Month: March 2021

The key details:

• For now, the shoppable cards are being tested in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa on Android devices.
• This experiment is not happening in isolation. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed the platform has several more commerce-focused experiments in the pipeline.
• Twitter tried a similar feature in 2015.

Twitter tried product pages before

This is not the first time Twitter has tried to facilitate shopping on its platform. In 2015, the company tested out product pages and curated collections. Collections were more focused on browsing products in curated lists. One example was Nike’s collection for the then-new LeBron Elite clothing line. Some product pages also listed prices and sometimes a “Shop” button. While product pages ended in 2016, the new Shop cards could be Pages 2.0.

“The bigger question in my mind is where Twitter’s strengths are,” said eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson. “Twitter doesn’t have the scale of Facebook or Instagram, and it’s not a contextually relevant platform like Pinterest. Twitter is also a more social than entertainment platform, it’s hard to imagine them reaching same level of discovery and sharing that’s currently taking place on Instagram or Facebook.”

It’s unclear if Twitter will impose any fees for affiliate links, or plans to partner with a payment platform. Twitter declined to share additional details about its future plans for the new card format.

Playing commerce catchup

Shoppable cards are another way Twitter is trying to step up its product offerings. “If you compare us to our peers on the market, this is especially stark,” ceo Jack Dorsey said at Twitter’s Analyst Day on February 25.

That same day, Dorsey admitted to being “slow” to roll out new features. Of late, Twitter has also rolled out projects like Spaces, live audio chatrooms, newsletters, and subscriptions for “Super Followers,” a program to give users access to exclusive content from creators.

This is one of the latest examples of social media platforms vying for a piece of the social commerce pie. Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok already have features that allow users to purchase products on their platforms.

The point of a “freemium” model — or one that includes a free offering as well as a paid one for access to additional features — is not to replace Bloomberg Media’s sponsor-driven events business, but is seen as a growth tactic, said Patrick Garrigan, global head of Bloomberg Live. It is an opportunity to bring audiences closer to Bloomberg’s content, journalists and stories — virtually right now, but eventually in-person too, he added. It can also drive subscriptions.

Bloomberg Media began testing paid event tiers with its annual “The Year Ahead” event, held Jan 26-28. The company gave attendees three options: register for free to access live main stage sessions and Q&As, or sign up for one of two paid offerings. The $125 “New & Networking” tier included a three-month subscription, whereas the $475 “Premium Pass” included a full-year subscription. Both paid tiers also provided additional on-demand access to main stage sessions, networking opportunities with other attendees, two books talks, a live podcast recording and trial subscriptions for Bloomberg.com and Bloomberg Businessweek. The hope is that the paid attendees to “The Year Ahead” who received free trial subscriptions will continue their memberships after the trials expire.

IBM and AlixPartners LLP were sponsors of the tiered pricing event, which the company says attracted 1 million live views on the Bloomberg platform and across social media. Paid ticket sales for “The Year Ahead” event surpassed Bloomberg’s target numbers “by 4X,” according to Garrigan, but a Bloomberg spokesperson declined to provide actual numbers. The company also declined to say how many people registered for each pricing tier.

Bloomberg plans to continue to use the paid tier model in a pair of upcoming events: the Bloomberg Green Summit in April, and the Bloomberg Businessweek event in May. The details are being finalized now, Garrigan said.

Overall, the first quarter of 2021 is “pacing ahead” of events revenue compared to 2020, predominantly due to an increase in sponsorship revenue, according to Garrigan. By last July, the Bloomberg company sold all of its events’ sponsorship inventory for the rest of 2020.

Hosting free virtual events has its challenges. A large publisher client of experiential agency Hawkeye transitioned one of their annual events to virtual with free registration, and “attendance dropped by half, and engagement bottomed out nearly entirely. This was in part because offering the event for free lowered the value perception,” said W. Joe DeMiero, CEO of Hawkeye, who did not name the publisher client.

Bloomberg Media has also used its virtual events to experiment with new offerings. At “The Year Ahead,” as an example, it hosted a live recording of an existing Bloomberg Businessweek podcast. It garnered enough positive feedback that the publisher plans to host more of them in the future, either as part of existing events or as a standalone offering.

It has become “a new model for us,” Garrigan said.

“I realized more than ever how important the direct-consumer relationship is to my brand, and how valuable email subscriptions are in maintaining that connection,” Stobar said. 

While email marketing has been important tactic, Google’s plan to rollback cookies with no alternative to track user data has put even more of an emphasis on the importance of first-party data. Brand marketers, agency execs and email marketing experts say email marketing has steadily been increasing as more and more consumers look to shop online.

“With the recently announced changes of Google advertising and the Facebook-Apple consumer privacy bickering, retailers need to recognize just how valuable opt-in channels like email are to their future online marketing success,” said Greg Zakowicz, director of content at Omnisend, an e-commerce email marketing and SMS platform.

