Pinterest Acquires Hunt and Pext

As Pinterest is moving towards the e-commerce space, it has acquired Hunt and Pext to build out streamlined selling capabilities. The Hunt features a similar format to Pinterest, but lets consumers track down items they covet. On the Hunt, users can post a picture of an item they are looking for, and other users offer shopping suggestions in form of comments. Pext, on the other hand, allows users to turn text messages into memes by connecting them with relevant images as they communicate via text. Given that Pinterest is an image platform, Pext will serve as an interesting communication tool for Pinterest to take its user engagement to the next level. Pinterest is also testing its "buy button" that enables users to quickly purchase items they discover on Pinterest. The acquisition of Hunt and Pext is undoubtedly the next step to more monetization.

IBM's new Watson Trend App

IBM's new Watson Trend App can now predict the most desired holiday gifts based on consumer preferences. The app distills tens and millions of online conversations across 10,000 sites, blogs, forums, comments, ratings, and reviews to provide a static ranking popular products and reveal how consumers feel about the products. The app helps consumers pinpoint and understand why certain products are so popular. It also employs predictive analytics useful for marketers. This powerful tool combines API capabilities, including Sentiment Analysis, Keyword Extraction, Concept Tagging, and Taxonomy Classification.

Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNW9xhQvKI8#t=14

Target Ramps Up Social Media Marketing

Target increased its social media marketing budget by 30% from last year, and is planning to communicate with holiday shoppers through Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and other social media apps. In particular, Target is trying out geo-filters overlays in Snapchat that can only be accessed in certain locations. Target is also using Instagram takeover ads with Marquee feature, and is taking advantage of Facebook's carousel ads as well as Facebook's Canvas to display fast-loading, Facebook-hosted ads for its craft activity Wonderpacks. This social media strategy is also acknowledging the increasing prominence of mobile shopping. "Holiday this year represents Target's most ambitious social spend for a single campaign," said Colleen McDuffe, senior director of social media at Target. "For the first time, Target will be leverage Snapchat to engage our guests during the holidays. More and more, we know shoppers are looking to Facebook for purchase inspiration, especially on their mobile devices.

Yahoo Introduces Product Ads for Search and Display with Major Retailers

The once dominant search engine is seeking new ways to generate advertising revenue with an intriguing, and potentially highly engaging ad format - image-based product ads, which already exist on Google and Bing. With Product Ads, advertisers have the ability to reach across the web with rich images of the products. A handful of retailers are already trying out this format on Yahoo, and early advertisers on Yahoo's Product Ads have seen 20% higher conversion rates and more than 30% lower cost per acquisition, optimizing for both impact and cost. One retailer with Product Ads on Yahoo has already been seeing as high as a 14-to-1 return on ad spend. Frankly, it is surprising that Yahoo created this advertising format so late, as Google has experienced much success with product ads, which accounted for 60% of all Google's non-brand traffic in Q3.

Facebook Ramps Up Search

Facebook continues to go after Google's dominance in search with its latest announcement: the social media giant is allowing all contents available in over two trillion posts to be searchable by anyone anywhere. These posts include those that have been made under the "public" setting. Until now, the site's keyword search tab showed results for profile pages, groups, and events. Now, entire conversations could be made searchable. The latest move is meant to take on Twitter during major live events, as explained by the VP of Search.

"When you search, you'll now see the most recent, relevant public posts along with posts from your friends.

Search results are organized to help you cut through the noise and quickly understand what the world is saying about a topic in the moment. You also can pull-to-refresh and see the latest public posts.

Your search results are personalized and unique to you and, as always, you can only see things that have been shared with you. Likewise, you control who can see your posts on Facebook and it's easy to change the audience of your past posts any time."

However, it is not difficult to imagine that Facebook actually goes after bigger search giant with its ability to harness data from 1.5 billion users. Marketers will be certainly interested in unearthing treasure trove of data from the most used social media platform. However, Facebook will continue to face criticism over its privacy policy. Users might be unknowingly exposing their old posts simply because they were listed under "public" previously. 

Running TV spots and social media ads simultaneously

As the collective attention of consumers/viewers shift to multiple screens, marketers are increasingly relying on omni-channel strategy to gain greater mindshare. A data science firm, 4C Insights, is taking this one-step further to identify whether or not a simultaneous omni-channel actually pays off. The technology employed by the firm first identifies a brand's commercial playing on TV, which then triggers ad buys on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (or all three platforms at once).

This way, the social media buys align perfectly with TV ad strategy, as many marketers will likely desire.

Although the firm hasn't accumulated too many clients, one brand is already recording positive results. Czech automaker Skoda has tested the program and said it achieved 50% higher than average clickthrough rates on ads while gaining 25% more consumer reach.

I can see more and more brands and marketers being interested in a technology, especially in an age where omni-channel strategy is deemed necessary for success and consumers' attention becomes more dispersed. It also opens up opportunities for more integrated campaigns (watching ad with a call to buy, and then immediately having a Facebook ad with a link to the buy page). All of this is making it easier for consumers to follow through with actual purchasing.

Discovery Ramps Up Virtual Reality to Drive Experiences

Discovery recently launched Discovery VR - a new app and website facilitates users to immerse in storytelling. For example, one of the videos give viewers a virtual look at gold mining operation. (Link: http://www.discoveryvr.com/#/watch/goldrush-pay-dirt/details).

Discovery is poised to make virtual reality a central part of its marketing strategy - already hiring eight people across its video production and content team to lead virtual reality campaigns.

The execution of virtual reality content is difficult - as it requires not only new camera capabilities, it also requires unique storytelling. Publishers are showing growing interest in virtual reality because it "generates empathy" for audiences. New York Times, for example, have already experimented with virtual reality on its web platforms. With Facebook's high profile acquisition of Oculus, virtual reality now has the momentum to become more mainstream, but it remains to be seen whether new publishers adopt virtual reality as the norm, especially after years of false starts.

I believe that the popularization of a hardware device (maybe Google's Cardboard platform) is the next step in making virtual reality the new way to consume, view, and experience content.

To read more: http://digiday.com/publishers/discovery-virtual-reality/