How to optimize your AdWords costs

The classic way businesses use AdWords is bidding on keywords with commercial intent and convincing potential customers to click through to visit their website. The only problem is that Google AdWords can get expensive when competitors are bidding on the same keywords. These are a couple of strategies to pay less but still get tangible results.

First, try setting up your ads on the brand names of well-established competitors. This is a very common practice, especially among digitally native D2C brands like Casper. Some mattress companies even discredit competitors by putting phrases like “Do Not Buy This Mattress”. A less expensive way would be to bid on misspelled brand names of competitors.

Second, try bidding on phrases that people search when they are not ready to buy yet. These phrases are cheaper and allow to recruit future customers earlier on. However, follow up actions should be taken to convert these customers later in the game.

Third, support organic SEO since it remains very important for all paid digital initiatives. Moreover, Adwords can help with SEO by quickly identifying the most efficient keywords and using these key works while optimizing landing page and creating content. Adwords also helps to drive supplement traffic and thus increase the relevance of the page.

Fourth, don’t afraid to go viral by focusing on hyper-targeted and longer-tail keywords or some hip and timely events.

And lastly, use Adwords to test new ideas by running several campaigns and identify what works best. Great way to test your MVP before investing in building an actual product or service.

Podcast Advertising

Spotify announced this month it has acquired podcast development company Gimlet Media and back-end podcasting services firm Anchor. The acquisition helped position Spotify as the second largest podcast player behind Apple. 

Originally introduced in the early 2000s with the release of the iPod, podcasts have been gaining massive traction in the past five years. Apple confirmed that there are over 525,000 active podcast shows and over 18.5 million episodes in 2018. More than 73 million Americans listen to podcasts each month. 

Typically attracting more educated and affluent listeners, podcasts have become an exciting and effective tool for marketers. National Public Radio, which produces popular podcasts like How I Built This and Ted Radio Hour, claims that 88% of NPR podcast listeners have taken action in response to a sponsorship announcement in an NPR podcast and 65% of NPR podcast listeners prefer to buy products or services from NPR podcast sponsors. One explanation is that listeners usually have respect for the hosts and therefore are more likely to have positive opinions of the products the hosts advertised.  

For a podcast advertisement, there are three types of placement: 

Pre-roll: 15-30 seconds at the beginning of the show

Mid-roll: 60-90 seconds in the middle of the show

Post-roll: 15-30 seconds at the end of the podcast

According to Hailey Friedman, Head of Marketing at Improvado.io, the most valuable time slot is the mid-roll since the listeners are the most engaged at that time and less likely to skip the ad. Typically, it costs $18 per 1,000 listens (CPM) for a 15-second pre-roll and $25 per 1,000 listens (CPM) for a 60-second mid-roll. In other words, depending on the popularity of the podcast and placement of time slot, buying podcast advertising can cost from $200 per episode to $25,000 per episode. 

Sources: 

https://www.growthmarketingpro.com/comprehensive-guide-podcast-advertising/

https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/content-marketing/podcast-advertising-what-you-need-to-know/

http://nationalpublicmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NPR-Podcast-Sponsorship.pdf

Spotifying is Changing the Game with Podcast Land Grab

Feb 9, 2019
Matthew Weinberg
Blog #3


Last Friday, I led an office visit with the CEO Club (the student club for entrepreneurship and startups at CBS) to Gimlet Media, one of the world's leading podcast companies. The visit ended abruptly when the Matt Lieber, the co-founder and President, was called away by a member of their public relations team to address a communications emergency.

The emergency was a news leak that reported Spotify's intentions to purchase Gimlet for approximately $200 million. This announcement, and subsequent purchase of Gimlet, is part of broader acquisition strategy by Spotify to buy studios that create original podcast content. Spotify's betting that the future of audio will be driven, in part, by public demand for podcast material. For anyone paying attention to the sector, this dovetails with significant VC investment in podcast in 2017 and 2018.

With regards to marketing, it presents a potential change to the audio advertising business model. Currently, most podcasts are free and drive revenue via advertising. Spotify's podcast land grab indicates a shift in the model to something more akin to Netflix, indicating the Netflix of podcast moment is here. Advertising models may fall prey to a premium model, which Netflix has proven is an attractive business model. Already, other podcast startups, such as Luminary Media, are taking this approach. Spotify believes that not only music, but original story telling and other compelling podcast content, has the potential to be a boon to subscriptions.

