Month: June 2019

Pinterest is, as Ikea media project manager Kerri Longarz said, home to “DIYers and how-to-ers and customizers,” a prime audience Ikea wanted to reach. “We didn’t want to just copy and paste — we already have a digital catalog online,” said Longarzo. “But promotions in the past felt a little stale. We were running out of ways to show the catalog to people online, so we sought out something different.”

Working with digital agency Wavemaker as well as Pinterest’s strategic and creative teams, Ikea created a product questionnaire built into Pinterest to learn what users were shopping for, what furniture styles they were interested in and other insights into their personal tastes. From there, users could either let Ikea fill an automated Pinterest board based on their responses, or browse through recommended products and build their own boards. All pins in the program were linked to product and catalog pages on the Ikea site.

After launching last August, Longarzo said that 25,000 Pinterest boards have been created using the tool, and the questionnaire had a 100% completion rate. Overall, the Ikea team measured the response to the Pinterest catalog through engagement as well as conversion to the product pages, which Longarzo didn’t share.

Pinterest, which became a publicly traded company in April, has been working to actually monetize the traffic that flows through its site as customers look for ideas for weddings, home design, recipes and more. Brand partnerships are a big piece of that strategy, both paid and unpaid. In addition to running quiz-style discovery engines for brands like Ikea, Pinterest has built out its paid ad offering, rolling out sponsored video pins to add to its Promoted Pins ad spot.

“Pinterest has become top of mind for brands because of how people use it — they actively search for decor and products, and that’s something that’s top of mind for Pinterest,” said Noah Mallin, managing partner at Wavemaker. “The old way we thought about Pinterest was an aspirational platform, and now they’re putting action alongside that.”

To make the most of its platform partnerships, Longarzo said the Ikea team regularly partakes in workshops with its account reps at social platforms, including Facebook as well as Pinterest, adding that the brand has had the most workshops with Pinterest. Through these discussions, Ikea has fleshed out its paid and organic strategies on Pinterest, including testing video ads and building the shoppable catalog, which isn’t a paid product. The brand did, however, put spending behind it to promote on the site as well as on other platforms and through its own emails.

Going forward, Longarzo said that Ikea plans to keep exploring new digital ads, as well as bring new shoppable functions into its strategy — events, for one, as well as its new mobile app. It’s reducing production of its print catalogs at the same time.

“[Catalogs] have been a pretty big part of the Ikea concept from the very beginning,” Longarzo said. “As we get to 2019 and realize consumer behaviors are shifting, the world is going more digital, having this print-only piece was becoming more challenging.”

CVS continues to add more in-store health services
At its investor day yesterday, CVS Health announced that it plans to open more HealthHubs — which are redesigned drugstores that include more health services and products — in Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Southern New Jersey and Tampa this year. By the end of 2021, CVS Health expects to have 1,500 HealthHubs.

CVS started piloting HealthHubs this year, opening three such stores in Houston. Compared to CVS’ other stores, HealthHubs have 20% more floor space dedicated to health products, as well as in-store iPads where customers can look through a range of health and wellness apps, according to CNN. CVS is also experimenting with what in-store services to include, ranging from an on-site dietitian to consultations with nurse practitioners. The Houston stores don’t have doctors on-site, but CVS is partnering with a telemedicine platform that would still allow shoppers to consult with a doctor.

It’s not the only way CVS is adding more services to its stores. The drug store chain is also adding SmileDirectClub shops, where customers can get a 3D scan of their teeth in order to receive aligners from SmileDirectClub, to 1,000 of its stores over the next two years. Adding more in-store services is a must for any retailer today, but CVS has additional motive to do so beyond just driving sales. CVS Health completed its acquisition of insurer Aetna last year. One way to potentially drive insurance costs down is by giving patients access to more preventative care — which CVS’ store network is a convenient place to do.

As CVS continues to add more of these services, data collection will be especially critical to understand what in-store services are most effective at driving sales.

“Where will someone who visits the SmileDirect store then go buy at CVS?,” Alice Fournier, an analyst with Kantar Consulting previously told Digiday. “So I think there’s a great holistic shopper understanding that then affords both companies hopefully to retarget while at the physical shelf or online.” — Anna Hensel

Return of the mobile apps
Recently, retailers are putting more strength behind the mobile apps, which have been both talked up as the industry’s newest frontier as well as shot down as walled gardens that customers quickly toss to the wayside.

Ulta, in its first-quarter earnings call last week, announced it was expanding its mobile app features to include an improved purchase history and reordering feature, an augmented-reality try on function and a virtual beauty advisor who can provide product recommendations based on features like skin type and hair color. A new chatbot can be prompted to answer common questions around loyalty program features and other quick asks.

Ikea, meanwhile, recently announced it would be making its mobile app shoppable, after previously using the app to let customers preview furniture in their homes before purchasing in a store or online. The ability to shop via mobile is part of an accessibility push for Ikea, which also recently opened a studio-style store in Manhattan to get products and design inspiration closer to customers in New York.

