Tag Archives: mobile

Next to Now: Fall Harvest Edition

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Just in time for the fall harvest, a host of new ad units are announced from Twitter and Snapchat . . .
TWITTER’S NEW “MOMENTS” FEATURE A PLAY FOR MORE ADS

Watch for “Promoted Moments” in the next few days. The ad opportunity will only be as successful as the platform that offers it. 

#social #twitter

PRE-ROLL ADS COMING TO VIDEOS ON TWITTER

More new features are coming from Twitter all the time, including video pre-roll. Publishing partners get 70% of the revenue:

“So far, 200 publishers, sports leagues and television networks have signed up to run the ads in their videos via Twitter Amplify, including the WWE, MTV, Vox Media, Aol and HGTV.”

#social #twitter

GROWTH OF TIME SPENT ON MOBILE DEVICES SLOWS

But maybe that’s because we’re already on them all the time.

#mobile

ON THE BENEFIT OF SEEING THE COMPLICATIONS

In Fusion, Alexis Madrigal offers a nuanced take on “The Deception that Lurks in Our Data-Driven World” that’s especially relevant for advertisers in the age of data:

“Take the ad-supported digital media ecosystem. The idea is brilliant: capture data on people all over the web and then use what you know to show them relevant ads, ads they want to see. Not only that, but because it’s all tracked, unlike broadcast or print media, an advertiser can measure what they’re getting more precisely. And certainly the digital advertising market has grown, taking share from most other forms of media . . . But scratch the surface, like Businessweek recently did, and the problems are obvious. A large percentage of the traffic to many stories and videos consists of software pretending to be human.”

#data

SNAPCHAT TURNS SELFIES INTO ADS

For a cool $750,000, Snapchat will turn its new selfie “lenses” into an ad for your book:

“The Financial Times reports that the Venice, Calif.-based player is starting to sell sponsored “lenses” in the coming months. This will add to a new feature the app rolled out two weeks ago, which adds graphics like big eyes to photos and vomiting rainbows to videos. The one-day ad unit will reportedly cost $750,000 for big-ticket holidays like Halloween and Christmas and $450,000 the rest of the year.”

#social #snapchat

THE RISE OF DYNAMIC AND PERSONALIZED CREATIVE

Advertising is increasingly taking advantage of personalized creative to boost engagement—whether it’s making sure the creative reflects the time of day, the location, or the user’s age:

“Among agencies that did use data for dynamic creative, demographic data was the most common type employed for the purpose, with 58.4% of respondents claiming to use it. More than half (55.3%) of respondents said they apply location API. Time and weather data were also used fairly frequently.”

#data

Next to Now: Advertising Week Edition

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Today is the final day of the 2015 Advertising Week, so the studies and new ad product announcements have been coming in fast and furious. Here is a selection of the news that we think will help book publishers reach their marketing goals in the coming year.

 

YOUTUBE ADS BECOME SHOPPABLE

YouTube is rolling out an ad product that makes any video shoppable—not just videos that you produce, upload and control, but those from other sources as well. This is a great opportunity to drive sales whether it’s directly to a retailer or to a page that offers several retail options.

#video #youtube #direct

 

PANDORA V. SPOTIFY

The two streaming services have proven to be very strong venues for advertising books. While they are similar in many ways, their differences are at least as important when planning your ad campaigns. When considering one service versus the other for an ad campaign, this article in Adweek is a good place to start:

“Pandora’s radio-like service is based on data—including email addresses, ages and gender— collected from 250 million registered users . . . 85 percent of listening is done on mobile, which is used as a major selling point in convincing brands to buy more smartphone and tablet-size promos. Unlike Pandora’s model, Spotify is an on-demand service that lets music fans listen to playlists or a series of songs . . . 50 percent of Spotify’s streams come from users physically pressing play.”

#streaming #pandora #spotify

 

ARE GAMING CONSOLES THE NEW CABLE TV?

Adweek says yes:

“Just as cell phones evolved into smart mobile devices capable of replacing laptops and desktop computers, gaming consoles have a chance to make cable boxes obsolete. In-console consumption habits have jumped in recent years, per Nielsen. On Xbox One, 51 percent of users watched video on-demand in 2014, up from only 26 percent of Xbox 360 users back in 2010. Likewise, 42 percent of PS4 gamers used streaming subscription services like Netflix and Hulu compared to just 23 percent of Playstation 3 users back in 2010.”

