Pandora Will Debut Personalized Digital Audio Ads and Sequential Messaging This Year

Link:
Pandora Will Debut Personalized Digital Audio Ads and Sequential Messaging This Year

Dynamic personalized ads and sequential messaging are coming soon to Pandora. The tool lets marketers build audio ads designed for listeners based on their gender, age and ZIP code, taking into account variables like the weather and time of day.

If marketers use the sequential messaging feature, Pandora can serve ads that tell a bit of a story to listeners or ads that reveal different pieces of information in each spot. According to Pandora, campaigns that tell stories before asking people to buy something are usually more effective than ads that just dive right in.

While personalized ads are leading the trend in digital marketing, no matter it's audio or visual, I think one thing special about the new feature is the sequential messaging feature. It enables marketers to make more engaging content like telling a story, and I feel it can work better with audio ads. People usually consistently listen to radio or music, while we don't tend to have the consistency when reading something online or watching a youtube video. So the idea of sending sequential advertising messages can be implemented into audio ads easier. I'm really looking forward to seeing if this feature cloud lead a new trend of digital audio ads.

Can Facebook Bring Baseball Back?

For some (like me), baseball is life. Day-in and day-out, in-season or off-season - watch a game, troll the highlights, read recaps, or game analysis, just be around the game. It's the absolute best. But even the diehards and the lifers will acknowledge a simple fact: Not enough people appreciate the game.

Baseball did incredibly well last year as a whole. The Chicago Cubs, who had not won a World Series in over one hundred years, final won it all. Not only did they win, they won in a very dramatic seven-game series that had all the drama and excitement that almost every baseball game has - if you're paying attention. Unfortunately, for too many of the 21 million people who were hooked to the World Series last year, they may never watch with the same interest ever again.

While this may be because they just don't care enough about baseball, I like to think it's because they don't have access to the games. Many people are cutting their cable in favor of viewing content on digital platforms. This is why a potential Facebook - Major League Baseball (MLB) deal would be enormous for any level of baseball fan.

As it is rumored, the deal would allow MLB to stream one game a week on Facebook. Considering Facebook is the largest social media platform (cited at 1.7 billion viewers worldwide at the end of 2016), the access MLB would get is enormous. Such a deal could do wonders for a game in need of a spark. Being able to distribute their content, even once a week, to up to 1.7 billion people is a .

If this deal comes to fruition, baseball would be the first sport league in the US to do a deal with Facebook. As all sports are copy-cat leagues, success in a Facebook-MLB partnership would definitely be replicated - especially by the all powerful National Football League (who is currently suffering a decline in viewing). But before that could happen, someone has to show the success this model has. Who better to do this - Who better to lead the way, than Baseball? America's favorite past time!

https://www.thestreet.com/story/14012107/1/facebook-deal-with-major-league-baseball-is-latest-sign-of-streaming-things-to-come.html

Corralling Digital Analytics

It's nice to know I'm not the only one frustrated by the amount of information digital media creates for business leaders. Realizing the power of digital media, Procter & Gamble's (P&G) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Marc Pritchard, is getting tough with vendors who want to work with P&G.

(P&G can of course do this considering they are "the nation's and the world's biggest advertiser".)

Very new to the digital media space, my early reaction is that it's all just too much. There's too much information being collected. There are too many ways to assess the information. It's information overload. And to analyze all of this information, you have to test theories to information over and over again. It feels like an endless experiment.

The fact that this realty frustrates me is surprising. I'm a scientist. Experimenting is kind of my thing.

P&G is tired of it all too. Pritchard says, "P&G also spends 'enormous amounts of time trying to understand, analyze and explain the differences between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Pandora, YouTube and the dozens of different viewability standards claimed to be the right metric for each platform.'"

Enough is enough. What's the standard? Tell me how to analyze the information that's being collected so that I too can focus on the creative. As Pritchard says:

"Time is up. We will no longer tolerate the ridiculous complexity of different viewability standards."

http://adage.com/article/media/p-g-s-pritchard-calls-digital-grow-up-new-rules/307742/

7 Ways small retailers can compete with retail giants using Google Shopping

This is a great article that gives actionable steps for small retailers to compete with 800 lbs gorillas in the google shopping marketplace.

