Fried Bids, Digital News - 11-18 Jun 2024
This is my personal selection of the most interesting stories published from 11-18 Jun 2024. Let me know what you think in the comments. If you want to receive the 50+ news full newsletter, please reach me through Direct Message.
At the Cannes Lions conference in 2024, Meta unveiled a suite of new features and updates designed to enhance its advertising and messaging capabilities through the power of artificial intelligence. The integration of AI into Meta's advertising products has delivered impressive returns for advertisers, with every dollar spent on Meta's advertising platforms yielding $3.71 for US advertisers and €3.79 for European advertisers in 2024, a 12% increase. Meta also announced new functionalities that allow businesses to use AI to send targeted messages to subscribers and automate responses, particularly through Messenger. Additionally, Meta discussed the deployment of generative AI tools for creating diverse ad content, which have shown impressive results in improving cost-effectiveness and purchase volume for brands.
TikTok launched a new Instagram-like photo-sharing app called Whee, which is currently available in more than a dozen countries, though not in the US. The app is explicitly positioned as a platform for sharing photos only with one's closest friends, allowing users to be their "most authentic self." Whee features a photo viewfinder, a list of friends to message, and a feed, similar to Instagram's functionalities. This move by TikTok appears to be another attempt to copy features from Instagram, as the company had previously launched the TikTok Notes app, which also drew inspiration from Instagram's image-sharing capabilities.
Amazon unveiled a new ad-targeting solution called Ad Relevance at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. This cookieless solution leverages AI to analyze billions of browsing, purchasing, and streaming data points from across Amazon's properties, allowing it to match consumer insights to real-time content consumption. Amazon claims Ad Relevance can improve addressability for previously anonymous impressions by up to 65% and lower CPMs by 34%, while also delivering 100% budget efficiency. The announcement comes as Amazon continues to see strong growth in its advertising business, which generated $11.82 billion in revenue in Q1 2024, a 24% increase year-over-year.
According to a report by DoubleVerify, ad fraud schemes using generative AI are expected to increase in scale and sophistication. The report found that generative AI contributed to a 23% growth in new fraud schemes in 2023, leading to a 58% increase in ad fraud on streaming platforms. Generative AI has made it easier for fraudsters to falsify data patterns, create new shell company websites, publish apps, and write fake reviews, especially in the mobile app space. Two specific scams uncovered by DoubleVerify are CycloneBot, which uses AI to create longer viewing sessions and increase traffic on fake CTV devices, and FM Scam, which targets streaming audio and uses AI to generate fake audio traffic.
Meredith Whittaker, the president of the Signal Foundation, has warned EU lawmakers against the proposed EU legislation to scan private messaging apps for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Whittaker argues that implementing such scanning technologies would fundamentally undermine end-to-end encryption, creating a vulnerability that could be exploited by hackers and hostile nations. She contends that the Council's proposal, which would require users to consent to scanning or lose certain messaging features, is a rhetorical attempt to rebrand client-side scanning, a controversial technique that experts say is incompatible with strong encryption.
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Apple is replacing its existing ad attribution frameworks SKAdNetwork and Private Click Measurement with a new "AdAttributionKit" framework. The new framework will maintain the core functionalities of the previous systems, including privacy-preserving app ad attribution and web-based attribution. However, it will introduce long-awaited support for reengagement campaigns, allowing advertisers to track when users open their app after downloading and measure the return on ad spend. The rebranding likely aims to simplify the confusing terminology of the previous frameworks and potentially signals Apple's intention to take a more active role in ad measurement, despite concerns that SKAdNetwork has been an ineffective tool.
Meta has agreed to pause its plans to train AI models on EU users' Facebook and Instagram posts, following complaints to data protection agencies in 11 European countries. While Meta expressed disappointment, stating that this will "delay bringing the benefits of AI to people in Europe," the DPC welcomed the decision and said it will continue to engage with Meta on the issue. Privacy advocates have cheered this move, though some caution that there is no official change to Meta's privacy policy yet. The decision comes as Meta aimed to use Europeans' public social media content to train its AI models, offering an opt-out option for EU users, a safeguard not extended to the rest of the world.
At its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 2024, Apple unveiled a new generative AI offering called Apple Intelligence, which is described as a personal intelligence system for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Apple also announced a partnership with OpenAI to integrate the latter's ChatGPT technology into various Apple experiences, including Siri and Apple's new Writing Tools. Apple Intelligence aims to simplify everyday tasks by leveraging generative AI models combined with personal context, while prioritizing privacy through on-device processing and a new Private Cloud Compute solution. The integration of ChatGPT into Apple's ecosystem will allow users to access the language model's within Apple's own apps and services, with privacy protections in place.
The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and trade organization Ad Net Zero have collaborated to develop the Global Media Sustainability Framework, the first industry-wide effort to establish consistent standards for measuring carbon emissions across the media supply chain, including TV, digital, and out-of-home advertising. The framework aims to provide a common methodology for brands, agencies, publishers, and vendors to track emissions, enabling more sustainable media buying decisions. It separates publishers' carbon footprints from brands', holding each party accountable for their respective emissions.
Oracle has decided to exit the advertising business, which had declined to around $300 million in revenue in fiscal year 2024. Changes in the advertising industry, including regulations like GDPR and the growing power of walled gardens like Meta, made it increasingly difficult for Oracle to leverage the data its tools collected. Factors such as lawsuit settlements and the constantly shifting digital advertising landscape ultimately led Oracle to focus on its core business in cloud computing and artificial intelligence. The end of Oracle's advertising business leaves a gap in the market, and the company's adtech technology could potentially be sold off to competitors in the adtech space.
According to the IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark Report 2023, the European digital advertising market experienced exceptional growth of 11.1% in 2023, reaching a record high of €96.9bn (￡81.7bn). Digital advertising in Europe has shown resilience, outpacing the growth rate of the US market, led by central and eastern European countries like Turkey. Key drivers of this growth include the rebound of social ad spending, the continued rise of video advertising, and the increasing contribution of emerging formats like audio and connected TV (CTV). While programmatic growth is maturing, the report highlights the expanding opportunities in the digital advertising landscape, as businesses integrate advertising more strategically into their overall marketing efforts.