Let’s face it. A publisher’s job is never done – and it’s never easy. Regardless of the ever-evolving relationship publishers have with Facebook and other social media platforms for sharing content with the world, one thing remains clear: You either need to give readers the content they want, or they aren’t going to engage with what you’re offering.
Personalizing the content that you send to your audience can have a dramatic effect on engagement and time on site. Let’s look at three ways publishers can improve editorial strategy, increase consumer engagement and build brand loyalty by customizing the content that readers see.
Content Customization
As a publisher, your content development and editorial teams already have a pretty good sense of whether a story is best served by an article, video, audio, interactive experience or some combination of the above. They know the story and they have a good sense of the medium best suited to convey that story, but do they know the audience most likely to read – or watch or listen or explore – that story? And if they do, or they think they do, does your content dev team understand how that audience prefers to receive content? Now we’re getting into a murkier area.
Using audience data gathered from a DMP or other audience platform, you may learn that 70% of people watching videos at least three times in the last five days are men, 40% are age 25-34, and 35% are interested in sports. Armed with this knowledge, you can direct your video production team to create videos about football – or soccer, if you live in a country that’s not America. Knowing the composition of your content consumers allows you to publish (or republish) content specifically tailored to their content consumption preferences. When content is relevant, consumers will be engaged for longer and they will be more likely to return for more.
Content Personalization
While content customization helps to modify the types of content your editorial team produces, how can we ensure that the user is getting the most relevant content, in any medium, as they navigate around your digital properties? You may be able to tee up relevant content based on the current article (or video, etc) a user is reading or watching, but what percentage of your site traffic have you seen before? 25%? 50%? For the remaining users who you have no previous data on, how do you ensure the first pieces of content is something that user is likely to engage with?
In addition to making more relevant content by medium, why don’t we reduce the irrelevant content pieces? Content wouldn’t be displayed to users who are not interested, and instead would only be shown to consumer who are interested. This is where Content Personalization comes into play. By linking your digital audience data to your Content Management System’s (CMS) engine, a profile’s rich behavioral attributes can be reviewed and analyzed to ensure each piece of content is served up to each user on an individual basis. This maximizes the chances the user will click or engage – and remain on your site longer.
Now, instead of four out of 10 articles being relevant you can become even more relevant by decreasing the total number served up – it’s now four out of eight articles! It’s not perfect, but we’ve already increased from 10% relevancy to 50%. That an increase of 500%!
Content Recommendation
So now we can ensure the right content is served despite the users’ interest or demographics, but we can’t just keep showing the same article or type of article to the same user.
Content Recommendation can help solve for that. As a user browses the page, to one side or at the bottom of the article a selection of relevant articles should be offered to the reader as additional content to consume. If the user is reading an article about sports, but also have interests in finance and politics, perhaps the list of articles being recommended is one article each of sports, finance, and politics. Integrating your audience data with a content recommendation engine (either proprietary or third-party like Outbrain) will allow these relevant articles to show based on behavioral affinities.
Whichever direction you choose, one thing remains true: When content is relevant, consumers will be engaged for longer and they will be more likely to return for more. And in today’s very competitive world, saturated with blogs, articles and videos, using the insights you have on your audience to show them what they want will make them more loyal and give you a leg up on the competition. Are you ready to get started?
Mark Zuckerberg may be all over the news lately, but thanks to Facebook’s algorithm change, there’s a chance you may not be seeing much about it on Facebook itself. So where are people going for news now?
They may be returning to news aggregation and curation apps, which have had their ups and downs over the years. The fact is that less news on Facebook means more opportunities to distribute news via other platforms. Though there’s still a strong incumbent advantage by tech companies like Google and Apple. Some of the upstart news apps are using machine learning and AI to better serve users. And one thing is certain: Publishers have more freedom to experiment and see what works outside of Facebook.
Digital Magazines Make a Comeback
The “digital magazine app” Flipboard was something of a media darling after it was first released in 2010, and has raised more than $200 million in funding over the years. While conversation around it has largely been muted for the past few years, the company still attracts 100 million monthly users, and its users have generated 35 million “magazines” to flip through. After Google, Facebook and Twitter, it’s the number four traffic source for digital publications, according to Parsely.
Given Flipboard’s popularity and longevity, it’s in a prime position to toot its own horn and make itself relevant, reliable and profitable, especially as Facebook continues to cope with data scandals. As CEO Mike McCue told Axios’ Kia Kokalitcheva and Ina Fried, “As people start to realize they need a place to reliably go to read about the things they care about, it’s time for us to seize that moment, whether it is on the product or on the management team.”
So it’s no wonder Flipboard recently hired former Spotify and AOL executive Kal Amin to serve as its new chief operating officer, the latest in a string of new hires. In a world of fake news, Flipboard can focus even more on human curation. If the company stays on track, keeps expenses to a minimum, and finally reaches profitability, its app could be a win-win for Flipboard, publishers and users.
Machine Learning and Bursting Your Filter Bubble
While Flipboard users can personalize the app toward their interests and therefore see more content they are interested in from the get-go, other apps are distinguishing themselves by prioritizing popping peoples’ filter bubbles. Take the startup Knowhere, which uses machine learning to create articles that are then reviewed by human curators. It also allows users to toggle between reading versions of a political or polarizing story written from a left, right or “impartial” perspective.
BuzzFeed has launched an “Outside Your Bubble” feature on some of its articles, and researchers at MIT have released a Chrome extension that allows Twitter users to “flip their feed.” However, the use of machine learning to create multiple versions of the same article is a new twist to addressing a recognized problem.
And machine learning is becoming more popular globally. In Japan, one of the most popular news apps, SmartNews, uses machine learning. The Norwegian news aggregator app Sol also uses a combination of algorithms and human editors to engage users. The company has 50,000 daily unique users and adds a small but steady 5,000 new users a week, according to its CEO. And half of the users who register with the app agree to use a chatbot assistant to curate their content. Therefore, it’s not necessarily that machine learning will take over any preferred human curation. It looks like it will be used to augment curation according to taste and needs.
Tough Competition for Aggregators
The major hurdle for all these new startups and apps, though, is that there is entrenched competition beyond just Facebook. Apple News is the default news app on iPhones and iPads. Admittedly, its user base is small given the number of iOS devices around the world. However, there are plenty of consumers uninterested in researching and downloading new apps can who can easily turn to it. And although Google’s Feed, which was released last year, hasn’t quite reached epic numbers, Google still dominates search and driving traffic to publishers through Google News and AMP.