The acceleration of podcasting into the premium model might spell the demise of free high caliber content but it may also spell the demise of any podcast advertising model. Will customers care and be willing to pay a fee to enter a walled garden of podcast content? Or will they seek free content and endure the current advertising structure? In any event, the change Spotify has initiated in the podcast sector will have a lasting impact on how we consume non-music audio content.

Facebook Decisions and Blunders and how its future will look

   We had a discussion in the class about the valuation of Facebook, especially when it comes to platform companies and how valuable the winner take all type of business the company has become. The point brought up in class many times was how the Facebook brand suffered from privacy scandals and police contenting features, whereas prior to those blunders, the company had immense amounts of data for very targeted digital marketing and continued to drastically expand.
   First big turning point made by Facebook was a decision to start policing and reviewing content, where today the company employs over 30,000 people to prevent abusive posts while also monitoring safety and security. The decision had drawbacks and created criticism of the company, where some argued that this step was a bit too late while others accused the company of only focusing on certain messaging and showed bias in its content policing, further driving a wedge for some of its users.
   The business model is entirely based on the digital advertising, which in the hindsight was a brilliant decision versus the subscription model, where many paying users could have looked for alternative social media platforms if they had to fork out a monthly fee. But the advertising model is highly dependent on the trust of its users in the Facebook privacy policies and with a large number of scandals coming to forefront in a few years, it appears that the company lost its focus on main things - the users and their trust. The advertisers only come to the platform due to massive amounts of detailed user data and the company should drastically change its approach to ensure everything is tailored back to the user experience and increasing trust.

Jeff Bezos vs. National Enquirer

I find it amazing that in this day and age the worlds (formerly) richest man would be dumb enough to take pictures of themselves and send them over an electronic device to another person.  Over the past few weeks this story has it’s way around the internet and has turned political with Jeff Bezos accusing the National Enquirer via a blog on Medium.com of trying to blackmail him and coerce him.

I didnt even realize that the National Enquirer still existed until this article hit the wires with Bezos response.  I would have thought that if the National Enquirer posted the pictures everyone would have thought they were fake so if I were Bezos I wouldnt have made a big deal about it, but then again clearly I am not as wealthy or as smart as Bezos so maybe he is a step ahead.

Will be interesting to watch the developments over the coming weeks.   

Will Amazon finally be present in NYC?

If you are reading this, there is almost no chance that you do not know what a giant Amazon is. Recently I visited 12 fashion/tech companies and a couple of conferences, and Amazon was mentioned as a strong competitor and the main concern every single time.

One of the biggest plans of the company is to build 2 new offices in Arlington, Virginia and New York, New York. While Virginia’s government is excited to host such a company and even promised to provide $750 million in cash incentives, New York’s situation is more complicated, because this activity is combated by some politicians as well as activists. Recently this fact led to some rumors saying that Amazon is going to reconsider this decision and will take a look at another possible options.

What kind of benefits are going to be provided?

1.     One of the most obvious is that 25,000 to 40,000 jobs with average salary of $150,000 will be created. Additionally, Amazon plans to resume workshops at Queensbridge Houses starting in 2020 as well as open a training center focused on engineering courses, giving an opportunity to underprivileged New Yorkers to get higher paid jobs;

2.     Now I notice a trend of tech-savvys to move to the Bay area in order to find a job in a well-know and respectable companies as Facebook and Google. So Amazon’s presence will help to preserve these talents;

3.     Expected tax revenue of more than $10 billion over the next 20 years

4.     Even though Bloomberg already refers to New York as “the best place on the planet for technology. This happening will help to secure the name of a developed tech city;

5.     Local businesses also find this idea plausible since new residents will bring more revenue.

There are also downsides that make politicians and activists unwilling to accept the offer.

1.     There is no guarantee that transport system will be able to handle so many commuters;

2.     There is a strong concern that real estate prices as well as living costs will rise, making income gap even bigger and more noticeable;

3.     For low income citizens blue-collar jobs are going to be created. It is a noble intention, besides the fact that quite often work conditions for this kind of jobs leave much to be desired;

4.     Mentioned training program aims to address the issue 3, but it is highly possible that cost of living will rise at faster pace then salaries and skills of trainees.

