Month: April 2019

It’s been a year since the roll-out of the General Data Protection Regulation, yet big questions still linger around what the right consent strategy looks like, if legitimate interest is enough to cover a business and whether more fines are coming.

Digiday spoke to Giovanni Buttarelli, European data protection supervisor at the European Commission, to hear whether media and advertising businesses have done enough to comply.

Excepts lightly edited for clarity and flow.

One aim of GDPR was to redress the imbalance of power between big tech titans and consumers, and make them accountable for how they use data. In light of that, what do you make of Google’s and Facebook’s efforts to comply with GDPR?
I don’t believe they are orientated to introduce big changes in terms of a balance of power. In 2017 we received a lot of declarations from businesses including Google, saying they were ready to respect it [GDPR]. But last May, the tsunami of privacy notices sent, often in obscure language, were clearly orientated to protect data controllers, not citizens.

Last October, I invited the CEOs from Facebook, Google and Apple to Brussels for the worldwide conference of data protection commissioners spanning 81 countries and 1,046 delegates. Only Tim Cook came in person and gave a speech which was greatly appreciated. Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai only appeared via video link. Zuckerberg’s message was that Facebook is ethical and respects its users. But I didn’t notice any substance after this declaration. The implicit message from them both was: “We don’t need to do anything else, because we’re there [compliant] already,” which frankly is not the case. There is a lot of work to be done. Compliance is a continued working progress for everyone.

Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham recently said that if Zuckerberg is serious about privacy and data protection, Facebook should drop its appeal against the £500,000 ($654,000) fine from the ICO for the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Do you agree?
My good colleague Elizabeth rightly said that if he is serious about it, he should drop the appeal. Yesterday, we had an important discussion within the European Data Protection Board — the network of all data protection authorities. We agreed to better synchronize our efforts around cross border [rulings]. Although Ireland is legal authority for Facebook and Google, we have decided to work on the basis of increased cooperation between the DPAs. So we will meet with the Irish DPA to synchronize efforts, and we’ll analyze the legal obligations to strict deadlines. Ten of the 15 current big ongoing investigations at the Irish DPA relate to Facebook including Instagram and WhatsApp. These investigations have a lot of ground. Synchronization of DPA fines is important.

French regulator CNIL has fined Google €50 million ($65 million). Now the Irish DPA is lead authority for Google’s European HQ, can other DPAs follow?
Each DPA can decide, but any declaration can also be challenged by other DPAs. This declaration [from CNIL] needs to be verified. But if the analysis is found to be sound, the Irish DPA will continue the discussion on behalf of the others. But one decision will be adopted [across DPAs].

What is your view of the IAB Europe Transparency and Consent framework, which has stated it is acceptable under GDPR for ad tech companies to bundle consent?
It is too early to conclude. We have had an early debate around it, and I have taken note of the controversial analogies and positions that have been put forward on it. We appreciate that the IAB considers this framework acceptable under GDPR. But we must wait and see before having a consolidated, reliable position on it from all DPAs. It is under analysis.

Lots of requests for consent on websites don’t appear compliant. Many publishers still work on an opt-out basis, rather than default opt-in. Will there be consequences?
Of course, if they’re in the wrong, that goes without saying. It requires an active approach. Even ticking a box does not necessarily mean consent is freely given. Unambiguous consent means it must not only be explicit but meaningful, not a case of pre-ticked boxes or a case where you have no alternative but to continue through to a website. Perhaps the privacy policy is confined to a corner of a page you will never read. That is not the kind of privacy user-friendly approach we expected. If you start reading all privacy notices you receive, you will spend too much time reading these notices. On the other hand, if a person [ticks a box] “I accept and understand” but they don’t know what they’re consenting to, that is not acceptable either. A reasonable approach is in-between.

Will there be more fines?
The debate around whether to use the carrot or the stick is everywhere. But my mission is to persuade people to be more accountable. To marginalize data protection doesn’t help; in fact, it would be a disaster for businesses to do so. Better to embrace a new culture of data protection, which may require a short-term restriction of appetite to maximize revenues but, in the long term, will ensure trust and confidence among consumers.

Interpretation of the law has been broad. Can a business claim legitimate interest if their core reason for collecting data is for the purpose of ad targeting?
Yesterday and this morning, we had an important outcome of a long-term discussion about article 61B with particular regard to legitimate interest. There are some final changes to fully reflect the discussion because it is so complicated. It’s not so easy to say whether they can or cannot. Legitimate interest is one of the main areas where the industry is looking to discuss further for the ePrivacy Regulation. But there are many areas where there is an abuse of trying to apply legitimate interest versus consent. But we will have a firmer decision on this within the week.

