Digiday Sunday
—Digiday A busy start to the short July 4th week with stories focused on the creator economy, the impact of AI on pretty much everything we cover – especially publishers – and ad tech M&A activity all bubbled up on our most-read ledger. Speaking of publishers, the introduction of Cloudflare’s new AI Bot blocking tool, gave them a rare reason to celebrate. As our Jessica Davies and Sara Guaglione reported, ‘after years of miserably watching their content get ransacked for free by millions of unidentified AI bot crawlers, publishers were finally thrown a viable lifeline.’ Read their full reporting here. The holiday week saw our stats fall off in the comparisons as readers turned away from screens during the break. – James Cooper
Story highlights
Alexander Lee had the week’s most-read piece with a clever WTF that broke down the practice of tapping ‘faceless creators.’ As he reported, ‘Influencer and creator marketing is steadily gaining ground in ad budgets — Unilever, for example, plans to significantly boost spending on social channels in 2025. Amid this shift in priorities, advertisers are looking beyond high-profile, personality-led creators. They’re increasingly tapping into a broader ecosystem that includes faceless creators — accounts that build massive followings without a central on-camera figure. And these creators are raking it in.’
Sam Bradley had a well-read analysis that looked at how media agencies are creating specialized units to help brand marketers deal with AI search gatekeepers. As he reported, ‘In recent months media shops like Jellyfish, Wpromote and Kepler have each launched or expanded AI search services that offer clients a means of partially gauging how applications like ChatGPT and Gemini represent and understand their brands.’
Ronan Shields drew viewers with a check in on Integral Ad Science, a publicly listed ad tech company with a market capitalization exceeding $1 and a potential takeover target by private equity. As he reported, ‘(June 30) marks the fourth anniversary of IAS’ initial public offering. Potential suitors sent out due diligence notifications to audit partners during the last quarter, albeit opinions are mixed as to the most likely outcome, according to Digiday sources.’
Seb Joseph had an interesting piece on how Tripadvisor, in the age of AI Overviews, is pivoting its marketing strategy from referral source to destination/experience curator. As he reported, ‘Tripadvisor is building features to anticipate what travelers need before they ask, using the details they share when they begin planning or booking a trip. With that context, the app can push personalized recommendations at just the right moment.’
Sam Bradley and Ronan Shields joined forces on the lead item on his edition of the Media Buying Briefing last week circled back – two years on from The Trade Desk launch of Kokai – with media buyers who reported they still aren’t fully sold on it. As he reported, ‘Kokai was supposed to be the DSP titan’s next shield against the tech giants. The hope was that by making ad inventory on the web easier to invest in, brands and buyers would buy more ad inventory outside the walled gardens. But a slower than anticipated rollout of the software on The Trade Desk’s side, and a lukewarm reception from buyers on the other, means that hasn’t gone entirely to plan.’
Sara Guaglione had a sharp angle into Anna Wintour’s exit from Vogue and what it means for the iconic fashion and beauty mag and brand, especially in terms of how it monetizes. As she reported, ‘Vogue’s next editorial leader will need to have a more platform-centric approach to content distribution and monetization, to continue attracting an audience that is increasingly less inclined to come to a publisher’s owned properties, according to a former Condé Nast exec. That means giving up more control.’
‘Quote’ of the week
“I treat robots.txt a bit like a list of names behind the bar of people you won’t serve. Whereas Cloudflare is locking the door.”
— Jonathan Roberts, chief innovation officer, Dotdash Meredith
Here are the Digiday + Briefings for the week
See you next Sunday!