Taking into account all the information, this deal seems to be questionable. Let’s stay tuned to know what the result is going to be.

FYI 

Snap Makes a Comeback

Earlier this week, the social media and advertising firm Snap released Q4 2018 earnings. Although Snap seemingly did not have a good 2018, with 5 million users leaving Snapchat (where posts disappear in 24 hours), earnings results were surprisingly positive and exceeded investor expectations. Snap's emphasis on advertising has helped it raise revenue per user, a key advertising metric.  Furthermore, user growth appears to have somewhat stabilized, following the firm's commitment to addressing issues noted with its deeply unpopular redesign of the app. The market rallied in response, with Snap spiking nearly 20% following earnings release. This was enough of a comeback to signal that Snap isn't disappearing anytime soon.

Looking back, there are a number of reasons that led to Snap bottoming out last year. With the intense competition among social media platforms, and increasing saturation in the market, Snap struggled to keep up with rivals Facebook and Instagram (owned by Facebook). Snap's ever popular 'story,' which allowed real-time captures of user happenings via live stream, was integrated in Facebook's app and messaging service as well. This represented a push from Facebook to lure users back to Facebook as a 'one stop' app meeting their needs. Instagram also has taken the social media world by storm, with accelerated user growth and premium advertising space. At a time where Facebook is facing daily headlines, many mired in scandal and concern, Instagram remains a popular favorite.

Looking ahead, Snapchat will need to demonstrate sustained growth to persuade investors - and advertisers - that turning a profit is not a short-lived story.

The Future of Digital Marketing

I came across the article below and found it pretty interesting.

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/03/28/what-is-the-future-of-digital-marketing/#10feee6d31e3

I tend to agree with most of the points laid out in the article.

First, the old framework for marketing which includes websites, email campaigns, digital advertisements, basic social media management and basic blog publishing is becoming obsolete. This type of marketing which only focuses on visits to digital real estate will not hold up in the competitive world that we live in with new brands popping up each day.

The new wave of digital marketing, which focuses on conversion, tracking leads through the funnel and through the technology stack, and omni-channel engagement is what will ultimately allow management teams and CMOs to make decisions and drive increased revenues and profitability for their companies. Additionally, consumers are increasingly becoming less loyal to brands, so the focus on customized content and engagement will also help companies keep their customers. 

German Ruling Threatens Facebook Advertising Model

It may not have got a huge amount of coverage in the US, but a decision this week by German regulators could represent a major threat to Facebook’s advertising model.

Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (FCO) delivered the latest in what seems to be a weekly rash of bureaucratic, legal and reputational assaults against the company and some of its peers. But this week's bad news could have a more profound long term impact than most.

The antitrust regulator of Europe’s largest national market ruled that Facebook was exploiting its users by requiring them to agree to wholesale data collection just to have an account on the platform. The FCO ruling now prohibits that practice with any German-based consumer.

But what will this mean for Facebook’s advertising business? Certainly, the model relies on recording the activities of its nearly one billion account holders across the Facebook platform, as well as on WhatsApp and Instagram. The company collects data on where people shop, what their tastes and preferences are and what other information and data they consume. All of the data is then combined to create a comprehensive user profile.

For several years now, critics of Facebook have charged that the company is not open enough about the data that it collects and how it uses it. The Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018 only brought this already burgeoning critique of Facebook to a mass audience.

The company, for its part, has maintained that it needs to collect this kind of data to offer a “free” service and to tailor ads and other content to individual users.

But Germany’s ruling is a hammer blow and a milestone. For the first time, a powerful regulator in one of the world’s most important developed economies has sided with the privacy argument.

The value of Facebook’s German advertising business just fell off a cliff.

Governments and anti-Facebook activists in many other countries will have taken note.

How Pepsi Could Have Preemptively Avoided Kendall Jenner Ad Fiasco

Have you seen the Pepsi commercial starring Kendal Jenner (available on YouTube here)? In the advertisement, Kendall is in the middle of a photo shoot and notices a protest march in the streets. Inspired by the crowd, she suddenly leaves the set mid shot to join the movement. Meanwhile, others from various ethnic backgrounds have already done the same. The scene shows everyone smiling and enjoying each others' company as they carry signs with messages of peace. Some are even dancing. The grand finale depicts Kendal picking up a can of Pepsi and handing it to one of the guards. He smiles and allows the crowd to continue marching joyfully.