The post European Commission’s Giovanni Buttarelli on state of GDPR adoption: ‘Even ticking a box does not necessarily mean consent is freely given’ appeared first on Digiday.

Walmart is embarking on a major store renovation effort to refresh tired, old stores and optimize them to become online fulfillment and delivery hubs.

This week, Walmart announced a series of store redesigns, with an emphasis on technology improvements. The retailer said it’s doubling down on automation to make store operations more efficient, including the addition of 1,500 autonomous floor cleaners; 300 autonomous shelf scanners; 1,200 unloaders that scan and sort items unloaded from trucks; and 900 pickup towers, or vending machines that dispense online orders within stores. By the end of the fiscal year, Walmart expects to have a total of 1,700 pickup towers, 3,100 grocery pickup locations and 1,600 grocery delivery locations.

Walmart’s plans are part of a bigger effort to remodel 500 stores this year, with a focus on e-commerce, technology and supply chain improvements — plans that will cost the retailer $11 billion this year. Like Target, CVS, Kroger and other large retailers, Walmart is focusing on physical stores as lines of defense against Amazon.

Walmart said the investment in store makeovers is ultimately about meeting the needs of diverse sets of customers.

“We’re using the stores as that connector to be able to serve customers how and whenever they want,” said Walmart spokesperson Delia Garcia. “Customers can order online and use [in-store] pickup towers, and some customers want to browse and look for things, and we want it to be pleasant and convenient.”

Walmart’s store redesigns will include installing self-checkout machines, adding new signage, updating inventory and presentation of electronics and hardware departments, revamping grocery presentation and implementing pharmacy department makeovers that will include private consultation rooms. The company said all of its stores — including the largest-format Supercenters, medium-sized stores and neighborhood markets — will be part of the design revamp. Walmart is also planning on building new stores in Florida and California.

Bill Duffy, associate director at Gartner L2, said the moves are likely a response to customer expectations, driven by e-commerce, and that all large retailers are refreshing physical locations to amplify online shopping experiences with added value in stores.

“This is a bigger story than just Walmart; brick-and-mortar retailers are using their physical footprints as an asset against pure play e-commerce retailers,” he said.

Like Walmart, Target is also remodeling stores. It expects to renovate 1,000 stores by 2020. But the significance of Walmart’s investment is its immense reach, with more than 5,000 stores. According to Walmart, 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart store; the retailer’s scale offers a competitive advantage against other retailers and Amazon.

Walmart’s moves to roll out thousands of robots, Duffy said, was likely motivated by the need to balance the role of the store that doubles as a traditional retail location as well as a fulfillment and pickup center for online orders. While store renovations have become a cost of doing business, the challenge is to measure their effectiveness.

“It’s really hard to measure the return on investment of store refreshes,” said Forrester principal analyst Sucharita Kodali. “You can more easily measure declines in retention when stores are old and gross, and a refresh is about avoiding any decline.”

In addition, in considering a makeover of a physical space, big-box retailers need to think of their physical spaces less as warehouses and more as places where customers can relax, browse and gain more value than could be derived from buying goods online. As click and collect becomes more common, retailers will increasingly need to balance the dual role of the store as a location that’s designed for browsing and an e-commerce fulfillment center. As a result, retailers are under more pressure to make the store visit entertaining and relaxing for customers.

“Because it’s so much easier to shop on Amazon, you have to make sure that every time the customer comes to the store, they’re designed in a way that’s not alienating,” said retail store designer Sergio Mannino, owner of a New York-based creative design firm. “The physicality of the store needs to be felt. Maybe there’s something new going on in the store, or maybe there are new products every month that rotate — Walmart could do the same.”

The post Walmart is spending $11 billion to revamp its stores this year appeared first on Digiday.

Business Insider parent company Insider is seeing revenue gains after letting advertisers buy video ads that run against its content across multiple platforms. Rather than selling ads by each channel, this gives buyers more comfort about where they appear on social platforms as brand-safety concerns continue to bubble.

Since last June, Insider TV began letting advertisers buy inventory around Insider content that sits on its YouTube channels, some of its Facebook Watch content, Insider’s owned and operated channels and its OTT apps on Apple TV, Amazon Fire and Roku.

