Home Members Threaten Antitrust Overhaul; NBCU Sells Addressable Campaigns On Constitution

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Big tech given up

Big Tech had a familiar but uncomfortable role on Thursday: Another flick of the tongue from Congressmen alarmed by its oversized market power. MarketWatch reports that the House Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee held the first in a scheduled series of legislative hearings to address the rise and abuse of market power online and modernize antitrust laws.The hearings are expected to build on the committee’s 16-month bipartisan inquiry into online competition – primarily on the business practices of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. The Justice Department and Attorney General have sued Google for its dominant search business, while the FTC has sued Facebook for “illegally maintaining its personal monopoly on social networks through years of anti-competitive behavior.” A group of business people, public order experts and antitrust experts were due to testify during Thursday’s hearing. The main argument, as put forward by Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline, is “Whether our economic future will be determined by the success of the best companies with the best ideas or simply the largest companies with the largest lobby budgets.”

Addressable alliance

NBCUniversal can now sell addressable campaigns against its own inventory on Charter’s Spectrum Video on Demand platforms. The deal increases NBCU’s addressable household base in the US by nearly 40% – bringing the station to 45 million households. As Andrew Blustein writes for AdweekContent owners like NBCU and distributors like Charter usually argue over promotion agreements – who can wear what show, etc. But the streaming wars have made friends of adversaries. David Kline, EVP of Charter Communications, said in a statement, “This partnership provides NBCU with an opportunity to make their networks more effective for advertisers while furthering our goal of improving scalability and accessibility for addressable television.” If you are interested For how NBCU feels about its promotional offerings as the entire television industry changes, check out AdExhanger’s industry preview podcast Krishan Bhatia, NBCU’s chief business officer.

Diverse audience

With more than 1.7 million podcast titles available, advertisers looking to add podcasts to their marketing plans face a dilemma: How can they make sure their programs and news align with the audience? ON new report von Nielsen portrays an increasingly diverse audience, Inside Radio reports. Forty-one percent of US podcast listeners are non-white and more diverse than the general population of the country. In addition, annual growth rates of non-white podcast listeners significantly outpaced white listeners over the past decade. According to Nielsen, Hispanics became more interested in podcasts than any other group, as the reach of this segment of the population increased six-fold from 1.1 million in 2010 to 6.8 million in 2019. This is well over four times the growth rate among white listeners. The report also notes that podcasting has withstood the effects of COVID-19. Along with everything else, the pandemic changed traditional listening habits. Despite the shorter time consumers spend in their vehicles, “the pandemic has demonstrated the resilience of podcasts”.

Comfort zone

The Ad Council is stepping up what it believes is one of the greatest public education efforts in United States history to educate Americans about the COVID-19 vaccines. The organization launches its objective of educating the American public with factual information and works with the best vaccine and health professionals to move people from “vaccine reluctance” to “vaccine trust”. Via cnbcWith so many different communities to reach, the organization works with many different groups so that people can hear from the people and groups they trust most. The Ad Council said it is working with more than 300 major brands, media companies, organizations, faith leaders, medical experts, and other groups to reach diverse audiences. The reach of the campaign will be broad. Dozens of brands, media companies and social platforms are creating content and donating media to get the message across, “It’s up to you”.

But wait, there is more!

Facebook’s advertising campaign promotes personalized advertising. [WSJ] Meanwhile, the company’s battle for media payments is shifting to Europe. [WSJ]

Terminus secures $ 90 million in Series C, run by Great Hill Partners. [release]

Kochava Collective and InfoSum work together to help brands drive growth. [release]

JW Player partners with PulsePoint to provide contextual video solutions for healthcare marketers. [release]

Yes, clubhouse is cool, but its rapid rise means it faces issues that typically plague mature social media networks. [The New York Times]

Lob raises $ 50 million in Series C funding to scale its direct mail platform. [release]

Walmart and eko have expanded Walmart Cookshop, a shoppable interactive video hub for cooking enthusiasts, with a seamless integration of entertainment and shopping, which includes 22 new episodes. [release]

You are hired!

Lifesize has named former 8 × 8 President – and Cisco and Polycom executives – Kim Niederman as its new CEO. [Martech Series]

NextRoll is hiring Roli Saxena as the new president of his AdRoll ecommerce marketing department. [Martech Series]

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