In this week’s member guest blog post we caught up with Anthony Lamy, VP of EMEA Client Partnerships at VidMob. Anthony discusses how making sure you have the right creative fit for a platform can make a digital advertising campaign more successful. With so many platforms needing to be considered in creative, Anthony helps you to navigate this challenge. Keep reading to find out how.

Brands are facing a double creative control headache. While adhering to their own brand and creative guidelines is challenging enough, ensuring assets align with different social media platforms’ best practices is an even harder task — and one that’s getting tougher as goalposts constantly shift. 

Adding to these challenges is the prospect of economic uncertainty. Many brands are therefore under high pressure to use resources more wisely and fuel stronger ROI. Consequently, there is no room to waste precious budget on advertising creative that isn’t fit for its corresponding platform. 

To get their creative house in order, marketers need a smarter approach that allows them to consistently find the fastest path to effective creative that’s on brand and fit for the platform. To do this, brands should embrace the practice of creative scoring to ensure their creative consistently performs by aligning it with platform and brand best practices.

Time to achieve creative excellence (effectiveness, efficiency, impact) at scale

Although marketers have no control over a platform’s algorithms, one area that falls within their remit is creative quality. To date, businesses’ tendency towards internal, manual processes around brand governance has driven varied inefficiencies, with content feedback, reviews and approvals absorbing hours of time for marketers.

The biggest drawback of manual monitoring though is that labour-intensive analysis can’t function at the scale needed to run effective cross-channel advertising or stay in sync with fickle platforms and user preferences. At a time when social trust is fragile, running out of touch with target audiences poses major hazards for brands aiming to forge meaningful engagement via social media. Thanks to advances in creative analytics technology, however, there is scope to streamline quality assurance techniques. Innovative new creative scoring processes can continuously assess content across a broad spectrum of criteria including — by brand, platform, market, and objective — and track adherence to best practices across every asset automatically, with any discrepancies instantly flagged so they can be quickly adjusted. This means marketing teams can hand over the complicated work of manual tracking and analysis to sophisticated technology, without losing the insights. And that’s just the start.

A deeper window into performance

Aside from saving valuable time, smart scoring tools ultimately enable marketers to leverage best practices. Automatically flagging discrepancies, marketers can now turn benchmarks into actionable metrics and automate fast, accurate, and always-on evaluation. The majority also provide similarly useful core functions including pre- and in-flight assessment, to help minimise wasted spend on ads that fall below key standards and prevent ads from underperforming. 

More sophisticated platforms also harness subsets of artificial intelligence (AI) such as computer vision to offer comprehensive, real-time measurement. When it comes to scoring, this gives them the power to instantly analyse every creative element against unique standards: such as where brand logos are placed, objects in the foreground and background, colour use, the emotion expressed by featured talent, and the cadence of speech and edits.

In addition to determining whether assets adhere to brand standards, scoring assessment helps pinpoint the effect of specific creative elements on social ad performance; providing a clear view of which best practices to prioritise. For instance, Neutrogena has become one of many leading brands to apply intelligent scoring for slick monitoring and adjustment. Analysis of ad variations across Facebook and Instagram for their German campaign quickly identified that an emphasis on visuals was highly effective; especially imagery featuring celebrities and its Bright Boost product on a human hand. Optimising delivery to focus on creative including these elements fuelled a 30% rise in views past the first three seconds and a 188% hike in total viewability. 

The key takeaway here for marketers is that deep-diving analysis not only helps keep tabs on their creative assets but also establishes how they should be best used on social platforms. As an additional advantage, the ongoing assessment also means they can gain a persistently refreshed understanding of what is driving performance and impact in their creative across channels.

The digital space isn’t due to get any less complicated. What sparks audience attention and inspiration will always be subject to change, especially on rapidly evolving social platforms. Savvy marketers will accept the uncertainty and ensure a firmer grip on the areas they can control. By embracing smart creative assessment, they can use best practices to protect and preserve brand governance, increase creative performance and effectiveness, and find the balance between what is the ideal fit for users, platforms, and their brand.

The MIXX Awards Europe recognise and celebrate the best digital advertising campaigns in Europe.  The winners will be celebrated at IAB Europe’s flagship event, Interact on 23rd-24th May, in Madrid.

Meet our MIXX Awards Europe Jury Chair, Eddie Adedeji.

