We also want to give a heartfelt thank you to the Amobee employees that took on AdTechCares as an avocation—a true labor of love —and worked tireless hours to bring it to life after performing in their professional roles, taking care of the people in their lives, and, in many cases, homeschooling their children. As we said to Adweek last week:

“During the first week of the pandemic and working remotely, we learned that proactively taking the lead—even in a time of great confusion—was the right thing to do. When a sense of normalcy returns, I’ll remember the sacrifices our employees made in order to make a difference and continue their good work. My biggest takeaway is that facing adversity as a team builds far stronger bonds than any company offsite or culture program.” — Krista Thomas, SVP Marketing, Amobee and Co-Founder of AdTechCares.

But Our Work is Not Done: This Is Our Shot

Given the availability of the Covid-19 vaccines, we at AdTechCares are committed to educating the public about their safety, efficacy, and the importance of each of us getting vaccinated when it’s our turn. To that end, we have partnered with the Veterans Coalition for Vaccination (VCV) — formed earlier this year with six leading veterans organizations — and the incomparable team at Venables Bell + Partners to deliver our third campaign to date, a new public service announcement (PSA) campaign designed to encourage full vaccination across the U.S.

The “Call to Arms” campaign enlists arms of every kind from “the tatted, the toned and the sun-deprived” to encourage all Americans to get vaccinated because “better times are within arms reach.” The ads end with a simple and direct call-to-action: “Don’t wait. Vaccinate.” The creative (see examples below) will appear across TV, digital, social, video, print and out-of-home. Integrated media for this effort was donated by the Ad Council and our collective press release can be found here. A sampling of the creative can be viewed below and here. 

The AdTechCares partners that have stepped up to support this new effort out the gate include Amobee, District M, DoubleVerify, Freestar, Gimbal, Good Impressions, MediaWallah, Health Media Networks (HMN), Influential, Media.Net, Mediavine, Minute Media, NewsGuard, OpenX, Origin Media SendToNews, TikTok, TrustX, and Verve Group. To join the AdTechCares coalition and support this campaign, please click here. To follow us on LinkedIn, please click here. 

“As the Covid-19 crisis continues, even as the vaccines rollout, the advertising industry has an inherent duty to support fact-based journalism and to ensure continued access to accurate and timely information. It’s an honor for AdTechCares to work with the Veterans Coalition for Vaccination and their renowned veterans organizations and we’re confident we’ll replicate the success of our initial Covid-19 PSA campaign with a renewed focus on driving the public to credible vaccine information with the goal of keeping humanity well.” — Ryanne Laredo, Chief Customer Officer at Amobee and Co-Founder of AdTechCares.

TAKE ACTION! To join the AdTechCares coalition, click here. To follow on LinkedIn, click here. 

Thanking 50+ AdTechCares Partners Who Made a Commitment & Made a Difference

Our sincere thanks go to the 50+ agencies, publishers and advertising technology companies that have helped us serve 4.8 billion impressions and reach 2.5 billion individuals around the world with sound scientific facts and helpful advice on how to combat the virus. 

These include the 4As, AdColony, Adelaide, Amobee, Bidswitch, Celtra, Connatix, Curb, Daily Motion, DoubleVerify, District M, eBay Advertising, Freestar, Hollar, Influential, Integral Ad Sciences (IAS), InMobi, IRIS.TV, Magnite, Media.net, Mediavine, Newsguard, NYIAX, Ogury, OpenX, Origin Media, Outfront, PlayStream, PlayWire, PubNative, SpotX, Spaceback, TikTok, TrueX, and Vox Media. 

Supporting Black Lives Matter via Campaign Zero’s NixThe6 Campaign

In support of Black Lives Matter, we provided donated media and support for Campaign Zero’s NixThe6 campaign, serving 160 million impressions and reaching 115 million people across the United States. Supporting partners included Adsolute Media, Amobee, District M, eBay, Mediavine, NYIAX, Origin Media, Parsec / Adelaide, Playwire Media, Pubnative, Samba TV, Spaceback, SpotX / Magnite, Universal McCann. 

To join the AdTechCares coalition, click here. To follow on LinkedIn, click here. 

Best,
Krista Thomas, SVP Marketing, and Ryanne Laredo, Chief Customer Officer, Amobee; Co-Founders of AdTechCares

The post AdTechCares Celebrates Anniversary, Partners With Veterans Coalition for Vaccination appeared first on Amobee.

• Accurate cross-screen measurement is both imperative and will require unprecedented levels of cooperation. 
• Customer privacy will come first in a targeted, addressable media world.
• Leveraging clean rooms to activate privacy-safe consumer identity will be a game-changer.
• Trust and transparency are essential to stronger agency partnerships. 
• Tech vendors have become mission-critical in the new agency framework.
• Covid taught us that what worked six months ago isn’t going to work now.