And with Facebook’s massive (if declining) user base, it’s hard to really count out the social giant. Even the CEO and founder of Nuzzel, a news app that surfaces trending content across different social media platforms, acknowledges that Facebook will still likely hold a big lead. “Even if people get a little less news on Facebook, more people will still get more news on Facebook than most other places,” Nuzzel CEO Jonathan Abrams told Mashable’s Karissa Bell.
And when the founders of Sol realized it needed to encourage users to download the app, it did the obvious: It advertised the app on Facebook and Instagram, and went from number 17 to number 1 among free apps in Norway’s Apple App Store.
All that said, the time is ripe for news aggregators to finally break through and make a difference. There is an opportunity to stand out with customized content, better data security, respect for consumer privacy, and the appeal of being something other than Facebook.
USA TODAY recently named Maribel Perez Wadsworth as its publisher, the second woman to hold the title. Wadsworth, a Cuban-American, is the first person of color to serve as publisher. She adds this title to her current role as President of USA TODAY NETWORK, which she has held since November 2017. Maribel oversees the company’s consumer business. She formerly served as the company’s Chief Transformation Officer (2016) and Chief Strategy Officer (2015).
Here she discusses her new role, her strategy for growth and innovation at USA TODAY, and the biggest threat to the success of our industry.
How will your new role allow you to better lead the media brands at Gannett?
MPW: I’m excited to lead USA TODAY as publisher, cementing the important relationship that exists between our flagship national brand and our 109 local news brands. As president of the USA TODAY Network, I’m responsible for content, strategy and operations for all our media brands. This allows us to truly take a holistic approach to how we best serve our audiences and our communities. It also enables us to identify and scale new ideas and best practices. In addition, as we continue to expand our portfolio of niche brands, such as our recent majority investment in Grateful Ventures, we are well-positioned to comprehensively serve the news and information needs of our audiences with high quality content and experiences.
You’ve made a recent round of hires. Tell me about the type of talent you’ve added and what you are looking for to succeed in the news business today:
MPW: I’m proud of the team we are building at USA TODAY. First, because we have such a strong base of talent to start. My first move was to name Nicole Carroll as editor in chief. Nicole is an ideal partner — an exceptionally talented, award-winning journalist and a highly competitive individual with great ambition for our journalism. We’ve also just added Jeff Taylor, formerly VP of News at the Indianapolis Star, as Executive Editor. And we’re realigning and adding resources around two key areas — investigative and enterprise coverage and digital storytelling. So, you’ll be seeing those teams expand and our hiring focus will be there. But in a nutshell, what I’m looking for in talent is people of diverse backgrounds with an inherent passion for doing good and winning at it. Skills can be taught or bought. The culture we’re building, that’s what’s special.
Tell me about your philosophy on creating the best news experiences for readers:
MPW: We have to be focused on relevance, distinction and quality. That means we have to deeply understand who we serve — what do they need, what are they interested in, what do they most deeply care about. It means we have to be keenly attuned to who we are — what are our strengths, what do we do better than anybody else. And it means we have to make choices. If we are to consistently deliver on the excellence our customers deserve, we must choose where to focus and prioritize so we can truly do fewer things better.
What are the most important investments that news media organizations need to make to continue to meet the needs of today’s readers?
MPW: Our most important investment is in our people. We must ensure we are hiring great journalists and supporting their development. It is also critically important to build a culture of experimentation to continue to push the boundaries of digital storytelling.
At the USA TODAY NETWORK, that experimentation has focused on a few key areas — virtual reality and 360-degree video, including from an expanding drone journalism program; voice and audio more broadly as we more and more develop content for listeners; and augmented reality. Take a look at our augmented reality app 321 Launch, built in partnership between USA TODAY and Florida Today ‘s expert space coverage. The app allows you to track a live rocket launch in AR from any flat surface as a hologram shows you what the rocket is doing in real-time. There is also a launch simulation you can do any time and learn from our space experts as they guide you through rocket assembly, blast off and re-entry. It’s very cool and I hope you’ll check it out.
What is the biggest threat or challenge for the news business today and what advice do you have for publishers seeking to address it?
MPW: The biggest challenge our industry faces today comes from the rapid rise of unregulated megaplatforms such as Facebook and Google. And not just from the obvious place of taking digital, especially mobile, advertising spend. These platforms are also in no small way responsible for an assault on truth and trust. Their algorithms naturally optimize their business results but do little to help consumers discern between quality, premium journalism, and fake content from questionable sources. In our business, we must focus on being customer-led not platform-driven. Our business cannot be dependent on the whims of a third-party platform’s strategy. As many have seen, chasing the algorithm can lead to dramatically inconsistent and potentially perilous results. Instead, our focus must be on building a strong, direct relationship with our audiences and that starts with quality and trust.
When one thinks of local news, the immediate distribution points that come to mind are local TV, local newspapers and local radio. According to the Knight Foundation’s new research, Local TV News and the New Media Landscape, Local TV news is the most profitable one. Local newspapers are on shaky ground, continually losing circulation (and advertising dollars) and local radio is holding its own. However, it is significant to note that local TV news stations are looking to digital for innovative ways to tell their stories and to attract new audiences.
The Knight Foundation cites findings from the Radio Television Digital News Association Annual Survey that 65% of station innovations are focused on digital platforms. The other innovative areas include technical (17%), alternative approaches to newscast presentations (14%) and new organizational structures (4%). Clearly, local TV news is building a digital presence.
Online Innovation
An important strategy for local TV news is the digital first approach. Many local stations are broadcasting their content, especially bigger projects, first on digital platforms before on air. This type of strategy shifts focus on audiences and where they want to access their content.
Further, more than three-quarters (78%) of TV news directors report putting new and important content online now. Their strategies include:
Moving newscasts online: More newscasts available online or conducting live events online.
Web-only content: Local TV news stations are also creating content specifically designed for web and mobile platforms.
Leveraging digital to improve storytelling: Stations are experimenting with user generated content for new POVs and storytelling opportunities.
Developing new properties for younger audiences: Stations are also developing digital assets to target younger adult,
Social Media Strategy
In terms of attracting a younger audience, 55% of local TV news stations are emphasizing social media. Fifteen percent are pushing specific social platforms or features (e.g. Facebook Live, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and others). Additional efforts also include content creation on digital social platforms targeted toward millennials.
Knight’s social media analyses indicates digital strategies are paying off for many stations in terms of reach and audience engagement. Further, in a content analysis of more than 1,100 posts (on human interests, entertainment, politics, public policy, etc.) for four stations with the highest engagement levels shows increases when social media components are added.
