Less BS, More Facts, Some Opinions
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. iO-SOS More than 70% of Apple devices have upgraded to the latest operating system, with the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) privacy policy. And now mobile advertisers and ad tech are starting to feel the pain, writes Eric Seufert at Mobile Dev Memo. The loudest… Continue reading »
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Justin Moore and his wife, April, have only been selling products through Amazon Live for a few months, but it has already completely changed the way they do business.
The veteran YouTubers, who had been selling things online for years, were recruited by Amazon in late November to start using the growing video channel, and soon were pulling in tens of thousands of dollars of revenue on their best days. The Moores now field dozens of requests every week, many from curious ad agencies, for guidance on how Amazon Live works. The requests have been plentiful enough that the couple now offers Amazon Live show hosting services.
“The numbers were astronomical,” Justin Moore said, saying that the return on investment was clear the first time they used Live, around Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year. He declined to give specific figures but claims that this year’s Prime Day sales surpassed last year’s Black Friday sales by 52%.
The Moores’ experience may have piqued agency and brand interest in Amazon Live, but it hasn’t drawn a ton of adoption so far. Even as more social media platforms add live shopping to their roster of features and Amazon makes new investments in its Live product, most brands are still hesitant to try it out.
Many brands aren’t sure they want to go beyond traditional ads — or the additional hassle of making a video or hiring a creator. When brands do get into live streaming, cementing a preferred time slot in the Amazon Live lineup can be a long climb up the Amazon rankings.
“Brands know something is there, but they aren’t running to sign up,” said Eddie Segev, studio manager at Top Rated Studio, which creates videos for Amazon sellers and hosts live streams in its studio.
Amazon Live launched in 2016, but it wasn’t until recently that Amazon began making more investments in the channel. In February of 2019, Amazon launched its Live Creator app, which allows users to sell via live stream directly from their phone. Then, in July 2020, Amazon expanded the app to include influencers who are part of the Amazon Influencer Program. An Amazon spokesperson declined to give numbers on how many people are using Live but did say that there were over 1,200 live stream shows during Prime Day 2020.
Today, there are about a dozen live streams happening at one time on a dedicated Amazon Live homepage, with one stream as the “feature” video on the page. These video times and placements are determined by Amazon’s ranking system, which includes three levels: “Rising Star,” “Insider,” and “A-List.” Each level offers progressively better video placements on the Amazon Live page. To ‘level up’, sellers must consistently create content to amass a following and drive sales, similar to YouTube streamers looking to build their subscriber base.
Users must either be a brand registered seller, a U.S. vendor with an approved Amazon store, or an Amazon influencer with an active Amazon storefront to use the Creator app and stream.
But rather than an easy path to incremental revenue, it takes time and effort for brands to see returns. Amazon recommends streaming for at least an hour once an account is approved.
“For Amazon Live to materially impact sales on, say, Prime Day, sellers would need to have been using it consistently for months so they’d have the status necessary for winning a highly visible location,” said Katie Capka, inbound marketing manager at Kaspien, which does Amazon marketing, in an email.
According to a January 2021 survey of U.S. creators by Mavrck, 85% said they use Instagram the most often to live stream, followed by Facebook (7%), and TikTok (4%). Less than 2% of respondents said Amazon Live was their main live stream platform.
For now, many brands would rather use static photos and traditional ad placements, instead of making a video or hiring someone to host a live stream, Segev said.
Melissa Ardavany, director of marketplace client services at Blue Wheel, echoes this. “Live is in the ‘test and learn’ phase,” she said, “It’s also not as mature as the ad placements clients are used to.”
Brands should instead look at Live as a long-term investment, especially if they want to be competitive for the holiday shopping season, or next Prime Day. “I understand that some brands see it as a new format,” said Moore. “Even so, being able to directly attribute revenue from a stream — that’s huge.”
The post ‘The numbers were astronomical’: Streamers see the sales on Amazon Live, but brands are still hesitant appeared first on Digiday.
Verizon Media already knows a lot about what its users read and watch. An expanded partnership with Catalina will make it possible for them to tell advertisers what its users have bought, too.
On Tuesday, June 29, Verizon Media and Catalina announced they were making their identity graphs interoperable. In plain English, that means the identities Verizon Media tracks using its post-cookie solution, ConnectID, and the IDs that Catalina has of shoppers can now be combined into a single, anonymized picture.