As we move into 2021, there are many pressing issues that agencies need to tackle that will determine the health and longevity of their businesses. Cross-channel measurement, the explosive growth of addressable TV and connected TV, customer identity, and how the evolving Upfronts and NewFronts will influence the immediate and long-term future of advertising are just a few top-of-mind challenges. Not to mention Covid-19 and the formidable layer of complexity a global pandemic adds to the advertiser-consumer equation.

We recently conducted a series of interviews with senior level agency executives and brand marketers to identify some of the important changes and mind-shifts happening within the modern agency structure. Here’s what we heard from our brand and agency friends about the future of the new agency paradigm.

Accurate cross-screen measurement is both imperative and will require unprecedented levels of cooperation 

It’s time to get the industry’s smartest strategists and planners thinking about bigger picture client challenges. This starts with integrating technology that finally solves for how to achieve the ideal reach and frequency across all audiences in any given campaign. This also requires that as an industry and an ecosystem, we work to achieve—and eventually standardize—a unified measurement approach across all channels and platforms. By automating tedious yet mission-critical tasks and rationalizing our disparate measurement and attribution systems, we can unleash our collective problem solving skills and focus instead on optimizing business outcomes and driving growth. 

Customer privacy will come first in a targeted, addressable media world

How the advertising industry collects, stores, and uses consumer data will be the most pressing conversation and driver of change inside agency walls in the coming year. The imminent deprecation of Chrome’s third-party cookies and Apple’s IDFA will affect the industry at a magnitude that many advertisers have not fully fathomed. This will require brand marketers and agencies to roll up their sleeves and reimagine their relationship to customer data, reconsider the partners they need help from to solve these new data challenges, and figure out how they can achieve personalization at scale to meet new customer expectations.

Leveraging clean rooms to activate privacy-safe consumer identity will be a game-changer

Creating privacy-protected consumer identity resolution solutions is now essential, and there’s tremendous opportunity and demand for identity-first platforms. Enabling marketers to leverage clean rooms to activate privacy-safe consumer identity at scale will be a game-changer for agencies in 2021. So will the increasingly urgent efforts to create a unified measurement system across the media ecosystem. By focusing on elevating the quality of interaction between brands and consumers, a new agency model is emerging. It will convert hourly based agency/client relationships to an outcomes-driven, customer-first paradigm with highly skilled professionals using a rich array of data resources and software platforms to create and operate a brand’s custom “marketing operating system.”

Trust and transparency are essential to stronger agency partnerships 

In-house marketer expectations remain high even in times of decreased budgets and squeezed margins as Covid continues to impact ad spend across most business sectors. In turn, marketers’ frustration with agency partners hangs over them from legacy issues with trust and transparency. Meanwhile, some agencies are still smarting from when many ad tech vendors went brand-direct, launching the inhousing movement. In this era of Covid, with so much uncertainty—and yet unprecedented potential for changing old habits and “building back better”—we need to rebuild partnerships on all sides of the equation that are solidly based on transparency and commitment.

Tech vendors have become mission-critical in the new agency framework

The role that technology vendors formerly played within the agency structure has evolved alongside client desire for continued innovation, richer data capabilities, and fewer ad tech taxes. The more sophisticated Holding Companies and independent agencies of today increasingly regard ad tech vendors as critical strategic partners, helping them build and launch new solutions. When it comes to servicing some of their best customers, agencies now rely on ad tech to help them simplify workflow, consolidate platforms, and build breakthrough data capabilities for their clients. 

Finally, Covid taught us that what worked six months ago isn’t going to work now

Covid-19 changed our lives and work forever. The industry is resetting itself, shedding old habits, and creating new ones. The acceleration of agencies’ corresponding evolution is happening in real-time alongside the need for agile, purpose-built business models that can be iterated off of quickly. Collectively, we used to live in a world where innovation was a “test and learn” process, and then we’d go through the gradual process over a multi-year period of scaling across the organization. But agencies can no longer depend on long timelines to roll out new solutions. If Covid taught us anything, it’s that what worked six months ago isn’t going to work now. The only constant is change, underscored by the new reality that we all need to work closely together to keep pace and continue to meet and exceed client needs.

To read more content from Krista Thomas, please check out Three Transformative Lessons Learned From a Year of Covid-19, and CTV Myth Busting: Yes, It’s Confusing But CTV and OTT Are Different. 

The post 6 Changes Reshaping the Modern Agency in 2021 appeared first on Amobee.

