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YouTube—the cause of … and solution to … all of content creators’ problems. If Homer Simpson would permit us to repurpose his infamous toast, it evokes a familiar sentiment with YouTubers when they think about the mother ship. There’s no doubt that YouTube’s platform provided an essential foundation to launching the creative revolution we’re currently experiencing. And it is undeniable that through initiatives like its YouTube Spaces program, it has sought to democratize the production resources that large studios and agencies have leveraged to achieve their creative vision since the advent of television. However, despite all of its incredible contributions to digital content creators, its history will at least in part be defined by its substantial failures. Many of these can be traced back to Google’s obsession with driving all of its properties back to the AdWords platform....
Nielsen just released its quarterly “Total Audience” report, which provides an overview of the television landscape. The headlines that accompany these reports are often misleading, and sometimes simply misinterpret the data. I looked at the last three Q4 reports to get an idea of what’s really going on.
Some highlights:
When it comes to watching video, total adults spent 86% of their viewing time with traditional television in the fourth quarter of 2016, compared to about 14% for all other screens combined. TV viewing declined by just three minutes a day in each of the past two seasons -- so the headlines when this report first came out about TV viewing declining were technically correct, but certainly misleading.
Despite the stability of traditional television, viewing of other video screens (multimedia devices, video on PCs and smartphones) has grown dramatically (by about 2 hours per week, from 3:23 hours per week in Q4 2014 to 5:38 in Q4 2016?). These gains, however, have not come at the expense of traditional television -- at least for total viewers and adults.
The French advertising powerhouse and the British government want more control over where their ads run. Havas is pulling all spending from Google and YouTube in the United Kingdom, citing the desire to have more control of its inventory in hopes of keeping brands away from inappropriate or offensive content.According to a report in The Guardian, the French advertising giant’s decision came after talks broke down related to Google’s inability to “provide specific reassurances” related to where video and display ads appear. The report cites content showing up in YouTube alongside videos of white nationalists and terrorists. The news about Havas—which spends around 175 million euros ($188.2 million) annually on digital advertising clients in the U.K.—comes alongside a report that the British government and other organizations also pulled their ads from the tech giant....
CMOs are hot! Marketing chiefs represent the single largest cohort in this year’s
Adweek 50, our annual list of the most indispensable executives behind the CEO across the marketing, media and tech disciplines. Surprising, given that they’re not directly responsible for bringing in revenue—that’s the job of sales folk, who are also well represented here. But there is a reason this list is rich with CMOs. For one, they control the ad budgets that keep the media alive and healthy. And for another, marketing execs have become technologically astute as they ensure their companies are up on the latest tech trends and platforms. Speaking of tech, Snapchat’s Imran Khan is our No. 1 this year—thanks to his efforts, the social platform has become the hottest ad opportunity of 2016....
Despite changing demographics and consumer behaviors, the holiday season remains one of the more influential times of year to launch a campaign and seal it into holiday memory for years to come. To do that, though, your brand needs to come up with something seriously innovative, engaging, and interesting -- something that'll resonate with your customers. This usually means lights, emotions, and celebrating family and friends. Of course, there’s no harm is looking to the past to see which other brands and campaigns have made their way to the holiday retail hall of fame. Here, we look back on 150 years of inspirational ads and campaigns that many consumers say the holidays just wouldn’t be the same without....
This type of advertising is a little tricky to explain. Some of it’s funny. Some of it’s just strange. But you know it when you see it. And when it’s off the mark, it looks pretty bad. Here are a handful of winners from the past. Emerald Nuts, “Robert Goulet” Edeka, “Supergeil” Sprite, “Sublymonal” Some of the hallmarks of oddvertising can be seen in the following commercials. They often have a deadpan tone. Everyone is treating the alternative reality they live in as normal. Other important points are that the subject must be relevant to the brand and be appropriate for the target demographic. No Baby Boomer has ever jumped off the couch and yelled, “Grab my car keys! I need a bag of Skittles!” after seeing their commercial, “Sheep Boy.” However, Boomers are not the target audience. There are other broad generalities that can be made about oddvertising. Let’s break down a classic commercial from Old Spice, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” featuring Isaiah Mustafa....
Ironically, Netflix, the viewing source that gave binge-watching its name, probably has less instances of binge-viewing than any top-10 cable network with stacked programming. I would think viewers spend more time every month watching “Modern Family” on USA, “Full House” on Nick at Nite, “Criminal Minds” on ION, and “South Park” on Comedy Central than they do watching any single series on Netflix (although Netflix in total probably has more instances of binge-viewing than all of them combined).
