Mediaocean, the mission-critical platform for omnichannel advertising, has released its 2024 Advertising Outlook Report, with all signs pointing to a prevailing focus on innovation and creativity in the new year. Overall, the findings show that despite macroeconomic headwinds holding over from 2023, optimism pervades the advertising industry. Omnichannel marketers, in particular, anticipate an active year, affirming their intent to maintain or increase spending in nearly every channel.Examining key trends in media and advertising, the survey revealed that certain platforms stand to grow most significantly in 2024. For example, the report shows that not unsurprisingly, social media, digital display/video, and connected TV (CTV) are the frontrunners heading into the year, based on a sustained, surging investment that naturally mirrors consumer engagement and time spent. Specifically, 69% of survey-takers report that in 2024 they will increase social media spending, 65% for digital display/video, and 56% for CTV in 2024. At the same time, the number of marketers maintaining their investments in these channels is 28%, 30%, and 36%, respectively.“There is a lot to dissect in this year’s survey with regard to the marketing funnel and the consumer journey. For instance, even though direct-response campaign performance remains a top priority for marketers tasked with delivering tangible ROI, brand advertising is gaining momentum,” said Aaron Goldman, Chief Marketing Officer at Mediaocean. “Companies are taking a longer-view approach to driving customer loyalty and lifetime value. Even so, marketers are very aware that a prevalent gap remains between creative and media execution. If not addressed, this gap negatively impacts team workflow, messaging relevance, and market intelligence. So, resolving this gap and embracing the tools and systems required for doing so absolutely will be the largest growth opportunity for brands this coming year. ”Overall, the highly-anticipated report highlights the forces driving the advertising economy as seen by industry leaders, including the macroeconomic spending trends of 2023. This is the fifth installment of bi-annual market reports produced by Mediaocean and features the largest base of respondents, nearly 1,100 total, delving into key media and technology trends as well as channel-specific 2024 projected advertising investments. Mediaocean primarily surveyed marketers and agencies but also included perspectives from media companies, measurement firms, tech platforms, and other industry cohorts. "2024 will be a most consequential year and deliver unprecedented innovation in the advertising industry," said Bill Wise, Chief Executive Officer at Mediaocean. "As we navigate the challenges of data deprecation, antitrust regulation, and privacy protection, there is a massive opportunity for brands to reduce their reliance on Big Tech and leverage independent technology for everything from media buying to ad serving to omnichannel measurement. Embracing the scaled tools and systems required for this alignment will be the key to driving customer loyalty and lifetime value." In addition to illuminating overall optimism and positive spend trends across channels, the survey underscored a rising focus on AI and waning interest in the Metaverse. The report highlights that Generative AI has not only captured everyone’s attention but has also led to a shift in focus and resource allocation. The analysis suggests that 2024 promises to be the year that AI moves from speculative use cases to practical, day-to-day applications, particularly in the areas of data analysis and market research. Respondents indicated that AI will become an increasingly integral part of daily workflows and serve functionals well beyond content generation. For a full review of all key takeaways, please visit https://www.mediaocean.com/the-2024-advertising-outlook-report to download the complete Mediaocean 2024 Advertising Outlook Report. Additionally, Mediaocean will present the research during a webinar on January 18 with Joanna O’Connell, EVP Innovation at R3, and agency executives from dentsu, Initiative, and Jellyfish sharing their assessments of the imperatives for marketers. Please visit https://www.mediaocean.com/mediaocean-current-2024-advertising-outlook to register.

PubMatic Introduces Activate, an End-to-End Supply Path Optimization Solution for Programmatic Video and CTV in Asia-PacificPubMatic, a leading technology company in digital advertising, has announced the availability of Activate, its new end-to-end supply path optimization (SPO) solution, in the Asia-Pacific region. Activate allows buyers to execute non-bidded direct deals on PubMatic’s programmatic platform, gaining access to premium video and CTV inventory at scale. This offering, which has already seen success in the US and EMEA, is now launching in Asia-Pacific with key partners like dentsu APAC, iQIYI, KINESSO India, Madison Digital, and Wishmedia.Activate aims to streamline digital media transactions by connecting buyers and sellers directly, enabling a smooth transition from traditional direct transactions to programmatic private marketplace (PMP) or programmatic guaranteed (PG) deals. The platform enhances media buyers' control over omnichannel video investments by facilitating transactions across PubMatic’s premium CTV and online video inventory within a unified platform.Rajeev Goel, Co-Founder and CEO of PubMatic, said, “PubMatic’s launch of Activate in the Asia-Pacific region marks a significant milestone in our efforts to revolutionize the industry’s programmatic marketplace. Activate is an extension of our successful SPO strategy that addresses advertiser demand for solutions that deliver a better return on video and CTV investments.”Sunil Naryani, Chief Product Officer, Media at dentsu APAC, stated, “With PubMatic’s Activate, we anticipate delivering enhanced value to our clients by bridging the gap between buyers and sellers and further streamlining the supply chain, unlocking opportunities to maximize working media for their video and CTV investments.”Andy Sun, General Manager of Sales Operations, International Business Department at iQIYI, said, “We’re excited to be a launch partner for PubMatic’s Activate solution and look forward to continuing to work closely together to drive effective programmatic CTV advertising.”Paras Mehta, Business Head at KINESSO India, commented, “PubMatic is a key player in the programmatic ecosystem, and we’re excited to explore how Activate can benefit our CTV clients.”Suchi Jain, General Manager and Head of Programmatic at Madison Digital, expressed, “We’re excited to see their continued innovation in streamlining video and CTV buying for our clients.”Meejoo Na, Chief Operating Officer at Wishmedia, said, “We’re thrilled to be a launch partner for PubMatic’s Activate and look forward to our clients benefiting from a more efficient digital supply chain, and greater ROI on their video and CTV spend.”Activate expands PubMatic's total addressable market significantly, addressing the growing importance of programmatic video and CTV in the advertising landscape.

