In a major push to equate video ads in digital out-of-home venues with linear TV, OTT and streaming, the Out-of-Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) today is releasing its first “Buyer’s Guide” devoted to video advertising.

“While linear TV has traditionally been seen as the advertising stronghold since its inception, the rapid rise of mobile, digital, streaming, and OTT has unlocked new channels and new ways of thinking,” Dentsu Media Americas CEO Doug Rozen writes in the introduction to the guide, providing a tacit endorsement for guide, which is largely a promotional pitch for out-of-home media outlets.

It also appears to be another push by the OAAA to encroach on the turf of other trade bodies, in this case, the DPAA (Digital Place-Based Advertising Association), which has long been the primary association organizing digital out-of-home video advertising industry initiatives.

It also follows pushes by the OAAA to set industry standards that would normally involve other bodies, including last week’s release of advertising measurement standards that appeared to undermine the out-of-home ad industry’s long-standing currency, Geopath, as well as mobile measurement standards for digital out-of-home media released earlier this month that were made without the involvement of other relevant trade bodies.

Flowers Foods, parent brand of Nature’s Own, Wonder, and Tastykake is sharing insights from a first-to-market program that allows for direct attribution of product sales to upper-funnel display and contextual video impressions.

The campaign was spearheaded by Flowers Foods agency partner The Richards Group along with Catalina and Amobee that enabled the agency to attribute sales from its digital media spend without the costly modeling by directly tying Catalina’s first-party data to ad campaigns.

“Many advertisers invest in very costly attribution models, but many CPG brands don’t have the budgets to afford this type of research,” explains Mary Price, media group head, Richards Group. ”Attributing media directly to sales is always tricky, especially when sales are brick and mortar and not online.”

At its core, this attribution product ensured Richards Group clients’ brand digital ads were tagged with Catalina’s proprietary pixel. Shopper ad engagement triggers a pixel ID match that anonymously captures buyer data. As such, this pixel tracks UPCs and SKUs to reveal buyer behavior patterns (trial, repeat, or new buyer).

Previously, the data was implemented manually within the tagging structure. Now that Catalina will be directly integrated as part of Amobee’s larger in-flight optimization (IFO), all the data and optimizations will be automated within the process, enabling Flowers Foods and The Richards Group to track offline performance in real time.

“Other solutions measure against a specific retailer this solution is able to aggregate sales data from multiple retailers allowing for a clear measurement of digital effectiveness against in-store sales,” says David Lee, programmatic lead, Richards Group. “Additionally, most solutions are historically reporting output only while this product operates in real time allowing for media buying to be optimized on the fly by [the agency].”

To further validate this real-time attribution, the agency concurrently ran a traditional “lift study” using Catalina’s panel along with receipt and mobile data from partnerships with mass, grocery, convenience, and drug retail channels as the targeting data set. Audiences are selected based on historical brand and/or category purchases, with only a portion of an audience exposed to the ads.

Then the exposed group is matched to the best subset of the unexposed group. With a control established, lift is determined by evaluating the difference between the groups.

All Flowers Foods brands experienced positive results with significant return on ad spending from this program, the company said.

Looking forward, The RIchards Group expects to use this model for other CPG clients as well as a case study for new business development because the agency is now directly attributing a sales increase to its brand awareness digital media.

With ad fraud, viewability and other issues impacting connected TV and mobile platforms, Pixalate, the worldwide ad fraud/marketing research company, has launched a “trust” index.

The “Publisher Trust Index” uses algorithms to measure metrics, including brand safety, invalid traffic (IVT, or ad fraud), programmatic reach and viewability. It is a MRC-accredited ad fraud measurement company.

“CTV and mobile apps remain the fastest-growing channels for programmatic advertising even as ad fraud eats around 25% of spend,” the company says.

When it comes to TV-focused apps/platforms, Hulu, fuboTV, Philo, Univision Now and NewsOn head the top 100 rankings on the Roku Channel Store. The top five for Amazon Fire TV Channel Store were Philo, Pluto TV, CNNgo, fuboTV and Sling TV.

It says the top connected TV supply-side platforms (SSP) going through Roku, in terms of its “seller trust index” include FreeWheel, Magnite, Unruly, Verizon Media, Index Exchange, EMX, PubMatic, InMobi, Triple Lift and Open X.

