AdTech Collective by Seedtag
News, trends, and insights in Digital Advertising
Most brands still treat a cultural moment like a single event. A topic trends, a campaign gets built around the headline, and by the time it launches, the conversation has already moved on.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding is a perfect example, not because of the ceremony itself, but because of everything that happened around it. Long before any official details were confirmed, the internet had already transformed it into dozens of interconnected conversations spanning fashion, sports, celebrity media, luxury, and fandom.
That gap between how brands plan and how culture actually moves is one of the most overlooked trends in advertising today.
To better understand it, Seedtag’s LAB Insights team mapped the online conversation using Liz, our proprietary Neuro-Contextual AI. What emerged went far beyond one couple or one weekend. It revealed how cultural moments evolve across connected interests, emotions, and intent, and why real-time marketing built around a single keyword rarely captures the full opportunity.
The timing couldn't be more relevant. As brands continue to invest in video ads, generative AI, and short-form content, the race to respond to cultural moments is only accelerating. But speed alone doesn't solve the core challenge. Most campaigns built around viral moments still capture only a fraction of the conversation because they're not designed to follow where attention actually goes.
Key Takeaways
- Cultural moments rarely unfold as a single story. They spread across interconnected clusters of interest, emotion, and intent.
- Speculation often generates more sustained engagement than the confirmed event itself, making anticipation a marketing opportunity in its own right.
- Audiences move fluidly between fashion, sports, entertainment, and lifestyle, while many marketing strategies still treat these as separate categories.
- Brand mentions and fashion signals emerge early, creating valuable windows for brand recognition long before mainstream coverage catches up.
- Understanding conversations at the cluster level, rather than the headline level, turns viral moments into smarter, data-driven marketing strategies.
What Hidden Advertising Trends Do Brands Miss When a Cultural Moment Goes Viral?
Most marketing teams still approach cultural moments as a single spike in attention. A story breaks, interest rises, then fades, and campaigns are built to capture that one wave.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding shows why that model leaves value on the table.
Using Liz, we identified more than 2,160 topic nodes grouped into seven distinct contextual clusters. This wasn't one conversation. It was seven overlapping narratives, each with its own audience, emotional tone, and commercial relevance.
Two of those clusters, Swiftie Speculations and Entertainment Press, each represented roughly 30% of the entire graph. Long before the ceremony took place, conversations around celebrity NDAs, venue rumors, family connections, and media speculation were already driving enormous engagement.
The biggest marketing opportunity isn't the cultural moment itself. It's everything happening before, around, and beyond it.
The build-up consistently attracts more sustained attention than the event itself, and it expands across categories that have little to do with the obvious topic. A wedding quickly becomes a conversation about fashion, sports, music, luxury, celebrity media, and fandom, each creating its own emotional context and commercial opportunity.
Why Do Traditional Marketers Fail to Catch Emerging Advertising Trends Related to Internet Subcultures?
One of today's fastest-moving advertising trends is the growing influence of internet subcultures on mainstream conversations. Yet traditional marketing strategy still plans around categories like sports, entertainment, and fashion as if audiences move between them in predictable ways.
They don't. Internet communities connect topics organically, creating conversations that cross industries, audiences, and platforms.
Swifties are a perfect example.
Throughout the weeks leading up to the wedding, fans treated every rumor, clue, and unconfirmed detail as meaningful. Liz's contextual graph surfaced clusters filled with themes like superfans, theories, itineraries, and speculation, sitting alongside entertainment journalism and celebrity news coverage.
The conversation wasn't driven by confirmed information. It was driven by curiosity.
Brands focused exclusively on official news coverage would have missed where engagement was actually happening.
A second cluster told a parallel story.
Taylor Swift's music career and Travis Kelce's NFL season evolved side by side, connecting music, sports, celebrity culture, and personal relationships into a single narrative. Rather than one audience absorbing the other, two powerful communities expanded the conversation together.
For marketers, that's the real lesson. Consumer behavior doesn't follow category boundaries. It follows relevance.
Understanding those connections requires data-driven marketing strategies capable of following conversations as they evolve, rather than waiting for headlines to define them.
One Moment, Many Conversations
This is where many marketing strategies fall short.
Marketers often build campaigns around the trending keyword, assuming audiences experience culture through a single topic.
They don't.
People move naturally between interests, emotions, and intent, following whichever thread feels most relevant in the moment.
Fashion became one of the earliest signals in this example.
Before most official details emerged, guest photos, designer speculation, and luxury brand mentions had already formed one of the densest contextual clusters within Liz's graph.
Dior quickly became associated with the wedding dress, while Artifex attracted attention for the engagement ring. Rather than supporting the main story, these brands became part of it, generating their own conversations driven by admiration, aspiration, and curiosity.
This is real-time marketing at its best.
Fashion isn't simply an extension of a cultural moment. It's often one of the first places where brand recognition accelerates because audiences are already emotionally invested.
Secrecy became another conversation entirely.
Once speculation focused on Madison Square Garden, discussions around guest lists, venue security, the 34th Street shutdown, and celebrity NDAs exploded across media and social platforms.
Much of the engagement wasn't fueled by confirmed information. It was fueled by anticipation.
That anticipation spread especially well through short-form video, where audiences actively searched for updates, theories, and behind-the-scenes clues rather than polished explanations.
More importantly, it demonstrates a broader advertising trend.
People don't wait for the headline. They engage with everything leading up to it.
Why Marketers Miss These Connected Conversations
Traditional media planning still tends to organize campaigns by category. Sports content is bought as sports. Entertainment is bought as entertainment. Fashion is treated as its own world.
But audiences don't experience culture that way.
They move seamlessly between conversations, following the stories, emotions, and communities that matter most to them.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding showed exactly that.
Swifties didn't simply overlap with NFL fans. Together, they created an entirely new conversation that neither audience could have generated alone. Music, sports, celebrity culture, and lifestyle became part of the same cultural moment, creating fresh opportunities for brands that understood how those interests connected.
The emotional signals driving that conversation were equally revealing.
Admiration, anticipation, excitement, and joy weren't attached to one topic. They flowed naturally across multiple contextual clusters as audiences followed every new development.
That's why campaigns built around a single category often miss the moment when engagement is at its highest.
Audience intent doesn't follow media plans. It follows connected conversations.
And understanding those conversations is becoming one of the defining advertising trends shaping modern marketing strategy.
The Marketing Lesson: Understanding Before Reacting
Reacting quickly to a cultural moment is no longer enough.
The real advantage comes from understanding how that moment evolves before, during, and after it captures mainstream attention.
This is where Neuro-Contextual Intelligence changes the equation.
Rather than relying on personal data or assumptions about who audiences are, our Neuro-Contextual AI, Liz, interprets signals of interest, emotion, and intent directly from the content people are engaging with across the open web.
Applied to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding, Liz identified more than 2,160 topic nodes connected across seven contextual clusters, revealing not just where attention existed, but how it moved between fashion, sports, entertainment, luxury, fandom, and celebrity media.
Instead of reducing the event to a single headline or keyword, the graph exposed an ecosystem of interconnected conversations.
That's the principle behind Neuro-Contextual Advertising.
Rather than treating a cultural moment as a single media opportunity, it enables brands to understand the wider context surrounding it, helping them align with the emotions, interests, and intent driving engagement in real time.
Because understanding audiences means understanding how conversations evolve, not simply what they're talking about at any given moment.
What This Means for Marketing Strategy
The pace of digital culture continues to accelerate.
Marketers are investing more in generative AI, content creation, short-form video, and social media campaigns to respond faster to emerging trends. Those investments matter.
But speed alone isn't enough.
The brands that create meaningful connections won't necessarily be the ones publishing first.
They'll be the ones who understand where attention is moving before everyone else does.
That requires looking beyond headlines and trending keywords to see the broader patterns shaping consumer behavior.
Cultural moments don't belong to a single audience, a single platform, or a single category.
They're built from dozens of interconnected conversations unfolding simultaneously across the open web.
Understanding those connections is quickly becoming one of the most important competitive advantages in modern marketing.
The Advertising Trend That Actually Matters
The next defining cultural moment won't belong to the brands that react the fastest. It'll belong to the brands that understand how conversations spread.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding is simply one example.
Tomorrow's defining moment could be the Super Bowl, the Oscars, a World Cup final, or an unexpected viral trend. The event will change, but the pattern won't.
Cultural moments don't unfold through a single conversation. They spread across interconnected interests, emotions, and behaviors.
For marketers, that's the advertising trend that matters most. The brands that learn to understand those connections won't just keep up with culture. They'll be ready to move with it.
For years, the advertising industry has debated the merits of the open web vs. walled gardens.
The conversation usually centers on scale, targeting, reach, and performance. Which environment offers better audiences? Which delivers stronger results? Which deserves a greater share of media investment?
Those questions still matter. But they are no longer the only ones.
As signal loss and fragmentation continue to reshape advertising, and AI plays a larger role in planning and activation, a more important question is emerging:
Where can advertisers operate with genuine transparency?
The industry has spent years optimizing around demographics, identifiers, and behavioral signals. But those approaches were built for a different era. As privacy regulations reshape how user data can be collected and activated, many of the assumptions that defined digital advertising are being challenged.
More importantly, people have never been as simple as the systems built to reach them.
A 35-year-old woman, married, in a dual-income household with two children under ten, is not an audience. She might be researching sustainable travel after work. Comparing mortgage options. Reading about marathon training. Planning a family vacation.
The demographic label remains the same. The context, motivations, emotions, and intent behind each moment do not.
This is why the future of advertising is not simply about finding new ways to identify people. It is about developing a better understanding of the moments that shape attention and decision-making.
And it is why the conversation around open web vs walled gardens is evolving into something larger. Not a debate about channels. A conversation about transparency, understanding, and how advertising creates relevance in a privacy-first world.
Key Takeaways
- The debate around open web vs walled gardens is evolving from audience access to transparency and accountability.
- Traditional targeting methods built around demographics and identifiers are becoming less effective in a privacy-first advertising landscape.
- Advertisers need greater visibility into how campaigns are planned, activated, and measured across media environments.
- The open web provides transparency, independent measurement, and contextual intelligence that help brands understand audiences beyond demographic profiles.
- Unified Ad Platforms and End-to-End Platforms simplify activation but also raise important questions around visibility and verification.
- The future of advertising will depend on balancing scale, transparency, and a deeper understanding of human attention.
Open Web vs Walled Gardens: Why the Debate Still Matters
Both walled gardens and the open web play an important role in modern digital advertising.
Walled gardens, including platforms operated by major tech giants, provide access to large logged-in audiences, rich first-party user data, and highly integrated advertising products. Their scale and simplicity have made them a cornerstone of many media strategies.
