Month: June 2021

Shoppable pins come from product catalogues uploaded by verified retailers and merchants — an option that first became available in March 2019. The offering took off this year, and the number of global catalogue uploads was up 14 times in the last 12 months, CEO Ben Silbermann said in the company’s first-quarter 2021 earnings call for investors. Pinterest declined to share specific numbers on how many catalogues had been uploaded.

Product pricing pulls from retailer websites, although brands are able to turn off site-scraping. Merchants can also allow Pinterest to directly connect with a database of merchant products that is updated every 24 hours.

“We’ve connected the top of the funnel to the middle funnel, and now want to help pinners compare and evaluate the products they’ve discovered,” said Dan Lurie, Pinterest’s head of shopping products. 

The Shopping Lists will be the latest in a slew of features Pinterest has launched this year aimed at driving commerce through Pinterest, such as a shop tab that appears in search, virtual makeup try-ons, and a three-day event that tested out live stream shopping. 

Pinterest is striking when the iron is hot: social commerce sales in the U.S. are forecasted to reach $36 billion this year, up from $26.7 billion in 2020, and $19.2 billion in 2019, according to a January report by eMarketer.

And Pinterest is seen as a fruitful opportunity for retailers because of the amount in-depth data it provides them, agencies said.

“While investment on Pinterest makes up a fraction of our overall platform investment — Pinterest Shopping itself garners the most tactical spend in-platform,” wrote Stef Smith, head of paid social at Dentsu, in an email. 

He added that Pinterest now also allows for reporting on commerce in a way that Facebook and Instagram do not — specifically, the breakout of view versus click metrics. “For clients who set goals based on revenue tied to views and who lack directional/historical data, this differentiator will — at least in the short term — be an important consideration.”

Katya Constantine, CEO of DigiShopGirl, said her clients are also happy with the shopping metrics. “They like that Pinterest has enhanced its reporting so brands are able to see performance of the tagging for both organic and paid pins, which has been a great value add.”

Still, there are skeptics.

Pinterest’s biggest weakness is that it has a smaller user base than Facebook and Instagram, said Nazmul Islam, an analyst at eMarketer. As the site vies for a larger piece of the commerce pie, it could be constrained by that. 

The platform must also reckon with advertisers’ long-standing skepticism of its ability to drive social commerce. “This isn’t a new conversation,” said Sucharita Kodali, vp and principal analyst at Forrester. “Pinterest has long had other features and tried to be shoppable for a while, but they are a discovery engine and an advertising destination.” 

Pinterest claimed that the new feature is something users have asked for and is a logical next step for how people use the site. “They come for inspiration, or directions on how to plan or make something, and usually need to compare products before deciding what works for them,” Lurie said.

Before COVID-19 this global head of marketing and business development would travel to meetings around the world, and jet lag was never a problem. Today he epitomizes the new generation of asynchronous workers who during the pandemic have taken flexible working to the next level.

These people complete tasks at a time that suits them, which is often at hours that are very different to when their colleagues are working. 

Of course this approach only works if systems are in place to ensure collaboration is not lost and everyone trusts everybody else. He is adamant individuals are more efficient and enjoy a healthier work/life balance.

Leadership coach Joanna Howes is a former operations director at marketing agencies Clemenger BBDO in Melbourne and McCann London and spent 19 years working internationally with multi-disciplinary teams. She is unsurprised by the trend toward asynchronous working.

“We are defining what are ‘weird’ hours versus what we have all been conditioned to believe are ‘normal’ hours,” she said. “The pandemic has awakened everyone to the idea that there are 24 hours in the day and not all humans work to their optimal best at the same time.” 

She added: “People have proved they can be flexible and adapt to new ways of working. We are able to work the hours that best suit us and in the future will not be considered strange.”

Howes admitted that such a shift will not work for everyone. In the service industry, for example, many people have to match the hours of their clients. There is also a fear that a 24-hour working day could create an “overload culture” with people expected to be available for meetings when their colleagues are despite having already worked many hours. This could cause anxiety, stress and burnout.

The big test will come over the next few months as people return to the office. “We will need compassionate and connected leaders who know the members of their teams individually. They will need leaders to tell them when enough is enough,” said Howes. 

