Month: May 2022

The experience this time around mirrors the first, but with small tweaks: in addition to offering a cash payout to the winners, Pick’em will award players in-game prizes, such as skins and Overwatch League tokens that can be used to purchase other game items. To make the activity more accessible, Activision Blizzard also integrated Pick’em into the OWL’s mobile app for the first time.

“It makes you more invested because you know you’re looking not just to see how the games go, but also how well your predictions did,” said Matthew Shiflet, a digital and social media manager at Esports Engine and longtime Pick’em enthusiast. “We love esports because we like competition anyway, so this is just another way to compete.” Before Activision Blizzard introduced Pick’em brackets, Shiflet and his friends would pull up Excel spreadsheets in Discord servers to MacGyver their own bracket contest; when the OWL launched the official version in 2020, they immediately got on board.

For Activision Blizzard, Pick’em is not just a fun bonus feature for Overwatch League fans — it’s an effective marketing tool for both the OWL and Overwatch itself. While it is unlikely to bring in new fans that lack pre-existing Overwatch knowledge, Pick’em helps current Overwatch fans expand on their interest in the game and actively participate in the competition. “I would say, off the top of my head, that over half of our player base, half of our viewership base, play it, and engagement builds week-over-week,” Fortier said.

Though esports leagues have gradually moved away from the traditional sports model, Pick’em is an example of a marketing tool that the OWL has effectively borrowed from sports traditions such as March Madness pools or pre-tournament “Racket Brackets” at tennis majors. It also takes advantage of the recent rise in interest in online sports and esports betting via an activity that is free-to-play and kid-friendly. “It feels like a very brand-safe way for advertisers to get in on that market without having to navigate all of the complexities that are the legalities of online gambling,” said Eric Fischman, head of creative at culture and gaming agency OS Studios and a former broadcast and content producer for Activision Blizzard.

Indeed, much like the brand-sponsored instant replays of traditional sports, the excitement and genuine fan engagement around Pick’em could help the Overwatch League introduce big-name brand partners to its fans in a more discrete, easily packaged way. The OWL currently lacks the big-name corporate sponsors it boasted in the past; as brands build their esports knowledge and become more self-aware about the lack of value in rote partnerships and logo slaps, features like Pick’em are an opportunity for the OWL to show that it still holds sway and mind share among the competitive gaming community. “From a strictly sales standpoint, any sponsor is looking to get involved in what drives the most engagement and get the most eyes on it,” Fischman said. “I definitely think that an initiative like this is certainly sellable, but also something that sponsors would be hot to get into.”

Activision Blizzard has already demonstrated the value of Pick’em as a marketing tool to increase fan interest in the Overwatch League. Moving forward, one potential solution to the company’s sponsorship woes could be to continue to lean into these types of ancillary activities that augment viewers’ experiences and engagement — and then bring brand partners in a positive way. “If it comes with an added sort of prize or prizes, that would be cool,” Shiflet said. “But it’s only good if it feels authentic.”

The key details:

• A+E Networks will debut a new FAST channel for diverse, young audiences, as well as a home and lifestyle vertical. Tastemade will also lean into the home category this summer with a new streaming channel. 
• Subscriptions to FuboTV are growing, as the company introduces a new targeting tool to reach sports fans. Wave Sports & Entertainment announced content deals with the WNBA and The Volume.
• Despite its large portfolio of media titles, Dotdash Meredith focused primarily on People’s video programming.
• Crackle Plus unveiled ad-supported streamers and FAST channels in the lifestyle and entertainment categories and snagged a content deal with BBC. 
• Presentations by Nuestra TV, Estrella and Canela Media shone a light on the growth of streaming channels for Hispanic and Spanish-speaking audiences.
• Vevo shared its expansions plans for its contextual “mood” targeting product, and WMX is exploring CTV “products” as it launches a podcast network.
• Measurement providers Comscore and Samba TV talked up new tools, including an advertising product.

A+E Networks

A traditional TV network owner, A+E Networks concentrated its NewFronts pitch on the company’s digital properties, specifically its portfolio of free, ad-supported streaming TV channels and its podcast network.

A+E Networks already has 10 curated FAST channels and four single series FAST channels and will debut a new one this fall called 4UV. It will aim to share the stories of people from different races, genders, sexualities and neurodiversities, to reach a younger and diverse audience. “Our goal is to build a bridge between mainstream and unheard voices through stories that take an intersectional approach to diversity, equity and inclusion,” said Peter Olsen, president of ad sales at A+E Networks.

