Oct 2, 2018 - Economy

Ad companies are simplifying their branding

Sara Fischer

CMO of Oath and CEO of Verizon onstage — The CMO of Oath, Allie Kline, and the CEO of Verizon, Lowell McAdam. Photo: Rachel Murray/Getty Images for MAKERS

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.

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Ad companies are simplifying their branding

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