- Guardian: Nobody cares about their online privacy… until it’s gone (4 min read)
- WSJ: Facebook Policies Taken to Task in Report for Data-Privacy Issues (4 min read)
- Variety: Why the FCC’s Net Neutrality Vote Matters to Hollywood (5 min read)
- LATimes: FCC vote could be game changer for Internet privacy (6 min read)
- Guardian: Financial Times to change way it charges for online content (5 min read)
- ZDNet: ‘Trust is the new currency’: Can the mobile industry win back users with privacy promises? (4 min read)
- WSJ: Is Facebook Friend or Foe for Telecom Operators? (6 min read)
- Re/Code: Comcast-Time Warner Deal Critics Ramp Up Opposition (3 min read)
Category results for "Perspectives"
DCN’s Recommended Reading: Week of March 5, 2015
CBS Interactive Unveils its Custom Content Studio: Studio 61
The number of US digital video viewers is predicted to hit 204.2 million this year. Add to that the fact that than half of marketing professionals believe that video is the type of content with the best ROI and it’s no surprise that video content marketing is in the spotlight. But the reality is that creating compelling content marketing isn’t easy, particularly when it comes to video—which requires distinct technical and storytelling expertise. CBS Interactive believes there’s an opportunity to help creative marketers better capitalize on this opportunity with the launch of Studio 61, its new initiative focused on custom branded content.
Studio 61 brings together a hand picked team of creative and production talent that, according to Dave Morris, Chief Revenue Officer for CBS Interactive, includes experienced producers who have a background in video storytelling and access to sophisticated studios and production equipment. These teams—which will be based in San Francisco and New York– will be even more effective because they will work closely with the product marketing teams from each of from each of CBS Interactive brands, which include CNET, CBSSports.com and GameSpot, who bring deep subject matter expertise and audience insights.
“We are not a replacement for an advertising agency,” says Morris. “But when agencies or marketers come to Studio 61, we can offer data on our specific audiences and passions.” This approach helps ensure that the marketing content will resonate with audiences, whether the the content is short or long form, social media content, infographics or custom data integrations. Morris notes there are a growing number of agencies that are seeking to leverage video content marketing as part of their overall strategies one of which, MEC, has signed on as one of the first Studio 61 partners.
CBS Interactive has seen an increased demand for this type of service for many reasons according Morris. Chief among these is the steep growth in video viewing, which is being fueled by bigger smartphones and faster connectivity. However he also points to the fact that today, marketers have better channels for video distribution. “A few years ago, if you created great video and it didn’t go viral, it didn’t go anywhere. Now you have advertisers with millions of social followers. So they can distribute across our sites, but they also have an opportunity to distribute content through their owned and earned media.”
Morris points out that the company “had all the ingredients for a custom content marketing branded studio, and we saw that the time was right to put it together and bring Studio 61 to market.” The creation of this focused brand content studio will provide the company to elevate its work on branded content. At Studio 61, “we’re going upstream and working with closely with the marketers before we create something.” This, Morris believes, will create the kind of finely-tuned content experiences that will satisfy marketer’s demands and—even more importantly— provide value to our audiences.
Nielsen Acquires Ad Tech Company, eXelate
According to a Nielsen statement
Nielsen [has] announced that it has completed its acquisition of eXelate, a leading provider of data and technology to facilitate the buying and selling of advertising across programmatic platforms. This acquisition allows Nielsen to enable its clients to make better and faster marketing and media decisions.
With the acquisition of eXelate, Nielsen clients gain the ability to activate in real-time Nielsen audience insights as well as eXelate’s aggregated consumer segments from over 200 data providers. eXelate’s advanced technology leverages data to inform the highest quality programmatic buying decisions in the marketplace…
eXelate aggregates and distributes third-party online data, composed of premium demographic, interest, and intent data from over 200 online and offline data providers. Nielsen intends to further develop and expand eXelate’s already rapidly-growing data marketplace and innovative technology solutions.
Nielsen’s acquisition raises a couple of key issues:
- This move may have a significant impact on data-driven programmatic for television. The acquisition brings Nielsen closer to being able to transact based on measurement and data.