Currently, Joah Love is prioritizing automated email campaigns, high-converting welcome messages, behavior-based emails as well as browse abandonment messages, which emails online shoppers after leaving the website, prompting them to revisit their browsed items and pushes them to purchase. According to a spokesperson for the brand, browse abandonment messages accounted for 35% of Joah Love’s total automated email revenue.

Prior to the pandemic, Stobar said the 13-year-old brand focused on wholesale retailers and department stores. Their digital marketing budget was all but nonexistent, reserved only for product launches and major sales. Stobar said in 2020, that digital marketing budget has significantly increased with strategy focusing on paid ads across Facebook and Instagram, Google and of course email. To diversify ad spend, Joah Love has recently started running paid ads on Snapchat and Pinterest. (Stobar declined to provide details on the brand’s marketing budget).

For the cookie brand Lenny & Larry’s, email marketing has always been part of marketing strategy, according to Megan Crossland, vp of marketing and innovation. But as the coronavirus shuttered retail shops and convenience stores, the brand launched a Shopify platform on its website to meet shoppers online.

Currently, Lenny & Larry’s sends targeted email communications to consumers every two to three days. The brand declined to share details on its marketing budget or media spend. However, Crossland did say since the marketing team started focusing more on its email program, which has grown its user base four times over with “open rates consistently in the high teens.” According to email software company Campaign Monitor, the average open rate was 18% in 2020.

“As we shifted into our new Shopify platform, and [with] consumers increasing their online shopping, we increased our email marketing efforts to drive to our new e-commerce platform,” Crossland said.

With its newly launched e-commerce platform, Lenny & Larry’s is aiming to grow it’s online shopper base by a million users this year, Crossland said, and they’re counting on email marketing to get them there. 

“We can start to directly marketing to people and that’s kind of what we’ve done through some of our email campaigns,” she said. “So we’re going to continue to build on that this year and next year.”

As far as Kelly Merkel is concerned, vp of publisher development for CJ Affiliate, an affiliate marketing network, the increased focus on email marketing is here to stay. With the pandemic lockdown and increased screen time, society has migrated to e-commerce and email offers “an important, frequent and direct line of communication with consumers.”

“We’ve seen a dramatic increase in interest in performance-based marketing due to the pressures of the pandemic, with email being a core offering of many of our publisher partners,” Merkel said.

The key is to deliver messages that consumers actually want to hear, said Merkel, adding that mail marketing is a two-way street. If done correctly, email marketing publishers provide value to their consumer in the form of coupons and news updates. And on the other end, brands accomplish their first-party data collection, website traffic and sales goals, Merkel said.

“This increased, accountable investment, plus the added consumer value, means staying power for email distribution within the channel.”

To address this, agencies have invested extensively in mental health and wellbeing support programs over the last few years, yet all were left scrambling to find new ways to support exhausted parents with difficult family situations, through another bout of school closures in 2021. 

“When lockdown three happened [in January 2021], we were all just a bit stunned and panic stricken, thinking how are we going to do this again?” said Nancy Lengthorn, managing partner and head of inclusion and belonging at MediaCom U.K.  

Guidance from schools was patchy: Some students were provided with full days of assignments and classes while others were left with just a few hours a week of activities. But many young people have also suffered from extreme anxiety as a result of the pandemic and being isolated from their friends and wider family. That’s manifested in a range of issues from agoraphobia, eating disorders, depression and insomnia, according to various parents spoken to for this article.

“The worry parents have for the mental health of their kids is huge,” said Ewen MacPherson, group chief people officer at Havas U.K. “Parents are potentially struggling with their own mental health, but the impact the pandemic has had on the mental health of their children has compounded that anxiety.”

With no other support available, agencies like Havas and MediaCom tried to fill the gap. That meant providing new support structures, access to psychologists, peer-to-peer communities and distractions for their kids also. 

Havas provided a bunch of sessions where parents could have individual coaching from experts on how to balance homeschooling and work, as well as advice on how to talk to their kids about mental health issues and ensure healthy diets are maintained. 

Meanwhile, kids were given a range of weekly activities to keep them entertained and distracted. That comprised weekly magic lessons where they were taught a new magic trick each Monday, or for the older kids they had “magic of books” sessions to improve their reading. The week also featured after-school arts clubs, meditation sessions, kids happy hours that coincided with adult happy hours and Disney themed costume dance parties every Friday.

Leaders are often looked to for stability at times of uncertainty, but they also need their own outlet for stress. For Havas, that took the form of weekly venting sessions called “Wednesday Whinge” — where team leaders could meet for a candid, cathartic rant with peers. 

“We were conscious that our team leaders and department heads, most of whom are parents, were carrying a heavy load — they were expected to remain upbeat and put on a brave face for their teams, whilst also dealing with the ups and downs of lockdown life themselves,” said McPherson. “The Wednesday Whinge gave that group an opportunity to come together in a safe space with peers and share the pain.”

Other agencies have provided increased flexibility for those who needed to adjust either the hours they worked or the workload they would typically take on, in order to be able to manage burnout. Publicis Media agency Digitas provided regular digital creative challenges for kids and awarded Amazon vouchers to the best. Digitas, Starcom and Spark agencies set up Teams meetings for parents to discuss homeschooling tips and discuss common issues.

