Month: June 2018

Media executives say the mini-broadcast network pulled in about 15% more advertising upfront dollar volume versus a year ago, to an estimated $560 million to $630 million.

The reorganization is designed to strengthen business development efforts, enable scalability for global brands and facilitate better deployment of resources where they are needed within the group,
according to the company.

If advertisers are looking for an advertising alternative other than Google, does that mean they are following consumers to other platforms?

Existing media agency tools are still a good place to start, and syndicated research companies such as MRI are also helpful, says Josh Martin, executive vp-head of mass acquisition media, Performics.

It’s been a big day for the franchise formerly known as the International House of Pancakes. Today, IHOP announced it was temporarily rebranding as IHOb, the International House of Burgers, and other brands had a lot to say about it. IHOP was probably hoping for a lot of media coverage and attention for the news…

The new “Must Be” campaign from Mo?t & Chandon embraces the idea that “we don’t remember days, we remember moments”–though we’d argue that depends how much Mo?t you drink. The iconic champagne house officially launched the campaign over the weekend in celebration of its holiday, Mo?t Grand Day, as well as Ros? Day LA in…

A group of seven media associations have sent Facebook a letter protesting its issue ads policy that would lump news articles in with political and advocacy ads as part of an effort to be more transparent about political advertising on the social network.

The policy would affect publishers that pay Facebook to boost exposure of their news articles. It has publishers concerned that labeling their content as political with a “paid for by” label will make it appear biased. New York Media and the Financial Times said they would suspend their paid promotion on Facebook due to their concerns about the policy, even though it would mean giving up potential audience gains.

The letter’s message is similar to a statement in May by the News Media Alliance, which represents some 2,000 newspaper companies including The New York Times, News Corp and McClatchy, for Facebook to exempt credible news organizations from the requirement. The hope is that the heft of the combined associations will make it harder for Facebook to ignore them.

The new letter is signed by the News Media Alliance as well as the heads of the American Society of News Editors, European Publishers Council, Digital Content Next, MPA – The Association of Magazine Media, Society of Professional Journalists and WAN-IFRA. It says Facebook’s policy further blurs the line between credible journalism and propaganda and asks the company to exclude publishers from being subject to the political advertising-labeling policy. The letter further gives recommendations on how Facebook could identify news outlets to exempt from the policy, using criteria including the presence of a dedicated, professional news staff; commercial support through means like subscriptions or advertising; and membership in an industry organization.

“Our seven associations, representing over 20,000 news publications in over 120 countries, strongly encourage you to revise your political advertising policy to immediately exempt news publications and work with industry towards a solution,” David Chavern, News Media Alliance president and CEO, wrote in his cover email to Facebook top brass.

“We’re concerned, as news leaders across America, about the impact that Facebook’s policy could do to the value of independent journalism,” said Alfredo Carbajal, president of ASNE and managing editor of Al Día at The Dallas Morning News. “News, by definition, is information that must incorporate all the elements of a particular issue, and will always be independent from political, partisan or ideology positions. Our intent and purpose is to shine truth and inform the society in general, without any bias. But if our news content is to be treated and classified as part of political ads, then the public at large will be largely misinformed.”

“These are confusing and sometimes dangerous solutions, as Facebook refuses to listen to the broader news industry and member associations who work tirelessly to protect the public and the free and independent press,” said Jason Kint, head of Digital Content Next. “It’s the quintessential big tech echo chamber and the antithesis of the transparency they have promised us.”

Facebook is under intense pressure to tighten up its election policy after Russian actors used the platform to run divisive ads during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Facebook’s head of global news partnerships, Campbell Brown, responded earlier to the alliance that Facebook recognizes that news coverage of elections and other important issues are distinct from advocacy or electoral ads. She said Facebook would work with publishers individually on the issue, but didn’t say when Facebook would update its policy. Facebook went a bit further this time, saying it was aiming to have the policy updated later this summer. That won’t likely satisfy the news organizations, which asked to be immediately exempt from the policy.

“Transparency leads to greater accountability, and it’s something our news partners have encouraged, which is why we’re moving in this direction for all advertising that involves political content,” Brown said in a statement via Facebook public relations. “We’ll continue to authorize ad content from news organizations that includes political mentions, but we recognize that reporting on these topics is different than advocacy. We’re working to treat advertised news content differently in the archive, which addresses our news partners’ fundamental concern. An exemption or whitelist would directly negate the new levels of transparency we’re trying to achieve.”

The ads policy response is just one of the sticking points that publishers have with Facebook. Facebook said it would favor news from high-quality publishers, but publishers have questioned its methods for defining such quality. Publishers have long distributed the content on the platform, but haven’t made any meaningful revenue from it. Facebook has been paying news publishers to produce shows for its long-form video section, Watch, but there’s no guarantee the money will continue once the subsidies end.

The letter is also the latest example of how publishers or their organizations have banded together to curtail the power of the tech giants. Four of the same organizations together protested Google’s plan to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation that protects EU citizens’ privacy, and they also sat out meetings that Google called to discuss its position with publishers.

The post Seven news organizations protest Facebook’s issue ads policy appeared first on Digiday.

Facebook Tuesday introduced Memories, a new section where people can access moments shared with family and friends. Memories is accessible via the bookmarks to the left of News Feed on desktop, via the More tab in the bottom-right corner of Facebook’s flagship mobile applications, and also via notifications and messages users may see in their…

Nielsen has quietly begun rolling out a new offering that enables advertisers to compress the length of TV commercials — and potentially other video ads — in a way that makes them as or more
effective than their original length, and far cheaper to buy. The new method, which is being bundled into Nielsen’s existing consumer neuroscience practice, is effectively being offered as added
value to brands and agencies that use the service to test the effectiveness of their campaigns.

LinkedIn announced that it is teaming up with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Spouse Education and Career Opportunities program to provide one free year of LinkedIn Premium to military spouses when their families move to new installations. Daniel Savage, head of military and veterans programs at the professional network, said in a blog post that…