Data-Labor-Technology

Innovation is a powerful force for business success, but big companies can sometimes be too slow to adapt. Corporate red tape, endless rounds of approvals and a general fear of failure foster cultures reluctant to give up on established ideas and solutions, even when they no longer serve the enterprise and its needs. Illustration: Alex…

In mobile Darwinism, every app fights for a consumer’s undivided attention and home screen, but the reality is they tend to stick with their go-to apps. And in fact, social media platforms like Facebook and Snapchat are the dominant species, comprising five of the top 10 free apps in the iTunes App Store. But it’s…

Saturday and Sunday were the two lowest-rated days for NBC’s Pyeongchang Olympics coverage to date. Sunday’s prime-time coverage of the 2018 Winter Games posted a Total Audience Delivery of 18.2 million total viewers, per Nielsen live-plus-same-day data and digital data from Adobe Analytics. That’s down 15 percent compared to the NBC Olympics’ total prime time…

Facebook execs have been using Twitter as a bullhorn to get their point of view on Facebook’s myriad issues with publishers across — a strategy that has been blessed, if not guided, by Facebook PR.

It’s also a strategy the platform giant may have been regretting since this weekend. 

An indictment against 13 Russians by U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller found that Facebook had an integral role to play in how Russian agents were able to use fake news articles and ads spread on Facebook. In a series of tweets, Rob Goldman, Facebook’s vp of advertising,  said that while he applauded Mueller’s indictments, he does not think that Russia was trying to sway the 2016 presidential election. He also said that the majority of how Russians spent money on Facebook ads happened after the election and the goal for Russia was to actually divide America.

Most of the coverage of Russian meddling involves their attempt to effect the outcome of the 2016 US election. I have seen all of the Russian ads and I can say very definitively that swaying the election was *NOT* the main goal.

— Rob Goldman (@robjective) February 17, 2018

President Trump then quoted Goldman’s tweet.

There’s been a firestorm of negativity since the tweets, which essentially are being lambasted for being, ironically. The New York Times and Quartz have both put out stories fact checking Goldman’s assertions, while Jason Kint, head of trade group representing digital publishers, Digital Content Next told Goldman to “go away.”

Mainardo de Nardias, executive vice chairman at Omnicom Media Group and one of Facebook’s biggest ad buyers, tweeted that Goldman’s tweets have created “confusion and anger.” OMD declined to comment further.

You really are not in a position to preach and your astonishing tweets have created confusion and anger. Enough damage done over the past 2+ years. In the absence of real actions silence would be appreciated.

— Mainardo de Nardis (@mdenardis) February 18, 2018

Asked for comment, Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vp of global policy, said in a statement that “Nothing we found contradicts the Special Counsel’s indictments. Any suggestion otherwise is wrong.” According to Axios, Facebook also made overtures in Washington to staffers on the Hill that essentially distanced its official policy from Goldman’s comments, showing that it actually had been co-operating with Mueller and the FBI in both this case as well as about issues of abuse on Facebook. 

Goldman’s tweets seemed to have been made in a personal capacity; and it’s clear that while Facebook has certainly been encouraging executives to use Twitter for a publisher charm offensive — and more — it doesn’t really have a lot of control over what they actually say. A Facebook rep couldn’t comment further on whether the strategy has backfired or whether it’ll be reeled in.

After Recode editor Kara Swisher essentially told Goldman to stop tweeting, Facebook executive and head of consumer hardware Andrew Bosworth asked if Facebook should actually not be transparent about its findings, couching Goldman’s tweets as a way to bring transparency to what is happening at the company.

This is an interesting Kara. You prefer we not be transparent about our findings? Agreed the context that this was just related on ads on FB should have been provided, but surprised to hear you call for less transparency.

— Emotional Support Boz (@boztank) February 18, 2018

Over the last two weeks, Facebook executives including product vp Adam Mosseri and product director Rob Leathern have been tweeting about algorithm changes, fake news and bad ads. It’s a looser approach to PR than Facebook has traditionally practiced; the PR team has been aware and encouraged the execs’ tweeting but doesn’t ask them to run it by the in-house team. The Twitter actions had gone over pretty well earlier; most people saw this as a way to humanize a company beyond just making critiques about it. But now it’s unclear that they will.

A communications expert at a PR company that couldn’t speak on the record because it has clients that work with Facebook said that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if Facebook started muzzling some of its executives, especially on Twitter, especially right now. “I don’t know if you want some keyboard-happy tweeters right now when everything seems to be working against you in the court of public opinion.”

The post Facebook ad exec tweets show the perils of transparency appeared first on Digiday.

It’s easy to hear the enthusiasm in the voice of John Bates, director of product marketing at Adobe Analytics Cloud, when talking about blockchain technology, despite numerous challenges. Blockchain
technology aims to automated the entire media supply chain, from creatives to contracts. Bates says the industry will shift away from focusing on the underlying technology and toward business process
and applications that solve real world problems. He spoke with Data & Programmatic Insider to talk about some of the changes and challenges the advertising industry should expect to see in 2018.

The system is designed to appeal to young consumers through its combination of “clean,” trendy ingredients promising healthful benefits.

President Donald Trump enlisted comments by Facebook Vice President-Ads Rob Goldman to support his claim that Russia’s paid ads on U.S. social media did not influence the outcome of the U.S.
Presidential election. “The Fake News Media never fails,” Trump said in the first of two tweets Saturday afternoon, citing comments made by Goldman on Twitter.

An image of three billboards — evoking the Oscar-nominated film of the same name — materialized in Florida following the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. The ones
depicted here in a tweet by activist group @Avaaz, which placed them on the sides of three trucks outside Senator Marco Rubio’s headquarters in Miami, read: “Slaughtered In School,” “And Still No Gun
Control?” and “How Come Marco Rubio?”

Prime-time viewing of this year’s Olympics is down 7% to 22.6 million when looking at all NBC platforms — NBC Television Network, sport cable network NBCSN, and viewing from NBC’s digital platforms
— from Sochi Winter Olympics 24.3 million.

Once Instagram launched Stories in August 2016, the feature spread like wildfire. As of November 2017, Instagram Stories topped 300 million daily users. Instagram Stories offer social marketers a great opportunity to reach a higher number of people by taking advantage of one of the fastest-growing social networks. Instagram has reported that Stories have encouraged…