Less than a week after delaying its plans to deprecate third-party cookies for the third time, Google took to the stage to hawk its video strengths to brands and agencies as part of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s NewFronts. A key part of the corporate’s pitch: Connected TV (CTV) stands to be a more aboveboard model than digital, which is undergoing a painful transition away from old methods of ad targeting which have landed within the crosshairs of regulators and creeped out privacy-conscious consumers.
Emergent tech like artificial intelligence (AI) was positioned as a means to enable a higher path forward, however the notoriously insular walled garden also opened the door to deeper collaboration within the CTV arena.
“Privacy will not be front and center in CTV conversations today, but trust me, that may change. We even have a tremendous opportunity to get this right from day one,” said Adam Stewart, vice chairman of consumer goods and entertainment at Google, throughout the NewFronts kickoff, which was livestreamed via YouTube. “Because CTV has never used third-party cookies, we are able to start fresh as an alternative of recreating outdated techniques.”
Google used the presentation to promote its Display & Video 360 demand-side platform, with a concentrate on a partnership ecosystem that features some of the most important streaming players like Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery. The firm is among the many first to directly integrate into Disney’s Real-time Ad Exchange (DRAX), giving advertisers access to the entertainment giant’s inventory. YouTube, the crown jewel of Google’s video bets, was also within the highlight thanks to 1 billion hours of content watched on TV screens each day. YouTube will host a separate Brandcast showcase in May.
Simplicity and streamlining were two recurrent themes on the product announcement front Monday. Google is introducing a feature called quick deals that permits media buyers using Display & Video 360 to broker custom deals with publishers while “skipping the complex negotiation process,” per a blog post. Instant deals are already available for select YouTube ad products like YouTube Select and Masthead but are actually expanding to publisher partners like Disney.
AI, which is driving strategy across Google’s ecosystem, also received a lot of discussion. A recent commitment optimizer tool will help agencies juggle different yearly deals between various publishers, attempting to replace tedious spreadsheet work. In addition, Google unveiled an audience persona capability, arriving this summer, that aligns audience segments with marketers’ goals with the help of generative AI and a custom bidding solution that optimizes campaigns for behaviors like “time on screen.” Custom bidding will soon include CTV-specific signals, like content genre, according to Google.
“We need to rethink programmatic TV altogether. We can’t plug an old model into a recent era, we now have to invent the brand new established order. The decisions that we make today matter,” said Sean Downey, president of Americas and global partners at Google. “When you consolidate your streaming with Google, you possibly can achieve this much.”
Cookies loom large
Even as Google trumpeted Display & Video 360 as a one-stop destination for video buyers, executives harped on the necessity for the industry to come together to avoid past privacy stumbles. Google’s effort to implement its alternative for cookies, called the Privacy Sandbox, has been met with pushback from regulators and trade groups, hence the recent delays. Among probably the most vocal critics has been the IAB Tech Lab, an industry consortium related to the IAB.
“We all understand it’s imperative to proceed to work together to navigate the signal loss like third-party cookies,” said Kristen O’Hara, vice chairman of agency, platforms and client solutions at Google, on the NewFronts. “But it’s also imperative that we start to incorporate recent solutions which might be actually going to help this industry construct trust between brands and consumers.”
To that end, Google touted progress with a first-party identity solution centered on streaming called Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation (PAIR). PAIR, which avoids the sort of data pooling that tends to raise privacy alarms, has been adopted by NBCUniversal and data clean-room providers comparable to LiveRamp and InfoSum. It is coming to Disney with the brand new DRAX integration and also being open-sourced to the IAB Tech Lab, meaning other ad-tech corporations can get a peek under the hood.
“It’s a protocol that provides advertisers the flexibility to show relevant ads to some of their highest-intent audiences,” said Google’s Stewart. “This helps increase promoting performance and hit marketing objectives while truly respecting people’s privacy expectations.”
Google pushing an offering like PAIR to be open-source was seen as a positive by some media watchers, though not necessarily an equalizer in a digital landscape that continues to advantage players with the deepest pockets.
“It’s great to see PAIR moving to an open-sourced, broader access technology. Up until now, it’s largely been a Google initiative for Google channels only, which comes with its own set of constraints for brands,” said Mark Zamuner, president of Juice Media, over email. “But, the fact is that the mega brands who’ve extensive first-party data will still have a major advantage and there’ll proceed to be a major disparity between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’
“The majority of mid-tier brands lack the infrastructure to integrate technologies like PAIR or will need to shift their resourcing to keep pace,” Zamuner added.
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