2021 NewFronts Recap from Media Impact Report #26

Living the Stream: Recapping the 2021 NewFronts

Common themes we saw emerge in the 2021 Newfronts, commonly known as the digital version of the Upfronts, included a massive focus on streaming content and many partners expanding out their own unique platform offerings through new ad units and integrations with creators and original content. The Newfronts built on a lot of the themes we saw last year, with more advanced offerings being developed as consumers continue to move to digital channels for their media.

YouTube

• Investing in new YouTube Originals programming, including partnerships with Alicia Keys and Will Smith, along with their YouTube creators
• YouTube Select offerings including content line ups, YouTube TV inventory, Auction and NFL Game Day All Access (returning this fall) and are available in the upfront
• YouTube Ads on CTV devices will now allow users to send information to their 2nd screen mobile device while they continue to watch content on their TV
• Product expansion with new YouTube Shorts, which can be found on the mobile app—short form vertical video that is taking on TikTok

Amazon

• Currently there are 300 Amazon customer accounts globally; 1 in 3 in the US use Amazon OTT monthly—which includes IMDb TV (Amazon’s free streaming service), sports partnerships, and top streaming apps accessed via FireTV
• Amazon Studios is also working on developing original content for IMDb TV—including new “On Call,” a project from Judge Judy, and Jeff Lewis
• New interactive CTV ads that allow users to order directly from Alexa and order items from their Amazon account
• Twitch offers partnership channels, including partnerships with Rolling Stone, AMC’s The Walking Dead, and Thursday Night Football on the Prime Video channel—allowing Twitch to expand even further from its gaming roots

DoubleVerify

• Offers measurement to see the “Authentic Ad,” viewed by a real person, in brand safe content, in the intended geo
• DV can also measure time in-view, played with sound, and size of player for in-view and audible completions
• OpenAP is a consortium of programmers, allowing for advanced audience targeting across partners with audience guarantees above and beyond standard demo for linear
• New OpenID product allows advertisers to uniformly define the audience with one dataset, and push to OpenAP partners for activation across linear and digital

To read the full recap, and the rest of Media Impact Report #26, Click Here.