So what does this mean for advertisers?
It’s not just that people are continuing to watch these shows. Their audiences are extremely loyal, and often not that easy to reach elsewhere. For example, “Big Bang” on TBS reached only about 30% of all adults 25-54 last season, but was still the most-viewed scripted series on television among that demo. ION’s “Criminal Minds” only reached about 15% of all adults 25-54 during the same period, yet was the fourth most watched scripted series on television. That represents an extraordinary amount of repeated viewing to a single show among a small group of extremely loyal and attentive viewers....
The Interactive Advertising Bureau and Edison Research today are releasing new stats on how consumers listen to podcasts and respond to audio-based advertisements. The new report gives marketers a peek at sentiment about podcast advertising from a poll of roughly 1,000 listeners. More brands and media companies than ever are investing in podcasts, but they're not getting the same types of metrics about audio advertising that other types of digital ads provide—like clickthrough or view rates. While advertisers can see how many people download a podcast, they don't know how long people spend listening or whether they skip over the ads. Per the report, 65 percent of listeners said podcast ads increase purchase intent while another 45 percent said that they're likely to visit an advertiser's website after hearing an audio promo. Another 42 percent of listeners said they would consider a new product or service after hearing a plug for a brand, while 37 percent use podcast ads to help research brands. When it comes to how consumers listen to audio programs, 70 percent said that being able to listen to them on-demand is "very important," and 58 percent said they like being able to listen to exclusive content they can't get elsewhere....
There has been an explosion in purpose-driven brand communication the last few years. As Matthew Gardner at Droga5 put it, “Because of the challenge for people’s attention, purpose is the only thing that will get brands to break through. This is not a trend but more of an imperative and should be top of mind for every company. ”When every brand team jumps on the purpose bandwagon, however, the resulting communication can feel pretty shallow. There’s a risk of brands completely overstating why they exist. Particularly when their actual motivation is to capture consumer attention, brand purpose can come across as “ad-deep.” It starts to feel like just one more tick-box on a creative brief....
The landscape of content is evolving. In an age where most advertisements fall victim to the "skip" button, it takes something truly creative to make people pay attention.It's no longer enough to simply create a straightforward ad -- to shine, content must make us laugh, cry, think, and believe. There is no bigger stage for celebrating advertising that moves us than the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. This year's recipients blur the line between marketing and art, delivering pieces of content that push the boundaries of media.Get inspired by 21 of the best below....
Long before America ran on Dunkin’, it ran on Bulova. In fact, “America runs on Bulova” was the only copy -- spoken as a voiceover with a simple graphic of a Bulova watch represented on a map of the U.S. -- that was also the first TV commercial ever aired 75 years ago today.
The spot ran only 10 seconds and cost only $9 to air on NBC’s then New York affiliate WNBT, which was also one of the first commercial TV stations to broadcast that day.
The spot ran at 2:39 PM on the East Coast just before a Brooklyn Dodgers game was broadcast....
Shared universes. They're so hot right now. Long before the deep bench of Marvel superheroes started jumping into each other's movies, however, there was something else that united the far-flung worlds of many different movies and shows: fake brands.
Call it product displacement. When the producers of a movie or TV show prefer not to shell out money to get a real brand onscreen, they opt for the unreal.
Marlboro-lookalike, Morley Cigarettes has been tarring the arteries of fictional characters for years, while the preferred chip of cinematic snackers is often Let's. It turns out, however, that many more movies and shows share the same fake brands than one might expect. British-based freelance hub fivesquid has just released an infographic about this phenomenon that shows which brands and products indirectly fueled some unlikely crossovers.
Some are obvious. Anyone who's seen a Quentin Tarantino movie, for instance, knows that Big Kahuna Burger is a thread throughout the self-contained Tarantino-verse. It should come as something of a reality-testing surprise, however, to see the same beer brand appear in both Star Trek and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I mean, come on: The U.S.S. Enterprise would have its own microbrew, for sure. Weird that this is the first thing that's ever been unrealistic about Star Trek.
Have a look at the other fake brands in movies and shows in the infographic below....