As retailers figure out new ways to have more personalized, one-to-one interactions with customers, they’re returning to mobile apps, which have high engagement but a high barrier to entry. — Hilary Milnes

What we’ve covered

Costco has finally caught on it e-commerce: The CEO admitted that there are plenty of sales to be had online.

Challenging Prime Video: Inside Walmart’s big video streaming ambitions.

Apple is bulking up its privacy muscles: The latest operating system has privacy settings that could deal a blow to advertisers.

The post Ikea is transitioning its print catalog to Pinterest appeared first on Digiday.

Buttigieg is far from the only candidate with a supporter-led “dank” meme stash. The group’s creator Rachel, who requested her last name not be used, had launched Facebook groups for memes supporting several candidates including Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Julian Castro earlier this year. Since February, the 27-year-old has focused her time on the Buttigieg group.

“Social media plays a huge role in political discourse and this is a way to create and distribute lighter content to help people get to know Pete and feel connected about Pete’s message. Memeing across generations is a way that we can bridge gaps in culture and understanding,” Rachel says.

Memes — dank or otherwise — have become a mainstream tool for political campaigning, used by supporters and opponents (and sometimes campaigns themselves) to convey information with humor. Memes aren’t new in politics of course. Illustrators have been drawing political cartoons nearly as long as there’s been newspapers. But they have garnered more attention in recent years with the rise of social media and as part of Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Political strategists say they expect memes to be even more prevalent in the 2020 election.

What’s a political meme? It depends who you ask. Rachel, the moderator of the Pete Buttigieg’s Dank Meme Stash Facebook group, says internet memes typically refer to images but memes can also be a “cultural unit,” like a MAGA hat. Her Buttigieg group has a “looser definition” than others she runs due to its broader age range. “The posts contain images I’d call graphics more than memes,” she says.

Zac Moffatt, CEO of marketing agency Targeted Victory, likened memes to chain emails of decades past and to the more recent practice of President Donald Trump nicknaming people. “They’re a shortcut to a larger point,” Moffatt says. “Memes are successful when they repackage information in a lighthearted, shareable way.”

Moffatt, who served as digital director for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, has experienced backlash from memes firsthand. After a 2012 debate when Romney said, “I love Big Bird,” as he was sharing his plan to eliminate federal funding to PBS, memes defending the Sesame Street character flooded Twitter. The Obama campaign later ran a TV ad mocking the comment. “Campaigns from the official side have not wanted to touch [memes] historically. It’s like all things in social media, balancing humanizing and diminishing. You’re starting to see a seismic shift now. There’s a mass market appeal,” Moffatt says.

Indeed, memes are going to appear whether the candidates want them to, or not, and it’s up to the campaigns to decide whether to embrace or shun them. Rob Shepardson, founding partner of marketing agency SS+K who worked on Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, says memes can be used strategically by candidates themselves.

“In politics, you want to define yourself, your opponent and what’s at stake. If you look at memes through that lens it’s just another way to help candidates do that,” Shepardson says.

For example, in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign briefly embraced memes by using the photo of “Texts from Hillary” as her Twitter photo. (She later removed that after a State Department investigation into the matter.) Bernie Sanders’ campaign acknowledged a meme about the candidate when it tweeted, “A vote for Bernie is a vote for #BirdieSanders,” after a bird landed on his podium during a speech.

In the 2020 election, most candidates have shied from memes, at least for now. One acknowledgment of the practice has come from Democratic candidate Andrew Yang who, in an interview with The New York Times, denounced memes about him created by the far-right.

Meanwhile, the incumbent continues to embrace memes. President Trump’s official Twitter and Instagram accounts frequently feature memes, such as his use of the “Game of Thrones” font.

“Trump is a master of [memes]. He understands that people share the headlines without reading substance,” says Claudia Cukrov, group strategy director at SS+K. “He understands that people don’t care about the details, and he doesn’t care about the details either.”

Media outlets also elevate memes when they chose to write about them. While that was common practice prior elections, such as Mashable producing a listicle of Big Bird and Romney memes in 2012, some reporters have begun to become more mindful of meme coverage, says CNN’s campaign editor Kyle Blaine.

“I think the novelty of memes has worn off. There was a huge splash of, ‘Oh this stuff is so funny,’ and there was a hunger of digital-first outlets to capture that internet conversation. That pressure, while still present, is tempered by thinking about how we’re covering things a lot more, especially thinking about how we’re covering things on the internet,” Blaine says.

Nevertheless, political memes persist online, whether or not they get any media coverage. Moses Albo, the CEO and founder of DankMeme.com, helps manage one of the Facebook meme pages supporting Bernie Sanders, which was launched in February 2016 and has nearly 300,000 likes.

“I really do want Bernie Sanders to be our president, and he has the support of the entire Dank Meme network behind him. We got his back, and come 2020 we’re ready to flood the internet with the Dankest Bernie Sanders memes in our stash,” Albo says.

