Digiday Sunday
Digiday: A very busy three days before the July 4th break. An interesting group of stories were most read last week, led by our continuing coverage of the weird and sordid tale of Dr. Disrespect and how that story moved through the gaming denizens and sponsors to finally come out in the light. An update on The Trade Desk dust up with Yahoo performed nicely as did a news analysis piece that broke down what Google needs to do to address the building chorus of complaints about its Privacy Sandbox initiative. As always, the state of readiness for the end of the third-party cookie is a topic that draws readers and a story on how marketers aren’t exactly rushing to prepare for the exit, performed well. And a piece on U.K. automaker Aston Martin Lagonda’s attempts to turn attention given to its Formula 1 team into consumer goodwill and purchase consideration, revved with readers. — James Cooper
Story highlights
Alexander Lee ’s coverage of the Dr. Disrespect ugliness continued last week with a clever look at how word of the famous streamer’s misdeeds spread through the gaming industry's considerable ‘whisper’ network. As he reported, ‘Although the specific reasons behind Beahm’s (Dr. Disrespect) ban did not become widespread knowledge until last month, when former Twitch account director of strategic partnerships Cody Conners tweeted an explanation of the ban, some voices raised a public alarm about the troubling nature of the streamer’s misconduct as early as 2020.’ It was the week’s most read story.
Ronan Shields pulled together a sharply reported update on The Trade Desk and Yahoo video dispute that reported the two haven’t completely broken up and that media buyers are still able to buy Yahoo inventory via the giant DSP. As he reported, ‘While exact details remain unclear, a gap has seemingly been narrowed over how video advertising inventory is represented, even after an earlier July 1 deadline. Last month, the industry’s largest demand-side platform began notifying buyers, informing them it was considering moves to limit access to Yahoo’s inventory… At the core of the dispute were concerns over Yahoo’s declaration of its video advertising inventory as in-stream.’
Seb Joseph had a great analysis of what Google needs to do to revamp its heavily criticized Privacy Sandbox program after considerable testing. As he reported, ‘After eight weeks of testing from March 18th to May 12th, [an] ad tech vendor concluded the Sandbox would do more harm than good. Publishers would lose 60% of their ad revenue, and worse still, they’re losing it to Google. As a result, the Sandbox would skyrocket Google’s market share from 24% to a staggering 83%. In short, the Sandbox would make publishers — and the entire industry — more dependent on Google than ever before.’
Kayleigh Barber took the pulse of marketers on their state of readiness for the exit of third-party cookies and found there is considerably less urgency on the topic now than there was in 2022. As she reported, ‘A study from Adobe (which surveyed 2,841 marketers between Feb. 27 and March 7 in the U.S., Australia, France, Germany, India, Japan and the U.K.) found that fewer marketers are feeling prepared for third-party cookie deprecation than in years prior, with nearly half (49%) of their marketing strategies still reliant on third-party cookies. This is despite the fact that up until April, it looked like Google was finally going to close the cookie jar this year once and for all.’
Sam Bradley reported out a well-read story on how U.K. automaker Aston Martin Lagonda hoped to turn the attention given to its Formula 1 team during the British Grand Prix over the weekend into consumer profile and, hopefully, purchase consideration. As he reported, ‘The sport has found a new fanbase in recent years, in part due to the popularity of Netflix’s Drive To Survive. That’s drawn new sponsors to F1, but it’s also given marques such as Aston Martin an opportunity to engage with a broader crowd than their traditional target audience.’
Tim Peterson ’s video dispatch last week came from the annual VidCon confab where he interviewed more than a dozen Gen Z attendees who weighed in on ‘the video apps they most and least like to watch, the ads they’re served and creators’ use of generative AI tools.’ Check out the video here
Here are the Digiday + Briefings for the week
—Media Buying Briefing: How agencies balance media and creative as AI projects ramp up
—Future of TV Briefing: How the future of TVhas shaken out so far in 2024
—Media Briefing: How the digital publishing industry has fared so far in 2024
—Research Briefing: NBCU and Warner Bros. Discovery pursue programmatic ad dollars at the Olympics
See you next Sunday!