LONDON — Over the last two years, the growing realization that Amazon brings significant skin to the digital advertising game has ballooned.
And that is crossing off its ecommerce platform and on to online TV, too.
In a recent terms of service update for Fire TV ad sales, Amazon says
“Fire TV Ad-Enabled Apps must provide 30% of total advertising impressions in the app to Amazon, which 30% will be representative of all of the app’s advertising impressions and not exclude or limit Amazon’s access to times, programs or categories. Apps will not receive payment for the 30% of impressions provided to Amazon.”
That sets reports flying, like this from AdAge: “Until last month, Amazon let the publishers sell their own ads and take all the money.”
In this video interview with Beet.TV, the boss of one ad agency’s connected TV play gives his view on how Amazon’s position is shaping up.
“You can say, ‘Well what’s different about that? Apple is charging 30 percent if you have an app there they will take 30 percent or 40 percent cut of that app’,” says Finecast CEO Jakob Nielsen.
“Well the difference is, Amazon is not saying that. They’re not saying they’ll take a cut of their revenue – they’re saying they want to sell the inventory. So for Amazon to do that, they’re building a big infrastructure, sales force of going directly after TV money. So they’re definitely going to be a gigantic player in there.”
Last year, GroupM launched Finecast, spanning multiple TV channels, pay-TV platforms, set-top boxes, video-on-demand services, over-the-top providers and game consoles.
Finecast offers advertisers access to 180 different targeting segments, from socio-economic to life stage, purchase and financial data. It is integrated with GroupM’s [m]Platform along with such major industry data platforms as Acxiom, Experian, MasterCard and Kantar to power audience discovery and targeting.
Finecast recently told Beet.TV the unit has effectively been soft-launched and plans to deliver a self-serve tool to both agencies and brands later.
In the big picture, Nielsen doesn’t think connected TV will be left all to Amazon.
“I think all the current broadcasters can be big players, but they have to invest,” he says. “They have to invest in technology, they have to bring data into it.
And I think they’re all doing that, depending on what market you’re in. But I think the future of TV is enormously exciting, and that’s why we’re here.”
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Future of TV Advertising Forum 2018, London. The series is sponsored by Finecast. For more segments from the series, visit this page.