The cross-platform sell allays the brand-safety concerns of sensitive advertisers while giving buyers more targeted scale across the publisher’s video inventory.

“One of our hit shows is ‘The Great Cheese Hunt,’ and globally there are enough people excited by cheese to make it a hit, but I have a hard time believing a TV network would greenlight a show devoted to cheese,” said Pete Spande, publisher and CRO at Business Insider. “Being able to pool this inventory and focus gives us scale we cannot replicate on site or any one platform, this gives us significantly more revenue for our video advertising.”

Spande would not share specific figures but said that the last three months of 2018 generated two-and-a-half times the revenue compared to the previous three months. He added that revenue this year is also seeing strong momentum. Spande said that the blended CPMs are comparable to Google Preferred rates, which opens up the top 5% of top-performing YouTube channels. Viewers are happy to watch the ads as well. According to the publisher, view-through rates for ads on Insider TV are frequently above 90%.

Insider TV has hundreds of millions of streams that are eligible to mid-roll and pre-roll ads, said Spande. Partly, the reason for launching Insider TV last summer was due to the growth in Insider’s YouTube audience, which has ballooned as the publisher has focused on longer videos. YouTube inventory fluctuates between a third and a half of Insider TV inventory, said Spande.

Typically, Insider’s video team of approximately 100 staffers focuses on creating videos between six and 15 minutes long that can fit across platforms. The strategy seems to have paid off: Insider had 245 million views across its 12 YouTube channels in March, 10 times the number it had in 2017, according to Tubular Labs. YouTube subscribers grew 4.8% month-on-month, higher than any other platform.

Insider has been able to sell YouTube inventory direct to buyers since 2017. The benefits of selling direct means publishers can fetch a higher margin, but the platform still takes the same cut, in YouTube’s case 45 percent. Agency sources in the U.K. said Google Preferred CPMs range between £18 ($23.56) and £30 ($39.27). Agency sources say CPMs for selling YouTube direct can be up to three times the usual price. But direct sells are also a unique selling point to get brands feeling more comfortable about spending with YouTube again after brand-safety problems. In the U.K., media owners who are eligible to sell YouTube direct saw an increase in demand in February.

“The latest [YouTube brand-safety] issues created more resonance for what was already a popular discussion,” said Spande. “We didn’t see phones ringing off the hook, but any serious discussion about Insider TV includes a serious discussion about brand safety. That is a primary feature of the product, so advertisers generally focus on it.”

Insider is still ramping up Insider TV. It has more than doubled the number of campaigns that ran between the third and fourth quarter last year, according to Spande, though he wouldn’t share the advertisers it was working with or how many. While the publisher has run a number of programs in the U.K., Insider TV is more commonly bought in the U.S. for now. It plans to expand in more global markets after the first year.

“It’s a solid offering and one that clients would be interested in,” said Jessica Reid, programmatic planning director at Havas. “The slow uptake in the [U.K.] market is partly because we’re siloed in how we buy video. On the plan and in reality are very different when it should be more holistic.” Reid said only one other U.K. publisher has approached her with a related way of trading, although this was a minimum spend on buying pre-roll across publisher Twitter channels.

In the U.S., Group Nine and BuzzFeed have recently ramped up their own cross-platform video sales products and seen revenue in the millions of dollars.

“One of the challenges is how do you get consistency across different channels in measurement, targeting and reporting,” said Reid, adding that Facebook and YouTube have different ways of measuring a view. Last October, Insider decided to prioritize 30-second views over three-second views and passed the 1 billion 30-second view count last summer.

“We decided it was better for advertisers and us to package across different platforms and have a discussion about how we reach the audience through the content than spend a lot of time diagnosing which platform to fit that advertiser’s needs,” said Spande.

The post Insider is ramping up its cross-platform video ads appeared first on Digiday.

Drugstores are embracing CBD (cannabidiol) products, pushing the trend into the mass market.

Yesterday, Rite Aid announced it would start selling CBD products in nearly 800 stores across Washington and Oregon. It follows Walgreens and CVS, which both announced that they would start selling topical products that contain CBD, like creams and lip balms, in certain states.

Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid will be the guinea pigs as other mass retailers try to figure out the kind of in-store marketing, communications and price points are necessary to convince mass-market consumers, who might not yet be familiar with CBD, to try the products. Catherine Lang, a retail analyst with Kantar Consulting, predicts that convenience stores will be among the next retailers to get into CBD products, particularly in states where recreational use of marijuana is legalized. Bethany Gomez, managing director of Brightfield Group, predicts grocery stores will be next.

