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California Bill Requiring Browser-Based Opt-Out Reintroduced https://ift.tt/vut9qj2 For the second year in a row, a California lawmaker has introduced legislation that would require browser developers to offer a tool enabling consumers to opt out of online behavioral advertising throughout the web. AB 566, unveiled this week by state Assembly member Josh Lowenthal (D-69th District), would prohibit businesses from “developing or maintaining” web browsers that lack an opt-out preference setting. California lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a nearly identical bill last year, but it was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom, who expressed concerns about mandating tools for operating systems. “To ensure the ongoing usability of mobile devices, it's best if design questions are first addressed by developers, rather than by regulators,” Newsom stated when he disapproved the measure. advertisement advertisement Lowenthal's bill specifies that the preference signal must be “easy for a reasonable person to locate and configure.” The best known current opt-out preference signal is the Global Privacy Control -- a mechanism created by privacy advocates to enable consumers to communicate that they don't consent to the sharing of their online data for ad purposes. Some developers -- including Mozilla, Brave and DuckDuckGo -- have already built the Global Privacy Control into their browsers. Google's Chrome doesn't include the “Global Privacy Control” setting, but has long had a “do-not-track” setting, which sends a no-tracking request to all websites that consumers visit. It's not clear whether Google could revise the do-not-track command so that it could serve as an opt-out preference signal. Apple used to include a “do-not-track” setting in Safari, but disabled the setting in 2019 due to concerns that ad-tech companies would exploit the signal for device fingerprinting -- a tracking technique that identifies users based on characteristics of their browsers. Without a universal opt-out preference signal, consumers who want to reject behaviorally targeted ads can click on web companies' opt-out links one-by-one, or can use a tool created an ad industry group. Those ad industry groups' tools allow people to opt out of multiple companies that belong to ad industry organizations. The ad industry opposed last year's version of the bill, arguing that consumers can already access opt-out tools. Industry groups also argued that the bill would have enshrined into law a misinterpretation of the state privacy statute. The current California privacy law gives consumers the right to reject “cross-context” behavioral advertising -- meaning ads served based on activity across different sites. The state's privacy agency has interpreted that law as requiring companies to honor opt-out requests that consumers transmit through browser-based tools like the Global Privacy Control. But the ad industry argued to Newsom last year that the text of the privacy law actually gives companies a choice between offering an opt-out link on their homepages or honoring opt-out preference signals. “Under the law, businesses may either provide a footer link to enable consumers to opt out of sales and sharing or to allow consumers to opt out via an opt-out preference signal,” the Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies, Interactive Advertising Bureau, American Advertising Federation and Digital Advertising Alliance said in a letter asking Newsom to veto the bill. Some privacy advocates have argued that a different provision of the California law mandates companies to honor global opt-outs. That provision says a consumer “may authorize another person” to opt-out of data sharing on the consumer's behalf, and that the authorized opt-out can be effectuated through an opt-out preference signal. Several other states -- including Colorado, Delaware, Maryland and Oregon -- have recently passed privacy laws that unambiguously require companies to honor universal opt-out signals. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/fi4wKkl February 14, 2025 at 10:45PM
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Aspercreme Wants Boomers To Act Their Active Age https://ift.tt/ldNZy6f ![]() “Don’t feel your age. Act your age. Aspercreme.” Squarely targeting baby boomers, that’s the tagline of pain relief brand Aspercreme’s first major campaign in four years, running through June 30. While the previous campaign, “Kick Pain in the Aspercreme” focused on obviously fictional situations like sword-wielding women and men fighting in the street action-movie style, “Act Your Age” centers around four :15 spots showing real baby boomers in real-life situations: doing yoga, drumming, rock climbing, and motorcycling. advertisement advertisement The spots “were crafted with the insight of ‘age makes you interesting’” and “to ensure we balanced aspiration with relatability,” according to Claudine Patel, CMO