Less BS, More Facts, Some Opinions
It’s game over for the traditional customer journey.
Today’s consumer has fragmented the ancestral sales funnel by wandering freely across channels and devices in search of the best product or deal. The average consumer owns more than seven devices, using more than three each day, of which marketers typically only see one, according to the Data & Marketing Association’s 2017 Statistical Fact Book.
To put it a different way: The path to purchase has evolved from a two-dimensiona
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Digital trading focused on the quality considerations and effective use of budgets last year, according to IAB, which believes that work around restoring trust has been huge and some of those initiatives are setting the industry on a course for a sustainable future.
“Digital is still a very young media with countless firsts and frontiers still to be reached, its fast paced and even the smallest contribution can make a titanic difference. In the end you need to be in it to win it though, and every innovation is worthy of praise,” said IAB UK’s senior programmes manager, David Frew, who is a judge for The Drum Digital Trading Awards 2018.
He continued: “These awards remain a great way to showcase exemplary work in digital that leverages all of the unique capabilities of such an interactive media. Digital remains, the best way to reach and wow consumers and brands need effective ways to expand from getting their message out there to holding an actual conversation.”
The Drum Digital Trading Awards, return for a fifth year to recognise and reward the very best in the ad-tech/programmatic environment. Entries are open to anybody in the digital media eco-system and will reward those who can actively show that what they do, day in and day out works for their clients or for themselves.
Manning Gottlieb OMD took home the Grand Prix prize, among other categories, for the campaign, proving mobile effectiveness for Specsavers. Talking about why the company entered these awards, Matthew Taylor, head of digital planning said: “The Drum Digital Trading Awards are rooted in digital effectiveness, whatever the category. As such, we really wanted to showcase how we [as an agency] typically formulate towards effectiveness, which for us is demonstrating our ability to partner data with creativity.
“The best use of mobile was one such category that allowed us to showcase this, hence its humble title ‘Proving Mobile Effectiveness for Specsavers.’
“To be recognised as the Grand Prix winner in this space was fantastic, especially as the Digital Trading Awards encompass such a variety of entrants from across the industry. As such, the sense of achievement for us and the client was palpable.”
What categories will you enter? There is a wide variety of digital areas you can choose, including: Best Audience measurement Platform, Most Effective Use of Data, Best Overall Technology for Programmatic Trading, Most Effective Programmatic Trading Partnership and more.
Entries for The Drum Digital Trading Awards close on Friday February 16, for more information please click here.
It’s been a strong holiday season for Spotify, which rolled out its fun, data-driven “2018 Goals” billboards, fact-checked the year’s top songs with The New York Times’ T Brand Studios, and unveiled personalized “2017 Wrapped” experiences for users and artists. Now, the streaming music service is putting a bow on things with a 30-second TV…
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With the continuing fall out of Brexit and how it impacts on consumer confidence, a knock-on effect will be how that influences brand budgets, and as a consequence, a push for real focus on ROI as a metric for customer success, according to Bing UK head of strategic sales, Aaron McGrath.
McGrath says there are two areas that should be questioned. How does the industry really drive ROI and efficiency? And how does it continue to build trust with consumers?
He expresses that ROI has always been a metric for success, but in 2018, what the industry will see is brands thinking about how much they are spending, how they are going to spend and how effectively they will do that.
Also, publishers, brands and agencies should be keeping an eye on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. How will these concepts be used as a crucial success to 2018?
We’re talking to machines a lot more than we used to, and machines, like Alexa and Cortana, are listening to us more than they used to. The same goes for image or video recognition, allowing machines to watch us a lot more than before. With the power of machine learning, machines are collecting all this data in a much more powerful way, explains McGrath.
The opportunity for brands, agencies and publishers then is how to turn that into an emotional connection/intelligence. Thinking about how they can be intentional about it and how to understand the emotion of the user/consumer in a way that seems natural to them, by overlaying AI with what is found to be the most intelligent and sending that message at the right time, to the right person.
However, there is always a danger when pushing out words like listening, talking, watching and collating, when it comes to machine. Consumers don’t want to be thinking that Big Brother is watching them at every moment. But the only way you can break down that resistance, according to Bing, is by being transparent about how the technology is being used.
As an industry, GDPR is an interesting reflecting point. McGrath asks whether everybody should follow the rules and regulations of governments and legislators or focus on how to really build trust as publishers, agencies and brands with the industry.
He believes this should push thoughts on how the industry can go beyond concepts like GDPR and how to talk in an open and transparent way. For instance, talking to consumers and users about how KPI‘s are connecting, how information is being used and how privacy is being respected within that environment.