Efforts on social media are paying off and ratings are highest on local news stations when there’s activity on social media. This suggests that the content on social media is additive and not necessarily replacing the local station as an access point of information. Still, local news stations need to find a balance in using social media to find audiences and deliver news.
Recently, a close family friend said “I actually liked getting my news on Facebook. It was relevant for me and easy.” We went on to discuss Facebook’s focus on “time well spent” and how the social network plans to emphasize content shared by family and friends. However, lovers of the News Feed on Facebook have certainly not been the only ones affected. Given that they are on the losing end of Facebook’s algorithmic attention deficit disorder, publishers need to give some thought to the ways in which they will continue to attract high quality audiences.
In fact, publishers should seriously consider working together on this one. An option that isn’t getting enough attention is allocating part of their owned and operated pages for other premium publishers’ content. This would allow publishers to recapture the monetization, brand awareness, and data they’ve lost from Facebook while creating a healthier ecosystem for all. If done properly, publishers will have an audience that is more engaged, something the early data from Outbrain’s Sphere initiative has proven out. Put another way, audiences referred between premium publishers are simply more engaged than folks who come via social referrals.
Facebook audiences were always a challenge, mostly “side-door” with high bounce rates. But, it was a trade-off most publishers accepted until their brand awareness, monetization opportunities, and knowledge about readers were undermined by Facebook’s decision. Rather than relying solely on Facebook, publishers have an opportunity to band together and expand the personalized discovery experience to include other premium publishers. By linking out to other publishers and gaining the benefit of similar inbound audiences, publishers can establish a “flywheel effect” that nets them either referral revenue or engaged inbound audiences. Win, win!
Three important characteristics are needed to ensure such an audience exchange is truly reader-focused. First, transitioning audiences between publishers can’t be based on a ratio, whether 1-to-1 or 1-to-many. The reader wants the best experience possible and by requiring content from a publisher to meet ratio requirements, the reader will get overlooked. Second, publishers must have the controls and input to decide what other publishers are allowed in the club. Third, data must be provided to all participants that clearly shows the number of engaged users in order to prove out the value of the exchange.
While these three characteristics are critical, the biggest concern we hear is “why should I link to a competitor?” Given the changes in the landscape over the last several years should we all rethink our competitive set? Do I compete with publishers or social platforms for readers? In his 2007 article New Rule: Do What You Do Best and Link to the Rest, Jeff Jarvis discusses the benefits of linking to other publishers. Frederic Filloux built on this idea in Why Publishers Should Consider the “Smart Curation” Market, which supports selective linking based on editorial preference. These are great examples for linking to other publishers meant to create a healthy and vibrant ecosystem while establishing trust with readers.
Bottom line: Providing readers the best discovery experience, even linking to other publishers, establishes a deeper level of trust that will pay-off for everyone in the long-run.
Mobile is as personal as it gets. That’s why people feel annoyed when mobile ads delivered to their devices and apps are a mismatch with their desires and expectations. To cut out unwanted noise and shut out ads that deliver a poor user experience, consumers are reaching in record numbers to mobile ad-blocking technology. Unfortunately, bad ad experiences don’t only alienate and frustrate consumers; they also deprive publishers of an important chance to monetize their assets and audiences.
So, what is a bad ad experience? Unsurprisingly, ads that disrupt or distort content people are trying to read or enjoy lead the list of most “hated” annoyances, according to research from Nieman Norman Group. Pop-up ads, auto-playing video with sound, interstitial ads that must be viewed before content can be viewed, and postitial ads that obscure the content or just breaking the browsing flow are ad approaches and formats that people want to avoid.
Naturally, in the Age of Personalization—marked by milestone studies that reveal 78% of consumers said they would be happy to receive mobile advertising that is relevant to their interests—mobile ads that are out of sync with people’s interests and context are also a “fail.” However, this doesn’t appear to deter publishers and brand marketers from plowing huge amounts of money into mobile ads that people ignore.
It’s a dynamic that threatens to bankrupt the entire digital ecosystem. At one level, mobile ad spend is rising into the stratosphere. Research firm eMarketer reckons ad spend in the U.S. alone, which accounted for 66% of all digital ad spend in 2017, will increase to 72% (or $65.8 billion) in 2019. At the other end of the spectrum, the vast majority of brands and publishers are wasting budget ads that fail to inspire or influence consumer behavior.
Dangerous Disconnect
New research based on internal data from Verve, a location-based mobile marketing platform that connects advertisers with consumers, puts this dangerous disconnect into perspective. Over half (56%) of respondents surveyed in the U.K. think most ads they see on their mobile phones are “boring or dull.” As a result, the average person in the U.K. ignores 7 mobile ads each day. When looking at the national population, this figure translates to a massive 20 million. “In their current state,” Verve reports, “mobile ads are not making the cut.”
Only one in ten respondents (11%) believed their mobile ads were genuinely helpful. This figure increased significantly with the quality of the mobile ad experience. While just 17% said they were “likely” or “very likely” to interact with a generic ad on their phones, over twice that number (38%) said they would do so it the ad was related to their interests or hobbie. And 34% said they would engage if the ad was related to where they were at that particular time.
Lack of relevancy is part of the problem, lack of imagination is the other. A 2017 survey of 100 advertisers and 1,000 consumers regarding their recent experiences and preferences toward mobile ads conducted by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by digital advertising creative management platform Celtra found that poor creatives may be at the core of bad ad experiences.
The study revealed that more than two-thirds of advertisers believe at least half of their mobile advertising budget is wasted, sunk into the development and deployment of mobile ads that can even harm their brand image. In fact, a whopping 73% of all mobile ads seen in a typical day fail to create a positive user experience. “The overall digital content experience is littered with creatively uninspired ads, irrelevant ads, and intrusive ads with slow load times,” the report states. “The consumer experience has gone terribly wrong.”
The solution is more engaging ad creatives. Companies that crack the code, using creatives that are more relevant and less disruptive are sure to see improved customer response rates and higher brand recognition, the report concludes. As Mihael Mikek, Celtra founder and CEO, put it in a press release at the time: “Smart advertisers have a significant market opportunity to drive high levels of customer engagement and sustained competitive advantage by leveraging strong creative in their mobile ad campaigns.”
Vendor spin aside, the data suggests positive mobile ad experiences promote positive consumer perceptions and influence actions. The findings also support my personal view that the ability to craft and evaluate effective mobile ad and in-app creatives is at the core of what marketers must learn and master to ensure their campaigns move the needle, not miss the mark.
