Month: January 2018

Facebook-dependent publishers seem to be in a dangerous position. But Facebook-first publishers in the U.K. are working it to their advantage.

Publishers that frequently appear at the top of the Tubular Labs video leaderboards are used to weathering Facebook’s algorithmic storms. Obsessing over how audiences respond to content posted on the platform means they can adapt to algorithm tweaks. That, plus growing branded-content revenue and a lack of pressure from venture capital funding, are all factors that some of the U.K.’s biggest digital publishers cite for why they aren’t panicking about Facebook’s latest news-feed change.

Digital-first British publishers like Jungle Creations, Unilad and Ladbible have focused on building audiences within Facebook, creating content — particularly video — native to the platform rather than funneling audiences back to their own site. According to SimilarWeb data, social accounts for around 90 percent of their desktop traffic. But rather than redirect to other platforms, they claim posting to Facebook will remain top priority.

“We’re not taking resource from Facebook and investing elsewhere; we’re doing the opposite,” said Jamie Bolding, founder and CEO of Jungle Creations, parent company of Facebook channel VT.

In the next six months, Jungle Creations plans to hire an additional 25 people for its original content team, bringing the head count to 65. Forty percent of the content Jungle Creations produces is original, whether that’s branded content, customized short-form clips or longer-form docs. Most of that content goes on Facebook. In the next three months, the goal is for 60 percent of the content it creates to be original and 40 percent licensed or submitted.

Unilad is seeing the highest Facebook engagement with its smaller vertical pages, like sports, gaming, fitness and particularly adventure, which covers travel, according to CEO Liam Harrington. “There will be a shift in storytelling approach,” he said. “Before, [Facebook] was optimized for sharing; now, posts will be optimized for conversation, like asking questions at the end of a video.”

Ladbible didn’t want to comment on the record for this piece, but it pointed to Instagram and its own website, which comScore says has 4.6 million monthly visitors, as evidence of traffic diversification.

Although Facebook’s plans to prioritize posts from friends and family over brands and publishers were recently announced, the writing has been on the wall. Analytics companies including Wochit, SimilarWeb, Parsely and Chartbeat have all recorded up to 15 percent drops in Facebook referral traffic across publishers since October. Any impact from Facebook’s most recent changes will likely take months to show, and any decrease in video views would likely be felt across the board.

Jungle Creations, Unilad and Ladbible have invested in teams of up to 30 people dedicated to understanding how to create content for social platforms. “They have probably been on top of this for longer than the Facebook announcement,” said Garrett Goodman, vp of business development at video platform Wochit. “Facebook’s algorithm change won’t change their ability to respond to it, and that’s the advantage — their ability to respond to audience behavior.”

“[Facebook-first publishers] won’t be waking up this week and thinking, ‘Oh, my God, my business model.’ They already know what’s going on,” agreed Gitit Greenberg, senior director of marketing insights at SimilarWeb.

A BuzzFeed spokesperson said in a statement that the news-feed changes “confirm trends we’ve seen over the platform in recent months and have already taken steps to evolve alongside.” The VC-funded publisher has reduced staff and laid out plans for further diversification.

Facebook’s changes could present opportunities to diversify business models. “We’d become an agency,” claimed another digital-first publisher, speaking on condition of anonymity, when asked what would happen if Facebook continued to cut off the air supply.

Agencies faced with dwindling organic reach on Facebook may be more in need of publishers that understand how audiences engage on the platform. “We need really good social publishers to allow us to [engage with audiences]; that can only be celebrated and embraced by advertisers,” said John Thomson, head of media at 360i Europe. “There will be an obvious argument for a price premium for engagement; we’d expect to see better sales results.”

However, the value of engagement needs to be clarified, according to Richard Stokes, global head of content at GroupM agency Wavemaker. “You can trade on audience relatively easily, but there’s always room for publishers to invest more in proving the value of engagement.”

Facebook is also pursuing its own content, particularly in sports. This week, the platform hired Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton for global sports deals and is expected to bet big on live streaming sports rights. “Facebook only makes big content plays knowing it can monetize every part of it,” said Stokes. With access to a huge audience plus Facebook’s data, brands could bypass publishers and work directly with Facebook on branded content. “It could squeeze the pot publishers are heavily fishing in,” he added.

The post UK Facebook-first publishers have a stiff upper lip on feed changes appeared first on Digiday.

About 250 miles north of New York City, Jackie Wilson, founder and CEO of American Fashion Network, is quietly producing private-label collections for some of the biggest names in the retail industry.

Since she started the company in 2013, Wilson has mastered the art of speed-to-market manufacturing, a valuable skill in the era of fast-fashion and two-day shipping. By identifying ways to increase efficiencies in the production process — from design conceptualizing to streamlining the supply chain to getting clothing on the rack — Wilson has been able to win over business from brands including Amazon Fashion, American Eagle Outfitters, Kohl’s and JCPenney.

