Month: May 2020

Advertisers will focus on three main categories of options in their upcoming upfront deals, according to agency executives. They want the option to cancel their quarterly spending commitments closer to when the quarter begins. They want the option to cancel a higher share of the budget they have committed. And they want the option to reverse course by gaining so-called “expansion rights” that would allow advertisers to buy more inventory from a network during a given quarter but at their upfront prices.

Agency executives expect advertisers will need to make concessions in exchange for networks providing the increased flexibility, such as having to pay higher rates for shorter cancelation windows.

Cancelation options “will be a pretty big negotiating point this year,” said one agency executive. “I don’t think the networks will roll over.”

Cancelation options were not expected to play such a primary role in the next upfront negotiations. Managing how often people are exposed to an advertiser’s’ ads was going to be a bigger priority, for example. But the crisis has pushed advertisers to prioritize flexibility and is remaking the TV ad market to be more akin to digital advertising, in which advertisers have more freedom to spend and stop spending their money at will.

“Having the flexibility to take money out or put money in is what we’re going to look towards,” said a second agency executive.

Upfront deals’ cancelation windows, in particular, have become a major focal point among ad buyers over the past two months. Upfront deal terms allow advertisers to cancel a percentage of their quarterly spending commitment, but an advertiser typically must submit the cancelation request at least 60 days before the next quarter begins. With advertisers not knowing how their businesses will fare over the summer as parts of the country reopen, advertisers have canceled 20% to 30% of their third quarter commitments largely out of precaution, according to agency executives.

Advertisers would like to see the 60-day cancelation window shrunk to a span closer to digital advertising’s 14-day cancelation window for guaranteed deals, as stipulated by the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s standard terms and conditions. However, the agency executives do not believe that a 14-day window is attainable and instead have their sights set on 30- to 45-day windows.

The 60-day cancelation window is somewhat arbitrary anyway. As recently as a few years ago, upfront deals had 90-day cancelation windows. “It did get shortened to 60, but nobody made that announcement and there’s never been a black-and-white answer on why it couldn’t go shorter,” said the first agency executive. For some advertisers, it is shorter. Entertainment and retail advertisers often have 30-day cancelation windows, though they pay more for that flexibility. 

For advertisers, the purpose of the upfront is to lock up TV networks’ ad inventory at lower prices than they would pay in the so-called “scatter” market, in which advertisers can buy TV ads weeks and even days before an ad airs. Meanwhile, the upfront enables TV networks to secure revenue in advance. The less secure that revenue is for the networks, the less reason they have to lower their prices for upfront advertisers.

“It’s the risk and reward of being an upfront advertiser. Brands and agencies hold some responsibility about how we properly go in knowing we’re taking on some risk and understanding what those trade-offs are,” said a third agency executive.

Additionally, advertisers feel some obligation to the networks that have allowed advertisers out of their commitments since March.

“The media companies have been good partners, and we have to acknowledge that and that it’s been to [the media companies’] detriment in some case. They could have held clients’ feet to the fire in their upfront commitments,” said the second agency executive.

As in life, everything is a negotiation in the TV world. Networks are going to insist ad buyers pay more if they want new flexibility.

Advertisers’ cancelation amounts vary by advertiser and by quarter, but usually advertisers are able to cancel 15% to 30% of their quarterly commitments; in some cases, the figure is as high as 50%. By comparison, advertisers are able to cancel 100% of the money they commit for guaranteed digital ad deals. 

The agency executives do not expect advertisers will be able to negotiate options to cancel 100% of their upfront commitments. More likely, advertisers would have to pay a penalty for canceling above a certain threshold, such as a higher price for the inventory they remain committed to buying or a kill fee on the canceled amount. 

“As an advertiser, I would rather pay a premium knowing I have the flexibility,” said the third agency executive.