Inspirational and Relatable
Effective marketers follow the data to determine what works. “But it’s not just about amassing Big Data,” Haydon Young, Director of User Acquisition at Dots, writes in an insightful post. “It’s about creating a Big Picture view of your users by blending what you know about them in the digital world of mobile and apps with what you observe about them in the “real world”.
He recalls how a re-think of ad creatives rocketed conversion rates for Covet Fashion – an app for fashionistas and the shopping obsessed. Observing shoppers in real-life, at malls and shops, helped his team architect an ad experience catered to its unique audience demographics (“moms, daughters, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, and everything in-between”). It allowed them to align with their aspirations (“a vast and diverse group of races and body types united by the singular desire to be a part of the fashion and beauty world”). Rather than use ad creatives that depicted super-models, he removed the faces altogether. This encouraged users to picture themselves in the clothes and look they wanted most. The creatives worked because they spoke to the audience ambition to be and look amazing.
The takeaway: Ad creatives succeed when they address audience demographics and desires and encourage people to unlock their real potential. It’s no coincidence that brand creatives “rooted in real life” are crushing it, according to the Global Marketing 2018 Trends study from Freedman International. From fashion brand ASO that refused to photoshop models in its ads to Fitbit that has switched from using professional athletes to showcasing average people working out, companies are winning audiences with imagery that portrays the real world as it really is.
Test for Success
Authenticity is a must across the entire ad experience. Be upfront about what your app offers and choose mobile ad creatives that are descriptive, not deceptive.
“The most important thing to do creatively [in the ad] is to show users what the experience is within the app,” observes Helene Trompeter, Media Manager at The Weather Company and a Mobile Hero recognized for her app marketing accomplishments. “Being straightforward and visualizing the benefit of your app capabilities [in the ad creative] almost always outperforms lifestyle imagery.”
Even the coolest creatives won’t appeal to everyone in your customer base. So, use data to develop effective segmentation and targeting strategies. “Ad copy and images may perform differently depending on user demographics, operating systems, and interests,” Trompeter explains. Choosing the right creative for the right audience is an ongoing task that requires the discipline to test and the courage to innovate. It can be a daunting task, but Trompeter tells me there are some shortcuts. Dynamic ads and creative templates can remove a lot of the heavy-lifting, making it easy for marketers to mix and match hundreds of creative variations to ensure mobile ads are fresh, relevant and engaging.
Trompeter achieves this by applying what she calls the “80/20 rule.” In practice, she runs “about 80% of budget toward historical performers and 20% toward testing.” It’s a smart approach that recognizes the hard truth about effective advertising. Marketers have to focus ad spend on what is proven to work. However, they also need to experiment with ideas and ad elements that take them outside their comfort zone.
Push the Boundaries
Verve Foundry can use part of the screen or all of it to create an animated experience.
Meaningful and effective mobile ads follow the data and demographics to appeal to the target audience. But using the right ad format can also make a huge difference. Walter T. Geer III, VP and Creative Director at Verve, tells me new ad formats that build on existing ways people interact with the mobile Web and apps on their devices are boosting audience engagement. “Scroll, pinch, swipe—it’s all about delivering the best possible ad experience with ad formats that let consumers use their fingers and put them in control.”
The days of using the consumer’s mobile device as a “launching pad” for ads that disrupt and annoy are over, Geer says. “The future is about creating an opportunity that is cohesive to the device and using the data to ensure mobile ads deliver the right opportunity and one that is relevant to the individual.” This is also where ad formats that “augment and enhance user activities” play a major role, enabling a positive brand experience and driving closer customer connection.
A prime example is Canopy Onscroll, a new ad format developed by Verve that combines two engaging experiences into one without interrupting the consumer’s core app experience. Animation beyond the banner activates when scrolling. “It’s one of our highest engaging ad units and a great example of how giving users choices. In this case, showing subtle animation completely activated by scrolling—is capturing people’s attention with advertising that is effective, not intrusive.”
Effective and emotive mobile ad creatives are a huge departure from the annoying screen-takeovers and one-size-fits-all ad experiences that characterized the early days of digital marketing. Stronger creatives, real-life imagery, and innovative formats that push the envelope point the way to positive ad experiences that will engage, motivate, and activate consumers.
All of these trends are likely to further disrupt media markets and digital content companies. Of them, blockchain is getting a lot of attention at the moment. And rightfully so.
A growing market
Identified last year by PwC as one of eight breakthrough technologies that “will be the most influential on businesses worldwide in the very near future,” it’s an innovation which has excited investors, business and governments around the world.
Source: Business Insider/ CB Insights
One proponent, Comcast Ventures, the VC affiliate of the Comcast Corporation, recently joined IBM, the technology community Galvanize, and the VC Boldstart Ventures, in supporting a growth lab for early stage blockchain startups. Led by MState, a press release for the initiative notes that “more than 100 Fortune 500s companies have active blockchain initiatives and the number is growing fast.”
What is blockchain?
Explainers abound, including these examples from Forbes and TechRepublic. PwC offers this pithy description:
“[Blockchain is a] distributed electronic ledger that uses software algorithms to record and confirm transactions with reliability and anonymity. The record of events is shared between many parties and information once entered cannot be altered, as the downstream chain reinforces upstream transactions.”
This 3 minute video from PBS also sums up the technology very effectively, with the visuals perhaps being an easier way – for some people – to make sense of this system:
The global blockchain market is predicted to grow from USD 411.5 million in 2017 to USD 7,683.7 million by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 79.6%. The technology has the potential to impact multiple areas of interest to media companies, including: payments and contracts, as well as content distribution and digital asset management.
Commenting on an earlier study by the same company (Research and Markets) Business Wire noted in April 2017: “The media and entertainment vertical is expected to witness the highest CAGR during the forecast period.”
Comcast’s approach
According to one advocate for blockchain, Gil Beyda, Managing Director of Comcast Ventures, there are good reasons to be excited by this nascent technology.
“The internet connected people and businesses with near zero cost of distribution. However, the network still required intermediaries (website, etailers, etc.) to aggregate people and content/goods and provide a trust layer for transactions,” he explained in an email to Digital Content Next.
“Blockchain fundamentally changes that model by creating trust between individuals and companies that are unknown to each other. This allows new decentralized business models that were not possible before.” Beyda acknowledges that “It is still in the early days. ” However, he points out that blockchain is a “horizontal technology that has the potential to touch nearly every business from, supply chain management to commerce, to content consumption.”
As a result, Comcast, like a number of other media companies – such as Spotify – are exploring the potential afforded by blockchain to create (and support) new, and existing, business models.
