Media Update: DirecTV and Dish Merger, Meta's AI Product Rollout, and TikTok Search Campaigns Available
Key Highlights:
- TV & Audio: DirecTV and Dish are set to merge, giving linear TV a potential lifeline amid growing pressures from streaming.
- Paid Social: Meta & Snap converge on similar visions for an AR future.
- Display & Programmatic: The IAB releases its first definitions and guidelines on the growing in-store retail media industry.
- Search: TikTok Search Ad Campaigns are now generally available and advertisers are trying to understand how to think about this new hybrid “Search on Social” campaign type.
- Ad Economy: The Advertising Trial of the Century concludes – at least formally.
TV & Audio
Sports viewership recovered a bit in mid-to-late September amid major storylines: the debut of Arch Manning at Texas, week 3 of the NFL season, and a genuine MLB playoff race (plus: Shohei Ohtani’s 50-50 season, his quest for the Triple Crown, and – with apologies to our Chicago readers – the White Sox setting a more ignominious record). News viewership dipped a bit as the month closed, but with escalating tensions in the Middle East, Tuesday’s VP debate, and the final stretch of the campaign season upon us, expect to see lots of attention in October.
1. In our last newsletter, we flagged that DirecTV and Dish were in the early stages of merger negotiations. That deal has come together, as a merger was announced Monday morning. The combination will give DirecTV all of Dish TV and Sling TV, with the companies highlighting improved customer flexibility and value and – on the back of DirecTV’s recent conflict with Disney – the ability “to deliver to consumers smaller content packages at lower price points”.
The announcement was (perhaps surprisingly) forthright about the causes that led to the merger, explicitly noting “the video distribution industry has undergone a massive transformation and is highly competitive, now dominated by streaming services owned by large tech companies and programmers” which has led to a combined 63% decline in satellite customers between the two services. Financially, the deal is a bit complex, as private equity firm and DirecTV co-owner TPG is acquiring AT&T’s remaining 70% stake in the satellite giant while assuming ~$10B in debt from EchoStar, Dish’s owner.
While the acquisition will not close until late 2025, the companies are already making clear their intention to keep satellite a “viable” business model, arguing the combination will yield “the broadest array of programming and diverse voices available on pay TV, including local news” with “multiple content sources in one easily accessible place.” As we’ve discussed, however, the writing may already be on the wall. The most recent update of Nielsen’s Gauge continues to show a dominant place for streaming, even as broadcast ticked up amid the Paris Olympics. In fact, broadcast’s gains were stymied by streaming, as Peacock soared above Tubi and Roku in August.
Overall, this agreement buys DirecTV and linear time, but it does not change the reality of streaming’s explosion. Though linear will continue as an exploitable channel for advertisers, the focus should continue to be on the ever-evolving digital space. | DirecTV, Nielsen
2. We’ve often used this space to discuss the impact of live events on the TV landscape – their preservation of a meaningful role for linear and streaming platforms’ forays into the space, particularly with sports and awards shows. However, 2024 gives streaming another opportunity in the battle for live events: election night. Amazon is reportedly discussing an election night special with Brian Williams to stream on Prime Video.
While this is unlikely to unilaterally break the hold broadcast and cable news have on night-of coverage, viewers have already shown a willingness to change their consumption habits; after an even split between broadcast and cable in 2016, audiences shifted heavily towards cable networks in 2020. Moreover, Nielsen’s household ratings for election night coverage were down in 2020 and remain small relative to 20th-century highs. These trends are very similar to those seen in the sports landscape over the past few decades, on which streaming platforms like Prime Video successfully capitalized.
That capitalization in sports has yielded a growing impact that shook up the latest rights deals, making news and politics an obvious next step. Though some attempts at streaming news (such as CNN+) haven’t succeeded, others (such as CNN Max) have seen a bit better results. While advertisers looking to engage in this year’s election should continue to cable, 2025 may be the start of streaming’s dominance in live news. | CNN, Nielsen
Paid Social
It has been a busy couple of weeks for Meta where they hosted numerous industry events including their annual Meta Connect event. Meta Connect is a developer conference where the latest news and developments across mixed reality, AI, and wearables are shared. For Meta, these innovations build toward their vision of an open and more connected future. Among those announcements was the introduction of Orion, Meta’s first AR glasses.
