At the Digiday Marketing Summit in December, we sat down with over 30 industry executives from major brands across the U.S. to discuss developing trends such as making branded content work. Check out our earlier research on how confident brands are about branded content’s efficacy here. Learn more about our upcoming events here.
Top findings:
Only 16 percent of brands think brand safety is a major issue.
The majority of brands believe campaign performance is the only major issue brands face in digital advertising.
Brand marketers are most likely to believe brands themselves are ultimately responsible for ensuring brand safety.
Disaster strikes. A brand’s ad is found next to objectionable content, whether it’s an extremist video, a so-called alt-right news site or a Logan Paul video. Brands have a predictable and well-rehearsed response: Public relations executives will make generic statements about how their company is “deeply upset” and “concerned” about being associated with something so contrarian to its values, promising to “ensure all necessary steps are taken” so it doesn’t happen again.
First, a bit of background (sorry). Before 1984 and Apple’s “1984,” the Super Bowl ad phenomenon didn’t exist. The much-hailed, sometimes-maligned commercial aired before likes, shares and engagement became important. But the ad went “viral” — it was replayed on newscasts around the world for weeks.
The spot showed no product, tested terribly and Apple’s board of directors hated it. (Steve Jobs, however, loved it.) Though the ad only aired once, it directly led to the sale of about $150 million worth of Macs in three months. That got marketers’ attention.
Fast forward to the present. Remember any great ads from last year’s game? How about from the last 10 games? One ad sticks in my mind: Mountain Dew’s “Puppymonkeybaby” ad from 2016, not because it was great, but because it was so astoundingly stupid. Do you remember the message? (It’s three things in one drink.) Or remember the drink name? Be honest.
Looking at this year’s spots, I see no ads even as “good” as “Puppymonkeybaby” (so far). What I see is the same repeated creative and strategic mistakes that have been made over and over in recent years.
Gratuitous use of celebrities in advertising doesn’t work
For years, studies have proven this. Sure, you’ll get some quick social “buzz,” but what you won’t get is increased sales: Just because Bill Hader is stacking Pringles, it doesn’t make me or you want to buy them, especially since the ad is solidly unfunny. We should expect this from a brand with the tagline: “You Don’t Just Eat ‘Em.” (Uh, yes you do.)
About half the spots pre-released or teased are celebrity-driven. At least Danny DeVito is shaped like, and is unhealthy as, an M&M (still won’t increase sales, bank it).
‘Purpose-driven’ ads don’t work if your brand isn’t directly tied to the purpose Budweiser is trumpeting that it used some of its production lines to package water instead of beer, which was then sent to needy areas. It’s a good public relations move, but it won’t do jack shit for sales. Stella Artois, another AB InBev brand, is also doing some goody-goody-water-thing spot delivered by Matt Damon — ouch, bad timing, another big problem with using celebs as linchpins.
Kraft, in a continuation of its “Family Greatly” campaign, will use consumer-submitted “real family” photos and videos in an in-game commercial. The deal here: “Real” parents (no coaching, I’m sure) whine and even cry because they’re not perfect parents, and children respond that they’re perfect just the way they are. Aww. What do Kraft products do, exactly, to help us “family greatly”? It should be noted that among many other brands, Kraft, which is over 100 years old, has contributed greatly to the deeply ingrained, unhealthy TV image of the “perfect family” (eating mostly unhealthy food). Hey, at least there’s a connection!
You want to see a good “purpose” ad? Check out this new powerfully emotional spot by Huggies via Ogilvy Toronto.
Even Skittles (via DDB Chicago) is whiffing this year with its pointless, awkward “we’re making an in-game ad for just one person” stunt. We’ll of course get to see the ad almost simultaneously online, but I’m just going to go ahead and predict it won’t be anywhere near as funny as the old insane TBWAChiatDay spots (which increased sales).
What makes a good Super Bowl spot? Here are two examples off the very top of my head (as in, they’re still fresh in my deteriorating 57-year-old brain).
1999: Monster ‘When I Grow Up’
Simple, brilliant and it hit — hard — a lot of nerves of a lot of unhappily employed people, and it made Monster an instant job-search player. Agency: MullenLowe, Boston.
1997: Tabasco ‘Mosquito’
No voice-over (OK, a bit of a contrived product shot, but clients always be clienting), minimal production cost, unforgettable product “demonstration.” Agency: DDB Needham, Dallas.
