IAS announced it had acquired Publica, a CTV ads server platform, for $220 million in cash and stock.
Now it plans to launch “a comprehensive brand safety and suitability solution for CTV advertisers and publishers in the coming months”.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, IAS CEO Lisa Utzschneider explains why her company is following the road to connected TV ad verification.
Utzschneider explained four reasons IAS is acquiring Publica.
1. The M&A template works
“We have a successful formula in place when it comes to acquisitions. We’ve done this already two times while I’ve been at IAS.”
2. Leaning in to CTV
“It’s the first inning of a long game with CTV. And, given that Publica has a leading CTV classification platform, (it) is just such opportunity for IAS.”
3. Spreading to the sell-side
“They have deep strategic integrated partnerships with some of the leading video publishers. Publishers, like Samsung, Philo, Fox. The majority of our business is with advertiser-direct. The combination of bringing together a robust buy-side and sell-side, there’s just so much opportunity to innovate together.”
4. Team talent
“The exceptional talent at Publica. They have a really strong engineering organisation and a really strong leadership team.”
Publica is a five-year-old connected TV ad-serving company that has grown to have employees in LA, New York, London and Paris.
It employs server-side ad insertion, as oppose to playing out ads from client devices themselves.
It built its technology with header bidding from the start. That is the technology that lets publishers entertain bids from multiple demand sources simultaneously, rather than in a “waterfall” fashion, thereby reaping a better yield from a larger auction.
It also unifies bidding via direct sales and programmatic sources.
Today we acquired @getpublica for $220M as IAS continues to transform the future of CTV advertising. It’s the first inning of a long game in CTV. Where the consumers go, the marketers go…it just enables us to really accelerate that CTV opportunity. https://t.co/SsGeDE8xsM pic.twitter.com/TnSeuX0ym9
— Lisa Utzschneider (@Lisa_Utz) August 10, 2021
Utzschneider says IAS – which helps ad buyers around ad fraud, brand safety and suitability, contextual targeting and viewability – is growing fast.
“We are seeing lots of interest in demand from global marketers to partner with IAS, and we’re signing agreements that are two to three years long with some of the major global iconic marketers like Coke, and Nestle, and GSK, Adidas,” she says.
EMarketer estimates that advertisers will invest over $13.4 billion into CTV this year, growing to surpass $24.7 billion by 2024.
Utzschneider says Publica reports publishers using its platform have seen on average a 30% lift in yield for their CTV inventory.
The buy gives IAS access to Publica’s unified auction, over-the-top (OTT) header bidding for programmatic buying, audience management, campaign management, server-side ad insertion (SSAI), ad pod automation, and advanced analytics.
IAS’ feature set already includes a verification solution for global invalid traffic (IVT) and viewability across programmatic.
]]>Integral Ad Science is one of the providers and its CEO Lisa Utzschneider expects that other social platform will follow, responding to intense marketers’ demands.
This was one of the topics covered in this podcast episode of the #BeetCast, guest hosted by industry consultant Matt Prohaska.
They covered the increasing importance of verification around contextual marketing, and the battle in combatting a rise in fraud around CTV.
Lisa is one the most accomplished leaders in digital media. She started out 20 years at Microsoft where she spearheaded monetization at MSN, moved on to help build the Amazon advertising business and then to Yahoo where she was Chief Revenue Officer. She joined IAS two years ago.
Thanks Lisa and Matt for a fascinating chat.
Please subscribe to the #BeetCast on your favorite podcast service. The BeetCast is sponsored by Tru Optik, a Transunion company.
]]>In this video discussion with John Montgomery, GroupM’s Global EVP of Brand Safety, Integral Ad Science (IAS) CEO Lisa Utzschneider reveals new research showing advertisers’ keyword blocking of news stories containing “coronavirus” and “COVID-19” is subsiding.
“In the US, we’ve seen an 88% decrease in keyword-blocking of those specific keywords, the volume of blocking, and, in the UK, we’ve seen a 77% decrease,” she says.
“Over the past few weeks, we’ve definitely seen a decrease and marketers becoming more comfortable running their brands adjacent to COVID content.”
