 Game on: Digital marketing agency Orange 142 released an in-game advertising best practices guide to help marketers navigate the $11 billion gaming advertising market projected for 2025. The guide addresses how brands can connect across mobile, PC, and console platforms without disrupting player experience, covers emerging trends to measurement techniques, explanations of rewarded video, native placements, and Twitch sponsorships, as well as:
· Understanding in-game formats from rewarded ads to dynamic product placements
· Matching ad types with campaign goals and gamer behaviors
· Ensuring brand safety while avoiding interruptive placements
· Embracing emerging tech like VR, programmatic delivery, and AI integrations
Speaking of, Samsung Ads has expanded its interactive advertising GameBreaks offering with four new titles joining its portfolio of branded CTV game experiences. Each game format is aimed at offering advertisers seamless brand integration, contextual relevance, and measurable performance at scale. “This expansion is about redefining what advertising can be,” said Michael Scott, Vice President, Head of Ad Sales & Operations, Samsung Ads. “With GameBreaks, Samsung Ads is pioneering a new model at the intersection of CTV, interactivity, and brand storytelling.”
LG Ad Solutions announced a partnership with AI platform Akkio to modernize ACR data access for advertisers. The collaboration transforms analysis of LG’s 1.45 terabytes of automatic content recognition data from a days-long process into minutes through natural language queries. Despite being one of TV’s most valuable datasets, tracking actual viewer behavior moment-by-moment, ACR’s complexity has historically made quick interpretation difficult. “Akkio allows our customers to ask questions of the data in natural, intuitive ways and get immediate answers…It’s how we modernize access to one of the richest behavioral datasets in the media,” said Julian Zilberbrand, Global Head of Data Solutions at LG Ad Solutions.
LoopMe announced the launch of its Custom Audience partnership with Acxiom, the connected data and technology foundation for brands and ad agencies under the Interpublic Group of Companies. The partnership brings together LoopMe’s survey-based Audience & Measurement Platform with Acxiom’s marketing technology, identity and consumer data. The combination of LoopMe’s custom, mobile ad-delivered surveys and first party DMP with Acxiom’s data and identity solutions is aimed at allowing any agency or brand to easily produce custom segments that reach the right “high intent” audiences for export to, and use on, preferred DSPs.
Uber Advertising is launching an in-house Creative Studio, focused on crafting storytelling and immersive brand experiences across the Uber and Uber Eats platforms. The goal: partnering with brands to create original, culture-first moments that are seamlessly integrated into the Uber experience, both digital and through on the ground activations.
Guideline, focused on media planning technology and advertising data, announced an upgrade to its Guideline Planning Suite that includes a set of data features designed to eliminate planning inefficiencies, unify systems, elevate workflow collaboration, and improve campaign reporting. “Many leading agencies and advertisers already rely on Guideline’s Planning tools, moving beyond disconnected systems and spreadsheets to power their media spend – but this technology improvement significantly raises the bar on what’s possible when it comes to data in action across the entire campaign lifecycle,” said Vince Mifsud, CEO of Guideline.
AI platform Springboard and a collective of global advertising and marketing associations, creative leaders, and AI experts announced an initiative to establish the first comprehensive Creativity Benchmark designed to evaluate the creative instincts of large language models in the context of advertising and creativity. “Existing AI benchmarks test logic, accuracy, and comprehension,” said Pip Bingemann, CEO/Cofounder at Springboards. “But advertising isn’t about right answers, it’s about originality, insight, and impact. This will be the first benchmark designed around the real creative instincts we value in agencies and brands so that people in creative industries can understand what models are good for the work they do.”
TripleLift announced the launch of programmatic Pause Ads in partnership with DirecTV Advertising. “We’re witnessing the emergence of advertising moments that didn’t exist five years ago,” said Dave Helmreich, CEO at TripleLift. “Pause ads exemplify our mission to transform standard placements into meaningful brand experiences.”
TV outcomes company EDO announced the integration of its Convergent TV measurement with The Trade Desk. Ehe partnership marks the first time advertisers on The Trade Desk platform can access EDO’s data across all brand categories. “Marketers are under increasing pressure to prove the value of their CTV investments — and they demand predictive outcomes to do so,” said Kevin Krim, CEO of EDO. “This partnership with The Trade Desk is a major step forward for our industry, bringing investment-grade outcome measurement directly into the platforms where decisions are made. This is about programmatic enablement for a streaming-first world — immediate, interoperable, and built for action.”
Advertising automation platform Basis Technologies announced a suite of new capabilities for omnichannel reporting, data visualization, paid search activation, and task management. Basis’ reporting and insights hub automatically unifies campaign data from more than a dozen sources and channels to power analysis and reporting of performance. “Advertising has grown increasingly fragmented, involving a multitude of teams using disconnected software to support different aspects and channels,” said Tyler Kelly, President, Basis Technologies. “Campaign reporting is uniquely challenging when data is scattered across ad buying platforms. As company leaders evaluate business costs, marketers need insightful data to justify advertising spend and staff. Basis is empowering advertising professionals with a clear lens into what is working – enabling them to translate complex, disparate data into performance narratives while helping teams make smarter decisions faster.”
InMobi Advertising, provider of mobile-first programmatic solutions, unveiled InMobi Buyer Hub. The self-service platform gives buyers direct access to build, plan, discover, optimize, and purchase programmatic deals. “The InMobi Buyer Hub’s focus on sell-side curation removes the need for a broad, unfocused approach to audience development. It allows us to pre-package high-quality, contextually relevant inventory, enriched with data, into curated deals that buyers can target more efficiently,” says Kunal Nagpal, Chief Business Officer at InMobi Advertising. “Reducing noise in the bidstream and increasing signal quality helps improve win rates and ensures a greater share of media spend reaches performant, working media.”
Display prospecting ad costs dropped 27% year-over-year in Q1, according to AdRoll’s Q2 State of Digital Advertising Report, highlighting a broader shift away from upper-funnel campaigns as economic uncertainty grows. In contrast, the retargeting cost per mille fell just 8%, signaling that brands are doubling down on high-intent audiences and prioritizing performance-driven strategies. “As brands tighten budgets, lower-funnel campaigns remain a lifeline for performance,” said Courtney Herb, Senior Director of Brand Marketing and Public Relations at AdRoll. “While retargeting offers immediate return on investment, marketers shouldn’t ignore the long game. Capitalizing on lower CPMs to maintain brand visibility now will pay off when consumers return to spending.”
The IAB unveiled a new system-agnostic API framework that standardizes invoice data exchange between buyers and sellers. Some key highlights include:
· Industry Standardization: IAB has introduced the first open, system-agnostic API specifications for digital advertising invoices, aimed at solving long-standing inefficiencies from inconsistent formats to delayed payments.
· Operational Efficiency: The API offers a machine-readable, standardized format that reduces manual processing, accelerates payment cycles, and improves invoice accuracy and transparency.
· Collaborative Innovation: Developed with Mediaocean and adapted from Prisma’s proven architecture, the initiative demonstrates industry-wide collaboration to modernize digital advertising infrastructure.
“This initiative reflects the kind of partnership IAB fosters – bringing stakeholders together to solve practical, systemic issues,” said Alexander Tsai, SVP of Prisma Product Management, Mediaocean. “By aligning around a standardized API framework for invoice automation, we’re helping ensure that digital advertising keeps pace with the broader media landscape.”
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