Author: rssmasher

European media companies are mad about the current version of the ePrivacy regulation, which is to block the use of cookies without consumer consent, and have appealed directly to the European Commission to have it drastically revised.

A total 50 media organizations across Europe — including members of France’s publishers trade body Geste, the European Magazine Media Association, Germany’s Association of Magazine Publishers VDZ, the Professional Publishers Association, along with telco operators including Orange — have signed an open letter to the European Commission that calls for immediate revisals of the law.

The media companies claim the current ePrivacy proposals, which require that all businesses must get explicit consumer consent to use cookies, would give still more power to Google, Facebook and Amazon. There is fear that advantage would also extend to any browser owner, as the European Commission has suggested that users opt in for cookies via their browser settings, in the proposed ePrivacy law.

“[The law] provides global players with a preferential treatment for collecting and processing data, notably location data,” stated the letter.

The current ePrivacy draft would also threaten any business reliant on online advertising, telco operators, and European startups, and undermine the roles of press and media in European democratic life, according to the letter.

“[This] would reduce the possible investment in quality journalism across Europe, preventing press publishers & media to build a trustful relationship with their readers and to market their editorial contents,” continued the letter.

The ePrivacy law proposal has been adopted by the European Parliament is still to be approved by European governments.

“This [ePrivacy law] would particularly impact advertising which relies on data, so programmatic would be shaken very seriously,” said Pierre Chappaz, co-founder and executive chairman of Teads.

This isn’t the first time an appeal has been made. A dozen publishers including the Guardian, Financial Times, Le Monde, and Spiegel, wrote an open letter to the European parliament requesting it curb the strict ePrivacy proposal around the collection and use of cookies, which could impinge on their ability to maintain sustainable business models.

View the open letter below:

“Europe Cannot Afford to Miss the Data Revolution”

Data economy is a pillar of future growth, job creation and social progress.
According to the European Commission, the value of the European data economy may raise from €285 billion in 2015 to €739 billion in 2020. Consumers and citizens will enjoy innovative products and services and, hopefully, benefit from strong guarantees for their rights and privacy.

Big Data will also provide governments and authorities with the opportunity to enhance public policies’ design and effectiveness. In 2016, the European Commission took that path with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), due to come into force on 25 May 2018, in order to both enhance rights for individuals and simplify the regulatory environment to improve business opportunities.

Guaranteeing privacy is crucial to maintain citizens’ trust in digital technologies. The undersigned companies and organizations consider that confidentiality of electronic communications and personal data protection are, in essence, unquestionable; they wish these essential principles to be provided by a balanced framework, benefitting both European citizens and digital players, in a dynamic and innovative ecosystem.

Yet the proposed “ePrivacy” regulation, recently voted in the European Parliament and currently discussed amongst Member States, will achieve none of these objectives. We are concerned that current proposals would not offer efficient protection for consumers; would reinforce already dominant players in the data economy; would threaten the development of European startups and innovative companies, online advertising, telecom operators, and other sectors alike; and would undermine the essential role of press and media in European democratic life.

As a matter of fact, the current ePrivacy draft regulation:

• Provides global players with a preferential treatment for collecting and processing data, notably location data. Data gathered through devices and operating systems would thus be considered as specifically less sensitive than those linked to European communications networks , without any justification and in disregard of an efficient and consistent consumer protection;

• denies the opportunity, yet granted by the GDPR, to process data with appropriate guarantees, such as legitimate interest, further compatible processing and statistical purpose;

• does not take into account the complex value chain of digital advertising and its fast evolution;

• officially devolves the management of “cookies” trackers to browsing interfaces, depriving Internet users to decide in conscience of the relationship they wish to maintain with each site. This measure would create a major disadvantage for emerging companies, reducing their ability to collect advertising revenue with targeted and relevant messages. It would reduce the possible investment in quality journalism across Europe, preventing press publishers & media to build a trustful relationship with their readers and to market their editorial contents;

• locks European tech businesses & startups in a captive local market;

• targets specific technologies, such as Machine-to-Machine without demonstrating the need for it, whereas regulation should be as technology-neutral as possible. We call on European and national policy-makers to review the ePrivacy draft regulation. The European Digital Single Market deserves better than a regulation with massive and uncontrolled side effects. It needs clear and simple definitions, separating personal and nonpersonal data, with consistent and horizontal implementation, in order to guarantee the protection of individuals and the development of the European digital ecosystem.

The post European media companies warn ePrivacy law proposals could cripple business models appeared first on Digiday.

Twitter announced that participants in group direct messages will receive notifications if they’re mentioned during the conversation. The social network said in a Twitter Support tweet that the feature is now available on its mobile applications, with Twitter Lite and the web to follow. If you’re already a part of a group Direct Message, you’ll…

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Too Faced is proving  you don’t have to be a socially native beauty brand like Glossier or ColourPop to dominate the online conversation. The cosmetics brand, which was founded in 1998 and is known for its Better Than Sex Mascara, is currently on track to be one of the leading brands on social media for 2018.

