Tag Archives: social

Next to Now: Good News / Bad News Edition

July 31, 2015Next to Nowaudio, design, measurement, mobile, social, streaming, targeting, VideoVerso Advertising

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

July 24, 2015Next to Nowdesign, email, mobile, programmatic, social, streaming, VideoVerso Advertising

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?

July 17, 2015Next to Nowaudio, mobile, outdoor, podcast, social, VideoVerso Advertising

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.

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: Video Ads Take Their Place at the Front of the Stage

June 19, 2015Next to Nowmobile, social, TV, VideoVerso Advertising

As video options expand far beyond YouTube, Spotify joins the fray with new video options. Where does this leave advertisers?:

“In a world where video ad inventory is at a premium, premium content to place against it is just as valuable. So if you’re the one creating the content that viewers want to see, then you’re definitely in the catbird seat, as companies like Spotify and others expand their scope into the video space. That means that Spotify will need a strong video advertising offer, particularly in the mobile space, as creators will only stay on board for as long as they’ are seeing the ROI.”

Paul Ford’s highly entertaining, informative, and looooooong piece on coding might come in handy before your next meeting with that new marketing start-up.

SnapChat takes the stage in Cannes with some advice: shoot your video vertically.

Facebook makes sure their engineers are keenly aware of user experience in different countries and communities and with different devices and connection speeds: It’s important for everyone in the advertising industry to think through the user’s experience.

Related: Last week’s link to Guardian piece calling out the Cannes advertising juries on giving awards to agencies that are more successfully marketing their wares to other people in advertising than they are to the people who might actually buy the product on offer.

Nieman Labs is one of many business news outlets to report on the ad blocking capabilities of the iOS9 release, and the dangers of ad blocking for content providers—not to mention the advertisers who love their audiences, which, obviously, includes us:

“A blow for mobile advertising: The next version of Safari will let users block ads on iPhones and iPads”

Another study about the effectiveness of TV, this one from CBS:

“In cross-platform campaigns, TV soundly trumps digital in both spending and reach.”

Photo of the stage at the 2015 Tony Awards (c) Sarah Moses

Next to Now: Dog Days Edition

June 12, 2015Next to Nowadvertising, native advertising, social, VideoVerso Advertising

A conversation about native advertising with the VP for Marketing Solutions for CondeNast:

“For brands to compete in the digital space, they have to be as interesting as or more interesting than everything else out there. Brands are committing more to try and create higher-quality, interesting content. Even if it’s marked “sponsored content” so that the reader knows what it is, that doesn’t limit the level of engagement. If it’s great content, it transcends the label.”

Who are advertising agencies *really* advertising to? Great Tom Goodwin piece in the Guardian on the kinds of campaigns that win awards:

“I’ve never met anyone who has seen a vending machine reward them for laughing, I’ve never walked through a door marked ugly, got a Coke from a drone, or been offered a crisp packet with my face on. I’ve never had a friend share their personalised film, I’ve not seen outdoor ads that are also street furniture or had an ATM give me a funny receipt. I’ve not received a magazine with a near field communication thing and I’ve not had a virtual reality experience outside advertising conferences. I’ve not once seen a member of the public 3D print anything. The one thing that binds together the more than 200 Cannes winners I’ve seen, is that they are ads only advertising people have a good chance of seeing. I’m not sure that’s what the industry should be about.”

(via Dark Matter. In fact all the links in Dark Matter email #047 are so good, it’s worth checking them out )

Ads on Amazon shipping boxes. Seems like a good idea to us:

“People used to go to their mailbox and [brands] could write to them,” said Allen Adamson, North American chairman at brand consulting firm Landor. “Now you can’t reach them at the mailboxes unless they get a package of something they’ve ordered digitally. [Shipping boxes] end up in customers’ hands. It’s mail that customers look for and want and it’s unused space, so it’s a really smart move by Amazon to capitalize on a powerful media touch point.”

TV is still the most effective advertising medium, says Adweek (quoting a study paid for by people Turner Broadcasting):

“MarketShare’s analysis found that TV advertising effectiveness has remained steady during that time period and outperforms digital and offline channels at driving key performance metrics like sales and new accounts.”

“A torch was passed today, as Netflix’s stock market value surpassed Yahoo’s in intraday trading.”