Debbie Davies is HR manager of Chinese planning and marketing consultancy Emerging Communications and another person choosing to work the hours that best suit her life. She is based in the U.K. but works very early in the morning to talk to the team in China. She does her best administration work late at night and often takes the middle of the day off.

“We are talking about delivering the perfect work-life balance and this approach only feeds a culture of presenteeism if employees do not feel trusted,” said Davies. “During the pandemic it has been very easy to sit at home for hours in front of a laptop and forget to take a break. We keep track of the hours our teams are working in different time zones so we can identify employee work capacity and put steps in place to bring in extra resources when needed.”

The company also checks in on employees and helps if it sees a pattern of overly long working hours, she added.

Chris Dyer has written the book ‘Remote Work: Redesign Processes, Practices and Strategies to Engage a Remote Workforce’. He is also CEO of PeopleG2, a fully remote organization, and believes the acceptance of asynchronous working is good news for anyone who prefers to work at night.

“A subsection of employees are night owls and leaders need to identify employees who work best at night,” he said. “If they are the only night owl on a team, it will be quite hard to integrate them, but if the team has several, it can work much better. Work is needed to ensure the team can coordinate and communicate effectively with those working during the day.”

Asynchronous working can also help to retain talent when someone moves to another part of the globe. Redwood BBDO creative director Lauren Priestley moved back to New Zealand from London but retained her post at the U.K.-based agency. “They say creativity never sleeps. Well, for us, that’s never been truer,” said Priestley. “I’m now working with my tight-knit team from what we fondly refer to as the Oceania office. As a result, we’re operating a 24-hour creative studio. As the U.K. signs off, New Zealand signs on — and our clients get a round-the-clock service as a result.” 

She added that the company would not have considered such an approach to working before the pandemic. “We’ve now got a team working as far apart as you can get without moving to Antarctica. The trust and processes we’ve developed mean we’ve found ways to not only adapt working hours for everyone but to make the 18,000 km distance feel closer than ever.”

3 Questions with Paulette Forte, chief people officer, You & Mr Jones

It’s recently been confirmed it’s legal to mandate vaccines, how will managers and HR implement that? 
It’s given employers some clarity as we embark on the journey of curating a flexible workplace that works for all employees. While employers can now mandate vaccines for employees returning to workplaces, flexibility is key in addressing a myriad of issues, like if an employee elects not to be vaccinated. In that case they must consider reasonable accommodations, unless these accommodations create an undue hardship for the employer. Any communication and implementation of a mandatory vaccine policy should be preceded by thoroughly informing managers and HR staff tasked with implementing the policy on how to respond to accommodation requests In communicating about mandatory vaccine policy employers should be transparent about ensuring the privacy of medical information that is voluntarily requested as part of pre screening required to be vaccinated. This information as well as information about vaccination status is confidential and should be kept separately from regular employee files.

So for the unvaccinated, will they simply have to remain wearing masks at work?
The reality is that workplaces will have employees who are vaccinated sharing environments with employees who are not vaccinated. Additionally employees will live in households where everyone is not vaccinated. Further complicating this issue are state and directives rolling back masks mandates. What we do have clarity on is that masks are the best individual protection against COVID transmission. Employers can require masks in shared workspaces or when interacting with the public as a part of the job.

With vaccinated people not having to wear masks, and vice versa, is there a danger of inclusion issues? 
Employers should monitor the implementation of this as well as any other policies to ensure that certain groups of employees aren’t worse off or disparately impacted by the policy, especially certain demographic groups. No one knows how the pandemic will evolve, resurge or dissipate as we all start to come together. Also, increasingly there are reports of employees feeling anxiety associated with returning to the office, as well as greater resistance to “being at work” and commuting to work. Employers should be prepared to make changes, pivot and recalibrate depending on the evolution of the pandemic as well as feedback from employees. One can be sure that none of this will evolve in a straight line. — Seb Joseph

Numbers don’t lie

• 66% of 1,000 U.S male employees polled and 51% of 1,000 U.K. male employees said they will consider quitting their job this year, compared to 51% of U.S female employees and 45% of U.K. female employees. 
  [Source of data: Beamery’s Talent Index 2021 report.]
• 33% of 1,277 U.S. adults believe the information given out by the Centers of Disease and Control Prevention related to COVID-19 is completely untrustworthy, compared with just 23% who thought so last July.
  [Source of data: Invisibly’s RealTime Research.]
• 25% of 1,458 brand marketers indicated they now allow executive travel, compared to only 10% of respondents in February.
  [Source of data: Association of National Advertisers’ Business Travel Survey.]

