Why Facebook Should Volunteer for Government Regulation

Facebook in Crisis

Facebook, as a product, is in a moment of crisis. The scandals and negative press that have besieged the company since the 2016 election show little signs of abating.  Further, there is healthy evidence to support the claim that young American’s are less likely to use Facebook. A recent Pew study reported that, in 2018, the percentage of teens who use Facebook as their primary social media application is 10 percent, compared with 51 percent of teens who said Facebook was their primary social media application in 2015. Further, in 2018 only 51 percent of teens report having a Facebook account at all vs. 71 percent in 2015.

While the recent trends in teenage social media behavior coupled with the negative stories surrounding user privacy and sentiment manipulation might raise alarms for Facebook the reality is that the company, both through its primary Facebook product and the brands it owns (Instagram and WhatsApp), isn’t going anywhere. 68 percent of American adults still use Facebook, and 75 percent of those users are daily users, according to that same Pew study. Further, Facebook remains the social media app of choice across many emerging economies.

Facebook – Moment of Truth

Despite Facebook’s seemingly unassailable position as one of the world’s most dominate internet companies, the company does face a definitive moment of reckoning. It’s position as an ultimate provider of news, information, and general content makes the public and lawmakers nervous, especially after it was proven that the company has the power to manipulate our sentiment. Further, its experimentation with pushing voter turnout and the company’s willingness to sell its services to questionable partners, such as Cambridge Analytica, only compounds concern. Facebook, at its core, is an attention harvesting and selling company. Facebook’s inability, or unwillingness, to implement any type of moral code around how they maximize that efficacy of both the harvesting and the selling components of its business, has led to significant and almost intractable problems for the company.

Facebook is a public company and has a fiduciary obligation to maximize profits for its shareholders. Instituting strict moral standards around attention harvesting and selling could dampen short-term profits. While Facebook could argue this move as a long-term strategy to correct public opinion and attract the next generation of users, there’s no guarantee its shareholders or the market will react favorably. Further, no action from Facebook could incite further public outcry, which in turn could jeopardize the company’s economic health. The company has already experienced considerable volatility in its stock price over the past year, while at the same time recording record profits.

Volunteer for Regulation

The inability to effectively manage the world’s content, protect user privacy, and maintain impartiality while suppressing the spread of fake information is both jeopardizing Facebook’s economic value and eroding public trust in the company. Working with instead of against government when it comes to building regulatory frameworks around these core issues would be a shrewd move for Facebook.

Why would Facebook want to assume the responsibility of managing the world’s content? A recent journalistic investigation into the lives of Facebook’s content moderators paints a bleak picture illustrating that the experience of these employees is more comparable to government drone operators than to happy and thriving silicon valley employees. If Facebook had the regulatory framework to manage content, it would not be responsible, for example, for the propagation of Nazi sentiment or for catalyzing violence – it would be in the position to point to conformity to regulation.

Facebook should also seek government partnership when determining the future of user privacy. Facebook’s recent claims to pursue a “privacy focused internet” by encrypting the messages of private user conversations across its three main platforms, Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, is merely a Pyrrhic victory for privacy advocates. This is a ‘have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too’ moment, since the further integration of those three platforms will create an abundance of new capabilities, and opportunities, to mine and sell macro data, even if Facebook doesn’t monitor private conversations. If Facebook, and other large data collecting technology companies, worked with the Federal Government to get ahead of data privacy regulation and help establish the US version of Europe’s GDPR, not only would it be a public relations victory but also Facebook’s compliance cost would be dramatically reduced. Compare that with Facebook’s experience in Europe, where it’s being investigated for several GDPR related infractions.

Facebook’s selling of its customer data and targeting services to unsavory clients, such as politically motivated interest groups, also incites considerable backlash. Transparency is the key to ameliorating this issue and Facebook has, since 2016, taken measurable steps to increase visibility into where political advertisements originate, even after lobbying against such rules prior to 2016. Currently, limited regulation exists in the US for disclosing online political advertisements. Facebook should work with regulators to construct transparency laws related to digital political advertising or else face potentially less favorable regulation.

Across these instances, working with government has the potential to be vastly beneficial to Facebook. If Facebook ‘got ahead’ of many regulatory debates by partnering with lawmakers, it would enable the company to have a voice in regulatory proceedings. This is more favorable than having to ascribe to laws after they were written (thereby avoiding a potentially exorbitant compliance price tag).  Further, from a public relations angle, Facebook would be void of responsibility for spreading injudicious or unsavory content or influencing elections if it was operating under new regulatory guidelines.

Bird and Government Regulation

What is the most pressing obstacle facing the success of Bird and other scooter companies?

The ability of Bird to work with municipal and state governments to gain access to new markets should be seen at the ultimate challenge facing the long-term success of Bird. Launching a new mobility company requires delivering a product that operates in the public arena. Operating in the public arena requires government approval, approval that is hard won, ongoing, and susceptible to the whims of political as well as civic priorities.

