Good morning. It’s Monday, June 3, 2019 and this is your first Media Tech Update. Join us every Monday morning!
 

Amazon has positioned itself as a potentially serious competitor for Google’s ad business with the confirmation of its agreement to acquire the ad server operation of bankrupt ad tech firm Sizmek. Once the deal closes, Sizmek Ad Server and Sizmek DCO will operate separately from Amazon Advertising, at least at first, said the company on its website. “Sizmek and Amazon Advertising have many mutual customers, so we know how valued these proven solutions are to their customer base,” said Amazon. “Sizmek has been searching for a buyer for Sizmek Ad Server and Sizmek DCO, and we are both committed to continuing serving their customers at the high standards they’ve come to expect.” Sizmek declared bankruptcy in March.

 

Foursquare has agreed to buy location-based measurement company Placed from Snap Inc. Placed Attribution will become Foursquare’s flagship measurement product, and Placed founder and CEO David Shim is joining Foursquare as president. Snap acquired Placed in 2017; its partnership with Foursquare, which powers Snap Geofilters, will continue.

 

The Trade Desk stock closed at $201.89 on Thursday, up almost 74% for the year and over 270% in the last two years (it closed at 198.81 on Friday). Pivotal Research analyst Michael Levine called the company a “truly unique asset, growing at among the fastest rates in the industry as they penetrate the opportunity in programmatic advertising.” TTD recently launched its programmatic platform in China, allowing multinational advertisers to work with a Western agency to easily buy ads in China, and is diving deeper into connected TV, with the number of advertisers running connected TV on its platform up 100% over the past year.

 

Extreme Reach announced the launch of AdBridge for Sellers, a solution aimed at helping teams ensure that ads align with content, connecting the buy and sell sides to simplify the distribution of ad creative to OTT, VOD, CTV, digital and linear TV. “Fragmentation of audience based on new and innovative video delivery platforms is creating complexity on the sell side as ads need to be positioned everywhere,” said Bunker Sessions, VP Sell-Side Solutions at Extreme Reach. “AdBridge for Sellers is shedding light on these challenges and the friction that exists in campaign execution on the sell-side.”

 

Comcast is set to launch a new commercial-free, on-demand movie service called Hitz that will replace Cinemax in some channel packages. The service, which will feature over 200 movies from a variety of studios and rotate over time, will be available at part of Xfinity Premier, Super and certain other TV packages at no extra cost. For Xfinity subscribers who still want Cinemax for its original content, Comcast will continue to sell $12-per-month subscriptions to the premium channel.

 

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Blockgraph released “Building the Future of Data Driven TV: The Quest to Create a Safe Identity Layer for the Industry,” a report that offers advice for companies moving towards the data-driven future and the findings from a survey of over 150 advertisers and agencies commissioned from Advertiser Perceptions. According to the survey, the mean percentage of advertisers’ total TV spend that is data-enabled has grown at a 42% three-year compound annual growth rate, and it appears that growth is about to accelerate in 2020. There was 20% TV spend data-enabled in 2018 and 29% in 2019, and the number is expected to reach 40% in 2020. “Our research confirmed that advertisers are optimistic about applying data to TV as they shift toward audience-based buying... However, they also recognize that a number of challenges must be solved before TV can realize its full, data driven potential,” said Jason Manningham, General Manager, Blockgraph.

 

Most adults see technology as the biggest driver of change and think that that’s a good thing, according to findings in the seventh annual trends report by Ford. The report examines the drivers of behavioral change around the world via a survey of 13,000 adults, conducted by Harris Insights and Analytics. Some 87% of adults say technology is the biggest driver of today’s change, while 79% say that technology is a force for good. However, that doesn’t mean that consumers like all tech prompted change. Some 69% of millennials, 68% of Gen Z, 62% of Gen X and 53% of Baby Boomers would like to undo some behavioral changes that happened because of technology.

 

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LEGAL ISSUES

 

Google is being investigated by the US Justice Department for possible anti-trust violations regarding search and advertising policies, reports the Wall Street Journal. The investigation is based on complaints forwarded to the Justice Department by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC closed an investigation into Google in 2013 after the company said it would make changes to its search practices.

 

Apple has been sued by three consumers who live in Rhode Island and Michigan and allege the company violated their privacy by sharing information about their music listening habits with third parties. The lawsuit was filed in California and alleges that Apple has been selling this data directly and also giving iOS app developers access to other related data. The plaintiffs are seeing class-action status for their lawsuit. If found guilty, Apple could be forced to pay damages to residents of the two states who had their music listening habits disclosed.