Month: February 2022

Digiday caught up with Basile to talk about how brands, agencies and companies should be thinking about the disabled community when it comes to remote work, online shopping and DE&I overall.

This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.

What are brands and businesses missing when it comes to working with, advertising to and ultimately understanding people with disabilities?

The pandemic has shown us how important the internet is to accessing the world. This is how we access people, information, products and services. If the websites that have all of that important, life changing content is not accessible, you basically closed the door to a group of people that are needing it more than ever. The bottom line is that we’re talking about millions of people. If you don’t have an accessible website, you basically just closed your doors to a huge number of people. I like to think of those people as untapped customers.

What a lot of businesses owners don’t recognize is that people with disabilities are recognized as the most brand loyal community. As natural advocates and mentors, we then recommend that to our community of friends, family and other people with disabilities. We’re really good advertisers and marketers for any business that shows some love toward us.

What’s the current relationship between the disabled community and brands? 

The pandemic has awakened them, let them recognize the importance of the internet in the sense of: This is how they’re reaching consumers more so than ever before. If you don’t have access to the internet, you are at a huge disadvantage. Businesses are starting to recognize that we don’t want to disadvantage people with disabilities. This is a very important population to serve. It’s the right thing to do, but it’s also a smart business decision to make sure that we welcome as many potential customers as possible. 

Talk to me about what remote work has meant for people with disabilities. And what does a return to the office look like?

Remote work for people with disabilities has changed the narrative. Before, a lot of employers needed to see you to believe that you could work, needed to have you physically present to think that you can contribute at high levels. But now, we’re recognizing that with remote work, you can contribute in really effective and beautiful ways thousands of miles away from where your job headquarters are.

The internet has changed the game of allowing people with disabilities, who otherwise might have some difficulties getting to a job location or getting to a place on a daily basis, consistently, have the ability to now work at a very high level from the comfort of their home and computer. I do believe it’s opened a lot of doors for people who were shut out because of transportation barriers or even caregiving barriers to be able to get to work. Now you just need a computer, assistive technology to allow you to use the computer and an internet signal. You can do incredible things with those tools.

What are some examples of what the industry could be doing in terms of work, advertising, etc. when it comes to the disabled community?

Inclusive hiring is one thing—being able within your hiring process to recruit all abilities to be workers and employees of your business. Another thing is to make your website accessible. [And] communication.

TV’s Tower of Babel

The key hits:

• Ensuring universal support for multiple measurement providers will be crucial for moving away from a single currency era.
• TV network and agency executives expect three to five measurement providers to gain support as currencies.
• Which companies will fill those slots remains an open question, though some potential answers are emerging.

As the measurement landscape shifts, the TV advertising industry is effectively trying to erect its own Tower of Babel.

After decades of Nielsen’s dominance, advertisers and TV networks are planning to adopt alternative measurement providers as secondary, and in some cases primary, currencies in this year’s upfront ad-buying cycle. But, in doing so, they risk breaking up the lingua franca of TV ad sales. Which means that, as TV ad buyers and sellers add support for various measurement providers, they need to figure out how to maintain some universal fluency. On this, both sides are in agreement.

“We can’t have one partner with one currency and another partner where the currency is another. We need some baseline that goes across media partners and landscapes,” said one agency executive.

“We need to standardize measurement,” said one TV network executive.

Standardizing measurement does not mean consolidating measurement to a single provider. Those days are over, according to executives at TV networks and agencies.

Standardization also doesn’t necessarily mean being able to reconcile the different measurement providers on a like-for-like basis. Per those same executives, having some equation to convert a Nielsen measurement into an Comscore or VideoAmp measurement is a pipe dream — or at least math so advanced as to be in the realm of theory for now.

“You can take the same raw data and run it through three or four different alternative currency providers and end up with a different number, which is just batshit crazy,” said a second agency executive.

Instead, standardizing measurement means ensuring universal support for multiple measurement providers. “It’s important for campaigns to operate under a single currency across publishers,” said a second TV network executive. Achieving that universal support likely means limiting the number of measurement providers supported as the currency on which ads are bought and sold. 

After the dust settles on the current measurement shakeup, TV network and agency executives expect that no more than five — and more likely three — measurement providers will be supported as currencies. “The networks have said they think the marketplace will coalesce around three or four,” said the second agency executive.