at Aspercreme parent Opella North America, formerly Sanofi Consumer Healthcare. Each of the four protagonists are “authentically defying outdated perceptions of aging,” Patel tells Marketing Daily. “Boomers really are thriving in their golden years, despite the stereotypes and what many perceive,” she declares, pointing to proprietary Aspercreme research conducted in December. In that survey of 1,000 baby boomers and 1,000 non-boomers by Talker Research, “We identified several key data points,” Patel says. “Notably, 46% of boomers feel happier now than when they were younger, and 21% report being more active today than in their youth. Additionally, over three-quarters (77%) no longer care what others think of them, with 63% living life to the fullest as a result.” Directly relating to the ad content, the study found that 17% of boomers had taken up cycling, and 16%, yoga. Non-boomers, meanwhile, were found to often associate being "old" with forgetfulness (45%), decreased strength (41%), or needing mobility aids (40%). Among other findings: 50% of boomers refute the idea they lead boring lives, 48% disagree with claims that they refuse to learn new things, 46% reject the assumption they don’t understand technology, 34% keep up with current celebrities, and 28% are familiar with today's slang. While boomers are the focus of Aspercreme’s “Act Your Age,” the target audience gets into most of Gen X as well, as Patel says the campaign’s demo is 50+. To reach them, Aspercreme is using streaming video, Meta, programmatic digital and mobile, with media buying handled by Havas. While “Kick Pain in the Aspercreme” was created by the Terri & Sandy agency, “Act Your Age” comes from The Martin Agency. In addition to the paid campaign, Aspercreme has teamed with two celebrities to help “reframe” the brand: season one “Golden Bachelorette” contestant Joan Vassos and personal trainer/wellness expert Joyce Shulman. Vassos, Patel says, “finds different ways to remain vibrant, active and youthful whether it’s chasing her grandkids around, walking her dog or traveling,” while Shulman ,“a loyal user of the brand for years…also recommends Aspercreme to her clients as a way for them to relieve their pain so they can stay active and enjoy life.” Aspercreme has also engaged active boomer social media influencers, via the Influential agency. In toto, the new campaign “takes a more empowering, insight-driven approach” than the brand has done in the past, “aligning with how today's boomers truly feel,” Patel says. Aspercreme is now being positioned as the brand “that gives “our active-boomer consumers the freedom to age without pain holding them back,” she adds. Unlike competitors who Patel says are “focused on embracing the aging stereotypes with functional messaging,” Aspercreme “has defined our role as the brand who defies pain’s power with science, so you can defy aging’s stereotypes.” She adds, “Aging does bring on more aches and pains. The thing is, boomers aren’t letting the pain get in their way of doing the things they love, and we love that attitude.” Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/fi4wKkl February 14, 2025 at 04:05PM
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AppLovin Divesting Apps Business To Dig Into Ads, Ecommerce https://ift.tt/GEgXblz Adam Foroughi, CEO, co-founder and chairman of AppLovin, announced this week the company would divest its gaming studio apps business for $900 million, comprising $500 million in cash and a minority equity stake in the combined private company. The goal is to move deeper into ecommerce. “We've signed an exclusive term sheet to sell all of our apps business," Foroughi said during the company’s most recent earnings call. Foroughi said the company’s teams would “soon be part of a company that specializes in and champions game development, adding that the "company is transitioning to a pure advertising platform, with a focus on productivity, automation, and building lean, high-impact teams. Revenue for the company in Q4 2024 rose 44% from the year-ago period to $1.37 billion. During the quarter, the company generated $695 million in free cash flow, up 105% year-over-year. AppLovin’s advertising business generated $999 million in revenue and $777 million in adjusted EBITDA, achieving a 78% margin. advertisement advertisement Prescient.ai has been following AppLovin's media-mix modeling trends and this week released its second report around visibility into spend, halo effects and a Black Friday and Cyber Monday recap, as well as new customers' cost of acquisitions. The data shows that halo effects by weekly cohort have changed since the holidays, and more favorably for AppLovin. While AppLovin’s position in the overall range is still lower than Meta's — about 30%, now 22% — AppLovin's is now more in line with Google — about 23%, just behind TikTok at about 25%. AppLovin's move toward automating an entire system and deeper entrance into ecommerce and AI will allow the company to go after the “very, very large set of advertisers that are in the 10 million-plus range in the world over the next coming quarters, years, and decade plus.," the company said. Specific details about the performance of advertisers in the ecommerce pilot were scarce, but Foroughi said its Axon models are showing "positive outcomes for a range of advertisers,” pointing to but limited to direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands. When an analyst asked during the earnings call for the number of people dedicated to an ecommerce, pilot, Foroughi said that would be about 1,000 for the entire advertising business, including at subsidiaries like Adjust and Wurl. The ecommerce go-to-market team is comprised of roughly 20 people, as the company works through self-service tools and automation. Consumers are spending on mobile devices. Since AppLovin went public in 2021, is found success with advertising to mobile-game users. More than 2 billion people play mobile games worldwide. The audience rivals TikTok and Meta Platforms, Bank of America analyst Omar Dessouky told The Wall Street Journal. “None of those companies have ever tried to monetize this audience,” Dessouky told the WSJ. “Every four years or so a new customer acquisition model disrupts the advertising landscape. TikTok was the last one.” Ads on mobile games primarily marketed other gaming ads to gamers because it had been difficult to figure out what products those users want. Working with advertisers could mean something similar to what Amazon now offers with its platform. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/fi4wKkl February 14, 2025 at 12:57PM
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Netflix Looks - And Listens - To Podcast Possibilities https://ift.tt/qSeR4pa ![]() Scouring every bit of video consumerism, now Netflix is considering getting into video podcasting. And why not? Netflix is in the driver's seat when it comes to attention and time on their platform by its subscribers. With its total addressable market in the TV/streaming video space near saturation in certain markets -- 70% in the U.S. and Canada and Australia and 60% in the United Kingdom -- Laurent Yoon, media analyst of Bernstein Research, says Netflix is looking at around 500 million podcast listeners globally as a potential new revenue stream. According to Bernstein analysis, just 0.4% of podcasts now come on smart TV -- with 88% of podcast content, largely audio-driven, available on mobile. Right now, Apple and Spotify control 90% of this business on mobile devices. Yoon believes the goal is to not look to immediately gain a big share, but to offer more diverse video content. advertisement advertisement Consider that some years ago, Netflix also looked in this vein in offering new video game products. So how has that worked out? Netflix's gaming service had significant growth in 2023 with 81 million downloads, up from 28.7 million the previous year. But growth has slowed recently, according to The Wall Street Journal. Only about 1% of Netflix’s daily active users play games. The podcast business appeals to a broader audience, and not just on mobile. Increasingly, it now shows up on YouTube -- which continues to see benefit from having this content on its video service. About 44% of the U.S. population is consuming podcast content on a monthly basis. Netflix has been toying with podcast content for a while and now may have a little more incentive -- perhaps looking to move audio-based podcasts to video. Recently Fox Corp. announced it would buy video podcast business, Red Seat Ventures. Sometimes you need to not only see what your competition is doing, but then listen as well. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/dDh6FL1 February 14, 2025 at 07:29AM
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YouTube Citations In Google AI Overviews Rise 25% https://ift.tt/49X1g2T YouTube turns 20 this year. Creators have moved from creating grainy videos to feature-length movies. People are doing more than watching YouTube content on their computers or phones. Neal Mohan, YouTube CEO, explained in a blog post how TV has surpassed mobile to become the primary device in the U.S. for viewing by watch time. YouTube has become the No. 1 in streaming watch time in the U.S. for two years, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge Report, February 2023 to January 2025. Google AI and AI Overviews makes a big difference in how people create and consume content on YouTube. advertisement advertisement "Every thriving industry needs a healthy startup culture," Mohan wrote in a blog post. "Creators are bringing that startup mindset to Hollywood: leaning into new models of production, building studios to elevate their production quality, and exploring new creative avenues. They are creating a whole new playing field for entertainment and the businesses behind them." BrightEdge has kept pace with identifying trends on how Google AI Overviews (AIO) taps YouTube and serves up content