Category: Data-Labor-Technology Stories

What happens to a community when local newspapers shutter? Small print publications not only inform the public, they protect it.

Our technology has advanced rapidly, but our understanding of what it is and what it does could use some work.

Chinese search giant Baidu is clawing its way back from a challenging year on the strength of advertising and its move to pare down its noncore businesses.

According to an article recently published by MarketWatch, Bitcoin has had a wild ride, and millennials have decided to go along for it.

Uber continued to boost ridership and revenue throughout last year, despite a punishing stretch that included a sexual harassment scandal, the resignation of its longtime chief and a blockbuster lawsuit from its primary rival in self-driving vehicles.

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“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Rachel Parkin, senior vice president of strategy and sales at CafeMedia. In ad tech, we either spend a lot of time hunting for the next big thing or kvetching about what’s broken in our… Continue reading »

The post Private Marketplaces: What We’re Getting Right appeared first on AdExchanger.

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Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Snapocracy Snap is opening its marketing API to all developers. Previously the API was only open to a handful of certified partners, but now brands, agencies and ad tech companies who want to buy on Snapchat can do so without licensing a third party.… Continue reading »

The post Snap Democratizes Ad API; AT&T Never Came Back To YouTube appeared first on AdExchanger.

At the Digiday Hot Topic UK: Data-Driven Publishing event last November in London, we sat down with over 20 advertising executives from major companies to better understand major challenges with using data in digital advertising. Check out our earlier research on brands’ plans to move marketing efforts in-house in 2018 here. Learn more about our upcoming events here.

Top findings:

• Thirty percent of respondents said unreliable third-party data was the biggest challenge when using data in digital campaigns.
• Eighty-two percent believe that third-party data is unreliable.

Unilever CMO Keith Weed urged the advertising world to address the murkiness and inefficiencies of the digital supply chain in his keynote address on Feb. 12 at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting. In a conversation with Digiday, he emphasized what he calls the “three V’s“: viewability, third-party verification and value. While Weed raises important issues facing the industry, he neglects long-standing issues contributing to the “swamp” in which marketers often find themselves. According to a Digiday survey on the challenges with using data in digital campaigns, respondents said they have the most trouble with creating reliable audience segments and securing dependable third-party data.

The post Digiday Research: Third-party data is a big problem in digital ad campaigns appeared first on Digiday.

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.