Latest news with #KellyMacLean
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Analysts rework Roku stock price targets, rating after Amazon deal
Analysts rework Roku stock price targets, rating after Amazon deal originally appeared on TheStreet. Hey, what's on TV tonight? The question sounds just so 20th Century, reeking of rabbit ears and Ricky Ricardo in this age of streaming entertainment, where you can watch just about anything you want any time you want. Including "I Love Lucy." 💵💰Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter 💰 The U.S. has more than 200 million connected-TV users, and 88% of American households have a connected-TV device. According to Nielsen, in 2024 streaming surpassed cable and broadcast viewing time for the first time, with more than 40% of all TV-viewing time spent on streaming. With a new era comes new lingo, so this is probably a good time to mention that streaming refers to the delivery of video content over the internet, while CTV describes streaming video content on a television set connected to the internet. And now two very big names in CTV circles — Amazon () and Roku () — are getting together like Ozzie and Harriet. Amazon's demand-side platform will place ads on top-viewed platforms like the Roku Channel and Amazon Prime Video along with other services available via Roku and Amazon Fire TV operating systems. The alliance aims to 'enable seamless access to logged-in users across major streaming apps,' Kelly MacLean, a vice president at Amazon's ad unit who oversees sales tied to its Amazon DSP, told Variety. The companies said early tests of the technology showed advertisers reaching 40% more unique viewers while they cut back the frequency of a specific ad running in front of the same users by nearly 30%. More Streaming: Walt Disney offers new perks for Disney+ members Bank of America sends strong message on Netflix Netflix has a genius plan to find its next hit show Roku and Amazon estimate their partnership will make available a pool of 80 million connected-TV households in the U.S. The partnership will give rise to 'a better experience for marketers, consumers and programmers that are on our platforms,' says Jay Askinasi, Roku's senior vice president of global media revenue and growth. 'It means more relevant ads, better frequency management from a consumer perspective, more addressability and measurement on our programmer partners," he said. The new service will be available in the U.S. to all advertisers that use Amazon DSP by the fourth quarter of 2025. "Roku has maintained its favorable positioning as it is an agnostic platform allowing it to partner with Amazon, Walmart () , and many others," Wedbush analysts said in a research note. "This allows Roku to create partnerships that leverage others' data, and the exclusivity between Amazon and Roku in their newly announced partnership does not preclude the latter from continuing its partnerships with Walmart, Shopify, () Instacart, and others." As Roku enters the early stages of shoppable ads, Wedbush said, the San Jose, Calif., provider of a streaming-tech platform is establishing itself as a partner to all, "creating a moat as a CTV platform that will further insulate it from competition in the coming years." Wedbush has an outperform rating and $100 price target on Roku. Roku shares are up nearly 50% from a year ago and up 7.8% in 2025. It finished regular trading on June 17 at $80.63, off 1.9%. Several other investment firms issued reports for Roku shares after the deal was announced. Bank of America Global Research raised the firm's price target on Roku to $100 from $85 and affirmed a buy rating after the partnership was unveiled, The Fly reported. Advertisers will have access to the largest authenticated CTV footprint in the U.S. exclusively through Amazon's demand-side platform, B of A said, adding that the expanded partnership is intended to improve performance, planning and measurement for all firm said a key tenet of its bullish thesis is predicated on Roku monetizing its existing inventory through their integrations with demand-side platforms. BofA views this announcement as "another proof point that Roku intends to be more flexible and drive further interoperability within their platform." Citizens JMP analyst Matthew Condon said that the Roku-Amazon deal gives the advertisers within the Seattle tech and e-retail giant's demand-side platform significant reach across Roku and Fire-TV audiences, which can ultimately strengthen Roku's ability to monetize its inventory. The analyst, who reiterated an outperform rating and $95 price target on Roku shares, said he was increasingly confident that the company could sustain mid-teens-percent growth in its platform revenue. Loop Capital analyst Alan Gould upgraded Roku to buy from hold with a price target of $100, up from $80. The analyst cited expectations that the Amazon advertising partnership should begin boosting Roku's financial results starting next year. This development will further strengthen Roku's position as the leading TV operating system in the U.S., Gould said. The analyst noted that the partnership would integrate Roku and Amazon's logged-in connected-TV user bases, representing an estimated 80 million households, through the Amazon demand-side platform. Roku contributes what Gould called its industry-leading user base while Amazon "brings its unmatched shopping feedback loop."Analysts rework Roku stock price targets, rating after Amazon deal first appeared on TheStreet on Jun 18, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jun 18, 2025, where it first appeared.