“Comcast has announced the Blockchain Insights Platform with NBCU+Disney+Altice+Cox and others to match audience datasets — without sharing data — to better plan, target, execute and measure advertising,” Beyda told us.
The initiative, launched at Cannes Lions last summer, sees Comcast partner with NBCUniversal, Disney, Altice USA, Channel 4 (UK), Cox Communications, Mediaset Italia and TF1 Group (France) in order to deliver “a new and improved advertising approach which would facilitate the secure exchange of non-personal, audience insights for addressable advertising.”
Marcien Jenckes, President, Advertising, Comcast Cable, argued at the time: “This new technological approach would make data-driven video advertising more efficient and consumer data more secure. We’ll work with the participants in this initiative to improve ad planning, addressable targeting, execution and measurement, to ultimately create even more value for the television advertising industry.”
“Another internal project enables IoT devices in the home to use blockchain to secure and control access. Others at Comcast at looking at consumer loyalty programs and energy management,” Beyda says.
Comcast’s entry into this space goes beyond their traditional content role, to include expanded home automation services (offered, their website states, to more than 15 million customers at no additional cost) supported by a blockchain based tool. This will enable consumers “to easily grant, revoke and tailor access to any IoT device in a way that is safe, private and highly resistant to tampering.”
As Noopur Davis, Chief Information Security Officer, Comcast Cable, observed in a recent blog post: “Blockchains may be most commonly associated with cryptocurrencies [like bitcoin, Ed], but the underlying technology provides a powerful, flexible and secure platform that can support many types of sensitive transactions where privacy and reliability are critical.”
With Intel predicting that the average household will have 50 connected in-home devices by 2020 (up from ten in 2016), Comcast join Google, Amazon and others at the intersection of media and tech, who are operating in the increasing busy connected-home market.
Other potential benefits
Outside of these areas, Beyda also highlights how “early application of blockchain in media companies might include identity, royalty tracking, digital rights management and content distribution.”
Arguably it’s the payment and distribution opportunities afforded by this technology which will pique the interest of many content creators and rights holders.
As Deloitte commented in a recent paper (Blockchain @ Media | A new Game Changer for the Media Industry?): “Blockchain technology permits bypassing content aggregators, platform providers, and royalty collection associations to a large extent. Thus market power shifts to the copyright owners.”
Further possible blockchain uses identified by Deloitte include “new pricing options for paid content,” improved “distribution of royalty payments,” as well as “secure and transparent C2C sales” and “consumption of paid content without boundaries.”
Blockchain-based Opportunities. Source: Deloitte
Although adoption and the evolution of this technology still has some way to go, and several of these ideas – such as a micro-payment future have been hotly anticipated before – Deloitte nonetheless suggest:
“Possible applications and technical innovations will have a far reaching impact: content creators may be able to keep a close track of their playtimes, royalties and advertising revenues could be shared in an exact and timely manner based on consumption, and low cost content could be purchased efficiently, even if priced at mere fractions of cents.”
Meanwhile, companies like MetaX are exploring how blockchain can address issues of viewability and ad fraud by recording and storing detailed real-time ad impressions, and others have argued that blockchain technology (which allows users to trace, chronologically, any changes) can also be used to address issues of fake news and content manipulation.
Moving forward
“The media industry is stuck with licensing, distribution and collection structures that are pre-Internet,” Bruce Pon – founder of BigchainDB, a Berlin based blockchain database – wrote recently on Medium.“The blockchain enables new ways to think about the value exchange between creators, middlemen and consumers.”
Dan Williamson, CEO and co-founder of The-BLOCK.io, agrees: “We believe blockchain technology will have a huge impact on the media industry,” he told Digital Content Next.
“It will help revenue-strained media companies raise finances through ICOs and allow their readers and advertisers to participate in micropayment-friendly ecosystems. The immutable and tamper-proof nature of the blockchain will help advertisers and media owners guard against the widespread fraud and mistrust that plagues the industry. [And] it will also allow companies and individuals to distribute content in ways such that it is impossible to take it down: a double-edged sword.” Although Pon believes that “media companies are sleepwalking into this next technology maelstrom, without knowing what’s going to hit them,” the experience of Gil Beyda and his team at Comcast Ventures indicates that there are some blockchain cassandra’s out there in medialand.
“I believe we’ll see applications of blockchain technology in production in the next 1-2 years,” Beyda predicts, suggesting that the evolution of this technology – and the myriad of benefits it could potentially unlock – might become more mainstream sooner than you might realize.
It’s potential could be quite radical. Dan Williamson, highlights how ”projects like Basic Attention Token, which was launched by Javascript creator and Mozilla and Firefox co-founder Brendan Eich, are seeking to flip the business model of the internet.” As he explains, the initiative is designed to give users control over their data and with whom they share it.
“If successful, it will disrupt Google, Facebook and the entire digital advertising industry,” he says. “What happens then? It could herald new economic era for the internet, whereby content creators are rewarded for their work and users are rewarded for their data.”
As a result, as Dr. Nelson Granados – an Associate Professor of information systems, and Director of the Institute for Media, Entertainment, and Culture at Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business – has argued:
“If you are in media and entertainment, 2018 will be a year to closely monitor and possibly experiment or invest in blockchain innovation, if you haven’t done so yet. Otherwise, you could be left behind.”
And no discerning media company wants that.
Matthew Schroder, a Doctoral Student at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication contributed to the research for this article.
For years, publishers have raced to win over new online audiences, wherever those audiences might be — on Facebook, Google and myriad other platforms that readers use every day. The thought process behind this mad chase was simple: To stay relevant, publishers reckoned, they had to reach as wide of an audience as possible, across as many platforms as possible — surely profitability would follow.
This thought process turned out to be partly correct; entire media empires have risen on the backs of digital platforms. But profitability? It turns out that the immense ad revenues associated with larger audiences were not a foregone conclusion. The platforms hosting those audiences, namely Google and Facebook, now guzzle up ad revenue like water at the finish line, taking $.70 of every new dollar spent my marketers, while leaving publishers with ad-supported business models high and dry.
But there is a way forward for those publishers that now find themselves floundering. To get ahead, they need to differentiate themselves ruthlessly.
What’s The Problem?
Ruthless differentiation starts with letting go of the broad missions that guided publishing brands in the past. “Informing and entertaining” is no longer a feasible way to connect with audiences (and, as we’ve seen, it can lead to a publisher’s undoing). To establish a simplified and specific mission, publishers must do what successful brands and businesses have always done: identify problems that people face and try to solve them.
