Month: April 2019

Traditionally, a company like TIBCO, which sells integration and analytics software, thrives on events and field sales, where company reps can explain its products in person. But client buying habits have changed, even in the world of complex B2B solutions. “We heard from customers that they were spending more time online learning about products before… Continue reading »

The post How B2B Marketer TIBCO Generates Great Leads At The Top Of The Funnel appeared first on AdExchanger.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Smart Bricks US retailers are upgrading their in-store tech to keeping the most transactions in brick-and-mortar locations, and head off Amazon’s growth. Apps or facial-recognition tech help people breeze through checkout. Interactive mirrors recommend outfits. Beacons and Bluetooth ping promos to phones and connect… Continue reading »

The post Data Regs Could Affect Brick And Mortars; Amazon Unveils Ad Supported Audio appeared first on AdExchanger.

Almost to the year since Unilever announced that it was embarking on a large scale cleanup of its influencer marketing ecosystem, the CPG company is finding it’s easier said than done. 

Unilever’s mission to clean up fraud was part of a larger “responsibility” framework driven by outgoing chief marketing officer Keith Weed. The Responsible Infrastructure strategy had a few different points, including assessing reach and impact of its media spend across platforms and publishers, to offer more transparency. (This also included more efforts to have gender and racial diversity across its advertising and internally.)

The post ‘Difficult to police’: How Unilever is cracking down on fraudulent social media influencers appeared first on Digiday.

Medium calls itself a publisher and a platform. But founder Ev Williams thinks partnerships with outside editors and other publications could play a bigger role in Medium’s continued subscriber growth. To get there, Medium will have to overcome publisher skepticism after changing its tactics several times since its 2011 launch.

In the past two months, Medium, which monetizes itself purely through subscriptions that cost either $5 per month or $50 per year, has announced a pop-up magazine created with author Roxane Gay and a monthly food magazine created with veteran food writer Mark Bittman; forged a deal with Cheddar that makes Medium the home of Cheddar’s written reporting; and put out an open call for publications and writers alike that would like to launch their own titles on Medium.

Medium has invested plenty in this strategy – nearly $5 million in 2018, with plans to spend more in 2019, Williams said – and seen enough progress that it is marching toward a new goal. The venture-backed platform hopes to amass 1 million paying subscribers by 2020, according to one source familiar with the matter; asked for comment on that number, Williams said he does not comment on internal goals.

Medium’s deals can be structured any number of ways financially: Partner authors and editors can be paid based on how much time Medium members spend reading their work; publishers can syndicate to Medium by the article, or based on a raw syndication fee; third party publishers can create content exclusively for Medium, or content that lives on multiple platforms at once. In some cases, publishing partners are paid only when their content is consumed on Medium; in others, Medium is open to making guaranteed payments.

“The way I think about our content investments is like an investment portfolio,” Williams said. “If the goal is to add as much value as possible, then the whole gamut of licensing, original, not original, owned and operated, partner-exclusive, all those things, are different ways toward the same goal.”

To get to its subscriber goals, Medium will have to continue to overcome skepticism that has taken root in media, not just of Medium, specifically, but also of platforms as more publishers begin looking inward for opportunities.

Skeptical observers will say that Medium has tried a version of this already, first when it developed native titles such as Backchannel and Cuepoint on Medium and then when it lured publications including ThinkProgress and The Ringer to publish on its platform. The native titles were later sold off or shuttered, while the partners were told in early 2017 — somewhat abruptly — that their agreements with Medium were over.

And while Williams says that skepticism is rooted in a misunderstanding of Medium’s evolution, some former employees that keep an eye on the company say that they’re not sure themselves.

“As someone who wants the company to do well, I hope they’re learning,” one former employee said. “But it becomes quite hard to see if they’re learning from everything, or if they’re just repeating it.”

Much of the attention Medium’s gotten for its investment in content has focused on its Partner Program, which tens of thousands of writers use to monetize their work on the platform. Though few use it as a primary source of income, many writers report being well-compensated for Medium stories that have been featured on the site. Last year, most of the money Medium paid for content was paid out through the contributor program.

