There are few better placed to critique and narrate the history of the digital media landscape, never mind the sub-sector of ad tech, than Ari Paparo.The serial entrepreneur and ‘first influencer of ad tech’ – sorry @AdtechGod – now helps to demystify and humanize the often dry milieu of digital media PR in his missives over at Marketecture.This week, he speaks with Digiday reporter Ronan Shields in the second installment of Digiday’s Oral History Of Ad Tech in a conversation that focuses on the state of the industry during the opening decade of the 21st Century. His insights include: The hustle that was ad tech in the 1990s Paparo’s input to DoubleClick’s turnaround, and eventual sale to Google The incredible business model of ad networks in the 2000s How the rise of the ad exchange became the fall of the ad network And just who invented what in ad tech In the coming weeks, Digiday’s History of Ad Tech, produced by Digiday Media’s audio producer Sara Patterson, lifts the lid on some of the key undercurrents in ad tech over the last 20 years with Seb Joseph, senior news editor, and Ronan Shields, senior reporter, advertising technology, in conversation with some of the key players during that time.

Big advertisers are seemingly ready to abandon X (formerly Twitter) for good this time thanks to owner Elon Musk’s latest antics and an uptick in anti-semitic posts on the platform.In X’s absence, advertisers may once again find themselves looking for the social media’s next town square after failing to be wooed by X alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky earlier this year. Enter Spill. It’s been just over a year since the iOS social media platform with a ‘meme-forward’ aesthetic launched with former Twitter employees Alphonzo "Phonz" Terrell and DeVaris Brown at the helm. It’s not that the duo are trying to re-create Twitter. In fact, Terrell says Spill is an online safe space for LGBTQIA+, POC and other historically marginalized communities. The two have spent the last year on product developments for users as well offerings for advertisers in hopes to mark Spill’s territory in a rapidly changing social media landscape. “There's been some very organic integrations and opportunities for brands to plug in and put some shine on what the [Spill] community is already doing,” Terrell said on the most recent episode of the Digiday Podcast, “and also create some new opportunities to just have really rich, fun conversations.”

Brian O’Kelley, one of the Godfathers of ad tech, discusses creating the industry, competing with Big Tech, and why he didn’t join AT&T. He shares insights on building the first ad exchange, AppNexus' battle with Google, and concerns over AT&T's strategic misalignment.

Between the Department of Justice’s antitrust suit against Google and the impending self-imposed deadline for removing third-party cookies from its Chrome browser, there is a lot on the technology megacorp’s plate.But Dan Taylor, the company’s vp of global advertising, is confident that nothing will change the timeline that Google has set for cookie depreciation: “Cookies will be phased out completely from Chrome at the end of 2024.”On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Taylor discusses how he and his team are continuing to get the third-party cookie alternative solutions off the ground and testing their efficacy ahead of the end of year 2024 deadline. He also speaks on why he’s confident that the ad business will remain intact despite the DOJ lawsuit addressing its dominance in ad tech infrastructure.“We disagree with the DOJ’s claims. We have no intention of selling or divesting this business. In fact, we’re focused more than ever on helping our publisher partners and our advertiser partners deliver great ROI and great monetization, especially in a time of economic and geopolitical and many other types of uncertainty that we’re all living in today,” said Taylor.

Lizzie Widhelm of SiriusXM Media discusses the growth of programmatic audio ads and the importance of targeting audiences based on demographics and interests. She highlights the increase in programmatic revenue for podcasting and the potential of generative AI in automating ad sales. The chapter descriptions touch on various topics including the holiday shopping season, programmatic advertising, and the press event for Sirius XM's new app and streaming capabilities.

Thrive Market's CMO, Amina Pasha, discusses how TikTok fueled membership growth for the grocer. They scaled their TikTok spend by over 250% this year, tapping into word-of-mouth style marketing. The effectiveness of Thrive Market's ads on TikTok is highlighted, including the viral 'Mario ad' and using employees to solve relatable problems. The challenges of the D2C landscape are explored, along with the importance of brand awareness and current trends in the healthy and grocery space.

Augmented and virtual reality are well on their way to becoming a mainstream marketing tactic as technology democratizes the space, making it a QR code away for brands and consumers alike. At this point, the industry has gone well beyond flower crown and dog-eared Snapchat filters with Meta, Apple and other tech giants rolling out wearable augmented and virtual reality headsets. (Find a look into Snapchat’s recent AR efforts — and why they’re still a work in progress as far as marketers are concerned — here.)Now, Chobani is looking to get in on the growth, hoping to break through in a crowded digital landscape and get in front of a younger audience. At the helm of these efforts is Chobani’s new CMO, Thomas Ranese, who brings with him a background in tech, having previously served in marketing leadership roles at Uber and Google.In the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Ranese talks through his new role, plans to drive product awareness beyond the yogurt section of the grocery store and balancing brand purpose with profits.

The New York Times tapped Joy Robins as its global chief advertising officer this past spring and six months later, Robins is leading her team through a number of industry-wide changes.Previously chief revenue officer of the Washington Post, Robins is not unfamiliar with the challenges that news publications are facing when it comes to brand safety concerns and monetizing news coverage. And at the Times, she and her team are working to incorporate attention metrics as KPIs for client campaigns and pitching new clients thoughtfully in order to stay on top of the volatile ad market.What’s more, this month, Insider reported that the Times reversed its decision to remove open programmatic advertising from its app earlier this year, which Robins said was due to the fact that audiences say those ads were not disruptive after all.In the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Robins chats about how she’s leading her team to incorporate new attention metrics and how reopening the open programmatic revenue valve can only stand to benefit the Times’ business.

Sports media was built on live coverage of games, but younger generations are increasingly less interested in watching sporting events as they happen. That doesn’t mean that the live video format isn’t still appealing to this demographic, though.At least that’s what Bleacher Report’s general manager, Bennett Spector, is finding. Spector’s team spent this past year investing heavily in building a roster of live video content creators ranging from sports enthusiasts to athletes, as well as a wide slate of livestream programming that includes creators’ musings on upcoming trades and their thoughts on teams’ performances for the season.The monetary appeal is that live video still commands an audience and, therefore, sponsors, Spector argued. But the fact that Bleacher Report’s livestreams are filmed and managed by the creators themselves also saves a lot of money from a production standpoint.“You can make more money from [longer form video] advertising, but we were challenged with production budgets, because to make video on the internet, you still have to spend a lot of money,” Spector said on the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast. And to make live video a lower production lift, B/R built an in-house streaming tech stack to further eliminate the need for control rooms and technical operations common in broadcast productions.Now that the technology is in place and the revenue potential is there, Spector talks about how he and his team are actively looking to grow the number of creators in B/R’s network.

The industry’s stalled DE&I progress has been a point of critique. Despite the promises, media companies are still mostly hiring white people as of this year. In 2022, 90% of agency leaders identified as white, up from 73% in 2021, according to the 4A’s 2023 Diversity in Agencies Survey Report. Meanwhile, DE&I positions are drying up after a surge in hiring, with those positions facing the brunt of budget cuts in times of economic crisis, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.In response, DE&I execs in the ad industry say it's a work in progress. The year 2020 and the murder of George Floyd were inflection points for marketers, advertisers and the industry at large. But with no set way to measure DE&I success and no alignment on how to tackle challenges within the space, lasting change is easier said than done, according to Channing Martin, IPG's global chief diversity and social impact officer.“A lot of people knew, but there are centuries of systemic racism, exclusion, prejudice that is built into every system that we live and operate in in this country,” Martin said on this episode of the Digiday Podcast. “Part of the problem is that we’re focused on trying to solve for everything.”