To say that bird is operating differently in the arena of seeking government approval versus its ride sharing cousins Uber and Lyft (and to some extend Airbnb) should be discredited. Hiring Tusk Ventures, a firm made famous from its actions in helping Uber enter the New York market, and other lobbying groups, is not an innovative strategy to secure regulatory approval, it’s rather a tried and tested method. Further, the company launched in Santa Monica without the approval of local officials, proving that it has no problem with a ‘launch first apologize later’ modus operandi. Bird’s government affairs strategy should be viewed as akin to Uber and Airbnb vs. being distinct and more government friendly. This should give pause to any forecaster, investor, or potential partner that views Bird’s upcoming, and eventually ongoing, adversarial dance with government to be any less intense and costly than that of Uber, Lyft or Airbnb.

For example, Airbnb, after years of being in the New York is still facing considerable pressure to change it’s business model, share its data, and ultimately curb its expansionary efforts in the City. To think Bird won’t face similar challenges across markets for the long term is shortsighted.

Ultimately, it is the government that controls when, how and under what circumstances a product can enter and operate in the public arena. It is the biggest wild card for a startup that operates in a regulatory grey zone due to both the expensive nature of winning regulatory approval on a market-by-market basis, and two because sound policy might not always comport with political realities. It can be argued that Uber’s ascent in New York City was slowed by crony ‘medallion politics’ that pitted politicians that received substantial political contributions from medallion owners against a company that threatened the economic bounty of a core fundraising group. The recent driver cap is the fruition of such efforts by politicians sympathetic to medallion holders. In the future, Bird may face mobilization and opposition from its own flavor of special interest groups.

Other obstacles

Unit Economics

Beyond government approval, other challenges still face Bird. For instance, some calculations say that Bird scooters need to be utilized for 258 rides before breaking even and generating profit. While this seems to necessitate a significant life span for an asset that can be easily damage, and sometimes purposefully destroyed, these unit economics are ultimately controlled by the company. Bird could raise the price of its rides after it captures significant market share. Further, Bird could invest in more durable scooters and allocate the necessary R&D to improve the longevity and minimize the maintenance needs of its vehicles.

Safety Concerns

While safety concerns are real, the company, after it receives regulatory approval, can transfer a lot of the liability to the customer. There’s no reason why Bird cannot require that customers read and sign a type of indemnification contract, stating that users use Bird at their own risk. This would leave Bird susceptible to lawsuits only when its product malfunctions or due to other abhorrent circumstances.

Weather

While it may be hard pressed for Bird to generate significant utilization during winter months in seasonal climates this seems to be accounted for in the company’s forecasting plan. As David Sacks, an investor states, while it is a reduction of ‘total addressable market, it’s still a huge market’. There are enough seasonally friendly markets, and weather abiding months in seasonal cities to make the economic opportunity vast.

Government is still the biggest obstacle

While other logistical and operational challenges face Bird and other scooter companies, the most challenging obstacle remains securing broad regulatory approval. Bird will need to build a vast national staff of government affairs experts, including lobbyists and consultants, to secure approval in a city by city context, a significant financial burden. Further, if approval is ultimately achieved the concessions that cities will require – such as data sharing, speed limits, docking restrictions, may further impact Bird’s bottom line. Since working with government, in many ways, remains unpredictable and because government ultimately controls access to markets, securing regulatory approval should be the seen as the most prominent challenge facing Bird.

How Unilever uses AI in Marketing

How Unilever is using AI in marketing: 

-Process data and derive insights. Unilever has 26 data centers across the world where scientists are using AI to synthesize insights from a range of sources including social listening, CRM and traditional marketing research. It is working with startups from the U.K., China, the U.S., Israel, Finland and Singapore. 

-Search influencers. Through AI-powered influencer marketing platform Popular Chips, Unilever has been able to use the technology to detect influencers with fake followers and pair Unilever up with the right ones based on demongraphics such as country, age and gender. It found the startup via its accelerator program the Unilever Foundry. 

-Help recruit executives including marketers. 

Source: https://digiday.com/marketing/artificial-intelligence-influencing-unilevers-marketing/

Digital Marketing for Startups/Growth Companies

Where to start and what to do with digital marketing is a common question for startups. How to effectively acquire and convert customers is critical for most businesses. I came across this article on TechCruch and found it interesting: 

https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/13/how-do-startups-actually-get-their-content-marketing-to-work/

One counterintuitive takeaway from this artcile is that startup/growth companies should focus less on their Google Analytics data but more on their readers' full customer journey--Where are the readers in the funnel? Blogs and email newsletters (without discounts) sometimes don't directly convert readers to customers but might nudge them into the next phase in the customer journey. 