Eddie is Global Trading & Investment Lead PMX Investment Managing Partner at Publicis. He has over 20 years of media experience, Eddie has worked across a wide range of clients and categories at a national, regional & global level. Outside of work, Eddie lives his life through the eyes of his 2 two daughters and the footballing skills of his son (a fellow long-suffering Newcastle United fan)

We caught up with Eddie to get his thoughts on our 2023 MIXX Awards Europe competition.

Q. What are you most excited to see in the 2023 MIXX Awards Europe competition?

I’m always excited to see entries across all categories of the competition – from big brand, multi-market executions to local, performance executions – it  always surprises me to see the innovation right across the board. I think that the new Sustainability and Retail Media categories should be really interesting and I expect to see a real diversity not just in some of the challenges but how the entrants have developed and executed solutions in this space.

Q. After judging the awards last year, what made you want to get involved again?

All too often, we get locked into the ‘delivery’ of the day-to-day and have to really work hard to create the time to stop, take stock of what we have done and recognise good work. Being part of the panel, you get exposure to the very best of what we do as an industry and when looking at some of the winners, that work can be truly inspirational.

Q. In your opinion, why should people consider entering?

I think that if every piece of work was created with the mindset of , ‘How do I make this work award winning?’ and built campaigns with that clear focus on being able to articulate the key criteria that submissions are evaluated on (Strategy,  Execution, Media Results, Creative, Innovation and Business Results) then not only would that improve the output but I think that it would make the end-to-end process more rewarding. Entering allows you to understand how clients potentially are evaluating our work or even gives a great framework to challenge as you go through that process from brief to post campaign analysis for future campaigns. And just like judging the awards, entering the awards gives you that time to pause and reflect on your own work

Q. Given your expertise, what are you hoping to see from entries this year?

Our landscape only ever evolves to become more complex, more interconnected and more accountable via an ever expanding sea of data. I’m hoping that the best entries will be able to demonstrate how they have navigated this with a powerful, simple narrative grounded by robust results. This is really important for the categories that have multiple channels in the mix but even for specific-channel categories, I’m hoping it's clearly articulated or easy to intuit the roles of those campaigns in that broader, interconnected context.

Don’t miss the chance to get your work recognised at IAB Europe's awards on a European level. 

Key Dates

New for 2023 - Outstanding Contribution Award!

This year we have launched a new Outstanding Contribution Award to recognise the talent that exists in our industry! This award is for a team or an individual who has demonstrated an outstanding contribution to the digital advertising industry over the last 12 months. Find out more about this new award here. 

Got a Great Research Project? Enter our IAB Europe Research Awards

IAB Europe’s 2023 Research Awards are also open for entries. These awards recognise and showcase the great European digital research projects and the contribution they have made to the development of the digital advertising industry. Find out more here. 

Entry Links

Enter now to inspire others, reward your team and gain pan-European recognition for your digital advertising campaigns or research projects.

MIXX Awards Europe Entry Link

IAB Europe Research Awards Entry Link

Outstanding Contribution Entry Link

Entry Checklist

We have created a checklist to help you make sure your entry is on track for entry by the 10th of March to get Early Bird entry prices. 

✔ Download the entry notes and FAQs

Our entry notes contain all the rules and entry info you need for entering the awards, including the judging criteria. The MIXX Awards Europe entry notes can be found here and the IAB Europe Research Awards entry notes here. Our new Award, Outstanding Contribution Award entry notes here.

✔ Plan your time

Make sure you have enough time to draft your submissions and get them reviewed before you submit them. Remember there are now less than 6 weeks until the final deadline.

Please get in touch if you think you might have any delays.

✔ Consider all of the categories

Consider entering your work into multiple categories to get maximum visibility for your project or campaign. There is a discounted rate for entering additional categories!

✔ Review the 2022 winning entries

Why not have a look at some of our winners from last year to inspire your entry? 

MIXX Awards Europe & Research  2022 winners

✔ Ask the organisers

Get in touch with us via email if you have any questions:

• Marie-Clare Puffett - puffett@iabeurope.eu
• Liz Haines - haines@iabeurope.eu

Interact is back for 2023 and we are very excited to be heading to Madrid 23rd - 24th May to explore all things Innovation, Sustainability & Growth.  In partnership with IAB Spain, across two-days we will be bringing industry experts together to discuss and debate how we become privacy first, tackle sustainability and drive growth through innovation in the digital advertising industry. Key topics on this year's agenda include, but are not limited to:

• European Digital Ad Spend 
• Retail Media 
• Connected TV 
• Trust & Transparency 
• The Attention Economy
• Sustainability
• Policy & Advocacy 

We have some fantastic speakers lined up too, so keep your eyes peeled for more information coming on this soon. 

