When CKE Restaurant Group, the owner of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, launched a Kellogg’s Froot Loops-inspired mini doughnut last Thursday, it needed to make sure customers walked through its doors to buy. So CKE went all-in on digital with a campaign that spanned YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify and Twitter and included a custom partnership with… Continue reading »
Theranos, the blood-testing company accused of perpetrating Silicon Valley’s biggest fraud, will formally dissolve. The move comes after prosecutors filed criminal charges against founder Elizabeth Holmes.
“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 David Kohl, president and CEO at TrustX. News flash: The shiny new object is no longer shiny – or new. Programmatic advertising – the industry’s perpetually new thing – is… Continue reading »
Subscriptions are in vogue for publishers as they increasingly attempt to generate revenue directly from their audiences instead of through advertising. But building subscription businesses isn’t easy, and publishers say the biggest challenges are the basic ones: Figuring out a product that people will pay for, and then figuring out how to drive conversions.
Sixty-three percent of publishers polled at the Digiday Hot Topic: Subscriptions and Memberships event in August said turning audiences into paying subscribers is a key challenge when creating subscription products, while forty-two percent pointed to developing products people will pay for.
When the founder of Diapers.com launched a media startup led by parenting brands Scary Mommy and The Dad, he brought his customer-focused metrics with him: customer acquisition cost (CAC) and long-term value (LTV). When translated to media, Some Spider Studios CEO Vinit Bharara analyzes what content draws readers most efficiently (the media version of CAC)… Continue reading »
How do you build the new number one brand in athletic wear? Stop worrying about appealing to athletes.
That’s the mindset of Tyler Haney, the 29-year-old founder and CEO of the activewear brand Outdoor Voices, which in the past five years has grown into an 80-person team with six stores and $56.4 million in venture funding.
“In college, I was exercising in shiny, black activewear that made me look like an elite athlete,” explains Haney. “But all I wanted were comfortable clothes for recreational jogs.” Haney quickly realized she wasn’t the only member of this community — described in her own words as “exercisers who are active simply because it makes them feel good.” So she set out to create an activewear brand that would be embraced by those for whom simply getting out and doing something — anything — each day was enough.
Empathizing with one’s audience is key to any successful brand identity, but for both Haney and Outdoor Voices, making customers feel seen and heard is a core value. “We encourage people to show us the ways they’re being active through the hashtag #DoingThings,” explains Haney. “It’s cool to see the range of activities people like to do, plus it’s a great way to collect photos of people in our product.”
The tactic works because those products are bold-colored, artfully designed and undeniably photogenic — the stuff of Instagram influencers’ dreams. But the company isn’t just racking up the likes; engagement is a two-way street. Allie Burns, Outdoor Voices’ director of creative services, explains, “Tyler will go on Instagram and do a video on our channel, asking ‘What color would you want next? What would you improve about our running shorts?’ That type of approach has been really, really exciting. We get a ton of feedback.”
As much as cultivating a digital community of devoted followers has helped Outdoor Voices grow, Haney believes connecting the brand to its customers offline — in that oft-forgotten world known as real life — is absolutely “essential.”
“[We] offer a physical touchpoint for our community through our shops,” Haney says. “Right now, we have eight stores that serve as hubs for recreation and host regular activities based on the areas where they are located.” These hubs are equal parts retail store, rec room, and, again, endlessly Instagrammable. Stores aren’t just where Outdoor Voices consumers shop — they’re familiar gathering spots where like-minded athletes and soon-to-be friends socialize, share content and, well, do things.
Every store is staffed with a field marketer who organizes a daily and weekly events calendar for customers, which can be especially helpful to actively inclined visitors in an unfamiliar city. “You might be traveling to San Francisco for work, and if you don’t know where the best yoga classes are, you could go [to Outdoor Voices] and find out,” Burns says. “Not only [that], but you go with this group of people, which allows you to maybe not feel so scared to try new things.”
Outdoor Voices has built its brand around Haney’s fitness ethos of “moderation, ease and delight,”—three words that also aptly describe OV’s office life and company culture at large. “Some of our best ideas come from times that we’re not sitting in the office, but we’re out there collaborating with each other,” says Burns. With one company spread across two cities — a core headquarters in Austin and a team comprised of special projects and photography in New York City — maintaining a collaborative culture requires flexibility, creativity and the right tools.
