Month: June 2019

The series will follow producers Clare Toeniskoetter and Lynsea Garrison traveling with The Times’ Berlin bureau chief, Katrin Bennhold, across Germany, Italy, France and Poland.

“This [podcast] is driving that habit, ritual and routine with the audience,” said Theo Balcomb, executive producer of “The Daily.” “We have the scoops and the reach and the huge international newsroom; it’s that footprint that we have that no one else does.”

As “The Daily” seeks to develop a global audience, it can draw on its wealth of 200 reporters outside the U.S. According to the New York Times, 20% of the podcast’s 2 million daily listeners are outside the U.S., while the U.K. is its second-biggest international market after Canada. Over half of its U.K. audience is British, as opposed to U.S. expats living in the U.K., which is a common assumption made about U.S. publishers’ international audiences.

From now on, one podcast producer will focus solely on creating international stories over the next year.

“The Daily” sparked a global trend of news podcasts from many publishers like The Economist and The Guardian. In 2017, the show started with four people, in a room the size of a storage cupboard, and has grown to 15 who sit within the broader audio team of 30 people. The audio team now has three studios.

The publisher said the show is profitable. During The New York Times’ most recent earnings call, COO Meredith Kopit Levien said that digital advertising grew 19% in the first three months this year compared to the previous year and that one of the biggest drivers was revenue from podcasts, driven by “The Daily.”

Beyond ad revenue, podcasts can drive more international subscribers. The Times has set itself the goal of reaching 10 million total subscriptions by 2025; currently, it stands at 4.5 million subscriptions. Of digital-only subscriptions, 16% come from outside the U.S.

How audio can play a part in the subscription journey is on everyone’s mind. For its first nonfiction podcast series “Caliphate,” The Times gave subscribers early access. While the publisher claimed it saw an uplift in conversions, it wouldn’t share specific numbers.

The Times is also exploring the link between audio and subscribers through ads in “The Daily,” launched a month ago. The audio ads feature interviews with Balcomb and colleagues who made the show about their experiences, explains the context of The Times. According to Balcomb, younger fans of the show — half of U.K. listeners are under 30 years old — emailed and tweeted their desire to subscribe after listening to the ads, not realizing that simply buying a subscription was the best way to show support.

The publisher said it has seen a positive uplift from the ads but was unable to share more details until it has understood how factors like frequency had an impact. Anecdotally, The Times gets emails and tweets of thanks for the ads which serve as reminders to subscribe.

Unlike subscription publishers like The Economist, which sees successful conversions using podcasts to market its subscriptions, The Times advertises other standalone products, like Crosswords and Cooking, on other podcasts.

Each day, Balcomb and the team critique the previous show’s content and process to try and improve. Over the years, the show moved from being a more standard in-studio interview format to audio documentaries that follow a narrative. The goal is to weave in more scenic production to root the audio in settings outside of the studio, she said.

“We were pioneers, and we want to keep leading the way,” said Balcomb. “We want to make things that have never been heard before.”

Image: Damon Winter, The New York Times.

The post The New York Times is adding global issues, starting with Brexit, to hit podcast ‘The Daily’ appeared first on Digiday.

The company shared the document with advertisers and agencies to detail the issue and the company’s response.

The issue affected advertisers who had bought the company’s in-stream video — or full-episode player — inventory programmatically through NBCUniversal’s AdSmart private marketplace, which advertisers use to target ads to specific audience segments across NBCUniversal’s digital properties.

NBCUniversal was able to determine that a handful of advertisers were, in fact, affected by the error, according to an NBCUniversal spokesperson. However, because the company has not been able to determine whether other advertisers that had programmatically purchased this inventory were affected by the glitch, NBCUniversal is offering refunds or programmatic make goods to all advertisers who may have been affected.

“There was never any question of how to handle this isolated situation – as soon as the issue was discovered, the immediate steps were clear: resolve it, communicate it, make it right. We believe this type of communication and transparency is the only way forward, and we encourage others in the industry to do the same when faced with similar situations,” said an NBCUniversal spokesperson in a statement.

The NBCUniversal spokesperson declined to say how many advertisers are being offered refunds or make goods or how much money NBCUniversal will be crediting back to advertisers as a result of the error. For some advertisers, the amount that NBCUniversal will be crediting back to an advertiser will number in the six figures, according to an agency executive that had multiple clients affected by the error.