“I would love to get to one or two, but it’s going to be three or four,” said the first TV network executive.

Sounds simple enough. There’s even infrastructure in place — OpenAP’s XPm cross-platform measurement framework — to support multiple measurement providers across different TV networks. “XPm is the avenue to common denomination, which will enable the support of multiple currencies,” said the second TV network executive.

Great. Which currencies, though? The consensus among executives interviewed for this article is that Nielsen will retain one of the three to five currency slots. Comscore is considered a top candidate for another slot, especially given its position in web measurement and the ambition among ad buyers to attain actual cross-platform measurement. 

And then the situation starts to simultaneously blur, but also come into focus. ViacomCBS has added support for VideoAmp as an alternative currency, in addition to Nielsen and Comscore. Meanwhile, NBCUniversal has added support for iSpot.tv as an alternative currency. And then WarnerMedia has selected Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot.tv as its alternative measurement providers. 

So that’s four measurement providers — Nielsen, Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot.tv — that the major TV network groups appear to be coalescing around. That leaves open a potential fifth spot, though there remains the potential of the field being cut to three. There’s also the chance that another major TV network owner like Disney or Fox opts for one of the three other currency contenders, as designated by NBCUniversal, like 605 or TVSquared. And there remains the risk that even the four aforementioned measurement providers don’t receive universal support. Consider that, of the major TV network groups, only WarnerMedia has publicly embraced them all to date.

In other words, there remains plenty to sort out if the industry wants to hit the “unspoken goal everyone is working towards” of being able to fully transact against multiple currencies in the 2023-24 upfront cycle, according to the first agency executive. “We’ll know a lot in the next three months of what is really the timeline.”

What we’ve heard

“Everybody’s going to be sold out of CTV [ad inventory]. What are [advertisers] going to go to next? That’s where I think they’ll look to us where we have a strong YouTube presence and the amount of impressions we’re running on YouTube on TV [screens] is growing.”

— Digital video publisher

The new opportunity for publishers to win over creators

The media business is cyclical, so maybe it shouldn’t be surprising to see a reemerging trend of publishers attempting to woo individual video creators. However, the latest version seems to put a new twist on the relationship.

While publishers continue to distribute videos produced by or with creators, some like Tastemade and Vice Media Group are putting out tools for creators.

• In November, Tastemade unveiled a platform for creators to sell and manage subscriptions as well as tickets to in-person and virtual events.
• In the second quarter of 2022, VMG plans to open up its vertical content creation tool Stories Studio for outside creators produce vertical videos that can be distributed on its properties, VMG chief digital officer Cory Haik said in the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast.

From a strictly business perspective, the creator tools seem to offer the media companies a fixed-cost means of making more money. That’s not to say these aren’t risky undertakings for the publishers. There’s the upfront cost of creating — or, in Tastemade’s case, acquiring — these tools without any assurance that they’ll generate revenue. But after that, they provide a potentially pretty profitable revenue stream, as the tools can scale to more creators without their costs scaling in proportion.

Considering the recent criticism over TikTok’s and other platforms’ creator funds, publishers seem to have a window of opportunity to win over creators by offering paths to new revenue. That’s only true if the publishers are able to deliver that revenue, though.  But at the least, publishers seem to be recognizing this opportunity.

“We have things like health insurance and all this value that you get from working at a company. Is there a way for a creator to plug into some of that with us and have some kind of stability?” said Haik. “So we’re thinking about it and [are] very, very open-minded and want to get this right for creators and for audience.”

Numbers to know

$8.63 billion: How much ad revenue YouTube generated in the fourth quarter of 2021.

556: Number of new TV shows that Discovery commissioned in 2021.

$57 million: Estimated ad revenue lost by TV networks for out-of-home impressions that Nielsen allegedly did not count between April and December 2021.

42: Number of countries that Disney’s Disney+ will expand to this summer.

73.8 million: Number of paid subscribers to WarnerMedia’s HBO and HBO Max.

9 million: Number of paid subscribers to NBCUniversal’s Peacock.

-71,000: Number of pay-TV subscribers that Charter lost in the fourth quarter of 2021.