The opportunities, explains McGrath, are unlimited, but as an industry, search needs to start with transparency otherwise the challenges faced in 2017 will continue beyond 2018
This discussion arose from The Drum Search Awards breakfast panel, in association with Bing on Monday December 3. The Search Awards are now open to entries for 2018, which will close Friday February 2, 2018. Click here for more information.
UK discount retailer Poundland has denied its social accounts were hacked after it posted an off-colour tweet where an elf on the shelf elf teabagged a female doll.
The brand’s creative juices were flowing in a post promoting its Twinings teabags where it asked consumers how they take their tea. The post, issued on Thursday 21 December, appeared on the Poundland and Dealz social media accounts and referred to the insertion of the scrotum into another’s mouth, a colloquialism often deployed and enacted virtually in video game communities.
International Business Times quotes the brand’s marketing director, mark Pym said he was proud of the campaign which cost a reported £25.53 to deliver. Cheap for the media space the stunt may have seized.
The post came as part the brand’s long-running #ElfBehavingBadly campaign that was running through December. There were complaints on Poundland’s social channels however. Some users enquired if the account had been hacked.
Hi Mark. The Poundland account has not been hacked. I am sorry that you feel this way and will share your feedback. Thanks, Zoe
— Poundland (@Poundland) December 21, 2017
There was also some marketing flattery chucked into the mix.
— Poundland (@Poundland) December 21, 2017
Further to this, there was a debate as to whether journalists should be pursuing this story. The jury is out on that one.
You’re aware that The Drum is a marketing news website and so reporting on a badly misjudged misogynistic marketing campaign is the sort of thing it does, right?
— Simon HB (@norock) December 21, 2017
Plus, Uber hires its first-ever COO, watch out for “porch pirates” shadowing Amazon trucks, and the year-end list of year-end lists.
Comcast and AT&T, among the bigger beneficiaries of President Trump’s tax reform and neutering of net neutrality, responded quickly to their anticipated tax breaks by promising $1,000 bonuses to employees once the legislation is signed into law — which Trump may delay until January. The new tax law drops the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from the current 35 percent, and includes other measures that Republicans say will spur businesses to invest domestically. Here’s what other big corporations say they’ll do with their tax cuts. [CNBC]
Uber hired its first-ever COO, the second major executive hire by new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Barney Harford, the former CEO of online travel site Orbitz, previously worked for and later competed with Khosrowshahi in the online travel business; the appointment gives Uber another leader with extensive experience in the travel business to repair the ride-hail company after a scandal-wracked year under co-founder and then-CEO Travis Kalanick. Next priority: Finding a CFO. [Johana Bhuiyan / Recode]
Here’s the deal behind Jann Wenner’s deal to sell Rolling Stone, his iconic music magazine. Penske Media is buying a majority stake in Wenner’s Wenner Media, which in turn gives it control of Wenner’s 51 percent stake of Rolling Stone. The deal puts Rolling Stone’s enterprise value at more than $100 million — which means Penske put in something in the $50 million range to buy the magazine. Wenner’s team describes it as an “investment,” not a sale. [Peter Kafka / Recode]
Dozens of companies are using Facebook to exclude older workers from job ads, including Amazon, Target, Verizon, Goldman Sachs, UPS — and Facebook itself. By targeting jobs to limited age groups, the companies may be violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which prohibits bias against people 40 or older in hiring or employment. Facebook defended the practice, saying “age-based targeting for employment purposes is an accepted industry practice.” [ProPublica / The New York Times]
Walmart is developing a personal-shopper service for rich moms — and a store with no cashiers. It’s all part of the evolution promised by the company’s new digital head, Marc Lore, who aims to make Walmart a significant challenger to Amazon. A new subsidiary, called Code Eight, recently started testing a service for “busy NYC moms” — the goal is letting these “high net worth urban consumers” get product recommendations and make purchases simply through text messaging. [Jason Del Rey / Recode]
“Porch pirates” are especially active during the holiday season, when UPS plans to deliver 750 million packages — up from 500 million five years ago. The more efficient thieves follow delivery trucks, scooping up packages as they are dropped off; the Nextdoor local network says it sees a 500 percent increase in posts about missing passages at this time of year. Meanwhile, responding to rising shipping costs and environmental concerns, Amazon is trying to reduce the number and bulk of all those boxes by experimenting with padded envelopes and more compact product packaging. [Nick Wingfield / The New York Times]
57 startups became unicorns this year, and seven lost their horns.
2017 is the third-busiest year for companies reaching $1 billion valuation.
Why Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir may be the biggest stars of the Winter Olympics.
On the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka, the skaters-turned-commentators say their sport is missing the sort of stars it had in the ’90s.
The year-end list of year-end lists.
Jonathan Wegener joined Snap in January to work on product. Now he’s gone.
Timehop founder Jonathan Wegener, who joined Snap in January to work on Snapchat’s product, has already left the company.
