Content Wars as Amazon Edges Close to Netflix's

On Wednesday, Jeff Bezos announced to his shareholders that Amazon Prime had surpassed 100 million subscribers, edging even closer to Netflix's 125 million subscribers. Amazon's milestone comes months after Netflix announcement that it would invest $8 billion in new content and Disney saying that it would remove its content from Netflix to its own streaming site. Unlike the market shockwaves that Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods made in the retail sector last year, investors have so far remained neutral on Netflix. However, Amazon's meteoritic growth makes one wonder how long Netflix has before becoming obsolete.

As it stands, monthly Prime membership costs users $10.99 for up to three screens at the same time, Netflix pricing ranges between $7.99 for a single user to $13.99 for four screens. This means that users are paying comparably the same prices for access to content, hence content wars. At the end of last year, Netflix housed 4101 movies and 2814 TV seasons while Amazon Prime had a collection of 36,412 movies and 6133 seasons of  TV shows. However, from personal experience, Amazon is tough to navigate - Netflix does a better job of curating and organizing its shows. When it comes to original content, Netflix and Amazon are at par or fighting different battles because both sites have competed strongly against the traditional movie industry and scored wins and nominations for Emmy awards and Oscar awards across numerous categories. Amazon Prime, however, has partnered with television providers such as Starz and Showtime in order to provide its users to video channels for additional fees. This is a competitive advantage that Netflix may or may not choose to adopt because it looks like fair game given that Hulu has also made similar relationships with tradition television channels to increase its value proposition.

What Netflix really needs to be worried about are the networking effects offered by Amazon Prime. With Amazon Prime, shoppers getting access to Amazon music, free two-day shipping, Amazon credit cards and very soon added benefits of Whole Foods discounts. Additionally, Amazon has used the infrastructure talent it has on its side to create Amazon Echo that can only be used for the site and tablets that are fed by one's prime account. This means that at $10.99, users get more added benefits on Amazon than they do on Netflix, which explains Amazon's growth. For now Netflix continues to be a market favorite, however as Amazon continues to grow into a networked conglomerate, one wonders whether Netflix should be looking for partners to consolidate/ partner with, such as Jet or Google, in order to to stay competitive against Amazon's play on networking effects.

https://www.recode.net/2018/4/19/17257942/amazon-prime-100-million-subscribers-hulu-hbo-tinder-members

https://thecollegeinvestor.com/20686/amazon-prime-vs-netflix-compare/

DSW and Influencers

https://adexchanger.com/mobile/why-connecting-influencers-to-programmatic-was-a-shoe-in-for-dsw/

DSW is not the sexiest of brands, but it has been utilizing influencers and UGC as part of its marketing strategy for a few years now. In order to increase the spend on this, they are looking for ways to measure the impact more accurately to justify the investment. They do this not only through influencer campaigns but also programmatic ones where the data attribution is a bit easier. This is the right direction to be taking given the "influence" that influencers can have on your brand awareness and more money could be allotted to it if you can prove the ROI.

A Secret Hero of China E-commerce

For a long time, Taobao(Alibaba) and JD.com are the two champions in China e-commerce. Some investors from Venture Capital even claimed that they would never invest any e-commerce startup in China since the two champions were dominating the market. Surprisingly this year, Pinduoduo, a group-buy e-commerce website came out.

Pinduoduo started its business in offering cheap household products, including washing powder, toilet paper and fruits. Why does this website succeed from this highly competitive market? There might be some reasons.

Firstly, perfect positioning. Different from other dominant giant players in the market which targeted general mass especially the people in top tier cities who owns more buying power, Pinduoduo target the lower income group especially those in lower tier cities (tier 3-5). These people are more price sensitive and their main target would be household products. The large population of this group brought a huge long tail effect that created a huge demand.

Secondly, Pinduoduo crated a special business model - group buy through social network. All the products offered on the website provided two price, unit price and group buy price. The difference between the two is huge. User can easily share their interests toward a product through wechat moments (similar to facebook wall). Once 10 people are interested in it, the product will be offered at group buy price.

Last but not least, the small merchants from lower tier cities chose Pinduoduo as  their preferred platform as well. Different from Taobao's high handling charge, Pinduoduo offers more for small merchants. Besides, the mass lower tier city users also provided a word of mouth effect for the platform, bringing more friends and relatives to the platform.