If you haven’t been to Interact before and want to know what all the hype is about, why not check out our 2022 wrap blog post here. It’s full of event highlights, videos and more to give you a sneak peek into what you can expect when you join us in Madrid.

If you want to take advantage of our Early Bird tickets for this year’s event be sure to get in quick as the deadline to purchase discounted tickets is just two weeks away. Get your tickets before 10th March to take advantage of the Early Bird rate.

We can't wait to see you in Madrid! 

Buy your tickets here

In this week’s member guest blog post we caught up with Simon Lee,  Audio Marketplace Operations Director at Triton Digital. Simon discusses the top 5 tactics you can use to get the most out of your digital audio advertising. He covers addressability, media kits. programmatic buyers and programmatic partners, keep reading to find out more.

Digital audio continues to evolve very quickly in today’s landscape as audiences tune into streaming radio, music playlists, and podcasts as their favourite ways to consume content, entertainment, and information. As we start 2023, Triton Digital, provider of the world’s leading programmatic audio marketplace, is seeing an increase of over 70% in programmatic audio impressions delivered compared to the same period 3 years ago in the European region. In 2022, the most popular live audio streaming format in Europe was Contemporary Hits, Pop, and Top 40. We saw Talk and News radio appear as the leading podcast formats for advertisers in 2022 and the top advertising categories were Shopping, Personal Finance, and Insurance.

While audio used to be a complimentary channel in media planning, it is now becoming an immensely popular format to use as podcast and streaming audio consumption continues to grow. The average time spent per day with digital audio is projected to reach 1 hour and 25 minutes in the UK alone in 2023. Marketers are leveraging programmatic audio as a hidden gem to communicate their messaging to a highly targeted audience.

Whether you are a radio broadcaster live streaming your stations digitally, a podcaster, music service, or in-game app developer, here are 5 programmatic advertising tactics you need to build revenue and successfully monetize your audio inventory.

1. Ensure there is healthy scale

Advertisers are looking to deliver impressions on quality inventory, and at scale. Creating and publishing outstanding audio content is time consuming and requires consistent effort behind the scenes. However, you can experiment with multiple stations, podcasts, or playlists across many genres to evaluate which ones can draw in a big audience. Remember, most audio ads are sold on their contextual value, so make sure the content you are building has a recognizable and distinct listener demographic. You will need to find the balance between trending content, experimental topics, and niche formats. Popular content with strong marketing can capture a large audience base, but also think about serving a specific group of listeners who are hungry for content that is relevant to them. Seasonal content, episodic podcasts, and pop-up stations are some ideas to capture new audiences while keeping existing listeners entertained. In the digital audio world, you can quickly switch, add, and drop formats. There are opportunities and audiences for whichever direction you choose, so experiment and be creative!

2. Addressability

Where possible, you want to have addressable and targetable listeners in the programmatic bid request by passing advertising IDs (mobile device ad ID or web-based cookie). These ‘smart’ impressions are more valuable to the advertiser as they supply more data about the audience that significantly improves targeting capabilities from the DSP. CPM levels for smart impressions are up to three times higher than regular impressions. Speak to your technology partner and app developer to see how you can pass identifiers for your listeners.

3. Have a media kit ready

A great media kit can tell in 10 slides or less the type of audio content you have, your audience demographics, what makes your content unique, example ads, how to access through programmatic channels, and supported audio ad formats. Remember your media kit will be evaluated along with other publishers and platforms, so make sure it is eye-catching and presentable! When you add content or new features to your platform, be sure to keep this document up to date as well. You want to spotlight your best content and if you have case studies or testimonials from advertisers highlighting campaigns you have worked on in the past, it is even better!

4. Be ready to respond to programmatic buyers

For your media sales team, it is best to appoint a point of contact or a team to lead conversations with interested programmatic buyers. This team should have a thorough understanding of your audio inventory and audience, and some background in programmatic advertising. Audio is a specialised field, but not too far-fetched from other digital ad formats available in the market today. Empower this team with the right resources, support, and platform for them to maximise your programmatic revenue. They should be familiar with setting up deals on your platform, monitoring performance, optimising yield, and generating reports. They will spearhead your programmatic strategy and will handle bringing in the money! The more proactive and up to date you are in the programmatic space, the more prepared you will be to field questions from potential advertisers.