• Covid-19 brought about a massive need and opportunity for consultative customer engagement; Amobee seized on it, and will continue to do so.
• Amobee’s talent is our competitive edge.
• #AdTechCares showed us the importance of building the world’s most powerful messaging machine.

Despite the obvious and onerous challenges of 2020, there are shining moments of empathy, creative problem solving, and innovation that stand out. And while the year ahead will bring great sighs of relief as vaccines are eventually delivered to communities around the world, it will also require extreme patience. We will continue to maintain social distance, wear masks, and miss holiday family gatherings because, to paraphrase UN Secretary-General António Guterres, none of us is safe until all of us are safe. 

There were many valuable lessons learned that are worth documenting and sharing as we look ahead and plan for 2021. 

Covid-19 Impact #1: The great reset and the need for a playbook

When the virus first hit, it became clear that some of our clients — those in travel and hospitality for instance — would be profoundly affected, while others, such as Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) and Quick Serve Restaurant (QSR) companies, would be less so. With the hoarding of groceries, for example, some CPGs pulled back ad spend dramatically citing the rush of demand. Why spend at prior levels when they literally could not keep product on the shelf? Still others, in the alcoholic beverage category for instance, struggled due to the closure of restaurants and bars and cut back on advertising spend as a result. 

By the first week of April it was clear that Foursquare’s David Shim was prescient when he predicted the “Great Covid Reset” in online consumer behavior — “an historic opportunity to grab or defend market share.” So we set about creating Amobee’s Covid-19 Restart Playbook to provide our customers and prospects with a series of thought-provoking questions and prescriptive steps for reinventing their strategies, messaging, and media plans to adapt to both increased consumer time spent with traditional linear TV and connected TV (CTV), and the anticipation of renewed retail consumer spending behavior due to the eventual global restart in summer.

What we learned: 

• That proactively taking the lead, even in a time of great confusion, was the right thing to do. Marketers and agencies appreciated the outreach, the Playbooks, and the ongoing support. They knew that we were committed with tools and resources to help them out in real-time.
• That as much as we knew that each customer is unique, the pandemic made them even more so. What worked six months ago for a given client was not going to work given the current circumstances, and the only constant in the pandemic would be change. Once you wrap your mind around that, you stop looking for shortcuts and get down to the hard work of adaptation. We will be refreshing our Playbooks in the new year to help our customers bridge the gap as the vaccines make their way across global communities.
• That our gambit had paid off. With our omnichannel expertise, we were uniquely positioned to help brands and their agencies across linear TV, CTV / streaming OTT, and all things digital, including social. This gave us a wider variety of tools and optimization levers we could pull, plus a valuable view from above. 

Covid-19 Impact #2: Our talent is our competitive advantage

It would have been easy to panic as herky-jerky demand gave the industry whiplash, and many in our industry trimmed staff. But with the backing of our corporate parent Singtel, and the teachings of the Covid-19 Reset crisp in our minds, we realized that this crisis was indeed our opportunity to both defend and take market share. 

So instead of making cuts, more than 150 senior leaders took a temporary salary cut. We collectively made this concession to put the financial health of our colleagues and our business first to avoid cutting a single well-performing employee working diligently to move our customers’ businesses forward. 

This gave us the ability to protect our employees and maintain stability despite the global slowdown and through the emotional vagaries and vicissitudes of the pandemic. In fact, we continued hiring for open roles across product, engineering, and sales around the world, leveraging our position to add muscle. 

What we learned: 

• That people can and will make sacrifices through a crisis in order to make a difference, and specifically to ensure that their teammates are able to both continue their good work and put food on the table for their families.
• That the risk was worth it. We were able to continue to provide unrivalled service to our customers, delivering unique expertise and new insights forged in the fire of crisis that strengthened our partnerships. 
• That facing adversity as a team builds far stronger bonds than any company offsite or culture program. 

Covid-19 Impact #3: Building the world’s most powerful messaging machine, #AdTechCares 

In a proactive initiative conceived by one of our engineers, Anand Natarajan, in mid-March, we teamed with Universal McCann Worldwide to co-found a new kind of industry consortium: #AdTechCares. The initiative brought together advertising agencies, technology companies, influencer marketers, and publishers around a unified mission to combat misinformation about Covid-19 and support fact-based journalism to keep humanity well. 

