Publishers’ scorecard on Google’s ad tech remedies: they’re progress, but far from a clean win

After years of waiting for the DOJ to finally curb Google’s ad tech power, publishers are finding that the devil in these new remedies — from opening AdX to rival ad servers to banning “first look” advantages —is very much in the details.

Some of the remedies, as several ad tech experts framed it, look far better on paper than they’re likely to in practice. Others, they argued, amount to tweaks Google claims it has already made, or symbolic gestures that won’t move the revenue needle. 

Seven senior executives from publisher revenue teams and sell-side ad tech vendors participated in the scorecard. They were asked to rate each remedy on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 meant “cosmetic or largely symbolic” and 10 meant “materially changes how publishers can compete and make money,” and explain the thinking behind their scores. 

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Marketers have bought into microdramas — but a lack of ROI might make them irrelevant

Marketers have long since tried to make advertising something people actually want to watch — with varying shelf life results. (Remember Quibi, the mobile video streaming that shut down just six months after its April 2020 launch?) Well, now marketers are convinced they’ve found something in microdramas and microseries.

The bite-sized blockbusters have become big business in China and are now capturing American audiences. Crocs, Nuuly and P&G’s Native deodorant have each created their own branded, pint-sized productions.

Digiday spoke with four marketers who said it’s less about creating a business case around these snackable dramas and more about capturing shopper attention in a fragmented digital ecosystem.

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