My favorite 3 tips are:

1. Segment campaigns effectively - we learned through the long tail principle that an ultra targeted niche market can produce significant results

2. Use Natural Language - It may be a tendency to get fancy or use your brand name or words specific to your product - but while starting out it is unlikely that you will have massive amounts of people searching for your specific key words.

3. Geo targeting - target your ads to zip codes that you feel match your market and have highest propensity to buy.

Great read.

If you are interested in reading the full article, please click below:

http://searchengineland.com/7-ways-small-retailers-can-compete-with-retail-giants-using-google-shopping-269454

5 Tips for Sending an Email Blast Without Getting Blacklisted

This article was fitting since we spoke about email best practices a few classes ago.

I find it remarkable that an article this rudimentary is being published on marketing land. That tells me many companies are still not executing effective email strategies.

I do not agree with point number 2. If you are only emailing folks that have opted in then you are really not aggressively going after new business. So while point 2 is factually correct that you have a much smaller chance of getting blacklisted by only emailing those accounts that have opted in.. i don't feel it's very realistic.

I love point number 5. I have personally not used any of those services but it makes total sense. Getting your emails authenticated before sending them.

If you are interested in reading more about the article please click below.

http://marketingland.com/5-tips-sending-email-blast-without-getting-blacklisted-206827

Facebook to Introduce mid-Video Ads

Facebook has announced plans to starting showing ads in the middle of videos on certain pages.  This move is Facebook's first attempt to monetize its video capability to date.

Ads will not be run prior to the video content, as with Youtube- instead these breaks will occur at least 20 seconds after the start of the video, and must be at least 2 minutes apart.

It will be interesting to see how the move affects video usage on Facebook.  It seems likely that these ads would generate more revenue than ads on Youtube which can be easily ignored.  However, showing ads mid video also creates a possibility for negative backlash among annoyed viewers.


http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-to-start-showing-commercial-ad-breaks-in-middle-of-videos-2017-2

Twitter Allows Brands to Personalize Customer Service

Twitter now allows companies to display avatars and names of employees in direct message conversations, while still operating through the main company profile.

The change is based on research showing that personalized interactions are 20% more satisfying to customers than communicating with a nameless company profile.

http://mashable.com/2017/02/22/twitter-personalized-customer-service/?utm_cid=mash-prod-nav-sub-st#jlu84KCvmkqq

Google Ad Performance Measurement Gets Transparent

Google & Facebook receive 2/3 of all digital ad spending.  The companies both sell the ad space and provide their customers with measurements on how well ads are performing (i.e. how long users spend watching ad videos, etc).

Many clients feel that this situation presents a conflict of interest.  In fact, Facebook recently admitted to erroneously inflating ad performance statistics.  

Seemingly in an effort to avoid a similar embarassment, Google will provide transparency to clients, allowing third party audits of their performance measurements.

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/pressure-prove-ads-actually-work-google-opens/  

Ad auditing - even Facebook needs to comply

The Wall street journal posted an interesting article with the headline "Facebook Agrees to Audit of its Metrics Following Data Controversy".

The article summarizes how Facebook has been increasingly under fire because of mistakes found in its ad data over the last several months. As a result, FB has pledged to undergo "audits" by media watchdogs to appease ad-industry executives who are skeptical of Facebook's data reporting practices.

It was interesting how the writer used the analogy of Facebook's data review/report as equivalent to someone "grading their own homework" because it didn't allow for genuine third-party inspection of its data. I think all big media platforms who use this type of data to drive pricing and revenue streams should be subject to a similar type of granular, third-party data measurement.  However, its not an exact solution because attributing an ad's success to an actual purchase is extremely difficult --- an impression might help persuade a purchase decision, but not necessarily right away. Watchdogs, however, will hopefully help to keep big tech companies honest.


Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-agrees-to-audit-of-its-metrics-following-data-controversy-1486735200

Super Bowl Ads Score With Unity & Humor

The following WSJ article described the ad choice of some marketers during the Super Bowl. While many were filled with political undertones, ads with a funnier angle seemed to poll much better. Marketing experts believe this is because explaining “People just need an escape right now” from the political landscape.

I tend to agree with this point. The Super Bowl is a once a year opportunity to reach 100+ million viewers, with companies paying over $5 million for a 30-second ad! Maybe I am alone on this front, but I am more likely to remember the funny Mr. Clean ad that made me chuckle than the politically controversial advertisement that seemed to stretch to find a link between immigration and a beverage product. In fact, it almost makes it seem like companies are trying to exploit socially jarring issues to increase visibility and connection with consumers, which seems very disingenuous and hurtful to the brand message.

In fact, some stats support this inference. Anheuser-Busch InBev NV’s Budweiser spot showed the company’s co-founder immigrating from Germany to St. Louis in 1857, trying to draw the tie to immigration issues in today's political landscape. Six days after its release, the Budweiser ad had generated over 57,000 comments on social media, only 14% of which were positive and 17% negative, posed as being a disingenuous, "politically motivated jab”. I am all about taking a stance and political message, but companies need to tote a fine line.


LINKS:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/super-bowl-ads-split-between-humor-and-unity-1486351929

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cmo-today-super-bowl-ads-score-with-unity-and-humor-1486386267

Mere exposure effect??

Mere exposure effect??

Mere exposure effect (Zajonc effect) is a famous psychological term. The concept of this term is that repeating exposure/contatcts increase favorability. Most of our friendship can be explained by this. This theory also can be applied to digital marketingd, generally speaking.

Acording to the The Nielsen Company’s report (2016), however, 17% of people have hated products and brands by watching digital advertisements. And 65% of the reason why they have hated was just because the same advertisement was displayed too many times. Of course, the best frequency depends on the nature of products/services and receivers. However, It is obvious that there is a certain kind of "balance" we have to be aware of. 

I think the tricky point behind this problem is that we have so many devices/chances to see digital advertisements. Personal PC, Office PC, personal mobile phone, office TV, screen at Times square, Home TV etc…. Even if the frequency of each device is designed to be moderate, the “total amount” could be a different picture. I believe this is one of the reasons why corporations try to track (potential) customers on individual basis, not device basis.

Is the gold rush to digital marketing finally backfiring?

Digital marketing is growing rapidly with expectations that digital advertising reached $299 billion of annual spend by 2021 – ~50% of marketing budgets. Companies and marketers have been moving quickly to try to capitalize on the digital trend and stay ahead of the curve. However, as this article points out, there may indeed be some downsides and marketers need to be careful with how they approach these digital strategies. Procter & Gamble recently suggested they have been distracted by new methods and trends, leading to poor ad placement and wasted money. Other companies are suggesting the same and that they need to better refine their strategies. Additionally, the rush to digital may also have other unintended consequences. Programmatic strategies, for example, may unknowingly place adds on sites that do not support the company’s brands and may actual have negative unintended consequences, like funding extremists sites, supremacists, pornographers, etc. I think this raises an important point as we think about developing digital marketing strategies. Effectiveness of strategies needs to be well measured and gauged and unintended consequences need to be monitored whether for “brand safety” or just to avoid in appropriate activities.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/14/is-the-gold-rush-to-digital-marketing-finally-backfiring.html

Yahoo strikes global content partnerships with UK publishers

http://www.netimperative.com/2017/02/yahoo-begins-global-content-deals-major-newspapers/

Just read the above article about Yahoo striking global content partnerships with UK publishers (21-Feb-2017) as it steps up ambitions to lead news. Yahoo has been struggling to be a dominant player of online display ads in the US, as it stands distant fourth behind Facebook, Google, Twitter. This deal with the consortium of seven newspaper chains (The Telegraph, the Guardian, The Independent, the Evening Standard and Hearst UK) representing 176 newspapers is a major pivot and exciting pivot for Yahoo as it plans to dominate the US news market. Yahoo is currently ranked fifth news source behind Google, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and Twitter.

