Month: March 2019

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Behavioral Targeting Existed Before RTB – And It Should Exist Without It

“The Sell Sider” is a column written for the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Alessandro De Zanche, an audience and data strategy consultant. The digital advertising industry needs, more than ever, privacy advocates and activists – some strong, external pressure and entities holding it to account. New evidence… Continue reading »

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The Supply Path Still Needs Cleaning Up

“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 Rohan Lala, director of media activation at IPONWEB. Ask any two people in the industry what supply-path optimization (SPO) is, and you’re highly likely to get two different answers. For… Continue reading »

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Podcast Listening Surges; TrustX Shifts Fees To Sellers

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Enter Audio The growth of podcast audiences justifies the hype. More than half of Americans over the age of 12 report having listened to the audio format this year, up from 44% last year, according to Edison Research’s 2019 Infinite Dial Study, which has… Continue reading »

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‘We launched that cat’s career’: The definitive oral history of Mashable’s SXSW parties

For some longtime SXSW attendees, it’s always been about Grumpy Cat. After all, thanks to Mashable, which a decade ago decided to invest in creating experiences for SXSW, petting the meme-came-to-life as an 11-month-old mixed breed was an attendee highlight for a few years.

Mashable’s experiential plays at SXSW have gone on for years, beginning with the Mashable Geek Games in 2011 and evolved into thousands of people waiting in line to pet Grumpy Cat in 2013.

This year, things are slightly pulled back: Mashable is for the first time canceling Mashable House, its multi-day installation that celebrities like Hulk Hogan (prior to Gawker) and now-presidential candidate Cory Booker would come through for photo ops. But MashBash, the one-night party that topped off the weekend of fun, is still on. This year’s theme is outer space — a tribute to Ariana Grande’s new song “NASA” and more.

Over the years, MashBash has become synonymous with SXSW, drawing a line on people waiting for hours just to get inside so they experience the internet IRL, at night, and enjoy some free booze. Former employees say they still get texts from SXSW attendees asking for help getting in.

Here’s the story of how it all happened, from the people who lived through it.

(Disclosure: The author worked at Mashable from 2016 to 2018.)

Origin story

Adam Ostrow, chief strategy officer at Mashable: We identified early on that SX probably more so than any other conference was where a brand like Mashable would have 100 percent name recognition, so I think that was an impetus for deciding that was a place where we would have a big presence. The idea was internet IRL. How do we take all the things that people in the internet culture world can relate to and create them. Now I think any experiential event type thing is designed to try to get people to engage on social media and Instagram it, but at the time it was pretty novel.

Stacy Martinet, chief marketing officer, Mashable: For Mashable, we were evolving the brand. It started as the social media blog, and then it became known as a tech publication. We wanted to bring the brand to life. SX was the perfect place to do it because you had a mix of early adopters, Mashable community, and as the festival itself grew, you had more marketers coming to the show, like B-to-B marketers and expanding our book of business. It was a brand investment because we got return while we had the Mashable House we were hosting customers the whole time. For pipeline generation, it was one of our biggest things all year.

Ryan Lytle, director of social strategy and partnerships, Mashable: The thing about the Mashable House that I didn’t fully appreciate until I was there was the impact and connection it had to SXSW, to tech, entertainment and pop culture. It was this place that was all in one. The ethos of Mashable was always community-first and people-first. You know Pete’s background: at home in Scotland, disconnected, covering a scene that was 1000s of miles away from him, and there was always the power with bringing people together whether it was on the blog or doing it in real life. When people ask, what is Mashable? the Mashable House was a perfect explainer.

2011: Mashable Geek Games

Ostrow: I remember the first year we did something called Geek Games, which was a NCAA tournament style competition with trivia and with Twister and all kinds of quirky games, and the reason it’s memorable for me is we hosted the actor Romany Malco. He became a good friend of mine and actually ended up officiating our wedding, so that was memorable personally.

Martinet: We were still at Buffalo Billiards then and had the Geek Games. I don’t think there was a memorable moment, though Facebook Live or whatever the version was before that launched, so we were doing streams at Mashable House with Facebook, and then we had a big party.