MediaCom was among those that was particularly proactive in providing additional support for stressed-out parents during the third lockdown. 

When MediaCom leadership met to discuss the best approach, the conversation became emotionally charged because it had become apparent certain people were not going to get through this third lockdown without some kind of support with their kids, said Lengthorn. 

To get a better understanding of what people were worried about, across all levels of the business, the agency held “safe space” sessions, which invited parents to talk about their situation and their anxieties and fears. “The perennial theme for everyone was guilt, guilt, guilt,” said Lengthorn. “Guilt that they weren’t doing their job well or looking after their children properly.”

Seeing how candid senior leaders were about their own mental health issues and challenges with home schooling during that sessions helped alleviate that guilt. People were relieved to hear they weren’t alone in their struggle to handle the situation — that there was a similar chaos going on behind the polished and in-control veneer senior leaders exuded during town halls and conference calls, said Lengthorn.

“It unlocked something,” she added. “It unleashed better conversations between senior leadership and the teams, we all need to hear that humanity. It took the heat of some people’s situations,” she added. 

After hearing some of the issues on these calls, MediaCom ran sessions specifically for parents who have kids with neurodiverse conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia. Kids were also taught how to use digital special aids provided by Microsoft, to help complete their work. Now a peer-to-peer support network of parents with kids with additional needs has formed organically and will continue after the reopening of schools on March 8.

“We ripped it up three days before the deadline,” said Andrea Barbalich, editor-in-chief of The Week Junior at the Digiday Publishing Summit on Feb. 26. “We had promised to bring the news of the world to children and we knew that we had to tackle the coronavirus pandemic head on.”

She was joined on the virtual stage by The Week CEO Kerin O’Connor who walked us through how they, and the team, managed to successfully create a new publication in an unprecedented year. Here’s what they told us.

Establish an eye-catching format for youngsters

Leadership had to consider how it would apply — as O’Connor called it — the parent publication’s “old fashioned” layout to still entice the 8 to 14 year-old targeted audience for the junior version.

“We were extremely research-driven, we were extremely open to new ideas. We were extremely open to thinking about how this product would resonate when it would get used,” O’Connor said.

The 32-page magazine set out to report on news, science, tech, nature and culture using its U.K. iteration as a guiding example. “It’s not homework, it’s a treat for the child and they see it that way,” Barbalich said.

Know the audience

The Week Junior aimed to please a unique cross-section of audiences, O’Connor said, including children, teachers and parents. All while competing with new and existing brands.

“How would we motivate a nine-year-old every single week to make this a highlight?” O’Connor questioned. Reporters and editors operate as if they’re reporting on, and writing, directly to kids. “There’s a tone of respect for children’s intelligence,” Barbalich said.

A survey conducted last year among 700 U.S. children by YouGov and The Week Junior helped inform exactly what this audience’s needs were. Of those results, the publication found that this group of children — dubbed Generation Alpha — really believed in themselves and their ability to change the world and were focused on important issues, including access to health care.

“We knew when we started that they were an informed, engaged, empathetic and determined group of kids,” Barbalich said.

Use prior examples to help guide what works

The U.S. version sought to implement similar values that the publication embodied in the U.K., like fostering a love for reading and encouraging children to garner a better understanding of the world.

The publication also reaffirmed its commitment to reporting the news without bias, leaving it up to the children to decide their opinion. “We were able to earn their [children’s] trust very quickly,” Barbalich said.

Establish a cross-channel strategy

The Week Junior also hosts a weekly, regular debate — in which the publication presents both sides to an argument. The publication then asks readers to go online and weigh in on the topic and vote, such as whether kids should be able to vote.

The Week Junior has been able to get 8,000 kids to vote every week. (And in case you were wondering, 65% of readers do think kids should be allowed to vote). This emphasis on reaching readers in multiple ways led the publication to create social media accounts across platforms which has helped to “foster dialogue” between parents, teachers and children, O’Connor said.

‘Rip up 75% of the marketing plan’

The Week Junior had to throw out most of its “sophisticated” approach to marketing due to the Covid-19 pandemic, O’Connor said. The publication conducted thousands of pieces of research to understand what children, and their parents, were curious about. This helped guide what they were saying and to whom.

The research led them to posture the magazine as a brand that gives children ownership and encourages them to read. The publication highlighted themes such as curiosity, families and development in messaging across platforms, including Pinterest, Google and Facebook. The publication also released a TV commercial.

Maintain momentum

The Week Junior didn’t give specific revenue figures, but O’Connor said the company was “ahead of the business plan.” There are readers in all 50 U.S. states, where the publication charges $99 per year and boasts 75,000 subscribers.

In the coming months and years, O’Connor said the team will look to expand to other platforms, ramp up its digital content and develop new partnerships with other brands and advertisers.

“When we look ahead, we see a chance to continue serving our community and our readers with great content that has cultural impact,” O’Connor said.