Mindshare and Scope3 Develop Emission Scorecard for Digital Campaign
Mindshare, a media services company affiliated with GroupM and WPP, and Scope3, a collaborative sustainability platform that reduces carbon emissions in media and advertising have developed a customized Emissions Scorecard. Clients will benefit from this tool’s ability to comprehend the carbon emissions of their digital media campaigns.
Insights on Carbon Emissions from Digital Media Activities
Mindshare’s clients will have access to real-time carbon emissions data for the first time on their digital media activities at the macro (business category, brand, country, and publisher) and micro (creative format, media type, and ad environment) levels. The Mindshare and Scope3 teams have been working together for the past year and a half to refine the way emissions are measured and develop a cutting-edge emissions reporting tool for brands.
Mindshare Emissions Dashboard
The Mindshare Emissions Dashboard was created with Scope3 to report emissions of digital media activity. This is in accordance with GroupM’s carbon decarbonization methodology. Marketers can thus balance the demands of greener media with those of successful business outcomes.
Read More: GroupM Bolsters Media Decarbonization with SeenThis Partnership
Sustainable Approach
The Mindshare “Report, Reduce, Remove Initiative” included the creation of the Emissions Dashboard. This sustainable step-by-step approach aims to maximize investment in greener choices throughout the media supply chain. Furthermore, it looks to minimize disruption to business requirements. Mindshare is the only organization in the sector dedicated to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Therefore, as an agency, it must implement its reduction efforts without sacrificing effectiveness.
Carbon emissions from different media sources
A combined 7.2 million metric tons of emissions are produced annually by digital, display, and streaming advertisements, according to Scope3’s Q2 2023 State of Sustainable Advertising report. When broken down by channel, streaming contributes 3.4 million metric tons and display advertising makes up more than half (3.8 million metric tons) of the total amount worldwide.
Here’s what they said
Dhruv Menon, Director at Mindshare said,
By giving marketers a 360-degree view of the carbon impact of their digital media activity, the dashboard enables change-making conversations and discussions with advertising and publisher partners. More importantly, it will also empower media practitioners to make sustainable media buying choices with a goal of eventually reducing 50% of all digital emissions by 2030.
June Cheung, Head of JAPAC for Scope3 stated,
Scope3 emissions data pinpoints exactly where marketers can take simple, yet meaningful, actions to reduce the carbon footprint of their digital advertising. It simultaneously helps the industry more clearly see and de-fund waste across the ad ecosystem. This type of industry-wide change is only possible if marketers have the tools that allow them to make informed decisions. By being able to access emissions data directly alongside campaign data, like the Mindshare Emissions Dashboard, sustainability is no longer an afterthought, it becomes a valuable lever for improving campaigns.
Read More: Magnite Partners with Scope3 to Enhance Advertising Sustainability
26% FDI Extension Provided To The Digital Media By The Union Cabinet
FDI stands for Foreign Direct Investment. Under this, the companies are independent to raise investment via through foreign channels. Earlier, this facility was only available to the print media, and only they were authorized for the FDI.
The step is considered to be bold and resourceful in the direction of obtaining success in the Digital India Campaign launched by Prime Minister, Sri. Narendra Damodardas Modi.
In a statement issued by the Union Minister of the Finance, Mr Piyush Goyal stated: “ Even as foreign direct investment slows down across the globe, we are looking to liberalize norms in the country. We hope India can maintain its position as an attractive investment destination and grow in the coming months.”
The statement was issued, on Wednesday while the Minister was addressing a press conference.
Expanding the scope of FDI and expanding it to 29% for the digital media is indeed seen in a positive light. People in the industry are welcoming it, as there were no such policies in the past. It is speculated that the step will help flourish the digital media in India and motivate platforms to work as an independent entity.
Jehil Thakkar, a partner at Deloitte India, explained the importance by stating that,
“All digital media was simply subsumed under the broader legal entity it was part of, broadcasting or otherwise, This will now allow digital platforms to be unlocked from the bigger companies and seek separate valuation.”
Now, the companies registered under one umbrella(parent company) will be able to register themselves separately. Therefore, they will be independent to raise funds separately for themselves.
The current Government led by Prime Minister Modi has proven itself to be determined, in generating and enhancing the scope of digital media and its platforms for better development of the country ensuring security and development at the same scale. However, the digital media have waited for this opportunity for long now. Whereas, the print media enjoyed the FDI of 25% to 49%.
Digital media have impacted our society at a wider pace. The landmass covered by digital media is far broader compared to the print media. In India, around 1.2 billion people are part of the digital media family. This population include both urban and village residents.
Some people are still unsure if the decision is as fruitful as it seems. They were expecting the percentage of FDI allotted should have been 49%. Raising the FDI to 49% will help to generate more jobs in the industry and create employment for millions. The extra money could have been utilized in the development of multiple sectors including education, entertainment, expanding the scope of digital payment and in developing healthcare industries.
However, according to Manav Sethi, Chief marketing officer at Eros Now, “Earlier there was no FDI restriction in digital media, so the current imposition of 26% is restrictive, and so bad news for the sector,”
Well, the glass filled with water can be seen, as half-filled or half empty! However, people in the digital industry are embracing the decision wholeheartedly and are hoping for a better future of digital platforms and media market in India.