 

#gaming #targeting

 

REACHING MOMS WITH VIDEO

Google makes the case that YouTube is a great way to reach moms, especially through how-to and DIY videos:

“83% of moms search for answers to their questions online. And of those, three in five turn to online video in particular.”

#video #moms

 

BEN EVANS ON ADVERTISING ECOSYSTEMS

This 16z podcast features a fascinating conversation between Chris Dixon and Ben Evans about the advertising ecosystem: they touch on payment systems, first-rate journalism bundled with 3rd-rate ad products, user identity, and native advertising (“ads that people actually like”), and how ads have increasingly become unbundled from content.

#advertising #native

 

 

COMSCORE MOBILE REPORT HIGHLIGHTS

Highlights include:

  • All forms of usage are growing: desktop (+16%), mobile app (+90%), and mobile Web (+53%).
  • Mobile now represents 62% of all digital time spent.
  • App usage time skews toward smartphones for Millennials and tablets for older demos.
  • Mobile audience growth is being driven by mobile Web properties which are bigger and growing faster than apps.
  • Millennials mobile usage time is devoted to social, video, music, and communications.
  • Mobile ads work: they cause brand lift 2-3x greater than that of desktop ads

#mobile #data

 

IAB UPDATES AD GUIDELINES

Reflecting the industry shift away from Flash and toward HTML5, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has updated industry guidelines for the first time since 2013.

#creative #HTML5 #IAB

 

EXPAND YOUR LINKEDIN AUDIENCE

HubSpot has a simple step-by-step instructions on how to extend the reach of your LinkedIn posts with a sponsored post.

#social #linkedin

 

GOOGLE NOW ALLOWS YOU TO TARGET WITH EMAIL ADDRESSES

Google announces “Custom Match” which allows you to use email addresses you have have collected to target users through the Google ad network. Perhaps even better, Google also now allows you to use this first-party data to reach similar audiences (or “look-alikes”), who match the characteristics of readers who have signed up to learn more from you . . . but who themselves may not have heard of your book.

#retargeting #lookalikes #google

 

CINNABON GOES AFTER ORGANIC SNAPCHAT GROWTH

Cinnabon is using its marketing strength on Twitter and Instagram to grow its Snapchat presence (and reach the channel’s coveted Millennials) without paying for Snapchat ads;

“To help build a dialogue with teens going into the new effort, the brand hired two popular Snapchat creators—Danny Berk and Evan Garber—to take over its account and then ask fans to submit pictures of sweets last week. Within a couple of days, the brand gained 2,000 Snapchat followers.”

#social #snapchat #organicgrowth

 

CTR BENCHMARKS

We are often asked what average click-through rates are, and the truth is the number changes constantly depending on the year, the format, and the category. That said, Verso display ad campaigns tend to average at least a .10% CTR. An April 2015 report from Google suggests that we’re beating the industry average by a good forty percent.

#data

 

TARGET DISPLAY ADS TO OPT-IN CUSTOMERS

Verso partner AdRoll announces integration with Mail Chimp to allow you to use your opt-in email lists to target users with display ads.

#email #display

 

STREAMING IS GREAT FOR CUSTOMERS, BUT NOT SO GREAT FOR THE BOTTOM LINE

Books and Music are often too easily conflated, but it’s impossible to miss the fact that the same week that saw Oyster collapse, a new study reveals that vinyl LPs bring in more money than Spotify, YouTube, and Vevo combined.

#streaming

 

AN ARGUMENT AGAINST 3RD PARTY DATA COMPANIES

Cory Doctorow outlines some of the issues that have led to the growth of ad blocking and the three-way battle for control between Web publishers, advertisers, and users, and pointing the way to a possible solution.

#adblocking

Next to Now: First Week of Fall (Official)

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According to the calendar, autumn began this week. We can feel the turn in the air even though the work pace has been fall-fast for weeks now. A lot has shifted in advertising this month—between Chrome dropping support for Flash and iOS9 enabling ad blockers—and as usual we’re keeping an eye on what’s about to change even as we’re working to sell great books in the here and now. These links represent some of the highlights we’ve read this week.

 

“THE WOMEN’S MAGAZINE FOR THE NEW GENERATION”

CJR on The Skimm, Broadly, and Refinery29:

“They’re paying more attention to news and politics, especially on women’s and social issues, but packaged with the right amount of edge (Broadly), twee (Refinery29), and Sex and the City references (The Skimm) to be taken seriously by the savvy millennial woman.”