How Pizza Night Can Cost More in Data than Dollars?

https://www.wsj.com/graphics/how-pizza-night-can-cost-more-in-data-than-dollars/

How Pizza Night Can Cost More in Data than Dollars?

Facebook data breach of 87 million users highlighted once again the vulnerability most users have with their online data. At the same time, most users do not understand how much data is shared with every online transaction with do. This recent article in WSJ uses pizza night with friend as a great example to show the amount of data  that is exchanged with the service provider, social media platform, ordering device/platform as well as phone company. For example, a user taking a selfie and posting it on Facebook shares more than just selfie. User may provide only 3 data points to Facebook while the site collects an additional 20 data points ranging from user phone to her location.

Data Provided

FACEBOOK

Uploaded photo

Text submitted with photo

Facial recognition

ADDITIONAL DATA COLLECTED

FACEBOOK

Photo analysis

Location of the photo (if included in metadata)

Date

Type of device (iPhone X)

Device ID

Device operating system

Battery level

Signal strength

Bluetooth signal

Connection speed

Available storage

App and file names and types

Nearby Wi-Fi beacons and cell towers

Nearby devices such as a TV for phone-to-TV streaming

Time zone

Mobile operator or internet service provider

IP address

Time, frequency and duration of activities

Hardware version

Software version

This is a clear signal for both consumers and digital marketer to be both aware of the amount of data being shared and collected. With increasing amount of online transactions, we need an educated consumer that understands and controls the data being shared. At the same time, tech companies have to show leadership in protecting and safeguarding consumer data from growing threats of cyber security.

Amazon Prime Has More Than 100 Million Members

For the first time this week, Amazon disclosed its number of Prime members, which stood at over 100 million people. This is apparently up from tens of millions of people only a few short years ago, and highlights the company's ongoing transformation from an online marketplace to an e-commerce powerhouse that has an endless appetite to invest in new technology.  For now, this shows that Prime continues to be a healthy and growing platform, which has implications both for e-commerce and digital marketing.  For one, the growing power of Amazon is putting pressure on a wide variety of consumer brands as it becomes easier and more affordable for customers to just buy through Amazon. Given its cost structure, Amazon is putting margin pressure on tons of business, making differentiation all the more important to maintain identity and be successful. This can come in the form of digital marketing, but it also needs to be done more effectively at the same or lower cost. Second, the growing popularity of Amazon can perpetuate the trend of search toward their platform and away from Google. Company's like Walmart are revamping their e-commerce websites to try to make themselves more competitive with Amazon. At the end of the day, the Amazon effect continues to be real and impacting a wide universe of companies.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-prime-has-more-than-100-million-members-1524088630

How Digital Marketing Helps Real Estate

More and more real estate agents and brokers are using digital marketing to find the right target customer, create brand awareness and make a deal. So don't be surprised if you see an Instagram account promoting real estate projects - the battlefield has shifted. 

Although the report https://webassets.inman.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/SELECT_DigitalMktg_SpecialReport_0915.pdf indicates that email marketing continues to be considered the most effective digital marketing tactic, growingly used tactics are the ones on social media. Using social media can help real estate agents and brokers to target more specific groups of audience, and also expand the influence onto a new group of people.

Right now, most agents answered that below 25% of clients were obtained through digital marketing. We have the belief that this ratio will go up as millennials start to purchase assets and digital marketing will be a more effective way to capture that opportunity. This is why in Q3, first-time homebuyers are the biggest group of target demographic.

Based on my experience, China is taking such practices to another level. Real estate brokers open their public wechat accounts and publish promotional pushes very frequently. Users can subscribe to their public accounts and get the information. Some individual brokers will set up wechat groups and send project information to a group of 300 people. Audience can also add their friends to the groups and that's when the broker identify new buyers.

Apple, Google Fall in 'Most Visible Brands' Survey

Last week Reuters reported on the Harris Brand Survey:

Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google corporate brands dropped in an annual survey while Amazon.com Inc maintained the top spot for the third consecutive year, and electric carmaker Telsa Inc rocketed higher after sending a red Roadster into space.