We started by creating a Covid-19 PSA Campaign to benefit the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). We amassed a powerful array of industry partners that you can see and join here on our dedicated LinkedIn page, including the 4As, AdCouncil, AdColony, Adelaide, Bidswitch, Celtra, Connatix, Curb, Daily Motion, DoubleVerify, District M, eBay Advertising, Freestar, Hollar, Influential, Integral Ad Sciences (IAS), InMobi, IRIS.TV, Magnite, Media.net, MediaVine, Newsguard, NYIAX, Ogury, OpenX, Origin Media, Outfront, PlayStream, PlayWire, PubNative, SpotX, Spaceback, TikTok, TrueX, Vox Media, and more. 

As our friend and partner Freddie Godfrey, founder of Origin Media, said in early summer as we reached the 1 billion person milestone, “We have built the most powerful messaging machine on the planet.” 

As of today, this Covid-19 PSA campaign has served 4.5 billion impressions and reached 2.2 billion people across 222 countries worldwide. 

With the murder of George Floyd and the corresponding protests across the U.S. and around the world, we knew that we needed to take decisive action. We went back to our coalition and, in September, we were thrilled to announce that #AdTechCares had rallied to support the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. We are now doing so via Campaign Zero’s Nixthe6 (PSA) campaign, which raises awareness about the ways that individual citizens can help reform law enforcement, city by city, around the U.S. 

What we learned: 

• That people and the corporate entities that they work with genuinely want to help. One simply needs to give them an invitation and roadmap to find their way.
• That even companies that are hotly competitive in the marketplace can come together for the greater good and a cause greater than their own profit motive.
• That, once again, we make our own reality. There is nothing we can’t do if we set our minds to it and put in the work. By assembling a flexible team of planners, strategists, creatives, engineers, and publicists, we have built an unstoppable force for good. 

Next up? 

We’re exploring additional causes to support with the #AdTechCares team. Join us! For a walkthrough of how Amobee can help you unify all your linear TV, digital, and social media investments, contact us at solutions@amobee.com.

The post 3 Transformative Lessons Learned From a Year of Covid-19 appeared first on Amobee.

Check out some of the topics the Amobee team explored at this year’s Advertising Week:

1) Maximizing the CTV Moment (Media and Entertainment Track) 

Connected TV is having a moment. Time spent was up 50% in Q2 and the five most premium AVOD streaming platforms witnessed a 31% rise in ad revenues for Q2. Savvy advertisers, fresh off of their upfront negotiations, are sitting on upwards of $10 billion in the white hot inventory, and have plans to spend even more on programmatic CTV in the months ahead. In this session, hear from industry leaders about how they are making the most of this opportunity every day. Watch HERE.

Moderator: Jack Bamberger, Chief Commercial Officer, Amobee 

Speakers:

• Shenan Reed, Head of Media, L’Oréal USA
• Yin Rani, CEO, MilkPEP (Got Milk?)
• Nicole Kane, Precision Marketing, Molson Coors Beverage Company
• Danielle Gonzales, President & Chief Client Officer, Starcom Worldwide 

2) Bringing Social Responsibility, Accountability and Action to Media (Brand Purpose Track)

We’re dealing with two distinct global pandemics in 2020: Covid-19 and the fight for social justice against racism. The ad industry sits at an interesting intersection; our ability to help shape consumer sentiment, illuminate injustice, and demand responsibility in journalism is unmatched. In this session, hear from executives at Campaign Zero and UM Worldwide about how we can actively work together to make a difference in ending systemic racism and social injustice. Watch HERE: 

Moderator: Ryanne Laredo, Chief Customer Officer, Amobee

Speakers: 

• DeRay McKesson, Co-Founder at Campaign Zero 
• Joshua Lowcock, Chief Digital Officer, UM

3) Innovations in Supply Path Optimization (SPO) (Future of Marketing Track) 

The meaning of SPO changes depending on the perspective of the vendor pitching its solutions, the agency pitching its services, and the brand striving for a return. In this session, learn why SPO is the proverbial elephant in the parable of the blind men: a different beast to each, and much greater in whole than the sum of their perceptions. Watch HERE: 

Moderator: Max Knight, VP Analytics, Amobee

Speakers: 

• Chris Kane, Founder & President, Jounce 

Check back with Amobee.com at the end of this month when the all three sessions can be viewed for free.

The post Amobee Maximizes the CTV, SPO Moment at this Year’s Advertising Week appeared first on Amobee.

• CTV and OTT are basically the same thing: False.
• CTV and OTT can help you reach hard-to-find audiences watching premium TV. True.
• Only half of premium OTT and CTV is available programmatically. True.

Today’s savvy marketers know they must intelligently plan, buy, and allocate advertising that leverages both the mass reach and scale of traditional linear TV and the real-time and on-demand targeting and measurement strengths of over-the-top (OTT) digital content, as delivered on devices such as “smart TVs” or connected TVs (CTV).

