Month: July 2024

With attribution-based platforms taking over, there aren’t many ways for an advertiser to bet (and win) big. Plus, what about the Google advertising ID? 

The post Why Sponsors Love Niche Sports; Does GAID Need Aid? appeared first on AdExchanger.

When it comes to big tech, the next U.S. president is going to have a tough job reining in social media companies’ dominance and power enough to satisfy lawmakers and users, while still encouraging free speech, privacy and innovation.

And while current vice president Kamala Harris hasn’t been officially named the Democratic nominee, she has already secured the support of a majority of Democratic delegates (more than 1,976 votes as of July 23) as well as the endorsement from current President Joe Biden.

Which is why we took at look at Harris and her views going head-to-head in the election for the top White House job against former President Donald Trump.

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Three weeks into the inaugural Esports World Cup, which wraps up on August 25, the jury is out on whether the event is living up to the hype thus far. Despite the uncertainty, sponsors such as PepsiCo and Mastercard believe that the Esports World Cup’s marketing value extends far beyond the event’s viewership metrics.

The Esports World Cup kicked off on July 3 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, featuring a record-breaking $60 million prize pool and competitions in popular esports such as “League of Legends” and “Counter-Strike.” Since then, exactly how good the event’s viewership has been is a matter of who you ask.

The Esports World Cup has certainly exceeded the viewership numbers put up last year by its predecessor, Gamers8, with average viewership growing by nearly 8 percent, according to official EWC partner Esports Charts. On the other hand, some observers have pointed out that the event’s average viewership numbers have been lower than other tentpole gaming and esports events such as Games Done Quick, an annual speedrunning gathering, or the League of Legends World Championship.

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As gaming continues to make inroads into culture, evidence of the medium’s ascendance is on full display at this weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con.

The United States’ largest annual culture convention is going down this weekend, July 25–28, at the San Diego Convention Center. After the Covid-19 pandemic and Hollywood strikes got in the way of recent iterations of the event, organizers anticipate that this will be the most active Comic-Con since 2019, with over 130,000 attendees over the four days of the convention.

This year, many of San Diego Comic-Con’s attendees will be gamers. Forty-eight percent have expressed an interest in games, making the medium the third-most popular entertainment format among event attendees, after movies and television shows, according to data shared by YouGov. (San Diego Comic-Con did not respond to a request for comment for this story.)

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Publicis Groupe on Thursday said it intends to acquire influencer marketing company and platform Influential to expand its influencer marketing services. The deal is expected to close in late August — financial terms were not made available.

This move comes as various influencer agencies and platforms focus on maturing either the talent and influencer management or technology sides of the business — and in some cases, a hybrid of both. This makes the space ripe for more acquisition, particularly from interested holding companies looking to invest in and expand influencer marketing units.

It also comes as the broader M&A space continues to heat up. Stagwell this month acquired its seventh company of the year as it buys Israel-based social commerce and influencer-focused digital agency LEADERS. The digital agency, which runs an AI influencer platform, joins the Stagwell Marketing Cloud to beef up influencer marketing capabilities and its PR platform PRophet’s tech services.

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With about 100 days until Election Day, politically focused AI startups see the flourishing technology as a way to help national and local candidates quickly react to unexpected change — while also putting the right guardrails in place. 

Since privately launching this past spring, BattlegroundAI has helped state- and local-level candidates create YouTube scripts, social content and digital ads using generative AI. Powered by top large language models — including Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude — BattlegroundAI’s platform is helping solo campaigns and small organizations benefit from top AI models to craft content and analyze data quickly and at scale.

After working in both advertising and in politics — including former President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign — BattlegroundAI Founder and CEO Hutchinson wanted to teach political campaigns how to use AI in advertising while also building a platform to serve as a “central nervous system” for streamlining adoption of AI-powered ads. Next month, the startup is getting ready to launch a public beta program that will be priced based on scale and volume of content, starting with five messages for free or a subscription with unlimited messages for $19 a month.

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New OpenAI search features that reply to queries with timely information and source links are being tested by a limited number of users.The company calls the tool a “temporary prototype.”

WhatsApp has maintained its position as the most popular messaging app in the world and is starting to become more popular in the U.S, and Meta is working to build the app out as a conversational hub
for businesses and their customers.

Customers of the uncarrier want T-Mobile to pay up after switching their legacy phone plans for something more expensive.

“Once consumers are in the Amazon system, Amazon amasses data profiles for consumers with little regard for protecting their privacy,” lawyers for subscribers say in new court papers.