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Nielsen signs data deal with Comcast

“Nielsen has reached a multiyear renewal agreement to use set-top box ‘return path data’ (RPD) from Comcast Corp. in its cross-platform and national and local TV measurement,” Ad Age’s Jack Neff reports.

The details: “Terms of the deal, including how many years it spans, the size of the data set and the payments involved were not disclosed. But Nielsen said the inclusion of RPD from Comcast expands its ‘big data’ footprint to nearly 45 million U.S. households. That’s up from the 35 million Nielsen cited last month,” Neff notes.

Essential context: “Executives of Comcast’s NBCUniversal have been particularly vocal as critics of Nielsen and in advancing alternative measures from iSpot.tv and VideoAmp,” Neff adds. “The tension raised questions about the future data relationship between the companies that the renewal appears to answer.”

Keep reading here.

5.9 million

That’s the number of customers that Netflix added in the second quarter, “more than doubling Wall Street estimates after cracking down on people who share their passwords,” per Bloomberg News (via Ad Age). “The results announced Wednesday mark the company’s best second quarter since the depths of the pandemic three years ago and far surpass Wall Street forecasts of 2.07 million new subscribers.”

Pre-bid optimization is shown to boost ad performance

“Advertisers are always looking for ways to get more attention on digital ads for less money, and a new study from Magna Media Trials might have found the solution: pre-bid optimization,” Ad Age’s Aleda Stam reports.

The details: “A new study, ‘The Attention Advantage—Using Deep Learning to Boost Ad Performance,” conducted in partnership with global media-tech company Adlook, found a 65% increase in attention, based on Adelaide’s Attention Unit (AU) scores, when a video ad was optimized before a programmatic bid. ... Pre-bid optimization takes into account Adelaide’s AU metrics for each individual impression before an ad loads on a page, leading to increased attention scores and lower costs.”

Essential context: “Adelaide’s AU metric measures an ad’s probability of attention and its potential impact using deep learning that assesses hundreds of media quality signals, eye-tracking data and outcome data to better predict how effective an ad will be at achieving an advertiser’s desired business outcome.”

Keep reading here.

Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell

• “US jobless claims fall again as labor market continues to flash strength,” per the AP

• “Inflation has plummeted but these prices are still soaring,” from ABC News

• “Inflation may be cooling, but the housing market is still too hot for many buyers,” from NPR

• “Housing’s Recession Already Happened,” per The Wall Street Journal

Don’t miss: Layoffs and budget cuts—tracking economic moves and news

Also see: Advertising Salary Guide—why commerce jobs are in demand despite a tough economy

Publicis boosts organic growth guidance for 2023

“Publicis Groupe delivered robust organic growth in the second quarter and raised its outlook for the full year,” Ad Age’s Brian Bonilla reports.

The details: “The holding company posted organic growth of 7.1% for the second quarter, matching its 7.1% first-quarter organic growth,” Bonilla adds. “Publicis adjusted its organic growth guidance for the full year to 5%. This is a more optimistic outlook than its previous guidance of 3%-5% despite ‘persistent macroeconomic uncertainties’ in the market, according to Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun.”

Essential context: “The company’s solid organic performance was driven by data and tech units Epsilon and Publicis Sapient as well as new business activity in 2022 that led to revenue growth this year, Sadoun said.”

Keep reading here.

Also see: IPG cuts full-year guidance after second consecutive quarter of declining revenue

Just briefly

• “Data breach exposes personal information of 4,000 Roblox developers,” The Verge reports

• “Agencies owned or run by white execs jump to 90%, 4A’s diversity report finds,” from Ad Age

• “Llama copyright drama: Meta stops disclosing what data it uses to train the company’s giant AI models,” per Insider

• “AI developers are already quietly training AI models using AI-generated data,” from Futurism’s The Byte

• “COVID pandemic is officially over in the U.S., excess-deaths data show,” per MarketWatch

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