“Once Walgreens and CVS are doing something, Albertson’s and Kroger are not far behind at all.”

The CBD boom in mass retail coincides with the passage of the Farm Bill in December, which legalized the production of hemp and CBD derived from legally produced hemp. But there are still restrictions that vary by state, as CBD is still illegal on a federal level, around how CBD products can be marketed and how payments can be processed.

“With these large chain retailers starting to carry these products, it both dramatically increases the distribution of CBD products and gives it a level of credibility,” said Gomez. Brightfield Group projects that the hemp-derived CBD market will reach $22 billion by 2022.

One of the biggest challenges Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid will face in selling CBD products is convincing consumers why they should try them without making any specific health claims. Even though CBD cosmetics don’t have to be pre-approved by the FDA, companies can run afoul of the FDA if they make unverified health claims. So a retailer may run into trouble if it claims a CBD cream can help alleviate pain from endometriosis, according to Gomez, but they can market it as a women’s health product. End caps and point of sale displays will also be critical in elevating CBD topics as not just another lotion or cream. None of the three drugstores have commented yet on how they plan to market CBD products compared to other health and wellness products in stores.

The last thing a mass retailer wants is to stock its shelves with a product from a new wholesale partner, only to have to pull that product later on as that company runs into legal trouble or if the FDA says it’s considering more tightly regulating that product category. Mass retailers have already been burned before — Target, for example, started carrying a hemp extract oil in 2017, only to pull it after the Drug Enforcement Administration at the time said it still considered hemp extracts to be a drug on the same level as marijuana.

The adoption by drugstores is an important step in introducing CBD products to the mass market, as up until now many of the retailers who have started carrying CBD products have done so as a luxury play, including Neiman Marcus and Barneys. Beauty retailers like Sephora were also among the first out of the gate to sell more CBD products. Selling CBD-based cosmetic products carries less of a risk than other product categories because they don’t have to be pre-approved by the FDA. 

But in their announcements, Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid haven’t played up CBD as a luxury item. Instead, a Walgreens spokesman told CNBC that its entry into the CBD market is “in line with our efforts to provide a wider range of accessible health and well-being products and services.”

There will also likely be some trial and error within the first few months as Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid figure out how much customers are willing to shell out for a product with an ingredient they’ve never tried before.

“If people aren’t sure if [CBD products] are going to work for them at the first time, they don’t want to spend a lot of money,” Gomez said.

The post ‘A level of credibility’: Drugstore chains are embracing CBD appeared first on Digiday.

A year after Discovery merged with Scripps Networks, the TV conglomerate’s upfront pitch has advanced beyond its expanded footprint across traditional TV and digital. As part of this year’s pitch, Discovery is focusing advertisers’ attention on its ability to pinpoint specific audiences within that footprint.

Discovery has begun to use its own first-party audience data to target ads across its linear TV networks and its Go-branded TV Everywhere apps, which people can use to stream its shows on their connected TV, phones and computers after signing with their pay-TV accounts. Discovery has collected that data through people’s behavior on its sites as well as programs like HGTV’s Dream Home contest, which received 130 million entries between December 2018 and February 2019. Based on that data, it has created “just about 100 proprietary [audience] segments in the home, food, travel and auto verticals,” said Keith Kazerman, evp of digital sales, advanced advertising and research at Discovery.

The post Discovery has started using its first-party data to target ads across TV, digital appeared first on Digiday.

Dannie Fountain, an account representative at Google, receives LinkedIn messages on a weekly basis, typically a few times per week. That’s not a bad thing — except they’re always from fake profiles.

A couple weeks ago she got a message that read, “Hi Dannie- I am expecting your help to learn more about Google and available full time roles. Can we connect some time over phone for 15 minutes?”

The profile had no photo and no job information.

“The profiles typically have very limited information or are duplicates. If I search the name, I’ll see a second profile with more complete information. They are almost always asking questions about Google: How do I get hired, can you review my resume, can you submit a referral. Some of the more bold ones will ask or demand to set up time with me,” Fountain said.

This is becoming more and more common for LinkedIn. The professional networking site, which touted 575 million registered members in August 2018, is filled with profiles with multitudes of issues, from profile photos pulled from Google images to an ambiguous job title at a fake company. Some of them, such as this profile, even comes with fake verified checkmarks.

