Now that we have not one but two reporters covering the CTV advertising space, we thought we’d try something different and share the roundup newsletter this week! Check out the conversation we had about last week’s IAB NewFronts presentations below:
Victoria McNally: Hello, Alyssa, and welcome to our first experiment with a new post format! Trust me, this was very popular among digital media publications in the pre-Gawker lawsuit days. (Which, admittedly, I did have to explain to you and the rest of our Gen Z co-workers when I pitched this idea, because none of you had heard of Gawker before.)
In any case, we’re definitely not here to talk about the bygone days of the pre-TikTok internet – just the opposite, in fact. We spent all last week at the IAB NewFronts, and I want to dig into what we saw there. To start, what was it like coming back to this weeklong marathon of presentations after missing out last year?
Alyssa Boyle: When you told me what Gawker is, I was hearing “goccer,” which I thought must be a new term for girls’ soccer. And, hey, with all the attention on women’s sports, should we trademark that?
Anyway, it’s funny you ask that question, because the first piece I wrote when I returned to the writer’s desk was how little the streaming ad industry had changed in one year. But the NewFronts are an example of an important change that I can see now. (And I can’t see much clearly right now – I’m writing this from the waiting room after getting my eyes dilated.)
The lines are blurring between NewFronts and upfronts – which is why YouTube, Comcast and others participate in both – but it’s clear that they serve two distinct purposes. NewFronts are where companies take up space to talk about their shiny new tech, data and product announcements. The content is almost an afterthought. Whereas the upfronts work the other way around. They’re so content-heavy I feel like I’m watching movie trailers…