Media Monday

YouTube Brings Unskippable 30-Second Commercials to Your TV

By Kevin Zhu , Senior Media Buyer

Many TV companies are now shifting to streaming and are competing for TV dollars for Youtube. Youtube announced that it is bringing 30-second commercials that can’t be skipped to YouTube Select on connected TV.

The longer formats give views the ability for better storytelling and let them know what to expect on the big screen. In addition, Youtube is introducing CTV pause ads capability. Some quotes from CEO Neal Mohan addressed the big changes in the media landscape.

“Generative AI is at an inflection point. Our teams are already using AI to get ads in front of the right audiences, to improve measurement, or to flip a creative to reach viewers wherever they’re watching, from Shorts to the living room. But this is really just the beginning - simply put, AI will transform the way we make videos”.

“The fact is, millions of football fans are on YouTube to catch all things NFL,” said Goodell. “NFL Sunday Ticket is only the beginning. As part of this partnership, YouTube creators are getting first-of-its-kind access to the NFL: our games, our Clubs, our athletes, and the fans who love them, so that the NFL can reach fans in more ways than ever.

Youtube plans to create more streams and even more original programming such as game day all access, Read more here.

Meta Rolls Out Tracking and Location-Targeting Updates

By Rachel Couchara , Media Group Director

It looks like our partners at Meta are doing a bit of spring cleaning!? The parent company for Facebook and Instagram recently updated two major factors in our paid social campaigns: location-based targeting and tracking requirements.

Starting with a quietly rolled out targeting update: Meta’s default location targeting is now using the setting, Living in or recently in this location.? Previously advertisers had 3 additional options: People living in this location, People recently in this location and People traveling in this location.? The traveling option was particularly useful to reach prospective Broadway ticket buyers currently in NYC who do not live here.?

From a tracking perspective, Meta has started to simplify their approach to addressing ever-changing user privacy updates.? Following the iOS 14 updates back in 2021, in an effort to track as much conversion data as possible from ads served across Facebook and Instagram, Meta required advertisers to verify their domain which involved web development updates to your website.? Once verified advertisers could set up 8 conversion events, such as specific landing page views, ticket sales, etc. and were required to prioritize these events in order of importance.? Limiting 8 conversion events can get tricky for advertisers like an arts institution or a presenting house that needs to track individual sales for individual productions and hits their limit of conversion events.? Moving forward, most advertisers will not be required to verify their domains and will no longer need to prioritize conversion events.? This update is also quietly rolling out across advertiser accounts and is tentatively scheduled to be complete by the end of May.