Edition #542
On Spiderman & BMW, AI slop is getting removed everywhere (or is it?) & World Cup lifts ad market.
Last week we had Genesis, with their film they concepted and got Maggie Gyllenhaal to bring to life. This week, BMW caught flak on Twitter for pushing their brand partnership with the latest Spiderman film through their in car console. Apparently, it was served as a notification (amongst others that users receive) and you had to tap into it. That kind of seems reasonable to me.
TheVerge: “Tapping on the ad displays a full-screen animation of Spider-Man swinging around BMW’s iX3 electronic SUV, complete with music, and even a “light show” if your car has an ambient lighting system. If you choose not to play the ad immediately, it’ll be added to the infotainment display as an app that you can view later.”
Abd a preview via Reddit.
The tweets that spread, suggested that users had the trailer autoplay when they started the car, so not quite true. The actual execution kind of seems reasonable to me.
Putting that aside, the calculus here is what? Let’s say BMW sold 2m cars in the US in the past 5 years. And reasonable to expect most of those would be available to push this notification to. Normally you might go, a low engagement rate of 1%. But for this, maybe 4-8% is more reasonable (1 in 25 to 1 in 12). So around 160,000 engagements.
If you’re BMW, you’re going, we’re delivering value to our customers.
All this from a car brand that has, in industry circles, brand content heritage. They famously did The Hire with Clive Owen, getting over 100m views in four years, in the early naughts. Actually I wouldn’t mind if that was pushed to the car!
Back to Spiderman, so BMW is a brand partner in the movie, so some set of their customers will go, and will be chuffed to see the same model they drive in the film. Reinforcing what they already believe about BMW. And helping BMW drive return on the product placement.
Would this really put people off buying a BMW? I’m not so sure, other factors are more likely to have an impact.
However, this is part of a wider trend, brands using their own distribution to bring to projects. Maybe bringing this to the table, lowered their entry price in the film, saving them money. Another recent example, Apple, bringing F1 into Apple Maps. Or even Albertsons, bringing micro dramas into their app.
Notable stories this week
- Audio companies push new programmatic ad buying and measurement tools.
- Disney agrees deal to let TikTokers use its films and TV shows in videos.
- New court docs show how MrBeast woos brands like Slack and Walmart.
- ^ Loads of nuggets in there, for anyone that sells brand content deals.
- AI Agents are giving publishers a new way to monetize their data.
- TBWA refreshes global visual identity, emphasizing the human touch.
- A debate is brewing over the risks and rewards of serving ads to AI agents.
- Disney is looking to launch free streaming channels as a way to funnel consumers to sign up for Disney+.
- The prisoner’s dilemma: Why UK publishers are signing Google Ai deals.
- The information ecosystem is being redrawn by AI. That might be good news.
- WPP is placing media teams “literally in clients offices”.
- Is OpenAI testing ChatGPT ads that launch AI agents?
- Grubhub and 40 other brands test in-app measurement in ChatGPT ads.
- WhatsApp chats get upgrades.
- NYT revenue rises 11% as costs increase.
- Sony is scaling up its Playstation advertising ambitions.
- Google’s legal woes with ad tech rivals.
- June ad market re-accelerate thanks to World Cup spending.
- Publishers pull back from Google AI Search, Creators push on.
- Snap explicitly says AI video can’t participate in Spotlight.
- LinkedIn adds a button to repor AI-generated ‘slop’.
- How one publisher turned newsletters into a digital growth engine.
- PubMatic launches governance architecture for agentic advertising on AgenticOS.
- The World Cup was a win for brands. Coca-Cola led the way.
- People Inc CEO: We’re not turning off Google crawlers yet.
- News publishers hope to beat AI chatbots at their own game.
- As Hollywood studios chase creator culture, ownership gets complicated.
- Catching rogue AI behavior with identity-aware analytics.
- The AI operating system marketing analytics needs now.
- Mobil, Introducing Agent Ads.
- The Influencer bubble is finally popping.
- Tim Cook says heavy Siri users may have to pay extra.
- In game branded content is not what most marketers think it is.
- Netflix looks to add ‘Hot Ones’ to its growing stable of YouTube hits.
- Google Assistant will disappear from your phone next month.
- Apple finally fixed Siri. So why does it feel anticlimactic?
- How an OpenAI influencer trip backfired.
- The $309m promo machine for Spiderman.
- Local Services Ads come to Google Ads via Performance Max.
- Your favorite beauty brands are now also entertainment brands.
- [Long form] The new media moguls.
Deals/M&A
- A+E Global Media to become a wholly owned Hearst Business.
Campaign of the week
- Snapchat + BusinessInsider. Ai is changing marketing. Human judgement matters more than ever.
Smartest commentary
- “Creators seem ascendant, but don’t kid yourself: Brands and AI have the power. How new metrics and marketplaces are defining a creator economy optimized for marketers and machines.” –Jeff Beer.
Datapoints of note
- In early 2024, when MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, had about half the subscribers he has today, a 30- to 45-second sponsored segment on his main channel cost around $2.5 million. Buying a TikTok or YouTube shorts video to accompany a main-channel ad would cost another half a million bucks, while using the MrBeast branding on a company’s website would run as much as $1 million a month, per the rate card. The company said in board meeting documents that it had contracted $91 million in deals with brands heading into 2025, including $15 million from T-Mobile for four video promotions and $12.5 million from Amazon for five main-channel ad
- Teads cites 5.88t ad impressions loss from Google.
- For the month of June, it meant a 19.3% surge in U.S. ad spending vs. the same month a year ago, according to just-refreshed data from Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker.
- YouTube has reportedly deleted 130,000 channels in a sweeping crackdown.
- NYT advertising revenues increased 20.7% YOY.
- Spotify crosses 300m paid subscriber mark.
- Over 6,700 brands advertised during the World Cup.
- Spotify ads had 4x higher conversion rates amongst users exposed across multiple platforms, compared with those reached through a single platform .
- StackAdapt logs 15,000 weekly workflows as Ivy Studio cuts hours to minutes.
Events
- Advertiser CMO breakfast in October.
That’s it for this week.
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