Welcome to Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, our data-obsessed newsletter for marketing and media professionals.
The Trade Desk disses Google’s post-cookie plan and Inscape boosts local TV measurement: Datacenter Weekly
The Trade Desk vs. Google on the future of internet advertising
“Google and The Trade Desk are at odds over the future of internet advertising with two competing visions of what comes after cookies: Google’s Privacy Sandbox or The Trade Desk’s universal ID,” Ad Age Garett Sloane reports. “Indeed, sides are being drawn among ad tech companies betting on Google and those that are casting their claims with The Trade Desk, as both companies become more forceful in promoting their post-cookie initiatives.”
The details: “Just this week, The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green wrote a new critique of Google’s Privacy Sandbox,” Sloane notes. “‘Privacy Sandbox is not innovative,’ Green said in his post. ‘It’s not good for the open internet. And I don’t even see how it’s good for Google. All those brilliant minds inside of a nearly $2 trillion company couldn’t do better than this?’ Meanwhile, a Google spokesperson responded to Green, saying Privacy Sandbox is better than ‘cross-site identifiers that still enable users to be tracked across sites.’”
Essential context: “Google’s race to eliminate cookies is contentious,” Sloane adds. “There are a number of ad tech companies, including Index Exchange, Criteo, OpenX, RTB House, PubMatic, Microsoft and others, that have publicly stated they are trying out Privacy Sandbox APIs. At the same time, some companies are edging into The Trade Desk’s camp, such as Lotame, a data management and identity platform, that said this week it would adopt UID 2.0. Lotame is decidedly not testing Privacy Sandbox at the moment.”
Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell
• “Jobless claims tumble to lowest level since 2022,” Fox Business reports
• “Consumer sentiment surges while inflation outlook dips, University of Michigan survey shows,” per CNBC
• “Mortgage rates drop to lowest level since May,” CNN reports
More news: Tracking layoffs and budget cuts
Inscape launches smart TV tuner tech that boosts local station measurement
“Inscape is launching smart TV tuner technology that expands coverage of local stations to every U.S. market to improve measurement, providing local TV with a big data source for over-the-air viewership,” Ad Age’s Jack Neff reports.
The details: “The data from more than 22 million opted-in Vizio TV households will help put local stations, whose data previously came mainly via the Nielsen panel or cable set-top boxes, on an even playing field with national networks in counting over-the-air and smart TV viewership,” Neff notes.
Essential context: “Amid cable cord cutting, 18% of U.S. households still report having digital antennas, adoption of which actually has been growing among younger viewers,” Neff adds. “Pew Research projects that local TV revenue will surge 20% in this election year to nearly $21 billion.”
Keep reading here.
Also: Measurement uncertainty—tracking TV, social and digital
New study gauges performance of gaming ads vs. other media
“Ads on gaming platforms score better than other media on attention yet fall below other media on average for brand recall, according to a study conducted on behalf of Dentsu across three platforms,” Ad Age’s Jack Neff reports.
The details: “The study looked at three types of gaming platforms across three media companies, including livestreaming on Twitch, rewarded video ads with Activision Blizzard and intrinsic in-game advertising with Anzu,” Neff notes. “Twitch scored well both on attention and on brand recall. Livestream ads generated 57% brand recall in post-exposure surveys, above the Dentsu norm of 38% in prior studies that included audio, social, online video and display ads. Twitch ads across all formats also lifted brand preference by 17% on average, which is also well ahead of studies of other media, where brand lift ranged from 5% for online display and social to 9% for online video and 10% for audio ads.”
Essential context: “Drawing generalizations can be tricky, though. ... All [the gaming platforms] performed better than Dentsu norms on attention measures, but results in brand recall and lift varied,” Neff adds. “The study by Lumen Research was conducted with 2,000 people in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France and Germany. The U.S. audience, about a third of the total, was recruited in Las Vegas, with research conducted inside the CBS Television City research facility there.”
Just briefly
• “48,000 companies sent Facebook data on a single person,” from The Verge
• “VF Cyberattack Compromised Data for 35 Million Customers,” per The Wall Street Journal
• “The Enduring Power of Data Storytelling in the Generative AI Era,” from MIT Sloan Management Review
• “LiveRamp acquires data clean room startup Habu,” MarTech reports
• “Regulators crack down on company selling detailed location data,” per The Washington Post
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.