Month: May 2019

Through Vox Media’s recent purchase of Epic Magazine, the company also has “Little America,” a series from actor and comedian Kumail Nanjiani, in the works with Apple. And during Hulu’s NewFronts presentation, the streaming video giant announced a multiyear deal with Vox Media Studios for original food shows that will be created in partnership with chef David Chang and celebrity Chrissy Teigen’s production companies.

“We have a reputation now,” said Chad Mumm, head of entertainment for Vox Media Studios. “Last year, it was all a bet [that we could succeed,] but we still had to show it on the field. And now, we have development hype and people are bringing us great ideas that we can partner on and take to market.”

Vox Media’s progress with its entertainment studio has been a slow, steady burn. The division, which was formed in March 2015, landed its Netflix deal for “Explained,” an explainer series covering topics ranging from cricket to the world’s water crisis, last year. The series was renewed by Netflix in November — halfway through the initial order of episodes, Mumm said.

“We tried not to get out over our skis, but we wanted to have a pipeline of good shows to follow,” Mumm said. “There tends to be a flywheel once you’re able to prove yourself.”

Today, Vox Media’s entertainment division is profitable, Mumm said. Mumm declined to share how much revenue the division is bringing in for the company, but it’s clear that Vox Media has even bigger ambitions for the studio. In April, the publisher acquired Epic Magazine for an undisclosed price. The 25-person Epic is behind the “Little America” series for Apple and will serve as one unit within the new Vox Media Studios division, which will oversee all of Vox Media’s film, TV and podcast efforts. The division will be led by Marty Moe as president of Vox Media Studios.

“They have been [building an entertainment business] methodically,” said Paul Greenberg, CEO of digital video firm Butter Works. “With Eater, they have always created great food content, so they are now extending that to Hulu; with Recode and The Verge, they know tech and they are doing that with their YouTube shows.”

During Greenberg’s time as an evp at A+E Networks, the cable programmer struck a deal with Vox Media for a pilot for a show called “Prefabulous.” That show never went past the pilot stage, but Greenberg said that even then the Vox Media crew “were doing a good job of thinking about leaning into what they’re good at.”

“From a logistical perspective, they gave Chad his own division and let him run with and be really focused on it, versus being distracted by also doing short-form video and branded content,” Greenberg added.

As head of entertainment, Mumm will continue to oversee existing and new projects developed by his group. This includes the new multiyear output deal with Hulu to produce original food programming, including the first two series orders: “Family Style” and “Eater’s Guide to the World.” The deal will be overseen by a development group of 10 people across Vox Media Studios, Eater’s editorial group, Chang and Teigen’s production companies and Hulu.

When asked whether Vox Media Studios would retain any ownership over the programs — ownership of intellectual property is a big question for entertainment studios selling movies and shows to Netflix and other big content buyers, which increasingly want ownership or long-term exclusives on the programming — Mumm said the notion of IP ownership has become a “red herring in the streaming world.” He added, “There is this narrative of IP that has gotten totally misconstrued. All of the shows [we make] are our IP. How we exploit that as we have gotten more leverage and more wins — and a greater reputation — becomes more lucrative over time.”

The post Vox Media’s entertainment studio aims for 12 series for TV, streaming platforms in 2019 appeared first on Digiday.

The Facebook Group came together after a failed experiment with a chatbot that was meant to gather feedback from social followers. According to Noah Palmer, Hill City’s general manager, the brand “stumbled upon” the idea of bringing together a Facebook Group, where other wear testers could bounce ideas off of each other.

“We struggle, being a digital brand, to build a community. The Facebook Group brings that together organically,” said Palmer. “Within the [Gap] portfolio, our role is to break some of the convention that exists.”