What else we’ve covered

• U.S. employers can legally mandate vaccines for returning workers if they choose to, and vaccine incentives have also been rubber stamped, according to the latest legal update. But employers are divided on whether or not to mandate – and for good reason.
• Agencies have invested heavily in mental health support aids over the last year in particular. But despite those efforts, a large number of staff remain overwhelmed and feel worked to the bone.
• Omnicom has joined WPP’s GroupM, IPG Mediabrands and Publicis, in putting media investment toward minority-owned and diverse publishers and content creators.
• Gonzalo del Fa, president of GroupM Multicultural, spoke to Digiday about its 2% plus pledge to make its media buying and planning more responsible and purposeful.

This newsletter is edited by Jessica Davies, managing editor, Future of Work.

Once there, fans will have multiple ways to see and subsequently purchase products, from short video posts, livestreams and listings in a special TikTok Product tab sat between the brand’s main feed and the liked videos tab. 

To create the content, specifically the short videos and live streams, both brands are working with 14 TikTok creators including Char Barker (@charbarker) and Kaushal who have around 98,300 and 96,200 followers respectively. For now, the videos are essentially product demos filmed by both creators who then encourage fans to click on a link to purchase. 

Eventually, these demos will be livestreamed, with L’Oréal looking to replicate the popularity these events have garnered in China where it was forecasted to have made CHY1 trillion ($150 billion), in sales last year, per KPMG and AliResearch.

“You can go through the whole marketing funnel in one step on TikTok,” said Lex Bradshaw-Zanger, CMO of L’Oréal U.K. and Ireland when explaining why commerce on the video app is different from its peers. 

Platforms have attempted to get into this space before: Amazon tried with Spark but no one really used it. Neither Facebook nor Instagram has quite struck the right balance between influencers and brands. Content and commerce on TikTok — at least to Bradshaw-Zanger — are closer than anywhere else. 

“Someone sees a creator talking about a product in a way that’s relevant to them and at the click of a button you’re at the product page making an order,” said Bradshaw-Zanger. It’s even more seamless after the first purchase as the buyer doesn’t have to enter either payment or address details again, he added.

As frictionless as this is, a lot of has been smoothed over behind the scenes to make it happen. The way L’Oréal worked with creators had to change. It was no longer being very prescriptive about what creators could and couldn’t do with the product and the content. Instead, they were given more freedom to capitalize on the quirky, unabashed dynamics that underpin what people like to watch on TikTok. Then there was the fact that so many different teams had to come together. In fact, L’Oréal had both a digital advocacy exec and a digital commercial exec working to push the partnership forward.

Despite the heavy lifting so far, there’s still more to do. 

L’Oréal’s marketers are already working with TikTok to make it easier and faster for people to make their first purchase after watching one of its videos, for example. It’s just one of a raft of considerations the marketing team is grappling with during these early tests. And if all goes well over the coming weeks then other brands would be sold on TikTok perhaps by different creators in different ways, said Bradshaw-Zanger.

“We need to see how all the different pieces work, from the creator to the content, the media and the sales before we decide on what happens next,” he added. “We don’t just see the work we’re doing around commerce on TikTok as a sales driver. The content we’re creating works at the top of the funnel for awarenes and consideration.”

Don’t be surprised if TikTok starts receiving more media dollars as a result.

“The time where you could rely on organic distribution to do everything is gone because the market is so cluttered and you consequently have to be more specific about the people you want to reach,” said Bradshaw-Zanger. “If you don’t put the media spend behind the content then you don’t necessarily choose who you reach. Plus, the younger generations aren’t as concerned about seeing a sponsored piece of content in the same way older generations were.”

Naturally, L’Oréal’s latest foray into commerce on social networks is informed by what’s happening in China. In 2019, for example, social commerce made up 11.6% of retail e-commerce sales at $186.04 billion (1.285 trillion RMB), per eMarketer. For context, the corresponding figure in the U.S. was $19.42 billion over the same period. But replicating this success in the west won’t be as simple as “copying and pasting” what’s happened in the east, said Bradshaw-Zanger.