Innovation In Google During The Tough Times Of COVID
While most of the brands are struggling to survive during the tough times of pandemic, Google has set its goals right for the whole year. It is innovating itself without any trouble. Every month Google targets to enhance itself, according to the growing demand of the society. Google makes sure, that it fulfills the need of its users by providing them with exactly what they desire.
Recently, Google introduced two new features for its search portals. One of the features is designed, and dedicated to the Black community. The feature will help in the upliftment of the community in society and will aim to end the injustice against them.
Due to the rise of anger in the community against the centuries-long injustice experienced by the community, several brands came forward to show their support towards the community. Google was amongst them.
#BlackLivesMatter!
To fulfill his promise, the CEO at Google, Sundar Pichai recently added a feature to the map and Google search listing.
This feature is launched to empower the Black community. The feature will highlight businesses owned by the Black community helping them grow. However, only those members can avail of the benefit whose business has verified profiles in the US. Also, the business must be owned by a member of the black community.
Those businesses highlighted under this feature will be marked by an image(as shown below). The symbol will signify that the business is owned by a member of the Black community.
It is said that the step was taken to provide a financial boost to the community. It is a foreseen step to finally end the orthodox discrimination towards the community. Google is also partnering with U.S. Black Chambers, inc. To provide better features like Analytics helping the businesses groom and blossom.
In a statement regarding this following statement was issued by Google:
“As part of our $300 million commitment to support under-represented entrepreneurs, we’re integrating the attribute into the digital skills training programs we offer Black business owners through Grow with Google Digital Coaches. And through Google for Startups Accelerator for Black Founders, we’re starting our work with the first cohort of 12 startups.”
Google is keen to develop the feature even more and is seeking ideas internally. According to the management, they have already received more than 500 creative ideas to get this model to develop more brilliantly.
The company is also working on better and much strict “Policies against hate and harassment”
“About this ad”- More power to the user!
With a more transparent approach towards their users, Google has launched a new feature popularly known as “About this ad”.
To implement this feature Google will be launching new tools. It will help the users gain information about the advertisement they are receiving. It will help enhance security and will increase user privacy on the digital platform.
According to Google spokesperson, the vision is designed for a “thriving internet where people around the world can continue to access ad-supported content, while also feeling confident that their data is protected”.
“But in order to get there, we must increase transparency into how digital advertising works, offer users additional controls, and ensure that people’s choices about the use of their data are respected not worked around or ignored.”
Read More: Google Ends All Gossips: Revealed Fee Structure For Advertisement Tools
For a long time now, tech giants like Google are have faced a lot of criticism. Most of those were linked to their explicit behavior when it comes to money and user privacy. After being criticized and called upon several times by different government authorities for blind approach in the business during the usage of advertisers’ money, Google has finally decided to be more transparent with its business policies and proposals.
Therefore, Google shared a list of pricing for its tools used by advertisers for the advertisement. It was a huge step by Google, since before this release, advertisers were kept in the dark about the spent of their share of the money, and the profit earned by Google.
The tools for which Google revealed the prices include, DV360, Google Ads, ad manager, and its publisher tech.
The revealed prices are as follows:
These prices were revealed by Google in a series of articles and blog posts.
The prices are in the ratio of percentage for a $1 amount spent by an advertiser on an advertisement, divided between the publisher and Google.
- Google tech: Publishers – 69%, Google – 31%
- DV360: Publisher – 87%, Google – 13%
- Ad Manager: Publisher – 82%, Google – 18%
- Google Ads: Publisher – 86%, Google – 14%
- Ad sense by Google: 68% share taken by Google of the total spent by the advertiser.
Google has never been so transparent in regards to its prices, the sources say that this new transparent face of Google is due to the ongoing legal hearing conducted by the state attorney general and the Department of Justice.
Read More: Google Updated Its Demand-Side Platform With DV360!
Innovation has always been the motto of the company. To make sure that the advertisers at Google are equipped with the best tools available in the market, it recently launched its new self-service toolkit known as Display & Video 360.
The tool is launched to change the landscape of the advertisement. Display &Video 360 is a gift to its advertisers by Google.
Earlier, advertisers used the tools to make a hypothetical projection while running an online marketing campaign. The most crucial question that bothered the advertisers was the amount of audience that they will reach with the campaign. To make sure it’s no more a hit and try show for the advertisers, Google launched DV360.
With the DV360, the advertisers can now create a new campaign and check its reach to the audience as the tool provides a duplicate view of the campaign. The duplicate view will help the advertisers view the exact or say a more accurate number of audiences that they will reach with the campaign. Hence, no more blind bets!
The tool has better forecasting capabilities, giving the advertisers a glimpse of the future for their campaign. It is also a better solution for the media planners as it provides them with a large proportion of benefits as better access to the tool as they always have a larger role to play.
The most crucial answer answered with the tool is, “how many unique people can I expect to reach with my overall campaign across any open auction display and video inventory as well as YouTube?”
According to Anudeep Pedditi, Programmatic Manager, OMD NZ:
“Once we commit to a reach objective, neither underachieving nor overachieving is an option. Display & Video 360 gives media planners the accuracy they need to effectively plan across all our programmatic campaigns.”
The Tools main aim is to provide the following features to its advertisers:
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Focus
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Options For Buying
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Optimization And Reporting
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Security
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Conclusion
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Read More: How Google’s Page Experience Will Change the Face of SEO in 2021
Google will launch a new algorithm for its page experience and design. The new model will be based on user experience.