Other retailers and brands are using Facebook Groups to bring together customers for the sake of turning them into coveted communities. The request-to-join nature of Facebook Groups makes them feel more intimate than public pages, helping to fuel more natural conversations. From those, retailers can get direct insight into what their most engaged customers are thinking. Thrive Market, an online grocery retailer selling organic and all-natural products, has a Facebook Group where subscription members can share feedback on new products and swap recipes. Peloton’s official member page, which has 168,000 members, is a forum for Peloton members to connect and also get updates on new Peloton features and announcements.

Facebook Groups are only going to become more integral to retailers’ strategies as they look to incorporate more customer insight into developments around products, subscriptions and loyalty perks. For Facebook, and its push toward “privacy,” Groups are a way for the platform to mine data in more intimate conversations. According to the company, more than 400 million of Facebook’s 2.4 billion users are already involved in a Facebook Group. That will also influence the type of ads that target users — meaning retailers who know they have a vocal community in a Facebook Group could be driven to spend more on the platform in order to properly monetize that audience, and not lose out to competition.

“By driving people to groups versus one-on-one conversations, Facebook is encouraging more of these [intimate] conversations to happen. More conversations equals more data,” said Jon Reilly, vp of global commerce strategy at Publicis Sapient. “Here, Facebook wins — they frequently do — retailers win because more data equals more sales, and consumers lose out on privacy.”

The real Facebook Group goldmines for retailers are the unofficial groups, started by brand loyalists under a “buy, trade, sell” format. There are two Facebook Groups dedicated to Rothy’s, for example: “Rothy’s Addicts” and “Rothy’s Buy/Sell/Trade and Chat.” Both are for sharing photos, styling tips and asking questions about the brand; the former is for buying and reselling pairs of Rothy’s or trading pairs for different prints and colors. They have 12,000 and 14,000 members, respectively. That’s exactly the type of on-platform community Facebook is prioritizing, and retailers are going to begin targeting.

“We hear from our members in our Facebook Group loud and clear,” said Jeremiah McElwee, Thrive Market’s head of merchandising. “If they don’t like something, they’ll tell us. And then we have to act on that.”

The state of Amazon’s acquisitions
Last week, CNBC reported that Amazon is rebranding Souq, the Middle Eastern marketplace that it acquired in 2017 to Amazon.ae, in most countries. It’s an inevitable conclusion for Souq, as Amazon has reportedly been telling North American sellers for months to stop selling Souq as it planned to launch its own Middle Eastern marketplace. Here are some other recent developments of note among Amazon’s many acquisitions — in 2018, the company reported that it spent $1.65 billion on acquisitions.

PillPack: Amazon is getting closer to integrating PillPack, the online pharmacy it acquired in 2018 for $753 million, into its own marketplace. PillPack now has a page on Amazon.com. Healthcare reporter Jay Hancock also said that at the end of April, he started receiving PillPack marketing emails through his Amazon Prime membership.

Ring: It appears that Amazon wants to create a content arm for Ring, a home security startup it also acquired for around $839 million in 2018. A number of news outlets reported last week that Amazon has a new job opening for a managing editor to oversee a team of editors that will send crime alerts to Ring owners. The job posting said that the managing editor should be ready to join a “new media news team that is rapidly evolving and growing week by week.”

Whole Foods: Last week, Amazon rolled out Prime Now, its same-day delivery services, to Whole Foods stores in 13 more metropolitan areas. In April, Amazon also said it would double the number of weekly deals at Whole Foods available to Prime members. We’ll get more insight into how Amazon plans to connect Whole Foods with its budding grocery empire whenever it rolls out its long-rumored new grocery store business. — Anna Hensel 

CAC Watch: The physical store
Stores have to do everything for retailers today, include act as marketing channels.

“The rent you would pay for a store is the new CAC,” said Jameson Valone, vp of digital marketing at BrandBox, a multibrand pop-up retailer inside a Macerich mall. BrandBox is targeting brands that have yet to build out a full store network, offering them ready-built and staffed spaces that are equipped with features like POS systems and RetailNext traffic analytics. The company is targeting brands that have exhausted their online marketing channels.

