Month: July 2018

Many Americans say government investments in medical research, engineering and technology or basic scientific research usually pay off in the long run.

Want to mingle over beers with the Knicks’ Tim Hardaway Jr. or talk shop with the Blazers’ C. J. McCollum? Look no further than The Players’ Lounge. The event space, which opened in February at The Players’ Tribune New York headquarters, hopes to attract the industry’s top athletes and influencers to celebrate the biggest sporting…

Ever since Apple first started picking up original video programming last year, one question has been left unanswered: Where, exactly, will all this video content live? It’s no small question
either, Hollywood A-listers like Steven Spielberg and Jennifer Aniston have signed on to programming without knowing where it will be available, or at what cost — or even whether it will have
advertising.

What do you get when two legacy media agencies merge to create a new brand? An entity that aims to be more agile and data-driven than the sum of its parts, said Wavemaker CEO Amanda Richman. “We need to create ways of working that are much more seamless and allow us to be much more connected… Continue reading »

The post One Year In, Wavemaker Takes Shape But Stays Fluid appeared first on AdExchanger.

Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club went from upstarts to behemoths, shaking up the century-old razor category in just a few short years. But there’s still more market share to shave off the top. What about women’s razors? That’s the question that Billie, a razor subscription service for women founded last year, is aiming to answer.… Continue reading »

The post Billie, A Direct-To-Consumer Women’s Razor Brand, Has A Leg Up On Legacy CPGs 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 Bjarte Humborstad, digital director at RED Media Consulting. Following the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Google has allowed advertisers to serve their YouTube ads only from Google-owned… Continue reading »

The post European Advertisers Have Limited Ability To Verify YouTube Ads appeared first on AdExchanger.

The Business Of Media Atlantic Media is selling its mobile-first business property, Quartz, to Uzabase, a Japanese media company with a business news app and corporate intelligence tool. The deal is valued at between $75 million and $100 million, Quartz reports. Founder and editor-in-chief Kevin Delaney and publisher Joe Lauf will become co-CEOs as founder… Continue reading »

The post Quartz Acquired; Oath Doubted appeared first on AdExchanger.

YouTube has frustrated digital video creators for not always displaying their videos to the people who subscribe to their channels and for sometimes pulling ads from their videos that people do see. So YouTube stars are increasingly responding by extending the lengths of their videos in order to curry favor with YouTube’s watch-time-minded recommendation algorithm and to be able to feature more ads per video.

“I’ve figured out ways to monetize and to take advantage of the power of the algorithm,” said Cody Ko, a comedian whose main YouTube channel claims more than 1.1 million subscribers. “Obviously, it preferences longer videos, throwing multiple mid-rolls in, which tons of people do now.” Last year, Ko typically posted videos to his channel that lasted between six and seven minutes. But as YouTube cracked down on which videos were eligible to carry ads and removed ads from some of Ko’s, he upped the average length of his videos to range from 12 to 16 minutes.

The move by creators to produce longer videos “is very much correlated to over the last two years when YouTube switched the recommendation engine and search and discovery [to push new channels and creators to viewers],” said Rafi Fine, co-founder of Fine Brothers Entertainment, an entertainment company that produces videos and shows for digital platforms like YouTube as well as for traditional TV and whose main YouTube channel counts more than 17 million subscribers.

While YouTube’s algorithm has prioritized watch time since 2012, creators have seen it shift toward favoring videos that people are likely to click on, but from channels they don’t subscribe to over videos from subscribed channels, Fine said. But if creators can demonstrate that their audiences spend more time on YouTube in order to watch their longer videos, they may be able to retrain YouTube’s algorithm to promote their videos in order to generate the desired watch time.

Other creators and media companies are similarly lengthening the videos they upload to YouTube. Remi Cruz, a lifestyle vlogger with 2.3 million subscribers on YouTube, usually posts 20-minute videos, she said. Gwen Miller, vp of content strategy at digital video network Kin Community, said 10 to 16 minutes has become the sweet spot for YouTube videos. And Whistle Sports, a digital video network that works with individual creators and produces its own original programming, tries to stick between the seven- and 12-minute range.

“We’re trying to generate watch time because we know that’s favorable to YouTube,” said Josh Grunberg, Whistle Sports’ head of community development and growth. “We know that they want meaningful views.”

Meanwhile, the move to increasingly insert mid-roll ads within these longer videos coincides with YouTube’s push over the past year to more aggressively restrict ads from running against some videos in an effort to reduce its brand-safety problems. A video may still risk being stripped of ads, but creators can hedge their bets by attaching more ads to a video so that a monetized view can generate more money to offset a demonetized view.

Once Ko’s videos began to exceed 10 minutes, he could run multiple ads in the middle of videos in order to make more money per view. Sixty percent of viewers probably won’t even be shown an ad, said Ko, “but it ups the chance that someone will get an ad, so the [per-video revenue] goes up, and you make more money for your video.”

