Author: rssmasher

Every year, a number of things die in media and marketing. This year, we thought we’d switch up the year-end prediction tradition, and ask people in those industries to tell us what they think will kick the bucket in the coming year. We granted sources anonymity so they could speak freely. Here are their responses.

Referral traffic: “In the short term, Facebook will be a worse partner before they’re a better partner. They’re confused right now. They had a shitty year. When you’re confused and scared, you go back to your comfort zone, and that’s peer to peer. I think they’re going to go, ‘This news thing is harder than it looks.’ But fundamentally, Facebook is a way less interesting place without premium content.” — Digital publisher

The 30-second digital video ad: “We’ll see ad length decrease to meet the demands of short-form video viewers. Six- to 15-second ads will dominate by the end of 2018.” — Video platform vendor

Facebook Watch: “Facebook will abandon the Watch strategy and reinvent a digital product yet again. They’ve literally abandoned every single video strategy in the past three years. None of the Watch shows are making money. People asked to produce content for Watch are not going to see enough ROI for it, and this mid-roll experiment is going to be a massive failure because users aren’t going to engage with mid-roll advertising. Getting people to consume video is the easy part. Getting people to stick around when you’re jamming in a mid-roll ad isn’t.” — Digital publishing exec

Fake influencers: “Bullshit poseurs who have built up their followers by buying them and baiting them, and then rip off the brands who pay them for influencer campaigns that don’t generate any results. The brands are getting too smart for this shit.” — Influencer marketer

BuzzFeed’s commitment to news: “BuzzFeed will divest one of its business to a legacy media company, most likely BuzzFeed News. Running a news organization is expensive and they have always struggled with monetizing it versus their lighter content, and the recent layoffs have refocused the company into building fast, efficient businesses like Tasty. BuzzFeed News would be a bounty to a legacy organization looking to jump-start their journalistic footprint against younger audiences. The most likely buyer will be NBCU because of the existing relationships, but what about the soon-to-be-merged Disney/Fox or even the eventually merged AT&T?” — Publishing sales exec

The independent media company: “That can’t last. Everyone will figure out a way to partner up with someone to get through the tough times, or bigger companies will snap them them up. Maybe NowThis picks up Mic. All these digital media companies raised so much money, they have amazing cost structures. It’s a downside to all the VCs and people who get laid off, but it’s necessary for the vitality of the space.” — Digital media operator

The cold war between Facebook and Google: “In the way Facebook came after YouTube, YouTube will hit back, along with Google, with things like better products, better monetization for publishers. Publishers had 45 percent referral traffic from Facebook and 34 percent from Google, and now that’s reversed. Google is the friend to publishers, and Google is going to keep on it and hit back. Zuck is in for a bit of a fight.” — Platform partnerships exec

AdExchanger |

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Programmatic Pushback The news company Quartz released a memo on Thursday laying out an anti-programmatic stance on advertising. “In a bygone era, advertisers wished to align with and support what they perceived as quality content,” writes Quartz publisher Jay Lauf. “That idea has eroded… Continue reading »

AdExchanger |

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem… AdExchanger: Origins AdExchanger: Crisis In Ad City (Part I) AdExchanger: Crisis In Ad City (Part II) AdExchanger: Enter Malware (Part I) AdExchanger: Enter Malware (Part II) AdExchanger: Enter Malware (Part III) AdExchanger: Enter Malware (The Conclusion) AdExchanger: Angels And Startups AdExchanger: Rumble In Arbitrage Plaza… Continue reading »

AdExchanger |

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Erik Requidan, vice president of programmatic strategy at Intermarkets. In September, I wrote a column that introduced the idea of demand-path optimization, the process by which publishers optimize the path from supply-side platforms (SSPs),… Continue reading »

Christmas is not an official holiday in Japan, nor a widely observed religious holiday, but it is celebrated nonetheless in its own unique way. Here’s some data that highlights Christmas in Japan.