Last week we reported on Snapchat’s rollout of their next generation of Spectacles, its own AR glasses. Meta claims that their field of vision is wider than similar-sized AR glasses (such as Snapchat’s Spectacles), with a more socially acceptable look than other brands on the market (such as Apple’s VisionPro). However, similar to Snapchat’s approach, these new glasses are only available to developers for the time being, so consumers and brands will still need to wait to get their hands on this futuristic technology.
In addition to hardware, Meta announced a handful of exciting updates to their AI products. This includes celebrity-AI voices, expansion on Meta AI’s imagine feature, language translations for Reels, and most notably for brands, the ability to create AI chatbots for your business
This is a big update because it will allow more brands to lean into click-to-message ads, without the need for human community management and response delays. Brands will be able to quickly stand up an AI chatbot to talk to their customers 24/7, answering common questions, offer support, and facilitate purchases. This is a powerful advancement for brands, opening up additional self-serve communications streams with consumers. While this is a newer offering for Meta’s native toolkit, Messenger Bots have been around for years, and typically brands pay a third party an incremental fee to build and manage these bots. If Meta’s AI Chatbots can deliver the same, or even a slightly elevated experience, brands can expect additional scalability and impact coming from Meta’s ads ecosystem. This is likely just the start, but given Meta’s massive focus in the AI space this year, product feedback on tools like this will likely be happily received as Meta continues to innovate. | SocialMediaToday, Meta
Display & Programmatic
In-store retail media is not only a good conversation topic for any dinner party but also the topic of recent industry news, as the IAB and IAB Europe released their new industry definitions and measurement standards. These guidelines, which build on the MRC Digital OOH Measurement Guidelines, are a welcome advancement in the world of retail media as they aim to standardize in-store media formats, store zones, and campaign measurement, reducing fragmentation and providing an opportunity to build on the growth of the retail media space.
Retail media ad spending has surged in recent years. eMarketer is projecting it to surpass $129 billion by 2028, with in-store media expected to reach over $1 billion. Although in-store accounts for only 1% of total omnichannel retail media spend, its rapid growth presents a considerable opportunity for advertisers to connect with consumers, as more than 80% of retail sales still happen in physical stores.
The IAB’s new in-store standards will provide advertisers and retailers a foundation for understanding the value of the placements and store zones. To help bucket the array of static and digital placements throughout the store, the IAB has outlined five distinct zones where media can be placed:
- Zone 1: Exterior to Store – This includes areas like charging stations, exterior building walls, and gas pumps.
- Zone 2: Entrance and Out of Category – Media includes service kiosks, entrance gate covers, and standalone displays.
- Zone 3: Checkout – Includes transaction screens, conveyor belts, and self-service checkout stations.
- Zone 4: In Aisles – This can include screens, shelf blades or shelf blockers
- Zone 5: Other & Connected Store – This includes ancillary spaces like bank branches, coffee shops, and optometrists or connected devices like smart carts
Given the similarities between out-of-home (OOH) and in-store retail media, we expect to see a growing overlap between the two. It is not uncommon for an OOH plan to include inventory across several zones and tap into partners like grocery TV, gas station TV or Volta for charging stations.
While there is overlap between OOH and in-store retail, retail stores can offer more diverse formats, which provides a significant expansion opportunity for both digital retail media and OOH advertisers. The unlock, however, will come from educating the industry on the opportunity and making it easier for advertisers to understand the impact, which these guidelines are a step in that direction. As Tinuiti’s very own Elizabeth Marsten notes, “we have to educate an industry on in-store as it has a different language.” | Adweek, eMarketer, IAB
Search
TikTok Search Ad Campaigns are now out of Alpha and made generally available last week. These ads are powered by keyword targeting and specifically target TikTok’s search results page, serving highly visual video creatives. Advertisers are trying to understand how this new hybrid “Search on Social” campaign type should fit into their larger marketing strategy.
