Digiday Sunday
A busy week across beats again this week, especially on the platform front, as stories looking at major functional issues with advertising at Meta and the future advertising potential for its Threads performed particularly well. A piece on?publishers testing a new TikTok feature that adds links to organic videos clicked with readers as did a WTF explainer piece breaking down the?American Privacy Rights Act?and its implications for the advertising industry. We were also excited to publish the first piece by our new senior marketing reporter Sam Bradley , who took a look at how the NBA has turned to short-form production in an attempt to make each player a Caitlin Clark like influencer. – James Cooper
?Story highlights
Krystal Scanlon took the temperature of advertisers who have been frustrated and stymied by an infestation of bugs in Meta’s advertising ecosystem and the platform's lack of communication around addressing the problem. As she wrote in her lead, ‘During a recent Meta Day in Slovenia, an ad exec had their suspicions confirmed. After years of using Meta for client advertising, they were fed up with its frequent bugs and lack of proper compensation for ad overspending. The apathy was palpable at the event, where they and others expressed their frustrations to Robert Bednarski, Meta’s country director of CEE. His response? “Adopt Meta or die,” leaving them dumbfounded and with no recourse.'
?—Krystal?also had a well-read scoop on Threads’ early plan to introduce advertising to the Meta-owned platform, which?recently told ad execs that they will be able to buy ads on its X-rival, text-based platform as early as the second half of this year.?As she reported, ‘It would be?Meta’s latest bit of ad real estate just over a year after?the launch?of Threads. Though details on how these ads will be integrated remain unclear. Meta’s discussions have largely centered on the rollout timeline rather than the detailed logistics of the ad placements, according to Digiday’s interviews with four advertising executives.’
? Sara Guaglione reported out an interesting story on how?publishers have started to test a new TikTok feature that adds links to organic videos. The piece was based on interviews and conversations at the?Digiday Publishing Summit in Vail, Colorado, last month.?As she reported, ‘The test seemingly comes at an opportune time, given the decline in social referral traffic from platforms like Facebook and X, and the?challenge of getting users from popular platforms?like Instagram and TikTok to publishers’ sites. However, it remains to be seen how much traffic TikTok can actually drive for publishers.’
Seb Joseph ?pulled together an interesting WTF explainer analysis of the proposed American Privacy Rights Act (APRA). As he reported, the Act ‘would shake things up in advertising by forcing companies to scale down the amount of data they collect on people while also empowering them to manage, correct, and even export their own data. That control would also give them the power to say “no” to targeted ads and the transfer of their own data – [and] just as the?GDPR did across the pond,?APRA would step in to supersede state privacy laws, with a few exceptions like civil rights and consumer protection.’
Sam Bradley ?took a look at a new production initiative at the NBA to support and build its players’ social/influences profile with short-form video and enhanced imagery via an equity stake in Greenfly, a cloud-based workflow software company that collates and distributes sports photography and video footage.?As he reported, ‘Changing rules?governing the use of NIL?rights (name, image and likeness) triggered by a 2021 Supreme Court decision mean that college athletes are now able to earn more from their appearances on and off the court. This week, the National Collegiate Athletic Association altered its policies to allow student athletes to negotiate brand deals. The NBA’s strategy leans into that shift and hopes that more high profile ballplayers will mean a higher profile for the game itself.’
Kayleigh Barber ’s edition of the Digiday weekly podcast featured an interview with Emma Rosenblum, chief content officer at BDG, who discussed why 25-year-old fashion, entertainment and culture publication Nylon, which went digital-only in 2017, is reviving a print magazine this year — albeit biannually.?As she wrote in her intro to the interview, so far, the advertiser reception has been better than expected, with the premier issue featuring several ad pages.?Give a?listen here
See you next Sunday!