Join AdMonsters for a can’t-miss LinkedIn Live on December 18 with Chris Kane, Founder of Jounce Media.
Together, we’ll unpack 2024’s rollercoaster ride in ad tech—from Chrome’s cookie drama and Google’s antitrust saga to Gen AI's takeover and data curation’s breakout moment.
Don’t miss Chris’s sharp insights on what these shifts mean for the open internet. Register now!
Tick Tock...Tick Tock: Time Runs Out for the Clock App in the U.S.
TikTok could soon get the boot in the U.S. A federal court just gave the green light to a law forcing ByteDance, its Chinese owner, to sell by January 19 or face a ban. With 170 million American users glued to its short-form videos, the app's potential exit has free-speech advocates and influencers in a frenzy. ByteDance, meanwhile, says a sale isn't happening—thanks to China—and argues the law unfairly targets TikTok.
What's next? TikTok could take it to the Supreme Court, but there's no guarantee the justices will bite. Adding to the drama, President-elect Trump—who's oddly pro-TikTok—claims he has a rescue plan in the works but hasn't shared the fine print. For now, it's a high-stakes waiting game for the app that redefined scrolling.
TikTok has become a major competitor in the ad tech ecosystem and a way for advertisers to connect with audiences of all demographics, especially younger ones.
Is this the end of doom scrolling on the clock app in the U.S.? – AB
Can AWS Help Ad Tech Balance AI and Sustainability?
Digital advertising faces competing demands. On the one hand, AdOps teams love their AI tools and are using them to reimagine how they traffic and optimize campaigns. However, sustainability is another key goal, largely driven by advertisers who want to lower their Scope 3 emissions. Yet AI is a bit of a carbon hog: According to the International Energy Agency, AI-driven data centers could double their power consumption by 2026, matching Japan's entire electricity usage.
Enter AWS, which announced Trainium2 chips at its re:Invent conference last week. These chips, currently under evaluation by Apple, offer a potential solution: doubling energy efficiency while delivering four times faster AI processing. For publishers and brands, this could mean powerful AI capabilities without the massive carbon footprint—an important step toward sustainable AdTech that doesn't compromise performance.
AWS plans to deploy these chips in its UltraServers, each containing 64 Trainium2 chips and will form the backbone of its new AI supercomputer, Project Rainier. The supercomputer, built in collaboration with Anthropic, will address some of the most pressing challenges in scaling AI infrastructure.
One of these challenges is Anthropic's current capacity constraints. For instance, Claude AI Pro subscribers can't use the AI tool as freely as ChatGPT, even though they pay for the service. Limited capacity means users can only submit about 45 messages every five hours, with restrictions varying based on message length and current system load. These limitations highlight a broader issue: as AI tools proliferate, demand for computing power often outpaces capacity, straining infrastructure and user experience.
For both AdOps teams relying on AI tools and users of advanced language models like Claude, the efficiency and capacity improvements from AWS's innovations could represent a turning point in scaling AI responsibly. By bridging sustainability with performance, AWS positions itself as a leader in the next generation of AI infrastructure. – SS
Byron Allen Takes McDonald’s to Trial: The $10B Question of Value, Premium, and Equity
Byron Allen’s $10 billion racial discrimination lawsuit against McDonald’s is finally heading to trial. The media mogul’s claims against the fast-food chain present implications beyond Allen Media Group about how the ad industry defines premium. Allen alleges that McDonald’s has systematically shut Black-owned media companies out of its general market ad spend, relegating them to a smaller “Black-only” ad tier. Despite delivering broad, diverse audiences through properties like The Weather Channel, they still placed Allen Media at the back of the bus.
The case, which invokes a Reconstruction-era civil rights statute, could force the industry to confront uncomfortable truths about who gets labeled premium and why. Is premium determined by audience reach and engagement or by the gatekeepers deciding who sits at the table? For their part, McDonald’s says it based decisions on viewership and strategy, but Allen argues these metrics often mask systemic bias. This legal battle builds on Allen’s long-standing mission to push brands toward equitable media spend, as seen in his earlier suit against Nielsen.
McDonald’s ad dollars aside, this battle highlights broader systemic issues in media buying that disproportionately disadvantage Black-owned publishers. Despite McDonald’s pledging to increase ad spend on Black-owned media to 5% of their total ad budget by 2024, Allen’s case underscores that equity means more than just percentages—it’s about dismantling structures that sideline valuable audiences.
As digital innovator, Albert Thompson told AdMonsters, the industry often defines premium in ways that exclude diverse and culturally rich platforms. How are audiences valued? Who decides? If the ad industry continues defining premium in ways that exclude historically underrepresented groups, Allen’s lawsuit might be the catalyst forcing redefinition. — LdJ
The World’s First Social Media Ban for Kids
While the US grapples with whether to ban TikTok, Australia went one step further: banning all social media use for kids under 16. The ban has broad support among Australian adults, with 77% favoring it.
For digital publishers that gear their content towards kids, the law presents some difficult challenges (beginning with the obvious one of social media no longer being an avenue for reaching and engaging teens). They’ll also need to implement robust age verification systems.
More concerning, this landmark legislation could reshape how digital publishers engage with younger audiences and influence similar policies around the globe. Consider the “Brussels effect” and how GDPR spurred privacy laws worldwide. – SS
Are Walled Gardens High-functioning Introverts
Why do walled gardens work so well?
Are they just high-functioning introverts, quietly profiting while the rest of us yell into the open web void?
How News Publishers Are Adapting Post-Election, With Yahoo News’s Kat Downs Mulder
On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Kat Downs Mulder, GM and SVP at Yahoo News, shares how the outlet navigated election coverage amid shifting audience dynamics.
With Donald Trump set to return to the presidency, she discusses the challenge of balancing the “Trump Bump” traffic surge with growing news fatigue—and how Yahoo News tailors content to meet readers where they are, whether they’re leaning in or tuning out.
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