AdTech: Week in Review
Timeframe: 6th February - 12th February [Week 6]
Welcome!
Let’s start this off with an interesting fact.
Before the original design for an iPhone, Apple patented a phone design in the shape of an actual apple. It was a flip phone that, when closed, would look like the Apple logo.
Would’ve been very weird to see folks carrying apples as phones.
Tweet of the Week!
The Top Three
Covering the biggest happenings of the week ad rem to AdTech
<1> Criteo in new bid to sell itself
Criteo, a stalwart of independent ad tech, is shopping its business to potential buyers. The Paris-based company, which is listed in New York, kicked off a sale process last week that could attract other companies and private equity firms. Investment bank Evercore Inc is advising Criteo on the process.
Criteo shares jumped on the news and were up 8% at $33.65 in New York on Tuesday, giving the company a market value of about $2 billion.
<2> Yahoo shutters SSP
Yahoo is shutting down its supply-side platform and pivoting its ad-tech business to focus on its demand-side platform. Yahoo is laying off 20% of its staff, impacting 1,600 employees in its ad tech business.
In an interview with Axios, Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone said that these layoffs are not a result of economic issues, but rather, they are intentional changes to strengthen the unprofitable Yahoo for Business advertising unit. As a whole, Yahoo is profitable, earning around $8 billion in yearly revenue.
<3> Disney boosts scale with LiveRamp and Experian activations
Disney is trying to achieve the stream dream. Disney announced programmatic integrations with LiveRamp and Experian, which will join The Trade Desk’s UID2 as identifiers that Disney advertisers can use for audience matching and programmatic buying.
Identity underpins programmers’ selling point to advertisers, who want a better understanding of their reach and frequency across channels. The more IDs Disney has in its audience graph, the greater the scale and the better the accuracy for targeting and measurement.
The Usual Suspects: Big Tech
Highlighting the whereabouts of Big Tech with reference to AdTech
A federal judge has ordered Meta Platforms and its outside law firm, Gibson Dunn, to pay nearly $1 million for “using delay, misdirection, and frivolous arguments to make litigation unfairly difficult and expensive” for consumers who brought a class-action lawsuit against the company over data transfers to Cambridge Analytica and other developers. LINK
Lawmakers in the Senate are questioning Meta Platforms about the ability of China, Russia and other countries to access data about U.S. users of the social media platform. LINK
Google’s chatbot Bard, a conversational service for search, shared inaccurate information in a promotional video. LINK
Microsoft and Baidu provided more information on integrating artificial intelligence (AI) in each company’s respective search engine. LINK
Microsoft announced a new version of its search engine Bing, which will now be powered by OpenAI's artificial intelligence (AI) technology. LINK
The Federal Trade Commission won't ask a federal appellate court to block Meta Platforms from purchasing Within Unlimited, developer of the virtual fitness app Supernatural. LINK
Google’s partnership with artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic as a preferred cloud provider. LINK
Amazon Ads has reduced the minimum flight length of self-service Streaming TV Audience Guaranteed, Streaming TV Local Premium Reach, and Streaming TV Value Reach products from 7 days to 5 days. LINK
Google launches Ads Privacy Hub. LINK
Launches, Partnerships and IPOs!
Simply put, articles around the innovations, partnerships and new launches that took place over the last week.
The bid by four of Europe’s largest telecom companies – Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone – to develop their own digital advertising platform has been given unconditional approval by European regulators. LINK
President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address urged lawmakers to support a federal privacy law and warned against the dominance of Big Tech. LINK
MediaMath has joined Ad Net Zero USA. LINK
Viant will offer participating advertisers renewable energy credits (RECs) for media purchased through its DSP. LINK
EMX files for Bankruptcy. LINK
Disney lays off 7,000 in a massive reorg and reaffirms its commitment to streaming. LINK
Dave & Buster's has announced it will be entering the metaverse with the launch of a branded world packed with updated classic multi-player arcade games in popular gaming platform Roblox. LINK
Reddit’s systems were hacked as a result of a sophisticated and highly targeted phishing attack. LINK
GumGum achieved the Media Rating Council (MRC) first accreditation for measurement of content-level analysis and URL reporting for connected television (CTV). LINK
Zoho debuts unified communications platform. LINK
Sesame Labs, a web3 marketing platform looking to build a marketing stack for the future of the internet, has raised $4.5 million in a seed-funding round. LINK
Magnite has launched a platform designed to let media owners leverage their varied assets to offer advertising inventory across live and video-on-demand, connected TV, OTT and addressable linear TV through a unified environment. LINK
'The National Enquirer' is being sold to joint venture. LINK
Warby Parker is urging a federal appellate court to reject 1-800 Contacts' request to revive a lawsuit claiming that Warby Parker wrongly used the term “1-800 Contacts” to trigger search ads. LINK
GlossAI, provider of an AI-driven video generator that allows publishers and other organizations to create content using generative AI capabilities, has raised $8 million in seed funding. LINK
Mergers and Acquisitions
M&A in and around AdTech
Sendinblue has acquired Captain Wallet. LINK
Recommended Reads & Listens
AppLovin Q4 earnings: revenue beat, high MAX adoption by Eric Seufert
Activision Q4 earnings: How is Candy Crush growing 20% annually? by Eric Seufert
That’s all for today folks! Will be back next week with more curated stories and scoops.