Publishings Digital Consumer

Internet service provider (ISP) giants, which dominant how Americans gain access to broadband Internet, cable TV, streaming video, and other telecommunications services, are aggressively expanding their capabilities to gather and use personal data. Leading ISPs AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are taking full advantage of all information flowing from PC’s, mobile phones, set-top boxes, and other devices. ISP giants are using “Big Data” analytics, artificial intelligence, and an array of cutting-edge technologies to identify who we are, what we do and how best to target us with marketing and advertising. They are also working closely with data brokers to gain access to even more personal information. AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, for example, work with Acxiom’s LiveRamp (link is external) subsidiary to build robust profiles that help them identify us regardless of what devices we may be using at the moment. ISPs envision a future in which we are continuously connected to their vast digital media networks for nearly everything we do. Through their monopolistic control over key broadband, cable TV, and satellite networks, ISPs are able to closely monitor what we do online—including both in and out of home, school or work. Marketers are told by ISPs that they can use their data and networks to “micro-target” an individual on all their “screens,” including for financial, health, retail and even political advertising. They are also positioning themselves to play an important role as our society is further transformed by digital technology, such as with so-called “smart homes,” (link is external) “connected cars,” the Internet of Things (link is external), and high-speed “5G (link is external)” networks. Last year, the Republican majority in Congress and the Trump administration eliminated (link is external) what have been the only federal consumer privacy protections afforded to all Americans—safeguards enacted in October 2016 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that required ISPs to engage in responsible data practices. ISPs saw that important FCC data-protection safeguard as a formidable obstacle to their plans to “monetize” consumer data. With Network Neutrality—a critical requirement to ensure an open and democratic Internet—also ended by the same FCC, phone and cable ISPs have vanquished federal protections for fair treatment of consumers online—including with their data. Unless states weigh in with safeguards, AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and other major ISPs will pose—despite their denials—a major threat to consumer privacy. With ISPs especially touting their prowess to capitalize on a consumer’s location, states have an especially important role to play protecting the public from “hyper-local targeting” and other geo-marketing practices. Here are just some recent developments on ISP consumer data and digital marketing practices. AT&T, according to the Trump administration’s Department of Justice filing (link is external) opposing its acquisition of Time Warner, is “the country’s largest distributor of traditional subscription television; the second largest wireless telephone company, third largest home internet provider; one of the largest providers of landline telephone service; and also the country’s largest Multichannel Video Programming Distributor (MVPD), with more than 25 million subscribers.” Its control over broadband, satellite, and mobile telecommunications services is a key reason why AT&T tells marketers that it has “More Scale, More Targeted, More Screens…advanced TV and multi-screen solutions for your brand.” Last February, trade publication DigiDay leaked AT&T’s “pitch deck (link is external)—highlighting what it called its “digital video advantage.” That advantage includes “the ability to access the hottest content on TV and across platforms; the ability to reach the multi-platform viewing audience in a single buy; premium and non-skippable inventory” (ads a consumer can’t avoid). AT&T’s DirecTV is positioned by the pitch deck as an effective competitor to streaming video services offered by Amazon, Netflix and YouTube. Through several data advertising platform partners, AT&T offers real-time ad targeting of individuals who view streaming video and other online content. The pitch deck breaks down AT&T’s DirecTV audience, in order to help advertisers more effectively reach Hispanics, African Americans and households with children. Its 2017 “Media kit” explained how the company helps advertisers reach individuals on all their devices, giving marketers the ability to “serve ads to the same target audience on TV and digital devices across tens of billions of impressions.” AT&T especially highlights its deep relationship (link is external) with consumer data providers, including Equifax, Experian, Crossix, Neustar, and Nielsen Catalina. These allies help AT&T target its subscribers with ads promoting loans and other financial services. AT&T Adworks has recently opened (link is external) a “new state-of-the-art-media lab”—an “interactive space designed to inspire marketers…[that] shows the future of media consumption