Christmas is not an official holiday in Japan, nor a widely observed religious holiday, but it is celebrated nonetheless in its own unique way. Here’s some data that highlights Christmas in Japan.

Papa John’s founder and chief executive officer John Schnatter announced that he will step down from his role in January 2018.

The news comes two months after openly criticizing NFL players for protests against police brutality during the national anthem. The pizza chain, an NFL sponsor and advertiser, had seen its quarterly revenues fall since the football season started, with “significant decline” in TV ratings being blamed for the losses. 

According to the Associated Press (AP), Schnatter’s post as chairman (he is also the largest shareholder of the chain) remains intact. Steve Ritchie, the brand’s chief operating officer, will replace Schnatter in the top role. Ritchie said there is no word on whether Schnatter will remain the brand’s spokesperson.

Papa John’s recently underwent a creative review that saw the likes of Grey, BBDO New York, and Laundry Service competing for the business. Chief marketing officer Brandon Rhoten announced the winner of the pitch, Laundry Service via Twitter:

Excited to announce we have chosen @247LS as @PapaJohns Creative AOR. Watch your 6, cheap pizza guys. 😉

— Brandon Rhoten (@brhoten) October 31, 2017

Ritchie, who began his career at Papa John’s making pizzas and answering customer phone calls 21 years ago, said that the brand looks to compete with Domino’s, as well as other fast food brands by making it easier for customers to order a pizza from multiple platforms. The brand currently allows customers to order from Facebook and Apple TV.

[Read More …]

Papa John’s founder and chief executive officer John Schnatter announced that he will step down from his role in January 2018.

The news comes two months after openly criticizing NFL players for protests against police brutality during the national anthem. The pizza chain, an NFL sponsor and advertiser, had seen its quarterly revenues fall since the football season started, with “significant decline” in TV ratings being blamed for the losses. 

According to the Associated Press (AP), Schnatter’s post as chairman (he is also the largest shareholder of the chain) remains intact. Steve Ritchie, the brand’s chief operating officer, will replace Schnatter in the top role. Ritchie said there is no word on whether Schnatter will remain the brand’s spokesperson.

Papa John’s recently underwent a creative review that saw the likes of Grey, BBDO New York, and Laundry Service competing for the business. Chief marketing officer Brandon Rhoten announced the winner of the pitch, Laundry Service via Twitter:

Excited to announce we have chosen @247LS as @PapaJohns Creative AOR. Watch your 6, cheap pizza guys. 😉

— Brandon Rhoten (@brhoten) October 31, 2017

Ritchie, who began his career at Papa John’s making pizzas and answering customer phone calls 21 years ago, said that the brand looks to compete with Domino’s, as well as other fast food brands by making it easier for customers to order a pizza from multiple platforms. The brand currently allows customers to order from Facebook and Apple TV.

[Read More …]

San Francisco startup The Hustle started out as a newsletter built to promote Hustle Con, a free event for startup founders and young people on the make. In the year ahead, it plans try to turn itself into a service-oriented media brand, not just with more ticketed events but a software and product recommendation service.

“We get classified as a media company a lot, but I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate,” Hustle co-founder Sam Parr said. “I think we’re a membership company.” 

The fuel for The Hustle’s growing ambitions is its newsletter, which now has more than 500,000 subscribers, up from 100,000 subscribers 18 months ago, and an open rate north of 40 percent, nearly twice the 22 percent benchmark for a media or publisher’s newsletter, according to MailChimp.

Thirty percent of The Hustle’s newsletter subscriber base comes from a referral program like theSkimm’s. Initially, readers who referred contacts to The Hustle got swag like T-shirts. Today, if they refer 10 people, they can become one of the 3,000 Hustle Ambassadors, which gets them access to a private Facebook group for other ambassadors and The Hustle’s seed investors, who include author Tim Ferriss and Bleacher Report co-founder Dave Nemetz.