Meanwhile, the company’s home and lifestyle vertical Home.Made.Nation — previously a weekly programming block on A+E Networks’ basic cable channel FYI — will get new shows and short-form video, for distribution across A+E’s own channels, apps, websites and social platforms.

A+E Networks also promoted its podcast network during the event. Rapper Grandmaster Caz will be part of a new podcast called “Origins of Hip Hop.” And A+E’s top three podcasts (“History This Week,” “Cold Case Files” and “I Survived”) can be sold as an always-on package or combined with video for podcast specific deals, promoted through social and newsletter channels, said Stacie Danzis, A+E Networks vp, digital media sales.

FuboTV

Streaming pay-TV provider FuboTV closed the first quarter of 2022 with 1.36 million global subscribers, up from 1.32 million at end of Q4 2021. In its presentation to advertisers, FuboTV claimed that 94% of its audience is using the service on a TV screen and that most are watching live.

The company announced a new targeting capability that allows FuboTV to create custom audience segments based on viewership behavior. Audiences are categorized as light, moderate or heavy viewers of specific sports, leagues or content categories — based on how many hours of content they watch. FuboTV CEO David Gandler said this means advertisers can target an NFL fan with a campaign outside of football-specific content.

FuboTV’s live, free-to-consumer TV network, Fubo Sports Network, will have a new show this summer, hosted by Orlando Magic guard R.J. Hampton. The company also pitched its interactive games, where advertisers can buy custom and branded sponsorships and integrations, as well as its mobile sportsbook, which is now available in Iowa and Arizona. The company plans to expand Fubo Sportsbook to more states this year. 

Dotdash Meredith

In its first NewFront as Dotdash Meredith, the publisher focused its presentation on the variety of publisher titles it now operates under one umbrella — from Better Homes & Gardens to The Spruce — and particularly spent time sharing new shows under People, including three new series around parenting: “Mom Famous,” “Me Becoming Mom” and “I Wish Someone Told Me.”

Crackle Plus

Crackle Plus, the ad-supported streaming company owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, Inc., touted its new Chicken Soup for the Soul ad-supported streaming service, which launched last month and has original, exclusive, scripted and unscripted content. It’ll soon have cooking shows like “Tia Mowry’s Comfort Kitchen” and property search shows such as “City, Burbs or Sticks.” Crackle Plus recently added five linear channels to its FAST portfolio.

Crackle Plus’ presentation also promoted its latest content deal between sister company Screen Media and BBC Studios. The agreement will bring over 2,500 hours of content to Crackle Plus, including exclusive rights to the “Sherlock” series. Screen Media is expected to release over 380 new titles this year, said Philippe Guelton, evp, online networks Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment and president of Crackle Plus.

The namesake Crackle streaming service, which is free and ad-supported, is planning to introduce a rewards program, where viewers can earn points for watching content on Crackle. The points can be redeemed for in-app rewards and services (such as a sponsored, ad-free day on the service), or products from advertisers. The company said Crackle has over 40 million monthly active users.

Nuestra.TV

Mobile advertising and digital media company Adsmovil used the NewFronts platform to announce it will debut a bilingual AVOD service for Hispanic audiences (families, in particular) at the end of the second quarter, called Nuestra.TV. It will go live with over 40 FAST channels and 15,000 hours of video.

Tastemade

Digital video network Tastemade, known for its food and travel programming, will move into the home category this summer, with a new streaming channel aimed at homeowners and renters. New series for Tastemade Home will include “Weekend Refresh,” based on a Tastemade social series highlighting 48-hour home makeovers. Tastemade Home will join the company’s other channels, including its flagship Tastemade, Tastemade Travel and Tastemade en Español. 

Tastemade plans to premiere 27 original series this year, such as “Big Appetite,” “Dinner Party People” and “Best Thing I Never Ate.” Returning shows include “Struggle Meals,” “Mad Good Food” and “All Up in My Grill.” The company wants to host “themed weeks” this year around food categories, including “Grill Week” in June and “Pizza Week” in September.

The company said 84% of the Tastemade audience makes two or more recipes per month and 75% actively try to purchase Tastemade-recommended products. Derrell Smith, the host of “Mad Good Food,” said 60% of Tastemade’s audience identifies as multicultural — and that the network has gained over 300 million monthly viewers and 700 million minutes watched each month, a 30% increase over the last year. Tastemade spent much of the presentation introducing advertisers to its roster of “Makers.”

Tastemade sells ads through Samsung’s demand-side platform, noted Jeff Imberman, head of global sales & brand partnerships at Tastemade.