#content

 

INSTAGRAM POSTING TIPS

AdWeek gives an hour by hour breakdown of what people post by time of day. The study finds that early morning is the best time to post. Other findings:

“The most popular hashtags were #TBT (throwback Thursday) and #WCW (woman crush Wednesday) . . . And millennial women between 25 and 40 years old are the best “micro-influencers,” the company concluded in its research, which—in addition to the larger study—examined the Instagram activities of 2,000 adult females.”

#social #instagram

 

VIDEO TIPS

Because we all need to start thinking like videographers, HubSpot offers three ideas for rethinking your video content: (1) Make it shorter, (2) Make it serial, (3) Make it real (they use the buzzword “disruptive”).

#video

 

BOOMERS DISLIKE MOBILE ADS

A new study suggests that the Baby Boom Generation is not a fan of mobile ads:

“Baby boomers…had a highly negative response to mobile ads. They were less than half as likely as millennials to say they would accept ads in return for something of value.”

#mobile

 

SNAPCHAT MARKETING DEVELOPMENTS

Evidence that the Snapchat experiments are working is in: brands as different as the NFL, Burberry and Goldman Sachs are expanding their presences on the app.

#social #snapchat

 

 

THE VALUE OF “OLD MEDIA” IN A NEW MEDIA WORLD

We don’t normally link to Shelf Awareness because we assume that a vast majority of our audience regularly read it.  But it’s worth underscoring this Shelf Awareness report from Carolyn Reidy’s talk at BISG on meta data:

“[Although most readers spend an inordinate amount of time online,] it’s still very much old media such as TV, radio and certain print outlets that drive sales for new titles, even if a consumer is looking at the online version of that media.”

This is a point that’s worth reflecting on when considering your media buy: Where are your readers online and offline, and what are their most trusted sources for information?

#oldmedia

 

 

SEX AND VIOLENCE A TURN OFF?

A new study suggests sex and violence not only do not sell, but may actually decrease the effectiveness of the ad. It sounds like a convincing study. Yet, oddly, this Business Insider article about the study is filled with examples of sex ads?

#creative

 

 

NEWS OF THE ADBLOCKOLYPSE

THE AD BLOCKER WHO HAD A CHANGE OF HEART

This report has been everywhere in the news for good reason. The maker of the most popular ad blocking app on the App Store, had a change of heart and stopped selling his popular app. Here’s why:

“Ad blockers come with an important asterisk: While they do benefit a ton of people in major ways, they also hurt some, including many who don’t deserve the hit.”

MILLENNIALS MORE LIKELY TO BLOCK ADS

There’s a reason native ads and working directly with social stars on Instagram and Vine are on the rise for reaching Millennials:

“Research suggests that a solid majority of internet users ages 18 to 34 are now blocking ads when they view digital content”

“JP MORGAN: EVERYONE NEEDS TO CHILL OUT ABOUT AD BLOCKING”

. . . So reads the headline of a Business Insider story on a JP Morgan report on ad blocking, that doesn’t see much of an affect (yet):

“So far, ad blockers on iOS 9 are only able to block ads on the Safari browser. JPMorgan notes that ad blocking apps have “impressively” made their way to the top of the app charts, but Safari’s share is just ~4% on desktop and ~23% on tablet and mobile, according to StatCounter.”

#adblocking

 

 

Next to Now: The Fall Sprint

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January may mark the start of the calendar year, but for everything else — including book publishing and advertising — the real starting gun seems to go off the day after Labor Day. Which is a good time to remember that when you’re moving at full speed you better have an eye on the road ahead:

 

MOBILE PREPAREDNESS FOR TV CAMPAIGNS

If you’re paying for TV ads, make sure you’re paying attention to mobile media at the same time, especially if you’re running ads on a live event:

“Digital research is a natural activity to pair with commercials when so many people are already using a second screen besides the television.”

#mobile #social #tv

 

ALEX CHEE ON ELENA FERRANTE AND SOCIAL MEDIA

A terrific writer who is prominent  on social media discusses the improbable success Ferrante’s found in part by opting out. It’s all good, but we admit that this caught our eye:

“When I see ads from publishers now on book blogs, I still mourn the old reviews.”