This is a fundamental shift not only for the TV channels, which will have to completely rethink their revenue model, but also for brands, which find it incredibly, and increasingly, difficult to capture the attention of empowered, impatient consumers. An obvious solution is product placement, a company paying for its product to be featured prominently in a film or television program as a form of advertising. According to PQMedia, the U.S. product placement market grew by 12.8% in 2014, to over $6 billion, and is set to reach over $11 billion by 2019. The trouble is that the huge success of product placement is causing a dip in its credibility and effectiveness as a marketing channel. Audiences are increasingly skeptical. Research by Eva A. van Reijmersdal of the University of Amsterdam suggests that when product placement becomes too prominent, it affects attitudes negatively because viewers become aware of a deliberate selling attempt. Product placement can also lower audiences’ evaluations of the focal entertainment product (the film or the show), as recently demonstrated by Andre Marchand and colleagues. And it’s particularly true when audiences like the film or show....
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It seems like every few months a new buzzword gets thrown around and this month’s buzzword is MAdTech. “Have you heard about MAdTech? It’s going to be game changing!!” Oh really? While I appreciate the excitement that the buzz creates, the excitement seems to revolve more around the hopes of change than around utilizing a viable solution and innovative technique to get results. So, what exactly is MAdtech? Well, to put it concisely: it is the combination of Marketing technology and Advertising technology, hence “M+Ad = MAd”.1 Let’s examine what MAdtech means for the automotive industry, and how your dealership can smash the competition with this powerful capability....
Alex Tew didn’t give a damn about paying his “dues.” At 21, he was about to start a three-year business management course at the University of Nottingham . . . but there was one significant problem: money. He didn’t want to be saddled with ridiculous student loan debt he would work years to pay off. Most students his age just shrug and accept that society “requires” them to play by the rules. Tew’s mind was in a completely different place. After brainstorming ideas to make some extra income to pay off the loans quickly he decided to launch a basic website that would sell one million pixels on the homepage to advertisers for $1 each. A truly strange idea in 2005 that has since been copied ad nauseam....
Like any creative effort, a successful design project involves many different people with different talents coming together. But too often, lots of cooks in the kitchen can be a recipe for disaster. That’s why great design starts with a great creative brief: a single, clear direction that communicates everything anyone needs to know about a project.
This can seem daunting at first, and that’s why we’ve provided this easy guide to putting your best foot forward with a comprehensive brief. Creativity is messy, but it’s definitely worth it.
Overview
Here’s a basic outline of what your brief should include. This won’t be the same for every project, so just consider it a starting place....
Hey, remember the good old days before smartphones? That golden age where you actually had to use a landline to contact friends, use paper maps and log on to a whirring desktop computer to access the Internet? Well, guess what, many of today’s young influencers and consumers of the future don’t.
In fact, even if your earliest memories of a mobile phone are a chunky Motorola, you could probably take a tip or two from the younger generation to inform your content marketing efforts. Why? Because they are the connected generation, brought up on social media and smartphone use. They will see your snake game and raise you a Pokemon or three and this is all from the age of 11.
Of course, your target audience might not fall into the teenage or early twenty-something bracket. But in a world where Eric Lassard, a boy of 12, has (amongst other ventures) launched an app, social platform and is publishing his second book, ‘From Dublin to Silicon Valley’, perhaps your business might pick up a tip or two straight out of the mouths of babes. For connecting with millennials and those that come after is the future of your business…
If you're a marketer of any kind, this phrase is probably lurking somewhere in the back of your mind when you start a new project: "How do we make this brand really stand out?" The constant battle to differentiate a brand in a crowded playing field is challenging, and it's pushing some marketers to the extreme.We've rounded up 14 creative campaigns and promotions that rely on unconventional mediums to spread brand messaging to consumers. Check them out for some unique inspiration for your next big campaign....
A number of commentators have weighed in over the last few weeks with their opinions on why ratings for the NFL on TV have fallen by double-digit percentages this season.
A few weeks ago, a 15% dropoff was reported. More recently, the decline was reported as 11% so far this fall. Whatever it is, or whatever it turns out to be by the time the season ends, the National Football League and its TV partners are not accustomed to double-digit audience declines.
Football was supposed to be the great constant of TV. Viewers of scripted prime-time shows going elsewhere lately? Don’t worry, they’ll come back for football. They always do. Or maybe not.
So what’s the problem? The commentators have pointed to a variety of factors – all of them valid and likely contributing, by degrees, to this viewership shortfall....
Riddle me this: Why do people buy quarter-inch drill bits? While there are a million possible answers to this question, Leo McGinneva offers perhaps the most interesting explanation. "They don’t want quarter-inch bits. They want quarter-inch holes," he explains. This notion suggests that as consumers, we aren't after all the bells and whistles as much as the solutions they provide. In other words, we don't want to know what brands are selling, we want to know what's in it for us....
