Digiday Sunday

Welcome to Digiday Sunday, a weekly round up of Digiday's most important - and well-read - stories of the week. The week’s coverage was led by strong pieces looking at how huge companies like Disney and Amazon are making increasingly bold sorties into the digital media and marketing arena. As we were the first to report, Disney will launch DRAX Direct, an initiative that will see it integrate directly with demand-side platforms. And Amazon sees an opportunity, with cookie deprecation underway, to become one of the largest platforms where marketers can precisely target and measure their advertising. Coverage of platforms was also strong with pieces looking at how LinkedIn is quietly, but steadily, becoming a recommendation engine for creators, and what Reddit’s IPO means for advertisers, both clicking with readers. Looking ahead, our Digiday Publishing Summit kicks off in Vail tomorrow! – James Cooper

Story highlights

Ronan Shields had the week’s most-read piece with an exclusive on Disney’s launch of ?Disney Real-Time Ad Exchange (DRAX) to create direct tie up with the industry’s largest DSPs. As he reported, ‘Google’s DV 360 and The Trade Desk are DRAX Direct’s launch partners, a development the entertainment giant is characterizing as a “landmark agreement.” This development will unify access to streaming inventory across Hulu and Disney+ for advertisers of all sizes and represents a notable footnote in the annals of supply path optimization.’

Krystal Scanlon took a look at how LinkedIn has become an increasingly important environment for content creators. As she reported, the ‘global pandemic accelerated the shift toward remote working and digital connections virtually overnight. With physical conferences and events canceled worldwide, professionals turned to LinkedIn and other social channels to stay relevant, build connections and innovate new ways to grow their audiences.?The more this happened, the further LinkedIn moved away from being a conventional professional network to becoming a content recommendation engine.’

? Seb Joseph pulled together a smart news analysis piece on the opportunity Amazon could capitalize on with the deprecation of the third party cookie underway. As he reported, ‘Once those cookies disappear, Amazon will stand as one of the few and largest platforms where marketers can precisely target and measure their advertising. It’s a compelling narrative for a media seller, especially one aiming to expand its ads business to boost its overall bottom line. And Amazon is not holding back in?exploring this opportunity.’?

—Seb also reported that ad execs are now finding themselves at an important inflection point with Google’s Privacy Sandbox program. As he reported, ‘During this crucial stretch, ad tech vendors are focused on the Protected Audiences API, the Topics API, and the Attribution Reporting API. Their attention will be particularly honed on getting a feel for how valuable these alternatives could be for publishers and advertisers.’

Tim Peterson ’s WTF video piece last week took a look at “Cheap reach” which, as he explains, refers to a subset of digital ad inventory that may be often overlooked — literally — and may be a necessary new taxonomy to prevent legitimate publishers from getting caught up in the?crackdown on made-for-advertising sites. Check out the video here

Kayleigh Barber ’s edition of the Digiday weekly podcast featured a chat with Geoff Schiller, Vox Media’s company’s recently appointed CRO in which he says he’s going all-in on a variety of in-person selling opportunities to generate ad deals for the publisher’s portfolio of digital and audio assets. Give a listen here

See you next Sunday!