and how marketers can most efficiently reach their targets across any platform.” Designed to reflect how digital media reflects “the consumer’s life,” the lab enables advertisers to “interact” by using “data visualization tools” to see how individuals can be targeted through streaming video, Internet of Things devices, on mobile phones and even via data-enriched outdoor advertising. Comcast: The cable TV colossus, which also operates Universal Studios, NBC, and several digital advertising and technology firms, is committed to better leveraging “Big Data.” Comcast sees itself at the “center (link is external) of the household building connections between users, devices, products, and services.” Comcast is developing capabilities to take better advantage of the insights generated (link is external) by its “systems capable of processing billions of events per day.” This includes identifying actionable data, including in “real time,” generated from its video and Internet platforms. Through its “identity strategy,” (link is external) Comcast plans to deliver a “transformative customer experience” that will market to us online “throughout the customer lifecycle.” To help accomplish this, Comcast is building out its “Big Data” capabilities at the “enterprise level,” including for “event processing, analytics,” storing our information in the cloud, and various forms of digital “testing and optimization.” Comcast’s “Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI)” group (link is external) is working to create “intelligent applications that [can] impact millions of people on a daily basis.” Among its projects involving “machine learning” are ways to “build (link is external) virtual assistants that interact with millions of customers in natural language and automatically find solutions to their needs.” It’s part of a much larger “Technology and Product” research infrastructure at Comcast that has offices in Silicon Valley, Philadelphia, Denver, Chicago and Washington, DC. Comcast is also deploying “blockchain” insights platform technology, which it calls BlockGraph (link is external), to help develop more detailed digital dossiers on consumers so they can be targeted for advertising and other services. Comcast’s “FreeWheel” (link is external) subsidiary, with offices in Paris and other global locations, is an advertising, data management and digital rights management technology company. FreeWheel helps video and digital media companies deploy what it calls a “unified ad management platform.” That system allows clients to engage in “intelligent ad decisioning (link is external) across all devices, environments, and data sets….” FreeWheel’s customers, which for the U.S. market include AT&T’s DirectTV, Fox, Time Warner and Viacom, can use its technologies to “unify audiences across desktop, mobile, OTT (so-called Over-the-Top streaming video), and [cable TV] set-top boxes [to] profitably monetize their content.” Comcast’s growing expansion (link is external) in data-driven marketing—operated by both its Advanced Advertising Group and Spotlight service—involves FreeWheel and other acquisitions, including Visible World and Strata. Strata (link is external), for example, is now partnering with “Choozle,” a Big Data-oriented advertising system that helps marketers target a consumer on social, mobile, video and other platforms. The Comcast’s Strata and Choozle (link is external) alliance “will allow thousands of advertising agencies to access detailed consumer data to execute digital advertising campaigns as conveniently as they would buy local TV advertising.” Comcast’s NBCUniversal division has also deepened its use of data-driven techniques to target its viewers. NBCU has its own “advanced advertising” platform (link is external)—Audience Studio—and is promising marketers that its “Total Audience Delivery” will help target (link is external) a consumer on “digital, linear, mobile and out-of-home viewing.” Its “data-based” profiling of its viewers includes information provided by “set top data from Comcast” and other sources. NBCU’s “Audience Studio Targeted Digital,” for example, enables advertisers to reach “digital (link is external) audiences” who view its portfolio of “entertainment, lifestyle, news, sports and Hispanic” content. Comcast’s NBCU urges advertisers to provide them their own (first-party) information on consumers so it can be merged with the TV network’s data. The result, claims NBCU, is that marketers will reach their “objectives through precision targeting at unequaled scale.” What NBCU means is that the same kinds of sophisticated capabilities that Comcast relies on to reach its broadband consumers are also available through its TV subsidiary. Verizon: To further its plans to harvest consumer information to bolster its “differentiated data” ad-targeting capabilities, Verizon has created a new division called “Oath.” (link is external) Incorporating “50 media and technology brands that engage more than a billion people around the world, the Oath portfolio includes HuffPost, Yahoo Sports, AOL, Tumblr, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Mail” and other properties. Oath operates a real-time data targeting