The open web offers a different advantage.
It provides access to a diverse ecosystem of premium publishers, content environments, and independent technology partners. Rather than operating inside a single closed platform, advertisers can activate campaigns across a broad range of trusted environments where consumers actively engage with content.
This distinction matters because the way people consume media continues to evolve.
Consumers spend their time across multiple channels, devices, and content experiences. They move seamlessly between social platforms, streaming services, publisher websites, mobile apps, and connected TV.
The question is no longer whether advertisers should choose the open web or walled gardens. The real question is how each environment contributes to a broader media strategy.
Why Transparency Matters More Than Ever
As the industry evolves, transparency is emerging as one of the most important considerations for advertisers.
For years, digital advertising benefited from an abundance of user-level signals. Audience targeting became increasingly sophisticated, allowing brands to reach consumers based on demographics, interests, and online behaviors.
Today, that landscape is changing.
Privacy regulations continue to reshape data collection practices. Browser restrictions limit access to traditional identifiers. Consumers expect greater control over how their information is used.
At the same time, AI-powered systems are increasingly responsible for planning, activation, optimization, and measurement decisions.
This creates a new challenge.
There is still an enormous amount of data available. But there is often less visibility into how that data is interpreted and transformed into campaign decisions.
As automation increases, advertisers need confidence not only in outcomes but in the processes that generate those outcomes.
Transparency is no longer simply a reporting feature. It is becoming a strategic advantage.
Demographics Oversimplify People
The shift toward privacy-first advertising is also changing how marketers think about audiences.
For decades, advertising strategies have relied heavily on demographic segmentation:
- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Location
These signals can be useful, but they provide only a partial view of human behavior.
Two people with identical demographic profiles may have completely different motivations depending on the content they are consuming and the context surrounding that moment.
A parent reading about summer travel plans is in a different moment than that same person consuming breaking news. A sports fan researching match statistics has different intentions than when browsing home improvement content.
Demographics describe people. They do not explain moments. This is where Neuro-Contextual intelligence is becoming increasingly valuable.
Rather than focusing exclusively on who someone is, our Neuro-Contextual AI can help advertisers understand what matters to people in a specific moment by analyzing signals related to content, interest, emotion, and intent.
Because relevance is not only about identity. It is also about context.
Why Premium Advertisers Are Re-Evaluating Ad Spend
The shift in ad spend toward the open web is not driven by a single trend. It reflects a broader change in how brands evaluate media investments.
Advertisers increasingly want greater transparency into campaign performance, inventory quality, and measurement methodologies. They want to understand where ads appear, how decisions are made, and whether results can be independently validated.
The open web provides access to premium publisher environments where consumers actively engage with trusted content.
It also allows advertisers to work with a wider range of measurement and verification partners, creating additional visibility throughout the campaign lifecycle.
This does not mean brands are abandoning walled gardens. Far from it.
Many advertisers continue to rely on closed platforms for scale, activation, and performance marketing objectives.
However, they are increasingly seeking a balance between the efficiency of walled gardens and the transparency offered by the open web.
What Are Unified Ad Platforms and End-to-End Platforms?
Alongside traditional walled gardens, another trend is reshaping digital advertising: the rise of Unified Ad Platforms (UAPs) and End-to-End Platforms.
These solutions bring multiple functions, including planning, activation, data management, optimization, and measurement, into a single platform.
The appeal is clear. One workflow. One technology stack. One operational environment.
For many advertisers, these platforms simplify campaign execution and reduce complexity.
However, they also introduce an important consideration.
When planning, activation, optimization, and reporting all occur within the same ecosystem, advertisers may have fewer opportunities to independently verify how decisions are being made.
This does not make End-to-End Platforms inherently problematic. They solve real operational challenges.
But as automation and AI become more influential, advertisers must consider how much visibility they retain into the systems guiding campaign performance.
The question is not whether these platforms create value. The question is how transparency and accountability evolve within increasingly automated environments.
Understanding the Moment, Not Just the User
This is where the conversation ultimately moves beyond open web vs walled gardens.
The future of advertising is not simply about finding audiences. It is about understanding people. Not as demographic categories. Not as identifiers. Not as data points. But as individuals navigate thousands of moments throughout their day.
Modern contextual AI can help advertisers understand those moments by analyzing the content people engage with and identifying signals related to interest, emotion, and intent.
This creates a privacy-first approach to advertising that does not depend on personal identifiers to deliver relevance.
This philosophy powers our Neuro-Contextual intelligence.
Through Liz, our proprietary Neuro-contextual AI, we analyze content across premium publisher environments to understand the context surrounding every advertising opportunity.
Because meaningful advertising starts with understanding. Not just who people are. But what matters to them in the moment.
Looking Ahead
The future of advertising is unlikely to be defined by a single environment.
Walled gardens will continue to play an important role, particularly where first-party relationships and logged-in audiences create value. The open web will continue to provide transparency, flexibility, and access to premium content environments where attention naturally happens.
The more important question is not where advertisers spend every dollar.
It is whether they have enough visibility to understand why those investments work.
As media planning becomes increasingly influenced by AI, fragmented signals, and privacy-first frameworks, transparency is becoming more than a reporting feature.
It is becoming a competitive advantage.
The brands that succeed will not simply optimize for reach. They will optimize for understanding. Understanding the content. Understanding the context. And understanding the moments that shape how people think, feel, and act.
The FIFA World Cup 2026 will generate an unprecedented volume of attention across digital media. For automotive brands, that scale creates enormous opportunity but also a significant challenge: standing out in an environment where every advertiser competes for the same audience.
The difference between visibility and impact comes down to understanding intent. Not every football fan is equally receptive to a brand message, and not every page view signals genuine engagement.
During major sporting events, audiences move between match coverage, transfer rumors, national team narratives, player stories, entertainment content, and countless adjacent interests. Within those moments lie valuable signals that can help brands identify when consumers are most open to engagement.
The question is no longer how to reach World Cup audiences. It is about identifying the moments when attention becomes meaningful engagement.
Below, we explore the audience insights shaping fan behavior during the tournament and how automotive brands can use Neuro-Contextual advertising to transform World Cup attention into meaningful consideration.
Key Takeaways
- The difference between a browser and an engaged consumer often lies in intent signals, not audience segments.
- World Cup audiences engage with far more than football, creating valuable opportunities across adjacent interests and passion points.
- Emotions such as excitement, curiosity, admiration, and optimism play a key role in how fans engage with content throughout the tournament.
- Neuro-Contextual advertising goes beyond keywords and categories to align messaging with interests, emotions, and intent.
- Dynamic creative optimization allows automotive campaigns to adapt in real time around tournament moments, audience context, and sentiment.
The Gap Between Looking and Engaging
Scale is not the challenge. During a World Cup, automotive brands can reach millions of consumers across the open web, connected TV, and streaming environments.
The challenge is identifying the difference between someone casually consuming content and someone demonstrating signals of genuine engagement.
Traditional targeting approaches often rely on keywords, categories, or broad audience segments. A page mentions "SUVs" or "electric vehicles," and an ad is served. While these signals can provide relevance, they do not always reveal what matters most: what the consumer is thinking, feeling, or looking for in that moment.
A reader exploring vehicle reviews out of curiosity may require a very different message from someone actively comparing models ahead of a purchase. Understanding that distinction helps brands move beyond simple reach and toward meaningful engagement.
Where Fan Attention Really Goes
One of the biggest misconceptions about the World Cup is that fans spend the tournament focused exclusively on football.
In reality, audience attention extends across a much broader ecosystem of content.
Audience interest also evolves throughout the tournament. Our insights show that engagement increases significantly during key moments such as the group stage, quarter-finals, and high-tension knockout rounds. Importantly, some of the largest spikes are driven not only by match results but also by player narratives, rivalries, and stories surrounding the competition.
Football-related interests such as domestic leagues, transfer rumors, national team stories, and club rivalries remain major drivers of engagement. But fans also spend time consuming content connected to celebrity culture, motorsports, entertainment, lifestyle topics, and national identity narratives.
These adjacent interests are not distractions from football fandom. They are part of how fans experience the tournament.
For automotive marketers, this creates additional opportunities to connect with audiences in contexts that may be less crowded than traditional sports environments while still maintaining strong relevance to fan interests.
Understanding these passion points allows brands to expand beyond match-day targeting and build a more comprehensive view of where their audiences spend time and attention.
The Emotional Signals Behind Engagement
The World Cup is not only a media event. It is an emotional one.
Across markets, football content generates a range of emotional responses, including excitement, curiosity, admiration, optimism, and even sadness. These emotions shift throughout the tournament as audiences react to victories, defeats, player performances, speculation, and national narratives.
While excitement consistently emerges as one of the strongest drivers of engagement, emotional responses vary across markets. Some audiences gravitate toward stories of national pride and sporting heroes, while others engage more deeply with tournament speculation, player narratives, or broader cultural conversations surrounding the event. Understanding these nuances can help brands deliver more relevant messaging throughout the competition.
For automotive brands, these signals offer valuable context. The emotions that shape engagement during the tournament can also influence how consumers respond to brand messaging, particularly in categories where consideration and aspiration play an important role.
Many vehicle purchase journeys are influenced by emotional factors alongside practical considerations. Curiosity about new technology, optimism about future ownership, excitement around a new model, and aspiration tied to lifestyle choices all play a role in consideration.
When brands understand the emotional context surrounding content consumption, they can align messaging more effectively with the consumer's interests, emotions, and intent in that moment.
How the Neuro-Contextual Approach Changes Automotive Marketing
Industry-standard targeting often relies on predefined content taxonomies and broad category classifications. Neuro-contextual approaches take a different path by analyzing content more deeply to understand interests, emotions, and intent signals in real time.
The difference between targeting a broad automotive category and identifying audiences such as Family Upgraders, First-Time Car Buyers, Urban Drivers, or Off-Road Adventure Enthusiasts is significant.
Rather than focusing solely on what content someone is consuming, Neuro-Contextual intelligence helps brands understand why that content matters to them.
For automotive marketers, this means identifying environments where signals of curiosity, optimism, excitement, and consideration are already present and aligning messaging accordingly.
The goal is not simply to be present. It is to be relevant.
Dynamic Creative That Moves With the Tournament
The World Cup unfolds in phases, and audience behavior evolves with it.
Interest levels rise during key matches, emotional intensity increases during knockout rounds, and fan conversations shift as new narratives emerge.
The content driving engagement during the group stage may be very different from the stories capturing attention during the quarter-finals or final, making flexibility a critical advantage for advertisers.
Creative should evolve alongside those changes.
Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) allows campaigns to adapt messaging based on factors such as tournament stage, location, time of day, weather conditions, and emotional sentiment.
A message delivered during a high-tension quarter-final may require a different creative approach than one served during the group stage. Likewise, audiences engaging with family-focused content may respond differently than audiences consuming performance or technology-related content.
By aligning creative with context, brands can create more relevant experiences throughout the tournament.
Measuring What Actually Matters
Clicks and viewability remain useful metrics, but they do not tell the full story.
For automotive brands operating within long and consideration-heavy purchase journeys, understanding campaign impact requires a broader measurement framework.
Attention metrics help reveal whether advertising was genuinely processed by consumers. Brand lift studies can demonstrate shifts in awareness, perception, and consideration. Incremental reach helps determine whether campaigns are connecting with new audiences rather than repeatedly reaching the same users.
Together, these measurements provide a clearer view of how campaigns influence consumer behavior throughout the World Cup journey.
From Research to the Road
The FIFA World Cup 2026 presents a unique convergence of attention, emotion, and engagement.
Success will not belong solely to the brands with the largest budgets or the widest reach. It will belong to those who understand where fan attention is going, what emotions are driving engagement, and how to identify moments of genuine intent.
Traditional research helps identify the audience. Neuro-contextual intelligence helps identify the moment.
And during the world's biggest sporting event, that difference can determine whether a campaign is simply seen or truly remembered.
To learn more about the audience insights, emotional signals, and activation opportunities shaping FIFA World Cup 2026 campaigns, download the full Automotive Insights report.
Every year, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity offers a glimpse into where advertising is heading next. But in 2025, the conversations across the Croisette felt especially revealing.
At the heart of Cannes Lions 2025 was a growing realization that the future of advertising will depend less on identifying audiences and more on understanding people. Across beachfront stages, private dinners, podcast studios, and conversations inside the Palais des Festivals, the industry repeatedly returned to the same challenge: how can brands create more relevant experiences in an increasingly fragmented, AI-driven media landscape?
For Seedtag, Cannes 2025 became an important moment to help shape that conversation.
Throughout the week, Seedtag explored how Neuro-Contextual Advertising is redefining the relationship between media, creativity, and human understanding. From discussions around AI and emotional relevance to debates about journalism, contextual intelligence, and audience mindset, the company’s presence reflected a broader industry shift already reshaping modern advertising.
And now, as the industry prepares for another year in Cannes, France, those conversations are evolving even further.
Key Takeaways
- The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity highlighted the industry’s move from audience profiling toward deeper human understanding.
- Cannes Lions 2025 conversations focused heavily on AI, contextual relevance, emotional engagement, and privacy-first advertising.
- Seedtag’s Neuro-Contextual approach emerged as part of a broader industry shift toward understanding interest, emotion, and intent.
- Creativity, media, and data became increasingly interconnected across the Cannes Lions International Festival.
- New discussions heading into Cannes 2026 are expanding beyond targeting and toward adaptive, human-aware advertising experiences.
What Cannes Lions 2025 Revealed About Advertising
The International Festival of Creativity has always reflected the priorities of the advertising industry. In 2025, those priorities shifted noticeably.
Artificial intelligence dominated discussions across nearly every stage and meeting space. But while AI remained central, the industry conversation matured significantly compared to previous years. The focus was no longer simply on automation or content generation. Instead, marketers increasingly questioned how technology can help advertising become more meaningful, more adaptive, and more emotionally aligned with people.
That tension defined much of Cannes Lions 2025.
Consumers today move fluidly between streaming platforms, creator ecosystems, social content, sports, commerce, and live cultural moments. Attention is fragmented, audience behavior changes constantly, and traditional identity-based targeting models are becoming less effective in a privacy-first world.
As a result, the industry is beginning to rethink what relevance actually means.
For us at Seedtag, that conversation connected directly to Neuro-Contextual Advertising. Rather than relying on static audience profiles or demographic assumptions, our approach focuses on understanding real-time signals of interest, emotion, and intent across the open web and premium media environments.
The idea is simple: people are more than profiles.
And increasingly, the advertising industry is starting to agree.
From Profiles to Passions
One of the defining conversations during Cannes 2025 centered on the limitations of traditional targeting.
For years, digital advertising has relied heavily on demographic segmentation and behavioral assumptions. But across the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, industry leaders repeatedly discussed the need to move beyond identity alone and focus more deeply on audience mindset, context, and motivation.
We explored this shift directly during the live crossover episode of AdTech Heroes x The Pub Way, hosted at The Drum’s podcast studio.
The conversation brought together leaders from across media, creative, and advertising to discuss how brands can better engage audiences through real-time understanding rather than static assumptions.
A recurring theme emerged quickly: marketers have spent years trying to understand who consumers are, while paying far less attention to why they engage in the first place.
That distinction matters.
People are shaped by passions, interests, emotions, and cultural moments that evolve continuously. Someone watching sports content during a major tournament may not respond to messaging the same way they would while reading financial news or consuming entertainment content later in the day.
Context changes mindset.
This idea became central to many discussions throughout the Cannes Lions International Festival. Relevance is no longer about reaching the right demographic. It is about understanding the emotional and cognitive environment surrounding attention itself.
AI Became About Understanding, Not Just Automation
AI remained one of the dominant themes across Cannes, France, but the industry conversation evolved significantly compared to previous years.
Earlier conversations around AI often focused on speed, scale, and automation. At Cannes Lions 2025, the emphasis shifted toward intelligence, adaptability, and human understanding.
Marketers are now asking more complex questions. How can AI help interpret the audience mindset? How can it improve contextual relevance? How can it support creativity without reducing advertising to generic automation?
These discussions appeared repeatedly across panels, roundtables, and private conversations.
Our perspective centered on the idea that AI should not simply optimize delivery. It should help brands better understand the moments in which people engage with content.
This is where Neuro-Contextual Advertising becomes increasingly relevant.
By combining neuroscience principles with AI-powered contextual understanding, Liz, our Neuo-Contextual AI, is designed to interpret signals of interest, emotion, and intent in real time. The goal is not to identify individuals, but to understand the meaning surrounding the moment itself.
That approach reflects a larger shift happening across the industry.
Advertising is moving away from static targeting systems and toward adaptive environments capable of responding dynamically to changing emotional and contextual signals.
Creativity and Context Are Becoming Reconnected
Another major theme across the Palais des Festivals was the growing relationship between creativity and contextual relevance.
For years, programmatic advertising has often separated creative storytelling from media strategy. But at Cannes Lions 2025, many industry leaders argued that creativity can no longer function independently from context and audience understanding.
As media environments become increasingly fragmented, brands face growing pressure to create campaigns that feel synchronized with the emotional tone surrounding the content experience.
This is especially important across premium video, streaming, and creator-driven ecosystems where audiences expect advertising to feel more integrated and less disruptive.
Throughout the week, conversations increasingly focused on how creative effectiveness improves when messaging aligns with the real-time audience mindset.
That shift is transforming how marketers think about personalization itself.
Rather than personalizing around identity, advertisers are beginning to personalize around context, emotion, and intent.
This idea also appeared in conversations surrounding contextual TV, curated supply, and premium media environments. Brands are looking for advertising experiences that feel more thoughtful, more emotionally aware, and more aligned with the content moments consumers actively choose to engage with.
Journalism, Trust, and Smarter Contextual Understanding
Beyond AI and creativity, Cannes Lions 2025 also highlighted growing industry concerns around journalism, trust, and responsible monetization.
We participated in discussions exploring how rigid keyword blocklists and simplistic brand safety systems can unintentionally harm quality journalism.
This became an important conversation across the International Festival of Creativity because advertisers increasingly recognize that brand safety cannot rely exclusively on broad exclusions or outdated contextual assumptions.
High-quality journalism covering politics, climate, economics, or global conflict often becomes demonetized despite offering trusted, premium environments for advertisers.
That creates a difficult contradiction for the media ecosystem.
The solution discussed throughout Cannes 2025 was not abandoning brand safety altogether, but evolving toward more intelligent contextual systems capable of understanding nuance, tone, and meaning more effectively.
This conversation reinforced one of the industry’s broader shifts: context is becoming more sophisticated.
Modern contextual understanding is no longer limited to keywords alone. It increasingly depends on a deeper interpretation of emotional tone, audience mindset, and environmental relevance.
Looking Ahead to Cannes Lions 2026
As the industry prepares for the next Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, many of the conversations that defined 2025 are continuing to evolve.
This year, we will expand those discussions further at La Perle, our Cannes space designed for meetings, collaborative sessions, workshops, and thought leadership conversations.
The upcoming agenda reflects many of the themes that emerged throughout Cannes Lions 2025.
Sessions such as “The End of Guesswork: How to Reach Consumers Who Are Actually Ready to Listen” will explore how advertisers can move beyond stale targeting proxies and align campaigns with real-time emotion, interest, and intent.
Other conversations will focus on curated supply, contextual TV, AI and creativity, neuroscience, media responsibility, and human-centered advertising experiences.
We will also introduce experiential activations such as the “Scent of Context” lab, an immersive workshop designed to explore how emotion, memory, and sensory environments shape contextual understanding.
Together, these experiences reflect a broader evolution happening across advertising itself.
The industry is no longer asking only how to target people more efficiently. It is asking how to better understand the emotional and cognitive moments that shape attention.
From Profiles to Human Understanding
Looking back, Cannes Lions 2025 represented more than another industry gathering. It reflected a meaningful turning point in how advertising thinks about relevance.
AI became more mature. Context became more intelligent. Creativity became more connected to audience's mindset. And marketers increasingly recognized that understanding people requires more than data points alone.
For us at Seedtag, those conversations continue shaping the future of Neuro-Contextual Advertising.
Because the future of advertising will not belong to the brands that know the most about consumers. It will belong to the brands that understand the moment best.
And increasingly, that future is becoming more human-aware.
Our Blog
Consumers have been voicing a growing number of concerns about how their data and personally identifiable information are collected and used by brands. Data collection practices have raised significant privacy concerns, leading to regulations that impact in the future of digital advertising.
Data privacy laws and Google’s Privacy Sandbox address these consumer concerns. They aim to give users more control over their data. This includes how brands access and use this data and contextual AI.
Privacy protection laws, like GDPR in the European Union and CCPA in the United States, set rules for businesses. These laws guide how companies can collect, use, and share personal information. . Google designs its Privacy Sandbox APIs and technologies to provide a more private and secure web experience. The main objective of these privacy initiatives is to give users more control over their online privacy and to limit the amount of party data collected and used.
Why the shift in focus toward privacy-first advertising?
