Author: rssmasher

Swedish national tabloid Aftonbladet has become one of Europe’s biggest digital-subscriptions success stories.

The newspaper, owned by Scandinavian media giant Schibsted, has amassed 250,000 digital subscribers (at $7-$12 a month) since launching its digital subscriptions program in 2003, a lofty figure given Sweden’s population of 10 million. Aftonbladet made 255 million Swedish krona ($32 million) in profit in 2017, driven by both advertising and subscriptions, according to its latest financials released last week.

Aftonbladet has a freemium model, so all general news and opinion articles that the tabloid’s 300-person editorial team generates are free to access. Those who subscribe to Aftonbladet Plus receive all in-depth features, behind-the-scenes editorials and deep dives the publisher produces as part of their subscription. Although most of the paper’s editorial team contributes articles to the Plus products, a dedicated team of 16 people works solely on Plus, creating newsletters and products and drawing on freelancers when necessary. Around 25 articles daily are created for Plus subscribers.

Like any national tabloid, general news, entertainment and lifestyle stories heavily feature in Aftonbladet’s coverage. Stories that are free to access have a typical tabloid-esque tone, with stories like “The Dutch foreign minister resigns — lied about Putin meeting” and “Begging man caught money laundering.” Sports coverage has proved especially useful for driving subscribers, with Plus subscribers getting access to additional sports-related products such as the Sportbladet e-magazine.

The clickbait-style headlines associated with tabloids tend to do well on Facebook, but Aftonbladet doesn’t rely on Facebook traffic. As much as 82 percent of its traffic is direct, according to the publisher, though it does publish to platforms like Facebook.

A monthly subscription of 500 articles costs 59 Swedish krona ($7), after a one-month trial at 1 Swedish krona (12 cents). A Plus Premium subscription has the same 1 Swedish krona one-month trial price before increasing to 99 Swedish krona ($12) a month. Plus Premium subscribers receive benefits such as downloads to travel guides and free streaming access to movies, courtesy of a partnership Aftonbladet has with SF Anytime, a video-on-demand service owned by Bonnier.

A key part of the subscriber growth has been to give all departments strict daily targets for converting subscribers, according to Ted Kudinoff, Aftonbladet Plus editor-in-chief, though he would neither disclose the targets nor how fast subscriptions have grown in the last year.

“We’ve done that for the last four years,” Kudinoff said. “This daily target has played a big part in how we increase our customer base.”

Naturally, data analysis also plays a core role in helping the Plus team focus its editorial and product efforts. Using in-house technology developed by Schibsted, Aftonbladet can closely monitor reading habits of both free-access readers and subscribers. The Plus team will often study which free articles get high traffic, then create standalone newsletters exclusively for subscribers around topics that have seen major traffic spikes.

“Our journalists now work very closely with our CRM [customer relationship management] teams to do this,” Kudinoff said. “They can see from our dashboards what topics are driving a lot of traffic, as well as what topics are converting subscribers, and that will lead to us making a newsletter dedicated to that topic.”

Video is also becoming a bigger part of the subscriptions offer. Kudinoff said it is hard to quantify how many videos it produces on a daily or weekly basis, as the news agenda often dictates that. For example, Aftonbladet will increase its video output to coincide with important moments in the football calendar such as the start of the Premier League season. The title doesn’t have any streaming sports rights, but it has so far focused on expert sports commentary around Premier League teams, as well as local Swedish football leagues. Some of these videos last up to 45 minutes and sit behind the paywall. In time, the publisher plans to further develop its video output for Plus subscribers in other editorial areas like entertainment, according to Kudinoff.

By any standard, the growth of Aftonbladet’s paying subscribers is vast. For context, in the U.K., which has a population of 65 million, Aftonbladet’s paying readers would equate to 1.5 million subscriptions, while in the U.S., which has a population of 320 million, the publisher would have 8 million subscriptions, estimated Rasmus Nielsen, director of research at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

“Aftonbladet’s impressive growth in digital subscribers is really encouraging evidence that popular titles, too, can convince people to pay for quality content,” said Nielsen. “Subscription models can work for different titles, not only elite-oriented, upmarket ones, as long as they have a clear identity and have earned a loyal audience.”

The post How Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet reached 250,000 digital subscribers appeared first on Digiday.

Agencies are rethinking dating policies, but the industry is rife with couples who found love at work. In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are the stories of five couples.

PMG’s Mari Diaz and Martin Rudler

Mari Diaz, an account lead at PMG, and Martin Rudler, a senior account manager at the Fort Worth, Texas, agency, worried about dating as colleagues. But that didn’t stop them, thanks naturally to an agency trip to a Miley Cyrus concert.

“The romance of that entertainer and concert was too much for us,” Rudler joked.

