VideoAmp said it made a deal enabling the measurement company to integrate Snap’s first-party data, video and augmented-reality ad inventory into VideoAmp’s cross-platform campaign planning system.

The collaboration with Snap will enable VideoAmp clients to make strategic budget allocations and to efficiently reach audiences across linear TV, streaming and digital platforms, VideoAmp said.

“This should be seen as a game-changing moment for the industry and cross-platform planning,” VideoAmp chief commercial and growth officer Pete Bradbury said. 

“We have the opportunity to meet consumers at every touchpoint and enrich the planning process by offering a more holistic solution across premium video and digital platforms,” Bradbury said. “Now, clients can have the insights they need to more effectively allocate their budgets to reach their target audiences and achieve stronger, better business outcomes. And that’s exciting.”

Ad buyer Omnicom Media Group has already tested the addition of Snap’s data to the VideoAmp platform.

“How consumers engage with TV and video content is more fluid and diverse than ever as they traverse a rich media ecosystem, whether linear TV, streaming environments like CTV, social platforms like Snap or all of the above,” Megan Pagliuca, chief activation officer at OMG, said. “What matters to us is understanding these complex consumption dynamics and reacting with smart decisions. Gaining visibility into Snap’s in-platform video consumption strongly supports our mission of holistic cross-channel video planning.”

VideoAmp said that the combination also benefits Snap, particularly as the adoption of augmented reality grows. 

"At Snap, we help advertisers reach more than 800 million people on Snapchat every month and we’re excited to maximize the impact of their video campaigns with a comprehensive suite of video-planning tools,” Alexander Dao, global head of agency development and sales partnerships at Snap, said. “VideoAmp’s planner is already familiar to many agencies and gives us an opportunity to provide advertisers with more choices to plan and measure across our video and first-to-market AR formats.”

You don't have to look hard these days to find a downer report about the fate of linear television. 

And only a few key earnings calls into the Q3 reporting cycle, the news seems likely to get worse. 

Update: Several hours after this story was filed, Google announced that YouTube had experienced its first quarterly decline in ad sales ever, with Q3 revenue dropping nearly 2% to $7.07 billion. You can read that story here. 

As the first major pay TV operator to offer third-quarter customer metrics, Verizon reported the loss of around 95,000 Fios TV customers. As elegantly showcased by Lightshed Partners, that represented a surge of around 8.8% over the circa-87,000 customers lost to Verizon Fios TV in the second quarter. 

The rate of cord-cutting also increased by a similar .8% rate from Q1 - Q2 for the wireless giant, after it had held largely steady for 18 months (see graphic). 

With Comcast and Charter Communications set to deliver their Q3 reports later this week, expect video cord cutting to quite possibly re-emerge as a key issue. Comcast has lost 512,000 and 520,000 customers, respectively, in the first and second quarters of 2022. 

Meanwhile, Lightshed analyst Richard Greenfield triangulated another early-Q3-season earnings report from Snap Inc., during which strong concerns were expressed about the current advertising sales market. 

Snap Co-Founder and CEO Evan Spiegel spoke at length about navigating "this difficult macro environment that has impacted our advertising business over the past few quarters." 

Responding to both Verizon's and Snap's metrics, Greenfield tweeted over the weekend, "Not a good start to earnings for anyone in the broadcast or cable TV network biz," noting that the Snap report signals a meaningful "pullback in brand ad spend in Q4 as recession fears build." 

Tracking the executive pessimism on its latest "Earnings Scorecard," Lightshed also  found that, among the 69 companies it tracks, mentions of the term "recession" increased to 60 in the second quarter vs. just two in the third quarter of 2021. 

Observing the behavior of one of the video business' biggest advertisers, Procter & Gamble, during its Q3 call last week, we didn't find a mention of the "R" word even once. 

But the company did discuss a "very challenging cost environment, with CFO Andre Schulten noting, "When you think about our marketing spend, we estimate there is still significant opportunity to optimize in the ability to reach consumers more broadly and more effectively at significantly lower cost as our digital reach increases." ▪️

Snap will trim 20% of its workforce and end production of original series, a restructuring applauded by Wall Street Wednesday, which sent the company's stock up more than 8% as of midday NASDAQ trading. 

In a memo to staff sent Wednesday, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said that company management is “restructuring our business to increase focus on our three strategic priorities: community growth, revenue growth and augmented reality.”

