The Only Email “Ads” that I Read

We all subscribe to some website newsletters without realizing how much ads we are going to receive. I have email addresses that are piled up with newsletters, which I don’t really go through most of them.

I have found a pattern of filtering through those newsletters on myself. For those sales, promotions, and brand campaigns, I rarely open them except one or two brands that I favor. For the publications and journals, I do not open them very often. I already have too much to read for my classes - probably not gonna spend too much time on NY Times or Foreign Affairs if they are not interesting enough. For the events and entertainment, that all depends on the titles and categories. As a student, I already do not have much patience for all of these, needless to say for the busy working people.

However, there is one newsletter that I read every issue that they deliver. It is a magazine called Atmos. Every issue is a well-written article. They are not very long. I read every issue and sometimes I go back and check if I missed any. Not only because they are well-written, but because they contain information that is relevant to me. I am managing a blog in China about sustainable lifestyles, so we want to get updated on what’s the trend around the globe. Thus, I read their newsletter to keep myself informed. I feel like the proper amount of information and value to customers are two factors that affect people’s reactions to the subscriptions. If email marketers can use the algorithm to find the pattern of customer preferences, it could improve the conversion rate of their promotional emails.

The Takeover of the Display Ad

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2019/04/29/your-campaigns-goals-should-determine-sem-versus-display-advertising/#1c6c81f613b5

It's impossible to escape the display ads today. Even an attempt to read an article about display ads results in a page covered in ads!

Once you make it through the ads, the article suggests that display ads are helpful for building brand awareness, especially for brands that are newer. Display ads can help boost web traffic, which newer brands need.

Given the low click-through rate for display ads, it's important to ensure that the landing page for the display ad is an engaging page. You don't want to drive traffic to your site, only to have those consumers leave immediately.

With a strong call to action, a display ad can be effective in getting people to your brand's website and performing a specific action once there.

Baby Powder, Really?


https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/18/health/johnson-and-johnson-baby-powder-recall-bn-trnd/index.html

Ever since I was a little kid, I remember using baby powder.  My mom would put it on me after each bath.  It was cheap, it smelled great and would keep you cool.  She would put it all over my body and in my diaper.  As I grew up, I continue to use it and even used it on my daughter when she was born 13 years ago.  I did as my mom did with me.  As far as I am concerned, this can lead to many complications in the future.  At this point, all I can do is hope that no consequences happens.

As I read these articles, postings and hear about it in the news all the possible connections to ovarian cancer it truly makes me angry and scared.  How can a company be so irresponsible and let this happened?  According to the reports, they have been aware of a potential link for over 30 years.  Why would you not say anything?  These are human beings that we are talking about.  Johnson and Johnson are not providing information that could save a life just to make a profit.  Even today, they are denying the allegations and other harmful chemicals are being found in the product.  When will it all stop? and how many people need to get hurt before it does?

Sincerely
a praying consumer aka Jeannie

For Sale at YouTube: Political Ad Space in 2020

Youtube is starting to provide political ad space.

The impact of digital media in politics is increasing rapidly.

Twitter and Youtube are the major tools for political ads and now Youtube is stepping up its political-ad. YouTube aims to take advantage of the growing sums being spent on advertising by a historically large field of presidential candidates.

Local TV ads have long been, and still, an important way to reach voters. Political TV ad spending is expected to reach $4.78 billion in 2020, compared with $2.85 billion for online and digital political ads, according to recent forecasts from Borrell Associates Inc., a marketing research firm.

President Trump and the nearly 20 Democrats running for president have so far spent $23.3 million on Google and $46.7 million on Facebook, according to the most recent data analyzed by Acronym, a progressive nonprofit that tracks digital spending.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-tries-to-wrest-campaign-ad-dollars-from-facebook-and-local-tv-11570527000

Clinch: Personalized programmatic Ads

I was recently introduced to an innovative digital marketing agency that is trying to change the way advertisers create content and serve programmatic ads. Today, creative agencies create many custom adaptations (10-100+) of video or banner ads so they can target specific groups. These creative adaptations are timely, expensive, and there is a limit to their specificity. Enter Clinch, an Ad agency that has software that can render (build) targeted videos and banner ads in real time based on the demographics, location, history, and context of a specific user. They call it personalized programmatic ads.