The same author also wrote a handbook here: https://www.julian.com/guide/growth/intro. 

Everlane x The New York Times Earth Day Marketing

This year, Everlane and The New York Times launched a new product and marketing campaign for Earth Day with the theme of recognizing Climate Change. For each Climate Collection product sold, nine public school students will receive access to The New York Times through its subscription sponsorship program for one year. (More info: https://www.everlane.com/nytimes)

The partnership is interesting. Everlane, famous for its radical transparency, is a Digital Native Vertical Brand (DNVB). The New York Times is a traditional media company that transitioned (or is still transitioning) to the digital world. For both companies, it is good PR and consistent with each company's values. Everlane charges a premium price for this collection, which sells very well. It is unclear about the additional subscriptions The New York Times can drive from this campaign (besides the subscriptions for the schools) but people wearing the clothes are definitely walking advertisement for the paper.

KFC Creates Social Influencer

With the rise of influencers on social channels like Instagram, KFC is taking a page out of their book to engage with consumers in new ways. As reported by AdAge, KFC recently launched a social media campaign on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram that features "Virtual Influencer Colonel," a computer-generated character that looks like a suave-looking social media influencer. The social media campaign is a spoof on the fame that social influencers have gained on platforms like Instagram, which brands currently seek and pay for to increase the engagement with their products and services. The character is planning to promote KFC through April 22 by posting influencer-like posts. The character also plans to promote "collabs" with other brands such as TurboTax and Old Spice.

This intiative is right in line with what we learned from a social perspective. It allows the brand to engage its followers in meaningful ways, and creates buzz that is shareable to drive increased awareness throughout the internet.

Game of Thrones Partners with Snapchat

One of the most popular shows on the planet, Game of Thrones, will begin its last season on April 14, creating a lot of excitement and anticipation among fanatics and casual TV watchers alike. One of the ways that HBO is planning on continuing to drive interest and excitement for the show is through a partnership with Snapchat. Using Snapchat's augmented reality technology, people in New York City will be able to turn the famous Flatiron building in Gramercy Park into a chilling scene where the undead dragon will appear on top of the building.

While Snapchat has had some challenges from a competitive standpoint, they continue to leverage their unique platform to create compelling social experiences that continue to delight its users. Augmented reality is one of the many tools that Snapchat continues to offer to advertisers and partners to drive engagement with brands and products. I think if Snapchat can continue to find ways to differentiate its platform, they will be able to attract ad dollars and partnerships from brands who want to reach audiences on the platform. Partnerships with HBO are of particular importance as well given that it will likely drive users to continue to use the platform.

Disney's New Streaming Service

On April 11, Disney announced that its new streaming service, Disney+, will launch on November 12, a move that will likely shakeup the streaming service industry. As reported by Variety, the new service will be priced at $6.99 per month, and will allow consumers to stream their favorite Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and National Geographic movies and TV shows. The streaming service will also be propped up by a variety of dedicated movies and TV shows that will be launched exclusively on the platform.

As more and more consumers cut the cord and move toward more digital options, traditional media and entertainment companies are being tasked with finding ways to reach consumer directly. Streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon have completely disrupted the entertainment industry, which prompted incumbents like Disney to find alternate solutions to reach and engage audiences in the future.

I think that this new streaming service will likely be a big competitor for other streaming providers such as Netflix, given the strong arsenal of intellectual property that Disney has with its characters and stories. Time will only tell how successful this new streaming service will be, but I'm sure there are many consumers who just circled November 12 on their calendar to be among the first to subscribe for this new service.

Dominoes Adds In-Car Touchscreen Ordering

Dominoes announced a partnership with automotive commerce platform Xevo Market to create an app that lives on the infotainment touchscreens of connected cars. It will allow consumers to tap a few selections to order a Domino's pizza for pick-up at their nearest store or for home delivery while they're driving.

The feature will begin rolling out to "millions" of vehicles beginning in the second quarter of 2019, says Brian Woods, chief marketing officer of Xevo. The company's technology is currently in about 25 million cars.

It'll be interesting to see the capacity of richness of data that comes in with tracking exactly when and where customers make an order, and optimize operations to ensure deliveries are on time. 

"The app is a way to glean insight into where customers are when they make an order, making sure a delivery is timelier," said Chris Roeser, director of digital experience at Domino's. "We have a long history of finding ways to minimize friction and make the access to pizza much easier for our customers," he said. "We view this as another entry point."

"It leverages vehicle data combined with what Domino's already knows about its customers," says Woods. "With just a couple of touches of the screen, we can place the order at the right Domino's, estimating the time of arrival, so that the pizza is hot and waiting for them when they arrive."

Connected cars offer advertisers an abundance of opportunity when it comes to location data. According to a 2016 McKinsey & Co. study, 55 percent of 3,000 people surveyed said they would be open to exchanging their connected car data for better car services and experiences. The same study found that monetizing car data could grow to $450 billion by 2030.