UrbanStems, an online florist, opened a BrandBox store earlier this year after it found that it had saturated 98% of the addressable online market in its home base of Washington, D.C. Before opening the BrandBox store, UrbanStems tested subway campaigns and direct mail, but found it difficult to measure ROI.

“CPAs strictly on out-of-home is hundreds of dollars per customer acquired,” said Ajay Kori, UrbanStems co-founder. “If you’re able to acquire a customer in a physical store, you’re paying to do so, but you’re also making money off of them. I don’t see a world where all successful brands aren’t omnichannel.” — Hilary Milnes

What we’ve covered
DTC decline: Under Armour’s direct-to-consumer business is losing footing despite efforts to grow it.

CBD for pets: Zenpup is using human influencers to promote its CBD products for dogs.

Liberty Mutual talks marketing: The DTC push is influencing even the insurance industry.

The post For retailers, Facebook Groups can be data goldmines appeared first on Digiday.

In past years, Stoli would allocate 60-70% of its social dollars to Facebook and 30-40% to Instagram. This year, Stoli is allocating 70-80% of its social dollars to Instagram. Stoli declined to share specific numbers. In 2018, the alcohol brand spent $2.1 million in media, per Kantar Media data.

Initially, Stoli shied away from Instagram and kept its dollars with Facebook because the analytics available on the Facebook platform gave the brand more insights into the performance. Now, Instagram has more analytics and performance tracking tools, which has helped Stoli make the switch.

“Last year, we were really testing and doing different splits on Facebook and Instagram,” said Longenecker. “We were doing the auto-optimize [option], where Facebook will auto shift it toward Facebook or Instagram depending on how it’s performing. Really, last year was more of a testing year, and this year was really where we decided to focus much more heavily on Instagram.”

Longenecker said its too early to tell how this strategy is doing for Stoli other than that they’ve seen positive results so far.

Switching to focus on Instagram makes sense for brands looking to target younger demographics, according to industry analysts. Stoli is looking to target 21- to 29-year-olds. Instagram also has a better brand perception at the moment, as Facebook is dealing with negative stories around data breaches, privacy and politics, said one media agency source.

Moving to from Facebook to Instagram could help Stoli avoid an oversaturated marketplace, as more brands have realized that Facebook is crowded with traditional ads, said Matoaka Winters, director of growth and innovation at brand consultancy Landor. “Instagram is where you see more organic, user-friendly content coming to life,” said Winters.

Last November, Digiday research found that media buyers were more bullish on Instagram, with 79% of those surveyed saying they would increase their spending on the platform in 2019.

Stoli is no longer spending media dollars in consumer print publications, and, so far this year, it has no plans for TV. The brand is focused on social, digital, out-of-home and experiential marketing. Last year, Stoli spent around 5% of its marketing dollars on experiential. This year, that will jump to 10%.

“These days when there’s so many ways to advertise and reach a consumer, it’s really in one ear and out there other,” said Longenecker. “We really looked at how can we create engaging experiences where they will remember the brand.”

That experiential gives the brand another opportunity to create content for social channels, as the two go hand-in-hand, has helped make it a more attractive area for the brand, said Longenecker.

OOH, meanwhile, has remained the same, but the brand has moved away from traditional billboards to murals. By working with artists on murals for OOH, the company is able to generate more content for social channels, either for the brand’s channel or through partnerships with the artist’s channels.

The brand isn’t working with Snapchat, Reddit or TikTok. For Snapchat in particular, the brand has been apprehensive, given previous brand issues that companies like Diageo have faced on Snapchat, as users have been able to pretend to be 21-years-old when they are underage.

“Everything we’re doing, we’re trying to focus on the consumer,” said Longenecker. “It comes back to who are we targeting, where are they, where are they spending their time, how are they spending their time and how can we ensure that we’re reaching them.”

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