https://clinch.co/

Imagine I am researching fabric softeners online and I live in Cleveland, Ohio. Through Clinch's technology, Downy can serve me a customized banner ad video that calls out a specific location near me that I can buy the product, they can give me a price discount based on my likelihood to buy and estimated LCV, they can place the exact product image I am interested in seeing, and they can add a specific message that will resonate with me based on my demographic profile. See an example below:

Clinch learns as they serve more ads. They use A/B testing to determine which aspects of the ads are most effective for driving campaign goals and can tailor variables in real time. Overall, companies like Clinch are changing the way advertisers are developing and serving ads.

Want to hear something chilling? Amazon can sense your fear.

Maybe I should have saved this post until Halloween, because if you’re looking for a scare, look no further than image recognition technology. Privacy concerns around facial recognition technology in particular have come up a lot in the news lately. Some politicians are calling to ban it altogether. I didn’t know much about it, so I took a look around.

Let’s focus on Rekognition, Amazon’s facial recognition technology. On a basic level, the technology works by plotting the characteristics of your face. But we’ve moved way past just recognizing features. It can recognize demographics like gender and age. Amazon touts its ability to guess if you’re happy, sad, angry, surprised, disgusted, calm, or confused. The ability to detect fear was added this summer. It works on still images as well as video. And general image recognition is important here too because it contributes to understanding context. Think: "That's an image of Bob. He's happy. There's a pool below him and a diving board being him. Bob's jumping. Bob's jumping into a pool."

From a marketing perspective, emotive and demographic attributes can be used to show more customized advertising. It’s been used to gauge customer reaction to new products. Amazon Redshift can process data from Rekogniton and report on trends such as in store locations and similar scenarios. 

Or maybe you've used Snapchat's image recognition feature, which was rolled out in September 2018 in partnership with Amazon. Simply hold down on the screen and Snapchat can visually identify products and will provide you with an Amazon link to purchase said product. I'm impressed by how well this works. When I hold down on an image of my dog, not only does Snapchat recognize there is a dog in the picture, but they suggest that I might like to buy a puppy starter kit and dog food. I also thought it was interesting that when I tried this exercise with my other dog the first suggestion was for a Patrick Swayze movie called Black Dog. Ok, I guess it's not perfect yet. 

Other suggested applications for image recognition technology start at creepy then quickly veer off into more sinister territory. For example, maybe it’d be useful to get a notification if your dog jumps up on the white sofa while you’re at work (even the dog can’t catch a break). Or, let your pastor know if you skipped church and that when you do come you like to steal toilet paper from the bathroom (for shame!). Wouldn’t it be nice for an HR manager to have an emotion detecting tool that shows if you’re being dishonest in an interview or during pay negotiation? Maybe the authorities could use it to know if you forgot to clean up after your dog, so they can let everyone know what kind of person you really are. 

China’s gotten a lot of attention for this last point. But it might surprise you to know how common the technology is in the US. While the Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market for facial recognition, North America remains the largest. Law enforcement in particular is a major user.

And despite all the concerns and calls to outlaw it, I’m betting it’s here to stay. The technology just offers too many perceived conveniences and the data it collects is just too valuable for it to go away. The facial recognition market is valued at USD 4.51B in 2018 and is expected to reach a value of USD 9.06B by 2024 (at a growth rate of 12.5%). And since there is such a range of possible applications for this technology there’s no way to know all of the implications it will have. 

Beyond the PSL: Starbucks’s Evergreen Evocative Ads

With leaves turning from vibrant green to an autumn mix of yellows, reds and golds and pumpkins, gourds and squash making their appearance, it’s that time of year for the all-time favorite: Starbuck’s Pumpkin Spice Latte. Over the years, Starbucks has been able to tap into consumer nostalgia for the changing seasons to create an irresistible brand connection with the coziness of fall.

This year, Starbucks creative content on social media suggests they are moving beyond the iconic PSL to evoke that warm and cozy feeling of fall, while incorporating vibrant illustration and thoughtful copy to strengthen the brand’s connection with its customers.