The new algorithm will surely affect SEO and web traffic. Therefore, to make sure that the advertisers are not affected by the changes, Google has announced that they will apply the changes in 2021. They have promised to inform upfront, at least six months beforehand.
An early reminder will help advertisers to prepare themselves for the changes.
However, Google made it clear that the new algorithm will be even stricter in ranking the web pages. If the user experience of a web-page is poor, Google will not rank the page on to the top list.
Google has also published a detailed document dedicated to the page experience criteria.
The new algorithm will consist of some core vital features. This feature includes the following:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures the loading performance of your webpage.
- First Input Delay(FID): Measures the user interaction with the page.
- Cumulative layout Shift: Checks the stability factors of your webpage.
The Accelerated Mobile version (AMP) will also play a major role in the ranking of your page, as will be a metrics for the page experience.
Also, good content will always play a lead role in the page ranking.
As per a statement:
“While all of the components of page experience are important, we will prioritize pages with the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar.
A good page experience doesn’t override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search.”
Hence, entrepreneurs, startups, and businesses should be well prepared for the new changes.
Read More: Every 2020 Google SERP Feature Explained: A Visual Guide
Have you ever imagine the amount of traffic Google experience in a minute, month, or year?
Well, here are some fun facts, every second there is an approximate of 63,000 search queries entered on Google search.
Also, near to 2 trillion searches are conducted every year!
Isn’t it amazing? However, you might ask, why does it matter?
Let us understand!
Google holds an approximate 72% market share of search engines. To make sure that your webpage is listed on the top of the list of Google search results you must have an understanding of Google SERP (Search Engine Result Page).
What is SERP? And, what all it provides to the advertisers on Google?
The Search Engine Result Page of Google has gone through a lot of changes according to the user view. It has become much more dynamic, relevant, personalized, and helpful.
Now the search engine of Google is equipped with several enhancements that use structured data. The search page consists of visual enhancement, better index, and optimization for the website. You must be aware of all these changes if you are planning for a better organic ranking for your website.
Here is the new enhancement for the search page of Google:
- Direct answer Box
- Rich Snippet
- Rich cards
- Knowledge Graphs
- Knowledge Panels
- Local Pack
- People also ask
- Image Pack
- Site Links
- Newsbox
You must be equipped with the knowledge of these for better results in organic ranking.
Read More: Rejoice Small Retailers: Selling Products is Now Free On Google Shopping
MSME’s got adversely affected due to the widespread of COVID-19. Several small and medium scale businesses have lost their source of income due to the sudden breakthrough of this epidemic.
Therefore to make sure that these businesses sustain the effects of the crisis, Google is allowing small retailers to list their products for free on Google Shopping.
Explaining this decision, Bill Ready, President of Commerce at Google cites the fact that it is difficult for struggling businesses to pay for Google shopping listings at this time.
“And as consumers increasingly shop online, they’re searching not just for essentials but also things like toys, apparel, and home goods.
While this presents an opportunity for struggling businesses to reconnect with consumers, many cannot afford to do so at scale.”
Earlier, Google charged its customers as Pay per click (PPC). It can also be seen as a tactic by Google to compete with Amazon in the market of e-commerce.
Read More: Privacy Sandbox By Google Shows Backdoor To The Third-Party Cookies.
Two years ago, Google announced that it will discontinue the usage of third-party cookies in its browser, which is Google Chrome. Since the announcement, several speculations surfaced, to understand its effects on internet traffic and advertisement. However, Google seems determined about the elimination, and this year Google announced “Privacy Sandbox” a step towards the replacement of third-party cookies.
It is developed to provide a secure browsing experience to its user.
According to a spoke person from Google, “This is an early-stage concept, and we don’t have more details to share right now, We plan to publish updates and progress in GitHub as part of the process.”
The concept uses a new algorithm designed by performing “Bit Request Signal Experiment”.
Privacy Sandbox was launched in August. The idea was to innovate ad recurrence and behavioral advertising. It aimed to help them work on the web without using third-party cookies. A mega event was organized, 163 giant tech organizations like Apple, Facebook, Axel Springer, The Washington Post, Criteo, The Trade Desk, and even Google participated. All are requested to share their views via. World Wide Web Consortium or GitHub to help the project succeed.
However, according to the Google developers, it is still in its initial stage and there is a lot of work that is needed to be done in this field.
Read More: Google pledges $800 million to coronavirus relief, including Ad credits
Google CEO Sundar Pichai explained:
“As the coronavirus outbreak continues to worsen around the world, it’s taking a devastating toll on lives and communities. To help address some of these challenges, today we’re announcing a new $800+ million commitment to support small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), health organizations and governments, and health workers on the frontline of this global pandemic.”
The commitment includes:
- WHO and other health organizations will get $250 million for advertisement.
- MSME’s and NGO’s will get $200 million.
- An additional $15 million in cash will be granted by Google.org to non-profits to bridge the gap between SMB’s.
- Those small businesses that are already active for a year with Google advertisement will get the help of a total of $340 million in Google ad. They will receive the credit in their accounts and can spend it by the end of 2020.
- The academic and research institutions in the field of COVID research will get $20 million.
- Financial support will be provided to the organizations to increase the production capacity for life-saving equipment.
However, not everything went great for Google during this tough time of COVID:
Read More: Google Cuts Marketing Budgets by 50%, Freezes Hiring.
