Month: January 2024

The Overwatch League is officially done with, but the story of the “Overwatch” community isn’t over yet. With a successor on the horizon in the form of ESL/FACEIT Group’s Overwatch Champions Series, some industry observers are looking back at the OWL to figure out exactly how things went wrong.

When Activision Blizzard initially announced the Overwatch League in 2016, esports fans and investors alike believed the league would help usher the esports industry into an era of unfettered growth. Billionaires such as New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft bit the bullet on the league’s $20 million franchise fees, making the OWL the most valuable esports league in the world — at least before teams accepted a $6 million buyout to exit the league in late 2023.

Eight years later, the esports industry hasn’t evolved far beyond where it was back in those early days of excitement and hype. Having thus far failed to crack the nut of broadcast rights, esports leagues and teams remain reliant on brand sponsorship revenues to stay afloat, but brands aren’t spending as much on esports as they used to, facing diminishing returns on investment and broader economic headwinds. When the Overwatch League folded in November, it came as a surprise to few.

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While some award-winners tackled the two biggest media challenges facing advertisers – information asymmetry and misaligned incentives – OpenAP leveraged both, but not necessarily in the best
direction.

After more than a year of its own, internal “walled garden” approach to AI, Dentsu is embracing Amazon’s open-source tools. The move follows similar ones with Microsoft, Google and Salesforce.

The show is built around a fictional NPR interview show called “In The Know,” hosted by a self-centered dimwit.

The open web can be a scary place for brands. The targeting signals they once relied on are disappearing, and they’re wasting a ton of money on made-for-advertising sites. Instead of casting their net across the entire internet, some marketers are matching their own data to publisher data sets on the open web. Then, they […]

The post As The Open Web Wobbles, Index Exchange Is Betting On Curated Deals appeared first on AdExchanger.

Kai-Fu Lee, an AI expert and prominent investor who helped Google and Microsoft get established in China, says his new startup 01.AI will create the first “killer apps” of generative AI.

If personalization is good, then hyper-personalization is better and AI-powered personalization is best. Right? As marketers know, brands need to build a relationship with the customer so personalization feels appropriate. And the customer has to benefit from the personalization, whether through monetary discounts, convenience or useful advice. “Companies have to earn the right to personalize […]

The post Why Personalized Ads Go Wrong And How To Do Them Right appeared first on AdExchanger.

In the wake of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests, the advertising industry appeared unified around promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) for underserved communities. There have always been questions about how committed advertisers really are to DEI. Now, however, advertisers seem poised to reverse the tentative steps they’ve already taken. Recent reports indicate agencies and […]

The post Brands Are Getting Shy On DEI, But Reaching Diverse Audiences Is Still Good Business appeared first on AdExchanger.

Crunchtime The EU’s Digital Markets Act has teeth – and now it’s biting, TechCrunch reports. The DMA regulates anti-competitive practices within “gatekeeper platforms” that have an annual turnover of at least 7.5 billion euros. Meta, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and ByteDance all tick that box. Gatekeepers have until March to ensure their operations in the EU […]

The post Big Tech Braces For The EU’s DMA; Google Cloud Drops Exit Fees (If You Exit, Too) appeared first on AdExchanger.

Brands’ influencer marketing requests for proposals (RFPs) are zeroing in on measurement and attribution as well as how influencer agencies and platforms will keep them abreast of emerging trends, according to influencer marketing execs, who say overall the RFPs are now much more sophisticated than previous years. Call it another ripple effect of influencer marketing maturation.

As marketers continue to increase influencer marketing budgets — recent IAB research found that 44% of advertisers expect to increase influencer marketing spending this year, increasing budgets by roughly 25% — they’re rethinking the metrics of success for influencer marketing campaigns.

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