Ad Tech's Mad Scramble; Coronavirus Cancellations: Wednesday's First Things First

Welcome to First Things First, Adweek’s new daily resource for marketers. We’ll be publishing the content to First Things First on Adweek.com each morning (like this post), but if you prefer that it come straight to your inbox, you can sign up for the email here. Ad Tech Is Trying to Rebuild the Industry From the Ground Up Rounding out a three-day conference yesterday in Palm Desert, Calif., the Interactive Advertising Bureau launched Project Rearc—a call to action of sorts, focused on developing new ad targeting methods independent of cookies. The trade organization is currently facing what's arguably the most crucial moment of its 24-year history. Earlier this year, the most widely used browser on the internet, Google Chrome, declared the days of the third-party cookie numbered, joining other providers such as Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox in eliminating third-party ad targeting by 2022. These changes arose from the growing public scrutiny over how Big Tech uses data and then makes the resulting insights into billions of people available to advertisers. In the wake of data breaches and public outcry over these practices, lawmakers have started to flex their regulatory muscles. To counter these pressures, ad tech companies are working with publishers to generate a new means of targeting specific audience segments based on first-party data, such as email addresses. These data points can then be hashed to generate a pseudonym for a user, which is then packaged and made available as an audience targeting tool for advertisers, though it's unclear so far as to whether any of these proposals are sufficiently scalable. Read more: Given Google’s unilateral decision over cookies’ expiry date, and the sword of Damocles that is privacy legislation, the digital media sector is poised for profound change. Dozens of Companies Withdraw From Mobile World Congress Over Coronavirus Fears More than 20 companies have canceled plans to attend the global wireless industry’s premier trade show, Mobile World Congress, set to take place later this month in Barcelona, citing concerns related to coronavirus. Among those backing out are major industry players including device manufacturers LG, Sony and Vivo, chipmakers Ericsson, Intel and Nvidia, and various other tech organizations such as Amazon and Facebook. According to industry sources cited by Spanish newspaper El País, members of the conference’s organizing body, the GSMA, will meet Friday to discuss the possibility of suspending or postponing the event. Read more: In addition to those that have canceled, other companies have announced plans to scale back their presence to minimize exposure. Also in Coronavirus news: Navigating Conferences in the Time of Coronavirus Streaming Services Are Here to Grow—More People Would Keep Watching or Add on Another Based on a new survey of U.S. consumer sentiment, 93% say they plan to sign up for additional services or at least maintain the number of streaming services they have. Nielsen released the survey results Tuesday as part of its February Total Audience Report dedicated to streaming, highlighting the continued room for industry growth as well as the risks for services who are unable to keep customers satisfied. According to the survey: 40% would be willing to add new services at an incremental cost, 27% would drop a current service to switch to another service and 13% would borrow a streaming service log-in from someone they knew to access additional paid services. Read more: Nearly a third of Nielsen survey respondents noted that one driver for subscribing to additional paid video streaming services was access to content with limited or no commercials. What to Expect From Omnicom and IPG’s Annual Earnings Reports This week, Omnicom and IPG will both release earnings reports for 2019. Adweek caught up with Forrester principal analyst Jay Pattisall to ask what to expect from the companies’ earnings calls and what to anticipate from each in 2020. According to Pattinsall, there's nothing in the market that's expected to get in the way of IPG's "bullish" predictions for Q4 and concerns around an impending recession have waned. While both Omnicom and IPG have "pretty robust media businesses," he said, they both have opportunities this year in "connecting their strength in media and their investments in data to their historically impressive creative agencies." Read more: "I think it will be important to start to see how the data and technology offerings begin to take hold and power that business the way that it has powered media," said Pattinsall. Best of the Rest: Today's Top News and Insights MDC Partners Forms Collective Comprised of 72andSunny, CPB, Hecho Studios, Instrument and Redscout T-Mobile and Sprint’s $26 Billion Merger Approved by U.S. District Court Visa Unites Women in Sports and Design at New York Fashion Week Creative Agency Hook Created Sobering Animation for Greta Thunberg’s Powerful Words A Survey Reveals That Agencies Are Getting Through Less Than 2 Hours of Deep Work Per Day Ad of the Day: Mini Reminds Us That a Brand’s Backstory Can Be Just as Beautiful as the Product Itself 60 years after its creation, Mini USA is telling the story of Alec Issigonis, the Englishman who envisioned the Mini, through a breathtaking new campaign. Created in collaboration with advertising agency 360i, Italian artist Virgilio Villoresi and illustrator Virginia Mori, “The Inner Drive” tells the story of the vehicle’s creation through the art of animation, illustration and even shadows. [kickout id="1"] Agencies Share How Leadership Can Promote a Fair, Supportive and Encouraging Environment for All Employees Year-Round "We host culturally relevant panels and use diverse voices in the agency to educate the entire associate body on everything from Black History Month and Lunar New Year in February to Hispanic Heritage Month in the fall and everything in between. We give platforms to our female associates, our LGBTQ+ folks, and our resident Arab Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, and Native Americans. We also have mentorship and training opportunities for all associates, as well as a quarterly award ceremony with the aim of celebrating work/life balance and the wonderful things our associates do when they’re not working, be it volunteering or impressive creative side pursuits." —Hana Visaya, senior project manager, RPA Advertising "We have championed a platform called Havas Faces—a group that promotes cultural fluency, builds community, and brings together all employees on a regular basis to discuss ways to improve, encourage and empower one another. It’s become an initiative of not just education and influence, but of celebration. The teams have led creative programming in support of Pride Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Breast Cancer Awareness, Mental Health Awareness, and more. We were one of the first agencies to commit to the 3% Pay Equity Pledge, and we continue to support the advancement and equity of women in our agencies. We also participate in Femmes Forward, our global advancement program for mid-senior level women. Each year, Havas Chicago hosts interns from the 4A’s Multicultural Advertising Internship Program with the goal of further matriculating the interns into the business full-time." —Pilar McQuirter, talent program manager, Havas Chicago More of the Latest: Papa John’s and Snapchat Rekindle Their Valentine’s Day AR Lens Romance Spotify Kids Stand-Alone App Rolls Out in Beta in the U.K. Instagram: Here’s How to Sort the Accounts You Follow by Feed Appearances Nextdoor Welcomes Maryam Banikarim to the Neighborhood as Head of Marketing Yelp Store Visits Debuts to Help Brands With Multiple Locations Drive Foot Traffic

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Ad Tech's Mad Scramble; Coronavirus Cancellations: Wednesday's First Things First

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Ad Tech Is Trying to Rebuild the Industry From the Ground Up

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Kathryn Lundstrom