Over the past few years, Verizon Media has built a strong case for its DSP as a competitor to Amazon DSP and Google DV360. But it will have to keep up with their moves if it wants to stay in the mix among marketers — Digiday recently reported on Amazon’s plans to add an identifier to its own ecosystem that would allow advertisers to target, reach and measure the effects of ads across Amazon’s whole ecosystem.
“If they can do integrated offline, online targeting and measurement, they’ve got a good competitive story against Amazon,” said Michael Gorman, svp of product at ShareThis.
Verizon’s move also puts them in position to at least defend against money leaking out of traditional DSPs and into retail environments.
“It’s recognition by Verizon that the real competition from cookieless alternatives is not FLoC, it’s the retail media networks who will be able to prove that advertising on them is effective and works, whether that’s Amazon, Walmart, Roundel, CVS, Kroger, etc.,” said Joshua Lowcock, the chief digital officer of UM.
When Verizon Media and Catalina first linked up two months ago, it earned a clutch of headlines because it was the first time Catalina had shared its shopping data with a DSP.
Catalina has since added a score of partners, and it expects that more partnerships are in the offing. “As these DSPs add their own proprietary ID mapping solutions Catalina will look to support them directly or indirectly in a privacy-centric approach,” said Brian Dunphy, Catalina’s svp of digital business and partnerships.
Verizon’s move is also part of what figures to become a burgeoning trend over the next few years. Google’s decision to push its third-party cookie deprecation back by two years affords the ad ecosystem another huge window to deliver more partnerships.
“The assignment of meaning to various authenticated and semi-anonymous IDs will be a major area of development in the industry for the next few years,” Mediavine CEO Eric Hochberger said. “I anticipate an increase in partnerships and acquisitions as companies look for ways to effectively target users across the internet.”
The post Cheat Sheet: Verizon Media adds shopping data with Catalina partnership appeared first on Digiday.
In March, President Biden addressed the nation and proposed that celebrating the Fourth of July as normal would be a possibility, should the vaccination goal of 70% hold true. It was a glimmer of hope at a time when what the post-Covid world could look like wasn’t nearly as clear. We’re not still yet post-Covid — the Delta variant is increasing across the country and elsewhere — but people are returning to socializing and celebrating together.
And predictably, that’s what brands are aiming to showcase in marketing messages and advertising now. Michelob Ultra’s latest effort, which was released earlier this week, featured copywriting about “finally being reunited for the long summer days,” for example. Michelob Ultra is one of a number of brands — brands like Limestone Branch Distillery and Marriott that have new campaigns aimed at reminding consumers of gatherings and travel, for example — giving a wink and a nudge to the return of normalcy in marketing messages now.
“Marketers always like to connect with consumers who are sharing an experience,” said Allen Adamson, brand consultant and co-founder of Metaforce. “Something unique is going on this summer where we’re not only enjoying summer but a return to normality. There’s a huge shared experience of travel, movies, etc. It’s like a holiday season where people share the same thing during the same time. Marketers always try to connect to that because they want you to pay attention to them and if they are talking about something people are all doing that helps.”
While brands are aiming to be part of the excitement for a return of normalcy this summer, marketers and agency execs say there’s a balance to strike. Brands don’t want to create advertising that could be tone deaf by talking too explicitly about the return to normalcy, nor do they want to create a spot that could be stale in a matter of weeks like they did with the “we’re here for you” messaging early on in the pandemic, explained marketers and agency execs.
“There’s definitely that sense that they don’t want to go too far in celebrating,” said Noah Mallin, chief strategy officer at IMGN Media. “People are still processing what they just went through. While there might be this crazy relief in areas like New York, for a brand to talk about it might not feel that comfortable.”
At the same time, brands want creative that can still be used “even if the moment wears off,” noted Mallin, which makes it more appealing to hint at the return to normalcy rather than explicitly state that in ads for this summer.
Even so, flicking at the idea of a return rather than simply going back to normal summer marketing messages can help capture consumer attention, explained Brendan Gahan, partner and chief social officer at Mekanism. “With so much vying for our attention, and people looking to make up for lost time, brands are trying to find any edge to capture attention,” said Gahan. “The tractor beam of ‘the return to normalcy’ [messaging] reels consumers in.”
What’s something you leaned into over the last year with your marketing that you’re looking to expand or continue post-Covid?