John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll, told Reuters in an interview that the likely reason Apple and Google fell was that they have not introduced as many attention-grabbing products as they did in past years, such as when Google rolled out free offerings like its Google Docs word processor or Google Maps and Apple’s then-CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

It is worth noting that notoriety clearly plays a role in these survey results. What is indisputable, though, is that brand matters especially in regulatory future for these tech companies.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-companies-reputation/apple-google-see-reputation-of-corporate-brands-tumble-in-survey-idUSKCN1GP1CI

Risk of Logging in with Facebook

As a society, we would like to do everything in the most convenient way and that's great most of the time. Until we realize that Google and Facebook know so much about us that we might not even really know about ourselves. 

We all have used The Login with Facebook feature to log in to services, such as Airbnb, Spotify, etc. Fakebook's API allows users to carry parts of their profile information to other websites and apps. According to a new research from Princeton University, using the Facebook login feature on lesser known websites could cause security risks. From this study, it seems like some third party tracking scripts have the capability to scoop up information from Facebook's login API without users knowing. This, for the most part, is because most users have an invisible tracking ecosystem around them in the web without their knowledge. Most of the scripts the researchers examined grab a user ID that is unique to that website, as well as the person's name and email. But the problem is, using Facebook's API, you could easily link that unique ID to someone's Facebook profile.

After Princeton published this report, a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement that scraping Facebook user data is in direct violation of their policies and they Facebook will suspend this ability. Princeton has identified seven different scripts that are capable of pulling information from Facebook's login.

To sum up, if you want to avoid your data from being collected in the way described above, be careful using Facebook's universal login feature on sites you might not visit often, or ones where the functionality doesn't necessarily make using a site more convenient. In addition, installing a trusted ad blocker could also help avoid many tracking scripts from accessing any information about you. 

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/security-risks-of-logging-in-with-facebook/

Snapchat Adds Shopping to Its Augmented Reality Ads

http://adage.com/article/digital/snapchat-puts-shopping-option-augmented-reality-ads/313192/

It was only a matter of time before selfies and shopping began to merge, right? Snapchat has just released its newest offering that they call “shoppable AR” (e.g. shoppable augmented reality). It takes Snapchat lenses that are sponsored by brands and adds a button that takes users directly to a landing page for shopping, an app-install page, or a video or website… all without leaving the Snapchat app.

Snapchat was one of the earlier innovators of augmented reality (AR), bring fun “lenses” that users could overlay on top of their selfies or videos. Snapchat first monetized this with paid lenses that brands sponsored and tailored to feature their products or reflect their brand identities. As a Marketer, its hard for me to believe that advertisers would be interested in sponsoring these lenses and driving this type of engagement with users without having an immediate way to take the user to a customized landing page. One of the great things about paid social advertising is its ability to collapse the funnel and make purchases only a click away from the user engagement. Until shoppable AR was released, this benefit just wasn’t as apparent in the Snapchat app.

The shoppable AR lenses are sold to advertisers just like the company’s broader catalog of sponsored lenses. Snapchat’s automated, self-service platform is now ready for Shoppable AR purchases, or they can be purchased through company sales reps. So far brands such as Adidas, Clairol, and STX movie studio have piloted Shoppable AR with success.

While this is being touted as Snapchats latest innovation, it seems more like a no-brainer to me. Or perhaps a why-haven’t-you-already-done-this? Regardless, I wouldn’t be surprised if this became standard for paid lenses in the future since it seems to provide significantly more value to those buying the ads.

Google Removes Fake Ad Blockers from Chrome Store

Five popular ad blockers that are used more than 20 million Google Chrome users have been found to be malicious. A researcher from AdGuard discovered that these extensions concealed malicious scripts before Google removed them.

One of the extensions, called AdRemover for Google Chrome, had more than 10 million downloads by the time it was reported to Google by AdGuard. Some of these extensions were really popular even ranging up to 10 million downloads. These malicious ad-blocking extensions copied the legitimate ad blocking code from real ad blockers and added its own harmful one to the same code. Basically, it was a botnet composed of browsers infected with the fake AdBlock extensions. Once infected, the browser can do whatever the command center server owner orders it to do.

Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/20-million-chrome-users-downloaded-fake-ad-blockers/

Takeaways from Zuckerberg’s House Hearing

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made his second of two appearances before Congress on Wednesday, enduring a five-hour session of questions from members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. There were some of key Zuckerberg's talking points that stood out to me:

• Every time Facebook was asked about data it accumulates from users outside of what they explicitly upload, Zuckerberg needed to “have his team follow-up”
• For every questioning on privacy, Zuckerberg emphasized that Facebook gives users tools to control who sees their data. However, the questions were about the data Facebook owns about each user, but the answers were just about content users upload to Facebook
• Whenever Zuckerberg was pushed about market power, he emphasized that the average American uses “eight different communications and social network apps to stay connected to people.” However, he never spoke about the fact that Facebook controlled three of them

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17226356/mark-zuckerberg-congress-hearing-house-energy-commerce-takeaways

Lyft is Testing Monthly Subscription Plan

Lyft is testing monthly subscription plans for high-frequency users, a sign that the company is shifting toward a Netflix or Spotify model for transportation. The terms of the subscription models seem to vary but appear targeted at users who spend up to $450 on ride-hailing a month. One all-access pass offered up to 30 standard Lyft rides for $199 a month, another was priced at $300, and another at $399 for 60 rides. Individual rides up to $15 were covered under the all-access pass. It wasn’t immediately clear how users would be charged for rides that exceed $15.

Uber also tried a similar idea last summer, and it definitely makes sense. Locking up demand is the best way to lock up supply and I believe both Uber and Lyft should focus on these models and should spend more extravagantly here. However, given that Uber hasn't spent a lot of resources here, it is a  biggest red flags about just how valuable this market might be.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/15/17127002/lyft-all-access-monthly-subscription

Netflix Raised Prices & Users Kept Subscribing

Netflix Inc. used to worry it would alienate customers by raising prices for its streaming service. However, the company posted its strongest first quarter since going public 16 years ago, despite raising prices for most of its customers over the past several months. Netflix added 7.41 million users in the period and the stock is up 75 percent this year, leading the S&P 500 index.

That Netflix was able to raise prices even as it grew its consumer base is not a surprise. I believe the entire strategy depends on a dynamic increase in customer value through the creation of original content which not only decreases customer acquisition costs but also retains customers and, once the surplus consumer value is great enough, allows for an increase in average revenue per user (ARPU). Netflix increased both its user base and average selling price that is, ARPU. 

There are various competitive advantages Netflix has being an aggregator. First, Netflix built a userbase before it had to enter into any negotiations. This vastly improved its BATNA. Secondly, Netflix has licensed content, not agreed to royalty agreements. That means that Netflix’s costs are fixed. Finally, Netflix has augmented its licensed content with content it has produced itself. All these competitive advantages make Netflix unique and bound to succeed! 

Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2018/04/17/netflix-surges-as-users-stay-loyal-despite-higher-prices/

The Good in Facebook

I found this article in the New York Times to be very interesting. Author Eduardo Porter discusses the social and economic impact that Facebook has, and it does have a rather large one.

From the social standpoint, at it's most basic level, Facebook is a communication tool. Big sharers on the social network report being happier and healthier. This is not a surprising statistic - people need connection, and it would make sense that if they perceive themselves to have many connections, they would experience a positive feeling surrounding that that would affect other parts of their lives.

From an economic standpoint, the data that Facebook collects and shares with third parties to enable targeted ads has been shown to directly effect economic growth rate. When the EU restricted the use of some of this data sharing, it negatively impacted its growth rate. This is a big deal.

Something that is as yet unmeasurable is the improvement in welfare that comes from the consumer surplus (the benefit we get from a good or service that well exceeds the price paid for it) will continue to increase based on the ability to customize to each customer.

All of this, Porter is quick to point out, does not mean Facebook should continue unregulated, but that understanding what the problems are - the Russian use of Facebook ads to influence the US presidential election, lack of control over how personal information is used, accountability on the part of Facebook and the companies that use its information, etc - will inform exactly what measures need to be taken to ensure the consumer feels safe, but also so that the benefits of these platforms and their data can continue to be experienced and benefitted from.

Linking Customer Intent with Communications

It sounds like the Holy Grail of marketing - the ability to understand when a customer's intent to purchase is high and market to them right then to dramatically increase the probability of conversion. Marketing Tech News writes that this is the one piece digital marketers are missing, and it results in dissatisfied customers and misused budget.

