Month: June 2019

Four years ago Ehsan Abassi was one of 70,000 people who took part in a series of street football events run by Adidas. Shortly after, he was recruited to join the brand’s network of micro-influencers and eventually became a fully-fledged member of its Tango Squad FC football team of influencers. Somewhere along the way, Abassi went from a local influencer to a bonafide brand ambassador. Now, he can be found alongside footballers Lionel Messi and Paul Pogba, the stars of Adidas’ football business, in a series of global ads.

Abassi’s emergence as one of the faces of Adidas is emblematic of how crucial influencers like him are to the brand’s ongoing attempts to mine shifting cultures around sports particularly football.

The most recent example of the strategy was the Tango Squad FC show. For the last two seasons, Adidas has featured some of the best street footballers from its network of micro-influencers in a series that charts their journey as the brand’s first social media football team. There were 12 episodes for the first season and 11 for the second. Some episodes were as short as eight minutes, while others were as long as 18, for example. Not having predefined times meant each episode was as long as it needed to be without unnecessary padding, said Gareth Leeding, group creative director at We Are Social, who worked on the campaign.

When it came to charting the structure of each episode the Adidas took inspiration from Netflix’s use of viewing data to commission content. Adidas’ marketers used data from YouTube to help decide what players to focus on and the frequency of scene change as well as spot where in each episode viewers replayed repeatedly to watch certain skills. Reviews of the data were done at the start of each season, at the midway point, and after each episode. The conclusions were then used to steer the production team’s choices when it came to the content commissioned and direction of the season.

Instagram’s video channel IGTV was also featured on the broadcast cycle for the show. Some episodes had behind-the-scenes content that was posted to IGTV throughout the series. For now, IGTV is still in the test-and-learn pot when it comes to how much Adidas creates for it.

“Whether it’s through paid media or on Stories on either Snapchat or Instagram there’s a place for six-second ads to promote your latest product,” said Stephen Cleary, social media manager at Adidas Football Global.. “We needed the longer format to tell stories with these kids who are at the start of an amazing journey. The challenge is how we sell this content in a way that we know our consumers will want to watch.”

The episodes racked up 41 million views across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter over two seasons, nearly half of which happened on YouTube where there were 17 million unique viewers, according to Adidas. Those views amounted to over 100 million minutes on the video site over the same period. Subscriptions to Adidas’ football-focused YouTube channel were also boosted by the show, said Cleary, who declined to say by exactly how much but acknowledged it played a role in getting the number up to 1.4 million over the last 18 months.

Beyond reach, softer, brand-oriented metrics were prioritized when evaluating the micro-influencer-led show. When it came to tracking engagement across influencer Jack Downer’s profile, Cleary said the advertiser focused on its branded presence on his Instagram account and how well his fans responded to those posts versus others.

“It’s a different approach to working with someone purely based on the very large following they have and the reach that offers,” said Cleary. “Someone like Messi has his own ranges and footwear that we can track against so it’s quite hard to compare metrics we’d use for those posts with what Downer does, for example.”

The post How Adidas is using smaller-scale influencers appeared first on Digiday.

Overseeing the incubator program is Jed Berger, who became Foot Locker’s chief marketing officer in October 2017 after previously overseeing its brand marketing. He’s gotten involved earlier on in product creation with some of the company’s vendors, which is unusual for a CMO of a retailer like Foot Locker. In the past, Foot Locker had to figure out how to market products from companies like Adidas and Nike after it had already been created. Now, Berger and Foot Locker are working more closely with vendors to develop product exclusively for their stores, using customer data and insight from Berger’s marketing team that its vendor partners don’t have access to.

It’s indicative of a larger transformation that’s taking place in the retail industry, as brands find that offering differentiated product is more important than ever in the age of Amazon.

Berger spoke with Digiday about Foot Locker’s evolution, and what the company has in-store for the next year. Answers have been edited for length.

How have you tried to rethink what marketing means for Foot Locker?
One of the things that myself and our North American leadership team recognized really quickly [in 2017] was the need to change our product offense. One of the things that we did was we built out a consumer concepts team that double reports to me and to our head of product. And that consumer concepts team is [thinking] 15 months out, working with our [vendor] partners to actually bring the story into the product creation engine. That is a dramatic change for the industry.

What’s one example of how you’ve tried to bring marketing into product creation earlier?
A great example is some of the work we’ve done with Nike, and our Home & Away campaign. The brief on Home & Away is we’ve seen the consumer’s love for their city, and what that city contributes to the rest of culture, as huge.