Traditional audience targeting has been the norm for decades. Audiences are grouped and targeted based on their past interests and buying habits, this relies a lot on third-party cookies. Cookies are small snippets of code that are used to store data on a user's computer that enable websites to remember login details, preferences, etc.
The privacy issues arose because of third-party cookies that are set by domains other than the one visited by a user. These cookies allow businesses to monitor browsing patterns and customer data across multiple websites, and the data collected is used for programmatic advertising and tracking purposes.
Third-party cookies may be helping advertisers target users. However, they are intrusive, non-consensual, and manipulative, raising multiple privacy concerns. While Google decided to back out from its cookie deprecation plan after years of delays, the efforts toward improving online privacy continue.
The future of advertising is shifting toward privacy-first strategies, and marketing strategies need to adapt accordingly. Cookieless developments are a priority for Google as it aims to preserve the ad-supported internet by promoting the adoption of privacy-preserving digital advertising practices.
What are the privacy-preserving alternatives in advertising?
Whether it is privacy protection laws, browser controls like cookie blocking and tracking protection, or Privacy Sandbox APIs, the focus lies on consumer behavior and enabling users to make informed choices when they’re browsing. Consumers’ demand for data privacy has compromised reach and measurement for advertisers, impacting key areas like cross-site tracking, personalization capabilities, and audience categorization.
In the bid to create a privacy-focused ecosystem, contextual AI is swiftly emerging as a go-to solution among advertisers who are evaluating privacy-first alternatives to conventional advertising practices. Contextual AI offers an advanced solution that leverages the capabilities of artificial intelligence and its subsets like machine learning and Natural Language Processing algorithms to analyze millions of web pages.
A key advantage of contextual AI is its ability to provide hyper-personalized advertising without compromising user privacy. By analyzing content rather than user-specific customer data, brands can deliver highly relevant ads that align with the interests of their audiences in real-time. This shift allows digital marketers to implement AI-powered strategies that enhance engagement and improve the effectiveness of their campaigns.
Contextual ads are displayed based on the analysis of web pages to ensure they align with the content and context of every page. Contextual advertising is a complementary technology that caters to the needs of consumers and businesses. The advanced targeting capabilities move beyond the traditional audience categorization practices that are based on stereotypes, cliches, assumptions, and past browsing patterns.
Contextual AI and The Future of Digital Advertising
Contextual AI analyzes both the written and visual content of a page and places ads in the most optimal locations where the ad messaging aligns with the page. Contextual advertising relies on artificial intelligence to deliver ads on relevant websites that target the right audiences without using cookies. It allows brands to enhance their understanding of consumer behavior and makes ads more relevant and relatable.
Another significant trend shaping the future of digital advertising is the rise of short-form videos. These videos are a strong way to engage audiences.
Platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts have demonstrated the effectiveness of video-based content in capturing audience attention. Video content, along with AI targeting, helps brands show ads that are engaging and relevant. This leads to higher conversion rates.
As marketing strategies evolve, brands are increasingly relying on AI-driven analytics to optimize their campaigns. Programmatic advertising powered by machine learning enables businesses to make data-driven decisions and allocate resources more effectively. This shift towards automation and AI-powered insights is helping advertisers navigate the complexities of a privacy-first digital landscape.
In an era where data privacy and user control are paramount, contextual AI is emerging as a transformative force in the future of digital advertising. By leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning, and real-time analytics, brands can deliver relevant, hyper-personalized experiences while respecting consumer privacy.
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Google’s renewed focus on the Privacy Sandbox aims to improve online privacy while preserving an ad-supported internet by promoting the adoption of a privacy-first approach. While Google may have dropped its plan to complete the deprecation of third-party cookies after multiple delays, the anchor continues to be data privacy and transparency.
Privacy Sandbox APIs have the potential to achieve this feat as they serve as an alternative to traditional tracking methods like third-party cookies. The APIs reduce tracking but ensure businesses continue to thrive using technology that can gather user data and deliver targeted ads without compromising personal information.
The key Sandbox APIs like Topics API, Attribution Reporting API, and Protected Audiences aim to protect user privacy and reduce reliance on third-party cookies. Whether it is enhancing audience targeting or improving ad effectiveness, these APIs allow businesses to continue thriving in the digital economy whilst being respectful of data protection regulation GDPR and other data privacy laws.
The shift toward a privacy-first digital landscape
From third-party cookie tracking to data breaches, changing regulatory landscape, and evolving user preferences, the transition to Privacy Sandbox APIs is driven by the need to protect personal data while allowing businesses to continue to flourish.
The aim is to create a more sustainable and trustworthy digital ecosystem by striking a balance between consumer data protection and business needs. Adopting a privacy-first marketing strategy ensures that businesses comply with GDPR and CCPA, giving users control over their data while still enabling effective advertising. Contextual advertising is a frontrunner in the privacy-focused ecosystem that these APIs aim to create.
Contextual advertising: A privacy-first approach alternative
Contextual advertising is moving away from conventional targeting practices that leverage keywords and phrases and rely on stereotypes and assumptions to reach audiences. With Custom AI, advertisers can shift from predefined audience targeting and build custom Contextual Audiences. Advertisers can create unique and dynamic audiences to suit business-specific needs and requirements for greater precision and impact.
With the right blend of data-driven audience targeting, creatives, and ad placement, contextual advertising empowers brands to engage with users at the most optimal time and place by delivering personalized and relevant experiences.
Building Trust Through Privacy-First Advertising
A privacy-first approach not only ensures compliance with regulations but also helps build trust and customer relationships. Consumers today are more conscious about the data you collect, and ensuring transparent and ethical handling of their information fosters trust and loyalty.
By prioritizing privacy-first advertising solutions, brands can create long-term strategies that respect consumer privacy while driving engagement and business growth. The shift towards privacy-conscious advertising is not just a trend—it is the future of digital marketing.
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In the era of short attention spans, constant multitasking, and myriad distractions, global brands are battling it out for the most desirable currency: attention. A contextual approach provides a strategic framework to capture this attention while prioritizing data privacy. Attention metrics are the KPIs advertisers closely monitor today to understand campaign performance and how the audience resonates with ads.
Attention is the most sought-after metric in the advertising world as a multitude of brands vie for the top spot and aim to capture a larger market share. The biggest challenge advertisers have faced is the inability to quantify campaign performance beyond mere views or clicks.
The shift from Viewability to Attention Metrics
Conventionally, media quality has been assessed based on viewability percentages, which only measure the potential of an ad to be viewed and not its ability to draw user attention.
While the focus has been to increase viewability, it is not a detailed measure of the effectiveness of ads or where to serve them. A contextual approach, by contrast, allows advertisers to leverage modern social learning theories, stemming from the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, to create more meaningful interactions. Attention metrics provide a more precise evaluation of how ads perform, directly correlating campaign performance with brand outcomes. This shift reflects a deeper understanding of ad effectiveness.
Understanding Attention Metrics
Attention measurement moves beyond superficial metrics, employing advanced technologies like eye-tracking and predictive modeling. This method relies on machines, eyes, and faces to provide legitimate signals. The predictive model is built on key metrics that include ad format, screen real estate, duration in view, scroll speed, page geometry, and domain.
Attention metrics enable advertisers to go beyond the basics and truly understand higher psychological processes involved in engagement. These metrics measure how engaged or focused a user is on an ad and their ability to absorb the ad’s message, which is more effective in measuring the impact of an ad when compared to views or clicks.
The eye-tracking technology focuses on what parts of the page users look at and how much time they spend. Eye-tracking surveys are conducted to understand how users scroll through a page to gauge ad recall and the probability of users purchasing after seeing the ad. The data gathered from the survey also helps understand what content and creatives resonate better with the audience.
Contextual approach: winning attention with contextual advertising
Advertisers are moving away from one single approach and are looking at leveraging a combination of approaches to win audience attention and improve ROI on advertising spends. One such strategy is contextual advertising—a data privacy-first alternative to traditional ad targeting practices, enabling advertisers to garner attention by producing ads that resonate, placing them in the most ideal locations, and displaying them to the desired audience.
- With various restrictions, ad and cookie blockers, compliances, and the broader shift towards privacy, advertisers have realized the need to shift toward a more inclusive, privacy-first approach.
- Traditional audience targeting practices rely on stereotypes and assumptions and fail to capture the right attention as the target audience is broad and not truly focused on the real addressable market share.
The Role of Context in Cognitive Development
Taking inspiration from cognitive development theories, John-Steiner & Mahn (1996) emphasized the timeframe which emphasizes contextual factors in cognitive development. This perspective aligns with advertising strategies that adapt dynamically to their environments. Just as American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) suggested that a child’s growth is influenced by the mesosystem, which includes larger organizational structures, advertisements function within a layered ecosystem that affects user engagement.
Contextual advertising is a complementary technology that integrates well with new privacy initiatives like universal IDs and Privacy Sandbox, providing a more effective strategy that adapts to user preferences.
- Contextual ads effectively amass attention by producing impactful ad creatives and ensuring ideal creative placement.
- Whether it is images or video, contextual creatives resonate with users and capture their attention.
Contextual Creatives and Their Impact
Contextual ads effectively amass attention by producing impactful ad creatives and ensuring ideal creative placement. Whether it is images or video, contextual creatives resonate with users and capture their attention. With the right approach, advertisers can create a climate where social interaction plays a critical role in children’s learning—a principle that can be applied to audience engagement, where contextual relevance fosters deeper connections.
By leveraging a contextual approach, advertisers can create meaningful interactions while respecting data privacy. In doing so, they align with society’s self-image, growth, sense of accomplishment, and schedule, thereby impacting the audience physically, cognitively, and emotionally. This shift not only ensures compliance with privacy regulations but also enhances the efficacy of ad campaigns, making them more resonant and impactful.
With a focus on all the right elements, our contextual advertising solution powered by AI is empowering brands to grow affinity, achieve higher accuracy, and drive more intentional attention.
The digital advertising landscape is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by a relentless focus on consumer privacy. Regulations like GDPR and CCPA, coupled with browser restrictions, are rapidly eroding the traditional addressable advertising ecosystem. While the recent news about Google's decision on not deprecating third-party cookies has caused ripples, it's essential to recognize that the broader shift towards privacy is irreversible.
At Seedtag, we've been at the forefront of privacy-first advertising for a decade. We develop tools for advertisers to thrive beyond an evolving landscape, delivering campaigns that matter to users at the most relevant moment for them. Here is how we foresee going from an era of change to a change of an era:
Cookie limitations: Losing Signals and Reach
With Chrome market share ranging from 75% to 50% depending on the country, according to web-tracking firm StatCounter. Furthermore, if you factor in legislation, penetration of ad and cookie blocking apps and users choice (53% of users reject cookies on certain websites and 32% in all websites according to a study conducted in conjunction with YouGov), it’s clear marketers are now facing numerous restrictions.
