Ad companies are simplifying their branding

Nearly all of the biggest U.S. advertising companies are trying to rebrand their convoluted ad tech services under simpler names.

Why it matters: It's a marketing move by marketers. Industry consolidation and rapid change in the digital advertising world has led to such confusing ad tech stacks — or suite of services — within mega companies that marketers struggle to keep up. A simplified ad brand helps bring a better-packaged product to market.

What's happening:

• AT&T named its new advertising company "Xandr" last week.
• Verizon's Oath unified its ad tech under new brand, "Oath Ad Platforms" in September.
• Amazon streamlined all of its ad products under a new "Amazon Advertising" umbrella in September.
• Google rebranded its entire ads suite in June.

The big picture: Unified ad offerings will become more important as these groups expand their ad tech capabilities even wider into digital TV ads.

• AT&T announced last week it's integrating Altice USA’s advanced advertising business called a4 to help expand its addressable digital advertising capabilities.
• Amazon has discussed building its own advertising technology for OTT TV, per Business Insider's Mike Shields.
• Facebook is adopting some of the TV industry's sales techniques for Watch, per Business Insider's Lauren Johnson.