This utopic scene is certainly a far cry from historical protests such as the one that took place in Ferguson after the death of Michael Brown. "This ad trivializes the urgency of the issues and it diminishes the seriousness and the gravity of why we got into the street in the first place," activist DeRay McKesson told NBC News correspondent Gabe Gutierrez. Bernice King, the youngest daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., posted an image of her father mid-peaceful protest — literally being pushed back by a police line and tweeted: "If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi."

According to Pepsi's response, they were "trying to protect a global message of unity, peace and understanding" and "missed the mark." How could Pepsi have preemptively picked up on how the public would react and avoided this public relations nightmare? Bharat Krish, founder of RefineAI, suggests a new approach to testing video advertisements before launching to the public. Through the RefineAI platform, advertisers can share their video with a diverse audience of pre-enrolled and vetted beta testers. They view the video while the platform gauges their emotional reactions and engagement level through facial expression analysis. The viewers also provide ratings on the story, audio and visuals. Furthermore, they include qualitative feedback for further context. I had the opportunity to watch a live demonstration at the NY Tech Meetup on February 5th, 2019.

So how could RefineAI's platform have prevented the Pepsi fiasco described above? You can review a summary of the platform's results and assessment here.

Multi Channel vs. Omni-Channel vs. Congruent Ecosystem

A lot of companies execute digital marketing tactics through multiple channels such as online ads, online videos, email, facebook, twitter and even make aps for their brands!  This is all great, but communicating with consumers through multiple channels doesn't mean a brand is omni-channel or has a congruent eco-system.

Omni-channel is when the channels are integrated, touch points are customized and personalized to the customer.  However, a  best-in-class marketing ecosystem understands that effective marketing is to have a brands' sales and service arms in sync with its consumer-facing marketing content which will enable] employees to serve the customer and meet the expectations set forth by the brand.  This is the eco-system and congruency is how customers behave, interact with and expect of the eco-system.

In the retail and consumer goods industries, the expectations and customer demands are much higher for an integrated experience that includes sales and service.  Imagine going into a shoe store and waiting 10 minutes to find out whether a pair of shoes you liked was available in stock in your size - that's no longer acceptable in today's digitally enabled world.  Now contrast that with a salesperson scanning the shoe, immediately telling you they don't have it and presenting you with the options of nearby stores that do have it in stock or the option to have it shipped to your home.  Or better yet, someone in the store you're in just returned the shoes - in your size and they're unworn.  The salesperson knows this because a notification popped up on their handheld device as they were looking for the shoe saying it was back in stock.  This is one scenario of an integrated digital eco-system that is both customer and employee focused enabling the promise the brand has made.

So who is living up to this promise?  Many high-end luxury brands like Burberry, Stuart Weitzman, Nordstrom down to mid or mass brands such as Aldo and Walmart.

The digital marketing eco-system is evolving and there's greater pressure for marketing to drive awareness and traffic.  To achieve success the eco-system to synchronize and enable marketing, sales and service to provide for the customer must be congruent.

Cheers!

Walgreens' cool new deal

This morning, publisher for Adage.com, Adrianne Pasquarelli, writes a new piece on Walgreen's new "cooler screens." The American company shocked not many with their new ploy to bring in ad revenue. In short, they're "giving its freezer and refrigerator doors a digital makeover." The doors are digital, enabling (or forcing) a new type of customer interaction with ad displays. Thirsty customers now have to view the ads presented to them in order to grab their refreshing drinks. This new move from Walgreens can set off a trend by corporations and companies making everything within reach a digital money-maker. Doors for restaurants can have digital screens, buses can show ads in an interactive manner, a pet store can have ads display on virtually anything with a screen, and more. What does this mean for the novice entrepreneur on a budget?