Those ambassadors, along with The Hustle’s most engaged readers, have inspired some of its new ventures. For example, the company noticed that people in the Facebook group regularly talked about which products or services were best for a specific task or job at work.

Based on that, Parr is building a product-recommendation service for business software that’s slated to launch in early 2018.

Audience feedback has also informed The Hustle’s events business. The site’s female audience responded positively to seeing other women as presenters at Pizza & 40s, an initially male-dominated lunch-and-learn event, so The Hustle — whose audience is now 40 percent female, according to Parr — launched a new event series, 2X, centered around female founders and executives telling their stories in a TED-esque 10-minute format. Two installments, held in San Francisco and Los Angeles, sold over 1,400 tickets that cost between $15 and $35, a big enough success that The Hustle plans to expand the series to 10 cities in 2018, including Chicago, New York and Austin, Texas. Until now, The Hustle has only staged one event outside California.

While growth and brand-building will remain important for The Hustle next year, Parr said his top priority will be ensuring The Hustle’s readers stay engaged with the newsletter. The newsletter is designed to be self-contained, so it regularly surveys readers to get their feedback. The Hustle also taps into Facebook audience data and third-party data sources to gather demographic data that newsletters do not readily offer up to publishers.

“There’s been a re-emergence of email,” said Jed Williams, the chief innovation officer of Local Media Association. “As you look at newsletters, the most important thing is how engaged that list is.”

[Read More …]

San Francisco startup The Hustle started out as a newsletter built to promote Hustle Con, a free event for startup founders and young people on the make. In the year ahead, it plans try to turn itself into a service-oriented media brand, not just with more ticketed events but a software and product recommendation service.

“We get classified as a media company a lot, but I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate,” Hustle co-founder Sam Parr said. “I think we’re a membership company.” 

The fuel for The Hustle’s growing ambitions is its newsletter, which now has more than 500,000 subscribers, up from 100,000 subscribers 18 months ago, and an open rate north of 40 percent, nearly twice the 22 percent benchmark for a media or publisher’s newsletter, according to MailChimp.

Thirty percent of The Hustle’s newsletter subscriber base comes from a referral program like theSkimm’s. Initially, readers who referred contacts to The Hustle got swag like T-shirts. Today, if they refer 10 people, they can become one of the 3,000 Hustle Ambassadors, which gets them access to a private Facebook group for other ambassadors and The Hustle’s seed investors, who include author Tim Ferriss and Bleacher Report co-founder Dave Nemetz.

Those ambassadors, along with The Hustle’s most engaged readers, have inspired some of its new ventures. For example, the company noticed that people in the Facebook group regularly talked about which products or services were best for a specific task or job at work.

Based on that, Parr is building a product-recommendation service for business software that’s slated to launch in early 2018.

Audience feedback has also informed The Hustle’s events business. The site’s female audience responded positively to seeing other women as presenters at Pizza & 40s, an initially male-dominated lunch-and-learn event, so The Hustle — whose audience is now 40 percent female, according to Parr — launched a new event series, 2X, centered around female founders and executives telling their stories in a TED-esque 10-minute format. Two installments, held in San Francisco and Los Angeles, sold over 1,400 tickets that cost between $15 and $35, a big enough success that The Hustle plans to expand the series to 10 cities in 2018, including Chicago, New York and Austin, Texas. Until now, The Hustle has only staged one event outside California.

While growth and brand-building will remain important for The Hustle next year, Parr said his top priority will be ensuring The Hustle’s readers stay engaged with the newsletter. The newsletter is designed to be self-contained, so it regularly surveys readers to get their feedback. The Hustle also taps into Facebook audience data and third-party data sources to gather demographic data that newsletters do not readily offer up to publishers.

“There’s been a re-emergence of email,” said Jed Williams, the chief innovation officer of Local Media Association. “As you look at newsletters, the most important thing is how engaged that list is.”

[Read More …]