NiemanLab immediately rushed to declare a “death knell” for events as a “savior.” (Journalists love to declare deaths prematurely. See: all the obituaries for email.) Most of the upheaval in the media business has been merely an acceleration of existing trends, from the demise of direct-sold displays to pressures on unprofitable and bloated companies to the pivot to direct revenue in the form of subscriptions and finally to the need for a diversified model. But events were the good guys. They were the antithesis of the flimsy business models of the scale era, where publishers were chasing ever bigger numbers of audience, views, clicks by any means necessary. Events were about community. They were the bulwark of a smaller, more meaningful and sustainable media model. 

This is an issue that hits very close to home. From Digiday Media’s inception 12 years ago, events have been the foundation of the company’s business model. The loss of in-person events has hit us hard. Like others, we’ve shifted from in-person events formats to digital formats. Far larger publishers are doing the same. The elephant in the room for all companies: Digital events do not produce the same amount of revenue as in-person events. Not even close. At least now. The situation recalls then-NBC boss Jeff Zucker’s 2008 lament of trading analog dollars for digital pennies. 

The loss of the networking function is critical. There are many types of in-person events, but few are mostly about the content on stage. The magic lies in the convening of a like-minded community. That’s as true for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit as it is for Barstool Sports’ Rough N Rowdy amateur boxing matches.

In the near term, large events will not spring back. Until there is a widely available vaccine, the in-person events business is, in effect, shut. That’s why Bradley struck such a pessimistic tone on The Atlantic’s biggest events, rather than hedge with the hopes to return to events in 2021. The Atlantic has a decade-long history in events, which have made up a significant part of its business for some time. In one of my favorite podcast conversations Margaret Low, head of The Atlantic’s events unit, went deep in the weeds to discuss producing 100 events a year. The Atlantic was a big publisher that embraced events as core function, not just some side hustle.

For too many publishers, events were a cash grab. They were a way of milking a brand, using existing advertiser and subscriber relationships in order to make up for an eroding ad business. For all the talk of revenue diversification, events for many publishers were dependent on sponsors vs direct revenue opportunities.

But events were always a means to an end. The driving force of a successful events model is stitching together a community with a common interest. This is true of many niche consumer media brands (Barstool, Glossier and Complex) as it is with business-to-business media. The monetization function of events will inevitably change over the next year. But smart media companies will find ways to transfer the convening power of having a community into new digital avenues. What that looks like is likely different than what we see now — souped-up Zoom calls, webinars that are called something different — but the purpose it will serve will remain.

Media is changing. The Great Acceleration is on, and what that will ultimately look like is, of course, unknown. But smart money is on media that is based around communities — whether that’s lifestyle or business — and finds a way to connect in a meaningful way, to be “essential,” as McClatchy CEO Craig Forman told me. That is why there is a resurgence of interest in media entities built around email newsletters. There is an intimate connection — and an opportunity to build a relationship far beyond a pageview. That’s the real story behind the rise of influencers, top content creators (I know, but not all of them are journalists) flocking to Substack, and why Joe Rogan’s podcast is worth $100 million to Spotify. 

Another media exec compared the old way of connecting with audiences as “molly-fueled one-night stands” and the future resembling true relationships. “You need to reorient your business to depth,” the exec said.

Across the country, as stay at home orders have been lifted in some states some agencies are working to figure out how to get employees back into office spaces safely. Doing so not only depends on where the agency is based but how many employees it has, whether or not it is part of a holding company and whether or not landlords will allow the agency to bring employees back if the agency doesn’t own the building. 

As agencies big and small look to figure out if or when they will reopen offices, Arm Candy is opening its doors.

“It’s easier when you’re smaller and independent,” said Lods. “We can be a bit more flexible. It’s easier for us to incorporate and execute policies that ensure everyone’s safety. If I was running a 500-person agency, it would be a lot harder to execute something to this level.”

