Bart Vickers

While I can’t speak to the legitimacy of the accusations herein, this is still a worrying situation for advertisers everywhere. Publications whose reputations are staked on their image of legitimate business are not what many may expect to be perpetrators of MFA Ad fraud. That being said, we can better understand ad fraud by looking at the incentive changes on the supply side of these AdTech deals. Ad fraud particularly harms multicultural publishers, as their reach and impact receive decreased impact when improperly assigned to Ad spaces. #AdFraud #AdTech #ProgramaticSupplyChain

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🎬 It's Pacing Like Barbie! 🎬 The numbers are in, and Inside Out 2 is a box office sensation. Brands looking to connect with their prospects, there's only one game in town, and that's the #BigScreen. Don't miss out on the next #Culturalzeitgeist! Get your brand in front of an engaged audience ready to be wowed. ✨ #SummerCinemaSurge #InsideOut2 #BoxOfficeHits #BigScreenMagic #PremiumVideo #GrowthAudience #AttentionMetrics #Attribution https://lnkd.in/eess6txy

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"This industry is like Peter Pan, refusing to grow up. What we need is: 1) fewer players, 2) higher volumes, 3) lower take rates, and 4) better quality. Luma doesn't hold back in the latest State of Digital presentation. Most of the industry will likely agree with points 3 and 4. The first two points may favor M&A but what about diversity and innovation from new entrants? Well worth a view in your coffee break as plenty of interesting stats and commentary on what's hot including commerce media and creator economy. Linear TV is more at risk than ever. Sport is keeping it afloat, but big tech with deep pockets is poised to snap up contracts. A bright spot is the democratisation that CTV offers through attracting new advertisers, especially SMEs, due to improved measurement, targeting and formats such as commerce media. With my DAIVID 🦩 hat on, I'm excited about the section on Creative Tech, especially tech that optimises effectiveness. This represents an "inflection point" with the potential to revolutionise the market through impactful outcomes. If you want to dive deeper into this, you know who to talk to! https://lnkd.in/eyShBx4T

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Reddit, Inc. went public earlier in March, and it's first earnings call CEO Steve Huffman attributed this growth to an increase in Reddit’s daily active user base due to a boost in search traffic from Google. I found this interesting because as a juxtaposition, many companies are crying foul over Google's Search Core Updates which are now pushing traffic to certain larger publisher sites. The main issue is a lack of transparency of what's changed and why in the eyes of many SEO consultants https://lnkd.in/gqVnjkAD Regardless, it's clear Reddit is a winner 🏆 of these changes. "Huffman said the bump in logged-out traffic came disproportionately from search. It was prompted not by the partnership with Google that Reddit announced in February, but by improvements the platform has made to its page loading speeds, which improves its Google Search rankings." While this maybe true, I think there will be conspiracy theorists out there who will be skeptical given that partnership agreement which allows among other things, Google to license Reddit's user-generated content for model training.

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✅🖥️ WSJ (5/11): “The TV industry has been struggling with how to measure audiences as the old ways of watching break down, with alternatives to longtime ratings provider Nielsen arguing they could better capture digital viewers. But the competition among measurement companies is quieter in 2024. Nielsen last year regained accreditation for its national TV measurements, which were suspended following disputes over their accuracy. That allowed competitors such as Comscore, VideoAmp, iSpot.tv and EDO an opening to push their services to the ad industry. Now the argument has returned to its familiar boundaries. Nielsen for its part has released a “big data” product combining human panel-based measurements with data from smart TVs and set-top boxes. The company previously said the big data product would be its sole measurement offering by September 2024, but a spokesman has said it would allow clients to use other methods past that date. The Video Advertising Bureau, a research and advocacy group of media companies and video advertising groups, last year called on Nielsen to fix what it saw as measurement defects in the new product. But it seems ready now, said Sean Cunningham, the group’s president and CEO.” ⬇️ #upfronts #crossscreen #newfronts #streamingtv https://lnkd.in/g2Q-bYtt

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Question without notice: is the media industry obsessed with outputs over outcomes? How many times have you seen a PCA almost entirely focused on impressions, CPM and CPV, and nothing about brand uplift or MROI? Are media agencies getting better at showing true value or are we still doing - and showing - the easy stuff?