What we’ve covered

Advertisers, TV networks plan to set Nielsen alternatives as ‘shadow currencies’ in this year’s upfront negotiations:

• Advertisers plan to use alternative measurement providers as secondary currencies to establish baselines for the future.
• Some advertisers plan to use the Nielsen alternatives as primary currencies for individual campaigns or data-driven linear ad buys.

Read more about upfront currencies here.

CTV’s rise is not without its growing pains:

• Automated CTV advertising continues to be beset by a lack of transparency.
• A convoluted CTV ad sales supply chain still poses another conundrum.

Read more about CTV advertising’s growing pains here.

LG’s ad unit to offer guarantees on outcomes with CTV ad buys:

• LG Ads  is offering guarantees against advertisers’ goals, like video completion rates, demographic targets and reach and frequency objectives.
• The smart TV maker claims an addressable audience of 20 million households.

Read more about LG’s CTV ad guarantees here.

What we’re reading

Why streamers always need new hits:
Streamers need to constantly churn out new hit shows and movies in order to keep subscribers from churning, according to The Wall Street Journal. That conclusion stems from a subscriber data analysis showing that roughly half of people in the U.S. who signed up for a streamer around the time of big new premiere had canceled their subscriptions within six months.

Why India is a weak spot for Netflix:
Netflix may be the dominant subscription-based streamer worldwide, but it has remained an also-ran in India, according to BBC. Both Disney+, Hotter and Amazon Prime Video have larger estimated subscriber bases in India than Netflix, despite Netflix having cut its subscription prices in the market and spent more than $400 million on programming to appeal to Indian viewers.

When Discovery will merge with WarnerMedia:
The combination of Discovery and WarnerMedia may close within the next three months, according to Insider. Ahead of the merger’s completion, the combined company’s CEO David Zaslav is working on how to win back the movie theater industry as well as how to manage between building up a streaming business without sacrificing the linear TV business in the process.

What’s next for media companies as streaming growth slows:
As Netflix’s latest earnings report indicated, streaming growth is decelerating, and that leaves streaming companies in a position to seek out new ways to jump-start their businesses. The primary option may be some form of bundling — with other streamers or with non-streaming products, like gaming — according to CNBC.

Why sports livestreams have empty ad slots:
Despite the streaming ad market’s development, major sports broadcasts continue have to unfilled streaming ad placements. The reason is that adopting the ad tech infrastructure needed to fill ad slots of odd lengths has not been a priority for streaming operators, according to Marketing Brew.

This year, the goal is to earn more than $20 million in revenue. To do that, the primarily business-to-business publisher is branching out with more consumer-facing revenue streams, including using NFTs to sell event tickets and expanding its advertising client base to include decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), which are blockchain-based, member-owned communities that operate without centralized leadership.

“We’ve really grown the business for the last three-and-a-half years by being B-to-B, but now we’re starting to expand out,” said Yanowitz. He pointed to Blockworks’ crypto-focused podcast network, which receives 30,000 downloads per day, on average, and has a listener base that is likely not exclusively made up of executives in the blockchain space. 

Blockworks’ site receives 2 million monthly page views on average as of January, and its daily newsletter, which was launched a year ago, counts a subscriber base of 100,000, according to Yanowitz. He added that the goal is to increase that subscriber base to 400,000 by the end of 2022.

Prior to the pandemic, the company earned about 80% of its revenue from conferences. Last year, after about an 18-month hiatus, it held three in-person conferences between August and November. Its upcoming Permissionless conference, which is the first of the annual event franchise, will be the largest event Blockworks has hosted.  

From May 17-19, the independent publisher is planning to host 5,000 to 6,000 people at Permissionless in Palm Beach, Fla., but the conference is taking a different approach on both the ticket sales model and sponsorship sales strategy than is typical of publisher conferences.

Selling tickets is like selling NFTs

Blockworks is selling general admission tickets to Permissionless in a way that more closely resembles NFT drops than traditional ticket sales. 

Every two weeks, starting last November, 250 tickets are released to the public to purchase, either using U.S. dollars or cryptocurrency (the crypto prices adjust to match the dollar price, meaning that people buying tickets through cryptocurrency don’t risk paying more or less, since cryptocurrency valuations tend to fluctuate). The starting price for the tickets was $418, but that price increases with each drop. Currently, the tickets released on Feb. 1 run $967 per person. 