To be able to open up again, Lods got the agency’s landlord to give it additional space — at no extra cost as the shop runs some of the landlord’s media — so that they could reposition desks to ensure there’s at least six feet between each employee. The agency also extended the walls of its 1,000 foot space within a 9,500-square-foot office building and provided employees with masks, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes. It will also soon put up plexiglass dividers between each of the desks, all of which now face walls.

The agency spent between $200-$300 per person on supplies and plexiglass (the agency is waiting on the plexiglass to come in the mail to get it up). All told, getting the office ready cost a little over $2,000, according to Lods. The cost is worth it to Lods as he believes that the human interaction in-person helps people do their jobs better as well as improves their work-life balance. “[Advertising] is all about understanding human behavior and how we all interact,” said Lods. “If we all work remotely it’s hard to engage in a really deep dialogue or discussion format that generates those next leading ideas.”

While at their desks, employees don’t have to wear their masks but once they get up they’re required to put them on. Meeting rooms are limited to no more than four people and employees are encouraged only to use them if truly necessary. As for the kitchen, employees now must put their dishes in the dishwasher immediately rather than letting anything sit in the sink.

“What we’re emphasizing to everyone is to live as if you’re living with your parents or grandparents [when in the office],” said Lods. “A big part of this is social responsibility. Anytime you expose yourself to the virus and come into work you’re exposing everyone to what you exposed yourself to.” 

Interest in getting back to the office has come from all of the agency’s employees, according to Lods as some have been living alone and want human interaction again and others have small children at home and want a space dedicated to work. Lods expects half of the agency’s employees will come in and half will keep working from home. Should everyone opt to come back all the time, the agency might enlist a rotation where half of the employees come on certain days and the other half on the other days. 

Despite the office being open again, client meetings will continue to happen virtually. There will also be a no outside visitors policy for the office.

Aside from boosting morale, opening the office again will help with employee communication, according to Lods. “There’s still a lot of importance in communicating [in person],” said Lods. “Doing that virtually gets to you after a while. We’re also potentially bringing on another team member and the on-boarding experience would be more challenging virtually. It’s difficult to understand how someone else operates or make someone feel included in a virtual environment.” 

Overall, most agencies are taking a “cautious approach to returning to the workplace,” Simon Fenwick, evp of talent, equity and inclusion for the 4A’s, previously told Digiday. How and when to go back will vary by agency and market but most agencies planning to leave it up to the employees to decide if they want to come back in once that’s a viable option, according to Nancy Hill, founder of The Media Sherpa and former 4A’s president.

Supply-path optimization intensifies

Given SPO is a catchall term for how buyers get the best impressions for the lowest price from as few as ad tech middlemen as possible, it’s no surprise to see it intensify during the downturn.

“We have two of these deals worldwide at different stages of execution now that programmatic needs to be more efficient on limited resources for many buyers,” said Jeff Hirsch, chief commercial officer at ad tech vendor Pubmatic.

These deals are effectively a way for advertisers and agencies to get intel from Pubmatic on the impressions they’ve won and lost. It’s a valuable insight for cash-strapped programmatic buyers in a market where there’s an abundance of impressions to buy.

“There’s more urgency to get these deals done because the buy-side wants to see the benefits now,” said Hirsch. Those buyers are, however, wary of making the wrong decision given how stressed most ad tech vendors are. “Buyers want to be reassured of our financial stability, which we weren’t hearing before the coronavirus,” said Hirsch.

Prebid reaches maturity thanks to SPO

When The Trade Desk pushed ad tech vendors to pick a preferred path to their publishers it pushed wrappers, the technology publishers use to manage their programmatic partners, into the SPO debate.

Prebid is the one wrapper that could benefit more than the other major alternatives — Amazon’s Transparent Ad Marketplace and Google’s Open Bidding — from those decisions given some of the largest ad tech vendors including Rubicon Project, Xandr and The Trade Desk are on its board. Prior to the move, the wrapper’s shift to server-to-server header bidding trough the Prebid Server platform had already piqued the interest of publishers looking to better manage their ability to sell more impressions. 