The New York Times got a healthy bump in revenue in 2017 by identifying a very old problem — access to reliable news coverage — and solving it a new way. In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the 166-year-old publisher doubled down on messaging about one of the things it has always done well: in-depth reporting. Then they sold that message to readers, ruthlessly and with gusto, in the form of digital subscriptions.
Think Again
While not every publisher can be the Gray Lady, solid reporting is far from the only thing that publishers have going for them. Any highly focused publisher with a distinctive brand must find the thing that they do so well that consumers are willing to pay for it. And if a publisher can’t find “the thing” that consumers will pay for, then they must find “the thing” that marketers will pay for — in-market buyers. Creating relevant content for shoppers is valuable not only for the shopper, but for marketers looking to convert shoppers into buyers.
This must lead to one radical change in thinking: All efforts should focus on commerce. Platform dominance means that, realistically, most publishers will have to live off a third of their revenue coming from advertising — not the 60 to 70 percent they’ve grown accustomed to.
In order to develop a commerce mindset, publishers must expand the definition of commerce beyond the narrow legacy definition of “e-commerce stores” or “affiliate links” and re-define commerce within the context of the value they’re offering to marketing partners and the people using their sites.
Focus on Value
A publisher’s ad products and services must evolve to tangibly drive product sales for marketers. That’s one form of commerce. And for a publisher’s readers? A commerce mindset with respect to consumers involves anything and everything that makes money. Subscriptions aren’t the only option.
Many publishers, including The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, now host live events and conferences that tie into their brand missions and help diversify their revenue streams. Other publishers have found success licensing their content (or just selling it) to other sites. And there’s also money to be made in brand-licensing — Meredith’s branded products generated $23 billion in retail sales in 2016, according to Business Insider. Ultimately, the way that a publisher chooses to define commerce will depend on their objectives and on the problems that they are looking to solve for consumers.
Brand differentiation and thinking of new ways to generate money outside of ad sales is Business 101. But for publishers who’ve been brought low by the unfulfilled promises of platforms, the path forward starts with getting back to basics.
Mobile journalism sounds like a great idea for cash-strapped media outlets. Get your journalists to use smartphones to shoot and edit video and photos, and save a bundle versus the cost of DSLRs and pro camcorders.
It sounds simple enough. But newsrooms that are getting on the “mojo” bandwagon have learned the hard way that asking journalists to find and use tools to create mobile content on their own can be a quality control nightmare.
Most consumer video editing apps reduce the size of a video file on export. Some give it a squeeze on import as well, meaning the finished video is fine for social platforms but useless for television. Some audio editing apps will export MP3s, but charge extra for broadcast-standard .WAV files.
A Very British Approach
The BBC recommends third-party apps to its journalists, and even creates apps to help its reporters file directly into the broadcaster’s servers.
So, what’s an editor to do? Well, one way is to appoint someone to curate your apps. At the BBC, where smartphones are increasingly used to create content for linear, on-demand and social platforms, there is a “Mobile Apps” team, which includes a group of IOS developers.
They’ve developed an in-house video recording app that shoots at 25fps (a requirement in PAL-system countries like the UK) rather than the standard 30fps, and which can file video recordings direct to the BBC’s news ingest system. The team also curates an internal-facing BBC Apps Store, where journalists can download bespoke BBC and recommended third-party apps.
The BBC’s internal training department also employs mobile journalism trainers like Marc Blank-Settle and Deirdre Mulcahy who teach reporters how to use a smartphone for radio, photography and video storytelling, and how to use the apps best suited to their jobs. In mid-2017, the BBC published some of that learning during a ‘Mojo Week’ at the BBC Academy.
That being said, the BBC is a huge news outlet with 8,000 journalists, who are also free to try out new apps to find ones that work for them.
Going Dutch
The Dutch broadcaster Omrop Fryslân is a much smaller operation than the BBC, and its in-house mobile trainer Wytse Vellinga has a high level of control over the apps and phones the reporters use to make TV, radio, online and social content.
Every journalist is required to learn to use their phone to create content for all three platforms, and to use a curated list of apps that give the best results. They receive two days’ training and follow-up support.
“If you do not standardize, people tend to get lost in what they can do with their phones,” Mr Vellinga says. “There are just too many different apps out there that claim to deliver quality results – but those results will vary too much for use in a newsroom.”
The Irish Way
A combination of the above two approaches is in place at Irish broadcaster RTÉ, where smartphones are also used across all platforms – radio, TV, online and social. Many journalists at RTÉ use smartphones some of the time, but the broadcaster also has a small team of mobile journalists who shoot and edit on mobile and publish to online and social first, and then, if appropriate, repurposed for television.
The team is led by video journalist Philip Bromwell, who says reporters across the organization are encouraged to use apps designed with reporters in mind – Filmic Pro for shooting, and Luma Fusion for editing – and to adopt consistent styles in their choice of fonts and supers.
“This content could include anything from a reporter taking a still photograph for an online article, to a journalist shooting and editing an entire story on their phone,” he says.
Having an in-house ‘mojo’ team means any RTÉ reporter can get immediate, job-specific guidance from a colleague on which app to use – Bromwell says his team has experimented with more than 50 and narrowed day-to-day use down to “a handful” – and the wider newsroom has a small group of experts to advise on file formats and workflows.
“That said, I also encourage colleagues or trainees to explore and ‘play’ with apps themselves,” Bromwell says. “Mobile journalism is still evolving – none of us has all the answers yet!”
So, while the proliferation of accessible and affordable mobile content creation tools abound, it is important that you set standards for the content. Experimentation is essential, but so are leadership and quality results.
Corinne Podger is a digital journalism educator and consultant for media outlets, NGOs and businesses. She is a specialist trainer in smartphone storytelling for television, radio, online and social media, and has taught more than 2500 journalists and communicators to use smartphones for TV and social video, radio, podcasts and photography.
She has worked as a trainer with BBC Media Action, Thomson Reuters Foundation, the Financial Times, Fairfax Media, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Konrad Adenaeur Stiftung and supported learning for journalists from over 30 countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Australasia.
Corinne has also lectured on mobile journalism at universities and colleges in Australia, Europe and the United States, and speaks regularly at journalism conferences.
She runs bespoke consultancies and individual workshops on request. To contact Corinne, click here.
The growth in mobile content consumption has been a boon for media companies. That’s partly because users spending more time with their content – whether they’re watching video interviews during their commute, waiting in line at the grocery store, or even second-screening at home. And this should mean more potential ad revenue.
However, the ongoing challenge has been identifying those users as they jump from device to device for advertisers. Cross-device targeting solves this problem, by helping publishers effectively aggregate, understand and then monetize their audiences.
