A new report released looks at online media can best leverage games and quizzes to attract and engage audiences. Play the News Fun and Games in Digital Journalism was funded by the Tow Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and written by Maxwell Foxman. It describes specific intersections between games, play, and journalism, highlighting strategies, products, and sites of playful activity in the current news landscape with the goal of elucidating this pervasive phenomenon. Projects developed by the likes of The Washington Post and Mother Jones, and playful newsrooms like BuzzFeed, help illustrate some of the techniques journalists use to engage, inform, and educate readers through play. The report also counsels journalists, developers, and editors about the best ways and means of incorporating games and play into the newsroom.
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Industry Research
Agencies Find Digital Video Effective, Particularly for Targeting
For the past several years, The research team at BrightRoll (a vendor of video ad automation software) has surveyed agencies to reveal trends and topics that deserve more attention. They look at how agencies are allocating media budgets, how RFPs are changing, frequently used success metrics, etc.
According to BrighRoll’s 2015 Advertising Agency Survey, agencies report that:
- Digital video is becoming mainstream.
- Online video advertising is effective.
- Confidence in programmatic is growing.
- Completed views, conversions, and brand lift are the metrics that matter most.
- Targeting tops the list of digital video benefits.
- Mobile and tablet spending are poised for growth.
Lies, Damn Lies, and Viral Content: Examining the Role of News Websites
“Going Viral” is a phrase often bandied about in the world of media today. Rarely is it construed as a bad thing. However, in a paper funded by The Tow Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Craig Sliverman examines the role of news websites in filtering (or failing to filter) erroneous information that spreads like wildfire in social media. In his paper “Lies, Damn Lies, and Viral Content How News Websites Spread (And Debunk) Online Rumors, Unverified Claims, and Misinformation,” Silverman writes:
News organizations are meant to play a critical role in the dissemination of quality, accurate information in society. This has become more challenging with the onslaught of hoaxes, misinformation, and other forms of inaccurate content that flow constantly over digital platforms.
Journalists today have an imperative—and an opportunity—to sift through the mass of content being created and shared in order to separate true from false, and to help the truth to spread.
Unfortunately, as this paper details, that isn’t the current reality of how news organizations cover unverified claims, online rumors, and viral content. Lies spread much farther than the truth, and news organizations play a powerful role in making this happen.
…There are also widely used practices in online news that are misleading and confusing to the public. These practices reflect short-term thinking that ultimately fails to deliver the full value of a piece of emerging news.
He goes on to offer key findings about common bad practices as well as exploring in depth many examples of viral content and the role that the news media played in spreading the “bad news.”
Lack of Consumer Trust Slowing Growth of Mobile Content Industry Finds MEF
Trust remains the largest single obstacle to growth in the mobile content and commerce industry, according to the 2015 MEF Global Consumer Trust Report. The third annual study, supported by AVG Technologies N.V. analyzes data from 15,000 mobile media users in 15 countries across five continents. The Global Consumer Trust Report explores trust, privacy, transparency and security to identify their impact on mobile consumers in areas from purchasing a new device to downloading apps or paying for goods and services.
Some key takeaways include:
- 49% of all consumers surveyed say a lack of trust limits the amount of apps they download, compared to 37% last year.
- 40% of respondents indicated that a lack of trust is the number one factor that prevents them from downloading items more often.
- 72% of mobile consumers are not happy sharing personal data such as location or contact details when using an app.
- 34% say trust prevents them from buying more goods and services using their mobile device.
Alongside this growing mistrust, the study also revealed an increase in resistance to sharing personal information such as location, address book details or health records, with apps.
According to the findings:
- 72% of mobile users said that they are not happy sharing such information and 39% say that they never to do so.
- 30% of respondents said that improving the way apps communicate about the data they collect would foster greater trust in the mobile platforms.
- 63% said that they considered transparency important or extremely important (compared to 49% last year).
Andrew Bud, MEF Global Chair, said that “Trust is the most important asset of any business, and consumer confidence must underpin the mobile ecosystem. The sustainability of the mobile industry depends on it. As mobile devices and services evolve, consumers will hold business ever more accountable … Consumer trust must be earned by consistently applying high levels of transparency, security and privacy to every mobile interaction.”
The full MEF Global Consumer Trust 2015 Report is available only to members only. Non-members can download a copy of the Executive Summary.
Cisco Releases Mobile Forecast Offering Worldwide Behavior Predictions
Cisco has released its VNI Mobile Forecast highlights, 2014-2019, which it presents in an interactive map that allows users to filter by region or country.
