#Technology

You’re sitting at home, having a conversation with someone about a restaurant or a new piece of clothing you want to buy. Two minutes later, you see an advertisement on your phone for that same exact restaurant or clothing store. How does your phone know what you’re saying? Is there a microphone, constantly listening for buzzwords and then rapidly bringing you ads for those things you talk about? Advertising these days can be pretty advanced, but when you look at life in general, everything is very interconnected.

Now that we’ve safely landed in the new year (still recovering from a helluva rough 2020, though), take a moment to reflect. Visualize a snapshot of your life in 2019. Now compare that snapshot to your life in 2020. Do you see some major differences? If you don’t, then you’re not looking! A myriad of things has changed from 2019 to 2020. The biggest of which is evident in the new WFH (Work From Home) initiatives that have been implemented around the world.

Over the top TV (OTT) or Connected TV (CTV) have pretty much made their mark on the advertising landscape — enough to stake their claim as a mainstay in the advertiser’s official bag of tricks! Currently, there are more than 130 CTV applications1 available to viewers, and that number is growing rapidly; like a new city popping up in the middle of the desert. But, with any new city comes new bad guys.

With the release of iOS 14, Apple is making yet another big privacy-focused upgrade to iOS. One where users can choose to hide their device’s ID from apps so it can’t be tracked. Something many advertisers, particularly Facebook, aren’t happy about. But despite the uproar of Facebook and a handful of other social giants, there are certain programmatic advertising platforms who aren’t bothered by the privacy news at all. Why?

Gaming and music and apps…oh my! There’s a brave new world taking shape across the programmatic landscape, and it comes in a host of new platforms and channels for advertisers to explore. But not before gearing up for the journey. So plug in. Power up. And get ready…to play. Social media on the decline Smart devices have become a regular part of daily life, with the average person spending at least four hours on their phone per day and more than 65% of Americans using multiple installed apps in that time.

AI is a boon to programmatic advertising, and the “intelligence” in artificial intelligence is getting smarter each day. However, because AI algorithms aren’t able to experience emotion or base decisions on gut instinct, there will always be a need for human oversight to help govern AI technology and ensure proper decisions are being made. Intelligence without oversight isn’t enough When the late Kobe Bryant passed away earlier this year, social media and news agencies went wild reporting the tragedy.

When the pandemic forced billions of people to stay home earlier this year, over-the-top (OTT) media skyrocketed as consumers began streaming more video content than ever before. This wasn’t entirely surprising, though. With video streaming revenue expected to grow to $30.4 billion by 2024, OTT has been a marketing go-to for several years. But there’s an often-overlooked OTT video platform that’s held strong and steady despite the turbulence of 2020, and continues to climb even still: mobile video ads.

More and more people are “cutting the cord” with traditional cable TV services and moving to television streaming services, instead. According to a report by PwC Consumer Intelligence, 78% of households use one-or-more streaming platforms, such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and many more. These are known as online streaming providers because they connect users to TV programming without a cable connection. Why consumers are making the “cut” Cord-cutters are turning to TV streaming services not only because they’re more affordable, but because they add convenience to the watching experience.

During this time of COVID-19, our portable devices have been somewhat of a lifeline to the outside world, as so many people have been ordered to stay in place during the global pandemic. Needless to say, this has brought about increased mobile use. In other words, the time spent on our smartphones and tablets has risen drastically. Changes in mobile use Over the past year, some of these trends were expected, and were already manifesting themselves before the global pandemic hit the U.