Month: June 2018

Facebook reached data-sharing partnerships over the past decade with at least 60 device-makers–including Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, BlackBerry and Amazon–but according to a New York Times report, those partnerships may have dug deeper into users’ personal data than previously thought. The Times report has already drawn attention in Washington, D.C., as Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called…

The deal, which starts next year and runs through 2030, will feature a new dedicated, golf-centric, over-the-top video service.

The number of Americans represented by labor unions has decreased substantially since the 1950s, and a new survey finds that the decline is seen more negatively than positively by U.S. adults. The survey also finds that 55% of Americans have a favorable impression of unions, with about as many (53%) viewing business corporations favorably.

Video delivered over the internet to a smart television or connected TV could have a brand safety problem. We’re talking specifically about user-generated digital video streaming to a big screen and the niche OTT channels and streaming services that seem be springing up on a near-weekly basis. That type of video shouldn’t be confused with… Continue reading »

The post How Advertisers Should Think About Brand Safety On OTT appeared first on AdExchanger.

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Frances Giordano, associate director at The Media Kitchen. The newest catalyst framing the discussion between digital media sellers and buyers is the increasing prevalence of first-price auctions. About 43% of… Continue reading »

The post First-Price Auctions Mean Big Changes For Buyers appeared first on AdExchanger.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Playing Nice As he throws his energy into a new marketing investment vehicle, Martin Sorrell has no plans to undermine WPP Group, where he remains the eighth largest investor, Reuters reports. Reuters spoke with another big WPP stakeholder, Jupiter Asset Management fund manager Alastair… Continue reading »

The post Sorrell Won’t Undermine WPP; Podcast Measurement Fixes Hurt So Good appeared first on AdExchanger.

The notion of brand purpose is nothing new. It’s been years since Millward Brown and Jim Stengel, Procter & Gamble’s former global marketing officer, demonstrated the competitive advantage of brands that deliver a higher purpose beyond the benefit of the product or service itself. Their research identified 50 brands that had built loyalty by focusing on ideals. In the process, those brands outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 400 percent over a decade.

But today some argue that these principles have been corrupted, as brands make increasingly shameless efforts to get noticed. So why would anyone really care about a brand, and why is your brand any different from the next one?

Customer trust may be at an all-time low, but marketers should take heed: People do still care about what you do as a brand, now more than ever. Customers’ specific motivators vary by generation, but on the whole, they gravitate toward brands that demonstrate a sense of purpose beyond just the bottom line.

Earnest Marketing is how we bring that to life for your customers. It’s a throwback to the more “honest” communications that some brands have lost track of, mixed with completely modern, tech-enabled customer-value-builders. Earnest Marketing is all about the customer’s experience with the brand, and how that experience affects long-term loyalty. It focuses on a total-brand approach to consumers through three critical marketing principles.

1. Presenting a brand’s 360-degree story, including its people, products, origins, values and overall purpose.

Everyone loves a good story. Sure, impressive product specs are important, but the story around the product is what catches our attention, even if it’s only for a few seconds. And a good first few seconds can turn into valuable minutes with a customer. Take imre client John Deere, the “godfather” of content marketing. The brand has been widely recognized for its magazine, The Furrow, which launched in 1895 and still thrives today. The magazine’s longevity and success is a direct result of its rich stories and the people who write them—people who are equal parts journalist and customer.

In addition to The Furrow and other custom publications, fans can get to know the brand, its employees and customers through The John Deere Journal, where they can read articles and watch videos about everything from the company’s blacksmith to how its new technologies are helping its customers feed the world.

2. A commitment to evaluating and correcting customer experience issues across the brand.

Nearly 80 percent of American consumers say that speed, convenience, knowledgeable help and friendly service are the most important elements of a positive customer experience. Add to that a lifetime of memories and you have Disney.

Disney is so widely recognized for all aspects of its customer experience that the company created the Disney Institute to help teach business professionals. When it comes down to it, the differentiator is that they “view exceptional service as an economic asset rather than an expense.” Disney puts that philosophy into practice every day.

As an organization, they have one common purpose that is understood and fulfilled by all employees at every level, from the C-Suite to Cast Members: create happiness by providing the best in entertainment for people of all ages everywhere. When everyone internally believes in your brand’s purpose, your customers will too. Consistency will keep people coming back.

3. Building a real relationship with customers.

Brands need to invest in the many facets of customer relationship management, including personalization, service and thoughtful affinity offerings. For example, relationships don’t get any stronger than Patagonia’s Ironclad Guarantee. The brand goes so far as to drive around the country repairing old gear, free of charge, through its Worn Wear program. Offering trade-ins and used gear for sale—on top of the repairs—also reinforces the brand’s values and commitment to environmental responsibility. And to think, the Worn Wear concept was derived from a blog started by an ambassador’s wife, Lauren Malloy, where people shared their stories about their favorite piece of Patagonia clothing.

