Month: February 2020

About 63% of the agencies that offered maternity leave offer between one and three months, while 29% of them offer more than three months.

In the U.S., where paid maternity leave is not mandatted by law, studies by the Society of Human Resource Management have shown that one in three — 33% — of companies now offer paid maternity leave, up from one in six 10 years ago.

In the same survey conducted last year, over 90% said that paid maternity leave was longer than a month and longer than three months for 32% of respondents. Comparatively, 42% said the paid paternity leave offered by their company was less than a month.

In general, the state of parental leave across the U.S. is a problem. But at ad agencies, staffers often bemoan that the industry hasn’t really put its money where its mouth is and created inclusive policies for parents to be able to take time off and return to work in a way that’s sustainable.

That’s not to say there haven’t been moves to try make a change. Movements like the Pledge Parental Leave had agencies sign up to offer at least three months of full paid leave to primary caregivers.

But overall, parental leave in general has been a hot-button topic across the industry. The issue has often been one of unevenness. As Digiday has previously reported, some agencies offer generous parental policies. Others don’t. And for many, the policies are often disjointed or unfair.

Meanwhile, 78% of publishers now offer maternity leave.

Previously, Jukin Media had stitched together the short user-generated clips it licenses and posts to social platforms into the 30- and 60-minute programming blocks for its two existing linear channels for comedy brand FailArmy and animal brand The Pet Collective. Now the company is beginning to reverse that repackaging with the debut of People Are Awesome’s linear channel, which will be distributed on free, ad-supported streamers including Roku’s Roku Channel, Comcast’s Xumo, Samsung TV Plus and Redbox Free Live TV.

Jukin Media plans to premiere an original show for People Are Awesome’s channel that will be the first original show the company has produced to air first on one of its linear channels. Titled “PAA Presents,” the show will feature host and pro skateboarder Isaiah Hilt commenting over selections of the clips that People Are Awesome posts to platforms including Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

“Instead of going small and upstream [by posting the short clips to social platforms first and then repackaging them into long-form shows for the linear channels], we’re going straight upstream and then going downstream [by cutting the linear long-form shows into short clips for social],” Skogmo said.

Jukin Media’s revenue from its linear channels is “starting to rival” the revenue it generates on social platforms, said Skogmo. He declined to share specific revenue figures but said the company’s linear channels are profitable as is the company overall.

A Jukin Media spokesperson declined to say how many unique viewers tune into its linear channels each month. In 2019, people cumulatively spent 5 million hours each month, on average, viewing FailArmy’s and The Pet Collective’s linear channels, a more than 100% increase over 2018, according to the spokesperson.

Jukin’s push to linear-first programming aligns with a push among the streaming services carrying linear channels for programmers to provide their channels with exclusive and original programming. Major companies — including Roku, ViacomCBS, most recently Comcast and soon-to-be Amazon — each operate these services that feature many of the same channels, which can make it hard for them to convince viewers why they should tune into one service over another.

The strategy of taking linear shows and cutting them up to post to social platforms is something of an old strategy made new for the modern era of streaming TV. When TV networks initially adopted platforms like YouTube and Facebook, they posted clips from their linear shows as a promotional strategy. That can be a risky strategy since audiences may be less willing to shift their attentions from one platform to another.

However, the risk has been reduced as Facebook in particular has enabled companies to generate ad revenue from the videos they post to its platform. One TV network generated seven figures in revenue last year by posting clips from an old TV show on Facebook, according to an executive at that network. Since Jukin Media is able to make money by running ads on its social videos as well as its linear channels, the company is able to hedge its bets.

“As long as they are making sure that they’re creating programming in a way that it could be used in lots of other places, [the linear-first programming strategy] could be very effective,” said Paul Greenberg, CEO of digital video strategy and analytics firm Butter Works.

Dating back to late 2018, fashion brands started to add the platform to their social marketing mix, such as Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. Moving into 2020, a wave of brands are jumping onto TikTok like Prada, Alice + Olivia, Dolce & Gabbana, Tory Burch, Burberry and Missoni.

“Luxury brands used to sit back and watch everyone else jump on a trend, then would have to play catch up,” said Kristin Maverick, vp of social and influencer marketing at advertising agency 360i. “We are in a different time where smart marketers don’t want to be the last to move. These brands have seen the success from other platforms and know there is less risk after [being on] Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.”

An easy and transitional step for some companies has been working with influencers and content creators native to TikTok. During Milan Fashion Week, 15-year-old influencer Charli D’Amelio showed up at Prada’s show to capture content for her followers. She posted seven videos wearing Prada and tagged the brand in five of those posts. One video showcased D’Amelio with three models on the runway, while dancing to Avril Lavigne. Her best performing post for Prada totaled 5.7 million likes, 64,300 shares and 36.8 million views.

“Every photoshoot, every Instagram post is so curated; these companies are so particular about where their fashion show is to the staging of it. [Charli] has 28 million followers and they are letting her do her thing, that is pretty bold and big,” said Mae Karwowski, CEO and founder of influencer marketing firm Obviously.

Prada does have a TikTok account set up, with 100,000 followers so far, but hasn’t posted on its own page yet. Rather, the company relied on D’Amelio to create buzz for them. Maverick said it’s a smart strategy on Prada’s part by putting the onus on creators before jumping fully into TikTok content creation.

“You can test without assigning resources within your own team. It’s easier to do something all in [later] when you have an example of out in the wild and positive commentary around it,” Maverick said.

Other brands, like Alice + Olivia, are being a bit more active on the platform. The fashion brand has 12,800 followers since ramping up posting since New York Fashion Week. So far, it has posted nine videos since Feb. 10. Alice + Olivia also tapped big TikTok influencers to drive awareness for the company. Addison Rae (19.2 million followers), Cosette Rinab (1.6 million followers) and Dana Hasson (331,700 followers) all worked with the brand around NYFW, appearing both on Alice + Olivia’s TikTok feed, as well as posting about the company in their own channels.

It’s still unclear how much these influencers are getting paid by brands, but as more luxury companies start working with these creators, the price tag for posts will go up.

“Luxury brands tend to pay more in product and access than payments, but now so many of these TikTokers are signed to major agencies it is realistic to assume there is payment happening there,” said Karwowski. “You have these high-powered agents working with the creators and they can’t get paid a percentage of a handbag.”