Not when the platforms are structured so differently. In the East, the platforms are vertically integrated so a shopper can go from seeing an influencer to viewing the promoted product before buying it in seconds. That’s hard to do in the west where the platforms are more “horizontally integrated” so transitions between the different experiences aren’t as smooth. 

“Given [TikTok owner] ByteDance’s Chinese roots it potentially gives its management team a different strategic view of where its business will come from compared to Facebook and Google,” said Bradshaw-Zanger. 

TikTok has made no secret of its plans for e-commerce. Advertisers have been speaking to TikTok about them since last year. Understandably, given its Chinese roots, TikTok sees commerce as another way to carve out a niche for itself in media and advertising as it continues to position itself as an entertainment platform rather than a social network. 

“Gen Z is a valuable demographic — the next generation of shoppers and current generation or trend-setters, in many ways — that retail brands are looking to relate to for good reason,” said Dave Bruno, director of retail industry insights at commerce technology firm Aptos. “TikTok, among other channels like Snapchat and YouTube, are proven channels to create stickier relationships with these young consumers outside of more traditional retail channels.”

The social justice movements of last year brought the issue of journalists’ personal rights vs. professional obligations to the forefront at newsrooms. Journalists who use social media to promote their stories, find sources, engage with readers and discuss their reporting often found it difficult to keep silent. Meanwhile, some newsroom leaders struggled to find the right way to reign in outspoken reporters on social media while also allowing them to use the platforms as a reporting tool. The situation has highlighted a divide over the subject of journalistic objectivity and put a spotlight on the role unions play in protecting journalists from harsh punishments for a contentious tweet.

“Over the past year, we have seen news driven by questions of boundaries and definitions of where [journalists’] personal rights may come to a stop when their professional obligation may supersede them,” said David Folkenflik, NPR’s media correspondent.

Social media is the “nexus of reporting and opining,” said Susan DeCarava, president of the NewsGuild of New York, which represents over 3,000 media employees at publishers like The New York Times, The Daily Beast and The New Yorker. In DeCarava’s opinion, issues around social media and how journalists use it “are not so much what they’re doing with it but the company’s reactions when [things] go awry.”

Social media as a benefit — until it’s not

Social media is “central to how journalists absorb and transmit information” these days, said Folkenflik. Media companies benefit from journalists having “online personas and followings,” said a BuzzFeed News journalist, who spoke to Digiday on the condition of anonymity.

“Companies are hiring people because of their social media presence,” DeCarava said. Media organizations are “delighted” to have their journalists push their stories on their social media channels and use personal and professional outreach to drive more views and “greater awareness to the stories they’re putting out,” she said.

However, the gray area is how far can a journalist go in expressing themselves online before it impacts their ability to do their job. “You don’t want people to be closed off to what you report or offer by virtue of someone’s off-the-cuff tweet” Folkenflik said.

Objectivity… or fairness?

The BuzzFeed journalist denounced the idea of objectivity. “Every journalist is biased, and objectivity is fake,” they said. “We can be fairer and we can be more truthful if we are honest about that.”

The idea of objectivity, the journalist said, “is based on an old white man’s objectivity.” The definition of what is and isn’t appropriate for a journalist to say is a tough line to draw, Folkenflik added, and social media is a “battleground for where this is contested.” Younger generations, people of color, women and LGBTQ+ people “have not always gotten to set the rules in the past,” he said. For example, “It’s not partisan to stand up for human rights and human liberties… is it?”

The BuzzFeed journalist believes there is a “shift” and an “awareness” happening in the industry around this issue. With most news organizations making promises to hire more journalists from diverse backgrounds, it’s important to acknowledge biases, be more transparent about people’s unique backgrounds and identities and “be thoughtful about how we can make better, more inclusive journalism,” they said. (Former Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery famously suggested that he clashed with editors in 2019 about his tweets calling out racism in the media: “What’s the point of bringing diverse experiences and voices into a room only to muzzle them?” he wrote.)

Objectivity is “intended to be a process by which you arrive at the truth, not a result of journalism,” Folkenflik said. The media industry has “fetishized objectivity,” when really the conversation should be about “the idea of fairness.” The fight in the industry for more equity, inclusion and diverse perspectives “has made this particular question all the more urgent,” he added.