Written By: Gagan Uppal, Country Head – MENA, Xapads Media              Today’s digital world is a vast pool of innovation wherein, technological infrastructure is coming up with something new every day. And these days, CTV has become a hot topic among advertisers because its offerings and targeting options greatly impact the digital ecosystem. Since marketers can reach the right audience and maximize their brand reach thus, the potential of CTV Advertising and ad spending in MENA has gained 97% YoY from H120 to H121 (source: IAB MENA). Users dive deeper into its premium content in various lingos and on bigger screens; this is why, CTV advertising is aiding marketers with ample opportunities to make a difference in their brand presence and ROAS. However, due to device fragmentation, the user gets multiple video content distribution platforms like media players, standalone streaming gadgets etc which becomes a little daunting for media planners to manage various ad campaigns in different environments. Moreover, gathering consumers’ insights also becomes technically complex for them especially when it comes to conversions and ROI. Alongside this, a few other challenges are Lack of Common Identifiers, Multitude of Measurement Methodologies & Capabilities, Media Planning Efficiency, Ad Inventory Quality & Scalability, Cross-Media Measurement, and Ad Fraud; wherein, CTV acts as a saviour. Since it uses accurate methods for audience measurement and unique standards for actionable results & reporting on the showcased campaigns while maintaining brand safety with consistency in campaign performance.So, here are my thoughts on how CTV curbs marketers’ advertising challenges with the help of Artificial Intelligence to sustain the digital ecosystem.One of the common challenges that marketers find difficult to drive the effectiveness in ad campaign performance is Audience Identification. Since different platforms have their own audience demographics and insights wherein, CTV helps marketers to reach a unified audience. It provides them with data algorithms that drive accuracy in audience measurement. Moreover, CTV with a blend of AI segments the cohorts and showcases the content they prefer to consume on respective platforms. As a result, it leads to consistency in campaign performance with better brand safety and transparency. In fact, with the identification of the audience, the other challenge of Ad Fatigue becomes a concerning component for advertisers as it hampers user experience & interaction with the brand and drains the advertising budget. CTV facilitates marketers with Frequency Capping and Competitive Separation which enables brand owners to maintain a frequency and time difference while serving ads to specific viewers. Whereas, competitive separation ensures that ads familiar or similar to the competitive brands are not shown and are played one after the other. This helps in boosting brand recall value with efficiency in campaign performance.However, with effectiveness in brand recognition and recall, another challenge that marketers often face while advertising digitally is Audience Measurement and undoubtedly, CTV is solving it like a pro. Its authentication enables marketers to tap into the niche yet the right audience, its attribution showcases them the path to identify the connection between ad exposure and engagement. This is why, CTV is maturing the digital marketing ecosystem thus, its global revenue is also projected to reach 42.5 billion U.S. dollars by 2028. Since marketers can easily attribute the source generating original traffic and measure the audience conversions as well (source: Statista).This is why, CTV also solves the concerns of users’ Ad Responsiveness as marketers expect quality returns behind each invested penny. This, with the help of AI models, assists advertisers with real-time data maths for precise targeting at user-personalized and device levels. Hence, advertisers can use first-party data via CTV such as users’ activeness on bigger screens, type of content consumption, audience demographics, geos and much more. This further assists them to make informed business decisions by discovering and targeting the audience interested in viewing specific video content. As a result, this drives better ad responsiveness and builds the brand image.So, Connected TV has emerged as a game-changer for marketers, addressing some of the key challenges they face in the digital advertising landscape and revolutionizing the way brands connect with consumers in the digital age. Its ad-supported subscriptions make a favourable environment for brands to advertise better and edge the digital marketing efforts via its targeted ads such as L-Banners, Zoom Ads, Bumpers, Mastheads, Spot Frames etc. Further Artificial Intelligence redefines the streaming entertainment of CTV and helps marketers with predictive algorithms to cope with marketing challenges and save their advertising budget. Owing to this, CTV is revolutionising the AdTech vertical and will better enhance the audience, inventory and opportunity for marketers to lean into its promising performance.