5. Find the right programmatic partners

With the constant shift in digital advertising technology and privacy, finding the right partners can be challenging. With programmatic buying, buyer diversity helps to raise auction floor prices and provides you with a higher clearing price. Make sure you have access to as many ad networks and DSPs as possible. You should have the flexibility to execute the best revenue strategy with the tools at hand. Evaluate your technology and commercial partners to ensure that you have the best integrations, expertise, sales representations, and ultimately revenue yield so you can keep maximising your monetization opportunities. Participate in industry events and conversations to stay up to date with the latest technology shifts and network with other publishers and specialists!

For more information or guidance on programmatic audio advertising, please contact us through solutions@tritondigital.com 

Jill Briggs, Head of Policy, IAB Canada

Heading up the policy pillar at IAB Canada, Jill helps members navigate the complexities surrounding issues such as privacy, elections, cannabis advertising, iGaming, marketing to kids and any other legislative development impacting the digital advertising industry.

An interesting privacy case emerged last week in Canada involving a large local retailer. This monumental case provided some clear guidance on an area of vulnerability for most retailers around obtaining consent. While the focus was on consent at point of sale it has resulted in Canadian brands taking a closer look at their consent management practices as a whole and how they can provide at time of collection notice, outlining detailed purposes for collection and prompting clear option for opt in consent in a legitimate way to stay on the right side of the law – and more importantly build trust with their consumers.  

Last week’s findings by the the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC)  revolved around a retailer not seeking and receiving appropriate consent to share customer data with another party. The ruling was a clear message to industry on its current reliance on implied consent for activity that is not in line with a consumer’s “reasonable expectations” for use of their personal data – particularly in the case of sharing with 3rd parties. 

In speaking to the press, Commissioner Dufresne stated that the client in the case “treated customers’ choice to receive a receipt by email, instead of a paper copy, as “implicit consent” to share their data with a third-party.” He went on to say, “This practice is not consistent with privacy law and has to stop,” The message was loud and clear in that consumers need “clear information at key transaction points, empowering them to make decisions about how their personal information should be used.” His closing words sent a message to anyone else currently relying on similar practices to immediately come into compliance with the law. While the OPC does not currently have enforcement power he also made the case for the proposed C27 (a new federal Bill) to be passed so that those using bad practices can be fined appropriately. 

Our current federal privacy legislation, PIPEDA, has guidance on what constitutes meaningful consent and outlines that not only do organisations need to demonstrate accountability (proof of consent), present the consumer with just in time notices and clear options and control they also need to “consider the reasonable expectations of the individual in the circumstances. For example, if there is a use or disclosure a user would not reasonably expect to be occurring, such as certain sharing of information with a third party, the downloading of photos or contact lists, or the tracking of location, express consent would likely be required.” 

Since this news broke, we have been seeing an uptick in inquiries on CMPS and questions around viable options in our market. Coupled with the launch of TCF Canada we are encouraging all TCF V2.0 CMPs to register for our local framework so that Canadian brands can benefit from partnerships with trusted vendors. 

We have also kicked off efforts to navigate this increasingly complex omnichannel retail environment and how we can expand our current privacy framework to solve this problem. With the use of consent banners at point of data collection being the only reliable way to obtain express consent we would like to explore ways to integrate the technology into a point of sale that would benefit all members of the supply chain. 

You can find more information on TCF Canada here and if you have questions please reach out to policy@iabcanada.com 

New Digital Age asked experts from all corners of the digital industry to look beyond the uncertain economic horizon, and point out areas where we can expect positive change in 2023. From the responses, it is clear that, thanks to technological advances, a renewed commitment to sustainability and an emphasis on efficiency, a brighter future for the sector is just around the corner. See our CEO Townsend Feehan’s prediction below:

“With Europe hit by its hottest summer on record, and a multitude of global natural disasters, 2022 hammered home that the time for aggressive action to cut CO2 emissions is now. With one calculation suggesting that the typical ad campaign emits around 5.4 tons of CO2, sustainability should no longer be viewed as a nice-to-have, but standard operating procedure.

“The industry’s carbon footprint is driven by a complex supply chain, with a large amount of energy consumed and emissions produced through the delivery and use of digital advertising. If the industry is to do its part to reduce this and help fight the climate crisis, then it will need to educate on, identify and enable significant efficiencies along the supply path. Thankfully, the sector is collaborating in this effort; the first step being to create harmonised sustainability standards and best practices, with specific focus on a consistent measurement framework and immediate action that all parties can take.  

“If more industry stakeholders can educate and hold themselves and their partners accountable for the emissions produced in the delivery of digital advertising, in 2023 we will see the industry move toward more agreed practical standards. This includes better measurement and overall reduction of environmental impact.”

