A coalition in the European Parliament recently sent a letter to the corporate leaders of the largest European advertisers to call on them to stop using tracking ads. Among the 100 recipients are the CEO's of Volkswagen, Unilever, Shell and Heineken.

In Europe alone, corporations spent 69.4 billion euros on digital advertising in 2020, of which Google and Facebook earned an estimated 50-70%. According the politicians, apart from privacy breaches and misuse, the advertising system poses great risks for our society at large by stimulating polarizing content-ranking algorithms and echo-chambering, by consuming enormous amounts of energy and by taking away revenue from SME's and press publishers.

In research, the purchasing power of digitally native, influencer-savvy Generation Z continues to be one of the most important and talked about factors for strategic digital marketers worldwide.

A study conducted in June 2021 by LTK, the largest creator-powered marketing platform, further underscores this, identifying that 92% of Gen Z adults ages 18-25 make purchases based on influencer recommendations, putting them above advertising by brands or retailers, celebrities and store associates.

And a study conducted by Research and Markets indicates that the global cloud advertising market size is expected to grow at a CAGR of 19.6% during the forecast period, to reach $6.7 billion by 2026 from $2.7 billion in 2021.

Marketing has evolved to a great extent in the past decade; new forms of marketing have taken over with continuously upgrading tools. Marketers can target the specific customer they want from the comfort of their homes.

On matters partnerships, GroupM, WPP’s media investment group, has announced a global partnership with WPP sister agency Hogarth to launch an Addressable Content Practice (ACP)—a global performance media collaboration.

This practice combines the group’s leading addressable media offering with Hogarth’s content creation capabilities to provide a harmonized global addressable content service that helps clients deliver more data-driven, highly personalized advertising experiences to consumers.

Merkle, a data-driven customer experience management (CXM) company, has announced its new partnership with TransUnion.

Through the partnership, Merkle’s identity resolution and data platform Merkury will leverage TransUnion’s TruAudience® Data Marketplace, formerly Tru Optik, to enable people-based audience activation in Connected TV (CTV).

Amobee, a wholly owned subsidiary of Singtel and global player in advertising technology, and smartclip, RTL Group’s European provider for ad-tech solutions, together announced their agreement to form TechAlliance, the European industry’s first end-to-end, broadcaster-centric, cross-screen advertising platform.

This platform will provide advertisers with exclusive programmatic access to the linear ad break, including digital ads on linear TV inventories, as well as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), privacy-compliant audience and content viewership data across the region.

Yahoo has also announced the expansion of its partnership with Tubi, FOX Entertainment’s breakthrough ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) service, bringing incremental efficiencies to the planning and buying of connected TV (CTV).

Building on Yahoo and Tubi’s supply-side (SSP) relationship, the expansion offers Yahoo demand-side platform (DSP) advertisers direct access to Tubi’s unmatched AVOD content library, making it easier to plan and buy CTV.

Yahoo has announced In-Flight Sales Analysis (ISA) for digital out-of-home (DOOH), allowing advertisers to tie online and offline sales with DOOH ad exposures, as well as measure and optimize for near real-time campaign performance.

The solution is enabled by integrations with leading and trusted data providers Catalina, Epsilon, IRI, and NCSolutions.

On appointments,Kantar, the world’s data-driven analytics and brand consulting company, has announced the appointment of Andy Doyle to the position of Chief People Officer.

As a member of the executive leadership team, Mr Doyle will ensure Kantar’s culture supports the growth ambitions of the organisation.

And WPP recently appointed Jennifer Remling as Global Chief People Officer.

Jennifer is currently the Global Chief People Officer of GroupM, WPP’s media investment group. She will transition into the new role and will join WPP’s Executive Committee, reporting to WPP CEO Mark Read.

Bob Koigi is an editor at Marketing Report EU

www.marketingreport.eu