Among the many data highlights offered are:
Mobile Data Traffic
- In North America, mobile data traffic will reach 3.8 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 956 million DVDs each month), up from 562.5 Petabytes per month in 2014.
- In Middle East and Africa, mobile data traffic will reach 3.0 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 761 million DVDs each month), up from 199.5 Petabytes per month in 2014.
- In Latin America, mobile data traffic will reach 2.0 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 509 million DVDs each month), up from 200.9 Petabytes per month in 2014.
- In Western Europe, mobile data traffic will reach 2.4 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 604 million DVDs each month), up from 341.4 Petabytes per month in 2014.
- In Asia Pacific, mobile data traffic will reach 9.5 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 2,376 million DVDs each month), up from 977.4 Petabytes per month in 2014.
- In Central and Eastern Europe, mobile data traffic will reach 3.5 Exabytes per month by 2019 (the equivalent of 874 million DVDs each month), up from 242.3 Petabytes per month in 2014.
Percentage of Smart Connections
- In North America, 60% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 72% in 2014.
- In Middle East and Africa, 41% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 11% in 2014.
- In Latin America, 61% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 20% in 2014.
- In Western Europe, 66% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 48% in 2014.
- In Asia Pacific, 53% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 24% in 2014.
- In Central and Eastern Europe, 58% of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2019, up from 18% in 2014.
Mobile Traffic Per Capita
- In North America, mobile traffic per capita will reach 10,259 megabytes per month by 2019, up from 1,571 megabytes per month in 2014, a CAGR of 46%.
- In Middle East and Africa, mobile traffic per capita will reach 1,933 megabytes per month by 2019, up from 142 megabytes per month in 2014, a CAGR of 69%.
- In Latin America, mobile traffic per capita will reach 3,106 megabytes per month by 2019, up from 322 megabytes per month in 2014, a CAGR of 57%.
- In Western Europe, mobile traffic per capita will reach 5,692 megabytes per month by 2019, up from 816 megabytes per month in 2014, a CAGR of 47%.
- In Asia Pacific, mobile traffic per capita will reach 2,303 megabytes per month by 2019, up from 247 megabytes per month in 2014, a CAGR of 56%.
- In Central and Eastern Europe, mobile traffic per user will reach 8,299 megabytes per month by 201
INMA News Media Outlook Report: Editorial and Audience Quality Keys to Success
The International News Media Association (INMA) recently released its 2015 News Media Outlook report, which explores the “digital transformation path for publishers.” The report is framed by INMA Executive Director and CEO Earl J. Wilkinson’s elegant metaphor of a rope with two ends burning toward each other:
“On one end are legacy news publishers, and on the other end are the new digital news publishers. The contrasts between the two ends of the rope are stark: print vs. digital business models, access to capital, profitability, market capitalization, age of workforces, the positioning of classic journalism, serendipity vs. analytics, and more. Both ends of the rope aim to adopt the best qualities of each other.”
Key themes in “News Media Outlook 2015: Re-Imagining the Transformation” include:
- Legacy vs. new digital media companies
- Value pillars
- Excellence of execution
- Foundations for future growth
- Technology and mobility
Throughout the report, Wilkinson examines the range of strategies taken by INMA’s member organizations all over the world, while also focusing on the differences between digitally-native organizations and publishers with roots in offline media. As Wilkinson writes, “one thing is clear: legacy publishers are spending a lot of time creating synergies between print and digital, while digital publishers spend all of their finite time trying to grow digital audience and revenue.” Those latter two, digital audience and revenue, are inexorably intertwined, he finds.
Legacy publishers believe in classic journalism for classic audiences, according to the report whereas digital publishers are “less wedded to those rules” and focus on the reader relationship. Thus, the roadmap for transformation that legacy publishers are following includes the recognition that “they are audience solution providers that support great journalism across media platforms.”
To succeed today, organizations need to align with market needs, which Wilkinson says mandates a “root-and-branch shift in how business gets done to produce quality journalism and sell audience solutions.” Yet despite the pressure to move toward a digital culture, he finds that many legacy companies “continue to operate in a print culture cocoon.” Contrast this with digital publishers that “think digital-only all the time and have blinders on with regard to their mission of growing a digital audience at all costs.”
To illustrate the audience scale in play, the INMA report cites a December 2014 USA Today article Michael Wolff, which says the “minimum for a high-profile site” that attracts “big-budget advertising accounts” has grown from 10 million to at least 50 million monthly visitors. However Wilkinson wisely points to another audience factor that anyone doing business online should consider:
“There is another reality at play: the intensity of the audience’s relationship to the brand is directly proportional to success in charging consumers for digital access.”