Given that the error was caused by a technical issue, multiple agency execs that had clients affected by the error said they were satisfied with NBCUniversal’s handling of the issue.

While a black eye at the moment, the error and NBCUniversal’s response could be a boon to programmatic CTV advertising in the long term by setting a blueprint for how advertisers may expect other media companies should handle such errors. “It does become potentially a precedent for how situations like this get handled in the future,” said Jim Nail, principal analyst at Forrester.

In disclosing the error to advertisers who may not have actually been affected and offering them a full refund even if they were not affected, NBCUniversal acted “above standard best practices,” said Tracey Scheppach, CEO and co-founder of Matter More Media, an agency that specializes in addressable TV and video advertising and was not affected by the error. “They could have assumed the potential error rate and issued partial credit, but they gave full credit,” she said.

Anatomy of an ad tech error
The error stemmed from an issue with Comcast Technology Solutions’ server-side technology that Comcast-owned NBCUniversal uses to insert ads in full episodes of shows streamed through its connected TV and mobile apps.

The issue affected nine of NBCUniversal’s properties, including NBC, Bravo and E!, and their corresponding apps across Roku, Amazon’s Fire TV, Apple TV, iOS and Android. In the document, NBCUniversal detailed when each of its properties’ respective apps may have initially be impacted.

The error only affected ads that were purchased through the AdSmart PMP and not ads purchased directly from NBCUniversal. The reason for that relates to how the creative assets for programmatic video campaigns are handled. The DSPs that place a programmatic buy on an advertiser’s behalf use tags, or creative IDs, to identify individual video assets. These companies may reuse the creative IDs for different pieces of creative, which is not the case for direct-sold campaigns, according to a spokesperson at FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned ad tech organization that powers NBCUniversal’s AdSmart PMP and that has worked with corporate siblings, NBCUniversal and Comcast Technology Solutions, to address the issue.

To mitigate creative ID discrepancies, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has pushed for a universal ad ID in the version of its VAST video ad serving specification that was introduced in January 2016. A separate issue related to ad verification has hampered adoption of that spec. The IAB has sought to address that verification issue with an updated version of VAST that was officially released in October 2018.

Timeline of NBCUniversal’s response
An advertiser alerted NBCUniversal of the error in March 2019, and within 48 hours, NBCUniversal paused all campaigns running through the PMP, according to the FreeWheel spokesperson. By early April, Comcast Technology Solutions had fixed the technical glitch that may have led the wrong ads to run, said the FreeWheel spokesperson.

Once the fix was issued, NBCUniversal, Comcast Technology Solutions and FreeWheel worked to assess the extent of the error’s impact. However, because of the multiple vendors involved in a programmatic buy, Comcast Technology Solutions was not able to determine with 100% confidence which ad impressions were impacted by the error, said the FreeWheel spokesperson. As a result, NBCUniversal decided to reimburse in full all advertisers that had run ads in the AdSmart PMP between when the PMP went live in March 2018 and when the error was identified in March 2019.

On April 11, NBCUniversal began to notify the advertisers, agencies and DSPs that may have been affected by the error and inform them why the PMP had been paused, that the issue had been fixed, that the PMP had resumed operation and that it would offer full reimbursement for potentially affected campaigns, according to an NBCUniversal spokesperson.

Programmatic CTV growing pains
The error may inflame concerns among advertisers already wary of buying media companies’ connected TV inventory programmatically. “It absolutely could give people pause. The technology for CTV is still getting built out. It’s very much in the nascent stages,” said an exec at one of the agencies that had clients affected by the error.

Several agency ad buyers, whose clients were not affected by the error, expressed relief that they buy NBCUniversal’s inventory directly instead of programmatically so that they would not be impacted by an issue like this. Some of these execs said they were not surprised that such an error occurred because the programmatic CTV market is not where it needs to be.

However, considering that technical errors are always possible, there does appear to be a silver lining to NBCUniversal’s error. Since the programmatic CTV market is still in its infancy, the error coming to light can draw the entire industry’s attention to how the technology underpinning this emerging market will need to be improved before there is much more money at stake.

The programmatic video advertising market is growing, with U.S. advertisers projected to spend $29.2 billion on programmatic video ads in 2019, per eMarketer. However 53 percent of that money is expected to be spent on mobile video ads, according to the research firm. But that will change over the next couple years with eMarketer expecting that connected TV will account for growing share of advertisers’ programmatic video spend.

