Month: September 2019

Here are a few other stories from the conference we’re watching.

What is a DTC anyway?
That was the big question at a Monday panel with a superstar list of execs: Founders and CEOs from Dagne Dover, Rhone, Koio and Bombas. The term “direct-to-consumer” is all over Advertising Week this year, as evidenced by long lines at any panel about these digitally native young upstarts. When asked if they consider themselves “direct-to-consumer,” most of the panel’s respondents said yes. But is there a threshold by which they measure this? Is it a certain percentage that they want to keep selling direct in order to retain control? Bombas does the majority of its sales via its site, but does dabble in wholesale. Rhone has a thriving online business, along with a retail presence and partnerships with other brands, like Equinox. Dagne Dover does a lot of its sales online — founder and CEO Melissa Mash said she doesn’t expect to do more than 20% of their total sales non-direct. ”There’s confusion between DTC and DNVB,” said Rhone’s co-founder, Nate Becketts. “The key is that digitally native brands reach customers as efficiently as possible and build relationships.” What it came down to was a typically vague, although illuminating answer. “It’s a mindset,” agreed the panelists. If you think you are DTC, you are. — Shareen Pathak

Speaking of DTC…
If you spend a lot of time talking to DTC brands, you’ll quickly hear about how what was old is new again — they’re finding that they’re able to reach more customers at lower costs through platforms like direct mail, their own physical retail stores and even (gasp) wholesale. At a Monday morning panel hosted by the DTX Company, retail veterans probably wouldn’t have been too surprised to hear from one of the panel participants, Margaux founder Sarah Pierson, that their most profitable channel is a wholesale relationship they have with Bloomingdale’s.

But not everyone is ditching the walled gardens of Facebook and Google for direct mail and TV ads. Another panel participant, Function of Beauty’s chief marketing officer Lorna Sommervise, had this to say, which DTC brands may want to consider: “I have a personal philosophy of, you just need new creative, if you are starting to plateau [on Facebook]” — Anna Hensel

3 Questions with Penry Price, LinkedIn’s svp of marketing solutions
Platforms are starting to produce more original content from Facebook Watch to now Tinder potentially getting into the mix. Is that in the cards for LinkedIn?
We did launch LinkedIn Live which is being tested by some publishers as well as some influencers. I think there’s a real opportunity for us to have live programming on LinkedIn. If you think about the right targeted audiences with the right business context and the right professional environment, why wouldn’t live video work? We’re still learning because it’s new but why wouldn’t you go to LinkedIn for a live webinar. It might not be Netflix but from a business perspective, why would you have some sort of third party [instead of your LinkedIn page]? I see us using video and live video for productive business reasons.

Are you selling ad inventory against it?
No.

If you’re able to grow the audience for live video would look at it as another source of potential ad revenue?
Yeah, we would definitely look at it. To me, it’s not a scale game. It wouldn’t be just like this many eyeballs of a reach frequency. It would be much more about this targeted audience that engages with your live content. So the business model would be different. — Kristina Monllos

Spotted
An enterprising gentleman reselling the free tacos from Pubmatic’s food truck for $2 apiece.

Coming Up
10 a.m. Deep Dive with Burger King’s Fernando Machado, Deep Dive Stage
12 p.m. Arthur Sadoun on DTC, walled gardens and privacy, Roundel Stage @ IMAX
1:15 p.m. Programmatic and the Future of Automation, Tech Stars Stage
1:30 p.m. From TV to Digital and Back: Why DTC brands rewrote their media strategies, Insight Drivers Stage
3:30 p.m. The Streaming Wars Paved the Way for an ad-supported OTT world, Insight Drivers Stage
4:30 p.m. TV and Attribution: A Modern Day Love Story, Insight Drivers Stage

The post Advertising Week Briefing: Hulu is everywhere appeared first on Digiday.

Tidying up has, in short, gone big. People are more anxious than ever before, and more cognizant of the impact they’re having on the spaces and the environments around them. The Internet has made space-envy real: Instagram makes it easy to voyeuristically gaze on other people’s homes and marvel at how organized and neat they are. And all of this is aided by the explosion in bloggers specializing in organizing from Dave Bruno to Tammy Strobel. 

Kondo, a 34-year-old Japanese organizing consultant, might be one of the more well-known faces of the movement. Her method, the KonMari method, became popular in the U.S. when her book was translated and published here in 2014. Her Netflix series, “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo,” was nominated for a Primetime Emmy. The Marie Kondo business stretches to a blog, called All Things KonMari’d, a weekly newsletter, and soon a book, co-written with Tim Ferriss about workplace productivity. In March, The Information reported that KonMari, the business, was also looking to raise $40 million. (The KonMari camp declined to provide any comment on the growth of the business or to make an executive available for an interview.)

There are others too. The Minimalists are a pair of authors named Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, who have built up a cult following with free newsletters, the Minimalists Podcast and a documentary, as well as a touring and public speaking circuit. The origin story is that about 10 years ago, the pair was going through what seems like an archetypical midlife crisis about the amount of “stuff” they owned.

“And yet with all that stuff, we weren’t satisfied. There was a gaping void, and working 80 hours a week just to buy more stuff didn’t fill the void. It only brought more debt, stress, anxiety, fear, loneliness, guilt, overwhelm, depression,” the pair writes in their introduction.

They launched a website, focused on the principles of minimalism in 2010. It claims to have an audience of 20 million people. Last year, the duo also launched a podcast and film studio in Hollywood, California to create more content and are now working on a second documentary, called “Less is Now.”

Minimalism has existed for years. But each proponent has their own twist on it. The Minimalists say theirs is less restrictive than most schools of thought, and actually can help people find a sense of freedom. Kondo’s is focused on joy. For James Altucher, self-help guru, hedge fund manager and investor, author and well-known podcaster, minimalism (he reportedly only owns 15 things) is a way of life. 

Many are extending movements that have existed in the corners of the Internet, on Reddit and on YouTube, where everyone from home improvement vloggers to fashionistas have espoused minimalism for years. 

But everyone is more anxious now, and mindfulness of not just what you own, but the effects of what you buy on the world around you, has become much more mainstream.   

The effects on businesses are also real. When Kondo’s show aired, thrift stores saw a surge, they said, in donations. The resale market has also seen growth this year, with companies like the RealReal and Poshmark posting major growth. Big brands, including traditional retailers like Neiman Marcus and H&M, are pushing into resale, capitalizing on a growing number of people getting rid of their clothes and shoes — and hoping to make a buck off it as well. 

“One of my motivators, and in general, it was that in the early 20th century there was a real drive to acquire stuff, and a lot of pressure to maintain that,” says Socci. “That’s changed now. The things you buy and bring into your home aren’t as important.”

The post Tidying religion: How a growing interest in minimalism has spawned media empires appeared first on Digiday.