“We first bonded over the fact that we were both ambitious,” he said. “That’s how I showed my charm to her.”

They still tried to keep their relationship a secret from the rest of their office, but that didn’t last long. They eventually moved to Austin, Texas, where they launched a PMG office from their apartment. Today, the office they run has more than 20 employees. There are days the couple won’t even see each other at work, but when they do, Diaz said they are good keeping their relationship at home.

Still, Rudler said, “When the day becomes a little overwhelming, it’s nice to pull her aside and talk to her about whatever is going on.”

Leo Burnett Chicago’s Luis and Trisha Marques (and little Luca)

Luis and Trisha Marques first met when both were working at Crispin in Boulder, Colorado, in 2012. Luis was on a work visa from Madeira Island and an intern, while Trisha was working as an account supervisor. They began dating after long hours of working on product design for the same client project.

“At Crispin, it was like everyone dated each other,” said Trisha. “It’s a small town, and everyone there is a transplant, so everyone hangs out together and the agency becomes your family. A lot of relationships bud from that.”

Then Luis’ visa expired, and he had to return to Europe. The couple began a long-distance relationship. Eleven months later, Leo Burnett Chicago hired him. Trisha also got a job at Leo Burnett and began work as an account director a week after Luis began his job. “She was jealous I got a job at Leo Burnett,” said Luis. “She had always wanted to work there, so I told her she should apply.”

Today, they are married in Chicago with a 1-year-old boy named Luca, a true product of agency love.

Rain’s Emily Emerick and Andy Sheffield

Emily Emerick, Rain’s vp of operations, and Andy Sheffield, freelance creative director and photographer, first met in the spring of 2014 when he came to Rain to do freelance work for the digital consultancy. Three years later, Emerick and Sheffield are still dating and working with each other.

It wasn’t until Sheffield moved into Emerick’s neighborhood in Brooklyn that the two got together outside of work. “I was like, we should get drinks after work some Friday,” said Emerick. “One drink became five, and we ended up talking all night.”

The secret romance didn’t stay secret for long.

“I don’t think anyone believed that she was just waiting around for her neighbor to come to work,” Sheffield said.

Emerick said it’s refreshing to date someone in the same industry who understands the long hours. She and Sheffield don’t always leave their work at the front door. They’ve been working on a photography art project together for the past year.

“We definitely have a foundation of making things together,” said Emerick, “so there’s not this separation of ‘OK, we’re home; we’re not talking about work anymore.’”

Wunderman’s Christine Watts and R/GA’s Ben Peppernell

Not all couples who meet at the same agency stay at the same agency. Christine Watts, Wunderman director of business development for North America, is married to Ben Peppernell, senior copywriter at R/GA. But what relationship doesn’t need some healthy competition? The couple first met while they were working for Wunderman in 2011 in Sydney, Australia.

“I noticed him on the basketball team and liked his nice arms,” Watts said. “He was too nervous to talk to me, so pretty much ignored me.”

“I was not nervous,” Peppernell contested. “I was just really throwing myself into the game.”

In 2014, the couple moved to New York, and Peppernell started to work at R/GA. “Just like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, we’re pretty tight-lipped about any confidential work stuff,” said Peppernell. Since they have very different jobs, Watts said they are only competitive about who works at the better agency.

“If we were both creative, I’m not sure how we would live together under the one roof,” added Peppernell. “I’d keep my ideas notebook in a locked safe. But luckily, we’re not.”

Peppernell and Watts got married last June. Work tends to melt into their everyday lives, but when they get the chance, they enjoy going to brunch, traveling and fostering rescued animals.

EP+Co’s RG Lacandola and Jillian Cornette

RG Lacandola, associate creative director at EP+Co., and Jillian Cornette, content producer at EP+Co., first met at Deutsch in 2011 when Cornette was a producer and RG was an art director. They were friends for two years before their relationship blossomed into a romance over cheese tots one night at Crif Dogs in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

“I remember when we started dating, we didn’t tell anyone at Deutsch, so people would vent about the other person to one of us, and we’d laugh and compare notes at the end of the day,” said Lacandola. “When people finally figured it out, I noticed people watching what they said.”

Cornette said there are a lot of perks to working with Lacandola. “You always have someone to commute with, an awesome lunch buddy and someone to bounce ideas off no matter what time it is,” she said. “Plus, you both know everyone at work, so you don’t have to constantly explain who your co-workers are. ‘Remember Bob from media?’”

The post ‘One drink became five’: Ad agency couples tell their stories on Valentine’s Day appeared first on Digiday.

Telcos like AT&T are making a move into the digital advertising industry in an effort to dent, if not upend, the Google-Facebook duopoly. AT&T’s proposed merger with Time Warner, which awaits Department of Justice approval, could also be a way to break up the duopoly.