Other top SSPs include Xandr Monetize and Google Ad Exchange.

Much of the same SSP companies are also high on the list for the Amazon FireTV platform, with Magnite, FreeWheel, EMX, Unruly, OpenX, Xandr Monetize, Index Exchange and PubMatic taking top spots.

Other research has Pixalate saying the top five connected U.S TV devices are: Roku, Amazon, Samsung, Vizio, Apple TV.

Pixalete says those with the biggest global reach on the Roku store include Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Pluto TV, Tubi, HGTV Go, Food Network Go, HappyKids, Vudu, JW Broadcasting and Plex.

Willow, the wearable mobile breast pump, is introducing its first-ever brand campaign. Based on a bold "Declaration of Independence," the effort is meant to be a strong show of support for an army of stressed-out, lactating moms.

"We've all seen the studies on how hard the pandemic has been on working moms," says Sarah O'Leary, chief marketing officer for the San Francisco-based company. "And we know the stress and aggravation of traditional pumping is one reason new moms choose not to go back to work. So the idea behind Willow is to bring them the best technology and try to change the conversation about motherhood."

Willow, which won awards at CES when introduced several years ago, costs $499, more than competitive products. But the hands-free devices -- the two pumps tuck right inside a bra -- free women from the electrical cords and dangling bottles of traditional pumps. Using an app, Willow tracks the amount of milk expressed, which goes directly into self-contained bags.

"We declare ourselves free from being told to hide our bodies, nurse out of sight, stay at home, get back to work, fit into your perceptions of what a real mother is, free of your judgment," the copy reads. "This is our freedom to be a person as much as a mother, our freedom to be a mother as much as a person."

The campaign, created by Ona, is using out-of-home in New York City, including Times Square billboards and subways.

It also includes an influencer component, with women happily sharing photos of themselves pumping while riding bikes, doing yoga, or at the office. Among them: professional surfer Bethany Hamilton, singer-songwriter Teyana Taylor and comedian Laura Clery.

Since its launch several years ago, Willow has liberated 130,000 from conventional pumps, and its customer data shows it saves women about 240 hours a year. About 93% of its users say the technology reduces the stress of breastfeeding.

That's important. The CDC says that while 84% of new moms start breastfeeding, only 58% are still at when their baby is six months old. And 60% of mothers do not breastfeed for as long as they first planned to.

While the pandemic baby-bust hasn't cut into Willow's sales, that decrease in births "speaks to the amount of stress that moms are under. It's more urgent than ever that we're able to provide solutions that make breastfeeding a little bit easier," O'Leary says.

The pandemic has sparked an increase in interest, she says. "For one thing, breastfeeding is considered the best way to protect babies from infectious diseases. And because the milk is self-contained, it's more hygienic than other options."

Interest has been strong among healthcare workers "because they are so concerned with pumping in a way that prevents the possibility of infection," O'Leary adds.

Willow is also working to make the pump more widely available through insurance coverage, which often reduces the cost by up to $150 and provides discounts for healthcare workers. Each of the influencers is also giving away a free pump to one of her followers.

O'Leary says that after its latest round of funding, at about $82 million, Willow is set to launch additional products in the femtech space later this year. All are aimed at motherhood.

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Friday defended the company's tight App Store policies, telling a federal judge that the company's rules for apps benefit consumers as well as developers.

At the start of his four-hour long testimony, Cook told U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland that the App Store policies boost privacy and safety for iPhone and iPad users.

“Privacy from our point of view is one of the most important issues of the century,” he testified.

He added that privacy is built on “safety and security,” and that the app marketplace “would become a toxic kind of mess” if the company didn't vet apps.

Cook also said developers benefit from Apple's policies, because developers rely on “the store being a safe and trusted place.”

His remarks came on the last day of trial testimony in an antitrust lawsuit filed against Apple by Epic Games.

Epic brought the case last August, after Apple removed the Fortnite game from the iOS app store. Apple did so after Epic began offering gamers the ability to make purchases directly from it, instead of through Apple's platform.