Currently, there is a, "personalization gap," between marketers and consumers, and the timing of ads and communications is the main source of this gap. The proposed way to close this gap is to understand the consumers behavior across all internet use over time, not just the data that comes from one interaction on the company website. Following a customer over time, what blogs/reviews they read, what company websites they visit, can help marketers pinpoint intent to purchase much more effectively than a lookalike audience on Facebook and Instagram can.

While this does seem optimal from both the marketer's and consumer's perspective, given the current climate in the digital space, and the issue of privacy that has yet to shake out, this opportunity may be short-lived. The idea of a company following my internet browsing habits after just one visit seem slightly egregious. That said, at least I will be getting marketing from a website I actually visited, instead of a company or website I am unaware of and had no conscientious interaction with in the past.

Restrictions on the length of time a company can follow a customer are unlikely, as there is no guarantee that the data gets discarded after the allowed period has ended. A customer opt-in is also tricky, as with Facebook and many others, the terms and conditions were so long and arduous that most of their members never read them, and as a result, consumer trust is at a low point.

While marketing to a customer in the most targeted way possible does make a whole lot of sense, the way companies use the information they are allowed to collect remains the issue, because while some companies may have the best of intentions, others do not, and it's not always obvious from the start who is who. We will see how this unfolds.

RetailDive: Plenti program to shut down in July

Plenti program to shut down in July
https://www.retaildive.com/news/plenti-program-to-shut-down-in-july/521604/

Loyalty for brands and retailers is challenging.  Everyone wants to own it, but consumers are unsure of where to turn.  Brands want loyalty to retain and gain marketshare.  Retailers want loyalty to inhibit repertoire shopping and skirt around MAP pricing policies.  And payment process and finance companies want to own it to get a larger share of transaction fees.  And each of three stakeholders has a clear right to own loyalty.  With that being said, it becomes complicated for consumers.  Who wants to carry multiple loyalty programs?  And if multiple programs are offered at a retailer, which program do you use?  Amex's Plenti program made sense.  It was a loyalty program than ran in the background and rewarded consumers for purchases they were already going to make.  But isn't that similar to what Amex - and other credit card companies - do for cardholders already?  The behavior was there, but the consumer proposition was ambiguous.  As loyalty technology and CRM get better, cheaper, and easier to integrate, I think we're going to see more brands own their own loyalty programs.  

Engadget: Walmart will roll out a cleaner, sleeker Website in May

Engadget: Walmart will roll out a cleaner, sleeker Website in May
https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/17/walmart-redesign/

Walmart has been firing warning shots towards Amazon since the acquisition of Jet - and Marc Lore - almost two years ago.  The rivalry between Lore and Bezos is well documented in the tech world.  Since Amazon's acquisition - and subsequent killing - of Diapers.com, Lore has been seeking for opportunities to let Bezos know he's not the ultimate retailer.  The new Walmart offers the perfect opportunity for Lore to showcase his thinking. Walmart has been making a series of incremental technology and operations changes to Walmart.com and Jet, but it hasn't substantially altered the experience of Walmart.com.  The new Walmart website will not only be a design refresh - presumably a truly mobile first experience - but it was also building on its marketplace strategy. Retailers including Lord & Taylor and Fanatics will launch stand-alone digital store-within-store concepts on the platform.  The expression of these marketplace storefronts is going to be telling.  Will it be a proxy of Amazon where third-party retailers are largely obscured or will it be like TMall where brand storefronts are branded experience?

Ads.txt: A Year In, It's Working

About a year ago, a simple device called ads.txt was introduced to the digital advertising industry. It is a code-on-page tool that allows publishers to indicate who are the legal resellers of their impressions. This is in direct response to the industry problems of fraudulent traffic and legal arbitrage, the former of which is outright theft from advertisers and the latter of which is a value-sucking symptom of an immature industry.

Information regarding levels of adoption at this point can be interpreted subjectively: people either think that adoption is moving too slowly or they are pleased or surprised with the speed of adoption. I am very pleasantly surprised by the rate of adoption, and think everyone else should be as well (except for fraudulent actors and arbitrage networks, who should be unpleasantly suprised).