Ko’s shift to posting longer videos brought another benefit. “I find the retention is better for longer videos,” he said, attributing the correlation to the added time allowing for more jokes to be included.

Viewership retention underpins the trend toward longer videos and mid-roll ads. Without viewers willing to sit through longer videos, creators wouldn’t generate the watch time that YouTube’s algorithm looks for and wouldn’t have as many impressions for YouTube to serve ads. That’s leading more creators to increase the attention they put toward retention.

Earlier this year, Fine Brothers Entertainment took a harder look at its videos’ viewership retention analytics to take fuller advantage of the mid-roll ad option and increase the amount of money they make per video. Previously, the company would insert the ad around the seven- or eight-minute mark of an 11-minute video. It would do this for two reasons: It didn’t want to annoy any viewers that were also served a pre-roll ad, and it assumed people would stick around through the mid-roll, having seen most of the video, said Fine. But based on its videos’ retention rates, Fine Brothers Entertainment found that viewers were more likely to watch through an ad if it was inserted around the five- or six-minute mark.

“Everything inside that area [of viewership retention], that’s the No. 1 area right now on YouTube to be focused on,” said Fine.

The post Creators are making longer videos to cater to the YouTube algorithm appeared first on Digiday.

Events have become a more attractive option for publishers keen to get closer to their audience.

For Time Out, which started as a city guide, events have always been core to its brand. According to the publisher, it’s been evolving them over the years to make events a bigger part of its ad proposition and grow its e-commerce line, rather than adding incremental revenue to drive it to profitability.

In London this summer, the publisher is putting on Time Out’s Eye-Openers, 24 events inside the capsule of the London Eye, including drag queen acts and cocktail making; Movies on the River, a floating cinema on the Thames sponsored by Rekorderlig Botanicals cider; and other events including silent disco at London skyscraper The Shard and Battle of the Burger in New York. Last year, the publisher ran nearly 800 global events — up from 250 the previous year — for 150,000 attendees.

“It’s a combination of our brand and our content,” said Christine Petersen, CEO of Time Out Digital, part of Time Out Group. “Brands can interact with our customers in a 360-degree way.”

In March, Time Out hosted its annual Mac & Cheese Smackdown in New York, its largest event yet, where 13 cheesemongers fed 2,000 attendees their dishes. Tickets to the event cost £42 ($55), and it was sponsored by Jack Daniel’s, whose goal was to get its drink into younger people’s hands.

In Time Out’s annual report, ticket sales from events fall under e-commerce revenue, which was up 57 percent in 2017 to drive 19 percent, or £7.3 million ($9.6 million), of Time Out Digital’s total revenue. Event sponsorship falls under digital advertising revenue, which grew by 19 percent last year to make up 31 percent, or £12 million ($15.8 million), of Time Out Digital’s revenue.

Petersen said events are a core driver of Time Out’s e-commerce growth, driving over 400,000 e-commerce transactions in 2017, including restaurant bookings and theater tickets, up 33 percent from the previous year.

As the types of events vary, so do the sponsorship objectives: For Jack Daniel’s, the goal was getting the drink in younger people’s hands. For others, the goal is driving social reach. “If you’re not a brand that people follow, it’s all about the Instagram moment,” said Petersen. “It’s incredibly powerful if a sponsor can get into the Instagram moment tied up with Time Out.”

The danger with events is they can be low-margin and hard to scale, and publishers looking for a quick fix to stem falling ad revenue will come unstuck. “It takes strategic decision-making,” said Richard Gillis, managing partner at Havas sports and entertainment agency Cake. “Sometimes publishers shy away from bold decision-making and investment.”

Time Out doesn’t pull in a sponsor for all events, instead working with third-party providers on a revenue-share model, as it does with Hornblower Cruises for its boat trips in New York. How many events work under different models will affect how much further it can grow.

“Movies on the River is extendable: a boat, a movie rental, a sponsor with a beverage — that’s rinse and repeat around the world,” said Petersen. “You can look at everything as quite bespoke, or you can come with systems. It’s key the events stay fresh and interesting, but not constantly reinvent it. We could do Battle of the Tacos in two years.”

Time Out Group doesn’t break out head count beyond its total of 400 people globally, but Petersen said a small team primarily based in the U.S. and U.K manages events, with outside help from production companies when needed.

Sustained growth at this rate will be a challenge, said Gillis. “You don’t want to get into a scale game to drive growth. Something else has to happen,” he said. “Value is a feature of scarcity. The price will go up if you create more value in each event. There’s no reason they can’t do that, but it’s harder with 800 events than with 250.”

Petersen said events are starting to intersect with Time Out Markets, which are part of Time Out Group but managed separately from Time Out Digital, opening up more ways for brands to reach Time Out’s audience.

The post From silent discos to burger battles: How events are driving Time Out to profitability appeared first on Digiday.