Marketecture: Get Smart. Fast.
00:37:44 · Chris Harihar, Ari Paparo, Eric Franchi
[00:37:44] S2: But I thought that was interesting that it was just kind of like a LinkedIn post that went up, I think on a Sunday or of like over the weekend, and then Jean was able to sort of grab it and and write something about it. But, you know, like, I I always find that fascinating as to, you know, why why that as the avenue for sharing the news versus like a more formalized, you know, corporate announcement. And and, you know, like, was was there a desire to sort of like, you know, soft soundness versus like put a a big spotlight on it for the reasons that you mentioned already. [00:38:15] S0: Well, Comcast has a very strange PR strategy. I mean, basically, talk about blog posts. When they bought Beeswax, it was just like a minor blog post with, like, two paragraphs in it. Like, we didn't get a press release. We weren't up for that. [00:38:25] S2: You're still pissed at this guy. [00:38:27] S0: And then I'd get there, and they'd be like, we're doing a big press release. We have a partnership with a regional agency in Cincinnati, and it's getting a press release. I was like, what is going on here? [00:38:37] S2: What are you what are... [00:38:38] S1: That's so funny. What do you make of this whole, Skydance looking to move off of FreeWheel to possibly Google [00:38:45] S0: Yeah. [00:38:46] S1: Scoop by, Shields?
00:38:46 · Eric Franchi, Ari Paparo
[00:38:46] S1: Scoop by, Shields? [00:38:47] S0: Yeah. So I I I think there's... One is the vertical vertical integration. They see their their contemporaries or their counterparts doing this, and they're like, well, we wanna be able to offer, the full packaged advertisers from the smallest SMBs, the biggest ones with AI and all that stuff. And I think there's a little bit of Jay Ashkenazi being involved here, former Roku. And my understanding is he's, like, kind of a Google guy. He doesn't necessarily... He... I think he's skeptical of a big build out, more or wants simplification. And so my my thinking after reading the Mike Shields article is that they're likely to become a gam shop, not necessarily build their own answer from scratch. [00:39:29] S1: That makes sense. I guess it kinda shoots down my speculation from last week. Go figure. [00:39:34] S0: Wait. What was your speculation from last week? [00:39:35] S1: I don't know that they might acquire because Jay's there. I'm like completely... I was completely wrong. [00:39:40] S0: No. I mean, I might be wrong. We'll we'll have to just wait and see like, you know. [00:39:45] S1: It's all good. Alright. One more ad tech thing before we get into some interesting fun stuff. Pinterest, Magnite announcement came out earlier this week effectively. It's gonna open up its inventory to programmatic buyers with Magnite as its main pipe, but also through Amazon, Google, and shout out Yahoo DSP. Jason Fairchild is now, I think, he's GM of programmatic, GM of It ads, was so
00:39:45 · Eric Franchi, Chris Harihar, Ari Paparo
[00:39:45] S1: It's all good. Alright. One more ad tech thing before we get into some interesting fun stuff. Pinterest, Magnite announcement came out earlier this week effectively. It's gonna open up its inventory to programmatic buyers with Magnite as its main pipe, but also through Amazon, Google, and shout out Yahoo DSP. Jason Fairchild is now, I think, he's GM of programmatic, GM of It ads, was so [00:40:14] S2: fascinating to see him in that press release actually, because I'm so used seeing it in very CTV specific environments and context, and that one was a bit different, I thought. [00:40:22] S1: Yeah. He's he's got a big job. He's got programmatic DNA, so this this makes sense, right, just to drive that drive that biz. [00:40:28] S0: Yeah. Totally makes sense. Hedge gardens, basically the second tier walled gardens all have different strategies. They need the revenue. Advert... Agencies don't wanna use their custom ad managers for everything. And, and it's also... And I've said this before. It's like a bit... Becoming a barrier to entry in the DSP business because it's the same three names every single time. You know? It's like it's like Trade Desk, Yahoo, Google if they're not an archrival of Google, and that's about it. And if you're, like, Adform or maybe Hey. Deep was in there. Deep Intent was in there. Alright. [00:41:01] S2: I didn't [00:41:01] S0: know that. Alright. Good for that. [00:41:02] S2: Was in there. [00:41:02] S0: Good for that. [00:41:03] S2: No Trade Desk, I don't think, in that in that... Yeah. Yeah. [00:41:07] S0: It's tough. Were they
00:41:07 · Ari Paparo, Chris Harihar, Eric Franchi