Here are some key figures and how I interpret them:

• 60% of the comScore 1,000 have implemented ads.txt. It was less than 10% last August. This is remarkable speed for majority adoption of anything among a large group of large companies. The rate of adoption is decelerating slightly, but as buyers continue to say this is important, publishers will eventually be convinced that it's important to upload these files. It will be in the 90% range by this time next year.
• 19% of buyers have never heard of ads.txt. Again, I am amazed, mainly because I look at this inversely: 80% of buyers have heard of something that didn't exist a year ago. This is practically a brushfire of awareness. I would not expect more than 80% at this point, because I would only expect buyers concerned with brand safety and fraud concerns to notice ads.txt, and while that describes most buyers, it doesn't describe them all.
• 17% of the ads.txt files out there have errors. You can guess what I'm about to say, right? That means that 83% of them got it right. In an industry that accepts up to 10% discrepancies in everything as "business as usual," 83% correct implementation of a standard within a year is remarkable, even for a simple one.

Ads.txt is a great solution to these industry problems for the internet technology that exists today. Adoption in the first year has been very impressive, if not complete, and I think that we can expect this to be pure table stakes for both the buy side and the sell side within a year or so from now.

https://digiday.com/media/state-ads-txt-5-charts/

How Brands Are Justifying an Increased Need for Consumer Data

http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/how-brands-are-justifying-an-increased-need-for-consumer-data/

For marketing teams, the internet and other advances in technology have usually meant the ability to offer more personalized advertisements for customers. While connectivity has continued to increase, there has also been consistent backlashes against the loss of privacy with the each technological advancement. Especially in American culture, where independence is held as an integral part of society, the loss of personal privacy is not easily given up.

This article compares the loss of personal freedom for security with the consumer perspective of the loss of personal freedom for value; in many ways, this is a proper comparison. The issue with both security and value is that the extent of the cost to have each is not often understood by the recipient. Both require massive amounts of data to be effective and are seen as a positive, until the public finds out what they have to give up for them.

Marketing teams are continuously being faced with the prospect of offering a personalized online experience that strengthens the consumer's connection to the brand and facilitates sales. This must be done without a backlash from consumers with them feeling that the company is intruding on their privacy.

Consumers will continue want the convenience and value technology offers but companies and marketers must continue to find a way to personalize services without offending their clients, or offer enough value that the client does not mind the intrusion. As voice and other enhanced forms of interaction become more advanced, this will continue to be an issue that brands must face.

TO EMERGING ECONOMIES AND BEYOND

Blog Post 10

Besides from continuously expanding in the US, tech giants have set foot already in emerging economies and are prone to rapidly expand in order to capture a unique market opportunity in several nations. Amazon, for example, has announced its expansion to countries such as Mexico and Chile, but on the hindsite, it quietly launched a “lite” version of its Android app for emerging economies especially where the broadband or internet are not good. The test country is India where users have limited space on their phones. The app allows users to access news and privately navigate, allowing the app not to store cookies and leverage space. This is not the first time tech giants develop pilot apps for emerging markets since Google has already launched Google Go, and Facebook did the same with Facebook Lite. This indicates that these companies are understanding their target population and testing the markets and actors involved in order to increase presence and make a sale.

Personally, and having heard other case studies such as M-Pesa in Africa or Messenger in India, I am fully convinced that emerging markets represent great market opportunities. Most people of all economic backgrounds currently have access to a phone and some are even browsing social media or making money transfers, depending on the needs and jurisdiction. In addition; considering that broadband might not be the same than in other developed nations, it is imperative to understand the features that make a difference in the gathering of information and final sale. This allows companies to anticipate change and be ready to capitalize on opportunities that might emerge from a social, political or economic perspective. The human being is constantly emerging. Mobile today is growing at exponential levels worldwide, and for this reason, the fact that this companies are slowly or quietly adapting to the environment is an opportunity, impressive, but at the same time, somewhat scary. This if you look at it from a local business’ perspective.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/17/amazon-launches-a-lite-android-web-browser-app-in-india/

Ad Targeting on Digital Audio

Digital audio is booming with ad revenues growing by 42% in the first half of 2017.  The two main players in digital audio are Pandora and Spotify.