#social

 

FACEBOOK BOWS TO PRESSURE ON ADS

Facebook announces changes the ad industry has been calling for: the option of buying 100% video viewability (as opposed to counting partial views), and introducing third party measurement of ad performance

#social #video #tracking

 

MORE ON AD BLOCKING

A smart piece from the Verge about the angst in the industry around ad blocking:

“You might think the conversation about ad blocking is about the user experience of news, but what we’re really talking about is money and power in Silicon Valley. And titanic battles between large companies with lots of money and power tend to have a lot of collateral damage.”

#adblocking

 

CLUETRAIN AUTHOR SAYS AD TECH DOESN’T HAVE A CLUE

The coauthor of the Cluetrain Manifesto, Doc Searls, argues against trends of personalization and targeting and for old fashioned values of good product, service, and honest brand awareness

#adtech #data #targeting

 

THE RISE OF THE HUMANIST SANS SERIF

Bloomberg takes a look at changes in logo fonts of tech companies, and investigates what that says about the evolution of tech strategy.

#design

 

IS LIVE STREAMING THE NEXT CRUCIAL MARKETING PLATFORM?

This article for ClickZ suggests it is.

#livestream

 

AL ROKER, “RIGHT NOW I’M PERISCOPING YOU . . . “

“. . . and boom: 40 . . . 50 people. Bam.” Ad Week talks to Al Roker about live streaming, video apps, and why he thinks people should watch video horizontally (even if they won’t).

#livestream

 

GO HAWKEYES!

The presidential campaign in Iowa saw its first geo-filter ads: Ted Cruz in advance of the Iowa-Iowa State game.

#social #snapchat #geotarget

 

U.S. READERS (EVEN THOSE WHO PREFER PRINT) ARE ON THE MOBILE WEB

But you knew that. Here are the latest numbers to back it up: 

“One direct consequence of widespread smartphone and tablet use is vastly extended mobile internet access. About 60% of North America’s residents—more than 215 million people, eMarketer projects—will use a mobile phone to access the web in 2015.”

#mobile

 

WHAT’S YOUR READER’S MOOD: DISCOVER, LEARN, TRY, OR BUY?

When it comes to the marketing funnel, book advertising usually leans heavily toward discovery, but the whole route to purchase is important to keep in mind. What are readers looking to do when they see your ad: are they looking to discover a book? learn more about something? ready to buy? eMarketer shares a chart from the CMO Club that outlines the different platforms US and European marketers find best for the different stages of the customer journey.  

#marketingfunnel

 

MYSPACE?!?

New owners Specific Media are trying to convince us that MySpace still has legs. Here’s their argument:

“In March, measurement firm comScore reported that between December 2013 and December 2014, MySpace had grown traffic in the US by 469%, making it a bigger property than Snapchat and Vice. ComScore said the “surprising renaissance” was thanks to MySpace’s pivot to music and video content.”

#social #myspace #again?

 

DIFFERENT GENERATIONS SHARE DIFFERENTLY

This infographic from Accenture shows levels of social platform sharing and brand trust across different social networks, broken out by age. What family and friends share ranks much higher than what brands share. Facebook and print newspapers are the most trusted platforms for paid messages; Snapchat and blogs are the least.  

#social

 

 

IS DARK SOCIAL A GOOD PLACE TO ADVERTISE?

Yes, says Whisper. Coke, Fox, and MTV seem to agree.  

#social

 

DOES PROGRAMMATIC HAVE A COST ADVANTAGE OVER PRINT?

Not necessarily, says this article for Ad Age:

“Programmatic ad tech involves not just the ad inventory at the end, but a trail of fees and costs along the way to pay for expensive engineers and traders, data-management platforms, research and development and more. It adds up to make programmatic buying more expensive than ordering print ad pages or TV commercials through insertion orders and other routine methods.”

Applicability warning: This is an article about campaigns that range from the seven figure to the nine figure. At the levels that book publishers typically run, the fees and costs are less onerous, but it’s still important to keep in mind.   

#programmatic

 

VIDEO AD ROI

We’ve linked a lot to performance numbers for video ads in Next to Now over the months. But it’s worth remember that they are also more expensive to produce. It’s this discrepancy that leads many marketers to worry about ROI and video ads.