What made these ads great Super Bowl commercials is simple: They were very simple but smart — they didn’t insult the viewer’s intelligence. They both had crackling creative “tension.” They both were “big-impact” ads. And they both, engagingly, sold the goddamn product.
You want a big social media Super Bowl reaction? Create a great, big idea commercial. It’s that simple.
ABC News is seeing audience growth on Apple News, but would like to see more personalization options for the app’s push notifications.
Since adopting push notifications on Apple News in October, ABC News says it has picked up more than 400,000 subscribers to these alerts. To compare, ABC News has more than 2 million subscribers to its own mobile app’s push notifications.
When it comes to open rates for the alerts, however, Apple News lags ABC News’ own apps. ABC News app alerts have open rates that are consistently in the “double digits,” while on Apple News, its open rates are between 2 and 5 percent, said Colby Smith, vp of ABC News Digital. This is because ABC News can send personalized alerts on its own apps based on user interests, past consumption, location and other factors. This is not an option on Apple News.
“One of the things we’ve spent a lot of time on is using explicit and implicit indicators to send personalized alerts,” said Smith. “If we send an alert about news that’s happening by your intersection, you’re naturally more likely to open that alert.”
Apple hasn’t given any indication that it plans to introduce personalized alerts to Apple News, but it’s something ABC News and other publishers that use the app for distribution hope for.
Of ABC News’ 400,000-plus subscribers, more than half have opened at least one alert since the publisher started using alerts, Smith said.
On Apple News, ABC News averages just over one general-news alert per day, typically for its top story, while it will push out as many as three alerts on big breaking-news days. This is much different from its own apps, where ABC News roughly sends five to 10 alerts per day.
Apple News is also a growing source of referrals for ABC News. While Smith admitted that the percentage of referral traffic that comes from Apple News is still low, it has been growing in “double-digit percentage points” each month — with some months seeing spikes as high as 50 and 60 percent.
With Facebook changing its news-feed algorithm to favor posts shared by users over media content, some publishers are looking to Apple News to make up losses in Facebook-related referral traffic. Smith said that while Apple News referral traffic is not close to what Facebook has brought in, he can see Apple News getting to that level based on its current growth. “There are no signs of it slowing down,” he said.
ABC News has an eight-person team in its audience development group that distributes ABC News content on other platforms, including Hulu and Apple News.
“They are becoming an increasingly vital part of how we react to the [distribution] landscape,” said Smith. “This can also require strategic decision-making in terms of when to put content on individual platforms. For instance, some things we might publish on Apple News but won’t publish on Facebook. It’s important to have that one group that can oversee all of those distribution decisions and relay important feedback to editorial.”
JPMorgan is focusing its Zelle efforts on millennials, despite the platform outwardly claiming it’s not targeting that age group.
Chase will soon roll out an animated GIF campaign on social media as the second part of its Quick Pay with Zelle campaign. Part one launched last weekend during the Grammy awards, during which the bank ran a 30-second television commercial starring Sierra Leonean ballerina Michaela DePrince, Chase’s next “Master” after Serena Williams and Steph Curry.
With Chase QuickPay with Zelle, they can set recurring payments so you never wait for rent again. The best part? It’s already in your Chase Mobile app. https://t.co/eS06LGXpO2pic.twitter.com/tQyDUm75Hf
But the meme concept is something the bank hasn’t ever really done before – at least not at scale — and signals a necessary shift in banks’ digital marketing and messaging to customers as their interactions with every other brand become faster, more personalized, more relevant and more meaningful.
“What changes is how you connect,” said Donna Vieira, chief marketing officer for Chase’s consumer bank. “The channels, mediums and media you use; the copy and creative form like memes and GIFs. Clearly 15 years ago this would be nonexistent, but it’s how this audience communicates with each other, tells their stories and what they find engaging.”
Since Sept. 18, Quartz has sent a global daily Quartz Obsession newsletter arriving at 4 p.m. in each local time zone. The newsletter features content snippets like charts, statistics, videos cards, text, quizzes, quotes, timelines or polls so that readers can either dive into or scan the topic.
While the Quartz Daily Brief morning newsletter aims to bring the publisher’s business-focused audience around 20 important stories from around the web to set them up for the day, the afternoon Obsession newsletter gives people more time to go deep on a particular niche area, according to Jessanne Collins, editor of Quartz Obsession.
“There’s a sense of news-cycle fatigue, which can offer an important gap for media products to fill,” she said. “There’s a hunger for smart, relevant, interesting coverage that’s not regurgitated and not the same news day to day.”