Traditional audience categorization and targeting methods are becoming ineffective because they rely on stereotypes and assumptions and fail to comply with privacy regulations, but even more importantly, user preference. Conventional advertising methods aim for a broad audience, but they often miss the mark, leading to wasted ad spend as many viewers may not be interested in the product or service; and fails on delivering the message to the total addressable market. Modern targeting strategies move beyond conventional identity-based approaches and focus on users' current interests and the context of the content they consume. Interest-based targeting, which breaks away from stereotypes, is seen as a more effective, non-intrusive, and privacy-centric alternative.
Cookies have carried the industry far, but time has come to pass the torch - a significant challenge for many advertisers and a unique opportunity for those who can adapt.
Contextual: The key to Precision & Scale
Contextual advertising is the cornerstone of our approach. It focuses solely on the content of the page rather than the user, mitigating privacy concerns and complying with data protection regulations. Contextual advertising delivers both precision and scale by leveraging the context surrounding ads rather than tracking individual users. This method respects user privacy while providing highly relevant ad placements.
Contextual signals can be particularly effective on platforms like Connected TV (CTV), cookieless by nature, which accounts for one-third of combined US linear and CTV ad spend in 2024, according to eMarketer. With strong projected growth in 2025, these signals ensure that ads reach the right audience at the right time without compromising privacy. Our Contextual Graph, combined with advanced AI, allows us to target audiences with precision and scale, delivering exceptional results in a privacy-centric world.
Beyond Contextual: A Hybrid Approach
In the changing world of digital advertising, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. The future is undeniably hybrid, combining traditional signals with emerging privacy-first methods. Integrations with new privacy-focused initiatives, such as universal IDs, Privacy Sandbox, are becoming increasingly important.
By using a mix of contextual advertising and available tools, advertisers can achieve a balanced and effective strategy that adapts to ongoing changes and user preferences. This approach allows advertisers to diversify their tactics, ensuring they do not rely on a single method and can reach their target audiences effectively.
Seedtag’s Commitment to Privacy-Preserving Advertising
Powered by Liz, our pioneering AI technology, we at Seedtag offer future-proof, thoroughly tested contextual targeting solutions that find and engage with nuanced audiences and capture their attention by aligning with their current line of interest.
We believe that by focusing on context, relevance, and user experience, we can build a more sustainable and effective advertising ecosystem.
Are you ready to embrace the future of advertising? Want to learn more on how Seedtag can help you navigate the complexities of a privacy-centric world?
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Can you hear the bells ring? School’s here.
The academic year kickoff is fast approaching, and the atmosphere is bubbling with energy as students and their families gear up for the new chapter. In the latest Seedtag Lab report - Back to School 2024, we uncover key details like the keywords and topics that are top of mind of the audience and align with the key values within the Back to School topic.
With a 30% article share, Student Finances is the key topic of interest as the audience focuses on the financial aspects of university life like student loans, budget management, scholarships, accommodation costs, and banking options tailored for students.
Next in line is School Material with a 28% article share. This includes notebooks, art and science kits, educational software, and stylish classroom materials that help students prepare and stay motivated to learn.
Next up we have Parenting with 23% of articles covering concepts like childcare, financial planning, educational support, school safety, and parenting strategies to ensure the academic and personal development of students.
Education & Learning is the final topic with a 19% share of articles. From classroom learning and curriculum enhancement to the integration of technology and extracurricular activities, the topics focus on the diverse aspects of education.
What are the main clusters garnering interest within the Back to School theme?
1. Student Finances
This topic garners 2.4M impressions during the back to school season.
- Cost of Living: Total views 43% and ~18 Avg. views
- Financial Solutions: Total views 19% and ~8.5 Avg. views
- Studying Abroad: Total views 15% and ~8.5 Avg. views
2. School Material
This category amasses 2.1M impressions.
- Integration of Technology: Total views 18% and ~7.6 Avg. views
- School & Sports Attire: Total views 15% and ~9.9 Avg. views
- School Supplies Bundles: Total views 13% and ~4 Avg. views
3. Parenting
With 3.8M impressions, parents are the main area of audience interest during the season.
- Back to School FAQ: Total views 25% and ~12 Avg. views
- Financial Assistance for Parents: Total views 23% and ~11 Avg. views
- Educational Standards: Total views 19% and ~8 Avg. views
4. Education & Learning
Learning is the second-most trending area of interest with 3.1M impressions.
- School Initiatives: Total views 37% and ~11 Avg. views
- Ofsted Ratings: Total views 25% and ~6 Avg. views
- Learning Approaches: Total views 15% and ~4.9 Avg. views
- Special Educational Needs: Total views 9% and ~4 Avg. views
For more on Contextual Audiences tailored for the season, reach out.
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Connected TVs (CTV) are emerging as the device of choice globally, swiftly replacing traditional television. With the number of people canceling their linear cable subscriptions in favor of subscription-based streaming services and apps on the rise, CTV advertising is one of the most popular marketing channels today. To put that in perspective, CTV viewership is set to hit 55 million in 2024 with strong projected growth in 2025!
The CTV audience is distributed across various CTV devices, including smart TVs, set-top boxes, and gaming consoles. As traditional TV viewership declines, advertisers are skipping the broad demographic targeting practices of linear TV advertising and switching to CTV ads for potentially higher engagement. CTV advertising empowers advertisers to zero in on their ideal customers based on key parameters like demographics, interests, viewing habits, and purchase history.
- CTV measurement - Why is important.
- What are the CTV KPIs?
- How is CTV advertising success measured?
- The furure of CTV ads.
CTV measurement - Why is important
Access to the right data helps advertisers understand how campaigns are performing and gathering insights to optimize video ads for better results. Unlike traditional TV, where viewers can easily switch channels during commercials, CTV ads are harder to skip but less disruptive, leading to higher view-through rates. The process of tracking and analyzing video ad campaigns on connected TV channels is crucial to CTV measurement. CTV measurement enables seamless tracking, ad podding, and performance analysis of advertising campaigns to understand how effectively ads are reaching the target audience, incrementality, and achieving campaign goals.
Marketers plan their campaigns with specific objectives in mind, and the correct definition of CTV measurement and ad exposure enables them to evaluate the success of those objectives. CTV measurement is essential to identify if the ad investment is reaching the right viewers at the right time, understanding the benefits of CTV advertising, and assessing the ROI through conversion/site tracking and other relevant metrics involved. Just as important as ROI Measurement, it is also crucial to help identify suspicious activity and ensure budgets are reaching real viewers.
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What are the CTV KPIs?
To evaluate the performance of a campaign or strategy, these are the KPIs that are most commonly tracked by advertisers:
- Reach: How many unique viewers have seen an ad on streaming TV.
- Impressions: How many times has an ad been displayed on a viewer's screen.
- Viewability: What percentage of CTV ad impressions were seen by a viewer for 50% of the ad's duration or more. On platforms like connected TV, where ads typically occupy the entire screen, viewability rates are generally very high.
- Completion Rate: What percentage of viewers watched the ad until the end.
- Conversions: How many viewers take a desired action after seeing an ad. For example, make a purchase or sign up for a newsletter.
- Cost per Completed View (CPCV): A key revenue metric, measuring the average cost paid by an advertiser for each time someone watches an entire ad.
- View-through rate: How many people visited the site after viewing the ad.
- Incrementality: What was the incremental reach from one initiative.
These metrics help advertisers understand if the results match the goals and objectives of the campaign, make adjustments, and determine if the CTV ads messaging and streaming video content align with the right audience and resonate with them.
How is CTV advertising success measured?
From an overall visibility and campaign exposure perspective to the frequency of an ad display, the number of unique views, and conversions, key metrics help advertisers analyze campaign performance. Beyond the core CTV advertising engagement numbers, consequences and combined impact are also closely tracked.
The cumulative effect of a CTV ad campaign reflects on website traffic and the lead pipeline. Website visits, time spent on site, bounce rate, lead form submissions, share of voice across marketing channels, and overall brand awareness are key areas that see consequential effects and help determine the impact created by a CTV advertising campaign.
An in-depth analysis across these KPIs and impact areas helps advertisers uncover who viewed the CTV ads, how often and for how long, and what actions they performed after viewing the ad, to evaluate how the results tie back to the campaign goals.
One of the greatest advantages of connected TV is the ability to deliver video ads to a highly specific target audience, ensuring that messages reach the audience at the right time. Unlike traditional TV, where advertisers rely on broad demographic assumptions, CTV advertising enables real-time optimizations, providing valuable insights to refine targeting strategies.
The furure of CTV ads
Recent studies indicate that over 70% of households in the U.S. now have at least one connected TV device, demonstrating the rapid shift towards digital streaming over traditional cable services.
This shift has paved the way for more precise audience targeting, allowing brands to connect with consumers in more meaningful and measurable ways. As a result, advertisers can better allocate budgets, ensuring higher engagement and improved ROI.
In the fast-evolving world of CTV ads, staying ahead requires leveraging cutting-edge analytics and adapting to shifting consumer behaviors. By integrating CTV measurement strategies with real-time insights, advertisers can refine their approach, maximize impact, and ensure they reach the right viewers with the most relevant content.
Explore Seedtag Contextual TV, our comprehensive approach to navigating the Connected TV (CTV) landscape and measuring success.
Seedtag continues to pursue strategic expansion, making a bold move with the acquisition of JustEggs, a powerhouse in creative intelligence solutions for brands and advertisers. This play marks Seedtag’s grand entrance into the Australian market, further solidifying our footprint in the APAC region.
Founded in 2013, JustEggs is renowned for its innovative digital solutions that craft truly engaging campaigns with measurable results. The exciting news? JustEggs will be integrating Seedtag’s industry-leading contextual AI technology Liz, into their offerings starting this month. This means even more targeted and effective campaigns for JustEggs’ clients, powered by the potential of contextual AI.
A seamless transition is on the horizon, with Seedtag and JustEggs working closely to ensure smooth integration of their technologies. JustEggs’ founder, Nik Kontoulas, will continue steering the ship as Managing Director of the Australia & New Zealand region.
This strategic move follows Seedtag’s successful market entries into India, Peru, and most recently Canada. With the acquisition of JustEggs, Seedtag’s presence expands to a total of 17 markets globally.
Australia’s digital landscape is booming, with Statista predicting the number of internet users to surpass a staggering 23.3 million by 2025, translating to an internet penetration rate of over 89%. Seedtag’s entry into this thriving market is a natural step in its mission to become the go-to contextual partner for brands, agencies, and publishers alike. Users in Australia can now benefit from all the advantages of privacy-first advertising that reaches consumers based on their real-time interests at massive scale, with truly unbiased targeting.