So while the report is framed with the “burning rope” metaphor, there are similarities between the digital and legacy publishers at each end of the spectrum worth noting and emphasizing. “Both ends of the rope want quality editorial environments for quality audiences funded by quality advertisers.”
The 118-page report is free to INMA members and available for purchase by non-members.
Truste Looks at Consumer Confidence (or Lack of It)
In case you missed it, Truste released its 2015 Consumer Confidence Index this week. We’ve been one of the louder voices on the importance of trust among consumers, marketers and publishers. We even baked it into our DNA by crafting our Trust Principles. Consumer and marketer trust is the basis of our members’ businesses and we must constantly strive to build and maintain it.
Unfortunately, that trust is a fragile thing and there is much taking place online that undermines it. For example, consider the rampant, untethered growth in the digital supply chain causes a daunting amount of tracking activity like this to happen. It seems likely that this level of tracking and data collection without more meaningful choice will undermine consumer trust
We are clearly not alone in our concern about consumer trust online. Truste calls it “a hot button issue for Americans with 92% concerned about their privacy when using the internet and 42% more concerned than a year ago.” Other of the key data points and takeaway from the Truste report include:
- Lack of trust harms publishers: 77% of consumers moderated their online behavior because of privacy concerns. 51% of consumers have not clicked on an online ad because of privacy concerns.
- Lack of trust harms advertisers: 86% of consumers took active steps to protect their privacy including deleting cookies, changing settings, turning off location tracking.
- Consumers may be confused, but their behavior is telling: 63% of consumers deleted cookies in order to protect their online privacy but only 10% opted out of behavioral ads. Why the difference? Is it because consumers don’t know that they can opt out? Is it because opting out is difficult to do and reliant on cookies?
I hope this data makes everyone stop what they’re doing to think about how we actually grow trust across the media ecosystem. We need to ensure that the consumer and marketer trust in premium brands remains strong. We need to focus on building the future of trusted content, a future in which brands can stand the test of time because we have built a sustainable model based on a foundation of trust.
Video Ads Effective Despite User Multitasking
New academic research “Seeing the Big Picture: Multitasking and Perceptual Processing Influences on Ad Recognition” finds that a certain type of users can recall video advertising as effectively when they are exclusively viewing the ad as when they are splitting their their time between watching the ad and performing another task on the computer.
TRUSTe: 79% of consumers are concerned about about the idea of personal information collected by smart devices
The newly released TRUSTe’s 2015 U.S. Internet of Things Privacy Index focuses on the Internet of Things (IoT) and captures consumer attitudes and concerns on privacy, security and data collection through smart devices.
Read more:
Press release
Infographic
IAB Hosts Discussion of its State of Viewability Transaction 2015 Position Paper
IAB held a call to discuss its new State of Viewability Transaction 2015 position paper. In addition to reading out the principles outlined in the paper, Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of IAB, and Sherrill Mane, SVP of Research, Analytics and Measurement at IAB answered questions from the call participants.
Below are the topics addressed along with key insights from the discussion.
Scope of the principles:
- IAB principles do not specify who should be responsible for covering the cost of viewability vendor services.
- The issue of fraudulent traffic is outside the scope of the viewability discussion, although these issues do overlap at times. TAG (Trustworthy Accountability Group) was created specifically to address the issues of fraud.
- The principles apply to desktop (display and video) transactions and do not cover mobile.
- IAB is not making any recommendations on how viewability should affect pricing.
- IAB generally limits the principles to measurable impressions – some formats, e.g. sponsorships, cannot be measured and are thus outside the scope.
How IAB arrived at the 70% viewability threshold for measured impressions:
As the position paper specified, the core aspiration of the 3MS initiative was to have 100% of traded impressions be deemed viewable by the MRC. IAB consulted a group with the IAB board (primarily composed of sellers), who have recommended that a 70% viewability rate was achievable at this point in time. IAB recognizes that 70% will be difficult for some publishers, but they think this is achievable. At the same time if a publisher thinks that they can do better than 70%, IAB encourages them to do so.
Dealing with unmeasurable impressions:
- IAB has cautioned against extrapolating any metrics from the measurable impressions to unmeasurable impressions.
- As per the example to principle 3 in the published position paper, unmeasured impressions should be billed for as fully viewable impressions (though not contributing towards the 70% viewability threshold for the measured impressions).