- It will enhance measurement capabilities from Nielsen, answering questions about who’s watching and what they’re doing post exposure.
- It will be interesting to see if comScore responds with an acquisition of its own in order to keep up (though there are few independent DMPs left out there, such as Krux and Lotame)
Coverage of the acquisition:
MediaPost: Nielsen acquires Exelate for undisclosed terms
AdExchanger: Nielsen Acquires Data Platform eXelate For Estimated $200 Million
Why The Future of Data Journalism Is… Less Data
photo credit: r2hox
“Data is the new oil.” That is the modern maxim across a host of industries. From shopping to shipping, businesses are being urged to gain better insight and improve performance by delving into their underlying numbers.
News media are no different. In the last couple of years, journalists have been encouraged to adopt analytics software as part of their daily editorial efforts. Now it is common to find newsroom editors checking their page views, time-spent metrics and social referrals on a minute-by-minute basis.
This kind of data used to be kept under lock and key, used only by website technical administrators and advertising auditors while journalists gave two hoots. Now, with always-on dashboards from tools like ChartBeat, Parse.ly and Outbrain’s own Visual Revenue in the hands of editors, content producers are becoming skilled numerical interpreters. The industry has come a long way. However, it’s time to go to the next level.
Modern journalists are constantly being told which new skills they have to learn—a dizzying array of video production, coding, even drone-flying. Those who also up-skill sufficiently to become their newsroom’s virtual data analyst can manufacture higher user engagement for their employer. After all, when particular stories cause traffic to spike, writing more of the same is a quick win.
But more data doesn’t necessarily produce better journalism. The danger with the growing role of audience numbers in publisher strategy is the risk of over-reliance, creating a belief that every reader data point should be responded to with an editorial outcome: quantity and category of story over quality and ambition.
The Data Endoskeleton
The first wave of newsroom analytics has served its purpose (we now know that stories about kittens and celebrities trend well, for example). What the professionals now need is a support system that does not encourage them to make snap decisions based on reams of numbers, but one which is more in harmony with the craft of editorship, playing a softer and more symbiotic role as editors’ sidekick, not their auditor.
Just think of the way Apple’s Siri hides from users so much of the underlying data that rival services like to bombard them with. When you ask Siri a question, it returns not unlimited options but fewer, more directed opportunities.
In the same way, in the next wave of publishing analytics, software would suggest publication improvements after noting not just the raw, blunt performance of site content but also the priorities and goals of conscious managing staff.
In the future, editors should be able to pre-populate their software with their own, qualified goals and ambitions, helping tailor system recommendations that are in line with publications’ true missions.
By allowing editors to make smarter decisions that are based on their own instincts, not just being a slave to the spreadsheet, the industry can keep readers coming back and rediscover a lost metric: lifetime value.
You can already see the beginnings of this new philosophy being applied. Despite often being accused of publishing low-brow click-fodder, BuzzFeed looks at engagement and virality in a whole new way. Publishing purely to the numbers could have prompted it to publish even more cat slideshows and quizzes. However selective insight led it to also make risky bets, such as its commitment to long-form journalism, which have ended up surprising success stories.
Publishers who are excitedly following the data trail to clear traffic growth should pause to reclaim their own part in the process. In a world becoming familiar with the concept of automated “robo-journalism,” I envision the future of journalism not as this replacement of flesh with circuitry, but as an endoskeleton—a perfect combination of the best qualities of each.
Matt Crenshaw is the Vice President of Product Marketing, Engage at Outbrain. Matt is responsible for setting the product vision and delivering solutions to publishers that build their audience relationships and grow their revenues.
The President’s Proposed Consumer Bill of Rights Moves the Conversation in the Right Direction
Last week, the President publicly unveiled a proposed Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. While the bill language needs some work, the President and his team should be applauded for introducing some good concepts that would improve consumer privacy.
For one, it makes a lot of sense that consumers should understand how their data is collected and used. Reputable companies are transparent with consumers about the ways in which their data may be used and there are multiple ways in which they can (and do) provide consumers with a means to opt-out of various data uses. But there are many companies that aren’t so forthright. Educating consumers is a good first step because the industry won’t fully gain the trust of consumers without first educating them. And without consumer trust, the digital ecosystem can’t flourish.