This late September ad creatively pokes a bit of fun at its customers clinging to the last cold brews of summer. 

This whimsical illustration captures the same nostalgic feeling for fall as does the original Pumpkin Spice Latte campaign, but takes a fresh approach with the vibrant illustrations while reinforcing the global reach of the Starbucks brand. 

Is Texting next?

I've recently been receiving a lot of SPAM text messages that often include some variation of a recognizable name of a contact I know and a link to a website. It's suspicious and definitely not associated with any specific company or product which leads me to ponder, outside of 'spam', how often are companies using text messages as a marketing channel?
How is this regulated? When do you sign up for it? and is this a successful method to use? Below are the answers to those questions:

1) Regulation:

Telephone Consumer Protection Act: TCPA prohibits text messages sent to a mobile phone from an auto-dialer unless (1) you previously gave consent to receive the message or (2) the message is sent for emergency purposes. Since October 2013 prior express written consent is required for all text messages sent to cell phones for marketing purposes.
In synopsis: if you receive marketing texts lets say from your Dentist, from a brand, etc you likely signed off on this when you set up an account or visited the business for the first time and filled out paperwork. Similar to the process for email account marketing when you have an opt in/out box.

2) Text messaging impact/stats:
-According to VoiceSage-  SMS open rates beat email nearly 5x over. Texting appears to be a more trusted and personal way to communicate marketing offers BUT it also has the potentially to significantly deter end users because of the intimacy associated with text/call.
-For Opt-In subscribers, 75% of them would not mind receiving SMS text messages from a brand. Meaning- when someone actively opts in to this mode of receiving messages most or 75% of them wouldn't mind receiving the marketing offers (obviously) AND they are respond more fast and more often than email.
-The use of SMS marketing has grown 197% as a strategy in B2B efforts from 2015-2017 - Source : Salesforce.

All in all, I'm guessing this will be a growing avenue towards digital marketing due to how we've evolved our communications from mostly call to now text/social media/email. I think its an interesting way to engage customers in the future.

Facebook's rough week

Lately Facebook has been having very rough weeks and this one is no different.

These are just three stories Business Insider reported on today:

1. TikTok is Mark Zuckerberg's worst nightmare and now it's reportedly poaching Facebook's employees too

TikTok appeals to a younger demographic that Facebook has been unable to capture and now, they are also poaching FB employees.

2. Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency plan just got formalised, but a quarter of its backers have now dropped out

The only way Libra will be successful is if they are able to become the standard platform and bring all companies in - well this week they lost Visa, Mastercard and Stripe. This news just made Libra more challenging.

3.  Mark Zuckerberg responds to report he's been hosting private dinners with prominent conservatives like Tucker Carlson and Lindsey Graham by telling people they should try listening to 'a wide range of viewpoints'

Lastly, Mark Zuckerberg is showing how worried he is of some of new regulation coming his way. To the point that he's meeting with very unsavory people to "hear them out".

Columbia EMBA ad

I recently opened up an email from Men's Health and there was an ad placed right in the middle of it and I thought it was funny...

I understand that this probably came up since I was on one of our sites but they should target their audience better.  Given that I was on Canvas, there must have been some way for them to figure out that I'm a current student. What a waste of an ad lol.

Annoying pop-ups

We've discussed in class that pop-up ads should not be annoying and not interfere with browsing experience for the users.  Well, Google, back in 2017, have implemented a policy that bans advertisements on its websites that utilize "pop-under" advertisements.  These "pop-under" advertisements are even more annoying as they are ones that come up when you minimize your browser.  So you don't even realize they're there while you're on the webpage.  I found this to be a sneaky way for advertisers to run their ads and it's definitely a good way to get their customers to turn their backs on them.  This ban is in addition to already implemented ban on pop-ups and other annoying ads.

One interesting fact is that even if the publishers are allowed to post pop-up ads, they are restricted to three pop-ups on any site, which is the number we've talked about it class that should be the maximum amount of ads shown to a particular customer.

