Month: May 2018

Did you know LinkedIn allows non-connections to follow your public posts? Our guide will show you how to view your followers and, if you’re interested, how to follow them back. Note: These screenshots were captured in the LinkedIn application on iOS. Step 1: Tap your profile picture in the top-left corner of the screen. Step…

Media execs applaud networks that are reducing ad clutter, but are not likely to pay a big premium for fewer ads.

For Pilgrims Choice, cheese is such stuff as dreams are made of. And this freaky-fanciful spot from the English cheddar brand combines live action, puppets and computer animation to present a strange nocturnal vision. It blends Aardman/Muppets-style antics with imagery reminiscent of Roald Dahl or Sid and Marty Krofft. At various points in the story,…

The pivot to video has cooled, but many publishers are still focused on video — and that means figuring out what platforms are best for what roles.

At closed-door sessions at the Digiday Video Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, on May 21, publishers gave their candid feedback on the issues they’re facing, from how to make money off Facebook to the roles YouTube, Amazon, Netflix and, yes, Twitter should play in video-distribution strategies.

No longer Facebook’s fool
“We haven’t been focusing on Facebook for a long time in terms of video. We know what their audience behavior is. We said to them early on, ‘You actually don’t care about 360 video; you actually don’t care about Facebook Live.’ They tried to persuade us for a little while; then, they said, ‘You’re right.’”

“We have three brands that we developed specifically for social. What’s interesting is that they do extremely well on social, but when we try to showcase those on our [owned and operated sites], they do not resonate at all. It’s frustrating because they don’t make a ton of money on Facebook.”

“Facebook cares about Facebook’s business — and they have made that abundantly clear over the years if you bothered to listen.”

YouTube is reliable … to a point
“YouTube is quite clearly a video platform, so it’s easier for a video to be optimized and do well. Facebook has never been like that.”

“YouTube is reliable. The revenue responds to the levers as you pull them, and there’s something comforting and nice about that.”

“There are a ton of things you can learn by putting a video on YouTube. You can see retention graphs. You can learn where the drop-off is. We’ve implemented product changes based on YouTube.”

“We’ve made changes based on user behavior we’ve seen on YouTube because what’s successful on YouTube is also successful on our site.”

“Everyone’s talking about going to YouTube. But you can’t build a business on YouTube, either. If you’re a PewDiePie and you have fans, sure, you can make a few million dollars and be comfortable. But if you’re trying to build a big media business? The margins and the $2 CPMs are not going to cut it.”

Twitter is a friend (or less a foe)
“Twitter is a breath of fresh air in that they do want to work with you more than Facebook.”

“Twitter, right now in marketplace, is more amenable and thoughtful in conversations with publishers.”

“The revenue side seems like a positive story. I have doubts that most views are desktop.”

“They refuse to report time spent on the program.”

A show on Netflix can be lost in the Amazon
“If Netflix improved its algorithm, we’d actually see things instead of the 15 things they’re promoting this month.”

“At the end of the day, even if you do sign that Netflix deal, you may not get discovered.”

Amazon’s opportunity isn’t lost on the company
“Amazon has been very keen in trying to make deals that are favorable because of deals others are trying to make. They’ve been really amenable to creating terms that are different. It’s not take it or leave it. They understand if they piss on publishers long enough, they’re going to diversify.”

“Churn is actually pretty good on Amazon. It’s lower than direct-to-consumer OTT. It’s bundled with Prime, so it’s pretty significantly lower — at least 25 percent lower.”

“It’s a vanity play at this point. You’re not going to make any money. But you can say we have this OTT channel.”

Where do people want to watch videos?
“People don’t go to websites to watch video. They don’t go to Facebook to watch video. They go to YouTube.”

“We’re on the autoplay crack. Being a print publisher to begin with, people come to our properties to read stories, so we give them an autoplay video.”

“Isn’t that the case for most videos on Facebook, too? Aren’t people there to see words?”

Whose show is it anyway?
“If the terms are decent and the concept makes sense, sure, we’ll do a deal. But if they’re going to own 100 percent of [intellectual property] that’s going to be valuable to us, no.”

“Owning IP isn’t always so clear. When Malcolm Gladwell writes an article for Condé Nast, they don’t necessarily own it. They may own parts of it.”

“What’s the big thing now? Making original content for OTT platforms? IP? We’re just a bunch of fucking sheep falling over the cliff repeatedly.”

The post Publishers’ candid thoughts on video platforms: ‘Twitter is a breath of fresh air’ appeared first on Digiday.

Now it’s Twitter’s turn to endure scrutiny. As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was defending his company’s user privacy practices on Capitol Hill, Austin Carr and Harry McCracken of Fast Company were publishing an intriguing article about an ongoing struggle at Twitter to respect its users. This time the issue was a bit different. The Fast…

More brands are bringing the strategic functions of programmatic buying in-house, relegating their agencies to specialized roles. Sixty-five percent of brands are either completely or partially buying programmatic media in-house, according to a white paper released Tuesday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Data Center of Excellence. The white paper surveyed marketers at 119 US… Continue reading »

The post IAB: Agencies Fall Into Specialist Roles As More Brands Bring Programmatic In-House appeared first on AdExchanger.

The major theme at last week’s TV upfronts seemed to be revivals. From Charmed to Murphy Brown to Mad About You, networks are looking to the past for present-day hits. And no network has done it as successfully as ABC has with Roseanne. On this week’s episode of Adweek’s podcast, “Yeah, That’s Probably an Ad,”…

If there was any doubt that Starbucks is as much a media platform as it is a coffee shop, new stats from eMarketer should lay it to rest. Starbucks, not Apple, Google or Samsung, has the greatest
penetration of proximity-based mobile application payments in the U.S. This year, 23.4 million people ages 14 or older will use the Starbucks app to make a point-of-sale purchase at least once every
six months, according to revised estimates released by eMarketer today.

In a world where people check their smartphones 85 times per day, usually for less than one minute at a time, consumer engagement can seem elusive, but short attention spans and screen addiction don’t tell the whole story. It’s true that consumers won’t linger too long on something that doesn’t intrigue them–a tweet, for example–but…

The new solution is geared toward content on TV screens, which are also where consumers increasingly spend their time watching premium content. It will also work on any screen where consumers happen
to be watching video.