The post The 2020 meme election: How memes became a mainstream tool in politics appeared first on Digiday.

Quibi is still focused on making high-profile movies that can be delivered in episode chapters that are 10 minutes or less; the company is also ramping up its efforts to buy unscripted “format shows,” as well as daily programming that can populate the video streaming service alongside those “lighthouse” projects, which will be released roughly every other week, sources said.

But one key difference from Quibi’s early plans is the company’s full-on commitment to the mobile screen. In an investor pitch deck from last year, Quibi — back when it was still called “New TV” — described a distribution strategy that would include video apps for TV platforms such as the Apple TV and Xbox gaming consoles. This year, the company has moved away from that idea by focusing on creating a video streaming app that will exclusively be designed for mobile devices, sources said.

“There was a time when the company was exploring a mobile-first strategy by being available on TV devices,” said a Quibi source. “Now it’s mobile-only.”

Quibi has been building out a product team that can develop a video platform that people would want to use on the go. This has included hiring product and other executives from Instagram and Snapchat: Two months ago, the company named Tom Conrad, Snap’s former vp of product, as its chief product officer.

This group, working with Quibi’s content executives, is focused on creating a user experience and content formats that make sense for mobile viewing. For instance, Quibi will support both horizontal and vertical video — and will give users the ability to shift from one to the other with the same video. Producers are also thinking about production shots that wouldn’t appear on a normal TV show: for instance, vertical video close-ups that resemble how people communicate on the iPhone’s FaceTime, said a source. This tracks with recent comments from Jason Hirschhorn, who, after meeting with Conrad, described how Quibi was building a video platform with the “form factor” of a phone in mind.

Quibi executives naturally continue to reject comparisons to Go90, Verizon’s expensive (and failed) bet on mobile streaming video. And it’s true that Quibi will be a distinctly different product in terms of business model — subscriptions and advertising — and product experience. But the top challenge for Quibi is in proving that there is an actual consumer demand for this type of product. Quibi executives believe there is, pointing to a supposed “white space” between cheap, user-generated videos on free platforms like YouTube and curated, high-quality stuff available on major subscription services such as Netflix and Hulu. As some Quibi executives have described it, the company wants to “elevate the experience” people have on their mobile phones.

This line of thinking has also filtered into how Katzenberg and Quibi’s content team are reaching out to A-list Hollywood talent. This is a new way of telling a story in a new medium, versus taking something at already exists and just making it shorter, Quibi executives are telling creators. That messaging — plus, some pretty decent-sized checks and show budgets, as well as the fact that a Quibi show won’t require as much of a time commitment as a full season of a TV show can — has helped Quibi draw stars such as Laurence Fishburne, Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake, according to a source.

“Other platforms, including Go90, were not working with this level of talent,” said a Quibi source.

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“In the last six months we’ve been starting to ask how much further into the customer journey is there a role for video and what does that look like,” said David Alter, director of programs at Economist Films at Digiday’s Video Summit, Europe. “These are open questions: Are we making content in the best way to engage the audience with the brand itself? What would the role of video look like in converting those prospects into Economist subscribers? And then is there a role for video in driving retention?”

The publisher is currently looking at what creative formats will prompt audiences to discover more about a topic, according to Alter. For instance, within the show, a film producer could speak with a journalist about a specific lead article that’s already published on the site. In doing so, the videos can act as signposts to more of the publisher’s on-site content.

“Producers are like avatars for the viewer,” he added. “We are not the world experts on Trump and China, but we sit in a building with those experts. The audience can share our producers’ discovery journey.”

The series will also use YouTube’s call-to-action tools, like end cards which direct viewers to The Economist site. The Economist’s video will remain in front of the paywall for now. Rather, the focus will be on using original video to increase the value for existing subscribers, like by saving them time or offering more content.

As part of the Google grant, the Economist Films unit plans to hire an additional eight to 10 people for the duration of the GNI project. This brings the team to around 30 people. When Economist Films launched four years ago it was with a core team of eight.

Community management will also be key, and YouTube is fertile ground for people who comment. For the first time Economist Films has hired several specific roles in audience engagement who will sit in the production team. The ambition is to also have a weekly YouTube live stream where these producers respond to audience comments as a way of building an ongoing dialogue with the viewers.

“We’ll be trying to create a moment of dialogue for people to react to in the film and identifying those,” said Alter. “It’s partly emotional and editorial, but we’ll try and predict those engagement spikes.”

Last year Economist Films was profitable for the whole year for the first time as a standalone unit. It also contributed £3.5 million ($4.4 million) of digital business to the group.

Other publishers are exploring how video drives subscribers, but concrete examples are hard to come by. The Financial Times has explored how YouTube can drive traffic and engagement.

“There is no question that if you get the right video to the right person at the right time it will lead to high-level engagement and propensity to subscribe,” said David Gosen, chief commercial officer at Cxense, which works with publishers to drive customer relationships. “What makes it more complex is no one knows the right length of video yet. That’s why you have to A/B test. Anyone not testing is dying.”

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