The case for unions

The conversation around newsrooms’ social media policies “goes straight to the heart of the union movement,” the BuzzFeed journalist said (BuzzFeed News has a union, as does the AP, but Wilder was not under its protections due to the fact that she was just a few weeks into her job and under the company’s 90-day probationary period). “Journalists have been unionizing at a record pace during the pandemic. I think there’s a connection,” they added. More than 30 media companies have unionized in the past two years, according to Axios.

DeCarava agrees: “This is why people are organizing. They are starting to examine and understand the balance of power of employee and employer in media workplaces. Otherwise they are subject to the whims of a reactionary process that you have no say in whatsoever.”

The issue around social media policies brings up an important conversation around just cause vs. at-will employers. At-will employers can legally fire an employee at any time for any reason. Just cause, which is the standard policy at unionized workplaces, requires “fair and transparent due process for workers” in disciplining an employee, including giving an employee a warning, conducting an investigation and enacting an appropriate measure against the employee if warranted, DeCarava said. 

A company that has a just clause policy “has to show that the discipline that was meted out to a particular worker was proportionate to the alleged thing that they did wrong,” DeCarava said. Just cause “prevents media workers from getting caught in the whiplash of a reactive response from a company to pressure from outside groups, or public reaction… about something that someone may post on social media,” she added.

Will policies change substantially?

Both the BuzzFeed News journalist and Folkenflik praised their respective companies’ social media guidelines for being transparent, clear and fair. Both of their companies post their policies online for the public to see, while other companies like Gannett and The Wall Street Journal only share them internally.

As sentiments evolve around issues of journalists’ objectivity and identity and what role they play in their social media use — not to mention as the platforms themselves evolve — it’s only fair to assume that the guidelines around them will change, Folkenflik said.

“As we see old ideas leaving legacy publications, you will see more people with creative, flexible ideas about how we should function on the internet,” the BuzzFeed journalist said.

What’s almost shocking is that the media agencies, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, admit this year is a seller’s market, and will likely meet the networks’ pricing demands at least part of the way. This is highly unusual, since media buyers usually dig in their heels and slow down negotiations when the sellers are asking for increases that go above single-digit percentages.

But buyer accommodation is happening for a few reasons:

1. The usual suspects in TV that were unaffected by the COVID pandemic, notably pharmaceutical advertising, have even more money working in the marketplace, and want to ensure they get it placed.
2. Ad categories that were badly affected by the pandemic, especially travel, movie studios and some consumer packaged goods advertisers, not only are back, but they have increased budgets from monies not spent in 2020, as they try to regain ground lost during the pandemic.
3. The broadcast/cable networks’ limited linear inventory has created a supply/demand surge in pricing, with prime-time broadcast pricing landing between 15-20 percent up over 2020 pricing, and cable up between 9-13 percent.
4. The 2022 Winter Olympics, which are scheduled to take place in Beijing in February, will run across NBC Universal properties, which is further tightening up inventory.

“We’re not happy about paying these kinds of increases, but if you want to be in the TV marketplace, you’re going to have to pay up to some degree,” acknowledged one major buyer.

Where the networks may end up with a black eye or a rib bruise is in the tussle over cancellation options for buyers. In the 2020 upfront, which was anything but traditional due to the pandemic, media buyers asked for and received far more flexible options to cancel or move their upfront purchases on behalf of clients.

This year, buyers said, the networks are trying to revert to pre-pandemic options, which severely limit buyers’ flexibility in shifting upfront orders. It’s unclear how much this will be a sticking point or deal-breaker at this point of negotiations, which revolve mainly around pricing.

If buyers do balk, their options are at least plentiful this year, in that other video alternatives are actively pursuing the billions buyers are looking to place in the coming weeks. One buyer pointed to the likes of Roku and YouTube as being viable options — or even in-cinema advertising now that movie theaters are opening up again.

Buyers agreed they want to avoid holding onto ad dollars to place in the scatter marketplace (buying ad time quarter-per-quarter), where one buyer said pricing had reached “absurd” levels.  