This technology uses a combination of data sets, signals and device-specific information to identify relationships between disparate devices and tie them together. For publishers, there are three specific ways this can directly impact their bottom line:
Increased App Revenue
Users are spending far more time with tablet and smartphone apps. But those apps are not inexpensive to build or maintain. By layering audience data into their app inventory, a weather site, for example can command higher in-app CPMs by offering a more precise audience to advertisers. Adding in additional audience targeting also often leads to increased sell-through rates, reducing the overall “cost” of developing great mobile content while increasing revenue.
Better Campaign Performance
Publishers can also harness cross-device intelligence to optimize advertisers’ campaigns, potentially leading to greater retention and bigger buys. The device graph can be used to improve a campaign by delivering sequential messaging across screens.
For example, consider a news site with loyal readers who visit their site multiple times with different devices. Cross-device intelligence can help ensure that their readers don’t see the same ad too many times. Rather, the news site can use cross-device targeting to serve readers a series of sequential ads that vary based on the device they’re using – such as a 15-second video for a mobile user – and then a longer, 30-second video when they’re on the desktop. Ultimately, this means a better brand experience with consistent (but not annoying) messaging.
Content Customization
But beyond generating revenue, cross-device intelligence can also lead to better user experiences overall.
A financial services site, for example, could see that a particular group of users only consumes content related to choosing the right credit card – and not any of the articles about saving for retirement or stock performance. By matching these users to specific devices through the device graph, the site could prioritize credit card content when those users returned and accessed the site, no matter the device.
Customizing content in this way can help increase time spent on site and boost return visits, two key metrics in terms of user engagement.
What’s Next?
Ultimately, cross-device technology can help publishers better satisfy both users and advertisers, maximizing revenue-generation opportunities at a time when this is critical. But there remains a lot of room for improvement when it comes to cross platform measurement.
In an ideal world, publishers would have instant access into measurement across the whole market to really understand the dynamics between TV and digital, but we aren’t quite there yet. For marketers creating cross-platform campaigns, measuring how many ads each customer has been exposed, regardless of media, is the next challenge that remains to be solved.
Think of it like products in a supermarket. Content companies with mobile apps are locked in a fight for two incredibly scarce resources: consumer attention and shelf space. Unfortunately, on the digital shelves of the app store, discovery is the bottleneck. Consumers can’t download apps they don’t know exist in the first place. (And how can they in a market where the number of apps submitted to the Apple App Store in the month of January alone topped 500 submissions daily?)
To rise above the noise, and drive app installs in the process, app owners compete for a top-notch spot in search results. Smart companies are winning the battle with App Store Optimization (ASO) by tweaking keywords, icons and other assets to make sure their app store landing converts. It takes dedication and budget to get ASO right, which is why companies that succeed and boost downloads in one country or store are leaving money on the table if they don’t publish their apps in more places.
But before you go global with your app, double-check that you have mastered more than the ASO basics. The checklist is much longer than it was just a year ago because ASO has evolved, expanding beyond the app store presence and deeper into the funnel. Looking back, the first wave of ASO was a lot like the early days of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Companies could score quick wins by hacking Google algorithms or focusing on “long tail” keywords. Moving forward targeting “killer” keywords is not enough. ASO is morphing into what I call AMO (App Marketing Optimization) and ready for a rethink.
Rethinking ASO
ASO/AMO tops the agenda at every stage of the app lifecycle. But it’s never a case of set-it-and-forget-it. It requires app owners to monitor and manage a laundry list of elements that starts with keywords and ends with compelling video clips. It’s an ongoing effort, but the pay-off is massive organic growth that every app owner can afford to tap for their app. The key is to take the right steps in the right order.
It all starts with testing, refreshing and optimizing all of the moving parts of your app (titles, descriptions, icons, screenshots, videos, and reviews) on a regular basis. Once you have the processes in place to achieve positive results for your app at home, it’s time to take your app abroad.
Mobile Games companies need little convincing. They were pioneers in aligning app elements, visuals and gameplay with the preferences of a global audience. Consider Candy Crush, a blockbuster app with audiences in nearly 200 countries thanks to a look-and-feel that is a match with local tastes and trends. Now other categories of apps, notably those in the Entertainment category, are following a similar blueprint to attract and acquire more users.
Localization differs from internationalization
But before you embark on a strategy to take your app global, know the difference between localization and internationalization. Think of internationalization as table stakes. It encompasses what you need to adapt your app to different languages, regions and cultures to reach a global market. Your focus in this stage is on the basics: changing time, dates, region format, and other aspects of your app to fit with your target markets and audience.
Localization goes deeper. It starts with translating the language of the app and other elements (keywords, description, and even the name of the app) to be a tight fit with your target audience. If you plan to engage in commerce, be sure to adapt your app to local regulations and payment methods to avoid any legal battles further down the line.
Clearly, localization is not a job you want to leave to Google translator. Amateur efforts rarely pay dividends, and literal translations can do your app brand more harm than good. (Case in point: KFC’s famous finger lickin’ good motto for its fried chicken is a notable example of a bad translation. In Chinese, it urged consumers to bite their fingers off.) It’s also important to resist the temptation to localize every aspect of your app from the get-go just because you can. It pays to pace yourself.
If you don’t know what you’re aiming for, or the countries to target, then start with your app name and keywords and localize these assets for popular countries or languages. As a rule, use your organic app installs as a guide. Pinpointing countries where your app is taking off allows you to prioritize your efforts, starting with keywords. Use tools to check traffic volume for specific keywords and bake the best (yet most relevant) keywords into your app assets. If you see a bump up in your app downloads, then take it as a sure sign you can move on to localize other assets, such as the app description, followed by other marketing collateral including screenshots.
Cater to local cultures
From here on, industry literature tells us localization is just a matter of “wash, rinse, repeat” for every additional country or app store on your list. But is it really that simple? In a word: no.
An effective strategy to go global with your content goes beyond the pure “science” of ASO/AMO to the “art” of understanding how addressing individual cultural preferences and nuances. Pay close attention to other aspects of your app—such as colors, images and user interface—to build a loyal audience for your content.
Do your homework and use common sense.
Primary design considerations:
UI: Does your audience read left to right or right to left? Or is it vertical? Make sure you factor in how the text and images are read. And make doubly sure the use of directional icons in your app are logical and genuinely helpful. It impacts engagement and dictates how users will interact with their device, especially as they swipe left—or right—depending on the app and activity.
