CDP Institute

Private equity services vendor Bluewave won’t let you see their market outlook report unless you agree to talk with a sales rep.  That would usually disqualify them from a mention here but they provide some useful information in their press release and, more important, are the latest industry observer to predict a pick-up in funding activities.  So let’s consider it another straw in what’s turning into a pretty consistent wind.

Few studies get into the statistically-valid details of first- vs third-party ad audience performance.  This joint Magna and Acxiom effort is an exception, randomly assigning members of each audience type to test and control groups and measuring the impact of pre-roll video ads on brand metrics.  The results were perhaps less impressive than the methodology: you probably could have guessed that first-party audiences contain more existing customers and third-party audiences, and both together yield higher results than either alone.

Like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, each study of AI adoption is a bit different.  Cisco offers many familiar findings, including the limits imposed by poor data and a gap between marketers’ interest in AI and actual deployment.  More helpful may be a readiness from framework that calls out strategy, infrastructure, data, governance, talent, and culture as dimensions.

For a change of pace, let’s check in on the tech regulation wars.  While the courts generally side with social media companies due to protections of the CDA Section 320, a U.S. District Court judge ruled this week that a coalition of families, teens, school districts and state attorneys general could continue a lawsuit alleging harm to teens by major social media platforms.  It’s an interesting crack in the Section 320 armor.