“We’re growing so fast, so there are some rules we’ve put in place about making sure certain things are in writing when they are really essential or important to the company,” says Burns.
Digital tools such as Airtable have proven crucial to the brand, especially when managing its seemingly infinite collection of photographic assets featured everywhere from Instagram stories to the Austin headquarters to the New York showroom and San Francisco billboards. “There’s this rule I have,” states Burns. “If it’s not in Airtable, it doesn’t exist.”
Aligning creative teams across time zones can be challenging, but Outdoor Voices’ secret to success comes from a crucial, sometimes underrated value: passion. “At first, we were hiring based solely on experience, but I quickly learned that was a shortsighted approach,” says Haney, reflecting on the challenges of building the right team. “Instead of focusing exclusively on resumes, we now prioritize hiring people with the right mindset, energy and passion.”
“Fast-paced culture” is a well-worn trope of startup office culture, but at Outdoor Voices, they take the “fast” more literally than most. “Some days we’re rollerblading around,” says Burns. “Meetings get moved because we find out there’s a bike race happening that we didn’t know about.
“In the end,” she continues, ”it definitely creates a bigger close-knit team — and a really successful company.”
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Ad Commerce Amazon’s ad business is catching the attention of market analysts, The New York Times reports. The company is on pace to capture upward of $9 billion in ad revenue by year end, with help from brands like Geico, Verizon and ABC that… Continue reading »
With Comcast owning NBCUniversal, Verizon owning Oath, and AT&T owning WarnerMedia (née Time Warner), internet and wireless providers appear to have more incentive than ever to play favorites with the sites and apps that people can access. But California is poised to curtail how these carriers can use their customers’ internet access. California state legislators approved a bill last week that would require internet and wireless providers to treat all internet traffic equally, a concept called “net neutrality.”
While states like Washington, Oregon and Vermont have stepped in to pass their own net neutrality laws, California’s bill “is the toughest net neutrality law,” said Marc Martin, a partner at Perkins Coie and chair of the law firm’s communications industry group. But what’s net neutrality and what makes California’s bill different than other states’ policies?
Remind me: what’s net neutrality?
It’s the idea that companies providing access to the internet, like Comcast and AT&T, shouldn’t make it any easier or more difficult for people to access certain sites or apps. AT&T shouldn’t be able to make its subscribers pay a delivery fee for access to Netflix while letting them stream video from AT&T-owned HBO without any extra fee, at faster download speeds or without counting against their wireless data plans. In short, there shouldn’t be a toll road for internet traffic.
So why did California decide to pass its own net neutrality law?
Because the U.S. no longer has a nationwide net neutrality law. In December, the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal the net neutrality rules that were put in place in 2015. Those rules had barred internet and wireless providers from slowing down access to certain sites or apps while demanding payment from others in exchange for faster delivery speeds. If California’s bill becomes law, it would forbid internet and wireless providers from speeding up, slowing down or blocking access to certain sites or apps and from demanding they pay the providers for people to access their properties.
What’s different about California’s bill?
It would outlaw zero-rating. This is the practice by which an internet or wireless provider exempts access to a certain site or app from counting against a subscriber’s data cap. Zero-rating is an especially important issue these days as providers like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon also own media companies and could use zero-rating to incentivize people to use those sites or apps in favor of competitors’ properties.
Net neutrality sounds like a good thing to protect. Why are businesses against it?
Money. Net neutrality’s repeal opens opportunities for new revenue streams, like charging media companies and streaming platforms to speedily distribute their content or having advertisers subsidize that accelerated delivery as AT&T has tried. That revenue could help the providers to offset the increasing costs of delivering that content, especially bandwidth-sucking video.
Would California be the only state with its own net neutrality law?
Nope. After Washington, Oregon and Vermont, California would be the fourth. That could pose a compliance headache for the internet and wireless providers. However, since California’s law is considered more onerous than the others, companies may be fine so long as they abide the Golden State’s rule. “To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, if you can comply [in California], you can comply anywhere,” said Martin.
Didn’t the FCC say states can’t have their own net neutrality laws?
Yep, but that hasn’t stopped 30 states from introducing their own net neutrality laws, including California and the three that have passed them into law since the FCC’s repeal. States have side-stepped the FCC’s decree because it’s unclear if the FCC has the authority to make such a demand. Most likely, if internet and/or wireless providers file lawsuits against California’s net neutrality law, the case could make its way up to the Supreme Court. If that happens, then President Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh — who had come out against net neutrality in 2017 — could be the decisive vote.