“Prebid has reached maturity across the publisher base that is willing to embrace it and, in fact, we will now move from client-side pre-bid to server-side due to the extra focus on latency caused by client-side Prebid,”  said Bob Regular, CEO of Infolinks. 

More publishers seem interested in making the switch now.

“We’re seeing more interest in Prebid Server,” said Tom Levesque, director of product management at Xandr. “Wrappers like Prebid are now part of the SPO story whereas in the past the focus was on SSPs, DSPs and other intermediaries.”

For many ad tech vendors, the focus is now on cash flow

There’s a scramble across the supply chain to hoard as much cash as possible by ad tech vendors hoping to ride out the recession.

“Beyond managing our core DSP business my job is much more about cash flow management now, whether that’s dealing with postponed payment terms or negotiation with up and downstream partners in the supply chain,” said Frans Van Hulle, CEO of ad tech vendor PX.

Most ad tech vendors are trying to identify those partners with the highest trust and reliability so they can get paid on time. Usually, if there’s a default on payment at the top of the supply chain from an advertiser then that reverberates its way throughout the entire system and no one gets paid.

Delayed payments are creating a domino effect that’s pummeling the cash flows of many ad tech vendors. Demand-side platforms like PX get squeezed because they get paid by the agency for placing ads on behalf of their advertisers, while supply-side platforms suffer similarly by often having to pay publishers long before they are paid. The result is ad tech vendors carry colossal debt to bridge the gap in payment terms.

“Organizations are now hyper-aware of the players in their ecosystem and are cautious of any B or C players involved,” Michael Shaughnessy, svp of operations and partnerships at Kargo. “The fear of payment — or lack thereof — is very real. We’re hearing this from everyone and the coronavirus only accelerated the fear.”

Publishers turning to their own first-party data (again)

It sounds counterintuitive that premium publishers could profit at a time when advertisers want to spend less, not more, but that hasn’t stopped some trying by selling lucrative data.

The New York Times, for example, is phasing out all third-party data used to buy its inventory, while Conde Nast started offering advertisers new proprietary first-party audience segments to target ads on its sites.  Moves like this have had varying degrees of success for publishers in the past, but unlike those, advertisers seem more open to paying for them. As much as advertisers are focused on value for money, it’s with a greater eye for quality than in previous recessions. That’s an easier pivot to make now when the cost of buying ads from the likes of The New York Times and Conde Nast is cheaper now.

“This could work well for premium publishers if they get their story right, especially in explaining the value part of the equation,” said Christian Polman, group chief strategy officer at Ebiquity. “They have the further advantage that ‘premium’ is now more affordable as a result of lower CPMs.”

Connected TV still has a scale problem

Connected TV was tipped to grow on the back of media buyers moving away from long-term media commitments toward more flexible online channels.

The decision was made easier thanks to a surge in available inventory as a result of housebound viewers watching more content on their connected TVs. So much so that Samsung decided now was the time to sell impressions on its own connected TVs via ad tech vendor SpotX. There are infrastructure problems, however, that are limiting the number of impressions available and subsequently the flow of media dollars to broadcasters.

“The biggest issue in the space is that you have a 50% fill rate that the industry thinks can be solved through server-to-server integrations or with more demand,” said Chris Maccaro, CEO at ad tech vendor Beachfront. “These are problems that are commanding more attention but what we really need is disruptive innovation on the sell side — in collaboration with publishers — to fix it rather than always looking to the buy side.”

Podcast listening has grown by 14% on mobile and 5% on smart speakers during April compared with February, according to media company Global’s audio platform Dax. Listens are up 5% over the last four weeks on podcast platform Acast compared with the four weeks beginning March 23. Podcast networks like Entercom and Vox Media have also showed increased listening in April.