What you need to know about Pinterest Marketing

When it comes to social media marketing, the first site that comes to mind is obviously Facebook, followed by Twitter, Instagram, etc. The reason these social media sites are popular amongst marketers is because they work.

However, if you can think out of the box and use a dash of creativity, your business can benefit from one of the most underrated social media platforms available for marketing – Pinterest.

First, take a look at the demography users of Pinterest:
- 250 Million monthly active users; around 50% are international users, left only 125 Million US users
- 81% female users, but surprisingly, 40% of new signup are men and 60% new signup are women
- Millennial use Pinterest as much as Instagram.
- 50% of Pinterest users earned 50K or greater per year

Pinterest, as of today, is the fifth most used social media platform. Since the site is visually appealing, it also has a high engagement rate. Making it perfect for businesses that want to reach their target audience and funnel targeted traffic back to their site.

In fact, Pinterest only comes second to Facebook in terms of generating social media referral traffic to websites linked from it. The best thing about Pinterest is that it allows you to share ideas and inspire others like no other social platform.

Also, since every pinner is busy pinning visuals of their own interest and organizing them, they have no problem with other pinners seeing their activity. Which makes Pinterest marketing a highly effective way to get the word out about your products/services.

Digital Marketing Key Takeaway

I learned a lot about digital marketing throughout the semester. In my opinion, the most important key takeaway is that the digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving. As new technology is adopted and as consumer demands evolve, marketers must work diligently to stay ahead of the curve. Google Analytics has proved to be an important tool to measure the marketing effectiveness, and it provides a lot of functionality for free. I plan to keep the changing landscape in mind and use free tools like Google Analytics to ensure that I am keeping up with the trends.

Online regulation for Big Tech

The Congress and all current legislation was badly equipped to deal with challenges posed by the current tech giants like Facebook or Facebook with the old rules aimed to regulate traditional media. But the landscape is finally changing where the FTC efforts to get more resources and funds for digital policing and bigger budget maybe finally coming to fruition. The issue of the privacy is probably the biggest issues where both parties are aligned and agreeable to more oversight and legislation.
The big step indicating a shift and focus of the government role is the creation of the task force by FTC to assess how whether or not consumers are treated fairly by the large tech companies. Finally, the Congress is proposing a bill to regulate privacy rules in the digital world and it would be interesting to see what impact it can/will have on the Google and Facebook business models, where the heart of those business is based on the tailored and targeted advertising for their users.

Take a look at Pinterest

Working on the final project we realised that not that many competitors do utilise Pinterest well enough. However, the platform does have many ads options and just recently introduced some new features. If you know what Pinterest is, you should have noticed that main content consists of pictures, which can be added to a personal board and inspire its' owner. Brands do try utilise this channel and do provide branded content. 73% users admit that they find companies' generated content really useful and 98% have tried items that they found on Pinterest versus 71% of those, who use other social media platforms. It is proven that Pinterest is extremely useful at the beginning of the purchase path and helps people to get aware about a product or brand. 

On April 11 company introduced new conversion features, which do accompany the clicks driving option. Now campaigns might be tailored to some other specific goals such as motivating more signups, having better leads, or driving checkouts. According to the early results of Gravity Blankets that experienced 200% increase in sales and lowered cost per acquisition by 58%, these addition of these options was a smart move and should definitely be used by other brands.

eBay Shuts Its Third Party Ad Network

On Tuesday, eBay notified merchants and publishers that it will be closing down its third-party ad network, the eBay Commerce Network (ECN), as of May 1.

After five years of not as much success as they would've hoped, ECN will shut down. eBay says it is turning attention to advertising solutions for the core marketplace. 

“As a result, we are focusing on business that complements our core marketplace and discontinuing eBay Commerce Network effective May 1st, 2019,” the company said in a statement. "For the health of the core marketplace, eBay is making a concerted effort to shift its reliance from third-party advertising to first-party advertising.” 

eBay merchants are now told to consider promoted listings and other premium ad formats on the eBay marketplace - or the eBay Partner Network, an affiliate proposition in which content creators share links to eBay listings and get paid when they generate sales.

Connected TV Advertising - more things change, the more they stay the same

Millennials are everyone's target customers, but figuring out how to reach them, engage them and convert them has been a thorn in every companies side.  In the era of "cord cutting," and targeted ads - companies are complimenting their traditional linear TV ad spots with ones purchased on Connected TV (CTV).

According to AdWeek, direct to consumer shoppers spend 70% more time streaming content on services like Netflix and Hulu than on social media and 20% more time on streaming television than traditional television.    The best part is that the streaming services have a wide age range in their audiences and the service knows the demographic and psychographic information about each of their subscribers.  It's a marketers dream to be able to micro-target their audience.