Secondly, the VIP tickets, which give holders access to exclusive events and parties as well as options to skip lines, will only be accessible to people who purchase one of 500 Permissionless NFTs that will be released in March for 1 ETH/per NFT (which at the time of writing this hovered at about $2,800, roughly $1,000 lower than its valuation on Jan. 1). After purchasing the NFT, those looking to claim one of the VIP tickets will be able to connect their crypto wallets to the event website, thus proving they own one of the NFTs, and will be able to gain access to the ticket. 

This also means that the cost of the NFT VIP ticket could increase in value as the event gets closer and the NFTs sell out, creating a secondary sales market for that ticket tier. In order to capitalize on any secondary sales (similar to event ticket scalping), a royalty structure will be built into the NFTs, where Blockworks will earn 10% of any transactions that happen beyond the point of sale, capitalizing on an otherwise missed opportunity. 

Blockworks is partnering with a to-be-announced digital artist to create the NFT tickets, but all of the technology being used to program the NFT sales and access to VIP tickets was created in-house by the product engineering team, which is led by the company’s newly hired CTO, Dennis Stücken, who started last month.    

“The [businesses that] are going to be experimenting the most with practical applications of NFTs are actually going to be media sites that cover the space,” because they’re reporting on and learning about the newest advancements of blockchain technology on a daily basis in some cases, said David Cohn, head of research and development at The Alpha Group, an in-house tech and media incubator for Advance Publications’ local media arm Advance Local, where he leads blockchain innovation. 

Additionally, because Blockworks’ audience reads its coverage of NFTs and understands the use cases for NFTs likely better than non-crypto native audiences, there will be fewer barriers to entry of getting those readers and attendees to buy into this experimentation, Cohn added. 

Yanowitz estimated that 75% of Blockworks’ audience owns some form of crypto, indicating that a significant portion of Permissionless attendees are familiar with how and why someone would buy an NFT. 

Other media companies that don’t have a large portion of crypto enthusiasts in their audience would likely have to put a lot of extra effort in teaching attendees how to buy NFTs, or even what NFTs are, and might experience more friction in the process, Cohn added, which could result in limiting sales from prospective attendees. 

Selling advertisements to DAOs 

In 2021, Blockworks sold 100 ad clients on brand sponsorships on both the conference and media products. Those clients often fell in the crypto company bucket or financial institution bucket. 

This year, however, the focus is selling ad campaigns and conference sponsorships to DAOs, which are organizations that are self-governed by members who have bought into the organization by purchasing the group’s unique token and joining their Discord channel. 

DAOs often are mission-driven, such as banding together to purchase an expensive asset (like an original copy of the U.S. Constitution), but others are more in line with start-ups. They act as companies that, instead of having a singular leader, take actions by having users vote on how to invest their money. 

As new additions to the internet, it is too early to determine how good or bad DAOs might be to the overall digital economy. They could very well come with a double-edged sword, Cohn said. That’s because DAOs are essentially a cash storm that could do great things, in the vein of a decentralized version of a GoFundMe or Kickstarter campaign, but they could eventually create a financial influence that is unexpected. “As [they] continue to expand and we see DAOs purchasing more and more things eventually, it’ll be interesting to see when they start to step over lines that society deems taboo,” Cohn said.

What’s particularly appealing about DAOs is the potential size of their ad budgets. While a lot of Blockworks’ biggest clients are raising $400 million or $500 million in investments or are earning that annually, the DAOs that Yanowitz’s sales team is targeting have 10 times that amount in their treasuries. However, instead of pitching to one CMO, a salesperson is trying to earn the trust of sometimes thousands of people who will vote on whether or not they want to accept a proposal.

“It’s much harder to make the sale, but once the community trusts you, the total dollar size that you get from them will end up being a lot higher,” Yanowitz said, compared to the sponsorship dollars from a centralized company.

To date, Blockworks’ sales team of six has sold two DAOs – Mantra DAO and Tracer Finance – on event sponsorships to Permissionless, although Yanowitz would not disclose the price tag of those sponsorships. The sponsorships include having a DAO member speak at Permissionless as well as having branded parties take place around the event that are used to convene the DAO members in-person. 

“It’s one of the main goals this year to sell into DAOs,” said Yanowitz. “It will be one of the biggest revenue opportunities for us in like 24 to 36 months, so we need every single salesperson to know how to do it.”