Month: June 2018

“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 Katrin Ribant, co-founder and chief solutions officer at Datorama. Doomsday – also known as May 25, when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect – has come and… Continue reading »

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Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Taking Inventory A couple of years ago, Snapchat charged between $300,000 and $500,000 to sponsor a Lens, and video ad campaigns were $750,000 a pop. Today, Snapchat ads have a lower CPM than Facebook or Instagram and soon every type of ad product Snapchat… Continue reading »

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Adidas is building a media strategy that values ads not by impressions, but on the audience attention and engagement they deliver.

Adidas’ core consumers are big ad-blockers, so moving away from traditional digital media buying is the most effective way to reach its audience, said four separate executives with knowledge of Adidas’ plans. That means instead working directly with publishers and influencers that have loyal audiences, rather than relying on proxies for reach.

The company’s World Cup campaign is the clearest example to date of this strategy change. For the campaign, 56 of Adidas’ most influential ambassadors will create content for fans in New York, London, Shanghai, Tokyo, Paris and Los Angeles. Outside of football, Adidas ambassadors like record producer Pharrell Williams, tennis player Caroline Wozniacki and model Karlie Kloss will share content they developed with Adidas on their own personal channels. The second phase of the World Cup campaign will emphasize content crowdsourced from fans.

Adidas declined to detail its media strategy. A spokesperson did say that the campaign’s social rollout has been customized by platform and personalized by viewer, based on their interests and preferences, though. Fans in each of Adidas’ key cities will see a different take on an ad that speaks to cultural nuances, the rep said. Adidas-backed footballers such as Lionel Messi and Paul Pogba will also participate in the campaign, though the company is seeking to ensure the campaign’s appeal goes beyond football.

“We are inviting athletes, musicians, artists and filmmakers in adidas key cities to co-create and shape the brand narrative,” the spokeswoman said. “These images, moments and content that Adidas and makers create together will form the first-ever open-sourced campaign [from the brand] and real-time pulse of the world’s biggest sporting event.”

For years, Adidas, like many other advertisers, planned media based on impressions and used cookie data for targeting. Adidas told its agencies this approach doesn’t build lasting, valuable attention, according to the four executives, and is telling its agencies to move away from chasing short-term, vanity metrics that can be easily gamed. The advertiser’s senior marketers have talked to their agencies at length about how viewability and contextual targeting can be used to ensure quality placements.

One agency executive that works with the company summed up the shift in strategy: “Brands like Adidas are increasingly looking at distributed publishing models for their campaigns, so if you have a strong following on a platform, then you’re much more valuable to be working with as a partner or an influencer.”

Sam Fenton-Elstone, CEO of media-buying agency AIP (and not one of the aforementioned four executives), cautioned that personalizing content can come off as “gimmicky,” though.

“Once the instant surprise is over, the value of it is negligible. Building cultural attention means understanding people, communities and culture, and adding value to those groups. It takes more than data to do this,” Fenton-Elstone said. “Brands need to stay true to their identity, but speak the language and tone of the communities they are part of and the audiences they are targeting.”

The post Adidas tests new media strategy with World Cup campaign appeared first on Digiday.

Buying tickets to a game for the Los Angeles Football Club isn’t hard. Google it, and the first thing you might see is a link to SeatGeek, the professional soccer team’s official ticketing partner. And yet, last month, LAFC invested in an “underdog” in commerce: Snapchat.

SeatGeek is now powering ticket sales for live events within brands’ Snapchat Stories, starting with LAFC and currently for International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. The update is one of the latest steps Snapchat is taking to expand its e-commerce business. Publishers in Snapchat’s Discover section have tested a feature that lets users swipe up and buy items inside the app. On June 11, Snap announced that test within Snap Ads and Story Ads. Snap made shoppable augmented reality lenses available in its self-serve platform as well. It also launched goal-based bidding for conversions that uses Snap Pixel to track purchases or sign-ups to help advertisers better monitor return on investment.

The question is: Does anyone actually want to buy tickets — or anything, really — via Snapchat? Apparently, yes. Tom Penn, LAFC president and co-owner, emailed that the team sold out of the limited number of tickets it offered. He wouldn’t say how many tickets were sold, but added that LAFC planned to continue working with Snapchat.

According to SeatGeek, no money is changing hands between Snap and SeatGeek, a sign that it’s still early days for the integration. Fandango has been working with Snapchat for years to allow users to purchase movie tickets via Snap Ads, starting with “X-Men: Apocalypse.” But that experience links to Fandango’s mobile webpage, instead of a native experience. Studios choose which movies to advertise, and Fandango has sold tickets via Snap Ads for movies including “Get Out,” “Black Panther,” “It” and “Ocean’s 8.”

Darrell Jursa, managing director of commerce and content solutions at Omnicom’s Resolution Media, said there’s potential for Snapchat as a bigger commerce platform if the offerings are catered to the app’s young users.

“I think there’s intent, but there’s a two-step [process] with the existing audience: Could you get me to buy something that I can’t access anywhere else?” Jursa said. “If you had a ticket to a YouTuber making an appearance somewhere, I will tell you that that audience would sell out of tickets through Snap.”

Indeed, one of Snap’s first successful attempts at commerce with a brand involved exclusivity. Snap sold Air Jordan III Tinker sneakers through the platform with Darkstore and R/GA, and Shopify powered the initiative. The sneakers sold out in 23 minutes.

“We were blessed to work with Jordan. Their stuff kind of sells out regardless, but [their fans] are a unique community of people,” said Ben Williams, vp and executive creative director of products and services at R/GA. “Doing things that haven’t been done before is kind of the expectation.”

Providing a digital layer to pop-up stores is one potential commerce play for Snapchat. Snap also has been experimenting with quirky items available only in its own app. In February, Snap launched its own store within the app for Snapchat-themed products like plushies of the company’s mascot, Ghostface Chillah, and yellow beach towels.

Jursa said his 13-year-old daughter “really digs” Snap’s ghost plushies.

“She texts me and asks, ‘Can I buy it?’ [Snapchat] needs to build more shopping experiences for the younger users,” he said. “Just look at the run rate on [the game] ‘Fortnite.’ I get Snap testing with tickets, but let’s get really specific. It has to be very personalized.”

This personalized commerce push could also align with Snap’s efforts to woo creators. Last month, Snap held its first Creators Summit, where executives promised the highly followed users more opportunities to grow their audiences and make money on the platform. For now, Snapchat creators generate revenue through branded content deals.

Over the past year, some creators and publishers have been looking more to Instagram, given its larger scale and other capabilities. Yet Snap touts HiSmile, an oral cosmetics company that increased its spending on Snapchat by more than 400 percent over the last three months. Now, HiSmile’s ad spending is evenly split between Facebook and Snapchat; Facebook previously received 80 percent of the share.

R/GA’s Williams argued that both Facebook and Snapchat could succeed with commerce for brands, if done right.

“For me, Snapchat is more innovative,” he said. “They double down on the experience piece of it. Instagram has the install base. They’re winning by the power of numbers. When you’re at scale, you tread cautiously. When you’re the underdog, you’re willing to take risks.”

The post Snap expands commerce for brands within Snapchat Stories appeared first on Digiday.