Marketing forward

Earnest Marketing is a straight approach to showcasing a brand’s self-awareness and true values. It’s a sharp contrast to the slick, Mad Men-style, 60-second broadcast spots of earlier eras. Instead, it’s an investment in putting the brand to work for the consumer by understanding their motivations and looking for moments to engage.

Think of Earnest Marketing as a warm embrace and a family dinner, creating magnetism and energy around the brand’s core DNA. In this modern marketing world of slick targeting and user skepticism, brands can gain preference by returning to opt-in marketing and giving people what they signed up for. Practitioners of Earnest Marketing know how to provide value in return for data.

In the end, it all comes down to accessibility and accountability. This is the differentiator in today’s digital society, where customers are yearning for more—more truth, more simplicity, more peace of mind and more attention. Like any strong relationship, you have to be in it for the long haul and show that you mean it. That’s how you make something worth their while.

The post An earnest (marketing) situation appeared first on Digiday.

When Michael Perdigao decided to quit ad agency life to go to an in-house agency 11 years ago, the most common reaction he got from agency friends was that he was selling out.

“Most of my friends told me I was crazy, a sellout,” said Perdigao, today the president at The Wonderful Company and head of Wonderful Agency, the in-house marketing and advertising agency for the company behind Fiji Water, Teleflora and Wonderful Pistachios. “The common thing was that if you couldn’t make it in the real ad world, you’d go in-house.”

Fast forward to now, and that talk seems largely outdated. Bringing advertising and marketing capabilities in-house has become common in a market where marketers are constantly looking to cut costs and gain back control. At a time when traditional agency models feel irrelevant, what The Wonderful Co. has done seems downright prescient.

Previously known as Fire Station, Wonderful Agency was born out a complicated arrangement where the agency and the brands shared an owner, Roll Global. Roll Global was renamed in 2015 to The Wonderful Co. The company is backed by billionaire couple Stewart and Lynda Rae Resnick, who also worked with director Morgan Spurlock for “Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,” the 2011 documentary about product placement and endorsements.

To bring Perdigao on board, the Resnicks had a simple pitch: “We’ll create and acquire new brands steadily, so those working in-house will have a constant stream of new business.”

For Perdigao, that was a good proposition — it meant focusing on actual product and no longer finding and pitching for new business. “As you move higher as an ad executive, you spend more time working on new business than you do working on advertising,” said Perdigao.

Today, Wonderful Agency has 150 people and is growing steadily, adding 20 people in the last 12 months alone, which has been its biggest growth year to date, said Perdigao.

This week, the agency launched a new campaign for Fiji, including two television commercials, social buys and print, to promote a new product called Fiji Water Sports Cap. Creative is done in-house, led by chief creative officer Darren Moran, and the agency also handles all media and planning. This follows a $1.1 million campaign (the agency’s largest to date) two weeks ago for Pom Wonderful, according to the agency.

Marketers bringing agency capabilities in-house is a common trend these days. From giant companies like Chase and Verizon to smaller ones like The Wonderful Co., there has been a movement from marketers that question the economies of scale that agencies purportedly bring. That, plus an overall shift in priorities due to digital media and how money is being spent, means in-house programmatic can be cheaper. 

There are challenges, for sure. For Perdigao, who also sits on the Association of National Advertisers’ in-house agency board, the biggest question is how the in-house marketing team can get permission to do some of the work it wants to do from higher-ups at the company. Another question is how to allocate costs — in-house agencies often struggle, he said, with managing internal budgets. 

Another issue is keeping creative talent happy, which means separating them from the corporate part of the company. Wonderful Agency is building a new 22,000-square-foot office in Los Angeles near The Wonderful Co.’s corporate office that will have, in Perdigao’s view, more of a creative feel than the rest of the company.

As for the oft-repeated excuse that agencies can negotiate better media discounts than in-house teams, Perdigao isn’t buying it. “We hired real media buyers from places who know rates,” he said. “Plus, that’s more beneficial for us from a pricing standpoint because they don’t have to worry we’ll share with other clients. It’s all for us.”

For Moran, who joined Wonderful Agency in April 2017 from Grey New York, an in-house agency that does both media and creative solves what he thinks is one of the biggest issues in advertising: unbundling media and creative. “The reason I came here was so I can walk two doors down, and talk to the head of media and make something happen.”

The post Inside Wonderful Agency, The Wonderful Co.’s in-house shop appeared first on Digiday.

As Amazon tightens its grip on the fashion industry, leading retailers to close physical stores, fashion retailers are trying to make sure their product lines stand out. Ralph Lauren Corp.-owned Club Monaco is doing so with in-store pop-up beauty shops and events.