These profiles then request to connect with the millions of legitimate users on LinkedIn or, if they pay for LinkedIn Premium, have the ability to just message users with peculiar asks.

Execs in the industry told Digiday while they find LinkedIn a valuable tool for their profession — to network and to keep up on industry news, for example — the amount of spam they receive leaves them frustrated. And it’s not a good look for LinkedIn, which proclaims a “simple mission” to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.” When users have to manage connection requests from fake profiles, LinkedIn becomes a time waster rather than a productive tool. While LinkedIn has worked to improve its product by introducing video and more sophisticated ad tools, the platform is still plagued by inauthenticity. It’s unclear how many fake profiles exist on the site.

“Fake accounts are a violation of our terms of service and we take action against them. When we identify bad actors, we take appropriate action, which often includes a permanent restriction from LinkedIn. We use a variety of automated techniques, coupled with human reviewers and member reporting, to keep our members safe from all types of bad actors and abuse. If members encounter something that makes them uncomfortable, suspect someone might not be representing themselves honestly or see inappropriate behavior like harassment or inaccurate content, we ask that they report it to us immediately and know that they can always block another member or remove a connection,” emailed Paul Rockwell, LinkedIn’s head of trust and safety.

Despite LinkedIn’s commitment to identifying and banning, inauthentic accounts persist.

“ALL. THE. TIME,” texted Vincent Orleck, social media manager at Arizona State University, when asked how often he sees inauthentic profiles on LinkedIn. “It’s pretty bad. Messages have bad syntax, spelling, and just weird requests overall. Then there are the somewhat-off accounts featuring female models and the like.”

Kirsten Suddath, vp of finance and operations at ad buying platform Flytedesk, said the number of fake accounts she has seen has increased in frequency over the last several months. She typically receives one to two connection requests per week from profiles she believes to be fake. The profiles often feature a profile picture of a woman seemingly in her late 20s to late 30s, and their note always says, “Nice to meet you.” Her response has been to not engage.

“I’ve previously just rejected the connection request, but from now on, I’m going to report them. LinkedIn is a great tool for us. It’s the primary tool that we use for top-of-funnel recruiting on key positions for Flytedesk, so I am hopeful that LinkedIn will respond and take action soon,” Suddath said.

While fake accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are abundant and known for spreading misinformation or boosting follower counts for fame, inauthentic profiles on LinkedIn seek the attention of business people.

The incentives are varied. Some inauthentic profiles send over phishing scams. Others can create a vast network of connections and then request to download their contacts and therefore could build email lists (The functionality has been limited by LinkedIn’s privacy tools released last year).

LinkedIn’s Rockwall said his company didn’t make that change with fraudulent activity in mind.

“We routinely look at ways to provide clarity and control. We made this change with our members in mind. Members have control over who can download their email address via a data export,” he emailed.

But just because the privacy setting to disable downloading your email address is there doesn’t mean every LinkedIn user is taking advantage of it.

“There’s a lot more to gain by being fake on LinkedIn than Instagram. I think it’s more high value. You can still export email addresses, and there’s really good money in email lists,” said David Shadpour, CEO of marketing company Social Native.

Shadpour said he consistently receives requests to connect from sketchy accounts. But one of the most nefarious uses of fake LinkedIn accounts he learned through his in-house recruiter. The recruiter showed Shadpour a profile of someone who looked like the ideal job candidate: Harvard undergrad, Stanford MBA, years of sales experiences at Microsoft and then Google.

“This is a genius fake profile because if I’m a headhunting firm, how do I get lead gen? A recruiter reaches out to this ‘candidate’ with, ‘Hey, we’re actively hiring for salespeople,’ and then two days later I get an email from a recruiting firm that says, ‘Hi, we hear you’re hiring for salespeople,’” Shadpour said.

Brett Petersel, who’s currently working at marketing agency Epic Signal, said he receives suspicious requests from accounts in Singapore, Indonesia and India. They all work for random companies, many of which don’t actually exist.

“I have blocked a number of profiles who claim to be recruiters for this one particular company. I’ve looked it up on Google, and people said, ‘It’s all a scam.’ Another case, the company was real. However, the ‘recruiters’ were not and had a different URL that led to the site,” Petersel said.

The post LinkedIn has a fake-profile problem appeared first on Digiday.

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Walmart’s next move in remaking its image in the Amazon age: muscle up its advertising business.

The post Retail Briefing: Walmart is bulking up its advertising business appeared first on Digiday.