Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
The New You
YouTube is once again the title sponsor of VidCon, Tubefilter reports. It lost that honor last year (after seven years of top billing) when TikTok took its place for the 2022 show, which was the first VidCon following a three-year hiatus.
Just like when TikTok wrenched the spot from YouTube, this is a moral victory of sorts. TikTok is an organic growth machine, but if you come at the king you best not miss.
YouTube is now highlighting the difference between being a successful creator on its platform, which is a forecastable business, and being a TikTok creator, which can often feel like getting paid by lottery or lucky dip.
“The unique relationship and trust between YouTube creators, their fans and the digital industry is what sets our platform apart,” said Kate Stanford, YouTube’s VP of marketing.
Stanford pointed to the “unique relationship” between YouTube and creators, which is an advertising rev share. YouTube recently announced plans to extend its rev share program to its TikTok clone, Shorts, starting February 1.
“As we continue to provide pathways for success in today’s thriving creator economy,” Stanford said, the company looks forward to celebrating the “magic of YouTube” in Anaheim this summer.
Pulling A VAST One
Researchers at Human Security (formerly White Ops) have uncovered a massive mobile fraud scheme that, at its peak in June 2022, served more than 12 billion fraudulent ad requests per day, Wired reports.
The attack, which Human dubbed “Vastflux,” involved an unnamed bad actor that would purchase video ad slots on popular mobile apps, then inject code into ad creative. The code would cause as many as 25 videos to render within a single ad slot. Human says it’s withholding the name of the bad actor in question because of “ongoing investigations.”
But the scheme wasn’t only notable for its scale. Vastflux primarily impacted iOS devices, which is atypical. Mobile malware schemes over-index to Android, with a smattering of iOS. Here the ratio was flipped.
The perpetrators took extensive measures to avoid detection, including spoofing the data of 1,700 apps to appear as though many different apps have served the overloaded ads.
The Vastflux attack was so named because it exploited the IAB Tech Lab’s VAST template for video advertising. The IAB Tech Lab’s Shailley Singh says such attacks can be prevented by upgrading to VAST 4.
Birds Of A Feather?
Israeli mobile gaming company Playtika has made another offer to acquire Finnish game developer Rovio, best known for Angry Birds, valuing the company at 750 million euros.
That would be a nice price for Rovio, which had a market cap of 470 million euros at the time of the offer. It’s also 40 million euros more than the offer Playtika made to Rovio last November (an offer that Rovio rebuffed).
It’s a tough environment right now in which to operate a standalone mobile game studio, and Playtika has the game-building and app monetization software that could help boost Rovio’s business.
But an acquisition would be a tough pill for Rovio. Angry Birds has pristine IP and is pretty much a national treasure in Finland, whereas Playtika is known for “social casino games” or “fast casual” and shoot-em-up mobile apps that propagate on social media, as well as monetization tools and mobile ad tech.
“We firmly believe the combination of Rovio’s renowned IP and scale of its user base, together with our best-in-class monetization and game operations capabilities, will create tremendous value,” Playtika CEO Robert Antokol said in a release. We shall see.
But Wait, There’s More!
Meta is centralizing certain account settings across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger and tweaking the terminology it uses for certain ad metrics. [Adweek]
How “BookTok” influencers revamped Penguin Random House’s TikTok strategy. [Ad Age]
A peek inside Elon Musk’s “extremely hardcore” Twitter overhaul. [The Verge]
The Supreme Court is poised to reconsider online speech laws, with major potential ramifications for social media practices. [NYT]
How tech firms are resisting the “right to repair.” [Bloomberg]
You’re Hired!
Former Adelphic CEO Michael Collins is the new CEO of Adwerx. [TechWire]
Acoustic appoints Mark Cattini as CEO. [release]
