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CMO TLDR: Your Weekly Marketing Brief

Weekly Digest - April 11, 2025

Author

Peter Brendan
April 11, 2025

CMO TLDR: CTV, AI, and Tariffs

CTV Evolution

The Trade Desk Courts TV Manufacturers with Revenue-Sharing OS Model

The Trade Desk is taking an unconventional approach to scaling its Ventura connected TV operating system by promising TV manufacturers that they can keep most advertising revenues while the Trade Desk operates the platform at break-even. The strategy represents a stark departure from dominant OS providers like Roku, Google, and Amazon, which typically claim significant inventory shares and subscription commissions. Ventura promises not to commingle inventory from different publishers. While Ventura has yet to announce launch partners following Sonos's cancellation of its Pinewood TV project, Senior Vice President Matthew Henick emphasized that manufacturers "should be able to decide how it's monetized" as the company targets the 40 million new TVs sold annually.

CTV Industry Pushes Universal Creative ID Standard to Close Measurement Gap

The IAB Tech Lab is urging the widespread adoption of the Ad Creative ID Framework (ACIF) to standardize creative identifiers across connected TV campaigns, noting that while 100% of linear TV transactions use Ad IDs, only about 10% of streaming transactions include them. Industry stakeholders—including advertisers, agencies, creative registries, and publishers—must collaborate to ensure consistent ID implementation throughout the supply chain, with the IAB reporting that 86% of surveyed companies believe such standardization would increase ROI by 10%. Without universal creative identification, cross-platform and cross-publisher campaign measurement remains fragmented, hampering advertisers' ability to track performance and effectively reconcile media spend.

Artificial Intelligence

Snap Debuts Interactive AI Ad Format That Places Users in Brand Scenes

Snap launched its "sponsored AI lenses" format that transforms users' selfies into immersive brand environments, with early adopters Tinder and Uber Eats creating themed scenarios like a bridge in Amsterdam or cozy Thanksgiving settings. The premium managed service format appears as a "first lens unlimited" takeover in Snapchat's lens carousel, which reaches approximately 300 million daily users. Snap's VP of Marketing Grace Kao emphasized that unlike competitors who use generative AI primarily for static images or text generation, Snap's approach leverages their proprietary One Snap technology to "enable real-time, interactive brand engagement" that feels organic to users.

Tariffs’ Impact on Streaming

Tariffs Set to Reshape Streaming Ad Landscape

Rising tariffs are expected to accelerate viewers' migration to free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) platforms as economic pressures increase subscription cancellations, with industry experts noting FAST already captures 20% of viewership but only 8% of ad dollars. YouTube, already the most-watched streaming service globally, is positioned to strengthen its dominance as cost-conscious viewers seek frictionless access, with Candle Media co-CEO Tom Staggs calling it "the largest platform in the world" and "the top of the funnel" for content discovery. Connected TV advertising will likely shift further toward performance-driven approaches with more QR codes and dynamic creative optimization as advertisers follow cost-conscious consumers with increasingly precise targeting tools.

Charts of the Week

Streaming platforms' share of total TV viewing reached 43.5% in February 2025, up from 37.7% a year earlier, while broadcast fell to 21.2% from 23.3%, and cable declined to 23.2% from 27.6%, with YouTube maintaining its position as the dominant streaming service at 11.6% of total viewership.

Agencies, including Havas Group, Golin, and Mighty & True are leveraging AI-powered "deep research" tools from companies like Perplexity and Waldo to accelerate strategy development, build stronger client pitches, and create interactive personas that analyze thousands of documents in minutes, fundamentally transforming traditional agency workflows.

Publisher ad network Freestar reports that The Trade Desk's OpenPath has delivered a 27% boost in programmatic revenue and tripled inventory fill rates for its publishers by establishing direct DSP-to-publisher connections that bypass traditional supply-side platforms and their controversial practices like bid request reselling.

WPP completed its data connectivity strategy with the acquisition of InfoSum for a reported $63 million, deepening its philosophical divergence from competitors Publicis and Omnicom, who have prioritized identity-based approaches through acquisitions like Lotame and Acxiom.

Butler/Till achieved a 56% increase in conversion rates and a 26% decrease in cost per conversion for a financial services client by implementing SWYM.ai's artificial intelligence tool that curated high-performing impressions into private marketplaces while reducing reliance on made-for-advertising sites by 52%.

Brandtech Group's Pencil division has integrated Google's Veo 2 AI video generation model to produce high-quality branded content for clients like Japan Airlines, reducing production time to under 15 hours and cutting costs by up to 90% for mass-scale executions while maintaining human oversight to prevent hallucinations.

Walmart-owned Sam's Club has consolidated its $90.2 billion advertising business with Publicis Groupe as its integrated agency of record following a three-month review, shifting from a split approach with Horizon Next for media and Arnold Worldwide for creative to align with industry trends toward unified agency models.

Meta faces the potential loss of $32 billion in annual U.S. ad revenue from Instagram alone if the FTC prevails in its April 14 antitrust trial, which could force divestiture of the photo-sharing platform and disrupt advertisers' ability to use Meta as a one-stop shop for media buying.

Key Article Takeaways - TLDR

  • The Trade Desk's Ventura OS aims to give TV manufacturers control of their ad inventory and revenue while improving transparency in the CTV ecosystem. This shift could create more direct access to premium inventory for advertisers while disrupting the current model where platforms like Roku and Amazon capture significant value as intermediaries.

  • Adapt to the growth of Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST), which is gaining viewers and reach due to economic pressures, and address the persistent challenge of fragmented CTV measurement by supporting initiatives like universal creative IDs for better cross-platform tracking.

  • Implement AI strategically across the full marketing value chain – from optimizing programmatic inventory selection and accelerating content production with generative models to powering deeper research capabilities that transform strategy development and client pitches with faster, data-driven insights.