2012: CNN is rumored to buy Mashable 

Martinet: We want to stand out and do something different, but we didn’t have that much money, so we did The Mashable Times, a print newspaper, and had a food truck. It was buzz marketing, and then Sunday night, it rained like hell, I went out to REI and got a rain jacket. People are on the border of sinus infections. Pete left the party, and I get a text message from Pete, and he’s like, “Can you call me?” and I did, and he was like, “I think there’s a rumor that we’re being acquired, and it’s going to published.” I looked at my phone, and I was like, “It’s already published.”

Ostrow: Another big moment was when Felix Salmon reported CNN was going to buy Mashable for $200 million. People started coming up to me [at MashBash] being like, “Hey, have you seen?” And then I accidentally, six or seven years ago, might have still been using a Blackberry, accidentally liked the story on Facebook. I think Brian Stelter wrote that. Unfortunately, [the deal] was not true.

Martinet: It was a series of events. We set up a war room, sent a note out to the staff. I was supposed to go out the next day, but my phone was blowing up from reporters. I had no voice; I was on the phone with reporters like Peter Kafka and Brian Stelter, and I was like, “Can I text you?”

2013: Grumpy Cat and Scumbag Steve 

Martinet: The next year we wanted to go big. We want to build a house outside of Buffalo Billiards, and that’s when we had Grumpy Cat. We were just brainstorming what we could get that people would take pictures with. Jennifer Diamond tracked down the owner, and we found out it was a two-for-one deal as in we had to get Scumbag Steve too.

Ostrow: There were pretty random celebrity appearances, and internet celebrities. The same year we had grumpy cat, we had Scumbag Steve. I have no idea why. Grumpy Cat was probably the breakout moment for Mashable House. It was on CNN, the Today Show. People were in the line for four hours to take a picture with Grumpy Cat. It still blows my mind a little bit.

Martinet: There was a line around the block. I remember this girl drove five hours on her 21st birthday. People brought their children. CNN showed up to do a spot with Grumpy Cat. We were like, “Quiet on the set so CNN can shoot Grumpy Cat!” I think we launched that cat’s career, and then part of the contract was [Scumbag Steve] got to do rap sets. It was so bad. The people who owned Grumpy Cat took the cat out of there for the fear it would die. The [House] cleared out.

Lytle: I started at Mashable in December 2012, but I didn’t go to my first SX until 2015, but I saw all the Grumpy Cat photos.

2014: The wrecking ball

Martinet: We moved into the garage, and we had Grumpy Cat again. That wasn’t as good, but the wrecking ball — that was the best party ever. DJ Mick spinning, the line [to get in] was around the block. The CTO of Amazon wanted to get in.

Ostrow: I might call peak Mashable House, peak digital media was when we had a real-life wrecking ball. AOL digital prophet Shingy [swinging] might be peak Mashable House.

2015: Hulk Hogan meets Left Shark and Meerkat everything

Martinet: We had the House again, and that year I remember Hulk Hogan, before Gawker, and Left Shark.

Ostrow: Left Shark was good.

Lytle: We had the liger from the Katy Perry music video. Actually I’m not sure what it was. It was like a giant lion or a giant tiger. You could climb on it. It was a great photo. For me, I’ll always remember it as the time I met Hulk Hogan pre-Gawker scandal. It was the thing where every year celebrities had to come through the House.

Martinet: That was the year Meerkat was taking off, so we had Meerkat meet-ups and we had to Meerkat the whole Mashable party. We were like lighting people with phones, and Pete was conducting interviews.

Lytle: [2015] was the year of Meerkat. Essentially everything we did in the House had to be recorded on Meerkat. We were doing live tours, Meerkat when a celebrity would come in. Pete was taking Meerkat on the road. We competed with Jimmy Fallon for the top spot.

2016: Lots of pizza

Martinet: We moved from the garage to a new venue and had the House and the Bash there. DJ Mick was there again. All of it was right before the Blue Wedding [the name for Mashable’s April 2016 layoffs]. But on the outside, things were fun. It wasn’t the same in terms of the big moments, but people were still waiting in the line for so long and tweeting about it. We ended up getting pizza, and then there was lots of pizza.

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‘More about the practicality’: Reality comes to SXSW 2019

South by Southwest has been an annual escape for media and marketers to ostensibly discuss technology and social media. Indeed, the highlight of SXSW 2018 was a literal escape from reality when visitors were transported to HBO’s “Westworld,” courtesy of Giant Spoon.