Quartz doubled the number of subscribers to its newsletters, which include its Daily Brief and pop-up newsletters tied to global business events, last year to over 700,000. The publisher wouldn’t share how many people subscribe to Obsession, but it said the open rate is over 78 percent, much higher than the average open rate for media newsletters, which is about 22 percent, according to MailChimp.
While there’s a seemingly unlimited number of potential topics that Obsession could focus on, the task is finding the right level of specificity. The topic needs to balance breadth and giving readers a good picture of the story, rather than subjects that are too general like World War II or the Industrial Revolution, according to Collins. Quartz groups its coverage into “obsessions,” an evolving list of global issues that affect the economy. Collins added that the email is a natural extension of Quartz newsroom coverage on these topics.
The team takes inspiration from the day’s news to single out which topics to focus on in the newsletter. For example, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s address on New Year’s Day sparked an Obsession email about the “nuclear button” and how the symbol has been used in history and politics. It’s a dense topic, but it has the scope to be covered from both a narrow and wide enough perspective to warrant an Obsession email. The newsletter is also customized by location, and reporters from across the world take turns editing it, with the newsletter adopting a different byline each day.
Quartz Obsession opts for video and image cards, rather than text.
“We introduced the email to editorial as a new format for them to experiment with. There’s a lot more product capability and experimentation to come,” said Eva Scazzero, associate product manager at Quartz. “With each part of the story, we think about how it can be anything other than text and do as many of those as possible. You can convey a lot of information in a quick factoid. We want to put the maximum amount of information in a minimum amount of space.”
Obsession has collected reader responses for a month, whether that’s asking readers for their favorite mezcal recipes or what topics Quartz should feature, helping to build a community mentality around the newsletter, according to the publisher.
“Interactivity is core to the email. We want to get deeper into reader suggestions of topics,” Collins said. “It’s reflected in the scope of what we cover and that feedback loop.”
Hewlett Packard Enterprise and education technology company 2U have also sponsored Obsession emails, although the publisher couldn’t go into detail about its clients’ campaigns.
For all of publishers’ interest in launching more newsletters to engage directly with readers, an ongoing problem is tracking and measurement. Gauging success is variable and often depends on the publisher’s numbers rather than a third-party auditor.
“The forwarding email click-through rates [for Obsession] are really high. It’s a clear indication that it’s working,” said Scazzero, “but the topics are so different it’s difficult to understand what’s affecting that behavior — whether it’s the day of the week, the topic, the placement of the links — so it’s difficult to feel good about that number.”
If you’re wondering why you got the same Apple News push alert from CNN a half-dozen times Tuesday afternoon, it wasn’t a coincidence. (CNN said it was an Apple News glitch.)
Now that Facebook is deprioritizing publishers’ posts in the news feed, there’s more urgency for publishers to make direct connections with readers. That means they’re taking push notifications more seriously.
The Wall Street Journal has tripled, to nine, the number of topics that its mobile app users can followand made it possible to “follow” its writers so users get a push when those authors publish something.
Publishers are making an effort to stand out visually. Gannett’s USA Today grew its referral traffic from pushes by 18 percent by incorporating pictures, video and GIFs into its messages. The Guardian has played with the font and style of its push notifications. CNN is will begin adding rich media to its push notifications in the second quarter of 2018.
And while personalized push notifications didn’t gain much traction among publishers’ app audiences last year, publishers including Gannett are looking to infuse more personalization into the pushes they send. In a survey Gannett conducted with its app users last year, relevance of the content was named as a top motivation for responding to push notifications.
“If they don’t identify with it, they’re less likely to engage with it,” said Larry Aasen, director of mobile development at Gannett.
These moves were already in the works when Facebook announced changes to its news feed algorithm earlier in January. But as publishers try to make up for the loss of reach in the news feed, even areas that drive small amounts of referral traffic will become more important.
“You’re seeing a lot more sophistication,” said Mike Herrick, svp of product and engineering at Urban Airship, a push notifications technology provider. “The assets that are owned are going to be the most strategic.”
Publishers pay close attention to their app audiences because their response to a story often provides a good signal for how a publisher’s broader audience will react to it. At CNN, for example, the click-through rate on its app push notifications determines whether to move breaking stories to the top of its homepage or write more stories on a developing story.
“They’re optimal for getting an early indication for how a story is playing with your audience,” said S. Mitra Kalita, CNN’s vp of digital programming. “I used to use Facebook metrics like this over five years ago. You’d look at shares over the course of 20 minutes.”
