Month: January 2019

Less than six months into its launch, TikTok has quietly introduced an ad unit. On Jan, 26, the short-form video app that combined with Musical.ly last August showed an app install ad from food delivery company GrubHub.

The ad appeared shortly after a user launched the app and lasted about 5 seconds, according to Chris Harihar, a TikTok user and partner at Crenshaw Communications. Users could instantly skip the ad via a button at the top right of the screen, which is visible in this screenshot provided by Harihar:

Think this is the first real ad campaign I’ve seen on @tiktok_us. @kerrymflynn pic.twitter.com/zt3JcSYCz0

— chris harihar (@chrisharihar) January 26, 2019

Sean Everett, chief product officer at consultancy Everett Advisors, also spotted the ad on Jan. 26.

“My first reaction was surprised that the product team was doing an app launch pre-roll ad. I’m guessing they have some tagging and attribution for tracking engagement metrics, but the creative was well done and seemed native to the platform,” Everett said.

TikTok did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

“We’re always looking at new ways to engage with and attract new diners, and you likely saw an ad run as part of a test campaign we’ve recently executed,” a GrubHub spokesperson said.

TikTok launching ads is not too surprising. Musical.ly’s team was shopping ad units to agencies last June, shortly before it merged with TikTok. In November, agencies told Digiday they were interested in the app and were awaiting some formal monetization options.

Noah Mallin, head of content and experience at Wavemaker, said his agency hasn’t heard from TikTok since they were Musical.ly but they would be interested in working more with the platform. Wavemaker has done some campaigns on TikTok by partnering with influencers but hasn’t yet worked directly with the app’s sales team. Mallin said TikTok is appealing to his agency due to its younger, attentive and global demographic. In October, Apptopia reported TikTok had more than 130 million monthly active users globally. A quick browse of the app’s popular videos shows many creators appear to be teens, though there are also older users in the military and store workers.

“We would be interested based on the younger audience and what seems to be a high interaction rate. There is also the interesting potential to tap into the Chinese side of the platform for our brands that may have a more global footprint,” Mallin said.

However, there are brand safety concerns to be mindful of — “as with all channels that host a lot of user-generated content,” Mallin said.

Chris Strong, account director at influencer marketing agency Viral Nation, said his team wasn’t aware of the formal ad unit but was interested in the monetization option. To him, the ad unit introduced the possibility for more ad tracking and engagement metrics through the platform.

“As TikTok is trying to acquire an older demographic, I think the ad unit would be great for brands that align with Gen-Z. I am very optimistic about the future of TikTok and hope this is the first step towards creating a trackable campaign for influencers on TikTok,” Strong said.

Harihar, who spotted the GrubHub ad, said he was a bit disappointed by the ad’s creative. TikTok thrives off of user-driven challenges, such as the #Adelechallenge, which shows one object like a gummy bear and then pans to a crowd of many over Adele’s “Someone Like You,” and #syncchallenge, which syncs handshakes to a song, as well as other memes shared in this Twitter thread.

“The content on TikTok is so insanely creative and user-driven. It’s not like Snapchat or Instagram. People go all out to create these videos. It’s more of a performance platform. So the bar is high to stand-out,” Harihar said.

Everett agreed to the need for advertisers to be more creative on TikTok. While TikTok may feature vertical video just like on Instagram Stories and Snapchat, the content is quite unique. Though, TikTok does have competition from Facebook’s copycat app Lasso and Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann’s “looping video app,” which is expected to launch later this year.

“There’s some really interesting content [on TikTok] with individual people doing sped up lip syncing for vocal work. If [brands] do these types of native and engaging content, the ads will do well. You can’t just repackage something from Instagram or Facebook and think it will work,” Everett said.

The post TikTok is quietly testing ads appeared first on Digiday.

Digiday Media is hiring for a variety of positions across its editorial departments at both of its brands, Digiday and Glossy.

Read about each position below, and apply via the link.

Retail reporter, Digiday
We’re looking for an experienced reporter to chronicle how the retail industry is changing with the advent of digital. Responsibilities include pitching, report and write features and daily pieces on how retailers are adapting to the world of digital for Digiday. You’ll also cover major retailers including Target, Walmart and other big-box stores to figure out how they’re adapting to technology, plus write about the growth of Amazon. You’ll help shape Digiday’s coverage of retail by identifying emerging industry trends in this important and growing part of our coverage.