Wegener, whose old startup Timehop surfaces your social media memories years after you posted them, confirmed his departure to Recode.
“I had a great year at Snap — love the product, team, and learned a ton,” he wrote. “But ultimately I’m most passionate about building companies and products from scratch, and I decided to take some time off to travel and be inspired before I get back into the swing of things in 2018. Keep an eye out next year.”
People come and go at big tech companies all the time, but Snap tends to see execs come and go quicker than most. A number of well-known Silicon Valley techies have gone to work at Snap over the years, and many of them don’t make it more than 18 months. Here are a few examples.
Wegener’s departure also comes right as Snap is redesigning its entire app. The company announced the major redesign late last month, though it still hasn’t yet rolled out broadly to users.
Wegener was a big Snapchat fan before joining the company. “I’m incredibly bullish on Snapchat as a company and this new move in particular,” Wegener wrote when Snapchat launched Memories, its feature for saving photos and videos. “Snapchat is perfectly imperfect,” he added.
For all the “death of retail” articles written over the last year, there’s a reason to believe 2018 will be different. Why? There’s a renaissance happening in brick and mortars, where over 90% of all sales still happen (source: US Census Bureau). And one of the major strategies retailers are leveraging is…mashups. No, I’m not kidding.
What’s a retail mashup? Take your current shopping experience and add impact, fun, and relevance by combining it with a complimentary offering, and poof! You’ve got new reasons to want to visit and buy, and deepen relationships with shoppers in the process. Starbucks cafes at Target. RedBox videos at Kroger. Sony store-within-a-store at Best Buy. And of course Amazon and Whole Foods. You get the idea.
The humble mashup presents low-hanging fruit in the search for more and better reasons to come, see and buy. So as we turn the calendar to 2018, welcome to the year of the mashup.
Take CVS Healthcare’s purchase of Aetna. Far more than an experiment, it’s an investment to give consumers convenient access to health services, unbound by normal doctor’s office hours. It takes CVS beyond being a place to get milk, a prescription and a flu shot. Soon it’ll be the store you visit to get better. Customers will become patients, with access medical evaluations and home monitoring, and it should be a shot across the bow of every general practitioner out there. When’s the last time you got a carton of ice cream at your GP’s office?
And retail mashups aren’t just the domain of mega businesses. Take independent grocer Hy-Vee, which recently brought the fast-growing fitness brand, Orangetheory Fitness, inside their stores. It ups the ante on convenience, by matching one great experience with another. Maybe after a high-energy workout people might want to buy some of their healthier foods? You bet. And bringing them together deepens the belief in both as purposeful, innovative brands.
Then there’s American Eagle, for a long time indistinguishable from Hollister and Aeropostale. This October, American Eagle opened a New York location sporting an actual laundromat, where shoppers can do their wash for free while shopping. A bar and lounge overlook Union Square, in case shoppers run out of things to look at while their socks tumble. Mashup indeed.
WeWork has a whole set of mashups, including a fitness offering, school, sports innovation lab, and acquisitions like MeetUp. They recently bought the NYC building Lord & Taylor occupied for more than a century, an entire department store. Lord & Taylor will continue to occupy the first two floors, while WeWork will take the upper floors.
L&T’s products will be displayed within the co-working space, and WeWork customers will have to walk through the store itself to get to their offices. Got a meeting you need to look sharp for? Pop down and get something new.
We all know millennials are driving many of the trends we’re seeing at retail, and this group actually prefers retailers with physical stores. In fact, 82% of millennials think it’s important to have a physical store v 74% among all respondents, according to a 2016 Lightspeed / Mintel study.
The irony is, all the focus among retailers these past few years has been online. It’s true that in this age of Amazon, retailers have been forced to figure out how to deliver a convenient, simple and easy online buying experience. This is where most retailers have been playing catch up, and where so much red ink has flowed. But creating an easy online buying experience has now become table stakes. And online, while key, is still just a part of the total shopping experience. And any good retailer knows their physical stores represent the anchor in the retail brand experience.
So welcome to the ‘Year of the Mashup.’ Maybe Urban Outfitters will start putting pizzerias in their stores. Or maybe Patagonia will bring yoga classes to their locations. Whatever 2018’s mashups look like, it’s vital that retailers continue experimenting with ways to bring new relevance, fun, wow, and “I have got to visit that store” panache to the their total shopping experience.
After all, mankind doesn’t live by UPS delivery alone. In fact, the data say it’s not even close.
Which means YouTube may finally have a competitor for the music video business.
Facebook is finally getting into the music business.
Mark Zuckerberg isn’t selling songs or music streaming subscriptions. But his company has signed a deal with Universal Music, the world’s largest music label, that the two companies have been working on for some time.
