Monthly brandtech blend – May 2019

Home Blends & Trends 3 May 2019

Every month, fifty-five’s team features a selection of worth reading news and trends for you. So what happened recently in the brandtech ecosystem? Publicis acquires Epsilon, Sizmek unsettles the Adtech world and the new Amazon Brand Analytics… Discover our selection for May!

Sizmek: the saga that spells trouble in the adtech world

Sizmek is (or was?) the largest independent buy-side advertising platform in the United States. Its solutions are used in more than 70 countries, connecting 20,000 advertisers and 3,600 agencies. Its recent bankruptcy has made a lot of noise in the adtech world: the DSP/ DMP unit has just been bought by Zeta Global, and the core ad server, DCO solution and contextual targeting product are still looking for a buyer. But beyond Sizmek, this case highlights deep hidden issues that are consuming the adtech world. Only the tip of the iceberg?

Unilever wants more transparency in advertising

And is taking action! The multinational consumer goods company announced that it is working on building a “cross-media measurement model”, for measuring more precisely the impact of their marketing campaigns across the adtech ecosytem. Tech giants such as Facebook and Google, but also Twitter, are already on board.

Publicis acquires Epsilon for $4.4 billion

This sale is one of the most important agency deals in years, since Dentsu acquired Aegis in 2013. Epsilon is an agency specialized in data marketing, boasting 9,000 employees, 3,700 data scientists and 2,000 engineers. This acquisition might give Publicis a new interesting arsenal of digital and technical tools, particularly through first-party data assets.

Google Cloud Next 2019: what did you miss?

Did you miss the conference in San Francisco last month? No worries, we’ve spotted the main announcements for you. The Google Cloud Services Platform has been rebranded to Anthos… and now expands support to competitors AWS and Azure! Google is also partnering with open-source companies (Confluent, DataStax, MongoDB…) to integrate their products into its cloud. Mountain View also announced the launch of an end-to-end AI platform, as well as a bluetooth security key service through Android phones.

Heineken is making bubbles building its own in-house creative team

How can brands make more creative ads, better, faster and cheaper? Heineken have done the math: building an in-house creative studio seems to be the best option, while keeping their agencies Publicis and Droga5 to lead the global strategy and messages.

Amazon: customer demographic analytics rolled out for third-party sellers

Amazon is now giving third-party sellers access to aggregate demographic data about customers, like age, gender, income, or even marital status. This feature is part of its newly launched analytics tool, Amazon Brand Analytics. By giving more access to customer data, these reports and tools address one of the main weaknesses of Amazon advertising, but are only available for “eligible brand owners” at the moment.