Under the hood the picture is more varied as the pandemic bifurcates the podcast market. Here are some of the winners and losers.  

Winners 

Exclusive and educational shows

Last week, Spotify signed an exclusive three-year podcast licensing deal worth $100 million for “The Joe Rogan Experience.” The crazy-popular talk-show series has more than 190 million downloads per month. Spotify has ambitious podcast plans to diversify revenue and increase margins. It’s spent hundreds of millions acquiring podcast production and analytics companies, growing its content library to over 1 million shows (only a few are exclusive), earning ad revenue and helping to retain subscribers. As an exclusive show, Joe Rogan — which Spotify won’t generate ad revenue from — will help drive subscribers. 

Thanks to these efforts, podcast listening makes up a larger slice of Spotify’s pie: 19% of the platform’s monthly active users listen to podcasts up from 16% at the end of 2019.

“We believe the IAB’s estimate of $1 billion podcast ad spend in 2021 as super conservative,” said Lee Brown, vp, global ad sales at Spotify. “With audience consumption growing and voice-activated devices, there are a lot more opportunities in podcasts ahead of us. Most [people] anticipate the next frontier of media, and that’s going to be in audio.”

During the pandemic with people grounded, Acast is seeing people learning new skills and diving further into entertainment. The number of listens to education podcasts has grown by 20% in the four weeks between March and April, likely from a lower base.

Audio and video combo

Spotify has made starts with streaming video over the years. The Joe Rogan deal also includes the video recordings of the shows, which have been getting him 10 million YouTube subscribers, prompting estimates of Rogan as the highest-paid broadcaster.

During lockdown and without commuting, peoples’ preference leans towards audio and video. Purely audio streaming volumes were almost universally down across all regions during the pandemic, according to Midia Research, but most record labels pointed to a strong rise in YouTube and Vevo streams. 

Quick movers: Remote audio ad production 

In search of audiences, advertisers have moved offline budgets into digital over the last few months, especially digital audio ad formats because of the speed of production. During the pandemic, speed is at a premium.

Drinks brand Rubicon was set to run a TV campaign but because of social distancing orders and a ban on large gatherings, it spent more on Spotify, which helped produce its audio spots. The ads still reference summer but account for it being a different time. 

Over 10 advertisers have approached Dax to run audio campaigns that were meant to run on TV. Thanks to setting up remote audio production in staffers’ homes, Dax can design, record and serve audio ads within 48 hours. Acast turns around traditional airtime ads in 24 hours. Spotify’s self-serve ad platform lets marketers create their own ads in just four hours.

“Audio is going to be viewed by advertisers as a nimble, practical way to get the message to advertisers,” said Oliver Deane, director of commercial digital at Global. “They’re of good quality and still produced seamlessly.”   That’s not always the case with video ads. Large advertisers like Barclays bank and retailer Tesco adapted their ad creative to reference their response to coronavirus.

Losers

Most sports shows

Without any live sports, sports podcasts are getting creative with content. According to Acast numbers, sports listening is down by 4.5% over the last four weeks, while all other genres are seeing listening growth. “The Extra Inch,” football club Tottenham Hotspur podcast show, is spinning out episodes about performance or the club’s subpar reaction to the pandemic by furloughing staff. “The Extra Inch” has lost half of its monthly listeners since the pandemic. There’s a long-tail of hundreds of thousands of podcasts underneath the top. Broadly, estimates are that most podcast creators are seeing a 20% decrease in listeners.

Podcast’s “urban commuter” demo proxy 

Podcast CPMs have stayed pretty buoyant as fewer industry standards and measurements meant advertisers entered the game slower. Ad buyers are keen to reach podcast’s urban commuter demographic, too. Audio and podcast listening is no longer clustered around commuting times of the time of day, which may balance out ad rates according to sources.

On the plus side for now that shaving a positive impact on ads, Mediacom is seeing a steadier market for audio streaming as audiences have been more consistent throughout the day, said Mediacom partner Charlie Yeates.