How will we redefine contextual advertising in Australia?
- Contextual Targeting meets Creative Intelligence: Seedtag’s industry-leading contextual targeting paired with JustEggs' innovative digital solutions enables advertisers to reach highly relevant audiences with pinpoint accuracy
- Privacy-First Advertising that Delivers: In a world increasingly focused on user privacy, Seedtag and JustEggs' combined expertise ensures impactful advertising that respects privacy regulations and delivers results.
- Expanded Reach and Insights: With the integration of Seedtag's AI and JustEggs' creative solutions, advertisers and publishers gain a comprehensive view of their target audiences, optimizing campaign planning and execution across all digital platforms.
“The acquisition of JustEggs perfectly exemplifies Seedtag’s unwavering commitment to global expansion, particularly within the APAC region,” said Albert Nieto, Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Seedtag. “We are thrilled to partner with such a stellar team in our industry, pushing the boundaries of contextual intelligence to new heights.”
“Joining forces with Seedtag catapults us into a new era of digital advertising innovation for the ANZ market,” said Nik Kontoulas, founder of JustEggs. “With their cutting-edge technology and global reach, we’re equipped to conquer the cookieless world and beyond. The future is bright!”
“Australia boasts a highly sophisticated market driven by data and technology, and we’re confident we have a lot to offer the local digital advertising scene,” said Dal Gill, VP of New Markets at Seedtag. “Following our successful foray into India, this marks our second market launch in APAC. We’re firmly convinced that our unique contextual advertising solutions will empower Australian brands and publishers to achieve their advertising goals while fulfilling the demand for privacy-centric, scalable targeting.”
With privacy concerns on the rise and consumers demanding more relevant and engaging experiences, this strategic alliance ensures brands can flourish in the privacy-first era, delivering exceptional results along the way and empowering brands to connect with audiences in more markets than ever before.
Are your ad campaigns keeping pace with these evolving trends? Discover how Seedtag’s enhanced contextual advertising solutions can propel you ahead of the competition and connect with your audience in a whole new way. Contact us today to learn more.
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The International Festival of Creativity, Cannes Lions 2024, just wrapped in the French Riviera. It was action-packed as the advertising and communications industry convened for a week of world-class networking, learning, and extraordinary creativity.
The Seedtag team was thrilled to be a part of the festival, meeting partners, clients, and colleagues to explore The Power of Context, Uniting Innovation, Connection, and Creativity.
Our HQ was an uber cool penthouse suite where we welcomed people from all over the world to our exclusive Seedtag brunches, apéros and more. We also partnered with AdAge for an insightful panel discussion on the advantage of contextual AI hosted on the swanky VaynerX yacht. For a record third time, our podcast AdTech Heroes was live-streamed from Cannes, this time with a special crossover episode with The Pub Way podcast!
What are the key takeaways from the sessions at the Riviera? Mike Villalobos, VP of Strategy and Planning at Seedtag, shares all the details.
Top 3 takeaways from Cannes Lions 2024
- Contextual Advertising Strides Ahead
Contextual is all the buzz and having a pivotal resurgence given all of the legislation around privacy and user tracking limitations. While contextual has been around for a while, Seedtag’s ability to process and organize big data while leveraging custom LLMs positions the new approach to contextual as a key piece in conversations around a multitude of audience interests and first-party data. It is all about the consumer – not an assumption of who they are but their passions . But how can we transparently collect this information? Giving consumers the power to control how their data is being used beneficially and respectfully.
The world is tired of the constant conversational chaos around cookies and other identifiers going away, but the deprecation is imminent. We can’t continue to rely on third party cookies or device identifiers for much longer; those who do will most definitely be on the backfoot trying to sort through planning, targeting and attribution as they will not be ready for the future of advertising. Today, the focus lies on building a future-proof advertising strategy that pinpoints relevance – right place, right time, right audience. Advertisers are choosing the contextual route and enriching their strategies by augmenting efforts with their first-party data to display ads that truly resonate with consumers. With contextual, advertisers have a privacy-first alternative to intrusive, stereotypical, and oftentimes stale advertising practices that don’t fit the bill anymore.
- Contextual TV is the place to be
As CTV continues to disrupt the traditional TV ad market, new strengths and challenges emerge. Both buyers and sellers alike are navigating the changing landscape with telcos/OEMs now monetizing data to help buyers achieve better yields. The CTV advertising playbook is undergoing an overhaul, and the focus shifts to evoking watchers’ emotions and leverage what they might feel. While ads on linear TV do that well, they haven’t always translated to CTV ads just yet.
There was a spotlight on the key investment drivers and challenges buyers face, how sellers are aligning to meet that demand, and the difficulties around data and measurement. With increased competition and tighter ad budgets, price cuts might be among the few levers CTV players can pull to boost demand. Also, many TV manufacturers are eager to become advertising players in their own right thus fueling intense competition and uneasy collaboration, given their carriage agreements.
- It’s the Generative AI revolution
GenAI was the most discussed topic of the week at Cannes, captured in almost every booth and presentation. Beyond general topics, the emphasis was on real-world applications, their evolution, and use cases. GenAI's disruption in the creative space and impact on media production was truly the talk of the town.
The influence of GenAI on ad technology and its possible effect on agency productivity, as well as the scale of ad technology vendors and publishers, were also discussed. Other areas of interest in the GenAI space revolved around how it can be leveraged to access cleaner data and direct touchpoints with consumers to create more personalized marketing, how this data is a new form of research for brands to gain consumer insights, and the progress with use cases, approaches, and new applications like GenAI for image technology.
Curious to know more about how you can partner with us and leverage contextual advertising, CTV, or GenAI capabilities to catapult your advertising strategy? Let’s talk!
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This year’s Digiday Media Awards winners celebrate new technologies and the power of partnerships throughout their digital media campaigns. Themes across 2024’s winners include leaning into a surge in short-form video content as consumption for dithe format increases, implementing more interactive storytelling and tech like VR and AR, as well as harnessing collaborations for impactful and innovative campaigns.
Seedtag's contextual AI was named the best at the Digiday Media Awards, highlighting the importance of privacy-first solutions in shaping the future of digital advertising.
The Digiday Media Awards recognize companies all over the world modernizing digital media and have over the years honored industry-leading work from The New York Times, Salesforce, PopSugar, and many more. This year's awards acknowledge the hard work and dedication Seedtag has put into its offerings over the last decade. By continuously innovating and expanding its contextual AI technology, Liz, the company successfully meets the ever-changing needs of advertisers in the dynamic digital landscape.
With Seedtag, brands and agencies effectively reach their target audience through user's real-time interests, enabling sustainable advertising at scale across the open web and CTV. As third-party cookies are being deprecated from all major web browsers, this award affirms the power of contextual AI in reaching consumers on a privacy-first basis, setting the course for the future of digital advertising.
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It's the most colorful month of the year! Bring on the rainbows and queer. June is celebrated globally as #PrideMonth to commemorate the Stonewall riots, a pivotal moment in the LGBTQ+ rights movement. The first Pride marches were held in 1970, one year after Stonewall, and have continued ever since.
Pride Month is a time to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community's history, culture, and achievements. It's also a time to understand the oppression and discrimination faced by the LGBTQ+ community and raise awareness about the issues the community still faces today. The month of pride fights for equal justice and opportunity.
The march toward a more equal and inclusive world
Bright, bold colors, flamboyant outfits, and rainbow flags; The Pride Month parades are unique and bursting with energy. The marches present an opportunity for the people of the LGBTQ+ community and straight allies to show their solidarity and support, express freedom, and celebrate diversity.
The beauty of the pride parade is its inclusivity. People of all ages, races, ethnicities, and gender identities come together to celebrate identity, history, and the ongoing fight for equality. Overall, Pride Month focuses on raising awareness about LGBTQ+ rights, highlighting the challenges faced by the community like inequality and discrimination, and advocating for change.
Seedtag: Taking a step forward
In the ongoing struggle for equality, pride marches bring LGBTQ+ people and allies together. While progress has been made over the years, there’s still a long way to go. Brands play a pivotal role in addressing the struggles faced by the community by raising awareness and promoting understanding.
A cornerstone in this global movement is the steps brands take to shift from conventional stereotypes and build a more inclusive advertising landscape. Brands can show their support for LGBTQ+ rights by creating inclusive marketing campaigns that challenge stereotypes, celebrate diversity, and even feature LGBTQ+ people in their advertising.
Brands play a pivotal role in building the bridge towards a more inclusive advertising landscape. What values must brands embody in advertising strategies to create more inclusive campaigns?
Perspective
Representation
Inclusivity
Diversity
Empowerment
The five-pronged approach to advertising ensures a non-biased targeting strategy that helps brands consciously take great strides forward, welcome all, and create a more inclusive world.
Key takeaways: How to create an inclusive advertising strategy
- Capture diverse perspectives and viewpoints within your strategies to create messaging that strikes a chord with a larger audience base.
- Go beyond the stereotypes and traditional cohorts and represent a diverse audience that makes them feel connected to your brand and narrative.
- Champion inclusivity with messaging and targeting that fosters a sense of unity and belonging.
- Incorporate diverse narratives to capture a larger audience share with inclusive messaging that truly resonates.
- Make people the heart and soul of your narrative, empower them to define their own identity, establish authentic connections, and build long-standing customer relationships.
So, how can brands act on these ideas and build the bridge toward more inclusive ad strategies?
New-age technologies help brands understand and connect with their audiences better. Advanced advertising strategies transcend demographic data and traditional audience segmentation and rely on contextual relevance to engage users.
By displaying ads that align with the content the audience is engaging with in real-time, brands appeal to the unique interests of users. Leveraging non-discriminatory targeting practices that transcend assumptions and traditional cohorts empowers brands to reach a diverse audience. This includes individuals from various demographic groups, ethnicities, and genders.
Hyper-personalized messaging and creatives enable brands to connect with people from all backgrounds and identities effectively. The new era of advertising is inspiring brands to leave stereotypes behind and embrace an interest-based targeting approach that sparks instant connections and aligns with myriad passions, interests, and voices.
Elevate your contextual advertising game with us!
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In today’s increasingly competitive digital advertising landscape, the most important metric brands are vying for is attention. Brands want to establish themselves, actively engage with consumers, and build a loyal customer base that values the specific brand and everything it stands for.
Amidst all the chaos, brands taking steps to make their presence felt and garner audience attention must focus on a key factor: context. Advertisers have always prioritized the content and creatives that go on every ad and the target audience. But just content and targeting don’t make the cut anymore. Beyond the traditional elements, the content surrounding an ad also plays a crucial role in determining its impact on the audience.