Key Points
- Budget cuts and hiring freezes across marketing and across Google.
- For the second half of 2020, Google is cutting its marketing budget to 50%.
- The cut is due to the reduced expenditure on advertisement by the brands during the time of the crisis.
- The development comes in less than a week from where Google is scheduled to discuss Q1 2020 results on 28th April.
According to a statement released by email:
“There are budget cuts and hiring freezes happening across marketing and across Google…We, along with the rest of marketing, have been asked to cut our budget by about half for H2.”
A company spokesperson said in an emailed statement to CNBC,
“As we outlined last week, we are re-evaluating the pace of our investment plans for the remainder of 2020 and will focus on a select number of important marketing efforts….We continue to have a robust marketing budget, particularly in digital, in many business areas.”
…we continue to invest, but will be recalibrating the focus and pace of our investments in areas like data centers and machines, and non-business essential marketing and travel.”
Read More: Google Withhold Programmatic Data, Advertisers Pulls Back Ad Spend
As quoted by Digiday, the Head of Display at the U.S based retailer said,
“Google’s ad exchange didn’t make the list primarily because they’re not willing to give us any transparency or data around not only their take rates on our media sped but also anything we could already pull from our demand-side platform.”
“We’re seeing Google’s ad exchange become slightly less of the total pie,” said Jay Friedman, president at programmatic agency Goodway Group to DigiDay.
”I don’t have a percentage but it’s less but not significant.”, he further added.
The advertisers registered their doubts and raised concerns regarding the non-transparent behavior of Google. However, this must have been resolved after the release of the price list for its advertising tools by Google.
Twitter Tests New Feature to Limit Sharing of Unread Articles
- Twitter announced that it will test a new feature that will prompt to encourage users to read an article before sharing.
- The new feature will only appear for U.S based Android devices for now.
- As per the Twitter Support team, the platform will only check if the user has clicked the article link on Twitter and not anywhere else on the internet.
- Twitter aims to empower healthy and informed public discussions with this new feature.
Twitter to experiment with a new feature that prompts users to read articles before sharing, is the latest effort to curb the spread of misinformation on the platform.
Sharing an article can spark conversation, so you may want to read it before you Tweet it.
To help promote informed discussion, we're testing a new prompt on Android –– when you Retweet an article that you haven't opened on Twitter, we may ask if you'd like to open it first.
— Support (@Support) June 10, 2020
Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour commented upon the announcement of the feature testing,
“It’s easy for links [and] articles to go viral on Twitter. This can be powerful but sometimes dangerous, especially if people haven’t read the content they’re spreading. This feature (on Android for now) encourages people to read a linked article prior to retweeting it.”
This Is An Old Ongoing Problem
The problem of users sharing news based on headlines is not new. A 2016 study from computer scientists at Columbia University and Microsoft found that 59% – nearly two-thirds of links posted on Twitter by users are shared without opening the articles.
During the pandemic, the social media giant has issued many misinformation warnings to curb the spread of any fake news -that includes one against the U.S President Donald Trump. This move led to Trump issuing executive orders targeting social media companies.
Will It Impact The Bots?
Twitter has tried many times before to spot the spread of misinformation. Like Facebook and other social media platforms, it has come scrutiny for the content it promotes.
Twitter’s solution is not banning retweets but tries to nudge the users to rethink their actions on the social network. Recently, in May it launched a feature that allowed users to limit who can reply to their tweets. It also rolled out another feature to hide specific replies to tweets.
However, the main problem is ‘bots’. According to a paper published in AAAI, “Increasing evidence suggests that a growing amount of social media content is generated by autonomous entities known as social bots.”
For instance, recently, new research reported that roughly half of the twitter accounts that discussed ‘Reopen America’ were bots. The AAAI paper also estimated that between 9%-15% of active Twitter accounts exhibit social bots behavior – nearly 49.5 million of its 330 million users. This new feature will impact the bots and might make it difficult to retweet any content.
Where Do These Global Companies Stand At The End Of Q1: Performance, Insights, And Statistics
We bring you insights and earning calls on various media companies, publishers, agencies, brands, and tech companies performing on a quarterly basis. The iteration focuses on media companies’ financial performance in the 2020 first quarter and taps all the vital data.
Q1 2020 earnings and performance
Though the waters are choppy ahead, we are optimistic that the worst is behind us and have learned to live with the new normal. Consumer habits are changing and the future is more accelerated towards the digital economy. The media landscape has changed especially the TV front and the focus is on opening businesses again with advertising driving the demand.
Q2 Outlook
Q2 advertising for publishers is estimated to be significantly down as much as 25-30% Y-o-Y and for some even 50-55% down. Few companies like Facebook, Snap, Dotdash expects Q2 revenue to be flat or slightly up Y-o-Y. Here are a few key points to consider:
- Google revenue declines by 15% year- over -year, though search activity increased. Advertising spends decreased due to coronavirus recession. However, other advertising mediums are growing like connected TV, ads in video games, or ads in video conferencing.
- International TV ad sales are down by 30-35% Y-o-Y whereas programmatic revenue decreased by 40-45%.
- Performance ads are down year-over-year and demand from industries like restaurants, travel, retail, auto, and luxury has declined.
- Some advertisers seek opportunities and increase spending in financial services, insurance, telecom, technology, streaming services, and app downloads. Gaming and streaming are gaining a strong foothold and permanently taking a share of our time and wallets.
