Digiday Sunday
—Digiday Constant and rapid change in the digital media and marketing realms is as unrelenting as it is exciting and fascinating to watch unfold. Editing Digiday’s reporting this week across our core beats, that constant movement was clearly underscored. Our most-read list of stories ranged from a look at how the Meta moderation pivot signals the myth of brand safety and how marketers are scrambling to understand how AI is redefining consumer search behaviors – and the very definition of what search advertising is – to how Google’s latest update leaves the departure of the third-party cookie as unscheduled as ever. We also wrote about how the TikTok?ban is reshaping creator recruitment and how agencies use social media for clients in general and the building metrics scrutiny in the retail media space. And we stepped back a bit to profile Jessica Chan, Perplexity’s head of publisher partnerships.?– James Cooper
Story highlights
Sam Bradley had the week’s most-read story with a Friday filing looking at how Meta’s moderation shift has likely pierced the myth of brand safety that rocketed readership. As he reported, ‘Advertisers have long told themselves that brand safety is something they control. But with Meta rolling back its content moderation rules — narrowing the gap between brands and whether chaos goes viral —?it’s clear that control was always a myth … Meta’s changes technically don’t touch paid ads. But organic content still dictates the broader tone of the platform — and what users engage with inevitably influences the ad ecosystem. Brand safety tools can only do so much when the overall environment becomes more volatile. And yet, what choice do marketers really have? Pulling spend rarely moves the needle, and staying put means accepting that brand safety is less about control — and more about calculated risk.’
Kimeko McCoy pulled together a sharp analysis that looked at the impact of AI-driven fragmentation in the search space as consumers' search habits shift and what that means for marketers’ search advertising investments. As she reported, ‘the search advertising landscape is poised to undergo a seismic shift this year, driven by the rise of AI-powered search platforms like Perplexity AI and search ads on social platforms like TikTok. And those are just the platforms with confirmed ad units …The way people search for things online is changing, shifting from keyword-based searches to more conversational queries, in large part due to generative AI. And with Google’s dominance being challenged in court (also in the trial over its ad tech), competitors may soon start circling, hoping to capture any spoils from the fallout.’
Antoinette S. continued her streak of well-read pieces on the dynamic creator economy. This week she reported that the TikTok ban (even considering its extension) is having an outsized influence over how creators are being recruited by brands as well as how they’re approaching social media marketing in general. As she reported, ‘While TikTok’s status in the U.S. still hangs in the balance, agencies are already shifting the way they recruit creators and develop strategies for their creator campaigns moving forward. Now even as?marketers warily resume their influencer marketing spending, agencies feel pressured to put more emphasis on creators’ multi-platform presence and flexibility in their advertiser contracts. It will no longer be enough for creators to have a million followers on any single platform.
Alexander Lee reported out (with some solid backup stats) a nice trend piece that looked at how LinkedIn is kinda quietly, but steadily, becoming a home for short-form video. As he reported, ‘LinkedIn’s publisher program, which includes over 500 publishers and journalists, is also intended to amplify video content on the platform. Through the program, LinkedIn provides audience demographic data to news publishers, shares monthly newsletters with information about new tools, and operates workshops to educate members about the platform’s features. Weekly video creation from program members has grown by 67 percent year-over-year.’
Sara Guaglione took a little extra time and published a very well-written profile of Jessica Chan who runs the publisher partner program at AI search darling Perplexity – for now as a one-woman show. As she wrote, ‘Her role involves managing publishers that are part of the program, getting new publishers to join and charting the evolution of the program, Chan said. Chan’s background sets her up well to do that kind of work at Perplexity. For instance, she already knows a lot of folks in the media industry, having helped build LinkedIn’s publisher programs for almost nine years, before heading to work at Meta in brand and developer partnerships for its messaging products at the end of 2021.’
Kimeko McCoy reported out a well-read piece on how Retail Media is drawing more measurement scrutiny than ever before as the sector continues its growth spurt as a marketing investment option. As she reported, ‘The pitch of RMNs was their first-party data and the potential to truly track sales. Marketers, however, are still looking for the retailers to make good on that promise. This year, expect more emphasis on measurement with advertisers prioritizing incrementality metrics as opposed to return on ad spend, or ROAS, which has traditionally been the gold standard to help marketers determine which campaigns and ads are working (and which aren’t).
Seb Joseph over on our programmatic publisher beat, reported that after struggling to do so for a long time, some publishers are beginning to wrest control of the programmatic destinies. As he reported, ‘For too long, publishers assumed they were powerless to fix programmatic’s deep flaws. Instead, they leaned on ad tech vendors to mend a broken system. But now that’s starting to change. A renewed sense of agency is taking hold, with more publishers realizing that even small, deliberate steps can yield meaningful results.’
Tim Peterson ’s edition of the Digiday Podcast featured a conversation with Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab, in the latest Digiday Podcast episode, which was recorded on the eve of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Springs, Calif., that concluded on Jan. 28.?Give a listen here
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“Quote” of the week
“This space is evolving rapidly, and the distinctions between models for our use cases are becoming increasingly subtle.”
– Nate Landau, chief product and technology officer at TheSkimm, on evaluating which large language models to use for different applications
Here are the Digiday + Briefings for the week
—FOTV Briefing: Streaming’s programmatic ad market prepares for ‘tsunami of supply’ from lives sports
See you next Sunday!