Another good concept in the Privacy Bill of Rights is the idea of “context,” which again maps back to consumers’ expectations. The bill notes that data collected in one context and then used in another context should be subject to some level of control by the consumer. Depending on the sensitivity of the data and/or its use, this could mean providing the consumer with an opt-out or an opt-in.
By emphasizing the importance of context, the President highlights that fact that every day consumers make conscious and subconscious decisions about whether their favorite websites or digital services provide a sufficient value proposition to continue that relationship. Most consumers are perfectly agreeable to exchanging some of their data for access to free content or to have a more engaging or personalized experience. However the value proposition is eroded when consumers don’t trust that all parties will respect their data–especially if they are not even aware of all the parties that may collect their data. Providing consumers with more controls over unexpected data collection and use would go a long way toward regaining the trust of consumers, which is why we’ve argued for industry to develop a DNT standard.
Finally, the bill notes that de-identified data should be outside the scope of this law. This is an enormously important concept because it allows companies to continue innovating with “big data” sets. By allowing for the use of de-identified data, researchers, scientists and entrepreneurs can better understand how data flows, how it might be used differently and develop new technologies that we cannot even imagine today.
As many have noted–and will no doubt continue to be highly vocal about–the bill has some serious flaws in that some of the definitions are overly broad or seem to contradict the President’s intentions. But there are concepts within the President’s proposal that are well worth discussing. As an industry, we should be taking this proposal very seriously because it’s yet another sign that more work needs to be done to regain the trust of consumers.
Unbridled Tracking and Ad Blocking: Connect the Dots
Last week, I had the pleasure of kicking off the Op/Ed event with a talk called “The Profitable Publisher: Unification & Survival.” As part of my presentation, I shared a couple of charts that caused a bit of a stir among the audience of media execs charged with leading their organizations digital media ad sales businesses. The fact that these particular slides triggered such a reaction struck me as particularly timely because later that day the White House released its proposal for a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, which would require companies to clearly communicate their data practices to consumers and give them more control over what information is collected and how it is used.
The first of these two charts is a Ghostery map illustrating all of the third party connections and cookies that are set with a click on the St. Louis Post Dispatch site. Each of these connection points is a call to another 3rd party server.
here is my WTF @stltoday @Ghostery chart from my remarks this morning that @dherman76 referenced. #oped15 pic.twitter.com/V5wDMjC8YF
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) February 27, 2015
As you can see in the labels, some of these are for operations of the site (e.g. analytics or serving of a display ad). But you can also see that there are over 100+ additional connections. Not a pretty picture. The issue of the disturbing number of intermediaries tracking consumer behavior has been well documented and, unfortunately, ignored by most.
This problem is only getting worse and the consumer tools that counter it are getting less effective and more and more damaging to those who respect the consumer’s right to understand when and why their activities are being tracked. Transparency and providing the consumer with adequate control over their online privacy are vital—not harmful—to businesses that are built on a solid foundation of trust. However, the fact that there are so many (potentially) bad actors out there, and so much tracking going on for unclear and potentially unwelcome reasons leads me to my second chart: a look at worldwide AdBlocker adoption. worldwide ad blocker adoption (source: @adobe / @Pagefair report).
worldwide ad blocker adoption (source: @adobe / @Pagefair report) #oped15 pic.twitter.com/IjIXOOU7ub
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) February 27, 2015
See the hockey stick curve? That is the result of consumers who want to avoid seeing any ads at all. It isn’t shocking that there are those who cite the reason “I hate advertising.” But another documented reason is “I want to protect my privacy.” And let’s face it: A lack of trust in online advertising behavior reinforces either perspective.
It is not new to hear that some consumers want to enjoy ad-free content experiences. Some demonstrate that by paying for content without ads. But the use of ad blocking tools creates a slew of issues for content creators that rely on advertising to fund content creation. It also doesn’t effectively address consumers’ underlying concerns.