But winter has come in digital media, in television and in marketing. This year, that reality is at the forefront, attendees say. (It’s even affected the HBO work: Giant Spoon is hosting a blood drive in tandem with its activation for HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”)

“Last year, considering what was happening politically and culturally, everyone was trying to escape, but I think this year people want to do something about it. The panels [at SXSW] seem to be less talking about the idea but more about the practicality and implication of that,” said Giant Spoon’s Adam Wiese.

Overall, SXSW has kept its unique brand in the marketing conference circuit as the place where technology, film, music and culture come together. But it’s gotten more political rather than celebratory. One of the most pressing concerns is privacy. General Data Protection Regulation, Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal and ongoing talk of regulation in the U.S. has instigated backlash against the once glorified tech industry. Consumers, including politicians, have woken up to what data they are sharing with companies and what those platforms should be allowed to do with it.

SXSW is no longer simply the launch place of apps — Twitter in 2008, Foursquare in 2009, Highlight in 2012, Meerkat in 2015 — but it’s still where attendees can expect to talk about the latest changes in technology and its impacts. Foursquare’s co-founder and executive chairman, Dennis Crowley, is returning to SXSW after launching his company there 10 years ago for a panel titled “Tech Ethics: Creepy, Cool and Everything In-Between.” Facebook-investor-turned-critic Roger McNamee has a keynote on March 10 with Wired editor-in-chief Nicholas Thompson. Tech and privacy are sure to be topics of discussion in the panels with 2020 presidential contenders, including Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, Reps. John Delaney and Tulsi Gabbard, Howard Schultz and Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

“SXSW has always been about an exchange of ideas and a celebration of creativity and innovation. What’s changed most for me is whether any single idea or innovation will stand out and shine. We haven’t seen the launch of a platform like Twitter or Foursquare, or products like the Nike Fuelband, in years. Perhaps SXSW is now where those ideas get developed, honed and shared rather than launched to the masses,” said Group Nine’s chief client officer Adam Schlachter.

Though, some companies do still use SXSW for launches. For example, U.K. publisher Culture Trip is investing in SXSW for the first time this year and using it to promote itself in the U.S. The publisher rented out the Austin Motel for three days for a series of events and also branded some double-decker buses and dockless scooters, said Culture Trip CMO Mike Fox.

A big change from SXSW of years past is the continued influx of big brands, rather than scrappy startups. Brands like SAP have their own branded houses, luring attendees away from the main convention center and official panels to other, often more intimate, conversations. SAP CMO Alicia Tillman said she’s noticed a growing trend in “unofficial programming” at conferences, including this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos.

“These opportunities for more intimate and uncensored dialogue are critical for sparking enhanced innovation and creative approaches to some of the world’s greatest problems. While [SXSW] originated as more of a tech and entertainment event, today it’s an interactive conglomerate of the most disruptive brands and creative individuals who are changing society as we know it. It’s an event rooted in experience and innovation,” Tillman said.

Platforms also have been investing in branded houses on Rainey Street. This year, Snap is making its first official appearance at SXSW with the Snap House. Twitter is bringing back Twitter House and will be hosting several events with its partners like BuzzFeed. Patreon has a House of Creativity for its creator community with panels and performances. LinkedIn is hosting a fireside chat with actress Mindy Kaling.

While some publishers and brands have pulled back, others are taking over. Mashable will no longer have Mashable House. Meanwhile, Comcast NBCUniversal has three days of programming with special attendees like Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty and branded experiences with Universal Pictures’ “Us” and Bravo’s “Project Runway.” Vox Media is bringing back “The Deep End,” its own line of programming and parties at the Belmont.

For marketers, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) is hosting a full day of programming, titled “Think Tank: Solving Problems in Cross-Platform Advertising,” as part of SXSW’s Brands & Marketing track. ARF CEO Scott McDonald said last year was his first time at SXSW and thought it would be useful for the nonprofit industry association to create a track of content.

“The kind of folks that show up [at SXSW] are really different than the other industry conferences that focus on media, research, advertising. It stems from the roots of the conference in music and digital. It’s a different crowd, and I enjoyed it for that,” McDonald said.

Attendees say even though there might not be a new app or an experience such as “Westworld,” they are interested in the unexpected.

“SXSW can be a place for brands, across any industry, or politicians to start to make bold claims or pledges or predictions. You wouldn’t go to Sundance to watch the same movies every year or go to CES to see the same TV or go to E3 to see the same games. You want something that starts to feel new and cast a vision for the coming year,” said Giant Spoon’s Wiese.