Townsend Feehan, CEO, IAB Europe

Read more expert predictions from the series here 

IAB Europe this week signed an industry joint letter addressed to the Members of the Committee of Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament (LIBE) on the Data Act proposal and its interplay with the GDPR. The letter initiated by FEDMA was co-signed by IAB Europe, Alliance Digitale (IAB France), IAB Poland, IAB Spain and IAB Sweden and other associations representing companies from various sectors of the business community. 

As the LIBE Committee moves forward to finalise its opinion on the proposed Data Act, some provisions in the European Commission’s proposal and some amendments in the LIBE Committee’s draft opinion could have the unintended consequences of overriding the GDPR risk-based approach that would ultimately undermine the adduce goal of the Data Act of facilitating innovative uses of existing data. 

—

BRUSSELS, 25 January 2023 – Today, a coalition of associations representing companies from various sectors of the business community issued a joint statement on the Data Act and its interplay with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Chapter II of the proposal.  

The statement highlights that some provisions in the European Commission’s proposal and some amendments in the LIBE Committee’s draft opinion would restrict certain data processing activities even when carried out in a GDPR-compliant way.

These provisions do not only risk curbing the benefits for innovation, but they are at odds with the Data Act’s objective to empower users who should be free to decide the purposes for sharing their personal data insofar as any data sharing and processing is compliant with the GDPR.

With the GDPR, the EU has set up a modern futureproof data protection framework. Yet, the Data Act could undermine these achievements and the credibility of the GDPR.

Specifically, the coalition calls on EU legislators to:

•       Defer to all the GDPR legal bases and GDPR rules on further processing;
•       Incentivize the use of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) to maintain high levels of privacy and enable the safe reuse of personal data;
•       Preserve the horizontal nature of the Data Act without excluding data processing activities from certain sectors in full compliance with the GDPR.

The full coalition includes:

ACT - The App Association

AIG -IAB France - Alliance Digitale

CCIA - Computer & Communications Industry Association

EUCOPE - European Confederation of Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs

FEDMA – Federation of European Data and Marketing

IAB Europe - Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe

IAB Poland - Interactive Advertising Bureau Poland

IAB Spain - Interactive Advertising Bureau Spain

IAB Sweden- Interactive Advertising Bureau Sweden

ITI - Information Technology Industry Council

You can read the full letter here.

In this week’s member guest blog post we caught up with David Wayne, Senior HR Business Partner at DoubleVerify.  David discusses the importance of creating a positive employee experience and shares ways in which companies can maximise their efforts. Keep reading to learn more:

Employee experience is becoming an increasingly important topic in the business world. It's directly correlated to the improvement of profitability, revenue, and employee well-being. 

But the benefits of a positive employee experience extend beyond just the company's bottom line. Our people are our customers' most important assets, and a positive employee experience can lead to increased customer results. 

At DoubleVerify, we understand that the positive experience of our employees is not just a nice-to-have, it's a business imperative. A positive and supportive work environment is crucial for attracting and retaining top talent, and for fostering a culture of engagement and productivity.

So how can businesses improve their employee experience? To create a positive employee experience, organisations must create an environment and values that personally connect with the employee, where the intersection of the individual's passions, values, and skills meet the organisation's vision, identity, culture, and brand equity. 

Growth opportunities are important, as it's incumbent on organisations to help employees improve and grow with and from their work. Organisations must develop a platform to enable positive risk, develop a framework for mental resilience training and encourage conversations that always start with positive intent. Sense of belonging is also important because it helps employees feel connected to and valued by the organisations. 

The impacts of the COVID pandemic, global recession, social injustice, and rise of mental health issues, has caused employees to shift their mindset to become more open and look for positive collaborative experiences. To meet this new demand, organisations are shaping their values to reflect a "Growth Mindset" that embraces challenges and change.

A positive employee experience can also be driven by investing in employee well-being. At DoubleVerify, we have implemented a variety of initiatives to support the well-being of our employees. From offering flexible working arrangements, to providing access to mental health support and resources, to promoting a culture of work-life balance, we are committed to creating a positive and supportive work environment for our team.

We also understand the importance of employee engagement and have implemented regular surveys to measure employee satisfaction and engagement levels, to ensure that we are providing the best possible work environment for our team.

In conclusion, creating a positive employee experience is essential for attracting and retaining top talent, fostering a culture of engagement and productivity and ultimately driving business results. At DoubleVerify, we are committed to creating a positive employee experience and we 

and we encourage other businesses to make positive employee experiences a priority.