Why doesn’t Congress take up the issue?
Congress might have to. Internet and wireless providers could lobby federal legislators to pass a nationwide net neutrality law that would likely take precedence over the state laws and could water down some of the states’ rules, such as the zero-rating provision. “The policy that [California sets] is going to go a long way toward pushing net neutrality back in front of Congress. They’re going to have to pick this up,” said Lyon.
To find the right concepts for ad campaigns it puts in front of its audience, Hong Kong-based publisher 9GAG has been asking said audience for ideas.
For creative campaigns it’s made for advertisers including Dunkin Donuts and smartphone maker OnePlus, 9GAG has sought submissions from a group of 500 creators it’s culled from the 25,000 people who submit content to the mostly user-generated site. The group helps 9GAG with everything from advertising campaign ideas to creative editorial development. A couple long-form video series, developed with those creators, will launch later this fall.
9GAG’s not alone. To win advertiser budgets with creative services, some publishers that tend to be small and user generated content-based (Thought Catalog and Tumblr are a couple others) are putting audience ideas and content at the heart of their pitches. To avoid the cost of a large creative department, the publishers tap amateur creators, many of whom are just starting their professional careers or who are eager for a creative outlet on the side.
Such programs can mean six figures in revenue and the chance to build direct relationships with advertisers. They come with headaches, too. These talents are rarely offered retainers, so publishers need to spend money to keep creators feeling engaged and valued. On the advertising side, publishers also need to explain away the irony of turning to a publisher for help getting ideas from amateurs.
“It’s this really delicate balancing act,” said Chris Lavergne, the CEO of Thought Catalog. “Right now our priority is educating clients.”
The concept of a crowd-sourced creative network is not new, said Eric Levin, evp and chief content officer of Spark Foundry. And years ago, publishers embraced contributor networks years ago as a low-cost way to scale an audience.
Yet these creative-sourced efforts are new. Thought Catalog’s Collective World, a 9,100-person network comprised mostly of millennial women, launched in stealth mode in December; 9GAG’s creator network, which is invite-only, is under a year old; Tumblr’s Creatrs program is about a year old.
These publishers have won business this way from a wide range of brands. Tumblr’s Creatrs network claims to have worked with over 150 brands since its launch; Collective World has campaigns underway for hospitality and marijuana brands; 9GAG has created work for brands including Dunkin Donuts, Swedish personal finance startup Kiarna and record labels.
The publishers building these networks all make an effort to set their creators apart from influencer networks, which became popular with publishers such as Condé Nast and The New York Timesbut now are facing increased scrutiny from marketers.
Instead of a big stable of photogenic people, the publishers say, these networks are comprised of skilled craftspeople whose work is well known to the publisher. Lavergne said Collective World’s members are interested in getting a book published through Thought Catalog; 9GAG attracts many of its creators through the Fun-Off, a long-running UGC competition that pits people against each other for a $100,000 payoff or are identified by its 20-person community engagement team.
They are also tightly integrated into the publishers’ sales infrastructures. Russell Schneider, 9GAG’s head of brand partnerships and business development, said his sales team puts forth these campaigns as a chief point of difference beyond its big reach on social channels.
To keep the talent in these networks engaged, publishers use money and perks. Collective World members are paid flat fees for the content they generate for campaigns, but they also get discounted access to Thought Catalog events and invitations to exclusive retreats it puts together only for Collective World members. Later this month, six top creators will be invited to an exclusive, six-person retreat in upstate New York.
At 9GAG, the selling points to creators include growing one’s personal brand and resources for more ambitious projects. It’s worked with a handful of publishers on original shows on Facebook Watch, Schneider said, and begun licensing creators’ content to brands, much the way a publisher such as Jukin might.
These kinds of campaigns may not have a place in every marketer’s media plan. But for the right kind of advertiser, either as an experimental investment or as a way to build something new, it could have a place.
“Brands that are born, post-advertising, they are very into this idea of leveraging high quality high composition networks,” said Michael Nicholas, the founder and chief digital officer of the agency Assembly. “They will use that for insight into how they can become important to that community [they’re trying to reach].”