See below link for the post:
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/11/google-bans-its-ads-on-sites-that-use-those-annoying-pop-unders/

AdAge's Tips for Selecting a Marketing Analytics Vendor

Boy oh boy, do we now have access to a lot of data. So much data. And for any team, whether in big companies or fast growth startups, selecting an analytics vendor can be a daunting challenge.

Recently, AdAge published a list of 4 Tips on How to Choose the Right Analytics Vendor for Your Growing Business. It's worth a read. Whether you are a luddite reluctantly accepting big data or a data expert who can programmatically query a dozen APIs before your breakfast gets cold, these best practices can help bring you to rational place that supports your organization's strategic and tactical goals.

I summarized the article's tips with my own commentary below:

1. Pick a vendor that goes beyond the data. AdAge's advice here is to select vendors that provide more than just raw data, but deliver some of the value from that data so that your team isn't building from scratch. In my opinion this not only saves time, but helps you get the most out of what you're buying. Speaking from my own experience, I am pretty good writing queries, macros, and building visualizations, but I find that when I am using external data, if I get too fancy with my analytics then I am liable to end up incorporating some of my own assumptions into my design. It's best to work in a partnership with your vendor to make sure that you're not wasting time or introducing biases.
2. Focus on core, actionable metrics. This sounds obvious, but plenty of teams make mistakes with this. There are a lot of nice shiny data out there, but it's best to determine how what you measure will drive your decisions, and then select a data vendor.
3. Set parameters for reaching your best buyers. No surprise, this falls into the old category of do your homework on the vendor and try before you buy.
4. Look for a good therapist. This was AdAge's comical way of pressing the point that you need to both instruct and incentivize your analytics vendor to be an impartial arbiter of truth. This is a big deal. Do not incentivize them for good results or good sales. That is your job. If the results are bad, they need to tell you accurately so that you can address what is actionable in a timely manner.

The Problem Consumers Have With Ads

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2019/10/09/13-reasons-why-consumers-may-hate-your-brands-advertising-and-how-to-fix-it/#19e54af12283

This article lists many reasons why consumers have issues with digital advertising, and one of those reasons is repetitiveness. In the realm of email marketing, it's important to send the appropriate number of emails to advertise to your consumers.

Crossing the line is another problem. Do you know what your consumers want to hear?

Amazon's advertising continues to grow, and while it has an immense amount of data and has the ability to be very targeted in its advertising, Amazon can be at risk of crossing the line with this too. Savvy consumers will know what is an ad and what isn't, but most consumers won't. Its conference this week with brands is a testament to its growth in the digital advertising space.

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/amazons-advertising-arm-getting-big-held-major-conference-brands/

Email marketing remains a viable marketing tool

Email remains one of the cheapest and wide reaching marketing tool. However, it has to be noted that  the mail application is important as well.

In the US, Gmail has the biggest stake with 50.1%, followed by Verizon at 22.6% and Microsoft at 12.4%. The top 3 players by far dominate the market. The remaining players, are Comcast (2%), Apple (1.6%) and AT&T (1.1%).

This mix is different in Europe. For example, in Germany, WEB.DE (39.9%), Gmail (15.3%) and T-Online (11.9%). In France, Gmail (26.9%), Microsoft (25.9%) and Orange (17.8%) remains the top 3.

While Gmail remains the most popular, a seasoned marketer should also take into consideration that their marketing campaign should not also take into geographic diversity of their customer base. 

Uber Expanding into Groceries

In yet another sign that the digital world is expanding into every part of our lives, and that soon every part of our lives will be digital, Uber announced its intentions to acquire grocery-delivery service Cornershop.

I find this fascinating for several reasons:

1. It concerns some of my favorite topics: food (yum!), logistics (my original background and still profession), and competition.
2. It marries supply chain economics to the digital world of marketing
3. It has massive implications for food marketers' distribution strategies

The truth is, this is not a question of the future of Uber or whichever company (or companies) will break through to someday dominate global transportation of people, goods, and services. Maybe no single company will. This is a subject of intense debate.

What is of vital importance for marketers is that grocery delivery is about to explode, and pretty soon all consumers will expect to be able to get what they want, when they want it, however, they want it. And as we work to shape demand, we need to keep these Omni-channel considerations in mind. Uber just wants to make sure that they are in on the action.

