Facebook Expands Messenger Ad Tests; Disney Makes Investments In Media And Entertainment Startups

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Facebook Messenger Ads

Facebook is expanding its tests of display ads in Messenger. Over the next month, the ads will roll out to all global advertisers. The current incarnation shows a single display ad, instead of a carousel of ads. And brands can do a traditional call to action or a “click to message,” allowing brands to start a conversation with a customer within Messenger. As TechCrunch points out, Facebook is running out of room to show ads. Messenger, with 1.2 billion users, offers an obvious green field to expand ad load. Read on.

Funded By Disney

Disney is making 11 equity investments in 11 media and entertainment startups, including smart-TV data platform Samba TV, publisher Brit + Co and e-sports group aXiomatic. Through a program dubbed Disney Accelerator, each startup gets access to top Disney execs and investors, as well as the key to Disney’s “creative campus” in LA. Disney’s aim is to cozy up to companies “with the potential to help define the future of media and entertainment.” More.

Gone Fishin’

“There are a lot of fish in the sea,” Procter & Gamble marketing chief Marc Pritchard tells Ad Age regarding his standing threat to abandon platforms like Google and Facebook if they don’t shift on third-party certification by next year. The problem, though, is that there are a lot of fish and just a few whales. Google is undergoing an MRC audit of its viewability standards and vendors for YouTube, and Facebook agreed to an MRC audit, but not for viewability, which is what Pritchard and other marketers demanded [AdExchanger coverage]. Pritchard says digital players are about 40% of the way to offering ostensibly acceptable media transparency, and that there’s “no wiggle room now” for those that fail to meet standards. More.

Help You Help Me

Amazon Prime Day was created in 2015 to be the go-to shopping occasion outside the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas holiday window. LED televisions without waiting in line at 6 a.m. on Black Friday? Check. In-season clothing at off-season discounts? Check. But Prime Day has since become perhaps the clearest indicator of Amazon’s ambitions for consolidated commerce. Those who visited the home page Tuesday were greeted not by a market of discounts so much as an Amazon trophy case. Some of the best deals of the year are for Echo devices (and cash back to any Echo owners who buy via Alexa, its voice-activated AI, for the first time), plus Amazon hardware like Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets and Fire TV sticks. The list goes on with deep discounts on Amazon Music, Amazon Dash, Amazon’s fashion label and grooming boxes. Or a brand can slash margins on its products and appear on the page as well, if it’s willing to pay Amazon for the privilege.

But Wait, There’s More!

You’re Hired!

This post was syndicated from Ad Exchanger.