If You Miss It, You Miss Out: EBE 2023 Agenda Released

With the E-commerce Berlin Expo being just a month away, the agenda for the event has recently been released. The one-day event will be packed with informative talks, presentations, workshops and panel discussions from notable industry players. It already appears to be the best agenda for this event that has ever been released and implemented.

Insightful knowledge hub and great networking platform is here for you! And while it might sound like an event that happens every single year, it's 2023 that brings a lot of new, fresh air to this well-established Expo and Conference.

Five stages full of knowledge

The five stages at this year's event promise to deliver insight and entertainment in spades. With a huge multitude of presentations, discussions and demonstrations on offer, there's guaranteed something for everyone. The organizers strive to be the beacon of e-comm knowledge!

The agenda was put together in a very international spirit, but with a strong local factor, too. What also pleases the eye is gender diversification: out of 70 speakers, 30 of them are female.

Let's take a look at a few spots on the agenda – just to whet your appetite:

• Mercedes-Benz Online Vehicle Sales: Luxury Omni-Channel Experience [Olga Sapet - Mercedes-Benz]
• How good buying advice works – COMPUTER BILD’s take on value-added journalism and content commerce [Christian Wolf - Computer Bild]
• We do it our way! Clinton Commerce with CAMP DAVID [Yaw Afram - Clinton] - First time on stage in 10 years!
• How the sex toy brand AMORELIE empowers employees with OKRs to create sexually fulfilled humans everywhere [Marcel Bogumil - Amorelie & Noreen Reiter - EQOM]
• How we are creating the most inspiring online shopping experience for musicians [Jöran Eitel & Ralph Cibis - Thomann.io]
• From Clothes to Goals: How to sell Intention in Fashion [Anamika Datta - Zalando]

We could be listing presentations for days - the selection is simply too broad and diverse. Make sure to check out the full agenda on Expo website, as you don't want to miss out on any session. 

The full agenda is available here: https://ecommerceberlin.com/schedule.

Panel discussions are a valuable way to share information and gain insights – that’s why you’ll get quite a few of them served straight to your table this year.

Examples? Here you go!

• Sports merchandising & licensing panel discussion with BVB, Eventim Sports and Fanatics
• Creating the Metaverse - United or Divided? with Meta, Web3, ART+COM, Arvato Systems, and Digital Ventures

You can learn what it's like to combine fan-based e-commerce with working with an admired brand and selling tickets in a chaotic market from the above. You'll find out what the Metaverse is, who created it, and how to become a part of it - and it's all worth the effort, as you’ll see. 

Creators of the Metaverse Fest sub-event

There's no time to get complacent, and the organizers work hard every year to surprise our audiences. As usual, this year is no different. 

During E-commerce Berlin Expo 2023, there will be a special program block dedicated to the Metaverse and how it can benefit your business.

Starting at 1:10 p.m., the Creators of the Metaverse crew will facilitate a series of talks and panels. Any time is a good time to visit their section in Hall 8!

Nothing like a panel discussion to round out this experience, right? There will be a very interesting discussion between representatives of the web3 community and Meta's representatives on stage!

Seeking more interactivity? Sign up for FREE Masterclasses

With the E-commerce Berlin Expo right around the corner, Hall 2 is going to be abuzz with Masterclasses. 

The organizers believe it is important to share knowledge for free, so the Masterclasses, along with the entire Conference, are free of charge. Simply choose the topic you're interested in and sign up on a special page to save your seat. 

There will be two tracks of five sessions each. If you come in crowds, the EBE crew will prepare more Masterclasses next year!

Space is limited, so make sure you reserve your spot today here: https://ecommerceberlin.com/masterclasses

See you in February

Leverage the opportunity to participate and deepen your knowledge of e-commerce: E-commerce Berlin Expo 2023 will be an amazing event that you won't want to miss!With five stages full of knowledge, Masterclasses to whet your appetite, and panel discussions, this agenda is packed with exciting topics and speakers that are sure to leave attendees with a much better understanding of e-commerce. It's a must-attend event for anyone interested in the e-commerce industry.

The EBE2023 is free to attend. Mark your calendars and book your tickets here: https://ecommerceberlin.com/visit

 Find out more about the E-commerce Berlin Expo 2023

The E-Commerce Berlin Expo will be taking place for the seventh time on the 23rd of February, 2023, at Station Berlin. Doors will open at 10 AM, and EBE2023 is expected to welcome more than 9,000 visitors. The annual fair has become a leading e-commerce event in Berlin with representatives from Google, Meta, YouTube, Zalando, Otto Group, Amazon and Alibaba Group as past participants. Learn more at https://ecommerceberlin.com 

For further questions, reach out on pr@ecommerceberlin.com

In this week’s member guest blog post we caught up with Julie Selman, SVP, Head of EMEA at Magnite. In this all-inclusive piece Julie looks at Sustainability, Privacy and Transparency. For more on what she expects from a year of ‘collaboration, innovation and transformation’ keep reading.