“The Spring Issue: At Home” premiered on YouTube last night. Each story opened with its author filling the screen. Gradually, the other elements of the story — music, illustrations and video — were incorporated into the frame in a grid of boxes, creating one cohesive puzzle. In order to make sure all the pieces worked together, the show had to be prerecorded and edited together, so it is not live like usual.

“We had to translate the experience of sitting in the theater,” said Edwards.

Pop-Up, which was acquired by Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective in November 2018, is used to packing theaters like New York City’s Lincoln Center and Los Angeles’ United Artists Theatre, drawing live audiences of up to 7,500. Those venues are now closed, unlikely to open for some time. (Broadway is shut at least through the summer.)

There are some elements that Edwards said could not be replicated, however, such as audience participation and taste and scent sensory integrations. In the last tour, audience members were given a cookie to eat during a specific story. Another story had a choose-your-own-adventure component where the audience voted on a choice using colored glow sticks that were passed out ahead of the show.

Edwards said the live shows are so focused on providing a memorable and interactive experience for its live audiences that viewers at home would be automatically excluded from the full show.

The first challenge of making the magazine for YouTube were the logistical hold ups of not being able to film the different sections together, including not having the band in the same location. The second was that while the company’s producers have experience using video and film in the live shows to illustrate the stories better, stitching together pre-recorded videos for the internet was a completely new responsibility and they had to teach themselves how to do, he said.

The other challenge was figuring out how to not lose out on an entire season’s worth of revenue.

Each live show typically has three or four sponsors that are integrated into the show with performed commercials, Edwards said. But many of their regular sponsors had to cut back on their marketing budgets during the pandemic so his team went a different route with the video issue. Pop-Up Magazine asked Google, a longtime sponsor, to become the exclusive sponsor. 

Like the live events, Google’s sponsorship will include a commercial interlude during the show, performed by the 2020 Teacher of the Year.

“The Spring Issue” is still projected to be down in revenue year over year, Edwards said (he declined to share an exact estimate). This is due to the lack of ticket sales and only having one partner, but the partnership with Google is actually a higher price point than what Pop-Up Magazine would charge a live event sponsor. 

One reason for having the higher sponsorship price is the internet show is an opportunity to expand the audience by “orders of magnitude over what we would do live in theaters,” he said. Last year, the Spring Tour brought in around 15,000 attendees. 

Ticket sales account for 35-40% of the company’s total revenue, he said. This first video edition of Pop-Up Magazine will not have consumer revenue, but he said that future iterations — he expects that all issues for the rest of the year will have a video component — will likely have some form of ticket sales.

Video “is allowing us to do some things that we can’t do in a live show,” Edwards added. Unlike live shows, which take place in large cities, the video can be watched nearly anywhere. Additionally, the on-demand aspect of video is appealing, he said, unlike the shows which take place for a couple nights and then move on to a new location.

Edwards said that the larger audience also provides opportunities for membership and merchandise, which he said will help to diversify away from a complete dependence on sponsorship and ticket revenue.

And while he said ticket prices will be lower for video issues, the margins are higher without having to pay for the large theater venue and those associated costs.

Keeping videos as part of the business model going forward is an “absolutely critical” move, said Paul Greenberg, CEO of digital video firm Butter Works. He added that they “are also creating promotion for when you can go back to live events.” The goal is to get people who have never interacted with the brand to watch this video and then ultimately buy a ticket to the live shows once those are back up and running. 

Not having the video element is a “real missed marketing opportunity,” Greenberg said. 

In conjunction with a new research report exploring marketers’ and publishers’ evolving strategies and approaches to the current state of video ad formats, Digiday and GumGum interviewed three experts in video advertising. 