Since 2017, Snap has been investing in original productions for the “Discover” section of its Snapchat app, but will now end that initiative. Earlier this year, Snap announced a new programming slate, featuring talent including Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and the social media influencer Charli D’Amelio.

And in a note to the Securities & Exchange Commission, Snap said it expects the cuts, which involve around 1,300 workers, to save the company around $500 million annually. 

As a key part of the restructuring, Snap promoted Jerry Hunter, previously senior VP of engineering, to the position of chief operating officer, where he’ll lead monetization, growth, partnership and content initiatives. 

Announcement of the trims came just after Snap’s two highest-ranking advertising executives, Jeremi Gorman and Peter Naylor, said they were leaving to work for Netflix.

Snap revenue growth flatlined in July, a dramatic deceleration from the nearly 40% growth rate the company was clocking before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Snap has viewed as particularly impactful to its bottom line. 

“Unfortunately, given our current lower rate of revenue growth, it has become clear that we must reduce our cost structure to avoid incurring significant ongoing losses,” Spiegel wrote in the company memo. “While we have built substantial capital reserves, and have made extensive efforts to avoid reductions in the size of our team by reducing spend in other areas, we must now face the consequences of our lower revenue growth and adapt to the market environment.” ■

Snap shares plunged 43.1% on Tuesday after the company voiced concern that economic issues could slow the growth of its ad revenues and earnings.

Other companies in the ad tech sector also saw their stocks fall on the news.

Late Monday, Snapchat filed an 8K with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing that the economic environment has deteriorated faster than expected since the company discussed its expectations for the second quarter and issued guidance to Wall Street that revenues would be up 20% to 25%. 

“Even though our revenue continues to grow year-over-year in the second quarter, it's likely that revenue and EBITDA will come in below the low end of our guidance range," the company said. 

“It’s certainly something that we're working through along with many other businesses that are impacted, of course, by the supply chain issues, inflation, concerns about interest rates, the war in Ukraine,” it said.

Snap shares dropped by $9.69 a share to close at $12.79.

In addition to Snap, other online advertising companies saw their stocks tumble.

“When thinking about the impact of the open-internet, since the announcement, we've had the opportunity to talk with 10 public and private ad-tech vendors and the general consensus was that the announcement came as a surprise. We have not heard any comments that align around deteriorating conditions but would note that Snap was the first name to report in the space on 4/21, which may have led to the differing perspective,” said analyst Matthew Swanson of RBC Capital Markets.

“More broadly, public and private vendors alike agreed that the macro remains challenging, but that they are not seeing a worsening environment. This was consistent for both brand and performance-based advertisers that we talked with as well as companies with varying degrees of geographic, format and vertical exposure,” Swanson said.

In the media sector, Steven Cahall of Wells Fargo identified several companies that could be impacted by an ad slowdown caused by macroeconomic factors. 

Comparing the current situation to the 2020 ad recession, Cahall said, "If this time is similar it likely means that within our coverage CTV (e.g. Roku, Vizio)  and AVOD (e.g. Paramount’s Pluto and Fox’s Tubi) will be hardest hit initially. The length and depth of the recessionary slowdown will determine whether pain makes its way to the longer cycle areas of the ad market.”

Roku was down 13.74% to $79.16, Vizio was down 8.8% to $7.74. Paramount was up 0.11% to $8.78 and Fox was down 5.12% to $30. Warner Bros. Discovery was down 7.82% to $16.86, Disney was down 4.01% to $101.59 and Comcast was up 0.44% to $43.07.

Among ad tech stocks, The Trade Desk was down 18.51% to $42.78, Magnite was down 13.15% to $9.25, and Pubmatic was down 15.85% to $18.37.

Facebook stock was down 7.62% to $181.28. Google was down 4.95% to $110.36 and Twitter was down 5.52% to $35.76.  ■

Snapchat, making video advertising more prevalent on its platform, said it is rolling out its First Commercial product to all U.S. advertisers after a successful beta trial.

With First Commercial, advertisers are assured that the first thing a Snapchat user sees when they open the app is an unskippable six-second commercial. The product has been in beta since April and has been used by brands including NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Tinder.

Snapchat said that during the beta trial, the lift in brand awareness is more than two times higher for Snapchatters whose first ad on the platform is a commercial versus a Snap Ad.

“We know we can count on Snap to consistently deliver creative tools and media formats that help us engage with our audience in novel ways, putting our members at the center of our brand while giving them the freedom to create in ways that inspire them,” said Nicole Parlapiano, VP of North American marketing for Tinder, the first brand to run First Commercial alongside a national lens and national filter on the same day. Snap said the cost per completed view of the commercial was 4 cents. 