But Medium remains interested in forging relationships with publishers on publications. In late December, Bloomberg reported that Medium had broached the topic of acquiring New York Media, the parent company of New York Magazine. Those conversations were short-lived, but they were not confined to acquisitions: The two companies also discussed a co-branded content project that will go live later this year, according to two sources familiar with the matter. New York Media declined to comment.

New York Magazine was not the only publication to hear Medium’s pitch. During the latter half of 2018, Medium reached out to a number of publications, ranging from digital-native ones to legacy magazine brands, offering to create co-branded magazines with them, according to a source at one publication that publishes content on Medium.

It is not clear how many publications took Medium up on its offer. The venture-backed publisher likely had to deal with concerns not dissimilar to the ones Apple faced in trying to build support for Apple News+.

Like Apple News+, content published on Medium stays inside Medium’s ecosystem, which potentially makes it harder for a publisher to build a direct relationship with a future subscriber. Another unwelcome similarity for some publishers: Content on Medium cannot be monetized through advertising.

Though Williams stressed that Medium is much more open to different kinds of deals, some publisher sources said that any project built on Medium would have to deliver clear return and value to their core businesses, rather than just incremental revenue.

“We have limited resources for our own site, never mind building something else,” said that source, who explained that launching a magazine on Medium would have to help with business goals beyond what happens on Medium.

Any publisher that considers joining Medium will also have to deal with Medium-backed competition. Back in February, Medium posted job listings for four “magazines,” focused on health and science, business, technology and general interest, which would each live on Medium. Those four would be “just the beginning,” Medium vp of editorial Siobhan O’Connor said at the time.

How Medium’s dueling roles, that of publisher and of platform, are squared could change. Williams has refrained from commenting more specifically on what kinds of content Medium will invest in because he wants to keep an open mind and continue to serve subscribers.

Medium’s relationship with publishers could also change thanks to an infusion of executive leadership. Since last year, an executive recruiter has been on the hunt for what is being described as a “business partner” for Williams, ideally someone to serve either as chief operating or chief financial officer, and help Medium scale its businesses up, according to messages viewed by Digiday. Williams confirmed that this is a role Medium is trying to fill.

Adding a person to that role, particularly a bold-faced name, could go a long way toward reassuring both current and future partners.

“It’s about validating their business,” said Dave Arnold, the founder of executive search firm Arnold Partners. “If you get a named person to go to Medium, people may look at it in a new light.”

The post Medium eyes media partnerships in pursuit of 1 million subscribers appeared first on Digiday.

Facebook Watch’s transformation from a video section reserved exclusively for professionally made, episodic shows to videos of all kinds, from all kinds of creators, will soon be complete.

Facebook has been notifying video makers with Facebook Watch show pages that it will soon be turning these dedicated show pages into broader video pages, according to a Facebook email shared by a publishing executive. As a result, in a few months time, the show page will not be offered as a standalone page type, with its features being absorbed by the new video pages, said the email. Facebook will open a new feature called “Series,” which will allow publishers and other video makers to upload episodic programming on both their video pages and regular pages.

“We can confirm that we’re merging the Show Page template and Video Page template on Facebook; we believe this move will help simplify the publishing process for our partners,” said a Facebook spokesperson in a statement.

Mostly a cosmetic change, the change also reflects Facebook’s shifting priorities and strategies since launching Facebook Watch in the U.S. in the fall of 2017. Originally, Facebook had developed Watch as a place for professionally-made — and advertiser-friendly — video series from publishers, entertainment studios and other video programmers. Facebook’s launch partners included publishers such as Attn, Mashable, Hearst and Tastemade. But by June 2018, Facebook had opened up Watch to non-episodic videos.

With this most recent change, Facebook has fully acknowledged that Watch — like YouTube — is open for videos of all types from anyone, said publishing sources.

That doesn’t mean Facebook is going to stop tinkering with Watch, which has 75 million daily users spending at least a minute per day on the platform, the company announced last December. That’s still nowhere near YouTube, but Facebook has made efforts in recent months to become even more like YouTube: The company has a funding program through which it will pay publishers to make shows starring influencers — including YouTubers.

What is unclear yet with this most recent change is its eventual impact audiences and revenue for publishers that are distributing shows on Facebook Watch. In its messaging, Facebook said this move will make life easier for video makers because they will no longer be required to create completely new pages for every show. “We heard it’s a heavy lift to build new audiences from scratch on Show Pages,” Facebook said in an email message shared by a publisher. The switch should not impact post-performance, according to a source.