in its engine. YouTube has become a valuable citation source, with a 25.21% increase since January 1, and 36.66% month-over-month growth from January through February. Keywords with an AIO that cites YouTube includes 31.2% instructional content, with “how-to” queries leading with 22.4%, followed by visual demonstrations at 28.5%, verification and examples at 19.7% for product comparisons and visual proof, and current events at 8.2% like breaking news and live coverage. By industry, AIOs with YouTube citations include healthcare about 41.97% of the time, ecommerce at 30.87%, B2B tech at 18.68%, finance at 9.52%, travel at 8.65%, insurance at 8.62%, and education at 3.87%. BrightEdge identified patterns that reveal a clear shift. AIOs are actively integrating video content to enhance answer quality, particularly for visual demonstrations such as step-by-step tutorials, product comparisons, and real-world examples. AI Overviews cite YouTube for instructional videos about 35.6% of the time, visual demos for 32.5% of the time, examples for 22.5% of the time, and news 9.4% of the time. Nearly 60% of citations for videos involve instructions or demonstrations. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/dDh6FL1 February 13, 2025 at 03:49PM
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YouTube's Mohan: 'New TV' Unlike The Old - What Do Consumers Call It? https://ift.tt/VWNfEg5 ![]() YouTube is TV -- at least according to company executives. Now, primary YouTube viewing comes via the TV screen, exceeding that of mobile. So can it go further -- finding content niches that have yet to be explored, including more original premium entertainment TV? We could ignore the fact that YouTube keeps rising in usage -- now representing 11.1% of all total TV viewing time, according to Nielsen metrics. YouTube --- along with advertising video-on-demand platforms -- displays the only real growth areas in streaming. But does brand awareness among consumers change? Largely YouTube still relies small independent creator-generated stuff. That said, increasing there are other premium events -- under the YouTube brand name -- which squeezes into the picture. “From elections to the Olympics to Coachella to the Super Bowl and the Cricket World Cup, the world’s biggest moments play out on YouTube,” CEO of YouTube Neal Mohan wrote recently. advertisement advertisement He adds that future plans include rolling “out more tools to support podcasters, improve monetization for creators, and make it even easier to discover podcasts.” Also there’s also more YouTube Shorts and live streaming content into the mix. This all should not be confused with subscription services: YouTube Premium, ad-free programming, mostly library sitcoms, talkshow, and some original; YouTube Primetime Channels ( a la carte live channels); or YouTube TV( cable TV-like packages of channels). These are mostly traditional TV-like looking platforms. Except for the very pricey NFL Sunday Ticket -- around $449 a year -- premium original entertainment TV shows are no longer a regular YouTube’s thing. They stopped producing original TV series in 2022. Entering a maturing streaming marketplace now, is not the way to go. And consider with advertising revenues now soaring on YouTube -- pulling in about $10 billion a quarter -- why change? So what are we left with? YouTube is all about TV now, but not of traditional looking TV shows and movie content. Still, it gets compared with Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video -- as well as ABC, CBS, and NBC -- when Nielsen includes it in its Total TV & Streaming measurement stuff. In the fourth quarter 2024 YouTube viewing was at 17.7 billion hours -- up from 15.1 billion in the third quarter, and 14.2 billion in the fourth quarter 2023. It is not just that YouTube is “now TV”. Mohan says more specifically, it is “new television... [not] like the ‘old’ television.” Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/dDh6FL1 February 13, 2025 at 08:40AM
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Tubi Dominated Super Bowl Social Conversation https://ift.tt/uczXewV
That’s according to a report by social media analytics company Sprout Social, entitled “The Most Mentioned Super Bowl Advertisers on Social Media,” which tracked data across platforms Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, and Tumblr. In addition to topping the list of brand mentions at 107,479, it also racked up 1,453,579 engagements. Runner-up Doritos racked up 19,.886 mentions and 58,254 engagements; followed by T-Mobile with 10,633 mentions and 209,212 engagements. By way of comparison, halftimte performer Kendrick Lamar had 887,243 mentions and 14 million engagements. “This year’s most popular Super Bowl ads are ones that meet and engage with fans where they are–on social. Super Bowl darling Tubi, which amassed the most social mentions during the big game, supported their campaign with influencer partnerships and a TikTok filter,” Sprout Social Director