- CPM’s down by almost 50% giving an advantage to advertisers for huge bargains. New and existing advertisers are looking to acquire new customers at a lifetime low value.
- With no new live events expected on TV till September/October, it will boost the growth of CTV.
- Attribution for marketers is easy as most sales are online than in-store. The animation is expected to be robust in Q3 and Q4.
- 90-95% workforce for media companies are operating from home and CMO’s can justify spending using data-driven advertising with trackable ROAS.
Let’s take a look at the financial report card of the global giants.
The Trade Desk
The opening remarks from the trade desks on the present scenario are as follows – Programmatic’s greatest feature is ‘Agility’. One can easily start and stop the programmatic campaigns, unlike linear television. Early April witnesses advertisers stopped/pause ad spend in certain verticals especially travel and remained active in health, technology, games, home, and garden.
However, by mid-April year-over-year spend decline stabilized, and as the month progressed things started improving. Advertisers were trying to adapt to the present environment. For instance, restaurants changed their messaging to “We are open” or “We deliver.” Consumer products focused on pantry loading and travel companies planned to waive off cancellation fees for bookings. Basically, advertisers started to strategize on how to run businesses on the other side of the pandemic. Now, every company is trying to work out an advertising strategy to connect to consumers and gain share once the economy gets going.
CTV is a clear winner as linear TV’s life is shortened. Unlike traditional TV ads investment where brands and agencies commit billions of dollars without knowing the content and audience, they have the freedom to be more deliberate, liberal, and agile on CTV.
Roku:
- Pandemic has accelerated the shift to streaming by viewers due to excellent content and value.
- In the short term, the video advertising business has slowed down due to budget cuts and low spending by advertisers.
- In the streaming business, active accounts grew roughly 38% Y-o-Y with an increase in new accounts of more than 70% Y-o-Y.
- Streaming hours grew roughly 80% in April and the increase in streaming hours per account is approximately 30%.
- It is estimated that ad business will grow at a slower pace and gross profit margin will be lower than expected for the year.
- The behavioral changes of TV ad buyers are positive in the long-term and more people are expected to stay home to control spending in the light of economic hardships and the shift to streaming business will grow further.
Google:
- In March there was a sudden slowdown in ad revenues owing to COVID 19 and lockdown orders. The first two months of Q1 reflected strong growth. Google search and other advertising revenues generated $24.5 billion, up 9% Y-o-Y.
- After the 2008 crisis, the Google search can be adjusted easily-quickly turn-off and back on which is cost-effective and ROI based. At the inception of the coronavirus crisis, users’ interest was more for information on the virus and non-commercial topics providing less opportunity for monetization.
- Q2 looks difficult for the advertising business.
- YouTube advertising revenues were up 33% year-on-year to $4 billion however there were different performance trajectories for direct response and brand advertising.
- Direct response continued to grow throughout the quarter but brand advertising growth grew for the first two months of the quarter and declined in March. This resulted in the slowdown of Youtube ad revenues by the end of March.
- Similarly, networking ad revenue was $5.2 billion, up 4%Y-o-Y for the first 2 months of the quarter, and declined in March in the low-double-digits year-on-year.
Spotify:
- Ads are a small part of the business, nearly 10% of the overall revenues. Therefore it is less impacted compared to other businesses.
- From a long term perspective, it will be an opportunity to move from linear to on-demand due to COVID 19 crisis.
- It is suspected that advertisers will move from pure reach to more measurable ad formats -mostly analog ad formats.
- The conjecture on advertising and consumption front is what is already happening of linear shifting to digital.
Learn more: Spotify Adds $1.7B To Market Cap In 23 Min Post A Deal With Joe Rogan, World’s Leading Podcaster.
Rubicon:
- The first half of April’s revenue was roughly 30% down until it showed signs of stabilizing in the second half.
- CTV continued to grow at a slower rate in April with a Y-o-Y increase of nearly 10%. Ad slot availability grew by roughly 25% compared to pre-COVID 19.
- Being an omnichannel SSP there has been diversity in ad categories and even more after the merger with Telaria. Certain verticals were highly impacted like travel in entertainment but e-commerce, technology, and direct-to-consumer were benefitted.
- Upfront deals are canceled and focus is shifted to spend from linear to the spot market that programmatic serves.
Microsoft:
- Reduction in ad spend affected Search and LinkedIn business and assumes that the advertising spend will not improve in Q2 as well.
- Search revenue ex-Tac increased by 1%.
Apple Advertising:
- The economic slowdown and uncertainty on business reopening have impacted the advertising business – which is the sum of App Store search ads, Apple news, and third party agreements on the advertising front.
- This slowdown and uncertain future will have a strong effect on the Service business for the June quarter.
Verizon:
- Owing to the COVID-19 crisis, ad revenue declined by 10% in the second -half of March and the rate of decline only increases in April.
- Industry forecasts a fall of 20-30% in digital media and Verizon media results are likely to be similar.
- It also experienced a decline in advertising and search revenue due to hold back or cancellation of campaigns by advertisers and users searching for fewer commercial terms providing less opportunity for monetization.
- Finally, some staggering numbers were seen- 200% up on gaming, 40% up on video, and 10 times up on the collaboration tools. 800 million calls a day, is double the amount on Mother’s Day, the biggest day of the year.
Netflix:
- Increase in subscriber growth in March and is a pull forward for the rest of the year leading to an assumption that subs will be light in Q3 and Q4.