For users, the deal means that if they upload a homemade video clip to Facebook or Instagram that has a part of a Universal song in the background, the clip can stay up without generating a takedown notice. That has obvious benefits for Facebook, as well (but to spell it out — Facebook wants to do anything it can to encourage people to make and share content on its services).
And for Universal, the deal means that the company now has a significant new revenue source — neither side is commenting on financials for now, but industry sources assume Facebook wrote the music a label a very large check as an advance, and that Universal can make more over the course of the multiyear deal.
Crucially, the deal does not give Facebook the right to create its own version of Vevo, the music video service owned by the music labels that generates most of its views on YouTube. On the other hand, now that Universal has its first licensing deal with Facebook, it opens up the door for other stuff down the road.
Perhaps most important for Universal is that it now has a credible bargaining chip when it talks to Google’s YouTube.
For years, the labels and YouTube have been in a symbiotic-but-strained relationship: The labels’ product generates lots of views for YouTube, which says it pays the labels plenty of money in return. But the labels have consistently complained that YouTube doesn’t pay them nearly enough.
Now Universal (and eventually the other big labels) can more credibly tell YouTube that they will take their product off the world’s biggest video platform and move it to the worlds’ biggest social network.
Not a coincidence: The press release announcing the deal quotes Tamara Hrivnak, the Facebook business exec who negotiated the deal with Universal. Up until last year, she was in charge of negotiating similar deals for YouTube.
Also not a coincidence: Universal and YouTube announced their own multiyear deal earlier this week.
Fox News has been taking steps to unify its TV and digital staffs, and now it’s about to make a big, visible move in that direction when the combined staff of about 100 moves into a new, centralized second-floor newsroom in late January.
The centralized newsroom has been touted by 21st Century Fox boss Rupert Murdoch and top Fox News executives and is seen as a way to draw more web users and TV viewers. FoxNews.com is one of the biggest online news sources in monthly traffic, with more than 82 million visitors last July, up from 63 million a year earlier, per comScore, but it’s lacked the strong identity of the TV station. The conservative-leaning Fox News was on top in both prime-time and total day viewership this past year, but left-leaning rival MSNBC posted the biggest percentage gains in key measures, Variety reported.
Fox News is moving in the direction of its competitors. CNN has had its TV and digital arms combined starting as far back as 2013. CBS’ 3-year-old streaming news channel CBSN has its operation physically situated near other parts of CBS, for example. Univision’s TV and digital have been under one leader, president of news Daniel Coronell, since 2016.
Fox News TV and digital executives have been meeting more frequently to exchange coverage plans for big news events, TV and digital. They’ve also done more to promote each other’s platforms. In a redesign in September, the site began showcasing Fox News’ TV talent and streaming a TV broadcast on the homepage, for example.
“We want to build consistency in the product across all platforms, so if you’re a Fox News fan on TV, when you dive into digital products, you feel a consistency, which in the past I don’t think was the case,” said John Fiedler, svp of digital for Fox News, adding that he has more regular interactions with the TV side than he has in the past.
If these efforts work as Fox News hopes, there will be more crossover between its TV and digital audiences. That’s hard to track because there’s no single, straightforward way to measure an increase in crossover audience, but executives will survey audiences and also look at what happens to the online audience and TV ratings.
Other measures of success will involve looking at workflows: Do more stories that originate on the digital side make their way to TV, for example?
Along with the increased collaboration, Fox News is getting more aggressive about pushing people back to its own site. It’s been aggressive in the past about distributing off-site to reach the widest audience possible. It’s regularly led publishers in terms of sheer engagement and interaction rate on Facebook by posting a high volume of conservative and feel-good articles in various formats. In the past, Fox News expressed confidence that if it got good engagement on Facebook, monetization would follow.
Publishers have cooled on Facebook as monetization hasn’t materialized, and Fox, too, has modified its stance. It’s still chasing audience and engagement on Facebook, but its stated goal now is to drive people back to its own site. To that end, it’s also making a bigger effort to go after search traffic. Fox News has increased the size of the digital staff, led by Noah Kotch, by 45 percent, with a focus on off-site distribution and bolstering overnight news coverage. Digital staffers make up about one-third of the newsroom staff.
In the year ahead, Fiedler said, the focus will be building community on FoxNews.com, which could take the form of commenting, more interactive content and even a paid membership program.
Some will see the new, open newsroom as not just a revamped space but a metaphor for cultural change at the company, which has had top executives Roger Ailes, Bill Shine and star anchor Bill O’Reilly leave as it has tried to move past its sexual harassment scandal. The newsroom changes also come as 21st Century Fox unloads its entertainment businesses to Disney, which will make news and sports the sole focus of the company and could give Murdoch an opportunity to acquire other stations. Fiedler said those events are unrelated to the newsroom changes, which have been underway for years.