Although all that seems really great and on-trend, what does this mean in the constantly moving landscape of Connected TV?  As the cord cutter trend increases, one would suspect that CTV subscriptions increase too.  However, there's a trend in sharing subscriptions and log-in information.  One subscription can be used in multiple households in completely different geographic locations - so what does this mean for targeted ads and curated content by profile or persona?  Advertisers run the risk sending messages to someone logged in that is not the targeted audience, but using the subscription of the targeted audience - so then how realistically effective is it really to reach your audience?

Another trend is subscription fatigue.  Connected TV subscribers tend to have multiple subscriptions to "piece together" the content they want from various platforms.  The subscribers are also realizing that keeping track and paying for multiple subscriptions also adds up and can undermine the seamless/easy experience and some are beginning to downsize or rationalize their subscriptions all together.

It seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same.  In an effort to cut costs and move to connected TV services, the digital generation accidentally increased their cost or kept it the same and also created friction in the overall experience.  Once cable companies catch up and create solely streaming services, what will happen to CTV and the targeted audience for ads?   Well, I hope the Direct to Consumer advertisers enjoy and monetize the wave while it's here!!

Digital Marketing for Startups...

Digital Marketing for Startups...

A good digital marketing strategy can act as a major growth catalyst for a start up. So, where does one focus his or her efforts? 

According to Digital Agency Network , there are 5 essential digital marketing focus areas for startups:

1. User experience

2. Creative Content

3. Social Media Platforms

4. Video Marketing is an upward trend

5. Search Engine Optimization

I would suggest a sixth -- digital marketing hacks. There are so many tools that are free and easy to use. Entrepeuners need to educate themselves on what the obvious tricks of the trade are before outsourcing to an agency. 

A Brave New Retail World

A Brave New Retail World

According to Total Retail Report, "...Google changed its sitelink extensions policy, officially allowing brands to link product ads to select store pages they don’t own, starting with Amazon.com and Best Buy."  Why is this event such a milestone in the digital marketing? Well, there's several reasons. First, brands can now more efficiently guide customers to the point of purchase. Second, we all know that search remains the largest and as many deem the most effective part of the "digital pie". With this change, brands are now empowered to have an true, end-to-end digital marketing strategy. Third, Google is now positioning itself alongside Facebook and Bing who both have allowed direct linking for quite some time. 

This is a transformational time in e-commerce. Brands can now sell direct to consumer while leveraging technology to create even more efficiencies. Brands are now more in tune with what works and what doesn't work than ever before. This evolution on the digital marketing front is so critically important for brands to follow and be aware of because terrific product insights can be gained... profits potentially gained.

Voice Search Platforms FAIL Voice Search Readiness Score

As I ponder how search is evolving and the implications of voice and display optimization, I realize that we're still a long ways to go before having a palatable service that accurately transcribes data. A recent report by Uberall reveals that only "3.8% of businesses had correct information for voice searches and observed nearly 1 million errors about opening hours across listings."  That is, in their study, Uberall created a Voice Search Readiness (VSR) Score to evaluate how well companies presences are on voice search, and the most recent findings has left heads of marketing cringing to SEO their presence in voice search. The race now becomes to be the first listing in a search result as voice services read results one by one and... slowly...

Notably, Uberall also found that popular voice-powered services like Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant were ubiquitously used to locate stores and services locally (e.g. "Alexa, search pizza shops near me").

Frequency of Marketing Emails

I registered an email account to just receive marketing emails from the brands I like or have some interest in. I'm buried in those marketing emails--over 15,000 unopened emails. This seems a vicious circle: knowing the click-through-rate for email marketing is low, marketers are in a race to grab people's attention and send increasingly more emails; the more emails people get, the harder for them to check those emails.

During the digital marketing class, I was working on improving email marketing performance for a dog apparel company. I opened my inbox to check what other brands are doing and realized that most are sending one email per day. Very few offer the option to choose the frequency of receiving marketing emails when I signed up. I could change it in the "manage my subscription" or "preferences" section.

It led me thinking what is the best frequency and whether companies should offer the frequency option when the sign-up window pops up. On the one hand, it seems risky to lower the frequency to let customers see the brand. But on the other hand, how many people are patient enough to change the frequency option instead of canceling the subscription altogether? Is it possible to lower the frequency but increase the customization of those emails to make them more relevant to customers and therefore boost click-through-rate?

Digital content marketing and AI

AI can help marketers make better decisions and create specific and personalized content for the target audience through better data segmentation, content optimization, content creating and outreach.

AI can quickly segment data and thus provide a better understanding of the audience. As a result,  AI enables businesses to create content that caters to their audience across different platforms.

AI can also faster optimization of content by helping customers get straight to the information that they would be more interested in, which is done by utilizing content personalization by learning how a particular user behaves.

AI also has the potential to change and transform content creation strategies. Companies like Yahoo have already used robots which are capable of generating pieces of content that are correct and interesting.