“From the beginning of time, I had a Vogue magazine in my hand,” Wilson said. “I loved fashion. I saw fashion as art. I’m 5-foot-1, but I see myself as 6-foot-2.’’ I always looked at fashion as something I couldn’t wear, so I both envied it and admired it.”

Wilson, who studied journalism to be a foreign correspondent before turning to retail, now operates her company out of Syracuse, New York, though she maintains close relationships with her 21 employees located across the U.S. and at factories in Guatemala and China. She cut her teeth in the industry while working as a sales associate at JNCO during high school and college, working her way up the ranks until she became an assistant buyer, using her eye for trends to help select women’s dresses. After a stint at the Limited Group, where she learned the art of wholesale design, she decided to go out on her own.

We spoke to Wilson about how she’s managed to become a valuable asset to mass retailers and e-commerce juggernauts alike.

You produce private-label lines for some of the biggest fashion brands in the industry. How did you identify a niche that set you apart from other manufacturers?
I had a lot of help from Kohl’s, out of necessity. So much innovation is born out of necessity. The management and sourcing team at Kohl’s knew they needed to jump on fast fashion. They saw the model of my company and realized that, because of our size, we were able to be agile. We could transform the company to what retail needed to be. So Kohl’s did an experiment where they brought in six manufacturers, and they asked us to pick up on an item off the table and say, “I can turn this over in five weeks.” Out of the six vendors, we were the only one that did it. It was painful, and there were a lot of tears. We lost a lot of money. But we needed to prove ourselves. From that moment on, we got typecast into “speed to market.”

Once you found your competitive advantage, how did you work to hang on to that, especially with the rise of fast fashion and competition in retail?
Today, everyone is fast. It’s easier than ever to be faster, and the market supply chain has done a lot to adapt to that. Our niche, in addition to design, is speed to development. We stay small, at a manageable size. It’s super important to be a chameleon and change into what the market wants you to be, so I never let my size get too big. That doesn’t mean my volume size, but the number of employees and the footprint of where my offices are. I want to keep that tight. It’s about finding balance.

How do maintain your relationships with factories abroad?
My customers are so important to me, but I can always find another customer. I can’t always find a great factory. My supply chain is my biggest asset. I work hard to make sure their needs are met and their lines are full, with an easy flow of production and without starting and stopping.

You recently started helping Amazon manufacture product for its ever-expanding private label collection. How have you adapted your business to fulfill the needs of a major e-commerce company?
We’ve really massaged the supply chain to be excited about small orders. Amazon is very thoughtfully approaching the private-label business. They’re not going in with huge quantities. They’re trying different fabrics and styles, and supporting customers using consumer ratings. Similarly with American Eagle, we’ve been helping with online-exclusive fashion products. Nobody likes a small order. You have to put just as much work into 300 pieces as 300,000. I used to hate the question, “What’s your minimum?” But today, the mindset has shifted; I’m so happy to do any amount.

How do you stay connected to the fashion world from upstate New York?
We get in front of our customers every three to four months. We’re not in the fashion capital of the world here in Syracuse, but we spend a lot of time on planes to get in front of our customer and learn what’s working and what’s not. We know how to read a rack and see what’s selling. Having an ear to the ground with the customer has been how we’ve navigated the waters. We strive to be their design office in the field. It really is all about product and having the right talent to deliver the best product to the right customer.

What do you predict will be the future of retail in the age of Amazon?
My prediction is that Amazon makes a play for Kohl’s. It won’t be Target. When I step back and think about what Amazon is trying to do from a private label perspective, that would make logical sense. I’ve never been freaked out by the Amazon factor; all I can say is there needs to be a proper balance. Shopping is a pastime, and something that we do with our friends and our kids. The face of the American mall and what it represents is going to change. I foresee [the rise of] more regional stores — like a Dollar General, let’s say. Those are Amazon-proof. Stores are going to try to get into that smaller format space.

The post Inside American Fashion Network, the manufacturer spearheading speed-to-market appeared first on Digiday.

Despite prevailing wisdom, Cathy Bessant doesn’t want Bank of America to fail fast or often. That may be the mantra of tech companies in California, and banks largely see themselves as tech companies, but that’s actually where they differ.

“We have a huge responsibility, we happen to love that and think it’s our job to steward it well,” said the bank’s chief operations and technology officer. “The safety and preservation of our customer trust means that lots of failures can not be in the cultural way we think.”

Bessant is transforming B of A into a technology firm and leading it into a future that requires humans to apply immense computing power to immense amounts of data — an artificial intelligence future. But like any every other technology executive, she’s facing a shortage of talent with science, technology, engineering and math backgrounds. The result is often departments hiring from other departments.

Bank of America will spend $600 million this year on cyber defense alone. It employs 1,200 people whose jobs are dedicated to nothing else but information security, although the company makes that “the job of every single employee,” Bessant said. But the caliber of the talent the bank hires is just as important as the technology it invests in, since they’ll be the ones that determine how to work responsibly with AI.