According to interviews with three media buyers, AT&T is actively talking to media agencies about its programmatic offering. “They talk a lot about brand safety,” said one buyer. “But they’re also more and more interested in the OTT space.”

The company is pitching buyers the “AT&T digital video advantage,” according to a pitch deck obtained by Digiday. It touts a high completion rate — between 95 and 97 percent, according to video ad company FreeWheel — and because it’s TV, $0 lost to ad fraud.

AT&T’s pitch is about TV and OTT advertising, including programmatic, at significant scale. Outside of Hulu and CBS All Access, there aren’t many services offering national scale for OTT advertising. CBS claims about 4 million subscribers between CBS All Access and Showtime. Hulu has 17 million subscribers across its subscription streaming and live TV offerings. Hulu’s live TV service has about 150,000 subscribers, according to Guggenheim Securities. Essentially, if a buyer wanted to buy OTT or television inventory online, options were limited.

In a fireside chat in mid-January at the AdExchanger Industry Preview event, Brian Lesser, AT&T’s advertising and analytics CEO who joined the company from GroupM, made brand safety the cornerstone of his pitch. He said marketers spend a lot of money on Facebook and Google, but the two platforms lack a “quality environment” for brand advertisers, especially in the digital video space, so AT&T can fill that void.

“When marketers go out and buy TV and video advertising, they deal with lots of small marketplaces,” said Lesser. “So who has the assets to build a better platform? On top of the list is AT&T.”

Through DirecTV and DirecTV Now, AT&T is pitching a programmatic direct private marketplace across the company’s OTT play. Inventory, according to the deck, can spread across “male,” “female” and “adult,” with network-level targeting available.

The sales team at AT&T is not yet divided into categories like auto or insurance, according to buyers. It’s approaching agencies in a more specific way. One buyer said agencies can call to ask for what they want, and AT&T sales teams will run the request upstairs and see what’s possible.

The deck compares DirecTV Now with competitors, including Amazon Video, YouTube TV, Netflix and Hulu.

“I think the world needs an alternative to big-scale digital marketplaces,” said Lesser last month. “And we have the opportunity to build the biggest marketplace.”

See the full pitch deck below.

The post Pitch deck: How AT&T is differentiating from the duopoly appeared first on Digiday.

Commercial broadcaster ITV’s pitch to advertisers is starting to sound a lot like a walled garden.

Marketers are months away from being able to run personalized ads across the broadcaster’s linear channels, said Kelly Williams, ITV group commercial director. Working with ad tech firm Sorenson Media, ITV will use anonymized targeting data to deliver ads relevant to viewers’ interests, demographics and lifestyles through connected TVs. It’s an extension of how the broadcaster, which has around 45 percent of the TV ad market in the U.K., sells its video-on-demand inventory, the analytics of which have been kept within its own walled garden — much to the frustration of media buyers.

This lack of transparency appears similar to Facebook, but unlike the world’s largest social network, TV’s walled garden can work for advertisers, Williams said.

The broadcaster doesn’t offer third-party verification, but it will later this year, he said. It blocks trackers and cookies on its site but is open to the prospect of a data alliance with Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky, so brands can reach viewers beyond the confines of ITV’s own channels. ITV doesn’t own any ad tech, but Williams said it would need to in order to profit from addressable TV in the long term.

It all amounts to workarounds from ITV to the data-management, planning and measurement problems inherent in the biggest walled gardens. “Addressable opens up TV advertising to a larger pool of advertisers that would never have contemplated using TV ads,” said Williams. “Advertisers and agencies are questioning what’s going on in digital, whereas prior to last year, there was a bias amongst the industry toward those channels.”

As attractive as addressable inventory may look to advertisers, it’s in short supply and expensive to buy. ITV’s move is one of the first pieces in a larger addressable puzzle in the U.K.

It’s why “TV should build a walled garden” just as Google and Facebook have, Williams said. Assuming ITV and Channel 4 grow their own addressable offerings beyond video on demand and can then “work something out” with Sky’s addressable platform AdSmart, there would be a greater need to safeguard against data leakage, he continued.

“TV is an incredibly high-end, quality environment, and we need to protect the data within that ecosystem. Otherwise, that data will leak, and you’ll get people who aren’t going to spend money and instead will reach our users on other sites,” Williams said. “I think a walled garden is exactly what we need.”

But broadcasters like ITV have arguably been building walled gardens since the launch of the first catch-up services over a decade ago. What’s making broadcasters tweak that approach now are Facebook’s and Google’s ongoing attempts to snare TV ad budgets, while Netflix, Hulu and Amazon are poised to take more share of budgets in paid TV. Addressable audiences for ITV, et al., are seen as a riposte to those challenges, allowing them to chase performance budgets that would have otherwise gone to online media owners. The issue, however, is those broadcasters need to prove addressable ads are reliable and can scale.