In my opinion, this is a win-win situation for both the newspapers and Yahoo. The UK newspapers are trying to make a big push to become global brands. Yahoo is one of the dominant players in news media in the US and Yahoo Finance is the number one in the finance sector. Yahoo will have access to quality content to build on their existing verticals, and the newspapers will have Yahoo’s over 1 billion monthly users worldwide and 29.3 million unique UK site visitors reading these articles.

The deals include a revenue share agreement using Yahoo’s native advertising marketplace Gemini. Advertising will appear within each article to reach and engage relevant audiences with highly-targeted content.

I think the ultimate winners will be the Yahoo users who will access to an array of premium content on a wide range of channels. To me as a Yahoo user, it means combining the best of Yahoo journalists with the masses of journalists covering every piece of news out there.

DIGITAL MARKETING & CYBERSECURITY

In the insurance world a data breach, also known as a cyber attack, is considered the new "break and enter."  Today, businesses are more likely to experience a data breach as opposed to an actual burglary.  Cyber attacks first started making noise in the business community roughly 15-20 years ago.  The only businesses that had to be leery of a potential breach were businesses that held clients pertinent information, which is often referred to as P.I.I., personal identification information.  P.I.I. only included names, addresses, and social security numbers.  Hospitals, because of medical records, accounting firms, and law firms, were the three main targets.  

Today, the definition of P.I.I. has expanded, and technology has increased the likelihood of all businesses getting cyber attacked.  The rise in digital marketing has made it nearly impossible to dodge hackers weekly attempts to compromise or break into your system.  It's no longer just hospitals, accounting firms, and law firms that should be worried, it's literally any business that takes credit cards and stores records, whether you're a brick and mortar or based solely online.  I believe CMO's now find themselves in the tough position of not only trying to run and manage successful digital marketing campaigns, but also making sure they protect their clients and ensure trust in the on-boarding process. It's a tough job, but I think it will only get harder because the use and impact of digital marketing isn't going to slow down anytime soon, which will lead to more and more cyber attacks. 

Article

Avoid Disruptive Digital Marketing Techniques

While there are many ways to annoy consumers by using disruptive digital marketing techniques, a CNBC article mentioned the following three that create negative feelings among consumers towards brands:

Retargeting: in this type of online targeted advertisement, consumers are targeted based on their online actions. For instance, once a consumer visits an advertiser’s website, a cookie is placed in the consumer’s browser. This allows the advertiser to “follow” the consumer on the Internet and display ads on different websites via ad exchange.

 Pre-roll advertising: displays ads before playing the video consumer wants to watch. These are typically 15-30 seconds long clips that play before the content a user wants to watch.

Screen invasion: ad pops up on the article or website and the users are forced to close the ad in order to get to the content.

Advertising has always been intrusive to some degree but the above techniques should be used with caution. Used inappropriately, it can destroy the trust consumers have in a brand. 

Reference:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/14/is-the-gold-rush-to-digital-marketing-finally-backfiring.html

The Return of Email Newsletters! (?!)

As of about two months ago, one of my daily reading routines has become “The Hustle,” a West Coast based group that writes a daily email about technology, media, finance, and entrepreneurship. It’s timely (noon on the dot every day – lunchtime for East Coasters, coffee read for West Coast), it’s relevant, and it’s written in a conversational voice that is enjoyable to engage with on my lunch break, and simple to parlay into water cooler chat.

The Hustle boasts of its rapidly growing base, and recent round of funding. NYT Cooking, an email written by NYT Food Editors 3-4x a week, has been a bright light in an otherwise lukewarm roll-out of its Cooking platform. These two examples are surprising based on the position held by many that email is dying, based on clutter and a poor user experience for messaging, project management, and media consumption. Companies like “Slack” are trying to pick up where email falls short, touting different “Channels” for different topics, meant to displace the long, cumbersome email threads endured by teams at the office.

