Crawler | The Current

Crawler was depressed this weekend. That’s because Crawler’s Spotify Wrapped age is 73. Those Springsteen anthology releases have a lot to answer for. Mr. Crawler is flaunting his comparatively youthful 23-year-old musical self. My sense is he enjoys Sabrina Carpenter just a little too much.

Back to digital media, and Crawler notes that it has been all acquisitions all the time. We ended last week with the news that Netflix plans to acquire Warner Bros. and HBO, giving the industry’s largest streamer control over major franchises such as Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and Batman.

Some Hollywood heavyweights are unhappy (anonymously, of course, which seems to be de rigueur these days), as they fret about what this might mean for the future of theatrical releases. Meanwhile, Paramount isn’t taking this lying down. It’s all good for Mr. Crawler and I, though, as we much prefer to watch from the comfort of our living room. And seeing as Mr. Crawler works from home and hasn’t bought a new outfit since 2018, this is probably for the best. I’m sure Ms. Carpenter agrees.

The week began with Omnicom finally closing its acquisition of IPG. Beyond Adweek’s curious implication that Omnicom is the Grinch that stole IPG’s Christmas, many teeth have been gnashed over what this pact means for agencies large and small. There is hope that it will continue to push holding companies toward new frontiers of tech innovation and AI, while also providing indy agencies with new opportunities to fill important gaps for major brands.

Crawler remains optimistic that over time, these kinds of moves will help brands value agency services in a way that prevents them from being constantly whittled down.

Elsewhere, AdExchanger reports — surprise, surprise — that quality media performs better than cheap reach for programmatic advertisers, but bemoans that there’s not “a switch marketers can flip to go from prioritizing scale to focusing on quality.”

Are you going to tell them? Or are you going to leave it to Crawler?

Meanwhile, Digiday seems surprised that The Trade Desk might tweak the terms of its relationships with its largest clients. Crawler can only assume that “the perils of relationship flexibility” was the headline theme at the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit last week.

Crawler is a satirical take on the biggest ad tech news of the week. It’s penned by editors of The Current, which is owned by The Trade Desk. Have your own take? Reach us at [email protected].