Tag Archives: youtube

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 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 …

 

 

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 for January 2017

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CAN THEY HEAR WHAT YOU HEAR?

Not always.  Here are 6 tips from Facebook for making silent videos speak.

Listen to the silence. 

 

“For mobile marketing, a moment of transformation is at hand …

… By year’s end, 75% of online content consumption will be mobile.”

Something to bear in mind when reviewing our ad stats, which often average mobile and desktop together.  (Not all CTRs are created equal.)

Tune in to Programmatic with Point 3.  A tool to remember as we plan our campaigns.

Read about the projections. 

 

“WE’RE PUTTING IT ALL INTO FACEBOOK!”

Maybe that’s a good idea … but maybe not.

Consider this. 

 

 

 

Next to Now: December 2

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These are dark days in America—yet there remain sources of light. You might wonder if that’s a comment on the state of our polarized political discourse and the role books can play in revitalizing our national conversation. Maybe. Maybe not. But it is definitely a comment on the days getting shorter as we approach the first day of winter and raise a glass to the holiday season. Here are some highlights of news we’ve noted this week, shared here as part of our effort to stay on top of current trends and best practices.

 

PROGRAMMATIC FORECAST

The good news is that the programmatic community continues to make headway in combatting ad fraud. The bad news is that is likely to mean a 20% increase in costs. Even with a 20% increase, however, programmatic remains a highly efficient way to reach book readers. Weeding out bad ad impressions is definitely worth a slight increase in CPM. In a separate post, Digiday published five charts that indicate the global outlook for programmatic.   Related: you can now gain access to some influencer marketing  through programmatic channels. 

#programmatic

 

TABOOLA RESPONDS TO CRITICISM

The 2016 presidential election has created a firestorm around the question of “fake news.” Many are pointing to paid content distribution systems such as Taboola as a major culprit in a world-wide epidemic. Here is Taboola’s thoughtful response. Let’s hope they back it up with action.

#taboola #fakenews

 

CNN HIRES YOUTUBE STAR TO MAKE NEWS

In a move that echoes the creation of companies like Fusion and Mic, CNN has hired YouTube star and entrepreneur Casey Neistat to help make news “relevant” for a new generation.

#news #youtube #video

 

BEST PRACTICES IN PERSONA MARKETING

Persona marketing isn’t used much in book publishing, where we value the particularities of every book and honor the uniqueness of every reader. But we ignore it at our peril: it can be a great way to focus in on the target customer in a way that can be applied and tested across a genre. This ClickZ article shows how to think about persona marketing while still understanding that no one reader is exactly identical to another.  

#persona

 

THE STATE OF THE ART OF INFLUENCER MARKETING

Digiday takes a look at the highly public practice of influencer marketing: who’s doing it, how they’re paying for it, and does it work?

#influencer

 

Photo (c) 2016 Martha Otis

Next to Now for October 28

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YOUTUBE VIEWING HABITS

YouTube is getting longer term views. The average viewing session on YouTube is now 40 minutes. That data point comes from a Google post about winning the customer over before s/he enters the store. While it’s written for larger brand advertisers—make-up, CPG, and cars—there are good takeaways for book advertising from the post.

#youtube #video #streaming

 

ON DATA AND “THE GIRL”

This isn’t advertising, but it’s such a rich analysis of book trends that anyone who loves books and data will find it irresistible: Acclaimed novelist Emily St. John Mandel writes a clever and nuanced post for Five Thirty Eight on publishing’s recent obsession with using the word “Girl” in titles. She looks at how many of the eponymous girls are actually girls (and how many are women), how many are written by women, how many are missing or lost or undead, and reports that we not yet reached peak “Girl”:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gone-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-on-the-train/?&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gone-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-on-the-train/?&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

 

HOW’S YOUR CAMPAIGN DOING? ASK A BOT

There has been a fair amount of press on how brands are starting to use bots to buy pizza, call an Uber, or book a flight, and a good bit more about the potential for new advertising platforms using bots on messaging apps like Kik and What’s App. Now, an article in Marketing Land points out new bots that help you measure advertising campaigns by integrating directly with such platforms as Facebook and Google or with existing third party servers such as Media Math and Sizmek.