There are things we want to continue to do that were huge for us in the midst of Covid and we won’t walk away from now, particularly the gaming industry. Gaming is bigger now that essentially entertainment and music combined and we’ve found a number of unique ways to engage there. It’s a place where there’s a ton of crossover to our consumer. It’s allowed us to have a lot of fun, but tell the stories that are important to Wendy’s.
How so?
It started a few years back with our Fortnight Fresh program. We found a unique way to create our own characters and jump into the game. Our consumers jumped in with us. [We’ve done some other games] like Mario Kart and Animal Crossing to have fun with the products we have out there. We’re in a world now where we’re in the top 1% of all Twitch streamers — the idea that folks get on Twitch to watch us [shows us] there’s a lot to like.
What’s the strategy for gaming activities overall?
It’s not a logo slap or necessarily a licensing agreement but rather [we look for ways to tell people] that we know how you play this game and we’re going to find a way to make the game better as well as tell our story in a unique way.
Brand boycotts have become a hot button issue recently as political tensions and societal pressures swirl. Earlier this year, Georgia-based brands like Coca-Cola, The Home Depot and Delta faced backlash from shoppers after failing to adequately speak out against new restrictive voting legislation. And last year, media buyers boycotted Facebook over hate speech (or lack thereof) regulations.
While many are aware of boycotts, new research from ad agency MullenLowe U.S. calls into question how many shoppers are willing to sacrifice convenience to participate in a social movement. Find key points below:
“When interrogated, it became clear that Google’s proposals raised more questions than answers, with holes of mistrust appearing.”
— Paul Lowrey, head of advertising strategy, insight and marketing at ad tech company Azerion, told Senior News Editor Seb Joseph for his story following up on Google’s delayed cookie cull.
The post Marketing Briefing: ‘People are still processing’: Why advertisers are using a wink and nudge play for return to normal messaging this summer appeared first on Digiday.
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The wave of media consolidation is cresting again. The latest example is BuzzFeed’s acquisition of Complex Networks. BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti and Complex Networks CEO Rich Antoniello joined the Digiday Podcast to talk about the deal.
The conversation with Peretti and Antoniello ranged from how Complex Networks will fit inside BuzzFeed to how BuzzFeed’s brands could cross over into Complex’s properties like ComplexCon and vice versa. What came through in the interview is how the two executives see their respective companies as being in a better position together rather than going it alone in an industry dominated by giant tech platforms and other major media companies that continue to merge.
“In this day and age, how difficult it is being an independent publisher, I think it’s only gotten more and more difficult and the pandemic heightened that,” Antoniello said.
Becoming a media conglomerate comes with complexities, though.
“You can tell in companies that merge everything together and have some chief content officer who makes every piece of content the same — I mean, it just doesn’t work,” said Peretti. “You need editorial independence and that flows through even to the business and to the partnerships you do and brand licensing deals and native advertising and branded content.”
Here are a few highlights from the conversation, which have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Why Complex Networks will have its own CEO
Peretti: There’s a bunch of things that they do that really all we can hope for is that BuzzFeed could maybe help promote or add some additional distribution. But then there’s other areas where maybe there’s more collaboration. But the reason Complex will have a CEO is we’re seeing it as a really great business and franchise that needs to have its independence.
How BuzzFeed’s and Complex Networks’ businesses compare and contrast
Antoniello: The more I spoke to Jonah and the more our management teams got together and the more we looked at each other’s businesses and the level of diversification of both businesses but how we complementary we are. Our strength in longer-form content, their strength in shorter-form content. Their incredible e-commerce engine that has both affiliate as well as premium merchandise; our very IP and premium merchandise type of e-commerce.
How BuzzFeed will manage two separate food properties
Peretti: Tasty is a very pop brand. It’s a mass scale-type of brand. And First We Feast is a brand more of emerging culture and things that are coming next. I like Tasty and First We Feast both, but as a consumer, I would be really bummed out if they’ve merged together and had their voices diluted. Tasty needs to pursue its path and the same with First We Feast.
How BuzzFeed’s Tasty can sell Complex Networks’ hot sauce
Antoniello: We have this little line of hot sauces and hot honey [tied to Complex Networks’ show “Hot Ones”]. I’m dying to get those products in the hands of the talent at Tasty. Let’s sell some more product. Let’s make some recipes with our product and make some more money and provide more value to the end-consumer.
The post Jonah Peretti and Rich Antoniello explain why BuzzFeed is buying Complex Networks appeared first on Digiday.