What may be a turning of the corner is happening for several reasons…
Alarmed by advertisers shunning news sites early in the pandemic, publishers, broadcasters, agencies and industry bodies have worked hard to convince them it may be futile and destructive.
IAS’ Utzschneider says publishers have sent her “unsolicited thank-yous” for having published research and information which may be changing advertisers’ minds.
“Education is critically important,” Montgomery says. “When we did some research, our team did a research of 80 of our largest clients, what those clients came back with is that 92% of them are now either not blocking news at all.
“Or, if they’re using any form of keyword-avoidance, they’re doing it in a sophisticated way by combining the really grim news with something like ‘COVID-avoidance’, maybe ‘COVID-avoidance’ and ‘death toll’, or ‘refrigerated trucks’, or ‘miracle cure’ or anything like that.”
U.S. Ad Market Plummets 35% In April, Second Consecutive Month Of Faltering Demand: Ad demand fell 35% year-over-year in April, marking its lowest point since MediaPost and Standard… https://t.co/JHlO94rH1y @mp_joemandese
— Digital Content Next – #StayHome + Save Lives (@DCNorg) May 21, 2020
Deeper software-based analysis of news stories and even videos is now able to provide more refined cues about the real meaning of content – its context.
Making these cues available through buying platforms, for “contextual targeting”, is helping advertisers continue to buy against some kinds of COVID-19 content without resorting to a blanket ban.
“We would never advise a marketer to completely block news,” says IAS’ Utzschneider. “The technology that is available for marketers today, it’s incredibly sophisticated.
“Marketers can get much more precise about the type of content that they’re comfortable their brands running next to and the type of content that they’re not comfortable running next to.”
Advertisers’ belief that consumers would view them negatively if placed against coronavirus content may not only be wrong – it may be a missed opportunity. Audience research is piling up that shows advertisers perhaps don’t need to dodge coronavirus news at all. An April study conducted by IAS found:
“Consumers are much more open to seeing ads from healthcare verticals or education and a lot less engaged with verticals like travel,” IAS’ Utzschneider says.
This situation is not one where either ‘more’ or ‘less’ keyword blocking should be universally adopted as the only protective measure, it is one that highlights the need for precision in guiding a brand toward or away from content corresponding with that brand’s values & identity pic.twitter.com/TnuPI08Wh6
— Integral Ad Science (@integralads) March 18, 2020
So, GroupM’s Montgomery hopes the situation may be heading “in the right direction”. The brand safety leader at the world’s largest media-buying agency laments the situation the earliest throes of the “brand safety” outcry has sowed.
“We’ve become so sensitive to controversial information,” he says. “There’s been sort of a deep concern about appearing next to anything controversial or perhaps even bad news.
“Consumers in the main don’t perceive a brand in any negative way if they appear next to controversial news. Sometimes, the harder the news the better, because there’s a longer dwell time.”
Several groups are trying to force the “brand safety” debate toward an understanding that all news output is “brand-safe” but where a more refined understanding of news context can give finer cues about whether distinct content is “brand-suitable”.
Local news is dying. Advertisers can help. We offer some suggestions. @taxidodger @unitedfornews @internews https://t.co/70TmbPWji6
— Jennifer Cobb (@jjunecobb) May 4, 2020
All of this is not only important to marketers, which are searching for the best way to spend money to reach audiences, but also to news publishers and broadcasters.
They have been walloped by declining ad revenue and diminishing ad rates during the pandemic, pushing many to make large-scale staff reductions and to offer advertising at knock-down rates.
The threat to democracy from the death of news organizations has, which was already playing out, has been ratcheted-up.
Montgomery says he hopes initiatives from the likes of Local Media Consortium, Worldwide Association of Newspapers and the SSP TripleLift can help plug tens of thousands of local media sources into the programmatic ad supply chain, helping to bring money back to publishers.
“We’re trying to re-monetize this so that we can make sure that as many of the other newspapers, and particularly the local newspapers, survive the COVID crisis,” Montgomery says.
This video is part of a series titled Brand Suitability at the Forefront, presented by Integral Ad Science. For more segments from the series, please visit this page.
]]>That is kneecapping the revenue of many news publishers at a precarious moment, and threatening to make many brands invisible. But Linda Utzschneider thinks it doesn’t have to be this way.