#bots #AI #metrics

 

IAB STANDARD UNITS ARE DEAD. LONG LIVE IAB STANDARD UNITS.

Once upon a time, the IAB tried to tame the Wild West of internet advertising by introducing three standard units that would work across most sites: 300×250, 728×90, and 160×600. For a few years, all was well in advertisingland. But the advent of tablets and the new dominance of mobile devices soon began to mean more and more sizes. Then the native ad boom kicked in and things got wilder than ever—to the point where a single campaign can require more than ten different size ads, each with its own maximum file size, preferred file type, and timing. Even the IAB can see that it’s time to revisit the standard unit. If you want a say in what ad sizes are next, the public comment period is now open. 

#iab #standard

 

…OR ARE CUSTOM BANNERS THE NEW FUTURE?

On the other hand, an article on Digiday looks into the proliferation of custom units on such sites as the New York Times and Quartz, and wonders if the days of the standard banner are truly numbered. There’s a tension between the custom banners that perform better than the standard units, and the need for standard units to function with programmatic platforms.

#custom #iab

 

 

 

Fall tree photo (c) 2016 Martha Otis

Next to Now for September 23

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THE FT: “HOW THE MAD MEN LOST THE PLOT”

In the FT, ad strategist Ian Leslie goes to battle with the notion that legacy media is dead and digital hypertargeting is the savior. Leslie cites the study that showed Pepsi’s decision to forego traditional advertising for a social media campaign delivered a large number of clicks and comments but very few sales. The FT goes on to talk about Byron Sharp’s provocative book, HOW BRANDS GROW:

“Sharp’s first law is that brands can’t get bigger on the back of loyal customers. Applying a statistical analysis to sales data, he demonstrates that the majority of any successful brand’s sales comes from “light buyers”: people who buy it relatively infrequently. Coca-Cola’s business is not built on a hardcore of Coke lovers who drink it daily, but on the millions of people who buy it once or twice a year. You, for instance, may not think of yourself as a Coke buyer, but if you’ve bought it once in the last 12 months, you’re actually a typical Coke consumer. This pattern recurs across brands, categories, countries and time. Whether it’s toothpaste or computers, French cars or Australian banks, brands depend on large numbers of people — that’s to say, the masses — who buy them only occasionally, leave long gaps between purchases and buy competing brands in
between.”

Not many book publishers have enough followers to employ retargeting, but for those that do, this article is worth reading to consider if retargeting is the best use of your limited marketing dollars. While all good marketing starts with the core audience, if you want to turn a predictably solid-selling book into a blockbuster, you need to reach beyond passionate, existing fans to a wider potential readership.

#retargeting #oldschool #mass

 

“ONLY DEAD FISH” REANIMATES THE ZOMBIE PLOT

On his blog, Only Dead Fish, Neil Perkin picks up Ian Leslie’s thread and runs with it in his commentary on a “Google Firestarter” event in London, along with reports on talks by Tom Goodwin and Tracey Follows. Worth a read for a dose of what advertising strategists are thinking these days: invisibility, authenticity, and bio-integration.

#onlydeadfish #googlefirestarter

 

PANDORA INTRODUCES NEW SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

In an announcement that included improvements to their paid model, Pandora also announced changes to their ad supported model: with opportunities for brands to sponsor more playbacks and skips. Pandora continues to lead in the business of offering listeners value in exchange for their attention. They have proved a strong partner for book advertising in the past, and this announcement makes it clear that they intend to stay that way in the future.

#pandora #streaming

 

ADIDAS SAYS SNAPCHAT USER ENGAGEMENT IS “INSANE”

Adidas has seen much more engagement from their Snapchat videos than they have from YouTube. Here’s Business Insider with more details about what’s working for them on Snapchat, from experiments with Stories to Geofilters.

#snapchat #sports

 

ARE VIDEO ADS WORTH IT?