Business Insider
13 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Disney and Amazon (AMZN) Form a New Partnership to Improve Ad Targeting
Entertainment giant Disney (DIS) and tech firm Amazon (AMZN) have formed a new partnership to improve ad targeting for streaming TV, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Indeed, Disney's Real-Time Ad Exchange (called DRAX) will be linked with Amazon's Demand Side Platform (DSP) to help advertisers target the right audience. This means that advertisers using Amazon's system will now have better access to Disney's ad-supported content, including Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. As a result, viewers will see more relevant ads, and advertisers will be able to reach their ideal customers more easily. Confident Investing Starts Here: Interestingly, the deal was announced at the Cannes Lions advertising event, where both companies explained how this partnership brings together Amazon's shopping data with Disney's large streaming audience. For example, a pet food brand could target consumers who buy pet supplies on Amazon and watch pet-related shows on Disney platforms. Matt Barnes, VP of programmatic sales at Disney, highlighted how this partnership increases access to both inventory and viewer data, which ultimately helps advertisers drive better results. The new ad tools are expected to launch in the third quarter of 2025 and will be available internationally. Advertisers using Amazon's DSP will also get access to Disney+ content in countries like the UK, Germany, France, Spain, and more. According to Kelly MacLean, VP of Amazon DSP, this partnership benefits everyone, as brands reach the right people, Disney makes better use of its ad space, and viewers receive ads that are actually relevant to them. Which Stock Is the Better Buy?
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Disney's Compass seeks true north in data collaboration
This story was originally published on Marketing Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Marketing Dive newsletter. Disney Advertising and Amazon Ads today (June 17) integrated Disney's Real-Time Ad Exchange (DRAX) and Amazon Demand-side Platform (DSP), per details shared with Marketing Dive. The collaboration allows advertisers to leverage insights from both companies as they access the media giant's premium inventory across platforms. 'By building a direct path connecting Amazon's commerce insights to the full scale of Disney's streaming ecosystem, we're enabling greater accessibility to inventory and audience signals that translate into meaningful results for advertisers leveraging Amazon DSP,' said Matt Barnes, vice president of programmatic sales at Disney Advertising, in a statement. Along with supporting targeting, transparency and efficiency, the partnership will also allow advertisers to create campaigns that bring together Disney's audience data and a wealth of insights from Amazon Ads through a collaboration between Amazon Publisher Cloud (APC) and Disney Compass, the media giant's data collaboration platform launched in January. In an example provided in a press release, a pet food brand could reach an audience of Disney viewers who have shown interest in pet products on Amazon, notching the higher reach and lowers costs that streaming TV advertisers have seen when using publisher-enriched deals on APC, an offering built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Clean Rooms technology. 'By connecting Disney's premium content with Amazon's deep consumer understanding, we're creating advertising that works better for everyone—brands reach the right audiences, publishers maximize their inventory value and viewers see more relevant ads,' said Kelly MacLean, vice president of Amazon DSP at Amazon Ads, in a statement. Implementation will begin with select advertisers in the coming months before being opened to all Amazon DSP advertisers in the third quarter of 2025. The partnership also promises audience targeting and curated packages through Disney's other ad solutions, such as Disney's Magic Words offering (a contextual solution that is also at the heart of a just-announced partnership between Omnicom and Disney around live sports). The news, timed to this week's Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, comes as Disney Compass crosses the five-month anniversary since its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year. The data collaboration and measurement platform gives advertisers visibility into Disney's first-party data, serves as an entry point for agency integrations and delivers interoperability with third-party data and measurement collaborators — all functions that are increasingly in-demand for data-obsessed advertisers. Since launch, Disney Compass has been activated with all five holding companies (WPP Media, Publicis, Omnicom Media Group, Interpublic Group and Dentsu) along with leading independents Horizon and PMG. In addition, five measurement vendors — Affinity Solutions, EDO, Innovid, Snowflake and VideoAmp — have integrated in an always-on fashion. With 30 cross-sell campaign measurement vendors (including 19 supported by direct or clean room data flows), Compass has measured nearly 1,500 campaigns this fiscal year. 'It's all about offering a data collaboration and measurement platform to provide visibility for marketers so that they can do their best marketing and understand where to buy, how to buy it, and then how to measure it and what their outcomes were,' said Dana McGraw, senior vice president of data and measurement science at Disney Advertising, in an interview. Disney Compass is the culmination of years of seeking to innovate around identity and measurement and the desire to offer both functions in one place for marketers looking to plan and measure campaigns while activating against its rich data sets. Those imperatives have become even more important amid the push to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI). 'There's a huge push around AI and understanding data and audiences, and all of that really speaks to a push for efficiency. If you think about what all of those things bring to the table, it's really about precision and efficiency for each of those innovations,' McGraw said. Disney Compass provides an easy connection to clean room activations, as well providing information that can be seen and used equally by brands, agencies and — as with today's Amazon news — DSPs. 'If a DSP needs to see inventory for a buyer, it looks the same as the way that a holding company needs to see inventory for a buyer,' McGraw said, adding over email, 'Compass is at its heart a collaboration tool intended to enable advertisers of all sizes to access our insights and measurement capabilities across partners and platforms.' Recommended Reading Disney ramps up advertiser offerings as streaming wars enter next phase Sign in to access your portfolio