Color by numbers

For decades, radio was the sole audio media option for buyers and planners, but the advent of podcasts and streaming audio changed all that. It also empowered the era of sonic branding. Audio intelligence platform Veritonic’s latest Audio Logo Index report shows that some categories are breaking through more successfully than others. The Index uses machine listening and learning to measure emotional resonance, recall, engagement and purchase intent. A few highlights from the report:

• Insurance companies have figured out how to use audio branding to great effect. Farmers Insurance scored an 88 (out of 100), followed by State Farm at 87 (although State Farm enjoys the highest level of brand recognition).
• Quick serve restaurants also scored highly on the Audio Logo Index, with Arby’s, Popeyes and Red Robin all scoring an 86 (while Little Caesar’s won the brand recognition battle).
• Conversely, financial services and technology brands made little headway in improving their ranking in the Index. Mastercard, for example, scored a 53 and was recognized by only 4 percent of respondents.
• Brands that incorporated their names into their sonic branding lifted their recognition value. For example, AutoZone’s 84 index score was aided by a 62 percent surge in its brand recognition once the brand name was incorporated into the audio logo.

Takeoff & landing

• Havas Media Group and media sales platform Teads launched Project Trinity, a collaboration to help publishers figure out optimal, engaging content that gives advertisers a lift. Separately, Havas Media Group tapped Noah Vardon as its new president of its Canada operations, effective immediately. HMG also moved Lisa Evia, who had overseen Havas Chicago and Canada, be the North American managing partner and head of growth.
• Wavemaker U.S. was named media agency of record for cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase.
• Elijah Harris was named executive vp of global digital partnerships and media responsibility at IPG Mediabrands’ Magna unit, moving over from sibling operation Reprise where he was head of social — and had been responsible for creating Mediabrands’ Media Responsibility Index.  

Direct quote

“Right now, there’s zero consent [being asked of consumers] for any company that’s gathering your data — it’s all garbage and crap. There’s way too much data about you out there that you don’t know about. But there will be liability one day for those companies that are out there stalking you without your consent. All your data is yours, and anything companies use should compensate you.”

—Dr. Don Vaughn, head of product at Invisibly, a company looking to pay consumers to license their consented data so it can repackage and sell to companies.

Speed reading

• Digiday senior marketing editor Kristina Monllos catches up with GroupM Multicultural president Gonzalo Del Fa to find out how the media agency group will execute on committing 2 percent of all client dollars to Black-owned media  
• Digiday senior news editor Seb Joseph explains why Apple is slow-rolling out its ATT privacy safeguard, and the resulting confusion that’s sown.
• The Verge looks into the Facebook Oversight Board’s decision to keep former president Donald Trump suspended for two years, as well as the social giant’s decision to stop shielding politicians from its content moderation rules that apply to other users.  

In late May 2021, Digiday conducted a survey of media and marketing professionals and how they used and viewed social media platforms; 127 publisher professionals participated; 44 respondents said they worked for publishers that generated $10 million or less in annual revenue.   

The survey found that Instagram was one of three most-commonly used platforms among publishers, along with Facebook and Twitter.

Almost three quarters of small publishers posted to Instagram in the past month, compared to 93% that posted to Facebook and 80% that posted to Twitter. Those percentages were slightly lower compared to the survey’s publisher respondents as a whole: 95% of them said their employers had posted to Instagram, 94% to Facebook and 99% to Twitter.

Among those that have posted to those platforms, 37% say they invest at least a moderate amount in creating content specifically for Facebook, compared to 50% for Instagram. 

Through its history, publishers have treated Instagram, which has traditionally been inhospitable to their traffic-driving efforts, as a tool for brand-building and engagement. And large chunks of respondents still see it serving those purposes.

Among the respondents that post content to them, 50% say Facebook is valuable for brand-building, compared to 66% for Instagram; among publishers as a whole, 64% say Instagram is valuable for brand-building, while just 57% say Facebook is.

Yet as Instagram has expanded, first through Stories and more recently with Instagram TV and Reels, it has become increasingly important as a revenue-driver for publishers of all sizes. Among small pubs posting there, 70% say Instagram is at least somewhat valuable for driving revenue, compared to 60% who said Facebook is at least somewhat valuable; for both platforms, only small percentages — 10% and 18%, respectively — said the platforms were extremely valuable for driving revenue.

Those numbers diverge sharply from publishers’ responses overall. For publishers as a whole, 76% said Facebook is at least somewhat valuable and 62% said Instagram is at least somewhat valuable.