Audience Growth Associate, Digiday Media
Digiday Media is looking for an audience growth associate to help expand our audience and the manage the information we collect on them. This is a role for someone who wants an opportunity to get their hands dirty with the nuts and bolts of how a modern media company grows, interacts with and monetizes its audience. You’ll report to the head of audience development and work closely with all other departments, including product, sales, editorial, marketing and external partners. The job will initially focus on top-of-funnel audience acquisition, but will evolve over time.

Research analyst, Digiday 
Digiday is looking for an analyst to join the research team for Digiday+, our premium membership program. This role is part of Digiday’s broader editorial team. The ideal candidate has a background in journalism or data research, and a firm understanding of the media and marketing industries. We’re looking for a self-starter who has a creative approach to data and can consistently plan and execute research to a high standard on a recurring basis.

Beauty business reporter, Glossy
Glossy is hiring a beauty reporter to cover the evolution of the industry. This person will be well-versed in the beauty industry and how technology is changing the way it operates. Knowledge and interest in how today’s brands and retailers are growing to adapt to social media, e-commerce, mobile commerce, in-store technologies, emerging business models and new, digital-focused products is a must. The ability to come up with fresh story ideas and formats and provide input on Glossy events is also essential.

Membership products associate, Digiday/Glossy
Digiday is looking for someone with 0-2 years experience to join the membership products team. This role will involve dealing with day-to-day customer questions and requests via email, phone and other digital platforms, and handling various other operational aspects of Digiday Media’s membership products as required. This will include responsibility for daily email newsletters and communications with current and prospective members across both Digiday and Glossy, and working closely with editorial teams to ensure content is reaching members.

 

The post We’re hiring: Come work with Digiday Media’s editorial team appeared first on Digiday.

Condé Nast made waves last week when it declared that all of its titles would erect some kind of paywall by the end of 2019. But some of those titles still need to make their own websites into destinations first.

On Tuesday, Jan. 29, Glamour will unveil a new version of its website designed to encourage visitors to stay longer, watch more video and shop more with them. The redesign, six months in the making, is also meant to distinguish more clearly between quick-hit pieces and the in-depth reporting that the publisher’s new editor in chief, Samantha Barry, sees as most important to Glamour’s brand.

“That hierarchy’s important to me,” Barry said. “On the new site you’ll be able to tell what’s a quick take, and what we’ve taken months of reporting to produce.”

Glamour’s site attracts around 7 million people per month, according to Comscore data. With 85 percent of the audience visiting on mobile devices,  Glamour is looking beyond mobile display ads for opportunities to drive revenue. For example, the homepage will have more dedicated slots for branded content integrations; the site will be able to support up to four branded content integrations at once.

Increasing video views is a top priority, too. About 5 percent of Glamour’s total digital video views in 2018 — 45 million — came from the website, a spokesman said. To boost that number, Barry said, videos will be featured more prominently on the home page and infused into more of the site’s written content. (The site’s eschewing auto-play video.) While Glamour’s writers are not required to put video into every story, Barry said, they will be encouraged to think about how to integrate it more.

The redesign is also designed to increase commerce, which grew 158 percent year over year and which is already 67 percent ahead of projections in the first quarter, a spokesperson said. To that end, Glamour is deploying shoppable slideshow galleries of products, which helped increase commerce revenue over 230 percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2018. A spokesperson declined to share hard numbers.

How the redesign fits into its parent company’s paywall strategy is unclear. The hope, Barry said, is that separating long-and short-form content will help Glamour develop clearer signals about the kinds of content users want to spend more time with. With that data in hand, Barry said, Glamour can begin to think about what kinds of content it can start charging visitors to access.

Glamour’s moves come at a time of momentous change for its parent company, Condé Nast. It vowed that all of its titles would erect some kind of paywall by the end of 2019. Though some of its titles have already turned subscription revenue into a major source of revenue – The New Yorker generated $115 million in subscription revenue last year – some are just beginning; This week, Vogue launched a business-focused newsletter, Vogue Business, which it plans to charge money for eventually.

