Month: February 2018

Quicken Loans is returning to the Super Bowl after sitting last year out, once again promoting its Rocket Mortgage app with a 60-second spot in Super Bowl LII. Quicken Loans made its Super Bowl debut in 2016 with a spot from Minneapolis agency Fallon that was part of its “Push Button, Get Mortgage” campaign. The…

Just 13 months after parent company National Amusement pulled the plug on a CBS-Viacom merger, the two companies could be heading down the aisle once again. The board of directors for both companies today announced that they have each formed a special committee of independent directors to evaluate a potential reunion. In a release announcing…

The Interactive Advertising Bureau, operator of the Digital Content NewFronts, is changing things up this year. The 2018 version of the two-week advertising marketplace will take place on each coast. The first part will be the week of April 30 in New York City, and the second event will take place later this year on…

Based on what you have watched in the past, Netflix can promote other shows or movies to you it assumes you also will like. You know, kind of like how Amazon swallowed the retail business starting
with “if you liked that book, then try this one.” All this sounds good in theory, but if you have spent any time at all on Netflix, you know its recommendations make almost no sense whatsoever, and
are more often wrong than right.

In its fourth-quarter earnings today, the company reported that “other” revenue, which mostly means advertising, plus its co-branded credit card agreements, increased to $1.7 billion in the fourth quarter. That’s 60 percent growth year over year.

In the third quarter, “other” revenue grew 58 percent year over year to $1.12 billion.

“Advertising was a key contributor [to strong growth],” director of investor relations Dave Fildes said on the earnings call. “We continue to make the offering more valuable. We’re focused on finding ways to work with those companies – vendors or sellers — coming to us and offer them a great experience on the website and ability to reach customers.”

The company hinted more was to come in terms of building out the platform. CFO Brian Olsavsky said that Amazon has found itself as a “key lean-in from brands and agencies into the e-commerce marketing space,” which has helped bolster that growth.

In comparison, Google parent Alphabet, which also reported earnings on Feb. 1, reported overall revenue increased 24 percent year over year, with its ad business posting $27.3 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter.

At Facebook, advertising revenue grew 48 percent from a year ago. Total revenue grew 47 percent to $13 billion.

Over the last few months, Amazon has begun giving the duopoly a run for its money thanks to growth in Amazon’s search marketing offering, Amazon Marketing Services. The platform has gotten somewhat of a face-lift recently, media buyers say. From October to December, ad spend on sponsored product ads and headline search ads have increased 64 percent and 75 percent quarter over quarter, respectively, per a new report from Merkle.

Speaking at an industry conference earlier this year, Seth Dallaire, Amazon’s vp of global ad sales and marketing for Amazon Media Group, said the business has grown.

“Two years ago, we oftentimes had to explain why we had an advertising business,” said Dallaire on stage. “But now, we go beyond that, and the tenor of the [client] conversation is more urgent, centered on how advertising on Amazon works. Holding companies are looking to build capacity in data interpretation and e-commerce marketing, while boutique agencies are very focused on search and programmatic display [on Amazon].”

This week, Citi analysts predicted that ad sales at Amazon will be $10.2 billion this year, with revenue expected to rise to $50.6 billion by 2028. That was the highest estimate heard yet. JPMorgan Chase has estimated Amazon will bring in $4.5 billion in ad revenue this year.

Amazon’s pitch to brands and agencies is that it is able to create a “total wallet” perspective — actually figure out what people are searching for with what they’re buying.

The post Amazon’s ad business grew 60 percent this quarter appeared first on Digiday.

Fred Santarpia, Condé Nast’s chief digital officer, joined Digiday+ members for a Slack town hall on Feb. 1 to talk about the publishing giant’s paywall strategy, its plans to push further into e-commerce and why publishers should work together more and “have some fun.”

The full conversation is available exclusively to Digiday+ members, but lightly edited excerpts appear below. Click here to join Digiday+.

Here are Santarpia’s views on:

Paywalls
“I think [more paywalls for Condé Nast titles] are highly likely. We believe much of what we do at Condé Nast is highly differentiated and worth paying for in different models. … I think the ‘pivot to paywalls’ is coming back because there is a resurgence in the value attributed to quality journalism. I think the volatility in the political landscape has really pushed that, and people are looking for ‘trusted’ sources. It also is not easy living on advertising alone, as many media companies are realizing.”

Commerce
“Commerce is something we were late to the game on, but we’ve made significant strides in short order. This is already a seven-figure profitable business for us. I think our brands have great natural permission (with audiences). Whether it’s the right sneakers to buy from GQ or the right skin cream from Allure, many of our brands offer this content as part of their core. All we are doing is making it easier for the consumer to transact on the things they like. Over the next year, you’ll see more advanced features on this front and probably a high degree of personalization.”

Distributed content
“The web is a fragmented place. We aren’t going to be able to change the physics of the web, so I fully expect we will continue to explore native content experiences on many different platforms, without over-reliance on any of them. It’s much easier to go where the consumer is than to force them to come to you. That said, the more we are investing in deep storytelling and journalism, the more users will naturally seek out our brands on our owned properties as well.”

Facebook’s recent algorithm changes
“This is standard operating procedure for Facebook. They change things all the time on us. The only difference is, this time they did the PR tour on it. Facebook is not a significant source of traffic for us. Over the last several years, we have built a very strong audience development practice that has allowed us to diversify our traffic sources to many different platforms. And the thing about great brands is people also come to us directly. We will continue to partner with Facebook, but we won’t bet our business on them, or anyone.”

Publisher partnerships
“I’d call Concert [the ad sales partnership with NBC and Vox Media] an experiment. I love the Vox guys, and they were great to work with, and I would love to experiment with them further. I’m a big believer in growth via partnership. Publishers should for sure work together more. Do interesting and unexpected things. Let’s try to have some fun here.”

The post More paywalls are ‘highly likely’: A Digiday+ Slack town hall with Conde Nast’s Fred Santarpia appeared first on Digiday.

Droga5 has terminated its chief creative officer Ted Royer today after placing him on leave earlier this week. “Effective today, Droga5 New York has ended its employment relationship with Ted Royer, CCO,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement to Adweek. The representative added, “We are committed to maintaining a safe and inclusive environment for all…

Whit Hiler, creative director at Lexington, Ky., agency Cornett, has concocted all sorts of kooky concepts over the years. These include beardvertising, the (unsanctioned) “Kentucky kicks ass” tourism campaign, a marketing buzzword jar, commercials filmed by horses, and ads with glaring typos, to name a few. Now, he’s taken pages from his notebooks, in which…

This weekend, Pepsi is hoping to bring people back to the future via virtual reality. As an extension to its Super Bowl campaign airing this weekend, Pepsi has created a pop-up VR experience near U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis where visitors can explore a few short scenes based on the brand’s iconic ads of the…

Airbnb Inc. said CFO Laurence Tosi is stepping down, an unexpected move that raises questions about its progress toward a highly anticipated initial public offering, which the home-sharing company said won’t come until 2019 at the earliest.