The new year is here and we’ve been busy at Magnite, excitedly looking forward to what we think is to come in 2023. 

The media and advertising landscape that we all navigate is ever-changing, so as part of eMpower 2023 with Magnite, I asked some of our EMEA experts to reveal their key predictions and offer some insight. 

A Greater Emphasis on Sustainability

There is a growing determination across our industry to make significant changes for the good of the planet. Over the next year, we expect to see a continuation and activation of initiatives that bring about greater awareness amongst brands and consumers. 

In 2023, consumers will place an even greater demand for the brands they love to operate more climate-consciously. There will be a stronger focus on putting ESG policies into action, enabling brands to align with consumers' expectations.

Finally, sustainability will become less intimidating as our knowledge increases, which will pave the way for significant and positive change in behaviours. 

Ad-Supported Streaming Becomes the Norm

Consumers are looking for ways to enjoy a wide variety of content while not taking on additional costs. This is clear from the sheer amount of consumers transitioning from paid-for streaming services to ad-supported ones.

Our MD, CTV in EMEA, Sam Wilson, says, ‘In the current environment, consumers don't want to give up watching quality content, but they are looking for ways to limit monthly outgoings. This shift will mean advertisers can find their audiences more easily in a premium environment in 2023.’

Sam believes 2023 will be the year of hybrid viewing. Media owners will offer more choice and flexibility through improving their ad offering, and audiences will have a wider variety of services and a better user experience. 

This transition opens a whole world of opportunities for sellers and buyers to reach audiences who were once unreachable programmatically. 

Transparency and Efficiency Will Remain Paramount

The industry is gaining a better understanding of Supply Path Optimisation and the value it brings, but there is still room to improve. 2023 will be a continuation of educating and implementation for agencies, clients and publishers.

By shifting the focus to transparency, and reducing tech partnerships to a carefully curated list,  Graeme Lynch, Head of Demand, EMEA, believes agencies and brands will benefit from more control of their own supply management.

‘A stronger emphasis on determining costs will mean an increase in clients wanting a more direct relationship with tech partners so they can drive efficient media buying,’ Graeme says.

Higher Focus on Privacy-Centric Products

The eventual deprecation of third-party cookies means the focus on finding alternatives to identity resolution is higher than ever. The development of solutions like Seller Defined Audiences (SDA) and Magnite Audience Segment, demonstrate meaningful growth in privacy-centric identity products. 

The industry has been talking about context for a while now, but with improved content classification, sessions can now be targeted with incredible detail, with reduced reliance on user data.

Pete Danks, VP of product, says, ‘I have two asks for the industry. Firstly, from the supply-side, lean into this tech. It’s important that we embrace it and work together. And for buyers, we need meaningful test budgets, because that’s what will drive success in 2023.’

There is plenty to look forward to in 2023. Sustainability will remain a top priority for the industry as a whole. The shift to ad-supported streaming services will continue, and the transparency that SPO brings will continue to benefit buyers. Finally, we can expect to see an increasing emphasis on privacy-centric products that put the power back in the hands of the publishers. 

Wishing you all a happy, healthy and successful 2023!

If you’d like to see the full library of eMpower 2023 predictions click here 

In this week’s member guest blog post we caught up with Andy Jones, Head of  UK Sales at Samsung Ads Europe. In this very exciting and informative piece Andy looks at the common misconceptions within CTV and uses his expertise to demystify these. 

In 1996, Bill Gates coined the phrase Content is King. It’s now clear just how right he was. The internet has changed everything - even the TV set.

Our TV experience is now made up of more than linear channel hopping - we go to different providers for different needs across smart TVs. Personally I use live TV for sports, YouTube for my fix of international news, Disney+ for family viewing and Samsung TV Plus for the variety of lean-back TV content. The market has changed so quickly that it is difficult for publishers, agencies and advertisers alike to keep their finger on the pulse.

At Mediatel’s The Future of TV Advertising Global event at the end of last year, I explored the current TV landscape, addressing misconceptions of TV advertising in the age of streaming.