The competition for space on users’ phone lock screens has gotten intense. The volume of push notifications sent by publishers rose more than 50 percent from January to December in 2017, according to data from Urban Airship. While there’s a risk that publishers will overdo it, audiences are getting used to a fire hose of notifications: Opt-in rates for push notifications rose 16 percentage points this year, also according to Urban Airship.
Pete Brown, a senior research fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and the author of “Pushed Beyond Breaking,” a research report on push notifications published last fall, predicts that images, automation and personalization will gain importance in pushes. Last week, Urban Airship rolled out a tool that will allow publishers to use artificial intelligence to schedule push notifications based on when the audience is most likely to interact with them.
Push notifications account for a small percentage of most publishers’ overall traffic. For USA Today, they drive just 10 percent of its mobile app opens and 5 percent of the mobile app’s pageviews.
Yet those slivers of audience are valuable. To receive a push notification, a person must have either downloaded a publisher’s app or followed the publisher inside a platform like Apple News or Google Play Newsstand, a sign of affinity.
“A lot of people would consider their push audience their most loyal, their most engaged audience,” Brown said.
While the digital media industry is no stranger to jargon, the arrival of the General Data Protection Regulation is unearthing a whole new world of legal mumbo jumbo.
With maximum fines of €20 million ($25 million) or 4 percent of annual sales on the cards for companies found seriously in breach of compliance, the stakes are high. So, it’s worth studying up on some of these terms.
Here’s one that often emerges in GDPR discussions: the Article 29 Working Party.
WTF is the Article 29 Working Party?
It’s a group made up of all the national regulators from each country in the European Union, which has 28 members including the U.K. until Brexit kicks in.
Why does it matter?
These are the regulators that will be in charge of dishing out the much-feared fines to businesses that breach the terms of the GDPR — so those that haven’t gained the appropriate level of consumer consent for data use. So, it’s quite a big deal.
Who is in this party?
The regulator from each of the EU member states; one representative from the European Commission, which has compiled the GDPR; and a representative from the European Data Protection Supervisor. They meet every month or so to discuss developments.
What do they do?
The group provides independent advice to the European Commission on all things related to data protection. Data protection laws are complex, and each market within the EU has different dynamics, so the group aims to harmonize and streamline the implementation of the law. The goal is to ensure that businesses in, say, France, won’t be dealt with more strictly than businesses in Greece if they have similar GDPR compliance issues. The group has also helped write guidance around the GDPR for their respective countries. The U.K. regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, has helped draft all the compliance guidelines for British businesses, for example.
Why is it called Article 29?
Articles are like clauses. This group is called Article 29 because it is named after the Article 29 section in the EU Data Protection Directive (which the GDPR will replace on May 25).
Will this group change after GDPR enforcement?
Yes. In fact, it will become the European Data Protection Board on May 25, the day of GDPR enforcement. The members of the group will remain the same, but they’ll get more legal weight than they have now to push through decisions.
How so?
“They [Article 29 Working Party] issue nonbinding opinions, which provide guidance and therefore carry weight and credibility,” said Yves Schwarzbart, head of policy and regulatory affairs at the U.K. Internet Advertising Bureau. “Their opinions are also taken into consideration by EU courts if necessary, but that doesn’t mean courts always follow their opinions.” But the new board will have the legal power to make final decisions on issues such as disputes within the group, should regulators from different countries disagree with each other, according to Nick Stringer, co-founder of consultancy Entropy and former head of regulatory affairs at the U.K. IAB.
There will also be different levels of fining power. For example, given Facebook’s European hub is in Ireland, it will be the Irish regulator within the group that is in charge of all Facebook’s data protection activities across Europe, according to Stringer. If Facebook was found to violate the GDPR, for example, the Irish regulator would issue any fines, rather than the ICO.
Will the new Data Protection Board include the UK?
That’s not yet clear, thanks to Brexit. For now, the ICO will be part of the board, given Brexit has not yet been executed. Whether it will remain so depends on Britain’s relationship with the EU after Brexit talks.
AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson learned about Mexico’s telecom market two decades ago from the billionaire industrialist Carlos Slim. Today, AT&T is challenging Mr. Slim’s América Móvil and has helped erase $8 billion from his fortune. The relationship between the two men is strained.
CNN’s Courageous Studio is only 2 years old, but it’s already a force to be reckoned with. The branded content arm of CNN swept the Digiday Video Awards Tuesday with three wins: Best Multiplatform Video Campaign, Best Brand Video Destination or Channel and Best Video Publisher Partner for Brands.
