COLOGNE -- It is the leading unlimited-digital music subscription service, but Spotify is no longer an audio-only provider. In fact, Spotify introduced video advertising back in 2014. But, as it gears up to go public, the company is turning up the volume on an ad offering, video, that can likely command higher premiums than audio. "We’ve been an audio platform for the [...]

COLOGNE -- It is a latter-day addition for the ad-tech firm which helps create marketplaces and leverage data, but The Trade Desk is now full-swing focused on profiting from the over-the-top TV advertising opportunity. Speaking with Beet.TV in this video interview, The Trade Desk inventory partnerships SVP Tim Sims explained the company's thinking. "One of the big growth areas we’re looking at in [...]

COLOGNE – In the arms race that is automated or programmatic TV, there’s much realignment occurring among tech players. They know if they’re too slow on the drawing board an Amazon or Facebook or Google will swoop in and beat them to the launch pad. This is not lost on marketing analytics provider DataXu, which has been in the programmatic space [...]

COLOGNE -- Over the last couple of years, both advertising buyers and sellers alike have cried foul over alleged nefarious practices, high margins and unseen misdeeds on the part of intermediaries. A host of initiatives has risen to combat the lack of transparency, some of them from vendors and agencies themselves accused of hiding ad spending strategies. But IAB UK chief digital [...]

COLOGNE -- Mondelēz International has previously described it as one of the fastest-growing revenue generators for brands - so why are clients scrapping internally over the ecommerce opportunity? In this video interview with Beet.TV, WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell says that ecommerce, with which brands now have the ability to sell directly to customers and not just through wholesalers, sees two factions [...]

COLOGNE -- Over-the-top (OTT) Internet delivery looks like becoming the Trojan Horse for an expansion of Sky's pay-TV business in what is emerging as a post-satellite future beyond its traditional UK. This summer, Sky, the UK's leading pay-TV company and combined telco and channel provider, announced it will launch in Spain. But, unlike its core offering back home in the UK, Sky's Spanish [...]

COLOGNE – With the proliferation of video platforms and devices has come a persistent call for a common method of viewer measurement. One simple statistic shows why: NBC hit “This Is Us” is watched evenly on linear networks and digital platforms. “What we’re seeing in terms of the impact of that on viewership is really quite stunning,” Krishan Bhatia, EVP, Business [...]

COLOGNE -- At last year's DMEXCO, WPP Sir Martin Sorrell promised he would finally join Twitter - if CEO Jack Dorsey showed up at the next event. Well, at this week's 2017 occurrence of the digital ad gathering in Germany, the pair graced the stage together, and Sorrell joined the social network live in front of an audience. But that doesn't mean [...]

COLOGNE – There’s a school of thought that says most online retailers cannot compete with the likes of Amazon and Alibaba. The folks at Criteo don’t think so, which is why they have architected “a kind of alternative universe” in which ecommerce companies not only survive but thrive. Despite “doom and gloom” sentiments about competing with online giants, “At Criteo we [...]

COLOGNE – It’s taken a few years, but NBCUniversal is seeing audience buying becoming a mainstream choice for more advertisers across product and service categories. This comes three years after the media company began offering its Audience Targeting Platform during the Upfront negotiating period and after the second Upfront with its Audience Studio suite of data offerings. “One of the things we [...]

COLOGNE – While the present may seem like the heyday of skinny bundles, things are just getting started. Take Hulu’s recent partnering with Spotify for college students and the pairing of Netflix and T-Mobile. “We talk about bundling products and we talk about bundling video products together, but I think what’s interesting is the opportunity to bundle more than just video [...]

COLOGNE -- When it comes to new revenue, the digital advertising world now looks increasingly like Google's and Facebook's. But there is now a groundswell movement in which publishers want to regain control of their ad-tech stack and, with it, the rules of the road. At the DMEXCO digital ad industry gathering in Germany, The Guardian's programmatic head said his newspaper wanted [...]

They have traditionally been regarded as distinct channels for advertiser strategy, but the worlds of social media and TV are now coming closer together. 4C Insights, whose product suite already let advertisers buy ads on social media in sync with TV play-outs, has partnered with Mediaocean, the software platform for media buyers, to enable the integration. In this video interview with Beet.TV, [...]

COLOGNE -- To US media companies, the European market can often seem like, on the one hand, a fragmented morass of patchwork negotiations and, on the other, an overbearing harbinger of heavy-handed central legislation. Both of those things may be true - and both are going to drive digital advertising business over the next year, perhaps more so than in any [...]

COLOGNE -- Finding shoppers these days can be hard. But the world's number-two search engine wants to help advertisers better understand buyers, nonetheless. "We have a large platform we refer to as Bing Shopping Campaigns," says Steve Sirich, general manager for Bing Ads Marketing, in this video interview with Beet.TV. "It's an opportunity for retail advertisers to really go after consumers that [...]

COLOGNE -- Amazon's footprint is becoming ubiquitous, it scale seemingly unassailable and its data-driven consumer intelligence advantage gargantuan. But, for other online retailers, all is not lost, according to one marketing industry expert. LUMA Partners CEO Terence Kawaja says ad-tech firm Criteo's acquisition of HookLogic last year offers hope that the long tail of rival retailers can compete on reaching audiences intelligently. "That [...]

COLOGNE -- If the fabled "year of mobile" has finally arrived, what about "the year of video"? Harry Kargman thinks that will be 2018, when deals the mobile ad company he founded has with two big partners kick in to high gear. Kargo, of which Kargman is CEO, earlier this year announced a deal with NBC to create "the world's largest premium [...]

COLOGNE – Could it be that Facebook finally considers itself to be a content company? The social media giant’s pledge at DMEXCO 2017 to institute new measures ensuring better brand safety for advertisers is a welcome example of a leadership position on the issue, according to MediaLink Vice Chairman Wenda Harris Millard. “Facebook is a platform company. It didn’t really think [...]

COLOGNE –Tens of thousands of attendees, one million square feet of floor space inhabited by 1,100 exhibitors and 18 different conference stages. Navigating DMEXCO 2017 efficiently in just two days can be a real challenge. “We’ve reached a level where we always wanted to be from the beginning on,” says Christian Muche, Co-Founder of the global digital marketing exposition. “I think [...]

COLOGNE – After more than a year and innumerable reports and headlines, WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell still doesn’t understand the genesis of widespread commentary about agency-client transparency in the United States. He says those who are worried about transparency should take a look at the Middle East, Japan and China. “It’s unfortunate what has happened. What happened with the ANA [...]