“If this happened a year or two from now, the dollars [at stake] obviously would be much bigger, and it would be more of a mess all around for the industry,” said Nail.

That’s not to say that the error has not made a mess of things for advertisers. Because the error may have affected campaigns over the course of a full year, it potentially taints any data corresponding to those campaigns. “You would basically have to throw out any data associated with [this inventory],” said one of the affected agency execs.

The post NBCUniversal offers refunds to programmatic advertisers following ad insertion error appeared first on Digiday.

Now, as those digital placements are more widely available, the movement to make that inventory available across SSPs has ramped up. With the recent breadth of digital screens available, nimble programmatic capabilities are needed to make sure content across them is new and fresh. Still, even as the opportunity to use programmatic buying for digital OOH has grown, media buyers worry about fragmentation, brand safety and attribution issues. They also caution against using digital billboards as a typical digital placement, as billboards are a specific medium that needs to be used in a specific way.

The chance to buy OOH placements more quickly and easily than traditional OOH and use the algorithms and mechanisms of other biddable channels, such as social and display, as well as the possibility of better attribution is attractive, according to media agency sources who say that interest in digital OOH has increased in the last six months. In 2018, digital represented 29% of the total OOH revenue, up from 24% in 2017, according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. (The company does not yet break out what programmatic represents in terms of digital OOH revenue.) In the first quarter of 2019, OOH advertising revenue rose by 6%, totaling $1.78 billion, per the OAAA.

“It’s dramatically different now than it was a year ago,” said Megan Halscheid vp of media tech strategies at Publicis Media. “We’ve seen it in the interest from our clients and advertisers in terms of a shift. DSPs and SSPs are recognizing the new potential demand for buying this channel. The media owners are making that digital investment anyway. They see the advantages of buying that programmatically.”

As demand has grown for programmatic buying for digital OOH agencies have had to figure out how teams will manage that. For some agencies, like Publicis Media, Digitas and  360i it’s the programmatic team who takes but makes sure to partner with the OOH team. For other smaller agencies, like Fallon’s media practice, the traditional outdoor team will manage it. While it’s standard for agencies to use teams across the agency to figure out new practices, the push into programmatic buying for digital OOH comes as media agencies are making more investments in their programmatic practices in general.

“We’re hiring significantly and investing significantly in programmatic overall be it video, programmatic out of home display, etc.,” said 360i Chief Media Officer Doug Rozen. “Our investment in the programmatic space is significant and continues to grow because more and more [media is] becoming biddable or automated in general.”

The rapid growth of digital screens coupled with major contracts for digital billboards — like the MTA’s 50,000 screen deal with Outfront — has pushed the need for programmatic and automation, said Stephen Freitas, chief marketing officer, OAAA.

“We’re seeing a lot of platforms being developed and deployed, both in terms of SSP and DSPs,” said Freitas. “The out-of-home media companies, certainly the big ones in the digital space, are all developing or their own proprietary SSPs or tapping into existing platforms. On the DSP side, there are lots and lots of platforms that are being developed and deployed in the marketplace, from agencies directly and out-home-home specialist groups to third party platforms that are being deployed and used.”

The rise in solutions for programmatic buying in digital OOH has led to fragmentation in the space, said Halschied, adding that it’s similar to when programmatic buying, in general, was introduced and that consolidation and integration is happening. “It’s a little bit of the wild west in terms of integrations right now,” she said. “It’s a good thing that it’s happening because it provides more access and more options for advertisers in the long run. Otherwise you’d be limited to few buying platforms and a few supply sources. Now that there are multiple integrations it opens up the market.”

As for the bid structure, while last fall the offerings were closer to automated guaranteed-buy type, now if media agencies work with major DSPs it can be part of an auction-based system.

Other potential challenges include brand safety, tracking and attribution, wrote Emily Smith, associate director of programmatic and social at Digitas in an email.

Attribution, in particular, is evolving as heat mapping and location data give marketers a better picture into who the ad will be served to. Still, even with that they may not know for sure if a person has seen the ad but just that they were near it. “It’s better than where it was 10 or 20-years-ago,” said 360i’s Rozen. “It’s not perfect and there are not many channels where attribution is perfect but it’s better than before and it’s improving remarkably.”

But even as media buyers are excited about the growth and opportunity programmatic digital OOH presents, some caution against treating digital billboards like just another digital placement. “Outdoor serves a purpose,” said Andy Rhode, media director at Fallon. “If we use programmatic to just throw a message at someone and layer frequency instead of thinking about the medium that’s a problem. It shouldn’t be treated like a banner ad.”