AI will also facilitate outreach strategies by developing visual search capabilities based on specific images that a user might research online. 

Is it too late to build your brand on Instagram?

Instagram is much more crowded today and it’s becoming more and more difficult for emerging brands to stand out and for users to discover new brands. That’s why new brands should focus on creating meaningful, high quality and engaging content versus trying to get as many followers as possible through different technics and bots.

“Everyone is chasing a higher number of followers,” says Eva Chen, head of fashion partnerships in Instagram. “It’s better when brands focus on the followers that they do have and work on making a community.” What users want to see has also evolved. “When Instagram started, people were putting up more marketing images … and now what people want is behind the scenes and the story behind the product,” continues Chen.

Emerging brands are well-placed to capitalize on being authentic and showing a true story of the founder. Some brands even don’t need to have a separate page – followers like to know what’s going on behind the scene and follow a day-today life of the founder.

Influencers seem to remain the most effective way for emerging brands to activate on Instagram, because of the value of their personal recommendation. The gifting strategy to micro influencers with high engagement rate may be the most cost-efficient for a small brand to increase awareness. Again, quality versus quantity is all that matters in today's digital efforts on Instagram.

What’s earned media value

Earned media value (EMV) is a value that is created by the buzz that is going on around the brand. It includes mentions, reposts, shares and reviews by clients, brand advocates and fans. Earned media is unpaid and can be considered as a form of word-of-mouth. Earned media is very important because it indicates how successful were paid marketing efforts in creating brand awareness. It’s also often considered to be the most trusted form of content.

Earned media hold certain risks since it’s hard to control. When Toyota had to recall certain car models, it got a lot of backlashes online and offline. But instead of pulling back from social media, it called upon loyal brand ambassadors and fans on Facebook and Instagram to share their memories and stories of vacations with their Toyota to help rebuild trust and reputation.

EMV depends on different factors. It makes a difference whether the brand is mentioned in the post description, tagged in the photo, or both. The weighting of text to photo mentions is about 75% to 25%. It’s also important whether a single or multiple brands were mentioned since it affects visibility.

 

The top brands by EMV in 2018 were Fashion Nova ($125M), Liketonow.it ($68M), Zara ($60M), H&M ($39M) and KKW Beauty ($37M). All the brands mentioned above leveraged influencers, hashtags and organic mentions to drive EMV. Only one luxury brand, Calvin Klein, made it to the top-20 list with its #mycalvins campaign, which earned $7M in EMV. 

Digital Assistant “Bombshell” Would Make the Stasi Proud

Every week, it seems, brings a new revelation about privacy across some aspect of the digital, social media and e-commerce landscape.

Many of these “revelations” are reported with faux shock by the mainstream media, as though nobody in their right mind would ever have suspected such a thing could be true. Until it is suddenly confirmed as being completely true.

Usually, this might apply to the credulous middle part of the market. But most of these so-called news scoops should not be a surprise to anybody with a modicum of intelligence and common sense – whether user or wise non-user.

Certainly, the latest “sensation” this week that – shock, horror – the tech giants are listening in to any conversation anywhere near their digital assistant products should fall into this category.

It emerged through Bloomberg reporting that Amazon, Apple and Google all employ staff who listen to customer voice recordings from their smart speakers and voice assistant apps.

Leaving aside the fact that it’s quite extraordinary in itself that employees at all three companies fessed up to this, clearly the news has the potential to cast a cloud over the entire digital assistant category with possible implications for e-commerce and digital marketing.

All three companies say voice recordings are occasionally reviewed to improve speech recognition. But the horrified reaction of some people and media commentators suggests that many consumers of these services may have been unaware that tech company employees are potentially with them in the room all the time.

Amazon's voice recordings are associated with an account number, the customer's first name and the serial number of the Echo device used. So positively identifying the people speaking should be pretty easy.

What is more, Bloomberg’s report brought out some very worrying things, such as the description from one employee of hearing distressing clips such as a potential sexual assault. However, the employee said they were told by colleagues that it was not Amazon's job to intervene.

If nothing else, this latest development is evocative of the critically acclaimed 2007 movie, “The Lives of Others”. Set in a grim 1980s East Germany, the movie gave dramatic form to the notorious boast of the country’s secret police the Stasi that it could listen to anybody anytime and anywhere it chose.

Back then, however, the Stasi needed an expert team of surveillance vans, lock pickers and, comically, speed plasterers and technicians who could wire up an apartment in double quick time while its occupants were out at dinner.

Today, it seems, those being surveilled are happily choosing to submit to such a system – and paying for the privilege.

Whether they will be as gleeful once the implications of this week’s news begin to sink in remains to be seen.