From the start of the year until February 23, it’s grown its Instagram audience by 4.5 percent, resulting in over 10.2 million followers, according to a new analysis from ShareIQ, an earned media performance platform. That’s far ahead of more traditional competitors like Maybelline and L’Oréal, which have 6.4 million and 4.6 million followers on the platform, respectively.

Too Faced has seen significant gains in engagement — considered by many to be a more important metric of brand loyalty — on Instagram, too.

During the same period, it got 15 times the engagement of Estée Lauder and four times that of Revlon, both headliners in the category in ShareIQ’s last analysis, in October. A separate analysis from the visual intelligence platform Dash Hudson found similarly positive results: Too Faced’s average weekly engagement ratio is 0.8 percent, compared to its competitors’ average of 0.51 percent. That’s resulted in over 17.1 million likes on the platform so far this year and more comments than most of its peers.

Clearly, the brand — which was acquired by The Estée Lauder Companies in 2016 — is doing something right.

Partnering with like brands and influencers
Too Faced is capitalizing on outside influence as much as possible.

Its exclusive partnerships with Sephora — in which certain products like its White Peach Eye Shadow Palette are available only at Sephora or on toofaced.com — have paid off significantly, said Jonathan Gardner, ShareIQ’s director of marketing. In fact, they’ve resulted in some of the brand’s highest-performing visual content.

The two images below, for example — both of which tag Sephora (which has nearly 14 million Instagram followers) — garnered more than 600,000 likes. The second one, which went one step further with the #SephoraLovesTooFaced hashtag, drove significant new traffic to the Too Faced account, according to Gardner.

Naturally, the brand works with plenty of online influencers, too, ranging from Instagram model Alissa Ashley (676,000 followers) to the beauty vlogger Rose Siard (357,000 followers). Almost every other post on its Instagram feed features either a photo of an influencer or a tag. Some influencers, like Ashley, are clearly paid, considering the #ad inclusion on their Too Faced-related posts, while others are likely the result of a robust gifting program, said Helene Heath, a senior editor at Dash Hudson.

“Fostering strong relationships with powerful beauty influencers has proven to be a winning strategy time and again in the industry,” she said. “With a visually focused niche like makeup, it’s one of most effective ways to guarantee growth.”

Emphasizing user-generated content
Those relationships also ensure that Too Faced has a large pool of high-quality, on-brand user-generated content to throw into its own content mix, added Heath.

Indeed, the bulk of its content — a combination of selfies, video tutorials and product shots — is user-generated, with only the occasional brand-lensed product shot sprinkled throughout.

The brand certainly has a lot to choose from: Overall, there are an average of 20,269 pieces of this type of content created by its fans each week, according to Dash Hudson. That’s more than double the weekly average of traditional competitor L’Oréal (10,781) and social media phenom Lime Crime (4,429).

According to Thomas Drew, a social media strategist at the creative agency BlkBox, it’s also important to note the diversity reflected in Too Faced’s reposted content.

“Multiple races and ethnicities are highlighted on the page to show its product flexibility, which only positively contributes to their brand sentiment and creates a more welcoming environment for engagement on their posts,” he said.

Pushing a cross-platform strategy
Although Instagram is the predominant channel for the brand, Too Faced makes a point to share its content across other platforms like Facebook and Twitter to drum up engagement.

“Brands that cross-post content get higher engagement overall and drive their audiences to engage with all of their individual accounts,” said Gardner. “It also drives a significantly higher earned media value for each piece of content.”

An image of Too Faced’s Festival Collection that was first posted to Facebook, for example, received 20,000 reactions on the platform. When the brand reposted it to Instagram, it then garnered more than 260,000 engagements (the sum of comments and likes). Similarly, this image of its cheekily-named Glow Job Glitter Mask was first posted to Instagram, where it got 243,000 engagements, and then on Facebook, where it got 6,800 more.

“Brands that drive higher value think of visual content as not just a single post that has a short life of 72 hours or so on Instagram,” said Gardner. “They look at the entire lifecycle [available for] content.”

And it’s not just imagery the brand is sharing — Too Faced’s savvy use of hashtags is smartly deployed across Facebook and Twitter, as well.

For its branded holiday promotion on February 10 — dubbed “International Better Than Sex Day,” as an ode to the company’s beloved Better Than Sex Mascara — Too Faced used the #betterthansex hashtag across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to promote various giveaways. The hashtag, which was already in use before the launch, now has roughly 100,000 posts on Instagram alone.

Too Faced is following a similar template to celebrate the recent launch of its festival-themed makeup collection. The #tflifesafestival hashtag is being used on all relevant content cross-channel, encouraging users to spread the conversation from platform to platform.

“The brand focuses on a single theme and pushes it hard across all channels, driving consumers to seek out the campaign on every social network they use,” said Gardner.

The post Inside cosmetics brand Too Faced’s winning Instagram strategy appeared first on Digiday.

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The post Indochino And Daiya Foods Take A Hyperlocal Approach To Targeting appeared first on AdExchanger.

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