Two weeks before Spotify was to close its first day of public trading, Pandora bought the company AdsWizz for $145 million.  AdsWizz is able to deliver audio ads using both data and automation.  It will now allow consumers to buy ads to be displayed across all major audio publications including both Pandora and Spotify.

While Spotify does provide ads through AppNexus and Rubicon Project, AdsWizz will allow Pandora sequential messaging across multiple formats and platforms; advertisers can target listeners through display, then video and then ultimately with a personalized audio ad on Pandora.

http://adage.com/article/digital/pandora-spotify-audio-ad-tech/313088/

What's the allergy forecast? Ask Zyrtec!

As voice becomes a bigger part of daily life, it's interesting to see how advertising is transforming in the world of conversational commerce. Zyrtec has launched a campaign for the second year in a row, allowing consumers to "Ask Zyrtec" for stats about the local pollen forecast.

It's interesting to see that Zyrtec is taking a "native" approach to their voice-based advertising, encouraging consumers to use their tool to find out about the pollen forecasts. In addition, they are using 3rd party data sources to maximize the applicability of the content for the consumer. They know where the consumer is located and they are utilizing 3rd party data sources about what pollens are at the highest levels on that day.

What's most interesting is that they don't detail how they are explicitly converting customers to purchase Zyrtec after they receive the pollen forecast. Perhaps this is a specific approach they are using so that consumers don't feel like they are really being advertised to. Either way, it will be interesting to see how successful the campaign is, and how other advertisers will put their own spin on advertising on voice.


http://www.adweek.com/digital/johnson-johnson-is-using-pollen-data-to-push-into-voice-based-marketing/

Blog Post 10: Why Brands Are Under Increasing Pressure to Be Transparent About What They Believe In

Increasingly, brands are feeling compelled to enter the political arena and articulate their stances on the issues of the day. Much of the pressure to do so can be attributed to the ascendency of direct-to-consumer brands that view activism as intrinsic to their brand identity. Popular examples, like Warby Parker's Buy a Pair, Give a Pair or Tom's One for One shoe programs, abound. However, brands, virtually all of which attempt to cultivate a distinct voice across their social media profiles, have felt pressure from the #MeToo, #TimesUp and #BoycottNRA movements to pick a side publicly.

Brands can no longer avoid these issues or placate their customers with a canned PR statement. Consumers are demanding that brands articulate their values, take a stand and back it up with thoughtfully buying ad inventory from the right channels (i.e. not Laura Ingraham). (One interesting consequence of this has also been the wellspring of ad agencies who specialize in purpose-drive clients.)

Most brands, however, choose a middle path and avoid issues unless they are particularly important to their customers. An example of this was when President Trump announced the Big Ears National Monument which moved public lands over to private oil and mining companies. Companies like Patagonia, REI and North Face publicly opposed the move despite the risk of alienating customers. REI has since commented that the response from their customers was overwhelmingly positive and that stances like this were pro-environment not Democrat or Republican.

The key factor with these initiatives is authenticity. If a brand is to take a stance it needs to align with their core brand identity and values. Simply speaking up is not enough to gain public approval. In fact, taking a public stance can be so off key, it can cause far more damage to the brand than had they stayed silence. The best example of this is the infamous Pepsi Kendall Jenner TV ad, where the model attempts to quell a riot by handing the police officer a can of Pepsi. The negative response was widespread and Pepsi pulled the ad quickly. Pepsi attempted to leverage social-movement like Black Lives Matter for commercial gain and came off as inauthentically trying to latch on to a trend.

The demand for brands to take a public stance on political and social issues is likely to grow as Generation Z ages. Surveys show that this forthcoming generation cares more about brand values than any prior; 90% say they are only loyal to brands who share their values. The need for brands to take risks and publicly state their identity and values will continue to grow. One can expect more faux pas, but hopefully a more socially conscious ad environment as well. 






http://www.adweek.com/digital/why-brands-are-under-pressure-to-be-transparent-about-what-they-believe-in/

Harley Davidson’s AI Revolution

Buying a classic, American-made motorcycle was for decades a personal experience of coming to a showroom, speaking with a dealer salesperson and test-driving a bike before making the final purchasing decision. From the dealer’s perspective, traditional print advertising to attract customers into the showroom was the most the effective marketing tactic. TV and digital platforms allowed Harley Davidson to replicate its successful advertising campaigns and expand its customer reach over time.