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‘It’s going to be a big change for us’: Google’s adoption of first-party auction creates migration headaches for buyers

Google’s ad exchange is finally following its programmatic peers and moving to a first-price auction model, in which the advertiser that places the highest bid wins the impression and pays as much as they bid. It’s a more straightforward setup than the traditional second-price model, in which that advertiser would only pay a penny more than the runner-up bid. However, transitioning from second-price auctions to first-price auctions can be more complicated — and costly — for advertisers.

Google has effectively made first-price the default programmatic model for display ads. Rival exchanges, such as Index Exchange, OpenX and Rubicon Project, began rolling out first-price auctions in 2017. But until now Google remained the major hold-out, which has meant that ad buyers have had to manage campaigns running in both first-price and second-price auctions.

The migration to the first-price model is making programmatic ad buying much more cumbersome. “It does permanently make the bid strategy more complicated because you need to employ sophisticated techniques like bid shading” to keep costs down, said one agency executive.

Not all advertisers may employ such cost-saving techniques and as a result are likely to push up ad prices, particularly for long-tail inventory that is considered less valuable. Buying this inventory on a second-price auction was, to many brands, akin to entering a high bid for a screwdriver on eBay, said Dan Larden, Infectious Media’s global strategic partnerships director. “You know it’s not worth £10 ($13), but you bid that anyway as there will be a few competing bids and you’re likely to win, and at a relatively low price,” he said.

The first wave of first-price auctions in 2017, expedited by the advent of header bidding, drove up ad prices. Excluding bid shading, programmatic clearing prices have increased by 15 percent to 20 percent in some cases, according to Jay Friedman, president of programmatic agency Goodway Group. “We have not been affected by [first-price auctions driving up pricing], though, due to our bidding algorithms being well ahead of this,” Friedman said.

Publishers were still benefiting from the pricing boost as recently as November, according to a Digiday Research panel of over 100 publishers. Costs have gradually come down as savvy traders and bid shading algorithms leveled them off and more conservative bidding strategies were adopted. A similar rise and fall is predicted around Google’s auctions as the market adapts. Tactically, the move underscores the importance of demand-side platforms deploying some form of technology to avoid overspending as they have done with bid shading.

Overpaying for impressions in first-price auctions is “not something we’re too worried about,” said Mike Moore, director of development and senior partner at GroupM’s data and technology unit mPlatform. Given that Google is the last major exchange to adopt first-price auctions, mPlatform already bids under the assumption that it’s dealing in a first-price marketplace and works with DSPs that use bid shading and other tactics to prevent overpaying. “We haven’t seen any dramatic increases in pricing across the board within the exchanges that we know are operating primarily on first price,” he said.

However, many advertisers may not have yet moved to a first-price mentality. For them, the shift to first-price auctions will require a reset in their programmatic strategies because the benchmarks they rely on to inform their bids were developed in a second-price market. “We’re expecting increases in prices. It will take some time to figure out what does a first-price auction mean to our win rates and KPIs,” said Tori Shulman, associate director of programmatic at Digitas.

To help advertisers transition to bidding in first-price auctions without overpaying by too much, Google’s exchange will provide an option for advertisers to allow Google to lower their first-price bids. However, Google will remove this optional bid translation service in 2020, according to the company.

“Having seen a steady shift of SSPs moving from second to first-price auctions — almost directly in-line with the growth of header bidding — we would expect others to now move quickly,” said Nikita Borisenko, technical product lead for demand solutions at ad tech developer Iponweb. “More complicated technologies now need to be developed and deployed by RTB bidders; those players that don’t own them will find it harder to survive.”

“The positive is that it reduces fragmentation in the space by bringing Google into alignment with the rest of the marketplace,” said Ben Hovaness, managing director for marketplace intelligence at Omnicom Media Group.

Ad buyers hope that eventually, the shift to a first-price model will bring more transparency to the programmatic ecosystem. “It allows our clients to accurately measure, plan and optimize the value of each impression. We don’t have to spend time gaming an opaque auction,” said Paul Dolan, CEO of programmatic consulting firm Varick Media Management, in an email.