What is certain is that all the tech giants have sunk a significant amount of energy, capital and marketing effort into digital assistants. The hope is that the products will drive even more online engagement across a number of areas of media and ecommerce – falling straight through to the bottom line.

We don’t know yet whether this week’s news will be a significant roadblock on the way to digital assistant adoption. Or whether it will be quickly forgotten.   

Finally, it is instructive to view the terms and conditions for Amazon's Alexa service: they state that voice recordings are used to "answer your questions, fulfil your requests, and improve your experience and our services". Human reviewers are not explicitly mentioned!

Instagram and Fashion

Instagram has helped to modernize the fashion industry. Brands are pulling advertising from print and legacy publications and are allocating more marketing budget to influencer marketing and Instagram.

Three years ago, a luxury brand Oscar de la Renta used Instagram primarily as an organic marketing tool spending only about 5% of its marketing budget on digital advertising. Today, it is allocating more than a third of its budget to Instagram. Gucci is spending 55% of its budget on digital, mostly native advertising and paid social. The launch of #DiorSaddle hashtag drove $21 million in earned media values and increased Google search by 300%.

Smaller Instagram native brands, like Cult Gaia and Doen, are generating more revenue than independent high-end fashion brands. The reason – highly engaged audience that leverage Instagram tools like Stories and Direct Message to learn, consider and purchase the product.

The launch of the in-App shopping features that will help Instagram users to transact via the app, will drive more fashion and advertising budgets to the platform. The seamless process and personalization of product and brand offerings are expected to disrupt the whole shopping behavior. 

How machine learning is transforming digital marketing

According to Forbes 84% of marketing organizations are implementing or expanding AI and machine learning in 2018. 75% of enterprises using AI and machine learning enhance customer satisfaction by more than 10%. Machine learning techniques are used to solve a host of diverse problems, and businesses stand to benefit a great deal. But the most important function used by the modern marketing team from Machine learning is finding pieces of predictive knowledge in the waves of structured and unstructured data and using them to your advantage. The ability to respond quickly and accurately to changes in customer behavior is critical in today's world, and machine learning provides that agility by helping identify shifts early.

Machine learning is used to make predictions about customer behavior and create personalized recommendations. It also offers optimization capabilities across channels, including email, mobile and web, via predictive models. The best marketers are using machine learning to understand, anticipate and act on the problems their sales prospects are trying to solve faster and with more clarity than any competitor. Having the insight to tailor content while qualifying leads for sales to close quickly is being fueled by machine learning-based apps capable of learning what’s most effective for each prospect and customer. Machine learning is taking contextual content, marketing automation including cross-channel marketing campaigns and lead scoring, personalization, and sales forecasting to a new level of accuracy and speed.

The combined effect of these marketing technology improvements will increase sales effectiveness in retail and B2C-based channels. Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) lead generation will also increase, potentially reducing sales cycles and increasing win rates.

Upstart Direct to Consumer Marketing is Influencing Established Brands

MillerCoors discussed the launch strategy for its new drink, Cape Line sparkling cocktails, which will have a key component of the ad campaign focused on reaching women using Instagram. The VP of innovations at MillerCoors said that the Instagram focus is in response to the success that many upstart direct-to-consumer brands have had on the platform and its ability to target a specified demographic. While MillerCoors won’t be ditching traditional media altogether, the focus on a targeted campaign is a big change for the brand whose ad strategies are typically centered around mass media such as TV and billboard ads.

"They do such a great job of targeting you with the right type of messaging at the right time. We are going to take a very similar approach. We are going to essentially act like an Instagram brand." - Sofia Colucci, VP of innovations for MillerCoors

This is just the latest example of how the success of many DTC brands is starting to influence larger, established brands. We should expect to see more established brands look to mirror the more targeted strategies, especially as they seek to target millennial consumers. However, I think we will continue to find that this will be a slow transition for the large, established brands as they seek to mine their own customer data in an attempt to react to the new digital marketing trends.

Amazon to Launch the Rival Version for AirPods?

Rumor has it that Amazon is working on earbuds product with built-in Alexa as rival to Apple's AirPods. With the new earbuds product, it is speculated that users can order items, listen to music and do whatever Alexa can do with proper hand gestures. Amazon hasn't formed a response to this. Yet the first thought I had when seeing this is - wouldn't this cannibalize the current market share of Alexa hardwares - Echo? How will it impact the existing product lines? Well certainly you can argue Echo Show shall stay intact through this because of its screen, which lots of consumers love for using in the kitchen setting. But still, will the general public needs two kinds of voice-assistant products with the majority of features overlapping? Also, how much will the launch of this product facilitate the penetration of voice search? Are consumers ready for voice-based advertising yet? I am excited to see if voice-enabled assistance can break it into individual portable level. 

https://adage.com/article/digital/amazon-said-ready-airpods-rival-first-alexa-wearable/2162096

