songs to be released this year through September as part of the effort. In all, 19 different artists will work on collaborations to create the songs released this year.

MediaMath To File For Bankruptcy After Acquisition Talks Fall Apart

The house Joe Zawadzki built will be foreclosed.

AdExchanger has learned that the demand-side platform, which raised $600 million since 2007 and had a peak valuation of more than $1 billion, will file for bankruptcy.

Emails went out to MediaMath staffers and partners on Friday morning to say the company will shut down operations in the coming months. Access to MediaMath’s platform will no longer be available as of June 30.

Viant and MGI-owned Verve Group were recently each in a process to acquire MediaMath, but potential deals foundered in both cases. MGI was in discussions as recently as this week.

Despite its storied history – MediaMath is known for having launched one of the the first-ever DSPs – the company has been plagued by financial issues.