Customers are quick to express their displeasure when irrelevant ads disrupt their browsing experience. While creating a compelling ad strategy is important, the context of an ad setting and the content accompanying an ad are equally important. The shift to a brand safety-first, contextual approach is not just being fueled by the demise of third-party cookies and the implementation of data privacy regulation but the need for contextually relevant advertising strategies.
What makes context in advertising essential?
While technology may have opened up a myriad of new channels and ad placements, when and where they meet a consumer makes all the difference. Imagine you’re reading an article on climate change and its impact and an ad for a new sports car breaks your flow. What if you search for a mountain bike once and it disrupts your online shopping experience with ads weeks later? That’s why they say context is king.
A study by DoubleVerify revealed that 69% of consumers are more likely to look at an ad if it is relevant to the content they are reading.
67% of consumers said they are open to viewing relevant ads from new brands while 44% said they have tried a specific brand after seeing a relevant ad alongside a piece of content they were consuming.
Contextual irrelevance can impact a brand beyond just attention metrics. Brands need to ensure their ads are displayed in an environment that is safe, relevant, and aligns with their values and brand image.
Prioritizing brand safety and brand suitability
Brand safety refers to the set of practices that help protect a brand’s image and reputation by ensuring it is not associated with inappropriate content or undesirable material online. Brand safety measures help prevent mismatches that can severely impact brand image. For example, imagine an organic baby food company’s ad appearing in an article about pesticide overuse. Such improper ad placements can damage the brand's image and erode consumer trust.
Brand safety measures protect reputation and display ads in a brand-safe and appropriate environment, preventing wastage of ad spend by ensuring ads are not placed next to irrelevant content that is unlikely to be effective. Brand suitability is an evolution of brand safety that goes beyond just avoiding the negative and aligns the brand with content that resonates with its values and target audience.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), has established guidelines to improve the safety and suitability of digital advertising. Understanding the GARM brand safety floor and suitability framework is integral to achieving brand safety and suitability. It enables brands to identify hazardous content or content that conveys an incorrect message about the brand’s values, ultimately improving brand alignment.
Going a Step Ahead with a Contextual Approach to Brand Safety
Brand safety vs brand suitability is no longer just about avoiding inappropriate content. It’s about strategically placing ads where they are most effective. A contextual approach empowers brands to achieve the highest levels of brand safety and suitability. The targeting strategy enables brands to reach target audiences within relevant contexts at the most opportune times, thus increasing the effectiveness of digital advertising campaigns.
Strategical ad placements create positive associations with the content and environment they appear in and allow brands to showcase their values while targeting audiences who share similar values.
Furthermore, demand-side platforms (DSPs) play a crucial role in ensuring that brands can fine-tune their targeting to match the most relevant user-generated content without compromising on brand safety measures. By leveraging AI-powered brand safety vs. brand suitability strategies, advertisers can mitigate risks and optimize their ad spend efficiently.
The Role of Contextual Technology in Brand Safety
As advertising continues to evolve, new technologies are enabling brands to implement more precise brand safety measures. AI-driven solutions analyze the context of web pages to determine their suitability for specific brand messaging, ensuring ads appear in a high-quality environment. This not only protects the brand but also enhances engagement by aligning with the right content.
Advertisers working with demand-side platforms can leverage contextual intelligence to avoid content that may pose risks and instead focus on placing ads in meaningful digital spaces. This ensures better campaign performance and strengthens consumer trust in the brand’s commitment to responsible advertising.
The Future of Brand Safety and Contextual Advertising
Contextual advertising empowers brands to achieve the highest levels of brand safety and suitability. The targeting strategy enables brands to reach target audiences within relevant contexts at the most opportune times, thus increasing the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Strategical ad placements create positive associations with the content and environment they appear in and allow brands to showcase their values and target audiences who share similar values.
As the digital ecosystem continues to evolve, advertisers must take proactive steps to ensure high-quality ad placements that align with their brand identity. Concepts of brand safety are no longer about merely avoiding harm but about fostering positive connections between brands and consumers.
With the right blend of brand safety and suitability measures in place, contextual advertising avoids negative content and strategically places ads to maximize impact and brand alignment. By integrating brand safety measures, leveraging demand-side platforms, and prioritizing safety and suitability, brands can confidently invest in digital advertising without compromising their reputation. A contextual approach will continue to shape the future of advertising, ensuring ads reach the right audience in the right environment.
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It’s no secret that independent ad agencies are becoming more appealing to big brands. Traditionally, larger advertising agencies have enjoyed a competitive edge thanks to their substantial budgets that enable investments in cutting-edge platforms and systems. However, with the advent of powerful AI for advertising, the playing field is undergoing a transformative shift, allowing independent agencies to enhance their capabilities and appeal.
There are several advantages that independent agencies currently enjoy. First, these creative agencies are often in a much better position to understand local and regional markets. Brands need to understand, speak to, and reach people at these local levels. National branding messaging can risk alienating individuals or failing to connect with them. Similarly, national media plans often miss large cohorts of consumers or spend disproportionately on large publishers for easy reach while overlooking more trusted and better-indexing publishers in their respective local markets.
Indie agencies are better positioned to understand these levels as well as better suited to execute on them.
They are more likely to have local and regional knowledge of an area's culture & media sources, which makes it easier to develop more informed and relevant messaging and media strategies.
Secondly, independent ad agencies tend to be much more agile and collaborative than their holding company counterparts. Therefore, they are able to unify creative, strategy, and media agency teams to work more closely together instead of as separate parts. With fewer departments and shareholders, as well as less hierarchy and politics than networked ad agencies, independent agencies have more of a chance to present and share work they really believe in—work that hasn’t gone through as many stages. All the things that can get in the way of great ideas—those internal barriers—are stripped away, bolstering creativity and allowing the agency team to thrive.
AI Levels The Playing Field
According to a Gartner survey, nearly 63% of marketing leaders plan to invest in AI for advertising over the next year. With this growing interest, let’s examine how independent ad agencies are currently leveraging AI to become even more impactful.
Beyond the ad agency world, countless businesses and organizations use AI for advertising to streamline their workflows. Whether it’s through automating routine tasks, brainstorming visual/copy concepts, or streamlining market/campaign research, competition is about to heat up.
Independent agencies, at times, lack the resources and bandwidth of their big-brand counterparts. But thanks to AI, these creative agencies can streamline workflows more than ever, freeing up employees to work on other creative and strategic initiatives.
By leveraging AI-driven tools and applications, these full-service agencies can automate routine tasks such as data analysis, content generation, and customer relationship management. This not only accelerates project timelines but also ensures accuracy and consistency. For independent ad agencies, AI represents an opportunity to overcome resource constraints, enhance productivity, and streamline operations.
Optimizing Ad Campaigns AI Advertising
In an era dominated by data-driven decision-making, independent ad agencies are leveraging AI to revolutionize how ad campaigns are planned and executed. By harnessing AI's predictive analytics and real-time optimization capabilities, these agencies can craft more targeted, efficient, and impactful campaigns.
From dynamically reallocating budgets to predicting consumer behavior, AI enables nimble independent agencies to stay ahead of the curve, delivering unparalleled value to advertisers and ensuring optimal returns on investment.
Horizon Media's e-commerce division, Night Market, introduced a retail media AI tool, Neon, to enhance ad investments across retail networks like Amazon, Walmart, and beyond. Neon dynamically reallocates funds during campaigns based on predictions, potentially boosting advertisers' revenue by 20% or more, according to Randy Browning, the president of Night Market.
Night Market utilizes historical data, client sales, and retailer-reported data to forecast optimal investment and improve ROI through real-time "micro-optimizations." It also boasts Hershey Co. as an early adopter (and endorser). While Horizon Media is known for its work with CPG brands, Night Market has piqued interest among non-CPG clients as well.
Personalization At Scale
Many advertising agencies are capitalizing on AI to craft personalized marketing experiences on a grand scale. By employing intelligent algorithms, agencies can uncover patterns in consumer behavior, such as product preferences, prime purchasing times, and preferred communication channels.
By adeptly utilizing AI, agencies can strategically zero in on specific audience segments identified by factors such as anticipated lifetime value. They can then develop tailored content replete with dynamic product recommendations catered precisely to these groups. Furthermore, AI helps analyze data to discern insights regarding the optimal timing for campaign launches, the perfect audience, and the most captivating content. With contextual AI, consumers are targeted based on their real-time interests, ensuring ads align perfectly with the content they are currently consuming.
AI remains an essential instrument for probing customer data and behavior to elevate personalized marketing. By harnessing AI algorithms, marketers can craft experiences that are meticulously fine-tuned to meet the unique needs and preferences of each consumer. These newfound capabilities empower independent ad agencies to boost user engagement and loyalty more effectively and fine-tune communications to deeply resonate with those consumers poised to derive the most value.
The Future of Independent Ad Agencies and AI
The rise of AI presents a unique opportunity for independent agencies to further solidify their market position. By integrating AI tools into their workflow, these agencies can enhance their entrepreneurial spirit, remaining agile while delivering data-driven, highly personalized campaigns. The ability to analyze trends, optimize campaigns in real-time, and automate workflows gives them a significant edge over holding company agencies.
As AI technology continues to evolve, expect creative agencies to develop even more innovative solutions to enhance campaign performance and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns with greater precision. This evolution will allow independent ad agencies to continue thriving in a competitive landscape, proving that size is no longer the sole determinant of success in the advertising industry.
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One of the most sought-after and viewed global sporting events, The Olympics, is back with its much-awaited 33rd edition this year. The quadrennial international multi-sport event is scheduled to take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024 in France. Paris will play host for the 2024 Summer Olympics, also known as Paris 2024.
With the games right around the corner, what’s buzzing this time of the year? What piqued the interest of the masses and how’s the trend growing; Seedtag Lab has got you the inside scoop with the exclusive Seedtag Olympic Games 2024 Insights.
For this survey, we leveraged our AI contextual technology, Liz, and looked through our worldwide publisher network to unearth valuable contextual insights.
The top category comes as no surprise - With over +700K articles and impressions, sports articles are the main category of articles related to the Olympic games. Racquet sports ~175K impressions, soccer ~160K, basketball ~40K, and cycling ~30K are the subcategories that stand out with particularly high-interest volumes.
Beyond sports, categories garnering interest include:
- Events & Attractions with a focus on celebrities, actors, and movies.
- Travel, particularly tourist destinations, and activities.
- Environment with an emphasis on animals and their natural habitats.
These categories have 50K impressions and less than 70K articles.
Who are the Olympic Games Audiences?
The Olympics is a massive advertising opportunity and brands are going all out to analyze areas of interest, audiences, and keywords. With the power of Liz and Seedtag Lab, we have arrived at Olympics game-based targeting strategies brands must leverage to get their money's worth.