“I feel like it puts honesty into bidding, and prevents certain companies who are known for their retargeting abilities and inventory arbitrage from aggressively bidding to win all bids,” said the head of programmatic at a brand.

Having resisted the first-price auctions for more than a year already, Google’s move is considered by ad buyers to be as much about protecting its own interests from the largest ad tech vendors that were among the early adopters of the trading model. “It’s an interesting strategic signal that Google needs first-price to maintain market share,” said Chris Kane, founder of programmatic consultancy Jounce Media. “But operationally not much will change. The biggest DSPs have spent the year building bid shading algorithms, which they will now apply to Google’s auction.”

Publishers, not just buyers, will also have to adapt, said Wayne Blodwell, CEO at The Programmatic Advisory, who explained the importance of forecasting yield scenarios to understand the fluctuations in prices. “If they’re using Google Ad Manager for their ad serving and or their exchange they’ll see CPMs spike but can expect these to level down to a ‘normal’ base,” he said.

“I think there will be a short-term rise in CPMs [followed by] a steady decrease toward stabilization, and then maybe it will rise again,” said Jeremy Fass, head of programmatic at New York Media. As the market moves to a first-price model, publishers, such as New York Media, will need to reevaluate how they set the price floors, or minimum sale price, for their inventory. “It is very much going to be a big change for us,” said Fass, who plans to do a lot of testing to see how the publisher should adjust its price floors.

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Complex, NBCU and Group Nine win at the Digiday Video Awards

Complex, NBCU and Group Nine left Thursday’s Digiday Video Awards gala with trophies for major categories.

The event, which took place at Tribeca 360° in New York City, was attended by companies including Viacom, The Atlantic and Insider Inc., and served as a celebration of the accomplishments of each of the shortlisted teams, all of whom are working to modernize media and marketing.

Complex Networks, which transitioned from print to digital only three years ago, took the award for Digital Team of the Year after a slew of new endeavors, including hot sauce lines and late night show forays. Complex now operates through four different channels including Sole Collector and First We Feast, which is home to the pop culture phenomenon Hot Ones — the only place on the internet where you can watch Gordon Ramsay drink artificial lime juice to overcome the sting of hot sauce.

As a studio, Complex produces over 30 daily and weekly series, including Sneaker Shopping, — which regularly receives over 3 million views per episode — and has licensed 16 of its shows to Netflix and Hulu. As a marker of their successes and a sign of the company’s ability to diversify, this digitally successful giant brought their brand to life for the third year in a row at the November 2018 ComplexCon, which saw some 60,000 attendees.

Also taking home top accolades is Group Nine Media, who won Best Facebook Watch Show for their work with Grey Goose. The French vodka company looked to Group Nine to strengthen its cultural relevance and the resulting show, “Off Script,” starred Jamie Foxx and served as a celebration of film’s most iconic moments through the eyes of the actors who created them. The first season, which was distributed by Thrillist, included interviews with household names like Melissa McCarthy, Dwayne Johnson and Chadwick Boseman and garnered over 300 earned media stories and 50 million views.

One of the evening’s two Snapchat-focused category wins went to NBCUniversal’s NBCU Digital Lab by way of the Best Snapchat Discover Publisher category. The digital lab serves as a hub for creating, developing and producing premium digital content for E!, Bravo, Oxygen, SyFy, NBC Sports and CNBC, among others. In the year and a half since its inception, the Lab has created 15 original shows on Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube and aired over 225 episodes.

See the full list of winners below.

Best Live Moment
TBS & Glow – Final Space Facebook Live

What’s the best way to keep your audience engaged during a show’s mid-season hiatus? An interactive Facebook Live featuring the main character. TBS teamed up with digital marketing and social media agency Glow to bring their animated series “Final Space’s” card game-loving main character, Gary, to life in real-time. The resulting experience was the first-ever interactive live game with an animated character voiced in real-time.

Best Video Ad
Onion Labs & Initiative – Diet Dr Pepper

Onion Labs and Initiative teamed up with Dr Pepper Snapple to shift convention through showing the world what it’s like to use Diet Dr Pepper as their celebratory drink of choice. The team dropped a long-form music video (the catchy track can be found on Spotify) and showcased different everyday scenarios where Diet Dr Pepper could be used as a reward. The teaser video alone had almost 2 million views on Facebook. Let’s “Crack that Pepper,” leave the bottle corked. 