#video

 

REACHING YOUNG (BUT NOT *TOO* YOUNG) USERS ON SNAPCHAT

Jim Beam is using Snapchat to market it’s apple-flavored bourbon. While Snapchat does not allow much targeting — and this is on purpose — they offer enough age targeting to allow the bourbon maker to advertise only to users 21 and over. There’s still plenty of market there, since Snapchat’s 21-and-over audience represents 82 percent of its total user base.

#social

 

PODCASTS REMAIN HOT

Book publishers aren’t the only advertisers waking up to the power of podcast advertising.

#podcasts

Next to Now: Labor Day Weekend Edition

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INSTAGRAM ADS PERFORMING WELL

While the minimum spend to work with Instagram directly is still too pricey for book publishers, those larger brands currently working with the platform are reporting highly efficient campaigns.

“For now, Instagram is still a premium ad space, according to marketing experts. Salesforce says Instagram ads get almost double the click through rate of Facebook, 1.5 percent compared to 0.84 percent.”

The good news is that we can access Instagram through beta programs with such partners as AdRoll.

#social #instagram #retargeting

 

INDUSTRY VARIATIONS IN MOBILE V. DESKTOP

While the pace of change is definitely tilted in the direction of mobile, different industries still see a majority of email opens on desktop devices:

“In the business products and services industry, for example, 73% of emails were still opened on the desktop—and the tablet open share was just half the average. Publishers, media and entertainment companies and travel firms all had slightly higher-than-average open shares on the desktop, while publishers and travel firms reported clearly lower-than-average open shares on mobile phones.”

#email

 

“FACEBOOK BEATS PINTEREST AS FOODIE’S GO-TO SOCIAL PLATFORM”:

“Foodies in the U.S. are particularly active on social media, especially on Instagram. Here’s a few of the U.S. stats that should be intriguing to food marketers:

  • 90 percent of American foodies use Facebook.

  • 36 percent of them visit Pinterest.

  • 73 percent scroll through Instagram (a big leap from 17 percent worldwide).”

On the other hand:

“Benjamin Bourinat, director of public relations and social media at Sopexa, explained that while Pinterest claims a low percentage of users, people come back repeatedly to the site and app. ‘What’s interesting about Pinterest is [that it’s] very niche—the level of engagement is high because loyalty is just stronger on Pinterest,’ he said.”

#social #food

 

WECHAT OPENS AD PLATFORM ANOTHER NOTCH WIDER

WeChat recently opened their “Sponsored Moments” platform to wider advertising. As the minimum spend drops from roughly $800,000 to about $31,000, the platform is now within the range of a large book advertising budget. The service does not have the U.S. presence that would make it useful to American publishers, but it’s a good development for the future of messaging as an advertising medium

#messaging

 

FACEBOOK AD PERFORMANCE UPDATE

New Facebook stats were recently announced, including average CTR, CPM, and CPC across the platform for Q2 2013 and 2014. Spoiler alert, everything’s going up: .36% CTR, $1.95 CPM, and $0.55 CPC for Q2 2014.  

#social

 

REACHING GAMERS ON YOUTUBE

YouTube NOW aggregates 25,000 gamer channels. It’s a huge market, especially good for reaching young males. But it’s not only about young males, which Kimberly-Clark makes clear, targeting women with a :30 spot for Kotex.

#video #gaming

 

NEW FACEBOOK AD UNITS

Animated .gifs come to Facebook . . . for Wendy’s and Coke, anyway. The good news is that this kind of test heralds the opening of the platform to gifs from other advertisers relatively soon.  

#visual

 

NEW MOBILE MESSAGING AND SOCIAL MEDIA STATS

Pew has released a new survey of mobile messaging and social media. Some key figures:

  • 36% of mobile users use messaging apps such as WeChat or Kik (49% of ages 18-29)
  • 17% of mobile users use messaging apps in which messages instantly disappear (as in Snapchat) — 41% of ages 18-29
  • 59% of Instagram users visit the site daily (70% Facebook, 27% for Pinterest and 22% for LinkedIn)
  • 62% of all American adults use Facebook (66% of male internet users, 77% of female internet users)

#mobile #messaging #social

 

NYT DIGITAL SUBSCRIBERS UP

The New York Times reaches 1MM digital subscribers.

#digital #news

 

NYT NEWSLETTER NEWS

New York Times gets 20% open rate in newsletters. How? Highly curated by trusted editors plus a seriously engaged opt-in audience. It’s why we love them.

#email

 

GOOGLE’S BEST PRACTICES FOR BANNER CREATIVE

Google released a pretty good  primer on banner ad creative.

