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Perspectives

DCN’s recommended reading: week of September 22, 2016

Some of the best media industry stories from around the web:

Advertising | Industry-Research

Mobile internet advertising rising fast to eclipse desktop in 2017

Mobile isn’t just causing a seachange in consumer behavior by increasing our demand for formats and features that are easy and enjoyable to access on smartphones and tablets. Mobile is also causing a seismic shift in advertising spend allocation, a surprise trend documented in the Zenith Advertising Expenditure Forecast released earlier this month.

The forecast, upgraded from numbers the company published in June, still expects mobile advertising to overtake desktop–but the new forecast predicts this will happen much sooner.

In fact, forecasts for mobile growth this year are upgraded from 46% to 48%, and next year from 29% to 33%. While it may only amount to a few percentage points, the impact on the total is tremendous. Zenith now expects mobile ad spend to exceed desktop by $8 billion in 2017, up from the $2 billion that was predicted in June.

Zenith1

Overall, desktop is going to suffer a steep drop in 2017 – one from which it will not likely recover as Zenith further forecasts mobile to account for 60% of all internet advertising in 2018, up from it’s previous forecast of 58%.

Zenith2

Why is the shift to mobile causing desktop advertising to shrink faster than newspapers, magazines and TV? The answer is inextricably intertwined with consumer behavior and people’s preference for experience over interruption.

At one level, mobile ad spend is merely following the trajectory it must if brands and marketers are determined to be where their customers are. People are spending more time on mobile devices, so ad dollars must follow. This brings us back to the most “clipped” slide in the annual Mobile Internet Trends Report deck from Mary Meeker, Internet guru and partner at venture capital fund Kleiner Perkins Caufiled & Byers. In it Meeker pointed out the gap between time spend on media (specifically mobile) and percentage of media spend.

Zenith3

But the exodus of ad spend is also fueled by the hard truth that consumers are annoyed by banner ads, and reaching in increasing numbers to ad blockers in order to tune out interruptive display advertising on desktop (as well as mobile).

Another driver causing the rapid decline of desktop ad spend in no doubt the surge in social media and native advertising. Reams of research and campaign results shows social and mobile is an unbeatable combination–particularly since social media is a perfect fit with the fiercely personal nature of our mobile devices and aligned with how we spend the majority of our time on mobile (namely, engaging in social media conversations and the contextual ads that show up in our feeds).

Mobile is where we focus our time and attention, so it makes business sense for ad spend to shift to our “first” screen. However, the rise in mobile spend doesn’t mean the death of desktop. Zenith is bullish about the outlook for other desktop formats such as video, a format that it notes has “benefited from the transition to programmatic buying, which allows agencies to target audiences more efficiently and more effectively, with personalized creative.”

In a world where experience trumps–well– everything, all ad formats can count on being a line on the budget as long as they are highly engaging, not annoying, and highly relevant.

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. 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.

Perspectives

Getting the whole story on ad blocking

Covering the “adblock wars” (as Doc Searls calls the situation) is hard. It’s like going to a peaceful protest where organized looters show up and mix with the protesters.

  • If you’re reporting on the event and you quote some protesters without mentioning looting that you know about, then you missed half the story by ignoring what the store owners could have told you.
  • If you cover the looting but not whatever the peaceful protesters are saying, then you missed the opportunity to find out anything about the issue behind the protest.

It’s hard to read about ad blocking without seeing just one side of a complicated story. On one side, web ads have a malware problem, and a fraud problem, and the long-running paradox of why the most targetable ad media are the least valuable and the most blocked. Web ads clearly need some serious help. For users, running a wide-open browser that leaks personal data and accepts risky scripts is not a realistic option. Some kind of protection tool under the user’s control is good for users, and for brands and publishers that depend on reputation-driven advertising.

But we can’t lump looters in with reformers, or we start fooling ourselves on real problems in the ad blocking scene, the same way that ad tech proponents keep fooling themselves on malvertising and fraud. Even in the browser’s built-in help, users aren’t getting the facts they need.

ADblockscreen

Are users getting the truth about Adblock Plus?
One web browser’s built-in info, the source of the box shown above, makes Adblock Plus look pretty harmless. It’s labeled as the work of an individual—but it’s a corporate project. If you look at the actual code, it’s labeled “Copyright (C) 2006-2016 Eyeo GmbH”. That’s not the tricky part, though.

This description says that Adblock Plus “can” mitigate tracking and malware. But if you actually flip that cute little switch thingy, you automatically get the “Acceptable Ads” paid whitelisting program, which enforces no standards on tracking or security at all. In order to get the protection claimed, you have to both add an “EasyPrivacy” filter list subscription, and turn off “Acceptable Ads” with a confusingly named “Allow some non-intrusive advertising” checkbox. If “Acceptable Ads” is left on, it overrides the EasyPrivacy subscription, which is not clear from the UI. If Facebook or some other user-tracking site had this level of transparency, users would be starting petitions.