“They haven’t said anything about if monetization changes or is altered,” said one publishing executive. “That’s what I’m curious about.”

In its email, Facebook said it will be converting the show pages “in the coming months,” and has been contacting page owners to prep them for the change, sources said.

The post Facebook’s latest change to Watch makes it more like YouTube appeared first on Digiday.

On March 26, 2018, millions of people celebrated an ad. HQ trivia, the viral app, had partnered with Nike to give away $100,000 along with 100 pairs of special edition Air Max sneakers to the game’s winners. That deal was HQ’s first sponsorship, proving to players and brands that it could run ads and still attract an audience. In fact, at its peak, 1.7 million people watched that game concurrently.

It’s been just over a year since HQ’s first big splash into advertising, and the company has been able to secure more sponsors and larger ad deals, but the process hasn’t been easy. HQ, best known for its game HQ trivia, has struggled from a myriad of issues: The app has faced declining viewership and downloads; co-founder Colin Kroll died from a drug overdose in December; the face of the brand, Scott Rogowsky, departed under bad terms this month; and employees have revolted over co-founder and interim CEO Rus Yusupov’s leadership.

Amid all of that turmoil, HQ continues to build a multimillion-dollar ad business. HQ has pulled in $15 million in revenue since the company’s inception, The Wall Street Journal reported in February. Though, HQ Trivia makes money from in-app purchases and merchandise — HQ, quite aggressively, markets buying extra lives in-app ($3.99 for one, $9.99 for three and $15.99 for five) and sells mugs online for $18.95 each — the vast majority of HQ’s revenue comes from advertising, sources familiar with the figures told Digiday.

Last September, Kroll told Digiday the company had made $10 million since it launched its first sponsored games in March 2018. The game sponsors, at the time, included Warner Bros., Nike and Target. Some of those partners, like Nike, were one-time deals. Others, like Warner Bros., have been longer partnerships. In 2019, HQ added more advertisers including Amazon’s Audible, CBS All Access and Wendy’s.

HQ’s sponsorships have varied in size and scope. GM, for example, was HQ trivia’s exclusive auto sponsor in the first quarter of 2019 under their deal, which was worth at least $1 million, Variety reported. GM, as is the case for other HQ advertisers Digiday has spoken with, said they were satisfied with the ad spot.

“HQ Trivia was one of several media partners Chevrolet engaged in the initial launch of our all-new 2019 Silverado. Our Q1 auto-exclusive partnership included an in-game promotion, social extensions, contextual mobile creative and culminated in a giveaway of a Silverado. While we don’t share specific business performance metrics, we’re very pleased with our partnership with HQ Trivia,” a Chevrolet spokesperson emailed.

HQ did not respond to a request for comment.

To sell sponsorships, HQ’s team touts the game’s concurrent viewership. HQ hasn’t been able to reach the same heights it had in 2018 — the game peaked with 2.4 million concurrent viewers last March during a game with a $250,000 jackpot — but it still attracts hundreds of thousands per game. For example, HQ’s “The Twilight Zone” game had about 478,000 viewers at question one, according to a recording of the game. HQ’s team compares that to current viewership on Facebook’s knockoff trivia games and Twitter’s live shows, which have concurrent viewers in the tens of thousands compared to hundreds of thousands on HQ, sources familiar with the discussions told Digiday.

Yet it’s questionable how much more HQ can grow. HQ dropped out of the top 1,500 iOS app last month, TechCrunch reported, citing App Annie data. Sensor Tower data, obtained by TechCrunch, showed that HQ had 8% as many downloads in March 2019 compared to March 2018. The company has been testing more themed shows and a “season” concept, where players earn levels for correct questions to save them if they get a question wrong, to inspire more gameplay. HQ also is testing new game formats, a fan page recently leaked.

HQ’s ad business has been fairly narrow and catered. Unlike with traditional TV, HQ trivia doesn’t run ads before, during or after every show. The ad formats range from short interstitials to full show sponsorships. For example, Warner Bros. advertised its new movie “Shazam!” in March with 10-second vertical video ads during the live countdown to the game. CBS All Access advertised “The Twilight Zone” with a 10-second vertical video ad during the countdown, along with a themed episode around the new TV series.

