The NewFronts, an annual showcase for what’s fresh and exciting in digital media, kicked off this 12 months with a discuss dialectics. Some audience members could have felt transported out of their seats in a ritzy Manhattan venue back to school philosophy class, but a ruminative tone felt fitting for an industry that’s grappling with terms like “existential crisis,” mounting regulatory pressure and rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI).
David Cohen, the CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the trade group that hosts the weeklong event, took to the stage ahead of Google’s presentation last Monday to debate various dialectics — or opposing ideas that exist in conversation to reach at concrete truths — that he views as defining digital at the present moment: traditional Hollywood versus the creator economy; innovations in generative AI disrupting old workflows; and a desire to balance personalization and performance with tighter privacy rules.
The last point felt particularly relevant arriving just just a few days after Google delayed the deprecation of cookies for a 3rd time and because the U.S. recently announced plans to force a sale or ban of TikTok, a NewFronts presenter, over its ties to China. TikTok’s showcase was at capability Thursday evening as the corporate pledged it might fight the crackdown in court. It was an instance of thorny real-world politics seeping into an occasion that largely focuses on glitzy presentations rife with celebrity cameos and hobnobbing over cocktails.
Questions across the death of the cookie, one other seismic shift casting an extended shadow, drew a mixture of responses. Marketers understand the gravity of the change, but a drifting timeline — Google has slated the rollout for next 12 months — has sapped a way of urgency and resulted in an unclear effect on budget allocation.
“It’s type of like, yeah I actually have to take into consideration this. But do I? Do I would like to spin my wheels and spend my resources in getting on top of things with these latest solutions [or] am I wasting my money since it’s probably not happening?” said Jennifer D’Alessandro, head of ad sales and marketing for the publisher Future Today, which owns and operates a whole lot of promoting video-on-demand channels.
The IAB is attempting to combat resigned attitudes in relation to cookies, and Cohen believes marketers are taking the difficulty more seriously than they did even six months ago. The stakes of keeping digital practices in line are higher because the channel’s dominance is further enshrined. Digital video is forecast by the organization to grow 16% to $63 billion this 12 months, usurping linear TV for the primary time in market share.
“It’s not helpful after we proceed to beat back the timetable because some folks will just say, ‘This isn’t going to occur.’ I hear all of that,” said Cohen of cookies during an interview at the NewFronts. “Our goal is simply to make certain the industry keeps the foot on the gas and stays vigilant because that is going to occur.”
All eyes on AI
The cookie conundrum and potential app bans were pressing discussion points but not particularly fun ones at the 2024 NewFronts. In their efforts to dazzle and excite media buyers, publishers leaned heavily on AI, echoing a concurrent raft of earnings reports that put the technology front and center. A Meta executive at the highest of the corporate’s NewFronts Thursday joked that a live band accompanying the presentation should play a drum fill each time the 2 letters were used together.
The Instagram and Facebook owner hawked latest AI-powered creative tools coming to its TikTok lookalike Reels, including the flexibility to routinely expand videos to suit different aspect ratios and screen surfaces. Google and TikTok trumpeted generative AI’s ability to make buying and running campaigns easier.
TikTok is releasing a Pulse Custom Lineups feature that uses AI to curate trending, brand-safe content that aligns with specific advertiser goals. Google outlined several AI solutions for its Display & Video 360 demand-side platform, akin to a commitment optimizer that helps agencies manage complex yearly deals with multiple publishers.
AI is viewed as a potentially necessary piece in solving the cookie deprecation puzzle by helping marketers produce simpler alternatives. The IAB’s latest state of knowledge report revealed one-third of brands, agencies and publishers are experimenting with AI to reinforce their first-party data sets.
“As AI pertains to media planning and targeting, that’s pretty vanilla,” said Mark Zamuner, president of Juice Media, on a call ahead of the NewFronts. “In my mind, it’s really about how are you leveraging it, not for just planning, however the execution and driving outcomes.”
A changing marketplace
Some of the opposite trends underpinning digital, including the convergence of streaming and traditional broadcast, were reflected within the lineup of NewFronts presenters and have raised fresh debate over the event’s relevance.
Amazon, which has made the NewFronts central to its streaming pitch for the past several years, eschewed an enormous stage show and can as a substitute host its first upfronts later in May, chasing more traditional TV budgets. Prime Video has been within the highlight because the service introduces commercials and sees traction for primetime programming like NFL “Thursday Night Football.”
Google’s YouTube may have its annual Brandcast the identical week as Amazon. Spotify placed on an “alternative to the NewFronts,” called Spotify Sparks, within the midst of the media-buying bonanza. Meanwhile, Paramount Global has foregone any type of NewFronts or upfronts push altogether in favor of pitching individual agencies and types for the second 12 months in a row.
“The whole debate between upfronts and NewFronts, everyone’s asking: What’s the purpose of getting each? There’s no story there, so far as I’m concerned,” said Cohen. “There’s a single video marketplace. It so happens it plays out in two separate weeks.”
With a slate chock filled with ad-tech players and platforms like GSTV, which places ads on gas station TVs, the 2024 NewFronts highlighted digital’s greater gravitation toward performance. Retail media has grow to be a hot topic and plenty of players within the space see connected TV as their next growth stepping stones.
“We’re continuing to see a shift from brand marketing to performance marketing which impacts how advertisers consider their overall marketing spend,” said Dave Simon, general manager of growth initiatives at Moloco, in emailed comments. “I do think the Newfronts function an excellent forum for digital-first platforms to spotlight their capabilities. But identical to the upfronts, the actual work for the media corporations begins once the event is over.”
The performance-oriented mindset has potentially affected among the NewFronts agenda, notably on the content front, in response to attendees.
“We had a writers’ strike for a very long time and there’s not numerous latest content being talked about,” said Future Today’s D’Alessandro. “I assumed it might be a flood.”
Better days ahead?
One of the opposite dialectics Cohen mentioned at the highest of the NewFronts related to the state of measurement. The executive noted that marketers have moved past relying solely on panel-based data and that a multi-currency world is close by, a nod to Nielsen’s slipping dominance within the wake of reporting errors and a bumpy transition to a cross-channel model.
“We are finally beginning to see traction on latest currencies,” said Juice Media’s Zamuner.
Fraud and transparency also received numerous attention, possibly a consequence of damning reports on the state of programmatic which have shown massive amounts of waste on junky Made for Advertising web sites.
“I believe it’s key for media buyers and agencies to lean into that and push. They should know where they’re running,” said D’Alessandro. “It looks like that is the 12 months that they are going to start making more demands.”
Publishers and platforms also seemed wanting to move past the old ways of doing things. Google touted that CTV stands to be a greater, more privacy-forward channel than digital because it won’t depend on third-party cookies as a baseline. But some experts cautioned that what qualifies as aboveboard within the eyes of regulators may not stay so for long. Digital stakeholders might want to carry on their toes to avoid getting caught in the identical snares which are dogging them today.
“CTV is just not stricken by the identical challenges around cookie deprecation. You’ve got IP address, you’ve got ACR data. Most people just don’t concentrate to that as a privacy compliance issue. It shall be,” said Cohen. “There is little doubt in our mind that, eventually, IP address shall be under the identical pressure that third-party cookies are under. It’s just an issue of when that’s going to occur.”
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