But for me, ironically, The Hustle represents an opportunity for me to consume the exact content that I want, without diving into the clutter of Twitter, or learning/clunking through the interface of a native app for The WSJ, Economist, NYT or the like. I don’t have to do the legwork to discover content and what I need to know for the day in my particular areas of interest. And I know the tone of the article will provide me an upbeat way to spend the 15 minutes I take for lunch.

Despite this stance, there still enters the question of monetization, and The Hustle making enough money to support an editorial staff. So far so good. They natively weave in advertorials about a great new mattress, or easy new online payments system. And they’ve left out standard “medium rectangle” network boxes that usually house debt refinancing ads. But email is in its infancy for housing video creative, where money is flowing in outsized proportions, and it won’t be easy for The Hustle to scale up native ads, with each integration seemingly done by hand. I believe a select few email newsletters, that truly carve out a niche with their content (and by association, advertisers), will thrive, but the return of a heyday of email newsletters likely won’t happen any time soon.

Why We Fall for Clickbait

Cleverly titled article (You'll Be Outraged at How Easy It Was to Get to You to Click On This Headline") on why, despite knowing that an article will likely not fulfill the promise of its headline, we click on it anyway.

The takeaway is that the headlines are written to evoke strong emotions which generally tend to be negative: anger, fear, anxiety, since these cause the strongest reactions.

https://www.wired.com/2015/12/psychology-of-clickbait/ 

Integration of Customer Data – The Key to Digital Marketing Success

The eMarketer article posted today, “Technology Challenges Holding Marketers Back from Single Customer View,” highlights a critical factor I believe has been passed over in digital marketing: the integration of customer data sets from disparate sources.

Having an in-depth view of the customer is critical to being relevant to them – which in turn gets your message noticed. Yet so many marketers work with only one data set – a list of customers who buy online, a list of followers on Twitter, Facebook users who like a page, customers who are searching for only one key word or phrase.  Yet, customers are people and have a variety of online behaviors.  Linking these together can be done at a high level – Women 30 – 40 with children under the age of 10 – using a wide variety of public data sets.

But what about the data the company already has?  Customer data is often gathered, stored, secured and ignored.  In the article, Sean Brown, CTO at Organic, a digital ad agency, notes that companies are starting to connect the customer data dots, which is good news.  The challenge has long been around the disparate nature of these data sets and the complex technology solution needed to join them.  This meant that the marketing strategist and the IT lead needed to be in lock-step.  Which was not often the case.

I’m glad to see these silos start to break down as marketers see the value of using integrated data – especially as we see platforms like Oracle and Salesforce expand their service offering to include online advertising and personalization.  This will become the standard for marketers in the future – an integration of data so that messages are personalized, relevant and marketing becomes more about connecting with each and every customer vs. broad messages for the masses.

Slack Hacks

Loved the article by Fast Company today listing 5 Slack Hacks you can use to be more productive.  As a user of Slack for work projects it is always a challenge to stay up-to-date on all of the feeds.  I’ll be using these hacks to help:

• “All Unreads” – all the messages I haven’t read from all the channels in once place.  Perfect to catch up on any chatter that has happened in off hours or while I was in meetings. (And I can tap “r” to mark everything as read.)
• Reading all my mentions – Clicking the @ button in the top right shows me all the reactions and comments to my posts – which is something easy to scan as I’m updating content for the project
• Keyboard shortcuts!  Here is my favorite: “Open all Unreads” : CMD+Shift+A or CTRL+Shift+A, and “Open conversation Search Box” : CMD+T or CTRL+T
•  Get notified only when I want to – I don’t want to be notified of every post, but some I do.  So, I can go in and set up “Highlight Words” to notify me in case of a particular conversation or reference.  In Notification settings, add a list a words.

Slack is rapidly replacing email as our work project tool of choice.  Missing conversations and constant notifications pull focus, however, when I’m in meetings.  These hacks will help manage the onslaught of conversation – especially those I may not need to weigh in on.