Since December, Club Monaco has rotated three pop-ups through its flagship store on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Each pop-up shop lasts for three to four months and sells products from small companies not typically found in Club Monaco stores, like Mexican perfumery Coqui Coqui, home goods maker Diptyque Paris and The Buff, which makes customizable oils for skin, hair and nails.

The idea behind these pop-ups is to offer people not just new products, but personalized experiences. At The Buff, for instance, salespeople give visitors one-on-one consultations based on skin type.

Club Monaco also puts on events such as book readings and panel discussions to promote the pop-ups. Ahead of the launch of The Buff pop-up, for instance, Club Monaco hosted a panel featuring The Buff founder Jasmine Garnsworthy and other female entrepreneurs speaking about work-life balance. Club Monaco livestreams these events on Instagram Live to Club Monaco’s nearly 300,000 followers.

“The pop-ups bring in something new and fresh,” said Kerri Clark, global director of public relations and marketing at Club Monaco. “Because these switch out every three to four months, it’s an added reason to come back to our space.”

Club Monaco CEO John Mehas would not say how many new customers the pop-ups or events have brought in, but he said they have done so well that the company is expanding the approach to other locations in the 140-store chain, including ones in Southampton, New York; Boston; Los Angeles Toronto; and Montreal. Up first is Club Monaco’s Southampton shop; Club Monaco will once again work with Diptyque Paris for a pop-up opening on June 5.

Along with Club Monaco, Walgreens and Forever 21 are also venturing into beauty products to stand out. Beauty is predicted to grow to $750 billion by 2024, according to consulting company Inkwood Research. The Buff pop-up is Club Monaco’s first push into beauty, but Mehas said it wants to go into other areas that interest its customers, like beauty, home and travel.

“Our customers love beauty, but we know our limits, so we try to find brands that do it well and give them the space,” said Mehas. “We want to spread the news that if you have a great product, you’re welcome at Club Monaco, especially if it’s beauty.”

The post Club Monaco turns to in-store pop-up shops to diversify its retail experience appeared first on Digiday.

YouTube isn’t paying digital video networks a carriage fee to be on YouTube TV. That may change next year, when YouTube has told the networks it would revisit the carriage fee question. But in the interim, those networks are still getting value from their linear channels.

Until YouTube begins selling ads for its digital TV service later this year, the digital networks like The Young Turks and Tastemade can handle ad sales for their channels. That lets them experiment with different ad loads and formats for the TV-like inventory at a time when traditional networks are similarly trying to shake up the TV ad experience.

“When we look at building each 30-minute block, there really is a ton of flexibility we can have within there,” said Oren Katzeff, head of programming at Tastemade.

Tastemade fills that half-hour slot with 25 minutes of programming and five minutes of ads. But the publisher is looking at different ways to use the ad minutes. For example, it could replace a more traditional three-minute ad block of six 30-second ads with a three-minute episode of a show it produced with a brand sponsor, Katzeff said.

Filling the YouTube TV ad time with branded content could help the digital video networks address a limitation with the inventory: the lack of targeting. The Young Turks chief business officer Steven Oh, speaking at last month’s Digiday Video Summit, said the ads must be stitched into the stream that the networks provide YouTube, so they can’t be targeted to segments of the channels’ audience.

Despite the lack of targeting, YouTube TV is a different enough type of inventory that it can help networks move the needle when pitching brands, said Frances Giordano, associate director at The Media Kitchen. “It’s definitely a piece of a inventory that all brands should be testing, even if they learn it’s not right for a brand,” she said.

However, the digital networks’ ability to sell their YouTube TV channels’ inventory will end when YouTube adds YouTube TV to its Google Preferred ad-buying program, according to a YouTube spokesperson who declined to discuss details of the company’s YouTube TV deals. At that point the digital video networks will make money by receiving a share of the revenue from the ads YouTube sells against their YouTube TV channels.

That impermanence could curtail advertisers’ interest in crafting new ads for a short-lived opportunity. It’s unclear whether YouTube will try out different ad loads once it takes control of the YouTube TV inventory, but the digital networks could serve as a proof point for the platform to try out something other than the typical 16 minutes of ads per hour of programming.

The 16-minute load appears to be the on the way out, anyway. YouTube TV’s digital networks aren’t the only linear channels looking to shake up the traditional TV ad load. A few years ago Turner’s TruTV began to reduce the amount of ad time on its network, and its sibling networks TBS and TNT are now following suit. Meanwhile NBC and Fox have tried out six-second ads, and Fox is reportedly considering a single-ad slot that could run up to six minutes long.

The post YouTube TV’s digital channels experiment with different ad loads while they still can appeared first on Digiday.