IMAGES & CONTENT: Brush up on ethnology (or hire someone with those skills). Adapt the ethnicity of your visual elements to local culture and pay special attention to skin, hair, and eye color. It’s a no-brainer that Asians or Indians might be wary of buying into localized content that displays blonde-haired, blue-eyed models, presenters, or families. Rethink the obvious icons and idioms. Sure, using a piggy bank icon as a metaphor for saving money works well in North America and much of Europe, but it’s a miss in most Middle Eastern countries.
COLOR: First impressions count, and different colors resonate with different cultures. For example, Japanese players like subtlety and pale, softer colors and shades. Chinese users, on the other hand, prefer vivid, strong and bright colors like red and orange. The mobile games industry learned this the hard way, so deep-dive into posts and publications (such as Pocketgamer.biz) where they share their tips and tricks.
From images to music, be prepared to adapt every aspect of your app to match your target markets.
Pay attention to the political spectrum
Done properly, localization engages your audience with content that resonates because it respects their local customs and cultures, not just language. Significantly, the same rules apply to your choice in app marketing and advertising messages and ad creatives. Sure, it’s a must when you take your app global. But the surprise success of SmartNews, the news app that delivers the top trending stories downloaded by over 25 million readers in over 100 countries, suggests the same approach can boost results and user loyalty in your home market as well.
In the case of SmartNews, it started with the realization that readers in North America were divided by political parties but united around one goal: the desire to access to real news, not fake news. “The most effective way to show we understood our audience and their concerns was to adapt our marketing to appeal to all sides,” Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, Head of Global Growth at SmartNews, told me in a recent podcast interview.
SmartNews bet on a simple creative capable of delivering a powerful message that would appeal to a broad political spectrum of users.
A review of app data and demographics revealed that the SmartNews audience was a mirror of American society. “Our readers are mostly between the ages of 35-65, and they range from liberal to moderate conservative in their politics,” Nicolas explained. An effective campaign would have to be objective and emotive. Nicolas, recently named a Mobile Hero for his user acquisition approach and accomplishments, went to work and immediately rejected flashy images and trendy buzzwords. Instead, he worked with his team to develop a simple creative capable of delivering a powerful message.
The approach worked, boosting usage and earning the app positive reviews. Nicolas says the results are still coming in and a focus group will provide the inside track on audience and brand impact. In the meantime, internal data shows the focus on eliminating the filter bubble has allowed SmartNews to increase app appeal to both genders at all levels of society and across the complete political spectrum.
You’ve invested time and resource to make your app a hit at home, and it makes business sense to take your app to global in order to maximize exposure. Yes, that starts off with mastering the fundamentals of global and local design considerations to adapt your app to your audience. But we all know that designing a terrific app is not enough given the glut of products in the market and the increasing consumer requirement for apps that are aligned with local tastes and trends. Discovery is a critical component of conversion, but apps have to strike a chord. Moving from simple App Store Optimization to an effective global app marketing strategy will help you maximize your investment so that your app will be popular with audiences everywhere.
Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. Full disclosure: She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.
Americans are watching fewer big live events on TV — as seen in declining viewership of the Super Bowl, Oscars, etc. And you can count the Winter Olympics as another victim of those changing habits. A recent Gallup poll confirmed that lower ratings will likely follow. But Comcast and NBC aren’t letting that get them down. Instead, they are pushing even harder into social media and new platforms.
And it’s not just a way for NBC to increase its social footprint and beat criticism of #NBCFail memes of years past, when viewers were unable to access solid coverage because of tape delays and commercial interruptions. With less people watching linear TV broadcasts, multi-platform viewership on digital and social is likely going up, and NBC is pushing hard into different platforms to stay ahead of the curve. It’s a way to engage advertisers and audiences — especially younger audiences — for the future.
Here’s a look at how NBC and other publishers will take on the Winter Games this year.
NBC Goes All-In on Social
This tweet has already gathered 45,000 retweets and nearly 124,000 likes as of writing:
The tweet from NBC Olympics is just one example of a social strategy that appears to be working: Push content online right away. Research out of the Rio Olympics from 2016 reflected skyrocketing numbers for social viewership, and there was no reason to anticipate those figures would decline.
So, NBC is seizing control over the narrative of the Olympics. It’s broadcasting the games live for the first time, streaming clips on Facebook, posting videos on YouTube and Twitter, and investing heavily in a Snapchat presence that also includes hiring BuzzFeed to produce a daily, Olympics-themed Snapchat Discover channel. NBC and Snapchat struck a partnership — one of several, as NBCUniversal invested $500 million in Snap Inc. when Snap went public last year — to broadcast exclusive content on Snapchat.
That Snap had a solid earnings call right ahead of the Opening Ceremony this year also gives the company an extra boost of recognition. Snap may be suffering the fallout from Instagram and Facebook copying some of its core features, but it has long pitched itself as a “complementary, second-screen platform for live and linear TV,” as Digiday’s Sahil Patel wrote. And that’s a selling point when you think about the ways linear TV habits are changing.
Publishers, Take Note
Alongside NBC’s huge push into social distribution, a few publishers are also engaging audiences in new ways to boost their own metrics down the line. The New York Times, for example, announced a “live messenger experience” with the Times’ deputy sports editor, Sam Manchester, where he’ll be messaging directly with audiences who want a closer, behind-the-scenes, personal take on the Olympics.
With different mediums for consumption — and therefore disparate methods for measuring consumption — Discovery Communications is consolidating data from linear broadcasts, digital platforms, and social media engagement metrics, to get a better picture of who’s tuning in and who is tuning out of watching the Winter Olympics. Discovery has the rights to broadcast the Games across Europe and will share these results with their clients and partners. While no measurement approach is perfect, it’s a huge step to prepare for a future where understanding metrics can make or break an editorial or ad strategy. It’s not a question of whether other publishers will follow suit, but when.
Google’s Plan
What conversation about distribution can take place without acknowledging the influence of large gatekeepers like Google? Google’s search algorithm has long been key in ensuring people can actually find all the content publishers are putting out there. This year, Google is filtering live video, VR video, and YouTube video into its search results. It’ll offer users location-specific updates about a country’s rankings and other top news stories from the Olympics. And subscribers to YouTube TV can stream over 50 hours of live video coverage, including VR content.
Let’s be clear: The efforts in social viewing and highlight reels for the Winter Olympics this year are not a one-off endeavor. Insights gleaned from how it pans out this year will help better cater to multi-platform consumption in the future — not just for the Olympics, but for all content moving online and on social. And as live events lose their luster on linear TV, more publishers will consider ways to move to social viewing while still driving revenues along with attention.