But CTV and OTT are not interchangeable terms, and knowing the distinct roles they each play in the convergence of linear TV and digital media will help you more effectively activate OTT and CTV inventory across your entire media portfolio.

CTV and OTT are basically the same thing: False

In combination, they provide a seamless, TV-like experience, but OTT is in fact a content delivery format and consumer service, and CTV refers to the hardware or “smart TV” set we have in our homes, or the act of consuming video on the big screen. 

Put another way, OTT is the process of streaming professionally produced television content to any device connected to an internet service in real-time or on-demand. In contrast, CTV is broadly defined as a device, typically the big screen in the living room or bedroom, regardless of what content is playing. Even the IAB has recommended that the phrase CTV only refer to actual television sets with internet connectivity. 

As our friend and colleague Kevin Maloy says: “Me watching cat videos on my TV is CTV, not OTT. Me watching Sports Center on my phone is OTT but not CTV. Me watching ‘60 minutes’ on my smart TV is both.”

The benefits of buying cross-screen audiences far outweigh the complexity 

The OTT content market is fragmented and comprises both ad-free subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) and ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD). 

SVOD enables unlimited OTT consumption at a flat monthly rate, whereas AVOD is free in exchange for consumers’ willingness to watch advertising, much like a traditional linear TV experience before cable. AVOD ad delivery is brand safe and 100% viewable, and ad completion rates hover around 98%. 

The landscape is also characterized by a growing number of aggregators that seek to bundle compelling content on behalf of consumers, such as Hulu, PlutoTV, Tubi, Xumo, and more. As a result, marketers have much to consider when it comes to finding their audiences at scale and allocating budget across the entire range of linear TV and OTT inventory sources.

CTV and OTT can help you reach hard-to-find audiences watching premium TV

Second only to linear TV—a $70 billion market in the U.S.—advertising in premium OTT content via CTVs is a rapidly growing $8 billion slice of the overall advertiser pie. And it attracts desirable and highly engaged audiences enjoying brand-safe TV content, as opposed to user-generated content.

As demand for OTT content continues to increase, and with people spending more time at home watching TV and other devices, today’s advertisers have an ever-growing ability to reach their audiences. And because OTT content is consumed on internet-enabled devices, advertisers have access to a variety of ad formats, data-driven targeting tactics, and near real-time optimization and measurement capabilities. These features of OTT and the CTV experience enable brands to better understand and engage effectively with their target audience.

Only half of premium OTT and CTV is available programmatically

Virtually all linear TV, and the most premium OTT content, is available only through upfront and Newfront reservation-based buys. Infact, 48% of this inventory will be sold directly by the media companies and other bits will be distributed through the aforementioned aggregators. 

These buys represent an advertiser’s most premium investments and need to be planned in advance and allocated quarterly with care. Fortunately, there are new tools and technologies that make this possible and plenty of resources to help you get started.

The other half of OTT inventory on CTV devices is more flexible as it is made available “as needed” to be purchased programmatically through the open auction, PMP, or programmatic guaranteed deals, which can be ideal for meeting specific campaign objectives. Today’s most sophisticated media planning and allocation solutions will let you work across both of these inventory siloes—digital direct and programmatic—holistically.

Smart planning across all screens and platforms can unify your portfolio  

As bigger budgets shift to OTT/CTV—and with the holidays and political season upon us—marketers need a converged campaign strategy that enables them to take their upfront and Newfront commitments into consideration and then allocate accordingly to optimize reach and frequency against their strategic audience target. 

Planning, activating, and measuring CTV and OTT campaigns across multiple transaction types, devices, and platforms—especially when combined with linear TV investments—requires a proven means to eliminate gaps, minimize overlaps, and deliver efficient and cost-effective cross-screen reach. Achieving this balance is Amobee’s vision and the promise of convergence in linear TV and digital media.

Make the promise of convergence real with a full suite of solutions

Amobee is all inclusive when it comes to planning, activating, and measuring advertising on TV screens, whether it’s OTT streaming content, legacy broadcast, cable, or satellite delivery systems. Amobee’s complete suite of convergence solutions unifies all linear TV, CTV, OTT, and programmatic, including social investments, across a marketer’s entire portfolio. Contact us today at Solutions@amobee.com. 

You can also test your knowledge of the CTV marketplace with our Amobee Myth Busting Quiz on Adweek. 

P.S. It’s worth noting that, as digital consumption of TV content becomes mainstream, some of this nuance has been lost and the OTT category of inventory is now generally referred to as “CTV.” This and more rapidly evolving trends will be covered in an upcoming blog post authored by the aforementioned Kevin Maloy.

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