This paid whitelisting isn’t just “controversial”. It’s actively wrong by any standard but the Silicon Valley “anything for network effects lol” standard. It is one of the four problematic practices covered in a recent complaint from the Newspaper Association of America (PDF) to the US Federal Trade Commission.

[A]s a review of the practices of ad-blocking companies discloses, consumers do not “opt out” of an ecosystem by using ad-blockers. Instead, they “opt in” to a deceptive new environment that does not adequately disclose its practices to consumers.

Adblock Plus has raised quite a brouhaha among surprised users, with the company’s recent announcement that it was going into the targeted advertising business. It looks like the plan was a surprise to unaware “partners” Google and AppNexus, too. But whether or not Adblock Plus is really an ad network now, the company still participates in the web advertising market as an intermediary, creating trouble for legit web sites. And ultimately the “adblock wars” will be won or lost based on choices made at those sites. The people who work hard to put news and cultural works on the web will have to decide what to do about ad blocking. Web publishers are in a double crisis right now.

Intermediaries can afford to hand-wave on the fraud problem, tell brand advertisers to go hire a security expert somewhere, and concentrate on blocking. Publishers, who bear the real costs of adfraud, can’t.

The good news is that promising solutions are already out there. The “reinvention not reinsertion” concept, from Dr. Johnny Ryan at PageFair, is a good example. Better privacy protection for a smaller number of higher-quality ads helps make them resistant to both blocking and fraud.

Privacy tool developers and publishers share interests, but in order to understand what we have in common, we must communicate clearly about the difference between, on one side, legit user concerns and the tools that address them, and on the other, the publisher-hostile paid whitelisting racket. If we want to make a reasonable case for next-generation advertising, it has to work for the people who write, shoot, edit, and publish our news and cultural works. That starts with telling the whole story.

Don Marti (@dmarti) is a contributor of code and documentation to the aloodo.org project, a low-friction way for sites and brands to reclaim the value of online advertising from fraud and ad blocking. He is the former editor of Linux Journal. Don is a participation strategist for Mozilla, where he works on open source collaboration issues. He does not speak for Mozilla on this site, and any opinions expressed here are personal ones. Don can be reached by email at [email protected].

Perspectives Image
Perspectives

DCN’s recommended reading: week of September 15, 2016

Our recommended reads from around the web: 

Innovation

Experimentation explodes the boundaries of powerful storytelling

There’s a whole lot of talk about content these days, but the bottom line is that great storytelling is what elevates mere information into the stuff of conversation, inspiration and maybe even viral sensation. The newest addition to the roster of DCN’s member’s-only gatherings—Powerful Storytelling—offered a morning filled with examples of just that. And while it was our first event to focus squarely on the more creative aspects of the business of content, it bore the hallmark of all of our events: DCN members provided candid insights into the strategies and creative process behind the content that people love.

Though the content itself, and the insights proffered, were far-ranging, one major theme emerged: the importance of experimentation. While most storytelling fundamentals remain constant, distribution channels, devices, and consumer preferences are among the many factors in near-constant flux. Certainly, that poses challenges. It also offers opportunities and the creativity the speakers highlighted showed a universal spirit of experimentation—in organizational structure, partnerships, and use of emerging tools—to better connect with consumers.

NYT_DisplacedThe day started off with Jake Silverstein, New York Times Magazine Editor-in-Chief, presenting their early forays into virtual reality. Silverstein encourages experimentation with the medium because of its ability to enable viewers to feel empathy by literally seeing through the eyes of a child refugee, for example. And while one audience member noted that virtual reality (one of the most hyped storytelling mediums du jour) lacks some of the qualities that make text so evocative such as the sense of smell or setting a larger context for a story, Silverstein emphasized that VR offers a whole new way to experience a story.

CR_PaulsChoiceConsumer Reports Executive Director of Content Gwendolyn Bounds said that experimentation is an essential piece of the transformation the brand is currently undertaking (which begins to roll out next week with a new logo and aesthetic enhancements on both its website and in the November issue of the magazine.) She says they are trying a number of new story formats, including unique social and mobile content, and 360-degree video—one of which puts users into the driver’s seat of CR’s lauded automotive test process. Further innovations will emerge when the brand moves to a “membership” model in coming months.

In a crowded landscape, Bounds points out that content brands need to experiment in order to find the right way to make their storytelling distinct. She also said that it is important to continually test the types of content that their consumers will “give them permission to address.” In the case of Consumer Reports, an example was its “A Beautiful Death” package, which focused on the many aspects and issues surrounding consumers’ choices around end-of-life issues.

“Experimentation is critical” at Business insider, according to recently-promoted Editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell. In addition to testing out short synopsis-style recaps of long-form articles and captioning slideshows and videos on the images so they can be consumed without sound or accompanying text, she said they’ve also been playing with multiple headlines/versions of a single story. “If you have someone who says 12 different things that could be headlines, we break it out into short takes that may collectively get far more views.” And why not?  “Because a digital publication should have its own set of rules” not follow the path of television or print.