Estrella

The U.S.-based, Spanish language media company Estrella Media touted its recently-signed two-year deal with Mexico-based broadcaster TV Azteca. The two companies will work together to create, produce and air new series, creating over 600 hours of original content over the next two years. The first slate of programming will debut this fall.

In another new partnership, LG “will be the first platform” to carry Estrella’s fourth new FAST channel, said René Santaella, evp of digital and streaming media at Estrella. He did not say when the new FAST channel will launch, but said that Estrella will add to of its other FAST channels to LG.

“On digital, we now reach 30 million users and are approaching 1 billion streaming minutes across FAST, AVOD, online video, on YouTube, Facebook and audio. This is up 32% in users and 35% in minutes from just a year ago,” Santaella said.

Wave Sports & Entertainment

Thanks to a recently-announced deal, Wave Sports & Entertainment and the WNBA will create social-first, short-form programming about the league, rolling out throughout the 2022 season, such as “The 26,” a look at the top 26 players from the WNBA and “The Buckets Five,” a weekly show coming out this month on the biggest topics in women’s basketball. 

Buckets, WSE’s flagship basketball brand, has signed a deal with Colin Cowherd’s podcast network The Volume, to collaborate on coverage of the NBA playoffs on Twitter Spaces, during game halftimes. They will also produce post-game live reaction shows on the Buckets YouTube Channel. The shows will be produced as podcasts available on The Volume, with show clips distributed across both Buckets and Volume social channels. 

When explaining how advertisers can buy this content, WSE founder and CEO Brian Verne said: “It’s just like sports TV. You can sponsor our coverage… You can buy our talent-led daily original shows. And then we have the cross-platform commercial — just the six-second spot or a 15-second spot instead of the 30- or the 60-. And of course, we have custom branded content.” In the past year, WSE has debuted more than 40 original shows.

Canela Media

On Aug. 16, Hispanic-focused digital media company Canela Media will launch a new ad-supported streaming service for kids aged 2 through 12. Canela Kids will carry more than 1,500 hours of programming at launch, including “Cocomelon,” “Blippi Wonders,” “Barney” and “Garfield.” 

Canela’s existing ad-supported streamer Canela TV will debut more than 300 hours of new programming in 2022, said the company’s chief content officer Jerry Leo. The company announced two titles in development: “Abuela Knows Best” and “Between Borders.” Canela Media said it’s working on other shows, such as telenovela reunions, Hispanic celebrity profiles, an entertainment news magazine and a true crime magazine show.

Vevo

Music-centric streaming network Vevo is developing more “interactive ad experiences for the TV screen,” thanks to recent partnerships with programmatic ad platforms TripleLift and Infillion, which will be available “in the coming months,” said Rob Christensen, svp of global TV sales and distribution. No further information was shared during Vevo’s presentation.

Vevo will also expand its AI-powered contextual ad product called Moods, which “aligns creative against music videos that convey a specific sentiment,” such as “heartfelt,” the category for Adele’s song “Easy On Me,” said Aneessa Steilen, vp of media and distribution marketing at Vevo. This year, Vevo will categorize more music videos to have a larger variety of targeting options for advertisers, such as adding more moods like “thrill-seeking,” she said.

In 2022, Vevo wants to add more long-form content to its CTV properties, as well as live performances and feature-length concerts. The company’s music video programming (curated by decades and music genres) are available across more than 70 FAST channels, via platforms and services like Apple, Roku, Samsung, Amazon and YouTube.

WMX

WMX, Warner Music Group’s media and creative content division formed last fall, unveiled its data and audience storefront “WMX Connects,” allowing advertisers to tap into the company’s data on the audience they are trying to reach to inform their ad campaigns.

WMX is also exploring ad-supported, music and entertainment CTV “products,” said WMX CRO Erin Moran. While she didn’t specify what those products would be, they would feature music videos and live concerts from Warner Music Group’s roster of artists, documentaries and original programming from WMG’s media brands, such as UPROXX and The Pit.

New original programming rolling out later this year from WMX includes sneaker and streetwear show “Fresh Pair with Katty Customs”  and an eight-episode visual podcast on the legacy of Notorious B.I.G., called “Iconic Records,” part of WMX’s newly announced podcast network, “sitting at the intersection of music, pop culture and social justice,” Moran said.

Samba TV & Comscore talk up new measurement products

Measurement provider Comscore teased Comscore Total Digital, part of its Insight Studio suite. The offering combines digital, CTV and social media measurement to track the behavior of digital audiences across websites, mobile apps and social media, said Comscore CMO Tania Yuki.