“Sometime’s theres a misunderstanding that cyber defense is somehow all technology, and it’s not,” she said. “It’s judgment and how to assess a threat and think about mitigation every single day.”

Read the full story on tearsheet.co

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Most marketers believe organic reach on Facebook is dead. But Claire Mas, head of digital at music label Island Records, believes augmented reality could give Facebook organic reach a new lease on life.

The record label is open to spending more on Facebook’s AR camera effects after its first two attempts, which collectively attracted over 1 million users, exceeded its marketers’ expectations, according to Mas. The first effect put fans in the shoes of rapper Big Shaq, the alter ego of British comedian Michael Dapaah, wearing a winter jacket, a nod to the music video for his viral hit “Man’s Not Hot.” In the video, the rapper insists on keeping his jacket on as he visits a beach, eats ice cream sundaes and performs pullups.

The AR effect, which is still available from the comedian’s Facebook page, got a Christmas makeover in December to coincide with the festive remix of the song. A choir sang while snowflakes fell on the user, who wore a festive polar jacket. It ran between Dec. 19 and Jan. 10, and fans were able to use the rear camera multiple-face detection feature to put the rapper’s cap on their friends. In the period it ran, the festive effect was used around 288,000 times, according to Mas.

By keeping the effect on Big Shaq’s Facebook page and not forcing it into people’s news feeds with paid support, Mas believes AR is one way to sidestep Facebook’s crackdown on content not from friends and family. Since it launched last November, the AR effect has generated more than 1.1 million users. 

When an AR effect launches, anyone who likes it has it added to their Facebook camera. If it performs well, then Facebook might decide to push it out to everyone’s mobile camera, as it did for the original AR effect for Island Records. The minute that happened to the original effect, the numbers “blew up,” said Mas. “We put some paid support behind the Christmas AR effect, and that grew to more than 250,000 uses. The majority of that was organic.”

Beyond the uses and views, Mas has no other way of understanding how AR effects perform, however. Facebook has promised developers that better analytics are coming. “The reporting from Facebook is very basic,” said Mas. “If your post gets 50 percent organic reach on a page that size, you are doing great. To have been able to create something that gets organic engagement that’s three times the size of your page, those are numbers that people don’t see anymore.” 

Island Records will spend on Facebook AR effects if they’re suitable for the campaign and artist, but never for gimmicky purposes, according to Mas, a point supported by Facebook’s decision to prevent brands from pumping posts into people’s news feeds. “If your content is bad, then no one should see it,” she added.

“We need to keep Facebook relevant so that we don’t have a Myspace all over again, and not only will you not organically reach your entire page, you wouldn’t even have one,” Mas said. “It’s everyone’s responsibility to be better at content. Change is essential.”

Despite the early promise for AR on Facebook, the social network still has a long way to go before it can usurp Snapchat as the king of the format, said Felix Morgan, head of strategy at youth agency Livity. Morgan noted that Facebook and Instagram may have successfully introduced face filters, but they’ve never managed to achieve the magic of the rainbow mouth. Snapchat isn’t beating Facebook and Instagram because of technical reasons, he added; rather, it’s “consistently put fun at the heart of their product experience, and not a single technical development in their road map has forgotten its importance.”

The post Island Records sees Facebook AR effects as a way to repair organic reach appeared first on Digiday.

Wieden + Kennedy announced it has hired acclaimed design veterans Nicole Jacek and Noreen Morioka to serve as co-heads of design. Together, they will lead the 100-plus employees who are part of the design studio at the agency’s Portland headquarters. The duo will relocate to Washington and lead creative and new business efforts for the…

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a shoppable image on Instagram worth? Announced at last week’s National Retail Federation conference, Salesforce Commerce Cloud revealed that retailers can now use their entire product catalog to create shoppable posts on Instagram. This includes product details like the price, name and a short…

Univision is promoting Jessica Rodriguez to president and chief operating officer, a new position at the nation’s leading Spanish-language media company. Rodriguez, who was named to the 2016 Adweek 50, has been chief marketing officer of UCI since 2014. She’ll continue in that role overseeing research, consumer branding and messaging, corporate marketing, branding initiatives and…

Tesla unleashed a bold pay package for Chief Executive Elon Musk that again ties his compensation entirely to key performance benchmarks. This time, the goals take the electric-car maker to cosmic heights, including an ultimate aim of hitting $650 billion in market value.

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Procter & Gamble isn’t done trimming its agency and advertising investments, even after a year of deep cuts to media and production budgets, according to senior managers during the company’s Q2 earnings report on Tuesday. Digital media and tech vendors have become more transparent since P&G began crusading against online supply chain failures a year… Continue reading »

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DDB New York has hired Lisa Topol and Derek Barnes as co-CCOs, effective in March. The duo will lead the agency’s creative department across a client roster that includes Unilever, Mars, PepsiCo, Henkel, Merck, Tribeca Enterprises and Cotton Inc while reporting to DDB North America CCO Ari Weiss. “Lisa and Derek have had careers that…