#creative

 

SLOW JOURNALISM IS IN OUR WHEELHOUSE

Nieman reports on the value of slow journalism (that’s our specialty, book people) in the age of instant information.

#news

 

PROGRAMMATIC VIDEO DEVELOPMENTS

Hulu is experimenting with opening their video ad platform to programmatic buying.

#video #programmatic

 

IS INSTAGRAM CHANGING HOW AGENCIES APPROACH CREATIVE?

Spoiler alert: Yes, creative is getting much less spontaneous in look and feel. Our favorite quote comes from Chris Corley, group creative director at VML in Kansas City:

“I think we do have the obligation to sell, but we also have an obligation to not pollute the world with garbage.”

Fair enough.

#social #creative

Next to Now: “Everybody in the Pool” Edition

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PERISCOPE UP

Periscope now has 10 million users who watch 21 million minutes a day.

#social #video

FACEBOOK ADS OUTPERFORM OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS

More marketers say they’re satisfied with Facebook ad performance than say the same about LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube. Those platforms all serve very different functions so it’s a little disingenuous to put them all together in a group as if it’s a single horse-race, but it’s worth keeping in mind. As is this tidbit in the last sentence of the post:

“The report also said paid advertising now accounts for 83% of marketers’ social spending, as it becomes harder to reach users on those social platforms without paying to do so.”

#social

NEW FACEBOOK AD PRODUCTS

The recently launched Carousel unit is already one of the best performing Facebook ad units and the Dynamic Product Ads are sure to be the same (though they are more relevant to retailers than to brand advertisers).

#social

MORE ON AD BLOCKING

Four charts that say ad blocking is something we need to face.

#adblocking

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

One way around ad blocking is increased native options, including new campaigns that target ads to specific real-time moments based on hundreds of factors, from biometric data collected by your cell phone to real-time events such as when your favorite team wins or if you attain a new level in a video game.

#mobile #native

“I AM VERTICAL / BUT I WOULD RATHER BE HORIZONTAL.”

That’s what Sylvia Plath wrote in her poem “I Am Vertical.” It’s a sentiment that applied to video shot for the Web–at least until recently, when platforms such as Snapchat, Periscope, and Meerkat definitely prefer vertically shot video. (Really? Turning your phone to the side to watch a video just takes too much time.)

Farhad Manjoo weighs in on vertical video orientation for the New York Times: “not a crime.”

#video

WHAT’S THE RIGHT MEDIUM FOR YOUR MARKETING: INSTAGRAM OR PINTEREST?

This ClickZ article does a good job outlining the pros and cons of each platform. But what it really comes down to is knowing the ins and outs of whatever platform you’re using to promote your books. Interact using each platform’s native trends, tools and tendencies.

#social

DON’T SLEEP ON VINE

Everyone has been focused on Snapchat, but meanwhile Vine continues to develop a healthy, responsive audience.

#social

ARE VIDEO ADS PERFORMING GREAT FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS?

We know video ads work . . .

“When Q1 2015 polling by Aol queried US internet users ages 13 to 54 who watched video on a mobile device at least monthly about ad recall, more than eight in 10 remembered digital video placements on each option listed: 84% recalled those on tablets, 83% on smartphones and 82% on PCs.”

. . . .but do people remember them in the way because they’re particularly annoying? Maybe. That said, the problems cited in this survey are fixable: keep repetition down (not a problem for book publishers given our budgets) and keep the videos short (who’s going to tell the editor we can’t use *all* the quotes?).  

#video

EMAIL IS (STILL) NOT DEAD

Email marketing is not sexy but it has 3 things going for it: (1) ability to use big data to personalize communication, (2) ease of integrating with other marketing channels, (3) ability to measure and adapt every day

#email

INSTAGRAM, HASHTAGS, AND GOLDILOCKS

How many hashtags should you use in your Instagram posts? Three is too many, one is too few, two is *just* right.

#social

This week's cover art is taken from Ida Applebroog's recent show, "The Ethics of Desire," at Hauser and Wirth. It is from a series of scenes she painted on folding chairs.

Next to Now: Good News / Bad News Edition

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GOOD NEWS FOR PANDORA LISTENERS . . . AND ADVERTISERS

Pandora’s sponsored listening program leads to higher ad engagement by *decreasing* the frequency of the ads. We think that advertising which helps users get what they want works much better than advertising that interrupts what they want.

