Category Archives: Next to Now

INVERSO VERANO

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How does Twitter reach influencers? Billboards.

“The micro-media app says it bought billboard space everywhere from Nice airport to the Palais.”

READ THE REPORT

 

 

Brooklinen (among others) drops Facebook to focus on OOH, broadcast and print.

“We’re trying to move away from Facebook as fast as we can.”

LOOK UNDER THE COVERS

 

Google Subtracts Ads (for Those Willing to Pay).

“Around 11 percent of internet users were running an ad blocker.”

SEE NEW WAYS OF NOT SEEING

 

From Madmen to FRENEMIES:

“If you ‘follow the money,’ Auletta writes, you’ll understand the importance of advertising and the significance of the threats against it, and maybe value it more, or at least disdain it less.”   High praise indeed!

TRY SIMPLY READING A BOOK

 

Is Social Justice Possible on Social Media? Online Redlining:

“Facebook allowed housing advertisers to block users from seeing their ads if those users had a black, Latino or Asian-American ‘affinity.’”

VISIT JIM CROW DOT COM

 

INVERSO INVIERNO 2018

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YES, VERSO CAN HELP YOU WITH SNAPCHAT

Big and bigger:

“Snapchat said it added 9 million daily users in the fourth quarter, its largest growth spurt since going public last year.”

AN ARTICLE FROM AdAGE

and …

What role would you like in the new e-commerce play?

“Snapchat is selling merch inside a digital store in its app, a new e-commerce play that could hint at more stores to come.”

ANOTHER ARTICLE FROM AdAGE

 

ALL THE VIEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT

The man who has reached a deal to buy the L.A. Times wants to revive print through the use of interactive technology.

What will your ad do?

READ ABOUT IT IN THE BOSTON GLOBE

 

SUPER BOWL:  AD-ing IT UP

Time to consult the elite for inspiration and caveats. Here are the best, worst and weirdest ads …

from the brains at NPR.org

from the show people at Variety

and from the business folks at Fast Company

 

AND BECAUSE STAR WARS

A very serious and relevant article to do with marketing.

GO SOLO

 

INVERSO for the new year

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CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO UNEMPLOYMENT

Beware of the “Yellow Icon” that indicates a “de-monetized” video.

“In November, Mars Inc., Adidas and Deutsche Bank all said they would halt advertising on YouTube [due to their ads appearing against truly reprehensible content.]”

Addressing this has its costs.  “For every YouTuber who hit it big and now makes money selling books, make-up or TV shows, there are dozens more creators who eke out a living advertisement by advertisement.”

Creators are at the mercy of algorithms (and, soon, 10,000 more humans) as advertisers insist on greater assurances of controversy-free content.

Depending on your campaign scale and content, you might want to consider what kinds of properties to include on your blacklist. The dangers are not limited to YouTube.

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP

 

FIVE DIGITAL ADVERTISING TRENDS TO WATCH IN 2018

Retargeting, privacy, and more in Marketing Land’s predictions.

“The US has essentially opened the floodgates on user data.”

LOOK FORWARD

 

FOURTH-LARGEST BOOKSTORE IN U.S. CLOSES

An opportunity for community book stores, and a loss for many who have no access to one.

“These streets look as if an overpowering recession had hit, but the unemployment rate in Wisconsin fell this year to a 17-year low. Mequon is especially affluent: Its household income is double the national average. This is Amazon Prime territory.”

GET THE DETAILS

 

GODZILLA GIRDS FOR BATTLE WITH MOTHRA, KONG

As above with retail, so below with advertising. Amazon is challenging Google and Facebook by diversifying its offerings

Currently it has only about 2% of the market against their combined 70% but it also has your wish list.  “Amazon showed some willingness to share more user data than Google and Facebook have traditionally — if the advertising budget was big enough.”

THE KNOWN KNOWNS ETC HERE

 

 

Next to Now – Late July Edition

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IAB FAUs with VR, AR, and FAQ

The Standard Advertising Units are meeting new standards, as the IAB releases its new portfolio of Flexible Ad Units, including Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and other formats, spanning the latest in social media, mobile video (vertical! 360-degree!) and even emoji.

The biggest change is from fixed pixel sizes to aspect ratios. This may not be a big deal this week, but like the transition from Flash to HTML5 it will be changing our lives very soon.

OK GO!!!

 

 

PROGRAMMATIC NODS TO NATIVE

MediaRadar says more native is being purchased while programmatic spending is down.

This is partly due to brand safety concerns but performance plays in, our own experience suggests.

Print continues to descend – but readers gonna read. It’s not dead yet, especially among the kinds of readers who buy hardcovers.

Explore Nativity

A fuller look at ad spends this quarter HERE

 

 

SEARCH NODS TO DISCOVERY

Giving the people what they didn’t know they wanted.

“It requires a lot of tracking resources, which is not an easy thing to do, but success on the web is not easy either.”

Shop around

 

 

THE 10 MOST WATCHED ADS ON YOUTUBE

Help them to be watched still more.

Takeaways: Know what your audience knows and use that to tell a story they’ll relate to.   (Bonus: spend lots of money.)

Application: Utilize comps, fonts, art, and language to build familiarity, and if possible subvert the viewer’s expectations in a rewarding (amusing) way.

BEHOLD …

 

 

Madison Square Park, NYC

Next to Now – Late June Edition

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PLUNDER THE INFLUENCE

Influencer marketing has become more widespread, with more than 200,000 such posts a month just on Facebook Inc.’s Instagram …  “We don’t want to be in the business of tricking consumers.”

Bloomberg on labeling influencer posts that are, effectively, advertising.

Ad it up.