Misconception #1 - There’s no quality content in CTV

AVOD and FAST channels do not yet have the same reputation among advertisers for high quality content. This is a competitive space. Amazon spent $432 million producing the blockbuster Rings of Power and forayed into live sports by securing rights to select Premier League matches.

But new FAST players are subverting the narrative. FAST, for those new to the concept, is Free Ad Supported Streaming TV: think scheduled content within streaming channels. Such services in Europe - which include Pluto TV and Rakuten TV - offer between 45 and 150 FAST channels across France, the UK, Germany, Italy and France. These countries have been our priority with our own FAST service Samsung TV Plus -  securing partnerships with regional broadcasters like Spain’s RTVE, allowing Spanish audiences to view La Liga matches and DAZN launching its first FAST channel exclusively for German Samsung TV Plus viewers, featuring exclusive live sporting content. FAST channels give audiences access to some of the most popular shows in the country for free. Our Samsung TV Plus service  gives Europeans free access to an exclusive catalogue of BBC programming including  giving French, German, Italian and Spanish audiences access to classic Doctor Who episodes. Alternatively, for the US TV lovers, Samsung TV Plus features America’s Got Talent and American Idol. Similarly, Pluto TV gives MTV fans the chance to enjoy some of its flagship programmes - such as Catfish: The TV Show and Teen Mom - nonstop.

Misconception #2 - It’s hard to manage ad frequency

With so many options for viewing content, advertisers are right to be cautious around the possibility of under- or overexposure. This is where the advanced targeting capabilities made possible via CTV come into play. Combining modelled data such as BARB with deterministic data, like Samsung Ads’ ACR data, advertisers get both a trend based holistic view of the market and target specific viewers who have not been exposed to campaigns via linear TV.

Innovation in programmatic on Connected TV (CTV) is continuously developing tools for improving the CTV experience for viewers and advertisers alike. The growing adoption of OpenRTB 2.6 is one example of the evolution, which likens the buying and selling of inventory to linear TV through ad podding. Podding allows publishers to deliver several ads in a single ad slot, mimicking the experience viewers are familiar with in linear TV ad break settings. It also allows advertisers to maximise ad revenue through queuing up a customisable sequence of the most relevant ads within a certain ad slot.

As more consumers make the shift away from linear to streamed content, incremental reach becomes an important tool. Eurovision exemplifies this shift. Youtube recorded a 50% YoY increase in the number of people enjoying the music through this platform in the 2022 competition compared to the previous year. Increasingly audiences are opting to stream the big ticket, live TV events rather than accessing them via traditional linear platforms.

Misconception #3 - The quality of the viewing experience is not the same as it is on linear.

Experiences are more streamlined on CTV.

The need for additional devices is declining rapidly. On Smart TVs, everything is built in the TV, for the TV. It’s like comparing a modern smartphone to a handset from the 90s - technology within TVs is more powerful than ever. Gone are the days of buffering and clunky experiences. Viewers have embraced streaming, and the simplicity of the technology in this space. And it will continue to be the job of the OEM or Operating System to aid user navigation and content discovery.

Bringing all content strands under the roof of one OS isn’t the same as linear - it actually makes it even easier and more convenient.

Misconception #4 - Ads on CTV are perceived differently to linear.

Some people believe that ads on CTV are perceived differently than those on linear channels. However, research has shown that advertising is generally viewed similarly across platforms.

We commissioned a study earlier this year with VERVE, to better understand viewers’ engagement with advertising across viewing platforms and understand if there was a difference across streaming vs linear across those five EU countries. The results showed that broadly viewers are just as likely to watch an ad on streaming vs linear – even a  little more likely to watch them on AVOD. 

Consumers appreciate the value exchange in viewing ads. A recent Seedtag report found 57% of  consumers in the EU5 are willing to watch ads in exchange for free content. In fact 58% of respondents to the survey would choose a hybrid or ad-supported model instead of a paid for service. The TV landscape is no exception.

Consumers today understand and are open to the value exchange of free content in exchange for ads, as long as those ads are relevant, which the data led approach of CTV advertising delivers.

Challenge assumptions

As an industry, we need to challenge and re-evaluate our own preconceptions.

Technology is changing the world quickly. Take the Qatar FIFA World Cup last year. The British broadcaster ITV reported its coverage was streamed 146 million times. This is 100 million more streams than the Russian FIFA World Cup in 2018. 

As Bill Gates predicted - content is king. But now we can see that data is the kingdom. The insights Smart TVs offer advertisers are shining a light on the reality of the CTV landscape - and empowering brands to get closer to audiences through these channels.