Yesterday, agentic media solutions platform Scope3, led by CEO and co-founder Brian O’Kelley, began a nearly hour-long webinar by announcing new sustainability partnerships with TikTok and iHeartRadio as Scope3’s data APIs extend across the web.
O’Kelley and team also highlighted Brand Story, a product requiring the marketer to deliver “vibes“ and simple prompts to Scope3’s AI which, in return, provided gobs of insights and audiences.
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See webinar video (51 minutes)
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See Brand Story demo on LinkedIn (8 minutes)
Enhancing its ability to compete with brand safety tech providers like DoubleVerify, Scope3 showed views of “live” campaign performance and the platform’s new “Brand Standards” as well as “News Access,” which aims to help make the mine field of targeting news content more acceptable (for buyers) and monetize-able (for publishers).
more: “Scope3 inks TikTok sustainability pact, reveals Brand Stories tie-up with OMG” (June 10) – Digiday (subscription)
BOK on vibe targeting
Also discussed in yesterday’s webinar was what Mr. O’Kelley called “vibe targeting” which plays off the idea of “vibe coding” where you code and – you know – give in to “the vibes.”
BOK, as O’Kelley is informally known, does not appear to be kidding. (Hey, the guy who first coined “vibe coding” in February wasn’t kidding either. Read that one on X.)
Yesterday, on his own Substack called “BOK on Ads,” BOK laid down his extensive “vibe targeting” thesis and concluded:
“There are lots of details to work out. The agent needs reporting data to optimize results over time. Campaigns need to be set up around brand stories and their variants. Agency folks need to be trained to prompt engineer. Ad tech pundits have to weigh in. It’s a lot! But I’m pretty confident it’s going to happen… and sooner than you think.”
punditry thoughts: Sigma.
new WPP Open tools
WPP Open CTO Stephan Pretorius (formerly of Acceleration/Choreograph) said yesterday that WPP’s “Large Marketing Model” (i.e. Open) was launching AgentBuilder Pro. The previous version – AgentBuilder – already had “30,000 agents” servicing WPP Media’s clients, he said.
Pretorius provided a screenshot on LinkedIn of the new tools in action and… Could these be Scope3’s new brand prompts and structure? Where Open’s tools begin or end with the help of ad tech vendors is unclear.
According to Pretorious – as part of AgentBuilder Pro – 8 new tools are being added to Open:
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“Steps – Empower agents to complete long-running or structured processes using an expanding library of step options…“
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“Multi Agent collaboration – Group agents into clusters to collaborate effectively. You can either let them determine the sequence or define one yourself using Steps.“
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“Learning Center Enable agents to continuously improve through user feedback and automatic learning with human-in-the-loop. Our evaluation/testing center ensures changes won’t disrupt existing capabilities. These market-leading features enhance agent performance over time.”
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“Model Selection – Seamlessly switch your agent’s underlying model with a single click.“
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“User Memories – Agents can now create memories to personalise user experiences. Memories can apply globally across all agents/models or be specific to individual agents.“
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Agent & Workspace Memories – Agents can receive memories from various sources, including user feedback, workspace admins, and the Open Hierarchy. This enables dynamic responses to events and streamlined communication of critical information.“
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Guardrails – Ensure responsible AI deployment with customisable guardrails. These rules flag unwanted responses and validate outputs independently, providing an extra layer of security and compliance.”
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“Conversation Starters – (…) Configure agents to provide users with suggested starter questions to overcome the blank sheet challenge, and to help users ask better questions.”
Google RIF
- “Google Offers Buyouts to Employees in Search and Ads, Other Unit (June 10) – The Information (subscription)
- Google offers buyouts to employees across the company, including Search (June 10) – CNBC
“‘I want to be very clear: If you’re excited about your work, energized by the opportunity ahead, and performing well, I really (really!) hope you don’t take this! We have ambitious plans and tons to get done,’ [Google executive Nick] Fox wrote, according to the memo which was reviewed by CNBC. ‘On the other hand, this VEP offers a supportive exit path for those of you who don’t feel aligned with our strategy, don’t feel energized by your work, or are having difficulty meeting the expectations of your role.’” – CNBC on June 10
thought bubble: Blame AI?
Hard to say the origins of the reduction-in-force… -a culling of the bottom 10%? -product roadmap changing? -culture shift? But, if enough heads don’t take the VEP, layoffs could be next.
GEO landscape
Likely touting part of his venture firm – Aperiam’s – own book, Danilo Tauro linked to an a16z landscape map of GEO companies a.k.a. Generative Engine Optimization) on LinkedIn yesterday.
With answer engines increasingly drawing consumer attention, some in the investment community are bettingthat search engines are on the way out. Bring on the GEO tools and specialists!
Tauro said on Linkedin, “…if SEO built a generation of web-native businesses, GEO will shape the next wave of AI-native brands.”
agent pitch to pubs
In a sponsored post on Digiday, Firsthand’s co-CEO and co-founder Michael Rubenstein makes his company’s “brand agent” pitch to publishers with “Why publishers should shift to selling agents, not ads.” Read it.
AI-generated ads
Amazon Advertising said yesterday that it’s AI-powered video generator (see product page which still says “beta.”) targeting SMB marketers is now available in the U.S. after nearly two years of testing. See product page.
Amazon Ads VP of product and technology Jay Richman tells AdExchanger’s Victoria McNally, “We’re not trying to recreate a full creative suite. (…) We want our customers who are not professional marketers to be able to get in and out and onto their day job, but to do so in a way that elevates their brand beyond white backgrounds.” Read more.
Marketing Dive digs into the product: “Video generator lives on Amazon’s sponsored brand campaign builder and can surface six videos in a matter of minutes based on the advertiser’s input and campaign needs. The back end analyzes the submitted product’s detail page, including customer reviews, and feeds those factors into an image generator that then sends information into the video model.” Read more.
more: See the June 10 announcement on the Amazon Ads blog here.
zero-copied
Amidst the agentic workflow of Marketing Cloud, Salesforce SVP of Strategy, Martin Kihn, defined “clean rooms” on LinkedIn for readers yesterday and included this (new?) buzzphrase: “Your first-party data is zero-copied into the Clean Room environment (zero-copied means it is not physically moved but virtually pointed-to).”
other uses: I zero-copied the dog for a walk.
prompt: What will advertising operations teams look like in 5 years?
from claude.ai
Based on current trends and industry developments, advertising operations teams will undergo significant transformation over the next five years. Here’s what to expect:
Increased Automation and AI Integration
AI is driving automation of routine tasks, freeing up human teams for higher-level strategic work (source: The future of marketing: AI transformations by 2025). Ad ops teams will shift from manual campaign setup and monitoring to overseeing automated systems that handle:
- Real-time campaign optimization and bidding
- Dynamic creative optimization
- Automated quality assurance and troubleshooting
- Predictive analytics for performance forecasting…
still more
- News Sites Are Getting Crushed by Google’s New AI Tools (June 10) – The Wall Street Journal
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“Sources: Meta plans to build an AI lab dedicated to pursuing ‘superintelligence’, led by Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, with seven- to nine-figure compensations” (June 10) – The New York Times (subscription)
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“Apple Retreats: Apple’s WWDC was a retreat from not just last year’s WWDC, but potentially a broader reset for the company. That’s why it was a great presentation.” (June 10) – Stratechery’s Ben Thompson on X
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LVMH Bets on AI to Navigate Luxury Goods Slowdown (June 9) – The Wall Street Journal