Best Multi-Platform Video Campaign
Innovid & Compass Point Media – Johnsonville Dynamic Weather Campaign

Johnsonville teamed up with Compass Point Media and video ad platform Innovid to further their work to instill trust and positive brand sentiment in the mind of the consumer. Using Innovid’s technology, the group was able to programmatically deliver video ads across desktop, mobile and connected TV that featured a three-day weather forecast, resulting in a 33 percent brand lift for Johnsonville. The kicker — not only was the weather delivered, but the landscape images and city names featured in each ad were personalized based on where the viewer was located.

Best Social Video Campaign
Purple, Tim and Eric and Facebook – The Purple Boys

Purple teamed up with Facebook and Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Tim and Eric for an anti-ad campaign meant to hit home for those who experience the Sunday scaries. Combining a relatable human issue and the die-hard audiences of Tim and Eric resulted in viewers converting into buyers at low impression costs. Win.

Best Advertiser in Video
Mustache Agency – “Write the Future”

Grammarly teamed up with content agency Mustache to prove that they are more than a grammar check. To drive this point, Mustache created story-driven spots that showed a student writing a term paper, a date-seeker writing a Tinder bio and a best man writing a wedding toast. With Grammarly there to ensure they were on track, the viewer was able to see how the aid empowered those who may not be English-native to be confident in their own words. Empowerment as a theme and a well-constructed rollout meant that Grammarly was able to surpass their direct-response benchmarks and further the notion that they are more than a place to check your grammar. 

Best Video Ad Tech Innovation
LoopMe

Founded in 2012, LoopMe aims to make video advertising campaigns effective, measurable and attributable through data and AI. In one case, working with a leading financial institution resulted in an 11.4% brand consideration for the client. Seven years and eleven offices later, the software company has set its sights on global expansion — an initiative aided by a recent round of funding led by European investment partner BGF.

Best Streaming/OTT Platform
DAZN

U.K.-based on-demand sports streaming service DAZN [pronounced duh – zone] has established itself in seven markets — USA, Canada, Japan, Italy, Germany, Austria and Switzerland — since its conception in 2016. With a goal of bringing affordable access to sport to those around the world, the platform has ensured availability on 95 percent of all connected devices including smart TVs, tablets, smartphones and gaming consoles and streams over 200 million hours of live sports across 25,000+ events yearly.

Best Use of YouTube
Fullscreen & AT&T – Guilty Party

AT&T teamed up with Fullscreen in an effort to combat the epidemic of loneliness plaguing Gen Z. The question ‘How do we connect with the lonely generation?’ was answered in Guilty Party — a scripted whodunit YouTube series that was told over ten weeks. Fullscreen produced nine short-form episodes and over 40 blogs for the Guilty Party series, and the series finale saw the team incorporate fan comments from previous episodes, which gave AT&T the ability to communicate directly with their target audience.

Best Snapchat Show
E! Entertainment – E! News’ The Rundown

E! News’ The Rundown is a digital expansion of the E! News Brand and one of the first shows created exclusively for Snapchat. Hosted by E! News Correspondent Erin Lim, the show covers the biggest trending topics in a given week and takes on all things pop culture. The Snap-native program, which first aired once weekly, now airs three times per week and, thanks to a loyal following, has amassed over 19 million unique views per month.

Best Video Distribution Platform
JW Player

Video strategy support powerhouse JW Player, which was founded in 2005, has an impressive client roster which includes Business Insider, Peloton, Viacom, VICE, The Washington Post and more. These industry-leading clients rely on the platform to ensure they’re able to reach audience growth and revenue goals, among other KPIs. They say that proof is in the pudding; Penske Media Company recently brought JW Player in to expand its monetization opportunities, which in turn deepened viewer engagement and boosted video plays.

Best Use of Instagram Stories
Vice Media – High School Walkouts

On March 4, 2018, Vice Media gave thousands of high school students who decided to stand up on during an organized protest against gun violence a way to be heard. The Brooklyn-based giant rolled out Instagram Stories that would allow those who were protesting to narrate what they were seeing from their own point of view, effectively furthering the reach of the initiative to their own audience. The format was so well received that Vice has used it in more recent instances for the March for our Lives and other events.