Perhaps showing ads just became less expensive? Think about it, what's to stop a person with an uber business or a small shop owner from displaying ads on their windows and the like? In fact, I remember taking an uber this morning and attached to the back of the co-pilot's chair was a tablet with three options: a trivia challenge, a find Waldo-like challenge, and an ads viewing experience for the hip youngster interested in seeing what's new out there while enjoying a calm ride through NYC traffic. The ad-showing experience has gained new heights and perhaps the smaller scale it can now take can make controversial showings less controversial? Perhaps it wouldn't matter if a single uber driver wishes to show the scandalous Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad or a similarly disputed hair product ad. I think the possibilities are endless and the more customizable things become, and the more within reach things become for your average Ahmed (not Joe), the less power things can have in the grand scheme of things. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Brands losing significant marketing budget to the fake follower phenomenon

Using influencers to boost market recognition has become an essential part of marketing strategy for most brands. These brands count on influencers they partner with to endorse their products and ‘influence’ their followers to purchase them. Hence, it’s obvious that more followers make an influencer more valuable, making them able to demand heavier fees. This frenzied competition to increase followers has led some so called ‘influencers’ to artificially inflate their follower numbers. With the popularity of influencer aided marketing growing in recent months, the phenomenon of using bots to increase follower numbers has also seen a rise. These bots with non-human profiles add no value for the brands and result in a complete waste of marketing budget.

This problem of losing money to inluencers with fake followers has started to significantly eat into brand marketing spend. According to a new report from Points North Group, an influencer marketing analytics specialist, out of the $744 million that brands spent on influencer marketing in 2018, $102 million was wasted on fake followers. Some brands have been hit harder than others. According to data published by Points North Group, Raw Sugar Living lost nearly half (46%) of their marketing spend on bots and fake followers. Even apparently digitally savvy brands such as the Amazon owned Zappos lost more than a third (38%) of their marketing dollars to these fraudsters.

Big organizations such as Unilever have also been impacted. Last year, a quarter of the cash that Unilever's Dove brand spent on influencer marketing went to fake followers. This led to CMO Keith Weeds to publicly announce that Unilever will no longer work with social influencers who inflate the cost of their partnerships using fake followers. If such announcements will lead to a reduction of bot usage remains to be seen. At the very least it will highlight this growing problem and encourage strategies that mitigate the risk of brands falling victim of this digital fraud

Want your Spotify account to remain? Better disable that Adblocker

Releasing a new version of their terms of service, Spotify has promised to take a harder stance on ad blockers, bots and fraudulent streaming activities, starting March 1st. 

Ad blockers have always been an easy loophole for consumers, and a headache for publishers. The company confirmed in March last year that it had 2,000,000 users using ad blockers on the free version of Spotify. While that sounds a lot, it's only 1.3% of Spotify's total user base, yet it warrants enough attention as it restates usage metrics. 

The new guidelines specify that “circumventing or blocking advertisements in the Spotify Service, or creating and distributing tools designed to block advertisements in the Spotify Service” may now result in “immediate termination or suspension of your Spotify account.”

During its last quarter earning report announcement yesterday, Spotify shows positive income and free cash flow for the first time since it was founded. Revenue, however, was below expectations because of intense competition from other streaming services, with subscribers increasing 36 percent to 96 million. Paid subscriptions now compose nearly 88% of Spotify's turnover - which is why Spotify wants to release the potential of ad supported revenue. And with Spotify's actual user base of 153,000,000 people across the world (and expanding), ad supported revenue can really bring in the billions. 

If Digital Media is the Face of the Future, Why are there Layoffs?

It's a bit of a misleading title, I'll admit. It's in reference to Buzzfeed, which recently laid of 15% of its workforce in the wake of missed earnings and general mismanagement. It seems like there's a feeling among competitors and bystanders that Buzzfeed, representing digital media, has been given a carte blanche to try new media tactics and not need to prove their results. This is in direct opposition to traditional media outlets, which are under higher scrutiny than ever before.

Industry veterans seemed, to put it kindly, frustrated by Buzzfeed's tactics. The melange of "real reporting" and stupid quizzes are not valuable for today's consumer. Buzzfeed disagrees, while content goes viral (another buzzword that seems to be pissing people off). All of this flanked by user-created content, and it seemed the bar for what is considered consumable content was lowered considerably.

The truth here of course is not that digital media and digital advertising are hurting. We know it's just the opposite. But in the nascence of it's development, there's a struggle to closely tie the investment to the future earnings. After all, we can sit here and say that digital is the way of the future and I think most would agree. But how do you show that in revenue? Traditional revenue streams may keep their death grip on revenues while we figure out how it all adds up.

Would you sell your iPhone usage data for $20 a month?