Each city we choose [for Home & Away] has two different SKUs, two different products. One that celebrates the city from within — the things that make that city awesome, that you’ve really got to be an insider to know about. And that shoe is only sold in that city. Then we built out another one, the Away, which celebrates all the things that the city has brought to the culture. And that shoe is sold in a more commercial aspect. So the Baltimore [Away] shoe has what looks like bay seasoning on the inside of the shoe, and the Nike Swoosh was in a crab shape at the top.

It wasn’t just the Baltimore Orioles colorway, or the Baltimore Ravens colorway. It’s a celebration of the little nuances that made the city great. You can’t do that unless you’re listening to the consumer, and [put the story] at the forefront of design.

What do you think about the industry reaction to Foot Locker’s startup investments over the past year? I have anecdotally heard from some people say “oh Foot Locker, I didn’t know they were investing in startups.” Is that a sentiment you’ve seen as well?
I’ve seen pretty much every [reaction] ever – the good, the bad, the ugly. But I think it’s been overwhelmingly positive. I think that the wider industry right now is looking for brands to evolve. Because the world is moving fast and the consumer’s evolving fast. So media, the industry, and consumers reward people for having self-awareness, evolving, and reinventing. And I think that’s what the investments are about.

How are you as chief marketing officer going to be involved with some of these startups here on out?
It will depend on the partner. Each investment we’ve made is at a different place in their company journey. Super Heroic is probably one of the younger ones. I’ve spent a lot of time with their chief marketing officer, and we had a mildly long text thread a week ago about something that he was thinking about at 9 p.m. So I’m definitely there for that [if they need it].

And GOAT is [one] that I’m involved in, and have a lot to learn from them. The integration piece is something we’re being very thoughtful about.

Tell me about the thinking behind Greenhouse — why did Foot Locker decide to launch an incubator?
We started thinking about Greenhouse about a year and a half ago. We came up with the idea of creating this internal and consumer-facing team that sat outside of our office. It wouldn’t have the pressures of thinking about today, but really was building for the future, and could reach creators that we may not have been able to work with in the past, or brands that we may not have been able to work with in the past, for one reason or another. Either they were too small, or we were too big. Or they were a category that we were interested in, but didn’t really know how to sell.

You said at Foot Locker’s investor day that the products that come out of the program will be sold in a standalone Greenhouse shopping app, instead of in Foot Locker’s stores. Why?
I don’t think we ever would have been able to truly have an incubator engine if it was under Foot Locker or any of our other brands, because what those brands do and have done is so known. We’re trying to create an atmosphere [where] we can build ideas for the future. And it’s hard to do that sometimes under the corporate name.

The post Foot Locker CMO Jed Berger: ‘The wider industry is looking for brands to evolve’ appeared first on Digiday.

“We definitely spend pretty aggressively in search, as you can imagine,. In ticketing, a lot of people start their shopping experience by typing into a search bar,” said SeatGeek CMO, Jenn Ogden-Reese. “But we’ve also seen a lot of value in endorser marketing and that’s where our audio and influencer marketing has come into play. … We definitely cite influencer marketing as a big area of increased investment.”

To be clear, SeatGeek considers audio to be a separate channel from influencer marketing. The company declined to share how much it is investing in audio but did say the channel has consistently been one of the company’s five largest paid channels in recent years.

In 2018, SeatGeek spent $11.8 million in media, up from $5.9 million in 2017, per Kantar Media. In the first quarter of 2019, the company spent $1.8 million.

The increase in influencer marketing is part of the company’s strategy to differentiate the brand in the ticketing as it competes with Stubhub, Ticketmaster and others. By using influencers, SeatGeek is aiming to woo consumers with its “fans first” focus and to create an emotional connection with consumers, which can be harder to do with just performance marketing, said Ogden-Reese.

Over the past three years, SeatGeek has worked with over 1,000 influencers including Alex Morgan, David Dobrik, Olivia Culpo and Brad Mondo. The company works with influencers to help them create content from an experience where they would need a ticket, like taking a parent to the World Series or going to a concert.

With Dobrik, the company has sponsored a number of videos where he surprises his friends with new cars. With influencers in general, specifically YouTubers, the company will typically offer tickets to an influencer which are then the impetus for the content they create. For example, YouTuber Jesse Wellens surprised his father with Super Bowl tickets. The resulting video generated over 864,000 views. As of February 2018, the company has worked with influencers to create more than 1,500 that have gotten more than 125 million organic views, according to a company video on the strategy. 

“Influencers are all about creating relevant content for their audiences as they’re very passionate audiences,” said Ogden-Reese. “It’s worked really well in terms of our ability to really help them experience more live, which aligns with our mission and share that experience with their audiences then. Their audiences are very loyal and passionate. It’s been a really compelling way for us to grow our brand, our business.”