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From my perspective, it seems as though adjusting media types does little to combat Ad fraud. Instead, what makes this problem so prevalent is the lack of accountability in the programmatic supply chain. Firms leaning into advertising without any sort of accountability measures are met with an impossible Catch-22 wherein spending more leads to less impact and spending less delivers the same. #AdTech #Innovation #AdFraud

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HAVE YOU CONSIDERED ROKU FOR MARKETING? With so many option it can be confusing about what is the best strategy. I can help you. If you would like to expand your brand while reaching your target audience, you need to advertise on Roku. Let’s talk. #marketing #ROKU #advertising #consultant

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A pragmatic approach that asks the industry to "reinforce the foundations of a digital advertising ecosystem that values authenticity and penalizes deceit." It's time to go back to the future and demand that advertising is placed alongside quality content.

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A busy morning in the podcast world as the IAB has released the 2023 podcast advertising study & iHeartMedia reported Q1 earnings. Let's dive in! First: IAB The headlines are simple: - Podcast ad revenue grew by 5% in '23, just shy of $2b (US). Yes, this is slower growth than we have seen previously (I can hear those misinformed headlines being typed as we speak!). If you look at the major players and their quarterly earnings over the last year, they all saw growth. So, what slowed down overall revenue? Simply, it was the middle & lower tier of podcasting. Brand dollars went to Spotify, iHeartMedia, SiriusXM, etc., increasing the delta between those platforms & the independent publisher. - But wait, there's more... Podcast revenue is projected to more than double its 2023 ad revenue growth rate in 2024 and is tracking to a total spend of $2.6b by 2026. So what does this mean? This means that podcasting remains very healthy and the best revenue growth opportunity in digital media for the foreseeable future. We're seeing increased revenue growth from all the big players, and those dollars do trickle down to the mid-tier, especially as they tap into existing marketplaces. All is good. https://lnkd.in/eCGxgnUs --- Now, onto iHeartMedia: Overall, the company made $799 million, down YoY by 1.5%. If you take out political revenue, they're down 2.5% (and the stock reflects that, down ≈31% today as of writing this... eesh). Their Digital Audio Group saw revenue of $239m, up 7%. Not bad! Thankfully, iHeart breaks out their podcast numbers, which were $91m, up 18%! If you remove podcast revenue, the digital group is only up 1%. So, like with SiriusXM, we see podcast revenue as the tide raising all boats. So what does that mean? It's the same story as SXM: a declining business focused on radio that is desperately trying to grow its digital initiatives to offset losses from its bread and butter. And podcasting is the only digital venture that is working—and it's working well! But will it work quickly enough? That's a tough one. Podcasting now makes up 11.3% of the overall revenue, which is tremendous growth but needs to be bigger to offset the rest. So, what happens? While the company tries to grow digitally as quickly as possible, it is also creating quite a valuable asset that could be attractive to an outside buyer. $400-500m/yr in revenue with an extensive podcast network, ad marketplace, and technology could be quite the bundle for larger companies that have yet to enter the podcast space... 👀 Never a dull moment! --- I'm the CEO and founder of DWNLOAD Media, a fund focused on acquiring majority stakes in podcast companies. With continued audience and revenue growth, podcasting continues to be the most under-valued medium, making it time to invest in audio. If you're interested in investing in the podcast space, DM me! #podcasts #audio #investing #podcasting #iheart #radio

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Most of the analysis on the trade-off to watch sports via streaming or on cable is flawed. The cost/benefit scenario always assumes that you need to subscribe to all the apps and that total cost would exceed traditional cable. So why bother? Who isn't already subscribed to a handful of these apps? The real tradeoff is between the $75+ you pay for cable, just to watch sports, and the incremental cost you may need pay for one or maybe two additional streaming subscriptions. And the extra $100 Sunday Ticket is going to cost you without a YTTV plan. I think that is how the math works for most consumers. It is fair to say that all of this is a giant nightmare for consumers to navigate. This tends to be the case when navigating transitions in media... https://lnkd.in/gYCxrbhn