Today, the next frontier is intelligent digital marketing and this is where artificial intelligence (AI) comes into play. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have the potential to put digital marketing campaigns on steroids by continuously improving ad content and placement through A-B testing cycles until the optimal ad copy and targeting is determined. This functionality strengthens digital marketing through cost effectiveness, fewer ad dollars and time spent on placing unproductive ads, as well as better automation over time.

In the linked Harvard Business Review article below, a New York City Harley Davidson dealer takes the dive into an AI and sees a significant increase in qualified leads and resulting sales. What I find to be the most revealing in the Harley Davidson case is how seemingly simply it was to implement the AI strategy and impressively boost sales almost immediately after the initial activation.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has cited artificial intelligence as a panacea for addressing hate speech and bullying on the social media platform by filtering and blocking posts.

http://www.adweek.com/digital/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-marketing-automation/

https://hbr.org/2017/05/how-harley-davidson-used-predictive-analytics-to-increase-new-york-sales-leads-by-2930

Old Habits Die Hard – Experts Don’t Think Data Fears Will Persist

Right now, few people are talking about anything other than the Internet and all of its associated issues. Facebook has overstepped its natural boundaries and gathered more data on users through obscure means than they would ever consciously agree to. Europe is set to implement user protective GDPR regulations next month.

Mark Zuckerberg appeared in front of Congress to express his contrition (and explain how tech companies work to a bunch of politicians itching to regulate). All forms of media covered the situation minute-by-minute as it unfolded. Facebook users were shocked, appalled, up in arms about the Company’s sick invasion of privacy. It looked like this could be a turning point in Facebook’s otherwise generally upward trajectory with people pledging to #DeleteFacebook in the wake of these revelations.

And yet, the tech companies aren’t really panicking. And advertisers aren’t seriously considering revamping their entire digital ad strategy around the possibility that Facebook goes away. Why is this the case? Experts say that social media users have short memories and that ultimately they would rather participate on channels, seeing things (read: people, news, ads for cool products) they want to see than preserve their privacy. As one marketing consultant told CNBC, “There's a huge difference between what people say and what people do. Americans complain about obtrusive ads until they see the next 'Star Wars' trailer.” Another one said that “The problem with sustained interest in protecting data privacy is it's an ‘abstract concept.’” 

I don’t know that I fully believe that – the conversation on data privacy only seems to be growing each day – but I guess only time will tell which sentiments live on and ultimately translate into action.  

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/12/marketing-consultants-agencies-people-will-forget-about-data-privacy.html  

Digital Ad Views + Charity Donations = Givewith

It’s not often that the words “nonprofit” and “donations” are associated with digital ad spend, but a startup called Givewith – which is 50% owned by CBS Corp. – is trying to change that.

Last week, the startup introduced a product that automatically donates to an advertiser’s nonprofit of choice each time a person clicks or views a digital ad. Givewith’s technology is meant to appeal to companies looking to attract *younger* socially conscious consumers who, in increasing numbers, care about corporations’ values and are skeptical of overt marketing ploys.

In addition to handling the creative, media buying and measurement of campaigns’ effectiveness, Givewith’s algorithm will help advertisers choose the nonprofits that will be most impactful on key metrics, such as sales and brand sentiment. Further, the Company will help businesses calculate the impact of nonprofit partnerships and donations on various social governance scores. The Wall Street Journal article linked below goes through an exemplary campaign Givewith recently completed with Dell in partnership with Waterkeeper Alliance, a clean water nonprofit, which resulted in an 85% improvement in Dell’s brand favorability and 66% increase in intent to purchase a Dell product.

It’s clearly a smart move for Givewith to combine an advertising product with a mechanism to improve social good, but I have mixed feelings about the idea that brands are only supporting certain nonprofits solely for the sake of appearances and increasing sales. Business is business, and I don’t expect any companies to be truly altruistic in their CSR initiatives – nor can I really take issue with any effort that helps fund nonprofits’ important work – but it does make me question how much I can trust the authenticity of “corporate values” pages on company websites. What causes do these companies actually support? What (and who) should I believe?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cbs-backed-startup-to-help-advertisers-donate-to-charities-through-digital-ad-buys-1523359800