The Ad Blocking companies (AdBlock Plus being the leader) have what looks to be a pretty subjective criteria for which ads it deems “acceptable” and which are “obtrusive.” But even if working with their criteria would get a certain percentage of ads viewed, that is not a viable solution. The reality is that when one blocking solution is neutralized, another will crop up. Addressing individual blockers is not the answer.
We need to address the root cause of the problem. Online advertising is trusted less than any other form of advertising. When we see examples like the St. Louis Post Dispatch’s approach to online advertising, we shouldn’t be wondering why consumers are flocking to ad blockers in droves. (Why wouldn’t they?) We should be doing what it takes to repair consumer trust in the digital ecosystem.
Connect the dots.
FCC Approves Net Neutrality
The Federal Communications Commission by a 3-2 vote today voted to reclassify broadband internet service as a public utility. This will prohibit Internet service providers from blocking Web traffic or charging websites for priority service.
Jason Kint, DCN CEO, commented:
We appreciate the FCC’s action today because it starts with the premise that the consumer experience should not be compromised. Consumers’ access to great content and experiences on the Internet should be protected. Under these rules, future and current content creators will continue to have the ability to innovate and connect with their consumers.
Related: FCC Close to Revealing New Net Neutrality Regulations
Tweets Can’t be Measured by Clicks Alone
How are we to judge social juggernauts such as Twitter anyway? If we go by Wall Street, the longtime microblogging service is a miserable failure for having “just” 288 million active users at the end of 2014. While most publishers would give their left arm for that kind of massive engagement, Twitter is judged by a different standard: Facebook and its billion-plus user base. Twitter is damned if they do (grow users without revenues) or damned if they don’t (grow revenues without users).
And even when Twitter turns around its business, nearly doubling revenues in its most recent quarter to $479 million — with a profit to boot (if you don’t count one-time stock expenses) — there’s still grousing by some journalists who say Twitter isn’t driving enough referral traffic to their stories.
The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson recently did an in-depth analysis of his engagement on Twitter by looking at the stats surrounding what he thought was an enticing tweet. He found, disappointingly, that only one percent of the people who saw that tweet actually clicked on the link, even though it received more than 1,200 retweets and had upwards of 155,260 impressions. The link, of course, was to Thompson’s story on The Atlantic’s site. As he put it, “So, 99 percent of my labor on Twitter went to Twitter, and 1 percent went to The Atlantic. That’s not a very good deal for our boss!”
Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile tweeted the moral of Thompson’s story: that there is “effectively no correlation between social shares and people actually reading.”
However it’s important to remember that the frustration with Twitter engagement and branding is different for different users. Journalists interact with and use Twitter in one way, brands and publishers another. Building a brand or following, or attracting the influence of “tastemakers” who could help a tweet reach a wider audience, is strategic for both groups. So even if Thompson’s tweet had a poor click-through rate, no one can deny the power of those tweet impressions. He also offered up the kind of tweet that’s useful for people on the go or those who aren’t necessarily interested in reading the whole article (as upsetting as it probably is to most writers, sometimes a headline fills the reader’s need).
Thompson tweeted: “Almost every major patent concept from the 1930s was in chemistry. Today, all software.” And he included a visual to illustrate his point.
Almost every major patent concept from the 1930s was in chemistry. Today, all software. http://t.co/I5TamvQHdQ pic.twitter.com/QHNDFAyNRl
— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) February 9, 2015
Arguably, that is a pretty satisfying tweet all on its own.
But brands are pretty happy getting engagement on Twitter without clickthroughs. Digiday’s John McDermott responded to Thompson’s story by noting that a Simply Measured report found that “engagement with tweets from [top] brands increased by 85 percent in the last three months of 2014.” Plus, out of the Top 100 brands, the volume of tweets increased by 11% and follower counts were up 38% — all likely due to the more prominent engagement buttons on Twitter.
Perhaps anticipating letdown at its poor user growth, Twitter announced a slew of new offerings ahead of its fourth quarter earnings. Users can now take advantage of group messaging, utilize a new in-site video recording service up to 30 seconds (compared with Vine’s six-second loop), observe the tweets they may have missed while they were away, and — for new or potential users — get insight into top tweets on the revamped Twitter homepage.