A senior agency executive, who spoke to Digiday on condition of anonymity, said measurement from video on demand in the U.K. is “poor,” and there is “no sense of audience quality” behind the viewing metrics from broadcasters. Meanwhile, other agencies believe advertisers won’t commit more addressable ads on video-on-demand players unless change occurs. Last summer, some GroupM clients spent as much as 15 percent of their TV budget on video on demand, which was ahead of the audience share it accounted for at the time, said an executive who asked not to be named. “We’d love to talk to clients in pitches about the way TV is embracing the future and not the way it’s sold in the U.K.,” said this executive at the time.

It’s too early to say whether ITV’s bid for addressable TV budgets will unearth its next big revenue stream because the broadcaster’s addressable plan is platform-agnostic, as the technology relies on the TV set. While Williams acknowledged the initial scale would rely on smart TV penetration — IHS Markit predicts connected TV penetration to reach 53 percent in the U.K. by 2019 — ITV can also serve targeted ads on free-to-air digital terrestrial via Freeview and Freeview homes, IPTV through YouView homes alongside free-to-air homes using digital satellite TV service Freesat and its catch-up platform Freetime. Williams said ITV’s addressable ads will initially be served only to linear channels watched on Samsung connected TVs.

The post ‘TV should build a walled garden’: ITV on the realities of TV addressability appeared first on Digiday.

ESI Media’s London-focused newspaper, the Evening Standard, has expanded its entertainment content in order to drive e-commerce revenue through ticket sales.

The publisher launched an editorial sub-brand in December called Go London, which features reviews and articles on the capital’s attractions such as the top power breakfasts, the best vegan pancake spots and the best theater shows to see for Valentine’s Day. Go London’s seven-person editorial team decides the content of all articles.

Approximately 10 articles are published daily to the Go London part of the Evening Standard’s site, double the amount of content published to the previous Going Out section, which has been folded into the same area of the site. Video and audio are small but growing parts of the mix, according to the publisher. The publisher plans to keep hiring, expecting to add six staffers who will be dedicated to Go London content by the end of the year.

E-commerce revenue makes up a small percentage of ESI Media’s total revenue, thanks to existing affiliate partnerships, but the publisher wouldn’t share figures. According to the publisher’s most recent Companies House filing in July 2017, the Evening Standard reported profits of £2.2 million ($3 million).

“The expectation is e-commerce will be an important part of our revenue, not just an add-on,” said David Tomchak, digital director of editorial at the Evening Standard. “It’s an integral part of the strategy.” While the publisher was unwilling to share how many transactions have occurred so soon after launch, Tomchak said it was ahead of schedule, with theater tickets proving to be the most popular purchases.

The publisher takes between a 10 and 15 percent revenue share from show ticket sales. It’s also exploring deals with restaurant-booking and aggregator services like OpenTable, but it isn’t expecting such high revenue cuts.

ESI Media has a hybrid e-commerce approach involving affiliate partnerships plus integrating its own white-label technology platform, Evening Standard Tickets, which pulls in application programming interface feeds from ticketing platform Encore. Evening Standard Tickets is integrated into the publisher’s editorial content-management system, so writers can enter the shows they’re featuring in articles to automatically populate the commerce feed via an API. Previously, the additional steps for completing the transaction led to lost traffic, the publisher said.

“Complete automation can go wrong,” said Sandro Del Grosso, head of digital partnerships and e-commerce for ESI Media. “We can easily syndicate [this platform] for other Evening Standard brands; the idea is to be ambitious with it.”

The publisher’s offering has some room for improvement, however. “The seamless ticket integration and purchase is slick, but getting you to that point is challenging,” said Guy Levine, CEO of digital agency Return, which helps clients improve conversions. “The homepage doesn’t show what its unique proposition is. The first rule of e-commerce is to make it apparent what you’re there to do, but there’s no organization of data.”

Publishers with an understanding of their audience are increasingly using content to drive commerce, but making it a more meaningful part of their business takes investment in staff, data analysis and content creation. Go London already faces competition from publishers like Time Out, but the team hopes that introducing more personalization features for users based on their interests could give ESI Media an advantage.

Traffic to the Go London section has increased 20 percent since December, according to the publisher, with search engine optimization traffic up by 63 percent since launch. Go London also runs programmatic display ads, and the publisher signed its first sponsorship deal this week, although it wouldn’t name the brand.

The post ‘Not just an add-on’: The Evening Standard bolsters its commerce play appeared first on Digiday.

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The post OTT Audiences Are There – So Why Aren’t Advertisers Buying? appeared first on AdExchanger.

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