Whoa, Wait. Walmart?

"Whoa, Wait... Walmart?" is the name of a popular instagram and blog run by two women who post the amazing products they find in Walmart stores. What started as a hobby to post fun things they found in Walmart has turned into a bustling business searching and reporting back aspirational products. Today, they have over 91,000 followers and companies pay them to post images of their products Their brand name, "Who, Wait" has become so popular, they created a clothing line using this brand name that is sold at Walmart.

If you take a look through their website, you will see the many products that have paid to be featured on their account. Bethany and Amanda, the founders of the account, also known as the influencers, have created a lifestyle image that has often been referred to  as "Anthropology on a budget." If they decide to feature a product through one of their outlets, Walmart has seen significant sales increases that can be linked back directly to their account. Using influencers is a great way for product manufacturers to bring awareness to a product and drive trial. As an example, if you want to drive awareness for a new flavor of Tazo tea, you could send a sample to the "Whoa, Wait. Walmart?" team and pay them to write an article about it in their blog.

https://whoawaitwalmart.com/about/

How AI and ML are transforming digital marketing together

I found an interesting article explaining how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are impacting digital marketing world.

AI/ML is transforming digital marketing. AI/ML takes over human's role of identifying market trends and helps planning the effective marketing strategies. AI/ML helps analyze the buying behaviour of customers, AI/ML can analyze the hidden needs, AI/ML data-driven analysis enables to eliminate "guts feel", AI/ML automates the process, and AI/ML reduces overall marketing cost.

It does make sense as the most of major PR agencies recently have data-driven team who explores/elaborates data to plan the marketing strategy. All of those, may be replaced by using AI/ML in near future.

https://www.itproportal.com/features/how-ai-and-ml-are-transforming-digital-marketing-together/

Facial recognition has been rife with issues and has been the subject of great debate and the source of much stress for some.  I, for one, have had alternate feelings of awe and 'the creeps' that iPhoto has been able to recognize and categorize the photos of my children as their faces have dramatically changed from infancy to toddlerhood.  There were a few mishaps where they miscategorized their baby pictures because they looked so much alike as infants, but it seems the AI interface kicked in a little and factored in the year each picture was taken-as the kids are 2 years apart.

The adoption of this new technology is rapidly progressing and facial recognition is being used by police departments, residential buildings, homeland security, etc.  However, the technology is not perfected and is only as good as the program used to create it and subject to the biases of the programmer(s).  Many lament the racial and gender biases of the technology and as in the article, the reliability of the technology to accurately and reliably identify an individual.  A word to the wise would implore the masses to hold off on adopting the technology further, until there are a few (or several) upgrades made to the technology.

https://www.wired.com/story/cities-examine-proper-improper-facial-recognition/

Mixed Reality and the future of out-of-home advertising

I recently discovered that Google has released an interesting virtual reality platform called Tilt Brush, allowing users to create artwork live in 3D in physical space, and share 3D and 4D versions of their work, replaying the creation of the artwork before the viewer's eyes, super-imposed on the real world. Although we may have a long way to go before we see widespread adoption of the headsets needed to bring virtual reality mainstream, there are subtle signals that both Google and Apple are looking to incorporate more mixed reality capabilities into their devices over time.



As reported in the tech blog 9 to 5 Google, the Pixel 4's Google Assistant has an interesting feature where users can simply raise their devices in physical space to begin a dialog with the assistant, introducing natural 3D gestures as a new way of interacting with Google's extensive search capabilities.

https://9to5google.com/2019/10/05/pixel-4-assistant-raise/

Similarly, Apple is rumored to have a large scale augmented and virtual reality project underway, possibly involving an AR/VR headset and smart glasses.

https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/apple-glasses/

Such advances would open up a whole new realm of opportunity for digital marketers with advances in the new media form, along with possibilities to inspire new audiences with creative campaigns that target audiences can view in 3D space. Imagining the billboards of the future, marketers could experiment with the new media form to reach audiences with digital mixed reality ads interleaved through daily life - in the subway, at bus stops and at airports. Advertisers could bid on "screen" real estate in bustling intersections in real time, displaying novel 3D ads visible to anyone equipped with AR-enabled devices such as smart contact lenses or glasses. Looking at it this way, we could be at just the beginning of a new transformation in the way we experience product marketing in the digital age.

