Gaming grew tremendously during the pandemic, and in-game advertising grew with it. But while one-third of gamers find the ads annoying, this Frameplay study finds that ads integrated with gameplay are much more acceptable. Something to bear in mind as consumers gain more control over which ads they see.
In-person events are waking up from pandemic-induced hibernation. Kaltura reports that more marketers are planning live events (42%) than virtual (40%) in 2023, a reversal from 2022, which virtual events (43%) were more common than in-person (39%). Live, virtual, and hybrid events are each preferred for different purposes, so it’s likely we’ll continue to see a mix of all types.
Mexican startup Quinio, which raised US$20 million last year in a seed round, now announced the closing of a US$40 million round made up of equity and debt, although without disclosing the amounts of each part. Quinio’s strategy is based on buying mid-sized e-commerce brands with an annual turnover of at least US$250 thousand that sell quality products and have a good reputation among buyers. Quinio already owns several brands in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and the U.S., in areas such as home, beauty, and health.
Disney has agreed to license more than 200 characters, costumes, and environments (but not voices or talent likenesses) to OpenAI for Sora, its gen AI video platform. This is highly unusual for Disney, which generally sues AI models for copyright infringement; in fact, it sued Google for that a day before announcing the OpenAI deal. Disney will also invest $1 billion in OpenAI, nicely illustrating how very eager they are to join the AI party.