[00:41:07] S0: It's tough. Were they [00:41:08] S2: actually in... They were... Were they were in that? That announcement. I'm trying to think back on it now. [00:41:12] S1: It wasn't in the headline. I just pulled up the headline. It might have been buried. They might have been already there, but noticeably absent to your point, Chris. [00:41:18] S0: For sure. We had the same conversation last week about Netflix's DSP strategy, that there's kind of a limited list. And it's hard hard to get in, yeah, hard to get in that list sometimes. Right? [00:41:28] S1: Yeah. For sure. Alright. There's the cool kids club. Let's talk about some deals. I wanna talk about the smaller of the two, presumably smaller of the two, we don't know, which is, Stagwell. So an agency holdco acquiring Freestar, which is publisher monetization and an awesome company and led by a friend David Friedman. So shout out to, David. So Stagwell, you pointed this out in the notes. They actually own media. The division is literally called owned media by the way. And it's Reach TV, which is travel. They've got an AI, your media system called the media machine. Now they pick up Freestar, and they've got access to a thousand publishers. So talk about the demand side and the supply side coming together. This might not have been the one on everybody's minds if you thought there would be a transaction of agency acquiring publisher side ad tech. So this is super cool.
00:41:28 · Eric Franchi, Ari Paparo
[00:41:28] S1: Yeah. For sure. Alright. There's the cool kids club. Let's talk about some deals. I wanna talk about the smaller of the two, presumably smaller of the two, we don't know, which is, Stagwell. So an agency holdco acquiring Freestar, which is publisher monetization and an awesome company and led by a friend David Friedman. So shout out to, David. So Stagwell, you pointed this out in the notes. They actually own media. The division is literally called owned media by the way. And it's Reach TV, which is travel. They've got an AI, your media system called the media machine. Now they pick up Freestar, and they've got access to a thousand publishers. So talk about the demand side and the supply side coming together. This might not have been the one on everybody's minds if you thought there would be a transaction of agency acquiring publisher side ad tech. So this is super cool. [00:42:26] S0: Yeah. I mean, Freestar, my understanding is that they're mostly like a publisher management layer, like header bidding management and yield management and stuff like that. [00:42:35] S1: It's everything. It's everything. Everything. Monetization. [00:42:37] S0: It could be monetization. Right? Yeah. It's a really good strategic move, I think, because if you're really if you're really AI pilled about media buying, then why not get in there with the publishers and be able to put your orders in there with all the data that's coming in real time, as opposed to having to go through PubMatic or Magnite or somebody and let them do all that decisioning and that that throttling.
00:42:37 · Ari Paparo, Chris Harihar, Eric Franchi
[00:42:37] S0: It could be monetization. Right? Yeah. It's a really good strategic move, I think, because if you're really if you're really AI pilled about media buying, then why not get in there with the publishers and be able to put your orders in there with all the data that's coming in real time, as opposed to having to go through PubMatic or Magnite or somebody and let them do all that decisioning and that that throttling. [00:43:01] S2: So agencies have no data really outside, there's like all of it is client data essentially, so to have your own data if you're talking about building AI capability, I'm in an agency, what data do we have outside of what we have permission to use from from our customers. And so I do think from an AI perspective to your point, Ari, I think it's a smart move. [00:43:21] S0: I I think companies on the sell side who have a lot of variety have a certain value to them like the Raptive or, Sovrn of the world or may... You know, people have tags on the page and are involved with a large number of publishers, have an interesting position here in the AI world because having a large number of publishers is kind of a, differentiator when you're thinking about AI versus just being one big publisher. [00:43:45] S1: Makes sense. Do you think we see more of this? Agencies acquiring publisher tech? I don't know [00:43:49] S0: if agencies do it, but I think those two names I mentioned are pretty interesting as in the... As companies that might be better suited as part of a vertically integrated stack.