of Social Media Rachael Goulet said in a statement. advertisement advertisement In addition to running a Super Bowl campaign, "Cowboy Head," since transformed into “Tubi Movies,” the platform also live-streamed the Super Bowl for free. That may have had an impact on the results, as is true of number five on the list, FanDuel – which had 6,039 mentions and 8,737 impressions. “Cowboy Head” is the story of a boy who grows up always wearing a cowboy hat -- evidence of his predilection for Westerns -- and is mocked by people wearing hats indicating other kinds of content, from vampires to pirates to fantasy. Ultimately, though, the message is, “Like what you like.” “We do our best to remove unrelated mentions, but it’s unlikely that every mention of a Super Bowl advertiser on social media is directly related to their in-game commercials,” a representative for Sprout Social told Marketing Daily, with FanDuel’s results, for example, “refined to remove unrelated terms like bet, parlay, wager that would cause a lot of noise.” T-Mobile’s number three performance follows rival wireless brand Verizon topping the list as most mentioned advertiser last year for its spot featuring Beyonce, with 52,936 mentions on Feb 11, 2024. Sprout Social also tracked social media data in the lead-up to the game. Bud Light topped the list of social media mentions for Super Bowl advertisers from 1/29-2/4, with 3,989 mentions and 460,609 engagements. Uber Eats was the runner up, with 1,431 mentions and 22,902 engagements, followed by Tubi, Doritos, and Budweiser. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/lGa6Lfu February 11, 2025 at 06:12PM
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Apple, Google Remove Malicious Mobile Apps From Respective App Stores https://ift.tt/hm8VRkD Apple and Google have pulled apps from their app stores after security researchers found them carrying data-stealing malware for nearly one year. The mobile app market is substantial. AppLovin forecasts the mobile app market will see significant growth in the next two years, with global mobile app downloads reaching 181 billion and consumer spending projected to hit $233 billion by 2026. Security researchers at Kaspersky described the malware, SparkCat, as a data-stealing Trojan found to be active in Apple's AppStore and Google Play. They believe it has been floating around the app stores since at least March 2024. SparkCat uses machine learning to scan image galleries and steal screenshots containing cryptocurrency wallet recovery phrases. It can also find and extract other sensitive data in images, such as passwords. advertisement advertisement There have been more than 242,000 downloads of infected apps from Google Play alone. This is the first known instance of optical recognition-based malware appearing in AppStore. The malware has infected legitimate apps as well as lures, an app that features interactive chat stories told in the form of text messages. The researchers did not describe how this type of Trojan would affect ads inside the apps. Some of these apps are available on official platforms in Google Play and AppStore. Kaspersky telemetry data also shows that infected versions are being distributed through other unofficial sources, according to the security firm's blog post. The malware primarily targets users in the United Arab Emirates and countries in Europe and Asia. SparkCat scans image galleries for keywords in multiple languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English, Czech, French, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese. Experts believe victims could be from other countries as well. Researchers describe the onCreate method in the application’s entry points had been overridden in version 2.0.0. The method initializes an SDK component named “Spark.” The team had to statically “deobfuscated” it, which requires making code that has been intentionally obscured easier to understand before analyzing it. Beyond stealing recovery phrases, the malware is capable of extracting other personal information from screenshots, such as messages and passwords." “The SparkCat campaign has some unique features that make it dangerous. First of all, it spreads through official app stores and operates without obvious signs of infection. "The stealthiness of this Trojan makes it hard to discover it for both store moderators and mobile users,” Dmitry Kalinin, malware analyst at Kaspersky, wrote in a blog post. “The permissions it requests seem reasonable, making them easy to overlook. Access to the gallery that the malware attempts to reach may seem essential for the app to function properly, as it appears from the user perspective.” Kalinin added that this permission is typically requested in relevant contexts, such as when users contact customer support.” Analyzing Android versions of the malware, Kaspersky experts found comments in the code written in Chinese. The iOS version contained the developer home directory names “qiongwu” and “quiwengjing.”
Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/lGa6Lfu February 11, 2025 at 02:48PM
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Womanizer Accuses NASCAR Of Sexual Double Standards, Drives OOH Push https://ift.tt/NTGDWCA ![]()
Denied the chance to sponsor a driver in 2025 — though NASCAR has accepted men's sexual wellness brands Viagra and ExtenZE — Womanizer struck back. Is there a double standard in sports marketing? Is female pleasure not as important as the male's? Womanizer has answered both questions in a new in-house creative campaign, posting billboards directly across from Daytona International Speedway during the week of the Daytona 500. It's the biggest race of the year, attracting millions of viewers. The billboard will be up through March 3. In addition, a mobile billboard will travel around Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 12 for Daytona 500 Media Day to catch journalists’ attention and highlight perceived bias. advertisement advertisement “This isn’t just about one sponsorship rejection. This is about addressing a larger cultural bias,” said Verena Singmann, PR head for Womanizer. “Sexual wellness and pleasure are not things we need to shy away from — it is a part of everyday life. Just like the other industries NASCAR has chosen to embrace. We hope this campaign will encourage NASCAR to rethink its approach and recognize the importance of varied sponsors.” Viagra was a major NASCAR sponsor in the early 2000s. As recently as 2022, GAINSWave, an erectile dysfunction treatment, appeared as a co-sponsor. NASCAR has also partnered with alcohol, nicotine, gambling and firearm brands. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/lGa6Lfu February 11, 2025 at 09:56AM
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Simple Super Bowl Ad Lure: Free, Everyday Stuff - Or Water https://ift.tt/Hvd0BsO The best Super Bowl commercial this year -- from a performance-based perspective -- may be the one that simply offered a new product for free. Initially, anyway. T-Mobile and Starlink are teaming to offer “the only space based” wireless service, according to the ad, with the launch of hundreds of satellites. The overall goal is to reduce messages and phone calls that are not received or connected. In other words, no land-based cell phone towers -- where there can be dropped signals or where there aren’t enough towers in rural locations -- are needed. The minute-long spot says it is offering anyone on any wireless carrier “to experience it for free.” That is until July, according to the fine print. The voiceover was big and dramatic, ending with a very big on screen word -- “free”. According to EDO AdEnGage, the spot is estimated to have had a 12.6x engagement score -- with “1,163% as much impact as the average spot.” advertisement advertisement The overall conclusion from this and other messages (Google Pixel, OpenAI, and Salesforce) is that viewers were a bit more interested in “practical tech.” Health-focused advertising also did well in this Super Bowl -- for new GLP-1 drugs from Hims & Hers (7.7x) and water/sparkling water brands Liquid Death (8.0x), Poppi (5.5x), and Cirkul (6.6x). But what about those celebrity-focused, fun and entertaining spots? Just one made it onto the list of the ten best engagement producing Super Bowl spots -- the storybook theme/high action shot featuring Glen Powell for truckmaker RAM. This spot got to a 8.5x engagement score, scoring second place. Looking at the broader picture, another platform -- creative effectiveness platform DAIVID -- says the overall ads in this year’s Super Bowl were “the least effective in five years. A combined effectiveness: attention, emotions and memory metric hit an average 6.2 score out of 10, the lowest average since 2020. In addition, the average ad generated the lowest positive emotion score in two years -- 47.4% of viewers. So from all of this are viewers finally jaded to the point that those big entertaining, funny, loud rock-'n-roll soundtrack Super Bowl messages -- tuning them out when they come on during the big game? From a more practical point of advertising impact -- at $8 million for a 30-second commercial or more for next year’s event, creative minds may just think to go in another direction. Maybe they’ll lower the volume and spark, or at make a simple offer everyone can understand -- free stuff. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/lGa6Lfu February 11, 2025 at 08:10AM |
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