Apple requires game developers to use its payment platform for in-app purchases, and charges a 30% commission to developers that take in more than $1 million in revenue. Smaller developers pay only a 15% commission. Before removing Fortnite from the app platform, Apple garnered more than $100 million from the game, Apple executive Michael Schmid testified last week.

Epic contends Apple monopolizes the iOS app distribution market, and unlawfully forces developers to use its payment processing system.

Before Cook left the witness stand, Gonzalez Rogers herself questioned him about the company's requirement that in-app purchases go through Apple's payment platform.

“What is the problem with allowing users to have choice, especially in a gaming context, to have a cheaper option for content,” the judge asked Cook.

He answered that people “have a choice between many different Android models” or an iPhone, adding that the iPhone “has a certain set of principles behind it” regarding safety, security and privacy.

When Gonzalez Rogers pressed the Apple CEO on why the company wouldn't let consumers make in-game purchases outside its platform, he replied: “If we allowed people to link out like that, we would in essence give up our total return on our IP.”

The judge said it seemed the gaming apps were “generating a disproportionate amount of money,” for Apple, and may be subsidizing the free apps.

Cook responded that most apps on the App Store are free, but that those free apps increase traffic to the store, which gives other developers a larger audience to monetize.

Epic isn't the first one to accuse Apple of violating antitrust laws.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court revived a lawsuit by a group of consumers who alleged that Apple monopolizes app distribution for iPhones. The consumers argued that Apple's commission from developers gets passed on to app users.

That matter is pending in front of Gonzalez Rogers.

Regulators in Europe are also examining whether Apple's app store policies are anticompetitive.

Separately, the Interactive Advertising Bureau France and other business groups brought an antitrust complaint against Apple in Europe over new privacy settings that prohibit developers from tracking iPhone users without their explicit permission.

In March, authorities in Europe allowed Apple to move forward with the privacy controls.

Gonzalez Rogers is expected to decide later this year whether Epic proved its claims against Apple.

Google must face claims it violated mobile users' privacy by allegedly sending analytics data about their online activity to outside developers, a federal judge ruled Friday.

In the ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco rejected Google's position that the case should be dismissed at an early stage on the grounds that the consumers consented to the alleged data transfers.

“As the present controversy throws into sharp relief, navigating Google’s user-facing privacy representations is a singularly fragmented affair,” Seeborg wrote. “Where, as here, a company’s public-facing statements are legitimately confusing, it is not the public’s fault for being confused.”

The decision stems from a class-action complaint brought last July by Anibal Rodriguez and other consumers.

The complaint focused on Google Analytics for Firebase -- a tool that allows developers to learn data about consumers' activity, including the website the user was visiting immediately before visiting the app. Google Analytics for Firebase can also collect data about browsing histories and search queries.

Rodriguez and others alleged that Google uses the Firebase code “to collect users’ communications made via the apps on users’ devices,” regardless of the way users have configured Google's “Web & App Activity” settings.

The users said Google “intentionally created an illusion of user control” with its Web & App Activity setting. The page describing that setting says people's searches and activity from Google services will be saved in their Google account, if they turn on the Web & App Activity settings.

Google urged Seeborg to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that its Web & App Activity setting only deals with data stored in users' Google accounts, and not data sent to developers.

The company contended that the consumers consented to the alleged data transfers, arguing that apps using Firebase were required to tell consumers about the data collection.

“This case is therefore about the authorized collection of data that users knowingly provided to apps so the app developers could understand the data using Google’s tool,” the company wrote in a motion filed late last year.

Rodriguez and the other consumers countered that they believed the “Web & App Activity” setting would prevent their data from being shared, regardless of any app-specific settings.

Seeborg sided with the consumers on that point, ruling that if all the allegations in the complaint were proven true, the consumers wouldn't have consented to the data transfers.

“The average internet user is not a full-stack engineer; he or she should not be treated as one when Google explains which digital data goes into which digital buckets, and where the corresponding spigots might be found,” he wrote.

The ruling allows the consumers to proceed with claims for “invasion of privacy” and “intrusion upon seclusion,” as well as a claim that Google violated a state computer abuse law.

Seeborg dismissed several other counts, including a claim that Google violated the federal wiretap law. But the ruling allows the consumers to reformulate the claims that were dismissed and bring them again within 21 days.