https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/smart-contact-lenses-market-2018-to-2023-outlook-samsung-sony-alcon-google-sensimed-sa-etc-players-counting-72-bn-in-terms-of-revenue-2018-08-14

The Next Billion Internet Users

If you’ve taken a look around Google’s blog, the Keyword, you might have come across the section dedicated to Google’s Next Billion Users. While Google enjoys a 92% market share among search engines world-wide, they see their next opportunity in parts of the world with limited internet access and with people who might never have used the internet before. Specifically, they’ve set their sights on the developing world, where more than 65% of the roughly 4B people in the world without internet access live.  

There are plenty of very compelling social and economic reasons for wanting to bring access to underserved areas. For one, getting the world online could expand world output by 7% over the next five years. But interestingly – and the way Google sees it – the developing world will actually lead the way for how the rest of the world uses the internet. As Caesar Sengupta, Google’s General Manager & VP, Payments and Next Billion Users, put it in his February 14, 2018 post to Keyword:

“The future of the internet is in the hands of the next billion users—the latest generation of internet users to come online on smartphones in places like Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria. As time goes on, the average internet user will be more like these “next billion users” than the first billion who started on PCs. That means we need to look not at Silicon Valley or London but to places like Sao Paulo, Bangalore, Shanghai, Jakarta and Lagos to truly understand where the internet is going.” 

What Sengupta is getting at is that users in these areas may be the most aggressive adopters of new technology like mobile, voice assistants and AI. To understand why, consider some of the barriers users in these regions face. Their access to internet and technology is often expensive and patchy. For this reason, the developing world tends to favor mobile over PC. Worldwide, 49% of internet data is accessed via mobile phone (versus PC). Nigeria, India and Ghana far and away lead the way in this metric, with mobile internet access rates in the 72-73% range. In fact, according to Sengupta, many of these users will never use a PC in their lifetimes!

Feature phones are also popular in these markets. These are no frills smart phones with tiny memories and physical keyboards but are generally equipped with a color screen, microphone, camera and GPS. The appeal is that these phones are inexpensive, light on data use and offer good battery life. India’s Jio phone for example is effectively free with a refundable security deposit of $16 US. Feature phones run “lite-apps” like Google Go which are designed for devices with 1.5GB memory or less and pull compressed versions of webpages in order to minimize data demand. Google has rolled out a suite of “Go” apps; lite versions of maps, Gmail and Google assistant which are ideal for these devices. Lite apps are extremely popular. World wide, Facebook-lite was the 10^thmost downloaded app on the Google Play store in June 2019, with over 24M downloads. 

This brings us to another barrier these users face in using the internet: differences in terms of relevancy of content, language, and literacy. By some estimates, 55% of the content on the internet is in English. Meanwhile, Hindi, with 341M native speakers, makes up about .1% of all internet content. This is understandably unappealing for most of the world. Google’s efforts to clear this hurdle are apparent in Google Go, which advertises features to “make Google read it” (point your camera at text or listen to any web page), “search and translate with your camera” and “easily switch between languages”. Meanwhile, Google Assistant, which comes preinstalled on the Jio phone, is now available in 30 languages including Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam and Urdu.

Part of the major appeal to voice command in these markets is that users coming to the internet for the first time prefer to use it in more intuitive ways than the way we do now. While the world is generally pushing towards a more frictionless and integrated internet experience, this may be even more so in developing countries. This preference is reflected in the way they use the internet and the type of content they consume. The web is surfed on the go by mobile phone. These users will much rather verbally ask their phones questions than navigate to a website. They’ll prefer to consume video (in their own language) than read lengthy text in English. When there is text to read, they may opt to have their Google Assistant read it out-loud and maybe translate, too. Successful apps will be built around people and conversations. For example, popular banking apps, like Tez in India, are built to work more like chat apps than financial ones. And in this way, the developing world will push all of us towards more convenient and human-like interactions with technology.