Rival measurement provider Samba TV talked up its new “iCPM” product, which lets advertisers buy ad inventory based on incremental, guaranteed reach. The idea is this would tamp down the issues of duplication in TV advertising (though a measurement provider also selling ad inventory raises an issue for some ad buyers, according to agency executives). Ashwin Navin, Samba TV’s CEO and co-founder, said this product ”offers a way for advertisers to pay only for the audiences that are incremental to their linear campaign.”

Which measurements matter?

“One thing I keep hearing more and more about is vanity metrics, a lot of clients want to go beyond what they can read and the metrics we give them … they want to go beyond what they’re seeing on paper, actual business outcomes.” 

“People can get too cute with the KPIs and all the data that they can have access to. My perspective is that platform data and KPIs should be a guiding light that we should use for optimizations but it should not be the be-all and end-all.”

“We also have to have conversations about whether things are being captured correctly to show the true value of what our media is doing.” 

“One of our larger brands has been investing a lot in SEO, so we’re like what’s the X-Y value there. It’s not there. So now we’re throwing the [Google Analytics] numbers out the window. But we don’t know what’s the new alternative substitute that we can use?”

“For some of our consideration campaigns, we’ve been trying to shift to more attention quality versus [metrics like] mid-funnel conversion. Where we’re still struggling is for the very DR-focused campaigns where we’re trying to get qualified leads.”

“We know that our awareness and intent is doing its job, but that’s hard to deliver to clients that want to see results right away.”

“Instead of looking for one core solution, we’re looking to come together and stitch different data sources that we already have and then create our own tool for them.”

“For a few years now, when we recorded store visits, the client just didn’t believe the numbers. They couldn’t believe that display or media grow those many people in store.”

Client expectation management

“We have a lot of clients that will say, ‘We want a low CPM,’ and we’ll tell them that we can go and get it for them but that’s crappy inventory. We have to show how they can buy [inventory] on sites that will actually work for them.” 

“Depending on how much money is involved, you may or may not have access to the person who has the real number as to what we’re all doing, which is trying to grow the [client’s] business. If you don’t have that number or regular engagement with the CMO that target can move, especially with a publicly traded company.” 

“A lot of times you have clients asking if they should turn a campaign on or off? And you have to tell them to slow down, be patient and trust the process.” 

“You have clients that are going to ask, ‘Why are we down 20%?’ And then you have to try and tell them to look at things over a month or two, and then see where we’re at. For instance, you could be down 20% week-on-week, but might be OK when you look and see that we were up 50% month-on-month … [Clients] always want a reason, and for the most part, it’s just fluctuations; they happen.”

“I come up with all kinds of fun stuff [as an explanation for the fluctuations] and they buy it when I’m just making shit up.” 

Veracity, viewability and verification

“When it comes to Facebook or social, we use a third party to track because their numbers are, you know, 100 sales, but you put it through whatever ad server you’re using and it de-dupes across the whole system and comes back with six [sales]. It’s a huge difference.”

“I only care about viewability if there’s absolutely no way to put a performance metric against something. In the absence of all other measurements, viewability is a nice-to-have [metric]. You need to be able to take back to the client or take back internally that you’re looking at something, that there’s some kind of third-party verification, even if it’s kind of a vanity metric.”

“It’s almost like you’re just trying to say that you’re doing your due diligence [by working with third-party ad verification firms].”

“It’s like checking the box that you did it.”

Vendor evaluations

“[Assessing vendors] is becoming a little easier because there’s so much shift of talent between different vendors. I’m talking with the same people I’ve been talking to. So when I ask them like, ‘Hey, how does it rank up against XYZ vendor?’ they would actually tell me because they worked there.”

“In the last month, we had a sales rep that was at one third-party YouTube buyer that switched to a different third-party YouTube buyer. We’ve been doing a ton of investment [with the first YouTube buying firm], and now this person is over here [at the second YouTube buying firm] telling us why we shouldn’t be working with that partner.”

“There aren’t enough hours in the day [to vet ad tech firms]. Especially with new ad tech and data partners, that’s not something I can throw at an entry-level person. They’re not going to get to the crux of the questions that I need to have asked to even start to think of them as a partner I’m going to take to my clients.”

“Hiring is the hardest thing right now, especially at the more senior level. You need someone experienced to know how to really get past salesy talk and ask the right questions.”

“If I find [a vendor] interesting, maybe I ask [an entry-level employee] to do some deep dive. We have a vetting form to at least answer these questions that give me a good idea [of] should we go farther. But even that, sometimes it’s hard for them to [not] copy-and-paste from a sales rep. I’m like, ‘Nope, that’s not how I need that answered.’”