“WHERE ARE THEY NOW” . . . DIGITAL MEDIA TRANSPARENCY EDITION:  Remember P&G CMO Marc Pritchard’s now-famous challenge to the digital media community during his IAB speech in January?  It was a watershed moment in which Mr. Pritchard claimed that 20-30% of digital media is wasted or even fraudulent, and then challenged the industry to clean up its act by the beginning of Q4’17.  Well now we’re one month out from that deadline . . . so where do things stand?  The attached AdWeek article provides a good summary of how the industry has reacted.  In a nutshell, progress is being made.  According to industry experts the major site-served publishers are 50-60% of the way towards compliancy, and the larger agency partners are 80% of the way there.  These strides have been achieved through the willingness of publishers allow standardized 3^rd party measurement (so long, walled gardens), and by agencies agreeing to transparent invoicing to eliminate mysterious “business service” upcharges.  I guess the final word on how this is going will come from Marc Pritchard himself, who is widely expected to readdress the issue during his speech at next week’s Dmexco conference in Cologne, Germany.  Put that one on your must watch list.

RADIO’S IN-CAR CONUNDRUM:  The NAB’s annual Radio Show kicked off in Austin yesterday.  I thought it was notable that the opening session focused on the In-Car listening experience, which has long been monopolized by broadcasters.  As noted in the attached Inside Radio link, the traditional car radio is about to undergo a significant transformation.  The early indicators are already out there – with rental companies like Avis noting the demand for Sirius and smart phone integrations.  The long term challenge for broadcasters is even more daunting, as automakers begin the orient their “center stack” consoles around platforms like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, instead of the traditional AM/FM dial.  The session ended with a call to arms for broadcasters to unite their efforts to stay relevant with the OEMs.  But it feels like more of a wakeup call to the fact that Radio’s In-Car domination is coming to an end.

UNDERSTANDING AMAZON’S DIGITAL MEDIA SALES PITCH:  So this is interesting.  As part of Digiday’s semi-regular Pitch Deck series, they’re featuring Amazon Media Group’s core narrative in the attached link.  There’s nothing in here that’s too proprietary (of course!), but it does provide a peek behind the curtain at how AMG brings to market Amazon’s on-platform ad products.  If you go to the bottom of the article you can see the entire deck.  For me the most interesting slide is #5, because it illustrates AMG’s targeting progression.  While most publishers start with their own 1^st party data and then match to 2^nd/3^rd party data, user behavior, device proximity, etc., AMG does the opposite.  Instead Amazon takes behavioral data from their customers, which they mountains of, and then reverse engineers audience segs via modeling from the core group of purchasers.  While probabilistic (modeled) targeting is never as strong as deterministic (1-1) targeting, this process allows Amazon to solve the classic PBT targeting dilemma of how to serve ads to future buyers instead of to someone who just made a purchase.  Pretty advanced stuff from a digital ad platform that’s just five years old.

Have a great Wednesday guys!