- The Gambler
With a whopping 13.8M monthly impressions, gamblers love to tune in and gamify their experience of the sport by becoming a part of the action. Fantasy Footballers and The Bet Takers are key groups.
Keywords: Fantasy Football, Fantasy Premier League, online casino, Sportsbook, payout, and gambling.
- The Gamer and The Event Enjoyer
At 8.8M monthly impressions each, these are the next two groups. The gamers are interested in everything from the pitch to their controllers while the enjoyers are individuals who most likely live in and around the area of the event and enjoy the events of the Olympics.
The gamer group includes EA Sports Gamers and All-Around Gamers while the enjoyers are Urban Explorers and Culinary Enthusiasts and Entertainment Enthusiasts.
Gamer keywords: FIFA 23, Ultimate Team, EA Sports, FIFA Ultimate, Far Cry, PS5, Pokemon, Minecraft, Wii, and Nintendo Switch.
Enjoyer keywords: Best bars, restaurants, must-see places, markets, cultural places, music, entertainment, events, pop culture, streaming, social networking.
- The Family-oriented Spectator
This group garners 2.6M monthly impressions and includes key groups like Sports Enthusiasts and Family-Centric Gift Givers. These individuals enjoy family-friendly activities and events and are likely to watch the Olympics with their children, introducing them to different sports and cultures.
Keywords: Olympic qualification, games qualification, participation, winners, children's pleasure, children's gifts, toys, games, creative leisure, and vacations.
How can you attract and engage with the audiences interested in the Olympic Games?
The interest phase during the Olympics can be categorized into three parts: pre-, during, and post-Olympics. You can capture attention and engage viewers with Seedtag’s enriched creative formats:
- Pre-Olympics: Leverage our engagement focus configurations to start conversations with your desired audience.
- During the Olympics: Strengthen your positioning with creatives that update according to the time of day or the events lined up.
- Post-Olympics: Stand out and celebrate with the winners and key personalities on the Paris 2024 podiums.
With the exclusive configurations developed in the Seedtag studio combined with methodical positioning at the heart of the event, brands can create a memorable advertising campaign that strikes a chord with the desired audience, engages them, and delivers an impressive brand experience.
Games wide open. Level up your ad game with Seedtag this Olympics season. Capture 2.5x attention.
Want to learn more about the top audience groups and keywords? Get your hands on our latest report!
In the dynamic world of advertising, innovation and strategic growth are essential to maintaining a competitive edge. Seedtag has made a bold move to conquer the CTV landscape by acquiring Beachfront, a premier sell-side ad platform built for Connected TV (CTV) with proprietary technology offering direct premium supply.
This acquisition comes as no surprise, as it aligns seamlessly with Seedtag’s recent launch of Contextual TV, a groundbreaking solution that harnesses AI-based network dynamics, rich insights, and bespoke creative strategies to elevate CTV advertising.
According to eMarketer, CTV ad spend is projected to exceed $30 billion in 2024, marking a 22.4% increase from 2023. This growth provides the ideal backdrop for Seedtag to advance its mission of delivering contextual advertising solutions and becoming the ultimate omnichannel partner for brands and publishers.
By integrating Beachfront’s cutting-edge technology and expertise in CTV advertising into our leading contextual solutions, powered by our contextual AI Liz, Seedtag is ready to deliver even more relevant and engaging campaigns to audiences as they enjoy their favorite content while connecting with the brands they love.
Revolutionizing CTV advertising - How we do it
- Contextual Targeting + Premium CTV: Seedtag industry-leading contextual targeting paired with Beachfront's direct CTV inventory enables advertisers to reach highly relevant audiences with laser precision - a match made in heaven!
- Expanded CTV inventory: Beachfront’s capabilities and technology provide a broader range of premium CTV placements, ensuring ads reach the right viewers at the right time across an extensive network of streaming platforms.
- Privacy-first advertising that delivers: In the cookieless future, user privacy is paramount. Seedtag and Beachfront's combined expertise will unlock impactful advertising that puts user privacy regulations first.
- Deeper audience Insights: A holistic view of target audiences, no crystal ball needed. This integration allows for more effective campaign planning and optimization across all screens where content is consumed.
“With a decade of experience maximizing campaign effectiveness on the open web by leveraging contextual AI, Seedtag is now well-equipped to help brands, agencies and publishers navigate the challenges of CTV advertising,” said Jorge Poyatos, Co-CEO of Seedtag. “With the acquisition of Beachfront, we will further enrich our unique Contextual TV solution by incorporating a native platform into our stack, adding additional signals to our AI, and expanding our publisher partnerships. This move aligns perfectly with our mission to create the most effective advertising technology for a privacy first world, now also available on CTV.”
The teams at Seedtag and Beachfront are already collaborating to ensure a smooth integration of their technologies, promising a seamless experience for their partners. This strategic acquisition marks a significant milestone in Seedtag’s journey to build the future of contextual advertising through technology and deliver unmatched value to advertisers in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Chris Maccaro, CEO of Beachfront, shared his enthusiasm: “In recent years, the CTV advertising ecosystem has undergone significant growth and transformation. Beachfront has proudly served at the forefront of this industry-wide change, helping premium CTV media sellers drive monetization and deliver exceptional viewer experiences. With Seedtag’s unique solutions, global footprint, and scaled demand partnerships, we are excited to advance our services and creative value for our CTV publisher partners.”
Brian Danzis, President North America at Seedtag, added: “As we have done on the open web, Seedtag is committed to bringing unique, innovative solutions to contextualizing CTV programming. The acquisition of Beachfront will accelerate these efforts by combining access to direct premium supply with our proprietary approach to creating privacy-first audiences, optimizing creative and placements, and delivering insightful, action-oriented reporting and measurement.”
With privacy concerns on the rise and consumers demanding more relevant and engaging digital experiences, it’s crucial for brands to adapt their advertising strategies. Seedtag’s acquisition of Beachfront is a testament to its commitment to innovation and excellence, ensuring that advertisers can thrive in the privacy-first era while delivering exceptional results.
Are your ad campaigns keeping pace with these evolving trends? Discover how Seedtag’s enhanced contextual advertising solutions can help you stay ahead of the competition and connect with your audience like never before. Contact us today to learn more.
Connected TV, or CTV, no longer requires an introduction. The digital era has enabled hyper-connectivity and access to the internet which made information readily accessible anytime, anywhere. With CTV, the Internet was brought to the world of television, and any television set that can connect to the Internet can now stream video content, welcome to the future of Connected TV.
CTV has become increasingly popular as it offers a wider range of content than traditional television, and viewers can watch content of their choice, whenever they want.
This evolving landscape presents opportunities for advertisers to enhance the ad experience through interactive ads and advanced targeting capabilities.
On-demand viewing, flexibility, and access to a vast library of content make CTV the favored choice among viewers. These numbers will only continue to grow as more people switch to streaming services and internet-connected devices. The seismic shift in audience base has revolutionized advertising by paving the way for hyper-targeted CTV advertising with enhanced audience targeting capabilities and precise targeting methods.
What is Connected TV advertising?
CTV advertising has overcome the limitations of traditional TV ads where all ads are broadcast to a general audience. It focuses on personalized ads and relevant targeting based on audience interests and viewing habits. This interest-based targeting approach increases engagement and potentially boosts conversion rates for advertisers.
CTV advertising allows viewers to see ads that are relevant to them and helps measure campaign effectiveness, beating the limited tracking capabilities of traditional TV advertising. Access to key metrics like impressions, completion rates, and attribution of ad exposure to website visits or in-store purchases enables better measurement, campaign optimization, and ROI on CTV ad spend.
Navigating CTV advertising
A new channel that advertisers are actively tapping into, CTV advertising presents a massive opportunity for advertisers to effectively capture and engage with their target audience at the right time. However, similar to other channels of advertising, CTV advertising also has its limitations. Advertisers need to be mindful of poor inventory, quality concerns, ad fraud, and limited campaign measurement.
Contextual advertising has been garnering a lot of traction ever since the cookie phase-out announcement. Contextual targeting practices are emerging as a preferred solution among advertisers because of its hyper-personalization capabilities and the potential to measure campaign effectiveness through relevant and accurate metrics.
Contextual-connected TV advertising is bringing the magic of contextual targeting to CTV, allowing advertisers to target viewers based on the content they are currently watching. Contextual CTV targeting goes beyond generic demographics or browsing history and dives into the details of a viewer’s current channel, show, or genre. To determine what genres and programs work best for them, advertisers leverage information like descriptions, keywords, and genre classifications.
Post-analysis, the ads are aligned with the content being watched, thus improving the chances of ads appealing to the audience as they find them relevant and engaging. By analyzing the specifics, Contextual CTV goes beyond broad genre targeting and focuses on analyzing specific themes, topics, and emotions of programs to ensure a good fit for the ad. This evolving landscape of advertising is reshaping how brands connect with audiences through connected TV advertising.
Seedtag Contextual TV
We’ve been closely observing market trends and decided to bring our Open Web expertise to the CTV landscape. For 10+ years, we have been partnering with businesses and helping them connect with their audiences using technology we developed in-house for user understanding and targeting.
At Seedtag, we analyzed the CTV advertising space and uncovered the limitations around targeting precision. We aimed to empower advertisers to overcome the most traditional challenges:
- Targeting: Going beyond generic categories and genres with precise targeting capabilities.
- Reporting - Accessing valuable attention metrics and gauging the effectiveness of campaigns.
- Ad creatives - Creating ads that capture attention through an objective-led creative strategy .
Our objective was to explore how we could transfer all the possibilities and learnings from the open web campaigns to CTV, and we mapped topics between the two ecosystems. With Contextual TV, we are identifying audiences in the open web and bringing the benefits and granularity that we offer to CTV advertising through programmatic advertising:
- Comprehensive reporting to truly measure success.
- Engaging creatives that get attention.
- Targeting beyond genres.
- Maximize viewer attention.
How to manage the future of Connected TV
With Contextual TV by Seedtag, we are taking the learnings from our open web analysis and transferring that knowledge to find users in the CTV space. This allows more precision as we go beyond the genres and limitations of traditional CTV targeting methods.
Leverage our unmatched targeting capabilities, powered by the data extracted from the open web, to discover untapped opportunities and engage with the right audience at the right time, with the right message. These campaigns can reach a more targeted audience base and improve overall engagement. With the rise of smart TVs, advertisers must stay ahead by leveraging innovative solutions that enhance the ad experience.
Want to learn more about CTV and our exclusive contextual approach to CTV? Register to Seedtag Academy and become an expert on all things CTV!
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