Less BS, More Facts, Some Opinions
While partisans agree that political leaders should be honest and ethical, they differ over whether particular leaders display these traits.
The post Partisans agree political leaders should be honest and ethical, disagree whether Trump fits the bill appeared first on Pew Research Center.
The New York Times once worked with thousands of advertisers, but it’s now narrowed its focus to the top 100 global brands. “The business is shrinking in terms of the overall number of advertisers, as there are more places to do longtail advertising,” said Sebastian Tomich, global head of advertising and marketing solutions at The… Continue reading »
The post The New York Times Gets Cozy With Big Brands appeared first on AdExchanger.
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Alysia Borsa, chief marketing and data officer at Meredith Corp. As the industry clamors for more transparency in the supply chain, publishers should take the lead. Publishers are sitting on high-quality, proprietary data sets. Their… Continue reading »
The post The Right Way For Publishers To Be Transparent appeared first on AdExchanger.
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Down, But Still Substantial Verizon’s media biz dropped 5.8% YoY in Q4 2018 – bringing it to “only” $2.1 billion in the quarter. Verizon Media (née Oath) has disappointed this year. “Certainly, when you see -6.9% revenue growth in 3Q and -5.8% in 4Q,… Continue reading »
The post Verizon’s Media Business Disappoints; Walled Gardens Weather The Privacy Storm appeared first on AdExchanger.
On Monday, Casper cleared its Instagram account entirely, instead, replacing it with two posts teasing a product drop announcement to come. On Tuesday, the brand released the Casper Glow, a handheld night light meant to help adults fall asleep and selling for $89 a pop.
It’s the latest product in Casper’s expanding lineup that’s going beyond its bed-in-a-box beginnings. It now sells bed frames, dog beds, pillows, sheets, quilts and duvets along with the Glow, as the company positions itself more as a bedroom brand than a mattress brand.
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The post Retail Briefing: As reality catches up to DTC brands, Casper could become a cautionary tale appeared first on Digiday.
The talk of mergers in digital media might never die down, driven by a desire for top digital publishers to achieve profitability and sustainability, as well as media reporters such as myself who can’t seem to let the subject go. But let’s reiterate this once more: barring a drastic change in circumstances, a high-profile merger is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
The key hits:
As BuzzFeed undergoes its latest round of layoffs, which will see the company shrink by 15 percent and let go of more than 200 employees, the prospect of some sort of tie-up between BuzzFeed and other digital publishers is bubbling back up. Recode and CNN reported that BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti and Group Nine Media CEO Ben Lerer have discussed the possibility of combining forces. We can confirm that these two have talked, but we can also confirm that these two always talk about potential mergers, tie-ups, partnerships, according to sources familiar with the matter. Peretti and Lerer are longtime friends, and Lerer’s father, Ken Lerer, is an investor in both companies. (Alongside Ken Lerer, Peretti is also a co-founder of The Huffington Post.)
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The post Video Briefing: BuzzFeed layoffs prompt new talk of mergers appeared first on Digiday.
Publishers are finding meaningful revenue from podcasts, a format that, in some cases, offers a more viable ad model than video.
The Economist, which launched its fifth podcast, The Intelligence, this week, said that monthly revenue from podcast ads served by platform Acast has increased 50 percent in 2018; that’s across the publisher’s five podcasts that collectively fetched 7 million average monthly listens or downloads. The Telegraph has said it’s prioritizing podcasts, which it has historically used as a subscription driver. In December, the newspaper cut under 10 staff from its video team. On Monday, U.S. sports outlet The Ringer said it made more than $15 million (£11.4 million) on podcast ad sales in 2018, averaging 35 million monthly downloads.
According to The Economist, its podcast CPMs are higher than YouTube’s network average CPM rates of between $2 (£1.52) and $3 (£2.28), said Tom Standage, head of digital strategy and deputy editor at The Economist, although the publisher wouldn’t go into detail about its podcast ad revenues, and it mostly monetizes video through brand sponsorship on Economist Films.
“I am not saying that people should do podcasts instead of videos,” said Standage. “I just think there is a viable ad model for podcasts, and I’m not convinced there is one for ad-based videos.”
For podcasts, which have been around for over 10 years, the advertiser demand is fairly recent, 12 percent of the U.K. population listens to podcasts weekly. There’s also scarcity: Not all podcasts are created equal. Out of the thousands produced, only the top 5 percent are likely to get the numbers that would excite advertisers, which are in the six figures. Because of this, sources say that podcast ads in the U.K. fetch around $11.84 (£9) CPMs, while host-read ads can cost more than $39.45 (£30) CPMs. (The Ringer was charging between $25 and $50 CPMs).
Buyers are seeing the same. Broadly speaking, Charlie Yeates, head of investment at Mediacom, is seeing roughly a 30 percent premium on podcasts compared to onsite pre-roll video ads. There are some key considerations around context and audience. A lot of video pre-roll will be bought through networks, and the video ad ecosystem is suffering from the challenges of a more mature market forcing down CPMs. It’s also more costly for publishers to make.
“You don’t get clients saying they want to be on pre-roll, but you get clients saying they want to be on the Economist’s podcast,” said Yeates, adding that he expects the buoyant rates to continue. With fewer ads in podcasts, brands can get more cut through than video, and the podcast format is more flexible. Brands can have a hand at influencing the editorial.
The ad opportunities are evolving for brands too. Usage growth has been accelerating, it was only a matter of time for ad money to catch up, said Nic Newman, editor of the Reuters Institute Digital News Report. “What has held things up is that podcast advertisers have often been lower-quality brands that don’t feel right for the publisher, but this is changing.”
The interest is growing for brands creating their own podcasts too. Car brand Jaguar Land Rover’s scripted podcast won several awards, and financial provider Natwest’s financial advice show, with broadcaster June Sarpong, is in its second series.
“There is value and reliability of the metrics,” said Steve Ackerman, managing director of production studio Somethin Else. “Two minutes on video is thought of as great; we’re seeing 85 percent of the audience listen to a 30-minute podcast. Once they find the content they like, they will stick with it and binge. The behavior is more parallel to Netflix and SVOD services.”
The industry is still waiting for standardized reliable metrics across the different podcast platforms. But CPMs are likely to hold despite metrics quibbles, said Yeates. “The demand is exceeding what agencies are proposing,” he said. “In the U.K., with the pressure around transparency, we are cautious with the metrics, reminding clients audiences are harder to track because they’re not often streaming live. But that doesn’t put them off.”
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