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As digital #advertising continues to evolve, #Amazon is actively tempting publishers, offering enticing opportunities to tap into its vast ecosystem. This article shares the strategies Amazon is employing to woo publishers, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between the #e-commerce giant and content creators. Publishers, in turn, are teaming up with Amazon to unlock new opportunities and reach even more eyes, which creates a win-win scenario for both parties. #AmazonAds #DigitalAdvertising #PublishingPartnerships Digiday Ronan Shields Seb Joseph

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🛫 🇬🇧 🎤 Heading to London for The Podcast Show next week! Looking forward to seeing old and new colleagues in the space and exploring how Jun Group can help with your audio audience goals. Podcasting is projected to grow over 12% across 2024 and I can't wait to meet and learn from the best in the business! #Podcasting #AudienceGrowth #ThePodcastShow

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You remember this Spider-Man drawing meme from a few years back? https://lnkd.in/gXwXApdd You know, the one that shows the level of quality you get when you give an artist 10 minutes vs. 1 minute vs. 10 seconds? I remember when it started doing the rounds, a lot of creative types used it as an example of how much worse their work is when it's rushed vs. when they get enough time to truly ideate. What's funny is, this isn't even the best depiction of that. Imagine instead if you started by giving someone 10 seconds to draw a *brand new* superhero — one that doesn't already exist. My guess is the result would go something like "Uhhhmmmmm.... I dunnnoo.... (hastily scribbles rough silhouette with a cape)". Then give them 1 min and watch more detail get added. And then 10 and watch really rich character and story elements emerge. I see this a lot in organizations that put a premium on sprints and MVPs. It's one thing to put time constraints on refinement, evolution and optimization of an idea. It's another to rush the ideation itself. That's typically not a good recipe for innovation, since (as my example illustrates) when people are rushed, they tend to regurgitate/replicate the familiar. There is something to be said for putting some time constraints on ideation as a generative exercise. And when facilitated with a focus on lateral connections sparking new combinations, there is a way to hack novelty at pace. But often the main value is in getting all the obvious ideas out of the way, and getting the gears turning in the back of brains to let time do its work of mental marination. Then the real gems that team members can't stop thinking about can be prototyped/MVP'd/etc. Have you seen rapid ideation produce novel concepts (in product, comms, org design, etc.)? Or has it tended to churn out ideas that feel like replications/regurgitations, logical/linear progressions and slight incremental improvements on what already exists? #innovation #creativity #ideation #agile #mvp #prototyping #poc

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The IAB recently released their 2024 Gaming Report: Changing the Game: How Games Advertising Powers Performance: https://lnkd.in/gMcRQVJ4 Some key takeaways:  🤑 90% of marketers currently use game advertising, and investment is rising rapidly.  🎮 Game advertising has become an always on channel for many marketers, and is now recognized as a vital component of media budgets.  🎯 Nearly 90% of advertisers agree that game advertising positively impacts brand outcomes. 👩‍🔧 Marketers use games to reach engaged, receptive consumers, and games advertising enhances brand awareness by reaching unique and specific audiences who are immersed in gaming experiences.  🎬 Advertisers rate games advertising as second only to social media in its ability to deliver excellent purchase and conversion outcomes. Find the full report here

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For producers like myself, practice is essential. And then practicing more is important. You're doing a lot to produce a live stream. You are seamlessly managing the visual aspects of a live stream while engaging with the run-of-show document, monitoring the internal comms, and ensuring the stream is running smoothly. I was recently featured as a speaker for an event to talk about productivity tools. For once, I was IN FRONT of the screen. It was my turn to go LIVE, and then.... looped audio with an echo. Oops, there was an audio issue that was happening LIVE. I couldn't do much because I wasn't in charge of the live stream. We got it sorted out quickly. So, this is your reminder. Practice, practice, practice... AND have a backup plan too! #bepresent #production #livestreaming

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From Google SGE to Microsoft's integration with OpenAI, Generative AI is changing the #search game. Check out my, Andrew Miller, Francesco Maffei and CMI Media Group's latest POV on AI and Search:

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Programmatic Ads And The Death Of Cookies: What Marketers Need To Know >> https://ow.ly/6rBu50Rjir5

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