Welcome to Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, our data-obsessed newsletter for marketing and media professionals.

Google responds to gripes about its post-cookie experiments

“Google responded to initial criticisms of its post-cookie experiments, which launched in earnest last week and set the countdown on the transition to a new ad tech ecosystem called Privacy Sandbox,” Ad Age’s Garett Sloane reports. “On Wednesday, Google’s Victor Wong, senior director of product at Privacy Sandbox, issued a blog post that addressed several areas of resistance from tech providers concerned about the complexities and costs of adopting the new technology.”

What he said: “When changes are big, people often object,” Wong wrote. “We’ve heard feedback that the Privacy Sandbox is insufficient or too complex to adopt. While we’re always open to constructive feedback, we want to address some common objections we’ve heard.” Read Wong’s full post here.

Essential context: “Last week, Google took its most significant step to launch Privacy Sandbox, which is a series of APIs—application programming interfaces—that publishers, advertisers, demand-side platforms and supply-side platforms must adopt to serve internet ads on Chrome web browsers once Google shuts down cookies,” Sloane notes. “Google turned off cookies on 1% of traffic on Chrome last week, allowing the first tests of its new platform using real-world conditions.

Keep reading here.

Also: CES 2024—decentralized ‘doughnuts’ and other post-cookie visions

The biggest creator marketing trends of 2023

Creator marketing platform CreatorIQ is out with new research that offers a full-year look at the millions of social posts, 143,000-plus creators and 19,800-plus campaigns it tracked across 2023. Three key takeaways:

• “Instagram was far and away the preferred platform” for branded creator campaigns, per CreatorIQ’s study. The company’s clients published 1.2 million posts on Insta, as well as more than 600,000 Instagram stories.

• “Creators went big on short-form video content in 2023, as seen in a 700% year-over-year increase in YouTube Shorts, a 113% increase in TikTok videos and a 100% increase in Instagram Reels,” according to CreatorIQ.

• “Brands are experimenting with new channels, including Twitch”—the gaming platform on which CreatorIQ saw a 300% year-over-year increase in branded content posts.

Ad industry employment reached an all-time high in 2023

“Employment in advertising, public relations and related services rose by 1,900 jobs in December,” Ad Age’s Bradley Johnson reports, “ending 2023 with staffing at an all-time high.”

The details: “U.S. employment in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) classification of advertising, PR and related services came in at 504,600 jobs in December based on seasonally adjusted figures, breaking a new record,” Johnson notes.

Additional context: The December gain comes “following a loss of 800 jobs in November,” Johnson adds. “BLS downwardly revised the November figure from a gain of 1,200 jobs reported a month ago. It upwardly revised the October figure to a gain of 3,200 jobs vs. the 3,000 job increase reported a month ago.”

Keep reading for Johnson’s drill-downs by BLS classifications.

Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell

• “US applications for jobless benefits fall to lowest level in 12 weeks,” the Associated Press reports

• “Wholesale inflation cools more than expected in December,” per Fox Business

• “Fresh Inflation Data Shows Intact, but Bumpy, Cool-Down,” from The New York Times

• “Inflation in the Crosshairs Following Strong Labor Market Data,” from U.S. News & World Report

Also read: Layoffs and budget cuts—tracking economic moves and news

iSpot launches new streaming TV measurement suite

“ISpot.tv is launching a new streaming TV measurement suite with metrics around how connected TV networks deliver unique audiences, consistent co-viewing across publishers and tracking of how advertisers stack up to competitors,” Ad Age’s Jack Neff reports.

The details: “New metrics include a look at the percentage of total impressions in a campaign that hit the intended audience target and when; deduplicated unique audience information that looks at the percentage of audience in streaming that was not reached through linear; and a transparent, consistent co-viewing estimate of the total number of people in front of the TV on average for a given ad impression,” Neff notes.

Essential context: “ISpot Streaming Measurement builds on the company’s existing Unified Measurement by making it a ‘streaming first’ platform with several new metrics, backed by exclusive access to measurement from TVision acquired through an investment in 2022,” Neff adds.

Keep reading here.

Also: NBC will use AI to automate TV ad buying

Plus: Disney’s new shoppable ad units and measurement partners

Just briefly

• “Extreme Reach rebrands as XR and hires new unit president,” from Ad Age

• “Data brokers know everything about you—what FTC case against ad tech giant Kochava reveals,” from The Conversation

• “Samba TV to launch Nielsen-rival panel with HyphaMetrics,” from Ad Age

• “FTC bans X-Mode from selling phone location data, and orders firm to delete collected data,” TechCrunch reports

• “Your Medical Data Is Code Blue,” from Wired

• “How Walmart, Amazon, Albertsons and Instacart are expanding retail media,” from Ad Age

The newsletter is brought to you by Ad Age Datacenter, the industry’s most authoritative source of competitive intel and home to the Ad Age Leading National Advertisers, the Ad Age Agency Report: World’s Biggest Agency Companies and other exclusive data-driven reports. Access or subscribe to Ad Age Datacenter at AdAge.com/Datacenter.

Ad Age Datacenter is Kevin Brown, Bradley Johnson and Joy R. Lee.