- Filming is stopped globally except Korea and Iceland.
- Customer services are fully restored with 2000+ agents working remotely.
- With the lockdown orders coming into effect in LA, animation production is up and working from home whereas the post-production of 200+ projects is in pipeline remotely.
- Series writers’ rooms are operating virtually.
- Netflix has invested in Open connect, a pioneering cache system that puts content library as close to members’ homes as possible. This enables ISP’s to run their network efficiently and at a lower cost. However, some countries networks may face issues due to the increasing usage of the internet.
Omnicon
- The company doesn’t collect weekly revenue numbers by the agency and roll them up at the Omnicom group level.
- Q2 downfall is expected in double digits and year-on-year revenues will be down.
- The future is challenging but the company expects to get many of those people back as they move into the year ahead.
Learn more about the quarterly performance of other media companies: Financial Report Card Of The Global Giants And Industries In COVID-19
Newspaper Industry Witness Disruption In UAE Due To COVID-19 Crisis.
The current crisis has forced people to stay inside their houses. Several businesses are confronting adverse outcomes due to the circumstances of lock-down across the planet. The familiar lifestyle of people has changed. Human beings are struggling to finish off their daily life work, as there are limited resources available. In these times of adversity, several lines of work are closing or transforming themselves according to the new trends, sustaining, in a new era.
However, the crisis has also provided us with opportunities. Our Earth is healing, the rivers and oceans are cleaning themselves. The air is less polluted, the biggest ozone layer hole is healing by itself. It’s not just the Earth showing good signs of healing and development, many business models have also blossomed. These emerging markets were struggling to survive from old unstoppable human rituals.
Humans are now learning new ways to live. We are learning social isolation, but being a social animal we can’t stop interacting.
Therefore, social networking platforms have seen a sudden increase in their viewers. Even new viewers are joining on a daily bases. The time spent by them on these platforms has increased.
It’s not just limited to the social networking platforms, e-commerce has also seen a high rise in its user database. Hundreds of thousands of new users have changed their purchase habits, now they are shopping online for their needs and will continue to do the same.
Since centuries news has been a crucial part of our everyday life! To satisfy this need newspapers have played a crucial role in delivering the information to us. During the early days, the news was shared among each other verbally. To share news over long distances trained birds were used to deliver handwritten notes over long-distance. Soon, time changed and things developed. Our world became modern, we started using printed sheets of paper to publish news.
The culture of printed newspaper sheets stayed with us like a lifestyle for centuries now. In the digital age and emerging markets, the digital platforms started publishing the news on their digital platform(E-Newspaper). This epidemic has increased the number of viewers and subscribers for these digital platforms.
In today’s world, we must read the news and get updates from authorized sources. The situation has made paper media a less favorable option for everyday usage. People are preferring digital platforms(E-Newspaper) to keep themselves updated with the news.
In UAE leading news platforms ALBAYAN.AE and EMARATALYOUM.COM have reported an enormous amount of audience shifting onto their digital platforms during this period of crisis. They have experienced a huge increase in their unique users as well as a massive increase in daily viewers of their E-Newspaper.
Nearly 6 out of 10 people are reading news on online platforms. According to the reports, around 46% of people spend time reading news via online platforms.
ALBAYAN.AE
ALBAYAN.AE is one of the most preferred newspaper in the UAE. Even in this time of crisis, it stayed as the most prominent and trusted source for people to gather information. However, the only thing that has changed is the source of ALBAYAN.AE. Earlier people preferred a printed copy of the newspaper, but now most of its audience has shifted to its digital platform(E-Newspaper).
In 2019 March, ALBAYAN.AE had 867k unique users on its digital platform. Whereas in March 2020, its unique user database has increased to 1.7 million. It’s an increase of +94% in the digital user database. Next month in April 2020, this number further increased from 1.7 million to 3 million which is a +77% increase in unique user data.
Also, the page views of AL BAYAN in March 2019 were 4.1 million. In March 2020, the views increased to 13.8 million(+231%) which was a record-breaking increase viewership. It is still increasing, as per April 2020, the total number of views was 15.3 million, which was another +12% increase in total viewers
Image Credit – Campaignme.
From last year, this year Ramadan has shown a significant increase in unique users. The growth rate is +87%, the numbers add up to 1,335,460 unique users. Viewership has increased +177% since last year, the numbers add up to 9,349,310. These are the data of the first three weeks of Ramadan ie. from 24th April to 12th May 2020.
EMARATAL YOUM
EMARATAL YOUM is a wonderful reference for people staying in UAE. It helps them to stay updated with the news, and laws that are being introduced, or old ones that are updated.
The digital user base of EMARATAL YOUM has increased tremendously. In the year 2019, March the total number of unique users that EMARTAL YOUM had was just 804K.
In March 2020, this number increased to 2 million showing an increase of +149%, and another +55% in the month of April making the number of users rise to 3 million.
The viewership of EMARATAL YOUM in March 2019 was 5.1 million. The numbers skyrocketed to 17.5 million(+238%) in March 2020. In April 2020 it is setting a benchmark for the number of viewers at 18 million(+3%).
In the month of Ramadan, the unique user base has shown an increase of +76% (1,283,908), and the viewership increased to +141%(10,031,460).