apparatus called One (link is external). It also owns a leading digital video ad company called BrightRoll (link is external) that delivers targeted marketing in real time to streaming video. The result of Verizon’s investments, it explains, is the “most advanced and open advertising technology” system (link is external) that “spans across mobile, video, search, native and programmatic ads.” Verizon’s Oath promises its clients it delivers “people based marketing (link is external).” People-based marketing is a marketing industry euphemism for using our personal data to identify us online. In the case of Verizon’s Oath, that includes our “location, passions and interest from social (media), purchase intent from search and advertising engagement, cross device identity from users mapped across devices, favorite content from web, app and Smart TV data, on and offline purchases and recent store visits from mobile geolocation data.” Oath explains that its “suite (link is external) of advertising technology lets you activate this data to find and message consumers all along their journey.” Verizon acquired AOL after that company had made its own considerable acquisitions of data targeting companies, including those that access mobile (link is external) data from apps. Consequently, Verizon can claim that “Oath has the industry’s largest mobile demand portfolio to help you monetize across every device…,” including in real-time. This is just a brief snapshot of leading ISP data and digital marketing practices today. ISPs’ unfettered control over broadband communications enable them to eavesdrop on the communications and behaviors of millions of individuals and households. Without consumer safeguards, they will further mushroom into even more formidable—and unaccountable—gatekeepers over our information and privacy.

The phone and cable lobby will use its new power over the Internet to further erode the privacy rights of Americans. Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon will be entirely free to tap into the data flowing from our mobile devices, PCs, gaming and streaming platforms and set-top boxes. These ISP giants have already built up a formidable (link is external) commercial data gathering and Big Data analytics infrastructure. Now they will expand their gathering of our personal information, inc. financial, health, media use, and also force competitors to share the data they collect. If you want ISPs to give you preferential treatment, content providers will be forced to give up your data, so phone and cable can further expand their ad revenues. Independent and small content companies—including non-commercial and diversely-owned services—will be pressed to consent to terms that favor the digital gatekeepers that control our broadband highway. The FCC’s Net Neutrality decision will trigger a powerful wave of consolidation and deal making that further reduces the range of content and services we should expect in the 21st Century (including for children). We also believe that Google, Facebook and other providers will likely make their peace with the big ISPs, creating a powerful alliance that controls the U.S.’s digital destiny. CDD will be a part of the collaborative work to address this. We urge everyone to also “follow the data” as they examine the digital marketing plans of Verizon, Comcast and AT&T (link is external). There they will find plenty of opportunity to educate the public about our digital future has been placed at great risk.

Haystaq DNA brings predictive analytics to election races up and down the ballot everywhere from presidential to city council elections. Haystaq provides support to political campaigns in need of using voter file data along with custom turnout scors, candidate support, issue scores and fundraising scores to reach voters most efficiently using a myriad of marketing tactics. --- --- For more information, visit http://bit.ly/2yrKQ0u (link is external)

YouTube plans to produce a half-dozen original series that will be available for free on the world’s most popular video website, a big expansion of the Google (link is external)-owned company’s programming and efforts to attract advertisers. Comedian Kevin Hart, talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres and the comedy duo Rhett & Link are producing unscripted shows that will debut this year, YouTube will announce at an event for advertisers in New York Thursday. Alphabet Inc. (link is external)’s Google also will increase its spending on YouTube Red, a paid video and music streaming service launched in October 2015. The plans mark a shift for Google, which has typically treated its huge video library as a web free-for-all rather than a home for TV shows. But as more digital rivals venture into high-quality programming, YouTube is feeling pressure to respond, devoting resources to more costly projects and aiming for a wider audience. The company will fund more than 40 original shows and movies in the next year, spending hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a person familiar with the plans. YouTube is betting high-profile stars will attract more advertisers like Johnson & Johnson, which is sponsoring “Best.Cover.Ever,” a