 

POSTERS FOR POSTERS

This week we’ve seen a pleasant example of how a dominant physical presence – in this case a subway domination at the storied West 4th Street Subway Station – can lead to a huge social media presence – in this case a retweet by Stephen King to his millions of devoted followers.

Win for Winslow!

 

THE GAME OF DUOPOLY

“Two Goliaths and Not a Slingshot in Sight.” An insightful overview of digital advertising: Google, Facebook, and [that other stuff] from The Wall Street Journal.

Perpend the pretenders . . .

Next to Now – Mid June Edition

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Every Day is a GIF

Brooklyn Northside Festival on Facebook ads, branding, and the tao of GIF. It’s worth it for a FASCINATING SPOCK GIF alone, but also thought-provoking as we explore the possibilities of GIFs vs HTML5 in the post-Flash universe.

GIF yourself a hand.

 

THE END OF ADVERTISING

And the advertising of the ending. It’s a book!

Read.

 

BLOCKED ADS, EXPENSIVE ADS

Logically, if Apple and Google will be incorporating more ad blocking features, the supply will be limited and the cost will rise.  Verizon / Yahoo / AOL “bullish.”

Look forward.

 

NOW THIS

“Meeker predicts that in 2017, spending on internet advertising will surpass spending on TV advertising for the first time.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE!

Next to Now – Mid-May Edition

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ROBO-COPY

The next job to be obsoleted by technology will be the copywriter, says Mark Duffy of Digiday.  Your ninja can’t stop this!

Join the robo-tussle

 

 

HOW TO GO NATIVE

Pinning down just what “native” means can be tricky. But we at Verso have seen concrete results in native units using images that suggest non-advertising content.

Get friendly with the native

 

 

WITHOUT ADS, MUCH SUBTRACTED

“Imagine if the advertising-supported ecosystem went away,” she said.

Linda Yaccarino, head of advertising sales for NBCUniversal, on what is needed to compete with Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, in an era of declining ad revenue.

Identify the “real audience” . . . 

 

 

TREASURE ISLANDS IN THE STREAM

After a year of Facebook Live, the New York Times sees fewer views but more comments.

Engage.

Next to Now – Late April Edition

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NEW YORK TIMES JOINS SNAPCHAT DISCOVER

Where is the news going? Where is it coming from?

Is a picture worth 1000 words?  Depends on the words.

DISCOVERINATE!

 

GEN Z —

One wonders what the succeeding generation will be called.

“Luckily, advertisers can ensure their ads stay Gen Z-significant by leveraging 3 key elements in their digital advertising approach…”

WHAT 3 KEY ELEMENTS?

 

PINTEREST:  “DON’T LIKE US ANYMORE.”

Pinterest isn’t a social network, it says — rather it wants to be seen as a visual search engine.

“The hope is that you’ll get ideas for your real life, and you’ll close the app, get off your phone and try those ideas.”

Turn off that computer!  Go outside and play!

VERY PINTERESTING … 

 

PAMA CORNER

9 intriguing stats from last week via AdWeek

Bookstagrammers Event MAY 10th

 

SESAME STREET VERSUS DATA

Early studies showed that Sesame Street was harmful to the children it was meant to serve.  Mr. Rogers fared better.

Credible?

How to get to Sesame Street

 

Daffodils - Union Square Greenmarket

Next to Now – Early April Edition

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BEWARE OF ROBOTS

Not only are they stealing our jobs, they are “liking” us! There ought to be a tax.

“Facebook advertising has a little-discussed problem: When you run an ad, people operating fake profiles will click on the ad and like your page simply to make their own fake profile look more genuine, as if it is being operated by a real person.”

Read the Bloomberg article

 

IN FAVOR OF SELECTIVITY

Only 5,000 sites? Is this the Dark Ages?

“JP Morgan Chase slashes the number of sites where it advertises to 5,000 from some 400,000.”

Find out what happened

 

FILTER ME THIS

“YouTube races to provide more filters to restore confidence: new filters they can apply to campaigns that will help them avoid more types of objectionable content”

What are the new filters? 

 

THIS MAGIC MICRO-MOMENT

Google is touting the trackability of “micro-moments”

“90% of consumers say that they go from one device to another every single day, and 91% of them turn to their phone for ideas in the middle of a task. This is an overwhelming percentage to ignore. For marketing efforts to be successful, businesses must pay attention to these statistics.”

Read Forbes on this momentous turn

 

HALF MOON OR LONGBOAT

A nifty design article on the history of publishing colophons.

Undercover Branding The Stories Behind 20 Publishing House Logos 

 

AND “S-TOWN” RELEASES!

The new podcast from the “Serial” people.

Because Serial.

Next to Now – Late March Edition

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THE POWER OF ELLIPSES

A few words — or even a few dots — can make a big difference. Compliments of a PAMA Facebook post, BookBub’s 8 Book Description A/B Tests You Need to See …

 

GETTING BOOKS TO THE PEOPLE

Emma Watson and the Station of Secrets.

Watch:

 

CASTING THE PODS MORE FAIRLY

Find out how the podcast boom can favor and disfavor diversity in this Columbia Journalism Review article.

Why are #PodcastsSoWhite?

Also check out:

10 great podcasts to diversify your listening lineup

 

UNDER THE SURFACE ON WHICH WE DWELL

Programmatic is like a planet. We live on the thin surface layer but most of the hot stuff is under the surface.

“Facebook just executed what might best be described as a digital advertising coup against rival Google and its DoubleClick empire” by letting publishers use header bidding technology. This could raise ad costs but increase yield, says AdAge.

Drill a hole and peek into the Magma

Or simply find out:

WTF is Header Bidding?