New surveys from various video measurement companies—including Nielsen and Limelight—suggest that 52% of U.S. users skip pre-roll whenever possible, and a majority do not like video ads at all. In fact, nearly 27% of users surveyed in the U.S., Australia, UK and Canada say that without an option to skip pre-roll they’d abandon the video they’d wanted to watch. So, while video engagement remains strong, it may be that paid ad resources are better put to other outlets.

#video

 

FACEBOOK ADMITS TO INFLATING VIDEO METRICS

So if pre-roll isn’t the answer to getting people to watch your video, is Facebook? While the social network has touted itself as the premier advertising platform for video, Facebook recently revealed that it has inflated its users’ average time spent watching video for the past two years. Here’s CNET on the controversy. 

 

#facebook #video #metrics

 

TEENS ALL IN WITH YOUTUBE

A new poll from the National Cyber Security Alliance and Microsoft suggests that many more teens use Gmail than use social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat—and even more (91%!) use YouTube. Here’s the link to eMarketer’s story about the findings.

#teens #youtube #social

 

Photo (c) 2016 Martha Otis: A view from the Park during the fall PAMA event sponsored by Goodreads, and hosted by PAMA president Christian Toth

Next to Now: Labor Day Weekend

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Whether you’re planning on watching the U.S. Open, mourning and celebrating the life of Gene Wilder, or just sitting in traffic trying to make it to the beach, there’s a lot of news to catch up on over Labor Day weekend. Read on.

 

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED AND FOX NEWS TEAM UP

In an effort to take on sports powerhouse ESPN, Sports Illustrated and Fox News have agreed to an editorial and ad sharing deal across their businesses. According to the WSJ:

“Combined properties operated by Sports Illustrated and Fox Sports brought in about 68 million unique visitors in July, which would make it the second-largest sports publisher behind ESPN, which brought in about 79 million visitors, according to digital measurement specialist comScore.

On their own, Fox Sports ranked third in the sports category in July, while Sports Illustrated came in 10th, according to comScore.”

#sports #fox #si

 

YOUTUBE GEARS UP TO GO MORE SOCIAL

As the premier video platform sees increasing competition from Facebook  and Twitter live video platforms, YouTube is looking to develop more social tools to help video creators interact with their audience. They are calling the new effort, “Backstage.” According to VentureBeat’s Harrison Weber, Backstage’s features will “live alongside the Home and Videos tabs within individual YouTube channels,” and content posted through Backstage will be included in channel subscribers’ feeds and notifications.”

#youtube #video

 

KNOW YOUR DATA

In programmatic advertising it’s vital to know what kind of data you’re using and whether it’s first, second, or third party. This ClickZ article provides a good primer on the differences and advantages of each. 

#data #programmatic

 

FORBES JOINS PODCAST ONE

After testing the podcast waters with “Women@Forbes”, the venerable business publication is going all in with podcast network Podcast One. 

#business #podcast #forbes

 

World's Fair Globe photo (c) 2016 Martha Otis

Next to Now: 2016 BEA Edition

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While the book world bustles about Chicago during 2016 BEA, the world of advertising has been busy talking about the marketing funnel, YouTube best practices, marketing intelligently to smart women, and more.

THE MARKETING FUNNEL IS NOT DEAD

A while back we pointed to an opinion piece that argued that the marketing funnel is dead and has been replace instead by marketing pinball. In fairness, we’re now pointing to Sam Bridger’s opinion piece that argues that the funnel is very much alive. In the piece that inspired Sam Bridger, Mark Ritson argues that marketing pinball mistakes tactics for strategy: 

“The error that Mr John makes is looking at the tactical resources that he uses to traverse the various steps in the buying process, rather than the journey itself. Clearly today’s consumer is availed with a whole set of resources and influences unimaginable a decade ago. But that is not the point of the sales funnel, which charts the consumer journey, not the tactical attempts of brands to influence it.”

While “marketing pinball” is a metaphor that continues to feel closer to our experience of today’s marketing environment, and we don’t think one metaphor is necessarily a refutation of the other—they’re both metaphors with the full range of accuracy and fuzziness that metaphors deliver—it’s worth heeding the arguments of a couple old pros.(via @FishFood)

#tactics #strategy #marketingfunnel #marketingpinball

 

DO WOMEN PREFER GENDER-NEUTRAL LANGUAGE IN MARKETING?