Currently, the company is running a campaign focused on Major League Soccer, specifically highlighting female fans of the sport.

Using influencer marketing can help the brand grow through word-of-mouth, said brand consultant and Metaforce co-founder Allen Adamson, adding that ticketing is a cluttered market and competitors like Stubhub likely have deeper pockets to win consumers’ attention.

“Influencer marketing allows SeatGeek to target their message to a specific consumer archetype rather than using broad strokes – the Indy 500 fan is likely very different than the Lady Gaga fan,” wrote Katy Wellhousen, account director at RQ, in an email.

SeatGeek uses direct traffic, promo code redemptions and post-purchase surveys to track the success of its influencer marketing as well as its investment in podcasts. The company declined to share its download and redemption rates but said that it sees “a really strong redemption rate driven by the loyalty of their massive audience that many of the podcasts and YouTube videos have.”

Still, influencer marketing has come under fire over the last year with marketers frustrated by fraud. Last month, Digiday reported the launch of an Influencer Marketing Council which will work to standardize the market.

Historically, the company was focused on paid search and paid social and those are still key. “All of our marketing very mobile first because we’re all about getting people to download our app,” said Ogden-Reese.

While SeatGeek is also increasing paid social, the company has also been testing television, linear and OTT. The company declined to share results of its TV work but did say it will likely run TV work again later this year. The company is also using what it calls “market saturation” i.e. running media across out-of-home, TV, audio and more in cities like Boston and D.C. as it explores more a more “full funnel” strategy, said Ogden-Reese.

The post Why SeatGeek increased its influencer marketing 60% year-over-year appeared first on Digiday.

The WSL has expanded its TV footprint from 20 countries last year to more than 135 countries this year. That expansion includes a deal with Fox Sports in the U.S. to air more than 500 hours of programming, including live contests, on Fox Sports 2 as well as the Fox Sports app. “To have that much coverage from a major network in this market is significant for us. And it very well complements our Facebook deal,” said Goldschmidt.

The WSL’s decision to no longer exclusively stream its contests through Facebook Live signals how nascent the social network’s live-streaming technology remains, especially for a sports league with a global audience. The first WSL contest to be streamed through Facebook Live under last year’s deal immediately ran into technical issues that led the league to remove the requirement that people log into Facebook to tune into the event. Additionally the WSL airs its events in different languages in different markets. “That added an extra complexity that they hadn’t had before,” said Goldschmidt.

There was also a limitation on the league’s ability to generate revenue from the Facebook Live streams. Facebook pays the WSL to air its events through Facebook Live, and the WSL is also able to sell event sponsorships. But, while Facebook runs ads within some live and on-demand videos and shares the revenue with the media companies and creators, that wasn’t an option for the WSL. Facebook does not allow ads to run within live sports broadcasts, according to a Facebook spokesperson.

“We were happy to collectively rework the partnership with World Surf League. Doing so enabled us to serve different audiences with different viewing experiences, including one on Facebook Watch where fans can watch together in a highly interactive and social environment,” said the Facebook spokesperson in an emailed statement.

To be clear, the WSL hasn’t bailed on Facebook. The surf league and social network have worked together to figure out how to enhance the Facebook Live viewing experience, said Goldschmidt. For example, the WSL has begun to use the live polling and live questions features that Facebook introduced in the past year so that viewers can vote on or write out answers to questions posed during a broadcast. “We learned a lot about each other through that partnership, and the situation we’ve now got works really well for everyone,” said Goldschmidt.

In addition to broadening the distribution of its broadcasts, the WSL has been broadening the mix of content that it distributes outside of event broadcasts. In February 2019, the league formed WSL Studios to produce original programming for people to tune into outside of contests on both its owned-and-operated properties as well as platforms like Facebook and YouTube.

“We drive a tremendous amount of scale and usage around the events when we’re on, and when we’re not on, the key for us is what is the narrative and what is the engagement,” said Erik Logan, president of content, media and WSL Studios.

On June 11, the WSL debuted one of the first projects from WSL Studios, a daily news show called “WSL Surf Breaks” that recaps the goings-on of the surf world in two-minute-long episodes. The league is uploading episodes twice a day, seven days a week to Facebook, Instagram’s IGTV, Twitter and WSL’s site and mobile apps. It will also produce weekly compilations to distribute through its YouTube and Snapchat Discover channels.

The post World Surf League’s live viewership has grown after removing exclusivity from Facebook Live deal appeared first on Digiday.