This huge increase in numbers is an indication of the digital boom in the UAE. Hence, brands should make sure that they connect to their consumers as several portals of opportunities are opening. Also, they can advertise their products or do promotions as time is most opportune.
Some of the other famous newspaper of UAE which is receiving a hugely positive response on their e-platforms are listed below:
- Khaleej Times
To increase the viewership, Khaleej Times is providing free E-Newspaper for its users. The viewership of the newspaper has also increased at a huge pace.
- National.ae
- Gulf Business news
- Sport360
- YOUM7
- Al-Masry al-Youm.
Advertisers Look For Greater Transparency In Programmatic Ad Buying
Time and again, “Transparency’ has been a cause of concern for advertisers in the programmatic ad buying. This has been a long time pending issue which still remains unresolved as advertisers try to uncover what happens to money spent on programmatic ads.
Ad spend is falling and advertisers are again seeking greater transparency into the ad-buying supply chain. Hidden fees, fraud, viewability, and brand safety are the growing concerns that need immediate attention.
Trade body ISBA studies reveal that nearly half (49%) of ad buys disappear before reaching publishers and 34% of this money is the disclosed fees agencies and ad tech vendors take for trading impressions. However, 15% cannot be attributed to what the report called an ‘unknown delta’ on the supply chain. The amount of money that reaches publishers is lower, as the report did not consider ad fraud and ad viewability.
As reported earlier, a noticeable amount of programmatic dollars doesn’t reach the publishers and it is getting increasingly harder to keep a track of where it goes. The trade body struggled for nine months to gather data from the ad tech vendors to make a report on this and when it received data is was unusable.
PwC collected information for the study was data on 267 million impressions traded between 15 advertisers, eight agencies, five demand-side platforms, six supply-side platforms, and 12 publishers from the Association of Online Publishers from Jan. 1 to 20. March. Of those impressions, only 31 million (12%) were actually analyzed by matching log-level and aggregated data across 290 different supply chains.
PwC reported that it was highly cumbersome and hard to collect data on each impression. Ad tech vendors were conservative in sharing data due non-disclosure agreements and data collected was in different formats making it difficult to trace an advertiser’s money to so many different publishers. The advertisers involved in the study were non-premium 40,525 sites on an average.
Generally, an advertiser or agency decides to buy impressions and pay for them on DSP while publishers use SSP to sell their inventory at advertisers. Data on impressions from these two platforms are matched up and PwC did the same. However, data could not give financial transparency for the advertisers and publishers There were still costs in the ‘unknown delta’ that remains unidentified on the report. For instance, hidden fees can be a combination of additional ad tech vendor fees, post-auction bid shading, trading deals, and other unknown factors.
As quoted Sam Tomlinson, marketing assurance partner at PwC in DigiDay,
“This is more because the programmatic ecosystem is built on legacy processes that are a mess.”
Graeme Adams, head of media at BT Group said,
“We desperately need to see a common set of standards adopted and more openness in this market, so that every penny spent is accounted for. If this happens, we’ll invest more in the channel; if not, we will cut back and reshape our trading approaches.”
To conduct such high and intense study is a big expense. For instance, It costs more than £1 million ($1.2 million) to collect and process the data from different sources in ISBA’s study. A lot of emphasis is given to attain log file data by marketers. If the ISBA report proves anything that the log file data can reveal everything about transparency and nothing at the same time.
Ruben Schreurs, managing partner at digital media consulting firm Digital Decisions responds to log file data and said,
“Using the overly sophisticated approach of trying to match log-file data in real-time is like buying the IBM Watson supercomputer to calculate 1+1.”
He added that advertisers should have a sensible and valuable approach by running a periodic review of their net spend on publishers and match it with publisher data cumulatively. This will help to get the right and required output to make value-driven decisions on how to optimize the value chain and avoid complicating technologies.
Nevertheless, the report findings can help the adtech industry and give the insight to enhance financial and data transparency as regulators on impressions as regulators dominate.
Steve Chester, director of media and advertising at ISBA said,
“If the ad industry can be seen to be demonstrating that we can create a more open and transparent market then it could avoid the necessity of being regulated.”
Omnicom Media Group MENA To Provide Complimentary Media Space To Charities
Omnicom Media Group MENA has decided to work together with regional media owners in the Middle East to provide complimentary media space to its long-standing partner charities. This initiative is a part of the company’s COVID-19 relief efforts. This noble act will help Dubai Cares, Gulf for Good, and Médecins Sans Frontières to reach out to a larger audience with their call to action. The COVID-19 campaigns are mainly aimed at education, health, and critical support for people especially children who are in need in the region and beyond.
The response from the media industry is astounding. The media partners currently include Backlite Media, Digital Tree, DMS, Elevision Screens, Eye Media, Future Tech, Group Plus, Maddict, MMP, Reach MENA, and Snap Inc. They have offered free media space to promote various charities and draw support for their causes. Omnicom Media Group MENA also provides creative support.
Omnicom Media Group MENA has shared a long-term relationship with these three non-profit organizations and supported their causes over the years. The latest initiative is a step to ensure to get the means for the mission of these charities towards the community continues when donations are down due to coronavirus crisis.
Mario Stephan, Executive Director MSF UAE said,
“This pandemic is like no other we’ve seen in modern times, impacting our patients, our staff, and our programs. Only together can we muster hope to get through it successfully.”
He further added,
“We’re very grateful for this initiative as it will help drum further support for our patients. It’s important we never lose sight of the less fortunate than ourselves, even now.”