Twitter also recently announced that Twitter ads would be featured outside of Twitter for the first time, on Flipboard and Yahoo Japan. The new partnership effectively helps Twitter make money off of non-users. Although it’s tough to say now how effective this collaboration might be (don’t forget Twitter will have to split the revenue), it’s positive news on the advertising business front.
Maybe it’s time we just face the facts: Twitter is not another Facebook, nor should it strive to be. It’s a great communication platform for reporters, publishers, brands and anyone who wants to help shape the conversation about what’s happening now (or on TV). Even if USA Today’s “For the Win” blog has dropped the Twitter share button on its stories, that doesn’t mean they won’t be present on Twitter. It just means that the value of a tweet is more than a tally of clickthroughs.
DCN’s Recommended Reading: Week of February 26, 2015
- Gigaom: Entrepreneurs embrace net neutrality plan (except Mark Cuban) (2 min read)
- Digiday: Viewability’s elephant in the room: Will advertisers pay more? (3 min read)
- Entrepreneur: Attention Is the New Currency for Brand Advertising (5 min read)
- Christian Science Monitor: What is intellectual privacy, and how yours is being violated (7 min read)
- BusinessInsider: About.com CEO explains how he plans to make the site 1% better each week (5 min read)
- Re/Code: Digital Content and the Social Flywheel (8 min read)
- Paul Greenburg: Riding Above the Platforms (3 min read)
- Spiegel Online: Jeff Bezos Takes Washington Post into Digital Future (16 min read)
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.
Vivaki Trades in its Trading Desk for Integrated Operations
In a quiet announcement leading into President’s Day weekend Vivaki disclosed a restructuring of its Audience on Demand (AOD) trading desk. The agency reassigned 120 employees to individual Publicis agencies. Vivaki’s stated goal of the restructure to increase integration as well as to comply with the client request of eliminating the “black box” veil of the agency trading desk (ATD) model—but it is likely to cause other ripples of effect in the industry.
Here are some thoughts on what this announcement signals:
- This announcement should, theoretically, move programmatic buying closer to individual agency client teams.
- The restructure aligns with increasing marketer hesitation to leverage agency trading desks and marketers moving to setting up their own in-house trading desks or leveraging third parties outside of the agency and holding company network.
- The move has the potential to improve communication within the agency team around inventory, targeting, effectiveness and efficiency. It can also deepen integration and optimization across strategies and tactics.
- This shift allows managing, leveraging, compiling and aggregating data to be done campaign-wide rather than siloed by the programmatic/ATD portion of the plan. It effectively breaks down silo of programmatic as a separate tactic.
- The change brings talent in-agency to prepare for adoption of programmatic as a buying mechanism (programmatic direct, programmatic TV, programmatic premium, cross-screen, etc.).
- It remains to be seen if client concerns such as inventory, fee and data usage transparency will improve.
- Holding companies may follow suit or create different value propositions that help justify an increasingly outdated model.
Certainly, this move illuminates the fact that digital has permeated through every portion of media buying. At first there were digital agencies and experts but when it stopped being a specialty they were no longer needed. As the Ad Age article on Vivaki’s move suggests, we’ve seen this gradual shift in Social Media marketing as well. The timing of this announcement is interesting as we lead into the Upfronts and NewFronts. Though it seems likely that agencies will continue to ask that programmatic spend be incorporated to larger deals.
One thing is definitely clear: Agency trading desks must pivot to keep up with marketer demands around trust and transparency. It will be very interesting to see if and when other agency desks follow Vivaki’s lead.
DCN’s Recommended Reading: Week of February 19, 2015
- WSJ: Apple’s Tim Cook Skewers Those Who Don’t Protect Privacy (2 min read)
- Ad Age: Tensions Run High as Advertisers, Publishers Discuss Fraud at IAB Meeting (2 min read)
- MediaLink: Currency in an Attention Economy (3 min read)
- The Verge: Google adds fact-checked medical information to search (2 min read)
- Seth Godin: Is Google making the web stupid? (4 min read)
- Ars Technica: AT&T charges $29 more for gigabit fiber that doesn’t watch your Web browsing (3 min read)
- Nick Denton: Of course a brand can be your friend (7 min read)