music competition from Ryan Seacrest that’s scheduled for later this year. “We’re working with YouTube stars and big celebrities that we know have global appeal, advertiser appeal and are largely established on the platform,” Susanne Daniels, YouTube’s head of original content, said in an interview. YouTube’s mission at the annual Newfront presentations in New York, where online companies are introducing their latest initiatives this week, is to convince marketers to shift more ad money to the web from TV. Original programming is front and center, with YouTube pitching premium shows that it says merit big commitments from sponsors. Those efforts got more complicated last month when advertisers discovered some of their spots appeared next to extremist videos (link is external). YouTube adopted new rules and said the scandal had minimal impact on sales. Still advertisers are wary of a site that relies on so many user videos, which makes it harder to ensure ads run alongside high-quality shows. “The two biggest players in the Newfronts are YouTube and Hulu, yet neither tells you exactly where your ad ran,” said Ben Winkler, chief investment officer of OMD USA, part of the Omnicom Group Inc. advertising company. “I expect YouTube will be the first to blink.” DeGeneres, who hosts one of the most popular talk shows on TV, will take viewers behind the scenes of her program. Hart, a popular comedian, will try a different trendy workout routine every week alongside celebrity guests in “Kevin Hart: What the Fit?” The show will debut on his Laugh Out Loud Network on YouTube. YouTube also will help Rhett & Link expand on their already popular “Good Mythical Morning” to create a series that feels every bit as grand as TV talk shows. While most recent episodes feature the two hosts at a desk, the revamped version, in its 11th season, will include more guests, challenges and correspondents. “We want to be seen as legit in ways by people who don’t see internet shows as legit,” said Rhett, whose real name is Rhett James McLaughlin. “But the way to do that is not to imitate late-night TV shows.” YouTube decided to fund ad-supported programs more than a year ago after executives saw a study on the growing number of TV shows being produced. Most of the new shows appear on premium services with no ads. That created an opening. --- Read more at https://bloom.bg/2y8Cdb2 (link is external) See Google program packaging for advertisers: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/products/google-preferred/ (link is external)

Mobile has fundamentally changed how we live our lives. With our devices never more than an arm’s length away, people can find, watch or buy anything at anytime. That’s why earlier this year we shared (link is external) that we’re developing a new, cloud-based measurement solution for YouTube, designed for a mobile world. Today, we’re announcing the beta for this solution, Ads Data Hub, to help advertisers get more detailed insights from their campaigns across screens while also protecting user privacy. We are also announcing that Ads Data Hub is a solution not just for YouTube, but a tool that offers access to more data and helps unlock actionable insights across Google ad platforms, including the Google Display Network and DoubleClick. And with Ads Data Hub now in beta, we’re expanding who can use it. Built on infrastructure from Google Cloud, including BigQuery (link is external), Ads Data Hub gives advertisers or their preferred measurement partners access to detailed, impression-level data about their media campaigns across devices in a secure, privacy-safe environment. Data from other sources, such as a CRM system or marketing database, can be incorporated as well. With this full view, advertisers or their partners can analyze the data and draw out insights specific to their business. For example, if an e-commerce retailer wants to understand what the path to conversion looks like, they can bring additional online data about their customers into BigQuery, and Ads Data Hub will enable them to combine that data with their ads data so they can see what a typical journey is from first encountering a user until conversion. Consistent with our commitment to privacy (link is external), no user-level data can be removed from the secure Cloud environment. Impression-level data is only accessible for the purposes of analysis and generating insights. In the future, advertisers will be able to act on the insights they get from Ads Data Hub and buy media with greater precision. As an early alpha partner, Omnicom Media Group helped to define the solution and has seen significant value from both the amount of data available through Ads Data Hub and the broad set of analyses and custom queries that are possible. --- For the full blog post, visit http://bit.ly/2yBWYv1 (link is external)

'One by AOL: Politics', a full-scale programmatic solution that inspires voters at the "right time", in the "right context" in an increasingly video and mobile-led world. Use of this platform allows political brands to create, execute and optimize on digital buys to reach voters. --- For more information, visit https://www.onebyaol.com/politics (link is external)