#audio

 

GOOD NEWS FOR INSTAGRAM

The opening of its ad platform could well mean that Instagram will make more from mobile in 2017 than Google or Twitter.

#social

 

GOOD NEWS FOR HULU

With all the big streaming news coming from Netflix (on which we can’t yet advertise), you might wonder if Hulu (on which we have run many successful ad campaigns) can keep up. Turns out they’re doing very well, thank you: With brand-new content deals for Showtime (including Homeland, The Affair and Masters of Sex) and getting the Hulu remote app up and running on Apple Watch, they’re continuing to stay ahead of a fast-swimming pack.

#video #streaming

 

 

BAD NEWS FOR BROADCAST TV (lots of it):

Younger demographics are abandoning traditional TV in droves. (via @BenedictEvans)

Also a BI article about the same study. 

The change in TV consumption is in its infancy, but it’s far enough along that we can start to see trends in how it’s developing. Here are some of the ways.

More signs of the switch in TV consumption: For the first time, more people are using Comcast for internet than for TV . . .

Or you could pay up to $200k for a thirty second spot on Caitlyn Jenner’s new show.

#video #probablytechnicallygoodnews

 

 

BAD NEWS FOR “OLD GAWKER”

It hasn’t been a great time to lead, read, or work at Gawker recently. We trust they’ll turn it around.

#media

 

BAD NEWS FOR TWITTER

Bad news for Twitter and its advertisers: A June 2015 study suggests only 3% of Twitter users find ads on Twitter relevant. This is fixable, but will take better work on both the creative and targeting sides.

There was some good news in Twitter’s earning’s call on Tuesday, where it announced higher than expecting revenues, but investors were unimpressed with user growth. 

#social

 

 

THIS THING IS “BAD NEWS” BY DESIGN:

“If a thing is designed to kill you, it is, by definition, bad design”: Mike Monteiro in Dear Design Student.

(via @NextDraft http://nextdraft.com/ )

#design

 

 

BAD NEWS FOR BACK-TO-SCHOOL SALES . . .

“Parents are blowing-off back-to-school shopping.” The article blames this on poor mobile advertising, but we think it is simply more a reflection of larger trends: toward flexibility and buying what you need when you need it, and away from the long-term planning style of household management.

#backtoschool #mobile

 

. . . OR IS THAT GOOD NEWS?

Google uncovers trends and shares advice about reaching back-to-school shoppers based on search trends. Since search interest for “back to school” rose 48% last year, it’s worth giving them a listen.

#search

 

 

GOOD NEWS? BAD NEWS? DEPENDS HOW YOU LOOK AT IT

ClickZ published a useful thought piece about targeting: The more smartphones know about us, the better advertisers (like us) can target ads. Generally, we think this is a positive thing when it’s applied with care and respect for people. But do we want a world where the health tracker on your phone suggests you have indicators of heart disease . . . so you get served an ad for a book on heart disease? Yes and no.

#mobile #targeting

 

 

 

Next to Now: Heart of the Summer Edition

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It’s alive!

Twitter makes it easier to link your advertising campaign to live events.

#social #live

 

Are interstitials worth it?

Google says they deliver great click-through numbers but also high levels of bad feeling.

#advertising

 

Peep shows, drones, and caffeine-ready concerts.

Check out some early marketing experiments with Perisocope.

#streaming #social

 

YouTube getting VR-ready.

“YouTube launched its first 360-degree video ad yesterday.”

#video

 

Apple gets into the streaming radio business.

“Earlier this year, Apple extended its mobile advertising network to iTunes Radio, its web streaming service that competes with Pandora, through programmatic ad buying.”

#programmatic #audio

 

“I ALWAYS MISSPELL GENIUS SMH! THE IRONY!”

For your next ad, might we humbly suggest an artisanal font made expressly for Kanye? Inspired by Kanye’s tweet, “Sometimes I get emotional over fonts,” Yeezy Display will add a mere $50,000 to your production cost.

(Via Dark Matter Issue 049)

#design #yeezy

 

The return to the couch.

OTT Devices (“Over the Top” boxes such as Apple TV or Roku) are bringing Hulu viewers, and presumably other streamers, back to the living couch—which means TV is regaining its “real-life” social component (because the couch is where we can watch with other people), without necessarily losing its digitally social component.

#video #streaming

 

Email on the fly.