When it comes to pricing, the deals have varied. In March 2018, Warner Bros. invested $3 million to promote three movies, Ad Age reported. Those movies were “Ready Player One,” “Rampage” and “Ocean’s 8.” But the studio has advertised more than the scope of that initial deal. In February, HQ’s team traveled to Sydney for a sponsored game around “Lego Movie 2,” Variety reported. Over the last month, HQ has advertised “Shazam!”

Some of HQ’s brand integrations are not paid but rather done as marketing opportunities. HQ integrated Google Assistant into the game last year during the holidays. But a source familiar with the matter said it was “co-marketing” and no money changed hands.

Not all past advertisers have returned to HQ. Last May, NBC paid for an HQ takeover of “The Voice,” which included partially funding the $50,000 jackpot and paying for a trip for one of the game’s winners to the show’s finale. But NBC hasn’t worked on a campaign in the app since. The company did, however, let HQ use its house during this year’s South by Southwest to host a live game. An NBC spokesperson said NBC did not pay for the $10,000 prize.

The post Inside HQ’s attempt to grow its ad business appeared first on Digiday.

Nordic publishing giant Schibsted is the latest publisher to back Spotify’s allegations that Apple is abusing its stance as the most dominant player in the app market.

Schibsted has claimed that from the perspective of protecting free journalism, Apple represents as big a threat as Facebook and Google. As ad-funded media businesses have suffered while digital ad revenues have flowed to the duopoly, so subscription publishers are increasingly feeling the pinch as Apple takes a hefty cut of revenue and restricts data-sharing with them.

In Sweden, the iPhone has a market share of 48% and a large number of Schibsted readers use Apple products to access news, according to an open letter, signed by Anna Careborg and Lena K. Samuelsson, publishers at Schibsted titles Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet, respectively. They claim that the result, as is common in publisher and platform tussles, is that Apple has some control of the relationship between publishers and their readers.

“Unfortunately, we have seen more and more signs that this position is being abused,” the letter reads. “Apple is acting today as a whimsical feudal lord who either doesn’t understand — or simply doesn’t care — what its actions are impacting.”

The letter states three common complaints that publishers have had with Apple, including the platform’s move to take a 15-30% cut of digital content revenues for any subscriptions sold through the app. Apple also retains the customer data for these sign-ups, so publishers can’t tailor services or target readers. Publishers are also frustrated when new app functionalities that are first approved by Apple are later rejected for no reason.

Apple has not responded to a request for comment. The platform published a response to Spotify’s claims on its site in March. According to Schibsted, Apple’s main response to Spotify, that the music-streaming service earned a lot from joining the app store, doesn’t apply to Schibsted, which built a digital readership independent of Apple.

Schibsted is no stranger to flexing its muscle with U.S. tech platforms. Naturally, there’s a difference between publishers grousing over platforms’ freeloading of their content without recompense and allegations of monopolistic behavior.

Tech platforms are not required to manage the interests of publisher business models. According to a publisher source, Apple’s actions, like holding customer data back from publishers, can be understood as acting in the platform’s own benefit. But eventually, this has become detrimental to the wider growth of the ecosystem, according to this publishing executive. To rebuild trust with publishers Apple could start by justifying why it believes a 30% cut is reasonable.

In March, when Spotify filed its EU competition claim against Apple, trade body the European Publishers Council, which includes members such as Axel Springer, Bonnier, News UK and Thomson Reuters, also came out in support of Spotify. However, it’s unclear whether this support of an ongoing court case has any teeth. According to Ian Whittaker, head of European media research at Liberum Capital Limited, more publishers pulling content off platforms entirely, as The Guardian did on Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News, would have more interesting implications for tech platforms.

Apple has had its ups and downs in terms of publisher relationships. Ultimately, it depends on the business model as to whether the platform suits the publisher: Media companies don’t work with platform if the terms don’t suit them.

Spotify’s and Schibsted’s claims have been directed at the App Store and Apple News, rather than Apple News+, launched last month and not yet available outside the U.S. Although, Apple News+ is a new product, and as such publishers are experiencing teething problems.