“We try to live up to the name, we try to be courageous, we try to be bold and we try to be relevant, and to have that recognized is really great,” said Otto Bell, chief creative officer of CNN’s Courageous Studio.
The Washington Post took home the award for Video Team of the Year, which was decided by public vote. In June 2017, Phoebe Connelly, deputy director of video for the Post, explained to Digiday why the team is trained to maximize staffers’ skills rather than have a narrow focus: “It’s bananas as an industry if we expect and teach our talent to think, edit and report for a single platform. We have to set the expectation that the platform you’re using is going to change based on assignments, months or the audience you’re targeting for the story.”
The Digiday Video Awards recognize the most outstanding and inspired work in branded digital video, video marketing and video advertising by brands, agencies and technology companies.
See the full list of winners and learn more about them below.
Best Video Ad Tech Innovation Immersion, Universal Pictures Mexico and Teads – “Jason Bourne” trailer When Universal Pictures Mexico was promoting the fifth “Jason Bourne” movie, it turned to haptic technology company Immersion. Using haptic technology for Android, Universal created a bumpy, memorable ride for the movie trailer when viewed on mobile. Read the case study here.
Best Advertiser in Video Truth Initiative and 72andSunny – Truth #StopProfiling Teen smoking rates are at their lowest ever, but anti-tobacco organization Truth is still trying to stop teenagers from smoking before they even start. In this campaign, Truth took a social justice angle, highlighting how low-income neighborhoods have more tobacco retailers near schools, and black neighborhoods feature more tobacco ads. Watch the teaser below.
Best Live Moment Team One – Lexus RC Real-Time Build Team One, Lexus’ agency of record, gave auto obsessives the chance to direct the building of the Lexus RC, a luxury sedan. People voted on the car’s modifications on Facebook; then, Lexus built the car in a 10-hour broadcast on Facebook Live. Watch the build below.
Best Video Ad Man Crates Creative Team – “Adventures in Customer Service” Gift company Man Crates delivers unique gifts to men. To warm customers up for the holiday season, Man Crates created a video series focused on the customer service inherent in the Man Crates experience. Watch the video below.
Best Brand Video – Single Brunner and 84 Lumber – “The Entire Journey” Pittsburgh-based creative communications agency Brunner shows it’s possible to make a branded video without focusing on the brand. Chronicling a mother and daughter’s journey to the U.S. from Mexico, the video highlights our shared humanity. Watch below.
Best Brand Video – Series Lyft – “Undercover Lyft” Lyft’s “Undercover Lyft” series uses the tried-and-true formula of pranking strangers. Celebrities and star athletes such as Demi Lovato and Odell Beckham Jr. pose as Lyft drivers, picking up? and driving unsuspecting passengers before revealing their true identities. See Beckham’s big reveal below.
Best Video Distribution Platform Brightcove Brightcove’s cloud-based video solutions software allows publishers and brands like Gannett and Dunkin’ Donuts deliver and monetize high-quality video across multiple devices.
Best Multiplatform Video Campaign CNN Courageous Studio and Volvo – “Racing The Sun” Courageous Studio made sure that Volvo owned the solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017 by racing four Volvo XC60s across the country, following the event as it happened. Four eclipse enthusiasts went along for the ride, sharing their experiences and perspectives on the science and meaning of the moment.
Best Social Video Campaign Likeable Media and Century 21 Real Estate – “Adulting 101” Real estate broker company Century 21 knew it had a fusty brand image among millennials. To counter it, it created a series of how-to videos showing millennials how to accomplish certain milestones, such as negotiating for a raise, managing finances and what to look for when buying a home. See its video on how to efficiently pack for a trip below.
Best Brand Video Destination or Channel CNN Courageous Studio and Volvo – “Racing The Sun”
Best Video Publisher Partner for Brands CNN Courageous Studio Launched in June 2015, Courageous Studio is rooted in CNN’s news practice. Its nonfiction, documentary approach has helped attract brand clients like Samsung, Modelo, Intel and eBay.
Best Video Advertising Agency Or Partner Epic Signal
The social media agency is a small operation, but it has pulled in big business since opening almost four years ago. Its focus on social video and influencer partnerships has earned it business from PepsiCo, YouTube, Amazon, MillerCoors and Starbucks.
The Justice Department and SEC are investigating Apple over potential securities violations related to its disclosure of a software update that slowed older iPhones.