Alanna Turpin, Sustainability Lead at Omnicom Media Group MENA added,
“Our industry has a very powerful talent that’s acutely needed right now. It’s the ability to raise awareness, rally and move people to achieve great things through collective action.”
In this crisis, it’s about saving people from illness and poverty. It’s urgent our charity partners get the resources they need to alleviate the suffering. Media owners with available advertising inventory they wish to commit to this effort can contact us at CSR-MENA@OmnicomMediaGroup.com”.
Verizon Media Expands DSP to Offer Premium Native Ad Inventory.
Verizon Media has announced the expansion of its demand-side platform bringing in premium, programmatic, and now its full native marketplace inventory, formats, targeting, and measurement into a single unit.
The DSP gives a unified solution to the advertisers to check on every aspect of their buys across all formats and inventory purchases- from planning, buying, and management to optimization.
Today, people are using more screens and devices than before. Therefore, it becomes challenging for advertisers to provide a personalized and unified experience across the media mix. This level of fragmentation eventually leads to using different tools for different formats and then measuring the success of each of them would be laborious. But now advertisers can have access to omnichannel inventories including mobile, digital out-of-home, CTV, video, and audio along with native advertising from a single dashboard.
According to Iván Markman, the chief business officer at Verizon Media,
The Verizon Media native [ad] experience was separate from the programmatic capabilities in our DSP…Now both are one, and this includes a lot more consistency [campaign] planning and measurement and attribution. Over the last few quarters, we’ve looked at bringing more transparency and insights to our DSP.
The expansion of DSP’s functionality provides exclusive access to native ad inventory from Verizon’s owned and operated properties like Tech Crunch, Yahoo, and Huffington Post. The robust native marketplace format and premium inventory along with the programmatic offering, supported by 1st party data will help advertisers navigate a cookie-less environment.
In an era when media agencies are on hiring freeze if not headcount cutbacks, it was essential for the company to improve the efficiency of the tools. Markman stated, “You can now do more with less.“He further added,
Sometimes you’d have seven different platforms for things like digital out of home and native then display. Many of our clients have unfortunately had to furlough some team members or lay off their workforces. This helps with performance.
YouTube Reorganizes Its Measurement Program With Five New Partners
Google made notable changes to the line up of partners of its YouTube Measurement Program(YTMP) that debuted in 2017 to give advertisers access to trusted and independent solutions for driving and tracking the marketing performance of the video site.
Google made some tweaks to how it classifies partners in the YouTube Measurement Program and welcomed new partners to the program or specific categories. YouTube has made it easier for advertisers to search for the right service provider for their needs.
YouTube added five new partners – Channel Factory, Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify, Sightly, and VuePlanner to the program. Existing partners include Pixability, Zefr, Tubular Labs, and Wizdeo -though it has dropped one of its founding partners who is no longer on the list ‘Open Slate’. Apparently, the brand safety company is at a contractual standoff with Google.
AdAge reports that Openslate refused to sign the new agreement with Google. It believed that the contract would limit what it can report to the clients when ads ran next to videos with sensitive or harmful content on YouTube like hate speeches, illegal substances, or violence.
Under new terms, without Google’s approval, OpenSlate would not be able to inform the client that includes Nestle, GroupM, and Procter & Gamble – if their ads run next to YouTube channel that has historically shared violent or inappropriate content.
OpenSlate told in an e-mail statement to AdAge,
“Advertisers rely on OpenSlate’s independent, third-party measurement to ensure they are running in suitable environments.”
It further says,
“Google is a valued partner and we endeavor to resolve our differences,”
A Google spokesperson told AdAge,
“We’re excited to expand the YouTube Measurement Program and look forward to working with the nine partners who have already signed on. We also remain open to any other third parties who help meet our clients’ needs joining the program in the future.”
After the reorganization, advertisers can search by services under the newly created categories: brand suitability and contextual targeting, content insights, and brand safety reporting. Partners will be classified and sorted based on these categories.
As outlined on the YTMP website, Channel Factory, Integral Ad Science, Pixability, Sightly, VuePlanner, and Zefr were added in the Brand Suitability and Contextual Targeting category while DoubleVerify and IAS were added to the Brand Safety Reporting category. Meanwhile, Pixability, Tubular Labs, and Wizdeo were added to the Content Insights category.
Also Read: Everything You NEED TO KNOW About Advertising On YouTube In 2020
As quoted in Adexchanger, David George, CEO of Pixability, one of the first companies to join in 2016 said, the time was ripe for a revamp.
“Simply put, there’s demand in the market from brands and agencies that want to work with third parties,”
YouTube is growing exponentially in terms of engagement and ad revenue. Although due to coronavirus led volatility, YouTube is facing a significant decline in CPM’s in some cases, however, YouTube drove $15 billion ad revenue for Alphabet in 2019.
Tony Marlow, CMO at Integral Ad Science said,
“For a platform that generates over 500 hours of new content every minute, it makes sense that they are constantly evaluating the efficiency of their programs.”
IAS has been providing brand safety verification since 2018 but it wasn’t under the measurement partner program until now. The measurement program also offers access to the participating partners to alpha and beta programs and additional resources.
Theresa Go, Pixability’s VP of platform partnerships said,
“There is an undercurrent of technical support we get through the program. We’re able to leverage Google to make sure we’re providing the best products we can in the market.”