There’s no more question about it, email is majority mobile-first.

#email #mobile #samething

 

The end of Inbox Zero?

It’s probably not a coincidence that the move to mobile with email is happening at the same time as we are rethinking workflow:

“Inbox Zero, while a great concept within the limits of email and paper (“Clean Desk policy”), is a fundamentally authoritarian high-modernist concept. It creates a strong, bright line between profane and sacred regimes of information, and encourages you to get to illusory control (a clean inbox) by hiding precisely the illegible chaos that’s tempting and dangerous to ignore (if you use folders, you likely have one or more misc folders even if you don’t call them that). This is dangerous because you’re just moving unprocessed chaos from a procrastination zone with strong temporal cues (the Inbox) to a denial zone with broken temporal cues (the set of de facto misc folders).”

 

(Via Dark Matter Issue 049)

#email

Next to Now: The End of Big Tent Marketing?

Next to Now, , , , ,

This week, new data from Instagram, YouTube, NPR and more suggests that the shift away from big tent marketing—where all your customers will hear your message at one, pre-determined moment—is well underway. Time to set up lots and lots of individual tents.

 

Instagram builds on its lead as the most important social network among U.S. teens.

Teen Social Net Prefs

 

 

 

Instagram announces that it will open its network to everyone this fall. Rates, minimum spend, and other requirements have not yet been released to us at Verso, but as soon as we learn more we’ll let you know.

 

What does a customer-first approach mean for marketing? “Marketing is no longer a department,” says IBM’s Michelle Killebrew:

“Businesses of all sizes are (truly) embracing the concept of customer centricity and understanding that marketing is no longer a department, because everyone (customers and employees alike) has a voice that can be amplified through social and mobile channels. Every interaction with a customer is part of their experience with your brand. It is why companies are focusing on employee engagement now more than ever—employees are the face of the company to the customer.”

This type of insight doesn’t easily map to book publishing, since every publisher is caring for hundreds to thousands of different brands (aka authors or series), but it’s undeniable that editors, marketers and publicists for every house are gaining public voices—and this is a good thing.

 

On the subject of one-to-one advertising, this outdoor campaign for a Swiss vacation spot is brilliant at literally starting a conversation.

 

YouTube viewing habits are going mobile: 50% (and growing) of YouTube views are mobile. 

 

TV viewing habits are changing: 28% of all TV watching is now streaming.

 

In another sign that the NPR audience is beginning to shift from live listening to on-demand, NPR podcasts have nearly doubled in hours downloaded over the last year. 

 

 

Next to Now: July 4th Edition

Next to Now, , ,

Happy 4th of July everybody. We’re getting this week’s edition of Next to Now out a little early so people can get their book-related ad industry reading in before fireworks prep work tomorrow. Here’s what we’ve been reading this shortened week:

 

When we say video is exploding online, we really mean that *mobile* video is exploding, and when we say mobile we really mean mobile phones, which are at 34% of video viewing as of March 2015 (up from 15% in March of 2014). The really good news from our point of view is that people are more than willing to watch ads to get their content free:

“IAB found that 78% of respondents would rather watch free mobile videos with ads, vs. 15% who would rather pay for a monthly mobile video subscription with no ads and 8% who would rather pay for each mobile video with no ads.”

 

 

Virtual Reality comes to retail (at least in demo). If they can bring a SoHo shopping experience alive to festival-goers in Cannes, maybe we can also start talking about translating the real physical indie bookshop experience online in the near future?  What I wouldn’t give to be able to noodle around Chicago’s 57th Street Books basement stacks from my New York City apartment.

 

Benedict Evans’ newsletter is worth subscribing to if you’re interested in all things mobile (and you should be). Here he is from his most recent newsletter on search, discoverability and how to find what you’re not really looking for:

  • “Google is very good at giving you what you’re looking for, but no good at all at telling you what you want to find, let alone things you didn’t know you wanted.”
  • “Amazon, after 20 years of ruthless execution, still only has under a third of the entire print books market. Most people buy most of their books in physical retail, because book shops are not just relatively inefficient end-points to a physical logistics network, but also filters and recommendation platforms. They’re high-latency but also high-bandwidth.”
  • And the pay off:  “Though some companies can make it entirely through organic search or Facebook virality, most cannot . . . For the rest of us, that means marketing. In effect, by removing all other constraints, the internet makes advertising more important than ever.”