The post ‘Dramatically different now than a year ago’: Programmatic buying for digital billboards is growing appeared first on Digiday.

The broadcaster wants the digital group programmatic manager to create a sales pitch for how it should sell RTB, a move the post revealed has full approval from the board. According to the spec, the new marketplace for Channel 4’s video-on-demand impressions will be led by a team of digital specialists who will sit both outside of and within Channel 4’s existing sales team.

While the broadcaster runs its own ad exchange to manage programmatic-direct deals, it does not offer RTB in the same way Google does. Rather, agencies commit cash up front to Channel 4 and are given a certain number of impressions for a fixed CPM. This is not akin to the open-auction buying that buyers are used to when they submit bids through Google’s DSP DV360.

An overhaul of how Channel 4’s sales execs sell VOD is timely if their recent meetings with buyers are anything to go by. Up to 40% of the broadcaster’s VOD inventory is sometimes left unsold, said a head of trading at a separate agency, who was told the stat by a Channel 4 sales rep in the first few months of 2019.

This is partly because the broadcaster has per-session frequency caps, so when viewers binge on shows, they run out of ads they can be exposed to. The inability to sell all VOD impressions could also come down to a calculated gamble on Channel 4’s part, according to agency executive sources. If the broadcaster really wanted to sell remnant VOD inventory it could drop prices. Doing so, however, could cannibalize its larger linear business. Channel 4 has actively tried to protect its VOD price premiums, in the expectation that as linear audiences fall, advertisers will be forced to shift spend to VOD to deliver the same reach.

Channel 4 didn’t respond in time for this article’s publication, but we’ll update if they do.

“Channel 4 obviously has a unique proposition, offering a younger and more upmarket audience than other channels,” said Chris Gorney, client strategy director at performance agency Journey Further. “But it will need to continue to evolve its product and scale its subscriber base to continue to get the share of advertiser budgets it wants in the face of Sky and Virgin’s [addressable TV] partnership in particular.”

Some advertisers have started to figure out how to buy large volumes of video ads online without defaulting to YouTube. At the Digiday Brand Summit Europe in Ireland in May, one advertiser revealed on condition of anonymity that it stopped buying on YouTube after its brand got burned in the brand-safety crisis two years ago, but didn’t see any impact. “It was hard, but we found a way to buy around YouTube,” said the senior marketer. The fact more advertisers now seek online video alternatives to YouTube and Facebook is an outcome broadcasters like Channel 4 can use to their advantage.

Linear viewing continues to do the heavy lifting for Channel 4’s commercial business, but VOD is where the growth is. Yet, building a pitch to maintain that growth is hard when Google and Facebook are so well entrenched. “Channel 4 will have a tough job given how well the digital duopoly sells their product, but Channel 4 will point to their own research that shows All4 impressions are more valuable than other online video views,” said George MacKean, investment manager at independent agency The Kite Factory.

At the broadcaster’s Upfronts last week in London, the focus was on plans to grow its digital ad business — the fastest-growing part of its commercial offer after it grew 24% year over year in 2018. Buyers were told how they could match their own custom audience segments with Channel 4’s 20 million active registered viewers from the Autumn.

While not game-changing, custom audiences play to Channel 4’s advantage over rival broadcasters that can’t boast the same depth of first-party data for the 16- to 34-year-old viewers that advertisers covet.

“This has been a long time coming,” said Lawrence Dodds, communications and planning director at UM London. “Whether custom audiences take off depends on whether Channel 4 gives advertisers real flexibility with different third-party and first-party data sets, allowing them to get closer to their high-value audiences.” It also depends on whether Channel 4 can give advertisers clarity as to what happens to their first-party data once it goes into the broadcaster’s ecosystem, he added.

Like previous Channel 4 innovations, the initial pitch for custom audiences sounds impressive, but is light on detail. At last year’s Upfronts, Channel 4 told buyers they could use visual and audio recognition technology to identify linear TV moments for relevant advertisers to buy against. Since the reveal, the contextual offer is still in beta, said the senior planner, who said they haven’t been able to use it. As much as Channel 4 is seen as one of the most innovative commercial broadcasters in the U.K., its innovations around behavioral and contextual targeting haven’t transformed its VOD ad business at the rate many observers anticipated.

The post Channel 4 seeks to expand programmatic ad offering appeared first on Digiday.