Influencer Marketing Across the Border

Influencer marketing has become more and more important in the marketing landscape. Recently, I've seen a really interesting case about a Japanese e-commerce brand utilizing the Chinese KOLs to endorse their products and achieving great success. The Japanese e-commerce company Inagora launched an app called "Wandou" in China in 2014, and boasted themselves as the only e-commerce site in China featuring direct suppliers from Japan. Their slogan is "Shop without border". Wandou cooperated with 100+ Chinese influencers, invited them all to Japan to visit the manufacturing sites and flagship stores of the products, then asked them to write down posts and distribute through their own social media channels. These marketing tactics are supplemented with the slowdown of Chinese economy and reduction of tourists flying to Japan. E-commerce already enjoys great reception among the Chinese consumers in the first place - now the only effort needs to be done here is to reinforce the image of "Made in Japan" and make people desire it. That's when a great deal of diverse influencers come in handy. 

Want one tool to control your brand experience across the digital universe?

Brands today live in many digital services that customers use to find businesses. Although a brand's website and app are key avenues for customers to gain additional information, the first avenues customers will leverage to discover brands are "intelligent services". For example, a customer looking for a gluten-free restaurant might perform a Google query, ask Siri, search Yelp or use Google Maps. On average, when you brands add up views across all of these third party services they will find it's more than double what they get on their own website. Thus it's crucial to manage the public data about your company across all of these digital avenues to help people find your brand.

Yext CEO Howard Lerman describes this value in his interview Jim Cramer by saying, "Every customer journey starts with a question and, when you use Yext, your customers can get a brand verified answer [across the different digital services they use]." Yext provides customers with their Knowledge Engine solution to manage their brand's information and reviews across hundreds of digital locations including global maps, apps, search engines, voice assistants, directories, and social networks. This information includes a range of information from basic (e.g., address) to detailed (e.g., products and their attributes, events, menus). He goes on to say "Search has changed. It used to be all be about website. You type in a keyword and you get 10 blue links back on a page. Today when you search you just get an answer and the companies that put answers from them are the ones that are going to win in this massive paradigm shift."

Amazon’s Venture into Healthcare - Haven

After class discussion on April 5 where we spent a lot of time talking about the Death Star, Amazon it made me think about their new Healthcare venture called “Haven” that they are launching with JP Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway.   Their plan is to start “small” and provide a service that covers the 1.2 million employees between those three companies.  They have stated that their mission is to provide simpler, better, lower cost healthcare options.  Haven is aiming to improve the process of navigating the complex health care system and provide affordable treatments and prescription drugs.  After hearing about how they treat companies like our classmates, I’m very nervous how they will treat the healthcare providers.  I am also curious what they intend to do with the health data that they will undoubtedly collect.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out... 

How will Google's Project Stadia Change the Digital Landscape?

Google has recently announced a new gaming platform called Project Stadia. The concept is you will be able to enter any complicated games that previously entail running on a separate hardware console, anytime, anywhere. What does that even mean? When we are talking about the "gaming people", usually they can be divided into two groups: the player who plays the game, and other people who watch the player playing. Stadia eliminates the process of purchasing Xbox or PS4 and downloading games from apps like Stream. When you are watching your favorite gamer livestream game-playing on Youtube, by clicking on a button / logging into Stadia, you can play with him / her on any of your devices. The second big feature is the gamer can share a unique link that includes the specific scenario in the game with all his / her avatars' assets at that particular moment. Namely, the gamer can re-create a scenario and invite / dare other players / challengers to finish through the bottleneck. By owning Youtube and Chrome, Google invented something a bit like the "Oasis" in the Ready Player One movie. Gaming is no longer a one-way closed activity - now it can be intercepted and shared to create new possibility. Right now the interface of Stadia remains unclear. But I assume games involving the interaction of players and "watchers" will increase since two hundred million users are exposed to game-related content on Youtube everyday - a number that I couldn't imagine before writing this post - it will be a waste if Google doesn't assemble these people in one place with the power of Youtube / Chrome / data centers / cloud server, and try to monetize that traffic from whatever means.

Snapchat organized its’ first partner summit.

Snapchat held partner summit, during which it introduced its’ audience network similar to that of Facebook. Professionals in the industry point out that Snapchat is quite often closed and do not reveal any plans, but this kind of events help them to be more transparent and show the progress. The social network is popular for vertical videos and with this innovation it will be able to place vertical ads on other partners’ apps. It is interesting that they also started partnership with Tinder and want to integrate Snapchat Stories into the app. Some experts also notice that ad networks are usually created, when all of the inventory on the platform itself is sold, but it does not seem to be the case with Snapchat.

Additionally, the company couldn’t neglect fast development of gaming and shared some information about it during the summit. However, it was not very surprising, because Snapchat recently partnered with a game streaming platform called Omlet Arcade. Games will also have integrated commercials, the part of thr revenue from which will go to developers.