Month: April 2019

Episodes of “Being Erica,” “Bedlam,” “Primeval” and “Robin Hood” will appear across Pluto TV’s channels. Also, the company will create two dedicated “pop-up” channels – for “Doctor Who” and “Antique’s
Roadshow.”

Consumers turn to virtual reality content for emotional connection and perceive augmented reality as a tool for useful additive learning.

The tension between this former couple is so thick you could cut it with a knife. The split was obviously contentious (the gal has moved on) and they’re having a clipped conversation over breakfast about her new partner’s dubious character and her perceived lack of parenting skills. The guy, meantime, is intractable. Their young son,…

San Francisco-based Postmates has announced the selection of Mother Los Angeles as its creative agency of record. In conjunction, the brand and agency debuted their first work together: new out-of-home creative, which began being rolled out in key markets this week such as L.A., New York, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Miami and San Diego. Playing off…

The post The 2019 digital media pocket roadmap appeared first on Digiday.

Twitch has proven there is a big market for watching other people play video games, so why not the same for shopping.

The next evolution of making shopping a social experience, beyond unboxing videos and influencer hauls, is influencers livestreaming their shopping trips and interacting with their fans along the way.

Livestream shopping is nothing new: It’s been a fast-growing industry in China, with local livestreams — many carried out on Alibaba’s Taobao Marketplace by key opinion leaders, or influencers — generating $4.4 billion in salesin 2018. In response, Amazon launched in February the Amazon Live Creatorapp, facilitating live-streamed shopping experiences, and Facebook is said to be testing a shopping modefor livestreams. Likewise, Instagram is reportedly working on a separate shopping appthat builds upon IGTV.

But livestream shopping experiences to date have primarily been focused on a store or other IRL setting. Live-streaming an online shopping experience is gaining traction. For example, BuyWith, which is among companies in New York Fashion Tech Lab’s 2019 class, is behind new e-commerce software enabling screen sharing and online chat so shoppers can co-browse with friends.

Interactive shopping trips are at the heart of social shopping app Dote, which has a new feature called Shopping Party, a 15-minute event lets an influencer’s followers watch them shop on the Dote platform while interacting with them through a live chat. Dote, which has $23 million in venture backing, boasts 3.2 million users, typically teens.

Dote founder and CEO Lauren Farleigh compared the feature to Twitch, the platform for watching and streaming video games that saw 3 million streamersa month in 2018. In a Shopping Party, users’ mobile screens are split, so they see the hosting shopper live, as well as what items they’re browsing. At the same time, they can weigh in on styles being considered, with comments showing up in a chat feed, similar to the experience on Instagram Live.

Launched in San Francisco in 2014, Dote brings into one shopping experience 150 retailers popular with female Gen-Z shoppers, like Asos, Forever 21 and Brandy Melville.

Of the users, 450 with large followings on YouTube or Instagram have been deemed “Dote Creators.” They include Emma Chamberlain (with 7 million followers on both platforms) and Summer Mckeen (2 million followers on both). By tagging Instagram posts with “@doteshopping,” their posts feed into their Dote profile where they’re shoppable. Dote brands have tapped into this opportunity through paid posts with Dote Creators. They’ve also invested in featuring polls and giveaways on influencers’ Dote profiles.

To get the feature off the ground, starting Wednesday and spanning weeks, 250 Dote Creators will host a total of two parties per hour, equalling more than 400 parties. A pilot program will see Urban Outfitters, Princess Polly, Honeybum and Dolls Kill sponsoring shopping parties featuring their brand exclusively. Users can sign up for notifications of parties hosted by creators they follow. After the launch period, the feature will roll out, allowing all Dote users to host parties.

Dote will be promoting the feature on its Instagram, where it has 150,000 followers, and will host a launch party in L.A. for creators. Creators will also promote their parties.

Fifteen-year-old Dote Creator Fiona Frills, who has 850,000 YouTube subscribers, said she’ll post to Instagram Stories an hour before her live parties, asking her followers to swipe up to help her shop. Frills said there’s a demand for this type of content; some of her most popular videos feature her shopping in a store, like the recent “I Style Prom Dresses With Sneakers at Fight Club.”

“This is live, so it’s next-level,” she said. “My fans can now give me advice on what to buy and help me pick out outfits for certain events.” She plans to host parties once or twice a week, and to view those of fellow creators with great style.

Farleigh said the average Dote user is highly-engaged, daily visiting the app four times and viewing 75 products. With Gen Z’s spending power of $143 billion, there’s big opportunity for the brands signing on. According to Dote, which declined to elaborate, it saw ten-times revenue growth in 2018.

“When we had moved from going to the mall with friends to this desktop checkout experience, we gained a ton in terms of assortment and convenience, but lost a lot in terms of the experience and social aspect of shopping,” said Farleigh, whose background includes working as a project manager at mobile gaming publisher Pocket Gems.

These companies are mostly working with fashion brands now, but Dote is hopeful Shopping Party will attract beauty fans, too. “It’s a big category, and I’m excited to see how our creators use beauty brands on the platform, if it’s more about tutorials,” said Farleigh. “One of the fun parts of my job is putting something out into the world and seeing how people use it.”

The post Influencers are hosting livestreams for their fans to watch them shop appeared first on Digiday.

It’s been eight years of nights dark and full of terror since George R.R. Martin last published a new book advancing the series that inspired HBO’s megahit Game of Thrones. And while it’s been fun for book lovers to go into recent seasons blissfully unaware of what to expect, the long gap combined with Martin…

Buying local TV is still an extremely manual process. FreeWheel wants to change that. On Tuesday, the Comcast-owned company released features in its Strata media platform that automate planning and buying for local TV buyers. Strata, which Comcast bought back in 2005, is used by more than 1,200 agencies to plan and buy media across… Continue reading »

The post FreeWheel Automates Strata Planning Tools For Local TV Buyers appeared first on AdExchanger.

At a time when reports of unethical and questionable data use are a seemingly regular occurrence, marketers must double down on their commitment to be responsible practitioners. That means ethically sourcing data, whether it comes from a syndicated audience data provider or a trusted brand partner. As consumers, we talk about ethically sourcing everything from…

Most Americans (65%) – including majorities across racial and ethnic groups – say it has become more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views since Trump was elected president.

The post Race in America 2019 appeared first on Pew Research Center.