Tourism campaigns for Caribbean destinations often have a similar aesthetic—sandy beaches, honeymooning couples, frosty drinks by the pool. But the Belize Tourism Board and its agency, Olson, had enough of that. For its latest ad campaigns, the BTB focused on local experiences unique to Belize and making flying to the country easier. Three years ago, Olson started working with the BTB, launching "Discover How to Be," a campaign that showcased the country's culture and experiences you can have there. Olson and the BTB also worked with Southwest Airlines and WestJet Airlines to open up more routes and direct flights to Belize from the U.S. and Canada. The strategy worked—the campaign was responsible for increasing travel to Belize and boosting the country's GDP by 2.24 percent, according to the Central Bank of Belize.
BrandShare Content
"We set rules from the beginning—no honeymooners, no frozen drinks, nobody getting a massage by the pool," said Kevin McKeon, chief creative officer at Olson. "We want to go for someone who's a little more ambitious about what they're looking for in a vacation. The takeaway is you're going to meet some fascinating people and come back with a story you didn't expect to have."
Its latest campaign, "A Curious Place," which launched this week, continues that theme. Videos feature a cacao farmer, a meat pie seller and "Coconut Leo," a Belizean who climbs trees upside down and cuts down coconuts.
It's no secret that internet users are no strangers to seeking out the information they need online -- in fact, Google now processes over 40,000 search queries every second.
And as the volume of search queries continues to climb, advertisers are recognizing an opportunity to introduce a number of different types of ads. (Think: pop-up ads, autoplaying video ads, and the dreaded mobile ad that takes up the entire phone screen.)
As a reaction to some of these disruptive online ads, internet users have started installing ad blocking extensions by the millions. In case you're wondering: Ad blockers scan websites for advertising code to prevent them from loading on a browser.
To help marketers get a handle on the state of ad blocking today, HubSpot Research dove deep into the issue to create this report. Below, we've outlined some of they most noteworthy statistics and takeaways from our research to get you up to speed quickly....
There’s a widening gap between how marketers and consumers feel about brands collecting data and tracking customer journeys. According to a recent report by Edelman and The University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre, 77% of marketers believe their organization should invest in predictive data and 71% of consumers believe that brands with access to personal data are using it unethically. Much of this data is collected by tracking customer journeys, which has gotten more complicated as consumers juggle devices over the course of considering and making a purchase. An OMD report revealed that people swap devices 21 times an hour. The traditional tracking cookie falls short....
Perhaps most reflective of this has been the award-winning juggernaut of REI's #OptOutside campaign, which won the Titanium Grand Prix on Saturday. If for some reason you weren't one of its 6.7 billion media impressions, essentially the company closed its doors on Black Friday, encouraging its employees and everyone else to get out into the outdoors. Beyond the ad, starring REI chief exec Jerry Stritzke introducing the idea from a wide-open office, the brand also created a helpful online guide to hiking trails and other outdoor activities around the U.S.
By encouraging us to drop out of the annual shopping day, the outdoor retailer aims for more sales and brand loyalty. The company said the brand's social media impressions went up 7,000%, with 2.7 billion media impressions in 24 hours, while overall the campaign attracted 6.7 billion media impressions, 1.2 billion social impressions, and got more than 1.4 million people to spend the day outdoors. Meanwhile, more than 150 other companies joined REI to close their doors on Black Friday, and hundreds of state parks opened up for free.
If Cannes is the ad and marketing industry's Oscars, than this is arguably Best Picture. The Titanium category is meant to honor work that breaks new ground, crosses boundaries, and pushes the industry forward. The win adds to the campaign's Media and Promotions Grand Prix, picked up earlier in the week, and its run of wins at other industry awards like the D&ADs, and Best of Show at the One Show awards in May....
It's unclear if the Brexit will have any specific effects on the digital media industry in the short or long term, but there are numerous potential consequences already on the table.
Earlier this month, Group M, the global media arm of WPP, tweaked its TV and newspaper ad spend forecast to compensate for a potential Brexit, according to The Guardian. Previous forecasts said U.K. TV ad spend would grow 7.1% in 2016, but that number drastically reduced to 2.6%. Furthermore, Group M lowered its total U.K. ad spend growth estimates from 7.2% to 6.3%.
This decrease stemmed from ad buyers' hesitation to spend money in the weeks before the referendum. Had the U.K. voted to remain in the EU, the ad market likely would have stabilized. But a vote to leave would have placed more downward pressure on U.K. ad spend, according to Sir Martin Sorrell, the CEO of WPP.
But even with these adjustments, the estimates still place the U.K. as one of the fastest-growing ad markets.
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What Google got right and wrong with YouTube.