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1 week ago | 
mediacat.uk | Natasha Randhawa |Elliot Wright |James Swift |Svilena Keane
Eighty-eight percent of Amazon Prime Video subscribers watched ads in Q4 2024, according to figures published this week by Digital i. By placing all Prime Video users on its ad-supported plan by default, Amazon has established the largest ad-supported base in global premium SVOD. That number neatly captures the current philosophy in streaming: scale first, worry about engagement later. Ad-supported tiers, once framed as a fall-back for budget-conscious users, are now the keystone of SVOD strategy.
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1 week ago | 
mediacat.uk | Elliot Wright |Svilena Keane |Natasha Randhawa |James Swift
The7stars expected steady-but-modest results when it tested Google’s Demand Gen format. Instead, it found consistent performance gains — across sectors, budgets, and brand size. ‘I think we hoped it would deliver incremental results’, said Xanthe Pickford-Avery, head of search at the agency, ‘but the consistency we saw across the board was quite surprising.’The whitepaper is based on five geographically-based experiments across retail, travel, finance, and subscription services.
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1 week ago | 
mediacat.uk | Svilena Keane |Natasha Randhawa |James Swift |Elliot Wright
Omnicom’s CEO John Wren stressed that creative was still the foundation of the business during the Q1 2025 earnings call on Tuesday, despite the discipline’s continued poor performance. ‘Creative is our IP,’ he said. ‘If everybody had the same generative AI tools on their desk, what would make a difference?
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1 week ago | 
mediacat.uk | Svilena Keane |Natasha Randhawa |James Swift |Elliot Wright
Sarah Wynn-Williams, whose tell-all book, Careless People, described her time as a policy director at Facebook, was in Washington DC last week and told senators how the company targeted teens with ads based on their emotional states.
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1 week ago | 
mediacat.uk | Natasha Randhawa |James Swift |Svilena Keane |Elliot Wright
A meta-analysis published in the Journal of Advertising Research reviewed 53 studies involving more than more than 11,000 participants to determine whether personalised ads actually outperform their generic counterparts and what makes them work — or not. The researchers found that perceived relevance fully mediated the persuasive power of personalisation. That is, personalised ads worked because people felt the message was genuinely intended for them.
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2 weeks ago | 
mediacat.uk | Natasha Randhawa |James Swift |Svilena Keane |Elliot Wright
Amazon is offering media agencies up to $250,000 in bonus video spend for trying its demand-side platform (DSP), Digiday reported last week. The company has also cut tech fees for some buyers, and one indie agency now has four Amazon reps chasing its non-endemic clients, according to the article. It’s Amazon trying to turn its DSP into the default choice by doing what it does best — sacrificing its margin.
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3 weeks ago | 
mediacat.uk | Natasha Randhawa |Svilena Keane |James Swift |Elliot Wright
A concise guide to the latest ad products you should be aware of — From comment sections to post-checkout screens — including what they cost (where platforms have been willing to say) and, crucially, why they matter. What is it? Roblox users can now watch 30-second ads in exchange for in-game perks like currency or power-ups. Announced this week, ads are only shown to players aged 13+ and creators must be 18+ to enable them. What good is it? It’s opt-in, so engagement tends to be higher.
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1 month ago | 
mediacat.uk | Svilena Keane |James Swift |Mike Piggott |Natasha Randhawa
One in three TikTok users is in the market for a car and, as of last month, dealers and manufacturers can advertise directly to them. But will people really purchase vehicles mid-scroll? On 19 February, TikTok announced that it had introduced two ad formats for automotive ads: inventory ads for dealers and model ads for manufacturers.
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1 month ago | 
mediacat.uk | James Swift |Svilena Keane |Mike Piggott |Natasha Randhawa
UK broadcasters feel like they’ve done their bit to make TV advertising fit for the future, now they want advertisers and agencies to get their act together and do the same. At least, that’s the course-grained reading of Gill Hind’s December report on the state of TV advertising. Hind, who is the CCO and director of TV at Enders Analysis, was commissioned to write the report by Isba.
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1 month ago | 
mediacat.uk | Natasha Randhawa |Svilena Keane |James Swift |James Hill
When a manufacturer creates a direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel, the prevailing theory is that it can strengthen the brand in ways that also benefits its retail partners. But a study published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science has found that retailers view direct channel entry as a threat. This vertical entry shifts suppliers from partners to competitors, and in response, many retailers reduce the brand’s shelf presence, raise prices and, as a result, lose sales.