One important differentiator between traditional Search ads (those appearing in Google or Microsoft results pages) and TikTok Search ads is the varying level of intent behind the consumer behaviors. Traditional Google searches are generally driven by a specific user intent (to learn more about a specific topic, to purchase a product or get a quote for a service, etc.). Whereas on TikTok, similar to many other Social Media platforms, users are generally searching with less intent to purchase, and are often more passively seeking inspiration or entertainment.
TikTok has been framing these new Search Ads as a means of enhancing product or brand discovery, and not necessarily as a direct sales driver. These are viewed as a relatively low lift addition to existing TikTok in-feed ad efforts, since Search Ads on TikTok leverage the same video-centric creatives. In early stages, this campaign type is being geared toward eComm advertisers rather than Lead Gen brand since TikTok Search Ad Campaigns are currently only compatible with Traffic and Web Conversion objectives.
As the way consumers search continues to evolve, we expect to see more and more blurring of lines between formerly distinct “channels” like Search and Social Media. As hybrid ad campaign types become more ubiquitous, advertisers will need to balance the innovative nature of platforms like TikTok with traditional keyword-driven search ads to optimize their media spend. For example, when building TikTok Search Ad Campaigns, advertisers can lean on keyword-level performance data from Google Ads Search campaigns to understand which phrases to target on TikTok.
Tinuiti is working with a handful of early TikTok Search Ad Campaign testers, and so far results have been mixed. In some cases, TikTok Search Ads drove softer performance (CPCs and CTRs) compared to in-feed TikTok ads. But in other cases, performance was stronger than both in-feed TikTok ads and Google Search ads. We’re actively working on a meta analysis to understand how total volume and efficiency compares between TikTok and Google Search ads. Stay tuned!
So far, we’re seeing that advertisers are interested and eager to test TikTok Search Ads. However we don’t expect to see major shifts in how advertisers budget their media spend, or major cuts to Google Search ad budgets – not just yet, at least. It remains to be seen whether these new TikTok ads are best classified as Search, Social, or something entirely new. | TikTok, Digiday
Ad Economy
Despite its similarities to a soap opera at times, the Google Antitrust trial (unlike a soap opera) has come to an end. Previously we told you about the prosecution’s framing of Google as a monopolistic juggernaut as evidenced by internal emails suggesting a broad mindset focused on absolute domination. The crux of Google’s defense has centered on market definition, with its expert witnesses contesting the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) narrow framing of the digital ad ecosystem. Google has argued that ad serving, exchanges, and ad networks should not be considered distinct markets but part of a larger, interconnected ecosystem. This broad definition, if accepted by the court, could undercut claims that Google monopolized any particular segment of the ad tech stack.
Professor Israel, one of Google’s witnesses, took the stand with a rather unorthodox (and seemingly incorrect) take, arguing that companies like Facebook, which runs its own internal ad system, compete directly with Google’s ad exchange (AdX) and ad server (DFP). His testimony highlighted how alternative options like header bidding and Facebook’s ad products provided significant competition to Google’s ad tech, challenging the idea that Google had a dominant, monopoly-like hold on the market​. There is competition in the market for advertising dollars, yes, albeit not in the specific auction environments where Google’s monopoly is alleged to exist.
Another critical topic in the trial revolved around Google’s take rates—how much the company charges for various ad services. The DOJ pushed back against Google’s claim of relatively low take rates, pointing out that Google’s financial structure, particularly in areas like Google Ads and AdX, benefitted from subsidies and price manipulation, which potentially created barriers for competitors.
Now we enter into the finalization of fact finding with closing arguments set for Monday, November 25th. While we wait with bated breath to see how the court will handle the various interpretations of competition, market control, and pricing mechanisms that have dominated these proceedings. Google’s defense, anchored in the complexity and interconnectedness of the ad tech ecosystem may not provide them with the air cover required to walk away unscathed. Despite the conclusion of formal arguments, this trial, regardless of the outcome, will likely persist into 2025 and beyond.
While this is not the forum for us to pick winners & losers, as Luma Partners Terence Kawaja quipped, ‘Guilty is good,’ suggesting that even a negative verdict for Google might ironically relieve them of their slowest-growing business units. Only time will tell if Google’s executive team shares this sentiment. | AdTechRadar, Marketecture, AdExchanger
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