DigiDay: Apple Hiring Up for Advertising
04 AUGUST 2022 - Apple may be ramping up its advertising efforts again. Last week the company said it was adding two new ad slots to its App Store offerings. Now, a piece from 9 to 5 Mac says the company’s also adding a bunch of people. The site has a piece from Digiday saying:
…their sources say that hiring in the Ad Platforms division has risen significantly since the beginning of 2022. This is also reflected in the exec org chart. A report from May said that Apple Services group now has a dedicated exec, Todd Teresi, to focus on advertising-related initiatives.
They’re hiring people to build better automation, it seems. The job listings cited by Digiday says Apple is building “the most privacy-forward, sophisticated demand side platform possible.” According to 9 to 5 Mac:
A demand-side platform allows advertisers to set up automations that scale up campaigns based on performance indicator factors, aided by machine learning.
A well oiled machine like that keeps the advertiser dough rolling in, according to 9 to 5 Mac. Hence more people to build a better sales-bot.
Of course if it does well for the App Store, the piece figures it’s somewhere between possible and likely that Apple will take its advertising business to other services, including Spotlight, Maps, and - who knows - maybe TV. 9 to 5 Mac talks about ad-supported content as a possibility. Personally, I doubt that for Apple TV+. However, Apple has a streaming music video service about which we all forget. And there’s the company’s continued push into live sports.
Chatterjee’s Revenge
News of Apple’s ad push would likely excite a number of Apple analysts and potentially vindicate one. Back in June, JP Morgan analyst Samik Chatterjee suggested that advertising plays by Apple could generate as much as $6B by 2025. $1.7B of that could come from
…[building] an audience network of third-party applications which allow Apple to manage the logistics of ad targeting and delivering to these applications, matching demand from digital advertising customers with supply of an audience…
The other $4B-and-change would come from Apple’s search ads. Right now, he thinks that amount is limited by Apple’s emphasis on “consumer experience,” translated in past reports as its “focus on privacy and design.”