The CEO of Integral Ad Science (IAS) – a vendor of brand safety, viewability, ad fraud and other software – says some such tools allow more refined control than simply blocking keywords.
“We absolutely do not advise completely blocking the news category,” Utzschneider says in this video interview with Beet.TV. “We work with marketers and say, ‘Hey, you know what? We could actually, based on the sentiment of the content, be able to segment out content that’s more positive or hero-related content tied to coronavirus’.”
Rather than simply blacklist all stories about “coronavirus”, for example, Utzschneider advocates a deeper inspection of what kinds of pandemic stories may be good placement opportunities.
That alternative comes at the intersection of brand safety lists, with tools that can peer deep in to the inner meaning of content, making them available as richer indicators.
In her case, that means ADmantX, which IAS acquired in November, whose semantic analysis software aims to create, from stories, corresponding flags for emotions and sentiments, plus for entities contained in stories, which can be leveraged by media buyers and sellers.
“We’re able now, through machine learning and AI, to do page-level analysis, get down to the content, the context of the page, and then also the sentiment of the content,” Utzschneider adds.
“With all of those different layers, we’re able to offer a precision technology for advertisers so they can really think through and plan for the type of content they want to be adjacent to, in particular related to coronavirus.”
We’re proud to partner with @AdCouncil to share public service announcements about stopping the spread of COVID-19. Thanks to @martyswant @Forbes for covering this important initiative. https://t.co/aJqFsBo1g3
— Lisa Utzschneider (@Lisa_Utz) April 1, 2020
Last week, Comscore, announcing its own “epidemic brand safety filter” that lets ad buyers swerve virus news, said 22% to 30% of all ad impressions were appearing in coronavirus-related content.
Traffic to news sites is booming. But many advertisers are pausing on news sites, whilst coronavirus content specifically is now being widely blacklisted by ad buyers, amid consternation that all kinds of virus news are falling on the negative side of “brand safety” definitions.
IAB and Digital Content Next have called on advertisers to cease the practice.
In one of latest news reports on the matter, The Wall Street Journal says half of all desktop and mobile ad impressions across news sites in its Dow Jones family stable were being deemed unsafe for brands to advertise against by Oracle-owned Moat, an IAS competitor. The paper also quotes another such vendor, DoubleVerify, as urging advertisers not to block such keywords on trusted news sites.
In a blog post, IAS said keyword blocking is at the discretion of advertisers and their agencies, advising against “a blanket approach or overzealous use of keywords”.
Speaking with Beet.TV, John Montgomery, the brand safety EVP at the world’s largest media-buying agency, GroupM, urged ad buyers to use enhanced features of such tools rather than bluntly blocking, because news is n effective channel in which to be seen.
This situation is not one where either ‘more’ or ‘less’ keyword blocking should be universally adopted as the only protective measure, it is one that highlights the need for precision in guiding a brand toward or away from content corresponding with that brand’s values & identity pic.twitter.com/TnuPI08Wh6
— Integral Ad Science (@integralads) March 18, 2020
Results of a survey published this week by Utzschneider’s IAS show:
Beet.TV has been following the topic:
This interview was conducted remotely, using Zoom.
]]>Integral Ad Science (IAS), a vendor of digital ad verification software services, has this year beta-tested a new tool aiming to apply similar processes to connected TV ads. Now the new system is gearing up for a full launch.
Earlier this year, IAS began working with Verizon to detect fraudulent ads across eight connected TV ad suppliers including CBS Interactive and NBCUniversal.
“We’ve since opened up that beta to more advertisers here in the US for the remainder of the year, and then start of Q1 of 2020 we’ll be opening up for a full product both with advertisers and then also opening up the supply to programmatic,” says IAS CEO Lisa Utzschneider in this video interview with Beet.TV.
What is connected TV ad fraud?
In ad fraud, fraudsters trick advertisers in to buying inventory that does not really exist. That tends especially to happen when demand for new ad inventory out-strips supply, is exacerbated due to a lack of standardization in the various delivery mechanisms and apps for OTT services, and is potentially more lucrative due to the higher rates commanded for TV exposure.