In this video, you’ll see:

-Taylor Wiegert, VP and planning director at The Martin Agency, talk about the ways publishers, ad tech providers and platforms can work together to create new video-ad experiences

-Vikram Bhaskaran, global head of vertical strategy and marketing at Pinterest, highlights the “five dimensions of inspiration”

-GumGum CEO Phil Schraeder prompt brands to pick innovative video-ad formats that can follow striking pre-roll creative with a meaningful extension of message

In the following sections, we look at recent trends on Twitter, where premium content is capturing the attention of audiences and bringing people together into communities of like-minded viewers who’ve found new ways to experience premium moments in the same digital space.

Gaming, creators and celebrity-driven content stands out

In this time of quarantine, the numbers make it clear that people on Twitter are engaging with more premium content, and in particular they’re selecting premium video content that helps close the gap between delayed productions, cancellations, and a general lack of fresh linear — and even connected — TV experiences.

-According to the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), in February-March 2020, premium video content accounted for two-thirds (66 percent) of the top 10 Twitter trending topics at night, with ad-supported TV accounting for over half of all topics. The research discovered that 33 TV entertainment shows trended in the top 10 on Twitter, accounting for more than 60% of total ad-supported TV topics.

-People who crave competition are turning to video games, with Twitter seeing a 71 percent increase in gaming conversation in the second half of March.

-Creator content is also on the rise, as creators continue taking on topics like cooking from home, at-home fitness, and comedy. On Twitter, there’s been a 34 percent increase in watch time for creator video over the past few weeks.

-ESPN’s Michael Jordan documentary “The Last Dance” generated 1.6 million Tweets about the first two episodes alone in just 24 hours.

-Twitter also saw record numbers during this year’s NFL draft, including a 65 percent year-over-year increase in ‎NFL video views during the draft. And the draft edition of The Checkdown, an NFL Live show, was the highest viewed of the season with 2 million live views. Altogether, Twitter was the leading social platform for NFL draft video with 167 million views, Tubular reports. 

Connecting through content

As brands rework how they connect with their audiences, especially through premium video content, Twitter is a critical distribution channel within that content ecosystem. Brands are helping Twitter users stay informed and entertained, while encouraging meaningful and authentic connection around content that our partners are contributing at record levels. 

-71 percent of people use their phone for social media when watching TV.

-73 percent of people consider Twitter as their preferred platform when watching TV, according to a DB5 report on TV segmentation.

-Twitter helps brands deliver an average of +27% incremental reach to TV amongst A18-24.

-People are coming to Twitter for more than news: Compared to three months ago, 40 percent of people say they’re coming to Twitter more than they used to for entertainment, Nielsen reported.

-According to Nielsen, 75 percent of people surveyed on Twitter say that the platform makes them feel more connected to others.

In these times of event cancellations and postponements, there’s even more demand for the synchronicity of experience. Social media as a place to consume content and connect serves audiences in the way of gathering at a stadium or other public space.

In times of uncertainty, and with many questions yet to be answered, the video landscape has never been more fluid. The ability for content partners to be more creative than ever about how to engage their fans will drive video outcomes like the performance we’ve highlighted above. It’s clear people on Twitter have a strong appetite for this premium content, and in an unprecedented time they’re reaching for it in new ways.

Twitter helps brands connect with people in the moments that matter — and that has never been as important as it is today. And in these times of event cancellations and postponements there’s even more demand for synchronized experiences experience. Twitter is the new live stadium.

A version of this article ‘Connecting with people through the power of video’ first appeared on Marketing.Twitter.com

Twitter, internal, partner-managed accounts of Twitter Global Content Partnership team, March 2020
Tubular
Nielsen Total Ad Ratings (TAR) Meta Analysis commissioned by Twitter across 29 Twitter campaigns from 2/1/2017-12/31/2019, A18-24
Twitter Insiders, U.S. only, April 9-13, 2020, n=727
Twitter Insiders, U.S. only, Twitter n = 727, Instagram n = 597, YouTube n = 672 April 8-13, 2020