Best Publisher Pivot to TV
Uninterrupted

Uninterrupted original “The Shop,” allows its hyper-connected audience the ability to be a fly on the wall in a barber shop where A-list talent like Drake and LeBron James feel comfortable freely engaging in conversation. Before moving to TV, “The Shop” was published as a digital feature across platforms by Uninterrupted, and after garnering over 13 million views on the first episode, HBO wanted in. Now, “The Shop” airs on their HBO Sports platform and is up to four episodes.

Best Snapchat Discover Publisher
NBCUniversal – NBCU Digital Lab

Best Video Distribution and Programming Strategy
Fullscreen & AT&T – Guilty Party 

Best Facebook Watch Show
Group Nine Media & Grey Goose – Off Script

Best Video Advertising Agency or Partner
Portal A

Independently owned Portal A, which has a staff of 50 split between Los Angeles and San Francisco, works with behemoths like Clorox, YouTube, Amazon and Google to develop original programming. A recent campaign for Clorox that featured former Vine star Randy Mancuso and household name Stephen Curry resulted in over 4 million organic views and a 30 percent brand awareness lift.

Best Video Publisher Partner for Brands
CH Media

CH Media is a place where any individual can find the content that dives deep into their interests, no matter how quirky. In a recent partnership with Universal Pictures on the theatrical release of Jurassic World 2, the NYC-based parent company of digital properties like CollegeHumor, Dorkly and Dropout created a piece of branded content that featured Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt as a couple bringing their emotional support dinosaur on a plane. The campaign received over 50 million views across Facebook and YouTube — nothing archaic about that.

Best Brand Film – Series
Awesomeness & JELL-O – Wobz Series 

Awesomeness & JELL-O joined forces for a YouTube series that starred five relatable characters made from Jell-O Play. Each episode took aim at moments where a child may feel insecure and gave them the tools they need to feel confident in their own skin, while providing parents the opportunity to have important conversations related to self-acceptance with their children. The series was released on Amazon Prime Video and helped shift the perception that Jell-O is an antiquated snack to one that Jell-O Play is an edible toy.

Most Valuable Streamer (MVS)
Yahoo Sports – NFL Live

NFL Live on Yahoo Sports is the place to stream all local and national NFL games — including the Superbowl. With season-long coverage, Yahoo is able to execute both long and short-term brand partnerships, and a solid 88% of those who tune into a single stream come back week over week.

Video Executive of the Year
Jon Steinberg, founder & CEO, Cheddar

Princeton and Columbia Business School alum Jon Steinberg walks away from the Digiday Video Awards gala as Video Executive of the Year, after being up against executives like Kelly Day of Viacom Digital Studios and M. Scott Havens of Bloomberg Media.

When Cheddar was founded in 2016, media startups were chasing down algorithmic traffic, but Steinberg chose to go in another direction, which would pay dividends later. As the go-to media company for brands and thought leaders who aim to reach millions of tech-savvy cord cutters, Cheddar, with Steinberg at the helm, holds real power. In the two years since conception, the company has expanded to two full cable channels and is the only independent media company that provides both business and headline news. Win, win.

Best Brand Film – Single
Oliver Schrott Kommunikation & Mercedes-Benz – “Define Your Path” 

Mercedes-Benz enlisted Germany-based Oliver Schrott Kommunikation to conceptualize and produce “Define Your Path,” which tells the story of a strong woman empowered by her Mercedes. Enter Steph Davis — free-climber, BASE jumper, wingsuit pilot and proud Mercedes owner. The final product told Steph’s story while her G-Class sport-utility Mercedes appeared naturally as the –ahem — vehicle for her adventures.

Digital Studio of the Year
Complex Networks

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Cheatsheet: Everything you need to know about Amazon’s evolving retail strategy

Amazon announced yesterday that it’s shutting down all of its pop-up stores, as its brick-and-mortar strategy continues to evolve.

These kiosks — found in malls, Whole Foods and Kohl’s stores — were remnants of the days when Amazon didn’t have a physical retail strategy. Now, Amazon said that it will be focused on Amazon Books and its Amazon 4-star stores going forward. But that’s not all the e-commerce giant has up its sleeve in offline retail, and as a result, the trillion-dollar retailer’s budding brick-and-mortar business has begun to sprawl.

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Retail Briefing: Vendors deal with the fallout of Amazon’s purge

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Platforms giveth, and platforms taketh away. Brands are learning that lesson with Amazon — and it’s not pretty.

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