Next steps IAB will be undertaking to pave the road to 100% viewability:
- IAB has assembled an additional group of leaders to monitor the impact of viewability on publishers and course-correct if necessary (as the position paper specified, IAB are looking to revisit the principles at least twice a year).
- The industry is not yet at a level of sophistication where there can be a standard test suite that is run across all vendors to establish measurement consistency. IAB is working with the MRC and is encouraging its members to share data with the MRC to help them address the variability in measurement rates between vendors.
Impact on agencies:
- IAB thinks that the 100% viewability guarantees demanded by some of the agencies are unreasonable and will only hurt efforts to collaborate and fixed measurement throughout the system.
- Asked how IAB would recommend agencies to communicate to clients the endorsement of paying for 30% of inventory that was not viewable, Rothenberg advised agencies to always reference the MRC “Viewability Implementation Considerations”, issued on 16 October 2014, which state that 100% viewability is an unreasonable expectation at this point. Rothenberg advised agencies to educate clients on the current technological limitations of this space and the need to absorb the discrepancies in measurement.
Content Marketing + Programmatic: Opposites Attract
Content marketing and programmatic. Arguably two of the hottest terms in digital today, with more than 370 million Google search results between the two. For the most part, when we think about content and programmatic we think of opposites, of incompatibility, of contradictions. After all, they are used to execute strategies on opposite ends of the marketing funnel (upper vs. lower), deliver against opposite objectives (brand awareness vs. conversions), are measured with opposite metrics (time spent vs. CTR) and are delivered with opposite mechanisms (manual vs. automated). It’s the ultimate oxymoron.
However, the future of advertising depends on these two polar opposites fusing together to deliver meaningful brand engagement to the right consumer at more cost efficient scale. CMOs will demand more from their advertising and content marketing will help to fill the current void between the value ads are providing and the value CMOs want. And when content marketing programs are targeted, distributed and optimized programmatically, brands will be able to achieve a higher return on their investment.
In a recent report, “The Future of Programmatic: When The Art & Science of Advertising Collide,” PulsePoint partnered with Digiday to survey over 335 industry professionals on both sides of the buy and sell aisle, from agencies and brands to publishers in order to understand how close our theory is to becoming a reality. Is the industry ready for the art of content marketing and science of programmatic technology to finally collide? In short, yes.
The research uncovered a strong case for a more creative, more custom programmatic future. Over 83% of respondents believed that content marketing will go programmatic by 2017, indicating the desire for art and science in advertising to collide much sooner than expected. So what’s driving this?![whitepaper_graphs_p.16_how_long_will_sm[1]](https://digitalcontentnext.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/whitepaper_graphs_p.16_how_long_will_sm11-1024x694.jpg)
Programmatic has been generally confined to lower funnel objectives. But the days of direct response objectives dominating the programmatic landscape are nearing their end. In fact, 71% of respondents thought programmatic technology best supports mid-upper funnel campaign objectives. Additionally, high-impact, custom ad formats will begin to give standard display a run for its money as the proportion of respondents expecting to buy sponsored content placements programmatically in just one year’s time will grow 114%. Respondents also reported that in the next 12 months, the amount of TV bought programmatically will increase 45%, and custom rich media bought programmatically will increase 43%, while digital video will see a 29% increase.
This shift could not come at a better time. Nearly every respondent (about 97%) said that either they or their clients are using some form of content marketing and anticipate increasing programmatic ad spend by 62%.
We’re excited by these results and are confident that what we once considered to be an oxymoron will soon become the industry norm: rich content served programmatically exactly when and where consumers are ready to engage with it.
Download the full report here: http://goo.gl/Ktb3rS
Lindsay Boesen is the Director of Marketing at PulsePoint, a global advertising technology platform focused on fusing the efficiency of programmatic technology with the engagement of content marketing. At PulsePoint she oversees the companies marketing, communications, and creative team. Lindsay has over 10 years experience as a B2B digital marketer and was previously Senior Global Marketing Manager for Vibrant, the pioneer in to contextually relevant native advertising. She has also held marketing & creative roles at media companies like Select NY and Condé Nast. Trained in brand strategy, copywriting and art direction at NYC’s Adhouse, Lindsay holds a B.A in Communications & Advertising from Loyola College in Maryland.
PulsePoint: Programmatic Set to Move Up the Sales Funnel in 2015
PulsePoint, Inc., makers of an advertising technology platform, have released a new state of the industry intelligence report, “The Future of Programmatic: When The Art & Science of Advertising Collide,” conducted by Digiday and PulsePoint.
Download The Future of Programmatic: When The Art & Science of Advertising Collide whitepaper for the full research results and additional insights.