“It’s similar to what we’ve seen in the digital landscape over the past 10 years that IAS has been around,” says IAS’ CEO. “Where the consumers go, marketers go, and where the marketers go, the money goes – that’s where the fraudsters are.
“Given the enormous opportunity ahead of us with connected TV, when you open up the supply, and especially when the supply gets open up via programmatic, there will be fraud.
“A good example of that is device spoofing where fraudsters come and they mimic as a device just to sort of mess around with both the consumer, marketer and publishers.”
In a Q3 2018 study, Pixalate found that 19% of worldwide OTT impressions were invalid
This video is part of a series of interviews conducted during Advertising Week New York, 2019. This series is co-production of Beet.TV and Advertising Week. The series is sponsored by Roundel, a Target company. Please see more videos from Advertising Week right here.
]]>Integral Ad Science’s (IAS) new CEO says she is focused on differentiation, on Internet TV and on big platforms.
“Many marketers are asking IAS, ‘Hey, get in the OTT game’, says Lisa Utzschneider, who was Yahoo’s chief revenue officer until its acquisition by Verizon, in this video interview with Beet.TV. We’re currently in alpha right now with a major wireless carrier and six broadcasters.”
The traditional world of TV never suffered from concerns over the whether TV ads were truly seen. But arguably that was because analog TV had poor means to even measure viewership at all.
So, why exactly does Utzschneider think over-the-top internet TV needs ad verification?
“There are over a hundred million households in the US alone that’s viewing content via OTT,” she says. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done both in terms of putting together the standards on how we will verify.”
But, for IAS, it’s not all about OTT. Utzschneider suggests internet video remains a focus. She suggests there is a big opportunity in providing Google and Facebook the third-party verification they need to allay their own advertisers’ concerns about what is really going on under the hood.
“With Google, we’re deeply integrated,” she adds. “We’re working on a joint product roadmap and showing that we’re properly resourced. Particularly with YouTube and how much marketers invest in running ads in YouTube, they want to know that there is an independent third-party verification company verifying that the ads that they’re running is running next to brand-safe content.
“If we detect high-risk content is running, we have a feedback loop back to YouTube to alert them and let them know. And then YouTube can make the decision whether or not they want to demonetize that ad and not run it.”
This video is part of the Beet.TV preview series titled “The Road to Cannes.” The series is sponsored by 4INFO. Please visit this page for additional segments.
]]>That’s according to the woman who runs revenue at recently-acquired Yahoo.
Lisa Utzschneider tells Beet.TV: “We’ve become much more sophisticated over time about how to turn it in to actionable insights.” But Yahoo’s chief revenue officer thinks buyers still have a ways to go in another key department.
She details surprising a global brand marketing chief recently by explaining how his company was shovelling TV spots on to smartphones.
“It was almost a wake-up for him,” she explains. “His brand team was taking 15-second TV ads and just transferring them on a mobile phone. It doesn’t transfer very well from a consumer experience perspective.
“We’ve worked closely with that marketer on creative optimization – very simple things like ‘have your brand front-and-center within the first three seconds’. As a marketer, you don’t get much time to make an impact.”
That advice echoes the kind of message rival Facebook is also trying to give creative agencies – for mobile, where attention spans are shorter, ‘cut to the chase’.
This interview was taped at DMEXCO ’16. It is part of a video series of industry leaders. The series is sponsored by Videology. For more Beet.TV coverage of DMEXCO, please visit this page.
]]>Lisa Utzschneider, the company’s SVP-Sales, Americas, observed that Yahoo’s video offerings now run the gamut from long-form original content (such as a custom opportunity for Honda in “Community”) to short videos in digital magazines to Sponsored Posts on Tumblr that appear alongside user generated content.
“Video advertising is a big opportunity for Yahoo marketers to connect with users wherever they’re consuming streaming content,” she says.
Utzschneider joined the company last year and had previously been Amazon’s ad sales chief. She notes that Yahoo has been focused on integrating BrightRoll to make video inventory on the company’s owned and operated sites available programatically.
Yahoo’s acquisition of the programmatic video ad platform, which it bought for $640 million, closed last December. Utzschneider says Yahoo is now able to reach 188 million video viewers every month.
“What that gives Yahoo and our marketers is incredible flexibility and scale,” she says.
]]>