“I’m optimistic they’ll get this right given what they did for Wired, but having to address all the brands by the end of the year — I hope they don’t cut corners,” said Rob Ristagno, the CEO of Sterling Woods Group. “I hope they don’t assume a meter is the best mechanism for all sites — sometimes a free trial or differentiated tiers based on content topic or type makes more sense.”

“It’s worth investing two to three months on analysis and research to make sure we’re clear on who we are targeting, what’s important to them, and how our content and products help,” Ristagno added.

The post Before pursuing consumer revenue, Glamour seeks to build habit with site redesign appeared first on Digiday.

Independent ad exchanges, which historically focused entirely on the publisher, are now pouring resources into serving advertisers directly. They know that 2019 will be a year when marketers consolidate their budgets into a shorter list of trusted exchanges, and it is mission-critical to be among that group.

The SSP is moving its ad exchange over to the Google Cloud Platform in the hope that it can withstand the commodification of ad tech vendors now that it can secure lower take rates as a result of not having large operating costs. Spiraling costs took its toll on the business last month when it revealed it would ax 100 jobs.

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Toys “R” Us is readying itself for a resurrection.

The effort is backed by a company called Tru Kids, led by CEO and former Toys “R” Us chief merchandiser Richard Barry. It has rights to the Toys “R” Us brand and is made up of former executives from the now-dead toy retailer. The name Tru Kids first appears in court documents dated Dec. 11; the company was incorporated in New Jersey on Jan. 22. Barry and other Tru Kids employees contacted by Digiday did not respond to a request for comment.

A rebuilt Toys “R” Us would have to graft an old name on to a completely new model that favors smaller, boutique, experience-based stores. It’s a shift that’s challenging for big-box brands that once focused on large-format stores with a breadth of inventory. With the rise of online shopping and marketplaces, physical retail spaces are additive to that journey. That’s why it’s so difficult for once-dead brands to come back, and to be successful, the company would have to launch an online-offline approach with refreshed, experiential stores.

“They need to create a new experience that plays off the nostalgia of the brand,” said Susan Cantor, CEO of branding agency Red Peak. “You have to go to a much more specialized place with a more curated selection; [and] you need to go to places where there are other cool brands.”

Cantor said Toys “R” Us could take some lessons from FAO Schwarz, a 150-year-old toy store which closed its doors in 2015. It since reopened a store at Rockefeller Center late last year and is growing its store footprint at airports, a new setting for the brand.

The company is also up against competing retailers that seized on the new white space in the market. Since Toys “R” Us closed, major retailers including Walmart and Target have been growing their product offerings in the toy category. Over the 2018 holiday season Target expanded its in-store toy selection, with 250,000 square-feet in 500 stores for toys and brand-exclusive merchandise. Meanwhile, Walmart has since rebranded its toy store to “America’s Best Toy Shop,” which includes an expanded selection, Walmart-exclusive brands, and marketing through YouTube influencers.

According to the NPD Group, U.S. consumers bought $21.7 billion in toys last year, down 2 percent from the previous year. Toys “R” Us can still carve out a place for itself, provided it rethinks store layouts, improves in-store experiences for customers and considers new revenue models, said digital marketing consultant Judge Graham. Its plans to expand its private-label offerings, as reported in October, would underpin these efforts.

“How they bring it back is through a unique product line, a reason for kids to experience the stores, and smaller footprints,” he said. “It would be really cool if they had some innovation around recurring revenue models like Stitch Fix.”

A way to keep customers in stores could be events tied to movie releases and exclusive product lines resulting from that, he added. Meanwhile, the e-commerce site could mirror the experience in-store through detailed product guides and comparison tools.

To be effective, however, any effort to innovate on store experience must be complemented by competitive pricing, said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail. In a context where customers do price comparisons effortlessly online, a few dollars can make a big difference.

Others question whether brand recognition alone coupled with a new store and e-commerce foundation is enough to rebuild a tired retail model in a competitive category. Sucharita Kodali, retail analyst at Forrester and a former Toys “R” Us employee, is skeptical of its prospects.

“The only reason you would want to resurrect it is to suck what remains of its brand equity dry,” she said. “Circuit City tried a relaunch and it was pretty inconsequential. I suspect this would be similar.”

 

The post ‘A new experience that plays off the nostalgia’: How Toys ‘R’ Us could rebuild appeared first on Digiday.

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