The latest scandal among the tech giants last week was that both Facebook and Google were found to have been paying selected users to allow the companies to track their usage on the iPhone. Apple has since shut both the backdoor research apps down, saying that they violated the special enterprise certificates that allowed both Facebook and Google to bypass the App Store, since their certificates were intended to internally distributed apps only.

Facebook was paying its users $20 a month, while Google allowed users to earn gift cards. A $20 price tag indicates that these companies are finding significant value in knowing exactly how users are interacting with their iPhone. This information could be used to serve more relevant ads to the users on their platforms; however, perhaps more valuable, both companies can use these insights to shape future product development knowing how its rivals’ customers are interacting with their products.

As more of our lives continued to be centered around our mobile phones this knowledge is becoming increasingly more valuable and its likely to see companies continue try to make a play to gain access to this usage data. Personally, I wouldn’t mind getting $20 a month which I could put towards my phone bill in exchange for how I used my phone, partly because I suspect Apple is doing this to some degree already anyway. How much would you need to turn over your mobile phone usage data?

Further Tech Crunch coverage:

• Overview of Facebook's 'Research' app
• Overview of Google's 'Screenwise' app
• Facebook's defensive of its 'Research' app

One-Click Purchasing

Given Amazon's popularity with the one-click purchasing, when should we expect social media platforms to implement that feature? For instance, when an Instagram ad pops up, it could have the option to "buy it now." It seems like the biggest hurdle to conversion of a sale on social media is getting consumers comfortable to purchase items directly through the app (opposed to searching for that item online at a particular website). It seems that this functionality would result in higher conversion rates.

How Will Data Privacy Affect DM?

How Will Data Privacy Affect DM?

It seems like every week there are HUGE discussion about how data privacy is being violated by social media companies. The collection of this data is crucial for their advertising revenue streams and projected growth. It's one of the main items that is accounted for in stock analyst calls. But with the increase in data privacy awareness, there seems to be the possibility that that advertising revenue could come crumbling to the ground. In a year - probably not. But what about in 5 years? 10 years? Will there be legislation that prohibits the collection of data? Only time will tell...

Curing Fyre FOMO

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

This past week, I caved to the hype around Fyre and watched the Netflix documentary "Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened." You've likely heard of Fyre, if only because Ja Rule is making quite the comeback -- just when we were wondering where he disappeared off to. You may have also realized that Hulu launched a competing documentary in the same week, and that while both focus on the deep fraud that is the Fyre festival, they present strongly different undertones. In a nutshell, Fyre represents the failed attempt to throw a luxury music festival on a private island in the Bahamas, and was initially created by Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule. The reality ended up far from promises made.

Today’s post makes connections to our Digital Marketing class around the topic of search engine marketing and influencer marketing. Ifluencer marketing, which is heavily social media fueled, is incredibly powerful. In the case of Fyre, most influencers who promoted the festival were paid substantial sums and promised luxury accommodations (i.e. beachside cabana rooms). Background research indicated that over 300 million impressions were made in less than a day from the influencers involved with Fyre. 300 million impressions! Although those didn’t necessarily translate to ticket sales, this is a stunning example of the extent of which influencer marketing can impact ‘online society’ at both the micro and macro levels.

Early 2000's Tech Renaissance

If you rolled your eyes as the foldable laptop-tablet hybrids like me, you quickly realised much more utility you can get out of them once your own friends started using them (that sneaky look of envy when they they bring out their Apple Pencils and start scribbling away at their iPads to edit emails).

The foldable phone, although prototyped almost 15 years ago, is now slowly raising its head again, with Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi now releasing their own prototypes of foldable phones. Google backed these announcements by releasing their own Android Support for Foldables at the new AndroidDevSummit.

Android VP Dave Burke described it as “You can think of the device as both a phone and a tablet, Broadly, there are two variants — two-screen devices and one-screen devices. When folded, it looks like a phone, fitting in your pocket or purse. The defining feature for this form factor is something we call screen continuity.”

It'll be interesting to see if the phone and tablet industry coalesces around a single form factor here, but more importantly, it'll be even more interesting to see how the ad platform giants like Google Facebook and so on adapt to this new layout of screens, and the potential for new real estate for brands to advertise upon. The fold-out-ability provides interesting opportunities for ads to become more interactive - to the point of perhaps changing the definition of an engagement to go from just scrolling across the ad, to perhaps working with the ad layout to see what's hidden below the fold.