For all you trying to make an honest living as a social media manager (which is beginning to feel like everyone, in one way or another). Here’s a little infographic on the decline in organic reach on Facebook, and what you can do about it (other than, you know, buying ads).

Speaking of Dog Days, June 3 was New York State Animal Advocacy Day. Photo above (c) Cindy Schulz/Times Union.

Next to Now: Keep Your Eyes on Instagram and Pinterest

June 5, 2015Next to Nowinstagram, mobile, Pinterest, socialVerso Advertising

While last week’s BEA got everyone in publishing talking about the feast of great new books coming out—including new novels from Jonathan Franzen, Garth Risk Hallberg, and Ottessa Moshfegh—the advertising and tech worlds kept their eyes on developments with Instagram and Pinterest. Here’s a sampling of some of the press for anyone too busy recovering from BEA to keep up with it all.

Instagram opens up its ad platform:

Business Insider gets into the increased ability to target:

“On Tuesday, the photo sharing service, which Facebook bought in 2012 for $1 billion, announced that by this winter, it will begin to use more data from your Facebook profile to target you with more relevant ads.”

The New York Times writes about the revenue generating potential of this move:

“Collectively, the expanded advertising options signal that Facebook is becoming serious about making money from Instagram, which has a younger audience than the main Facebook social network, whose core users are middle-age mothers.”

ClickZ goes a little deeper into the targeting options this move is opening up:

“Instagram is also enhancing its targeting beyond demographics like age, location and gender. By working with Facebook to reach users based on interests, as well as consumer data that businesses already have, the photo-sharing platform plans to help advertisers tailor their messages so users see ads based on the things they care about.”

As a bonus, here’s a little infographic about optimal Instagram posting strategy.

Pinterest adds a buy button.

The New York Times reports on this:

“Pinterest does not plan to make money off e-commerce the traditional way, by taking a cut of retailers’ transactions. Instead, the company said, it would make money selling promoted-pins advertisements to retailers, who can then insert buyable pins into those ads.”

ClickZ has a question:

“Pinterest has unveiled transactional pins. Will its ‘Buy Button’ work better than Twitter’s and Facebook’s version?”

TechCrunch quotes the Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann on the need for a better mobile transaction experience (a need Pinterest is trying to address with transactional pins):

“Right now since everyone uses their phone, but it’s still a pain to buy things. There are fiddly menus, you have to squint to see the images.”

Business Insider on the mobile first approach to this development:

“Pinterest found that 85% of people who use Pinterest were doing it from their phones. So, the team made the buying experiences as mobile-friendly as possible. Buy buttons will roll out on iPhones and iPads by the end of the month, with the desktop experience and other phone operating systems, like Android or Windows, coming soon after.”

A few interesting articles from the week that have nothing to do with Pinterest or Instagram:

“Emails are definitely the new old blogs.” A round table on the past, present and future of the email newsletter.

Several paid and free content distribution channels worth knowing about.

Local search goes mobile, desktop search drops:

“eMarketer expects mobile to overtake desktop for US search ad dollars this year . . . At the same time, there will be 156.4MM mobile phone search users in the US, representing 49% of the population.”

A great piece on art, advertising, and design intelligence in posters from Hyperallergic.

GOOD NEWS FOR PANDORA LISTENERS . . . AND ADVERTISERS

GOOD NEWS FOR INSTAGRAM

GOOD NEWS FOR HULU

BAD NEWS FOR BROADCAST TV (lots of it):

BAD NEWS FOR “OLD GAWKER”

BAD NEWS FOR TWITTER

THIS THING IS “BAD NEWS” BY DESIGN:

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

. . . OR IS THAT GOOD NEWS?

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

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It’s alive!

Are interstitials worth it?

Peep shows, drones, and caffeine-ready concerts.

YouTube getting VR-ready.

Apple gets into the streaming radio business.

“I ALWAYS MISSPELL GENIUS SMH! THE IRONY!”

The return to the couch.

Email on the fly.

The end of Inbox Zero?

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Instagram opens up its ad platform:

Pinterest adds a buy button.

A few interesting articles from the week that have nothing to do with Pinterest or Instagram:

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Here’s what we’re reading this week in ad tech and online trends that matter to the book publishing industry.

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Got some time on your hands as you head into the long weekend?

Here’s a list of good, quick reads on book-related advertising. This week featuring video on Spotify, new ads on Pinterest, thoughts on why calendars suck, & more . . .

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