In a study on marketing to women, eMarketer reports that 74% of women would rather receive gender-neutral marketing messages. This was true across all age groups. But when it comes to “likes” and follows, younger women are more likely to engage than older women:  

“Female users ages 18 to 29, however, were a bit more likely to follow brands on social media and sign up for email marketing newsletters compared to older female respondents.”

#women

 

HEARST TARGETS PRINT SUBSCRIBERS DIGITALLY

Print subscribers are some of the most engaged readers around, so we are excited by Hearst’s announcement that they can now target print subscribers digitally:

“When someone fills out a subscription form online, that data is loaded up into Hearst’s system and attributes like age, ethnicity and household income from third-party data are tacked on. Hearst can then target those readers across its online sites.”

The buy-in is too steep for book publishers right now, but we look for that minimum buy comes down.

#data #print

 

EMAIL EFFECTIVENESS

According to the Relevancy Group, US marketing executives believe that email alone drives the same amount of revenue as their social media, website and web display ad efforts combined.

#email #backtoschool

 

STILL TRYING TO SOLVE FOR CTR

Since the Dawn of Time (or at least the dawn of the first Web ad), human beings have been striving to find a decent alternative measurement to the justifiably beleaguered click-through rate. Now, a new group of digital publishers have banded together to explore the latest alternative: time-based sales. We wish them god-speed.  

#deathtotheCTR #data

 

HEARST UPS THE POP-UPS ON SNAPCHAT

Hearst announces that they will be running more pop up events on Snapchat after their success around prom themed Discover posts. Snapchat is making a serious run for live event marketing against incumbant powers Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  

#snapchat #twitter

 

WHAT’S THE IDEAL LENGTH OF A YOUTUBE VIDEO?

While studies of TV ads show :15 spots more effective than :30s (and at half the cost!), some studies show that YouTube videos as long as three minutes are making a serious impression. YouTube’s take-away? “Go short or go long.”

#youtube #video

 

YOUTUBE MAKES THE CASE FOR ITSELF

And it’s a good one: YouTube reaches more 18-49 year-olds than any broadcast or cable TV network; 91% of YouTube impressions are viewable compared to the 54% industry average (also: this is buy definition since YouTube is sold on a cost per view basis); 8 of the top 10 most influential celebrities according to U.S. teens are YouTube stars; 100% growth in time spent watching YouTube on TV.

#youtube #video

 

YOUTUBE MAKES A CASE FOR EMPOWERING ADVERTISING

YouTube’s Susan Wojicki makes the case that ads that make women feel empowered make a significantly bigger impact for the advertiser:

“Women ages 18-34 are twice as likely to think highly of a brand that made an empowering ad.”

#video #women

 

SHEKNOWS PROMOTES ITS FEMINIST AUDIENCE

In the NewFronts, SheKnows makes a similar point to YouTube—if by empowerment you think of the word “feminism” (and we do). Adweek reports on the first Digital Content NewFronts presentation from Sheknows:

“SheKnows played up its research to back up a number of feminist-minded online classes and original videos. To help marketers first get a grip on its audience, the women’s media company shared data from 1,622 online participants who answered questions about how they define feminism. Overall, 46 percent of women identified as a feminist. Another 32 percent weren’t sure or said it depends and 22 percent of women don’t consider themselves a feminist.”

#politics #feminism #targeting

 

NEWSFRONTS PUSH INTEGRATED CONTENT

A recent article in the New York Times has good insight into the recent push for integrated content. While the examples in this piece are too rich for any book publishing budgets, it’s an indicator of an overall trend we’re watching closely and taking advantage of wherever budgets allow.

#native #video

 

TOMS TAPS VR

The “buy one, give one” message has always been an integral part of Toms sales strategy; so it’s a smart move to use the immersive storytelling experience of VR to tell the stories of the people who receive the donated shoes.

#sales #compassion #vr