“For the launch of our Photo Verification feature, we used a National Lens and National Filter to highlight how these selfies can make your Tinder experience more authentic,” Parlapiano said. “At the same time, we added a First Commercial to the mix so that we also reached users watching shows on Snapchat’s Discover platform. All together, these three touch points drove meaningful adoption of the feature across the US.”

Snapchat said that First Commercial will be available in Snaps Ads Manager in mid-October.

First Commercial is part of a push to sell more video advertising to fit with programming on its Discover Platform as the number of Snapchatters watching shows on the platform has increased by 45% in the second quarter compared to a year earlier. 

As part of that effort, Snapchat has hired video ad sales executives, including David Roter of Twitter and Peter Naylor of Hulu.

Snap also said it will launch three new docu-series featuring talent that it said resonates with its community.

Honestly Loren, from ITV America and Sirens Media, features social media star Loren Gray exploring what happiness really means to her. Life’s a Tripp from Trooper Entertainment features Tripp Redd, who is voting for the first time in 2020 and takes a journey to experience major issues from drug addition to police reform with celebrity friends. Swae Meets World from Big Fish Entertainment, is centered on Swae Lee as he prepares to launch his first solo album apart from his brother.

All three series are scheduled to debut in 2021.

Peter Naylor, long-time head of ad sales at Hulu, has been named VP, Americas at Snapchat, a new position, effective early May.

Naylor’s departure follows The Walt Disney Co. acquiring control over Hulu, having acquired stakes in the streamer from former co-owners 21st Century Fox and Comcast.

Hulu CEO Randy Freer stepped down in January as Disney moved to more tightly integrated Hulu into its direct-to-consumer group, which also oversees Disney+. Disney named Kelly Cambell as president of Hulu in February. She had been Hulu’s CMO.

At Snapchat, Naylor will be reporting to Jeremi Gorman, who joined the company in 2018 as chief business officer. He will be responsible for driving Snapchants growth in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

As part of this new structure, Luke Kallis, VP U.S. Advertiser Solutions, and Dominic Rioux, VP Emerging Advertising Solutions, will report to Naylor, as will. Matt McGowan, GM for Canada.

David Roter, who leads agency efforts as VP Global Agency Partnerships NY, and Claire Valoti, VP International, will continue to report to Jeremi.

Before joining Hulu, Naylor was executive VP of digital media sales for NBCUniversal.

Discovery Communications’ Eurosport unit and Snap have formed an agreement to create Olympic content for Europe on Snapchat’s Discover platform.

The companies said it was Snap’s first multi-language European deal.

Related: Discovery Selling Mobile TV Olympic Rights in Europe

The plan is to attract younger viewers with mobile content offering behind-the-scenes action from Olympic events including snowboarding, downhill and freestyle skiing, and ice hockey.

Discovery’s ad sales teams across Europe will be able to offer brands the opportunity to reach younger, digitally minded viewers through Snap ad packages.

“We are thrilled to bring the excitement and passion of the Olympic Games directly to Snap’s dynamic and engaged younger audience, allowing Discovery to deliver on its promise to bring the Games to more people across more screens in Europe than ever before" said Michael Lang, president, international development and digital for Discovery International. “This partnership delivers original content, through Discovery’s unparalleled and innovative storytelling of the Olympic Games, to one of the most powerful and influential social media platforms in the world.”

Ben Schwerin, vice president of partnerships for Snap, said “Snapchat gives sports fans an unparalleled way to experience the Olympic Games and engage with their favorite athletes and teams. Discovery has already been a great collaborator for us, reimagining their iconic Shark Week franchise into a show for Snapchat. We’re thrilled to be expanding our partnership to give Snapchatters across Europe the best Olympic Games experience possible.”

Discovery and Snapchat already work together in the U.S. where Discovery creates mobile shows for Snapchat’s Discover platform. During Discovery’s Shark Week, 17 million viewers watch Shark Week on Snapchat.

Snapchat is used by 57 million people daily in Europe, the company said.

“We couldn’t be more excited to be the ‘The Home of the Olympics’ on Snapchat in Europe, and to give our Olympics sponsors and advertising partners exclusive access to the audiences and conversations that only Snapchat can deliver during one of 2018’s most high-profile sporting events,” said Jonathan Davies, managing director, International advertising partnerships for Discovery and Eurosport.