Apple’s relative lack of reliance on advertising revenue and firm stance on data privacy may have made it seem less of a threat to publisher digital ad revenues than Facebook and Google. Even so, there’s a case for ad-funded publishers on Apple News, according to Owen Wyatt, managing director at The Stylist Group.

“We’re making a microscopic amount of revenue on Apple News compared to our own site, and for now, that’s fine,” he said. Stylist receives Apple News pageviews in the millions, which translate into annual revenue in the tens of thousands, according to the publisher. “I respect its concerns over privacy and data; it’s refreshing. Apple has made Stylist a huge mobile brand, and audience to our own site have followed.”

The post Schibsted becomes latest publisher to back Spotify’s feud with Apple appeared first on Digiday.

As store locations double as e-commerce order fulfillment hubs, big-box retailers are deploying robots to make operations faster and more efficient. The goal is to offload some tasks from humans so they can focus more on customers.

On Monday, grocery retailer Giant Eagle rolled out Tally, a device developed by Simbe Robotics that roves around stores, monitors inventory and transmits data back to in-store teams that restock shelves. It’s currently live in three stores, and the company said it’s exploring scaling the tool to more locations. And last week, Walmart announced it was rolling out a series of robot deployments to support associates serving customers in-store as well as online orders. Both retailers would not comment on how much these robots cost, but Walmart said it was part of a bigger $11 billion investment for store makeovers, customer service and supply chain upgrades.

Legacy retailers are competing with pure-play e-commerce providers that deploy robots at scale to maximize order volume. For example, Amazon reportedly has 100,000 robots at 26 fulfillment centers worldwide. Traditional retailers are focused on using robots to alleviate the load on humans, taking on rote tasks that free up humans to provide additional services to customers. In addition, when stores double as fulfillment centers for online orders, robots provide added support. They aren’t unique to Walmart and Giant Eagle: Other retailers that are experimenting with them include Target, Kroger and Lowe’s.

Giant Eagle, like other retail chains, has been increasingly catering to customers who initiate orders online. It’s had curbside pickup (called “Curbside Express”) since 2012 and home delivery since 2017. By ensuring store shelves are stocked consistently, there’s less opportunity for errors.

Walmart has two types of robots supporting inventory management, including shelf scanners (it’s rolling out 300 this year) and fast unloaders, machines which automatically scan and sort items unloaded from trucks based on priority and department. The company said the scanners are able to pinpoint specific locations where there are out-of-stocks, send images to associates who use handheld devices, and also transmit that information to the fast unloader machines that are prioritizing which items get unloaded off trucks. The robots make store associates more productive, providing a supportive layer for both in-store and e-commerce operations, said Walmart spokesman Ragan Dickens.

“We don’t have any associates that just scan shelves; it’s a piece of what they do,” he said. “[Robots] reduce the amount of time they’re spending on repetitive, mundane work, and they can work with customers.”

Other large retailers, including Target and Lowe’s, are testing the technology, but analysts say retailers are still at an early stage of deploying it, and they’re primarily being used to remove some of the more mundane day-to-day tasks of associates.

“Deployments are strategic, and retailers are looking at how not to replicate the associate but augment the associate — they’re not eliminating the human capital position,” said Gartner L2 senior director Joanne Joliet.

Retailers point out different challenges, depending on the stage they’re at with the robot deployments. For Giant Eagle, figuring out the best time to carry out the robot-delivered inventory survey efforts is key.

“Because [Tally] operates on a pre-programmed route, it’s able to identify when there are obstacles in its path,” said Giant Eagle spokeswoman Jannah Jablonowski. “[But] you want to be deploying it at the point in the day when it’s most effective.” For Giant Eagle, that often means avoiding heavy-traffic times, such as early morning. Walmart shares this concern, Dickens said, with shelf-scanning activities restricted to lighter foot-traffic times.

Rolling out a robot also runs the risk of interfering with a customer’s experience, something retailers should carefully consider, said marketing analytics firm RevTrax CEO Jonathan Treiber.

“The customer experience should be at the forefront — it does create a sort-of science fiction dynamic,” he said. “It’s better to deploy them at night.”

The post Retailers are testing in-store robots to support fulfillment operations appeared first on Digiday.