As WeChat enters its second decade, Allen Zhang Xiaolong, chief architect of the super app, pledged at an annual conference to make videos its cornerstone in the coming years. More specifically, Zhang spotlighted Channels, its short-form video feature, and a more seamless user experience with official accounts and miniprograms (lightweight apps within WeChat that require minimal downloading and disappear after use).
eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring WideOrbit's Frederick Lee, director of programmatic sales, and Bliss Point Media’s Stefanos Metaxas, chief strategy officer, for this Tech-Talk Webinar. They discussed how automation makes buying TV advertising faster and easier than ever before.
Home is where the work is
Earlier this week, Mars Wrigley’s M&M's brand gave fans a sneak peak of its Super Bowl ad via Zoom, its first-ever "virtual" debut. It’s just one of several efforts the company is working on leading up to Sunday’s big game.
Google Stadia gives up on game development: Original games were supposed to help the cloud gaming service get off the ground. But Stadia still has a chance to draw in gamers via its YouTube integration.
eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin discusses whether major marketers will pull spending on social platforms because of brand safety and ethical concerns, what to make of Facebook's new advertiser “topic exclusion controls” test, and the types of content consumers prefer brands avoid the most. She then talks about tech companies introducing rules that favor their own business models, Facebook's relationship with political content, and whether Google is waving goodbye to Australia.
Big tech reports in: Amazon and Google will report their earnings today—we'll be watching for what the holidays looked like for Amazon and whether search advertising growth continued into Q4 for Google.
Instagram limits sharing posts to Stories: The platform says that users complained about the practice, betraying a growing discontent with the amount of influencer marketing and business cross-promotion on the app.