FT_FortunesKicking off his talk with images reflecting the Financial Times’ historic love of the text-dense page, Data Visualization Editor Alan Smith said he has found a great willingness from the FT and its staff to experiment with ways in which data can be transformed from mere line- and pie-charts into an in-depth storytelling medium all its own. To do so, you need to truly understand what the data is really about and then he said you can play with presentation so that “graphics take on a life of their own” and can effectively communicate far more than numbers: what those numbers really mean to those involved in the story and to those reading about it.

Certainly, one of the day’s most enthusiastic champions of experimentation was Mike Yapp, Director of Google’s YouTube in house agency, The Zoo (pictured, top). He believes that content is becoming increasingly “liquid” and that it is constantly being transformed by the users themselves. Thus, Yapp said “writers and designers need to think more like inventors” in order to create content ready-made for increasingly malleable, immersive and experiential consumer experiences.

MarsNoting that the first wave of virtual reality content innovation created experiences were just for one person, he said that future innovations will include shared VR experiences. For example, his team worked with Lockheed Martin to create a VR experience for children who collectively experienced a VR visit to Mars while riding on a school bus together. The goal was not simply to push the bounds of VR from single-user experience to one that is social, but to employ innovative storytelling to ignite the minds of children so that they can go farther than ever before.

For the Creative Director of The Independent Journal Review, Benny Johnson, experimentation drives the site’s entertaining (and often irreverent) news coverage. When asked how he gets politicians such as Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham to participate in creating such viral hits as “How to Get Revenge with a Football” and “How to Destroy your Old Cell Phone,” Johnson said “we’re in a special time where politicians from the highest levels to local levels are experimenting with how to engage the public” and, he said, content companies should too.

Yet Johnson expressed a point that also recurred throughout the day: Technology is a storytelling tool, not an endgame. “You need to do more than express the fact that your company has the technology,” he said. It is essential to tell a story so powerful it transcends technology.

Perspectives | Policy

Spin this: We need to actually address the consumer need

Apple recently announced a fairly big change in their “Limit Ad Tracking” setting. Going forward, when a consumer activates the setting, the Identifier For Advertising (IDFA) will be set to 0. Thus, advertisers and ad tech companies would no longer be able to track that device across apps or websites and over time. While Apple asked companies to honor the “Limit Ad Tracking” setting before, it was hard (maybe impossible) to know whether companies actually complied. Now the setting has some teeth.

In response, ad tech lobbyist Alan Chapell is accusing Apple of giving consumers a way to opt out of advertising altogether. Naturally, as someone who advocates on behalf of publishers on these kinds of privacy issues, I had some initial reactions.

First, it’s absolutely ludicrous to say this is an opt out of advertising. Certainly it’s an opt out of behaviorally targeted advertising. But, the ads aren’t being blocked – they can still be served. What’s more the advertiser can still know that the ad has been served, where it was served and how it performed – companies would have a number of other options to derive this data. But let’s be clear: Advertisements can and will continue to be served. Apple’s change simply allows consumers to stop third party companies (with which they have no relationship) from using their IDFA to track everything they do on their device. There is actually a healthy argument that this change will make context and consumer relationships more valuable, which is important to both the consumers and the publishers of the content they enjoy on the web.

Which brings me to my second point: Consumers have been looking for ways to limit third party tracking for years and Apple is simply trying to meet that consumer need. Early on, consumers signaled their desire to limit tracking by clearing cookies – those tiny bits of code that ad tech companies planted on your computer. According to TRUSTe’s 2015 Privacy Index, 63% of consumers still clear their cookies. Then consumers started turning on the Do Not Track (DNT) signal in their browser. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed a standard, which the ad tech lobby has been fighting against tooth and nail. And, of course, now consumers are increasingly turning to ad blocking software.

Finally, Chapell points out that “addressability should not be under the total control of a single entity.” Sounds like a great idea to have a multi-stakeholder group help set policy and technical standards. But, when the W3C (you know – the people who helped create the web) convened a multi-stakeholder group of representatives from all segments of the industry along with a few consumer groups, the ad tech lobby including Chapell worked to undermine and destroy the effort.

To answer the question posed by Chapell – do consumers have a right to opt out of advertising? – it should be painfully obvious by now that consumers are already opting out of advertising. Instead of throwing stones at groups and companies trying to address the underlying consumer need, perhaps Chapell and the ad tech lobby could work on giving consumers an easier and more robust way to express their preferences. DNT would be a decent start. Without better choice mechanisms, consumers are going to increasingly turn to blunt tools like Apple’s Limit Ad Track setting and ad blockers.

Perspectives

The four fundamental elements of getting digital – and the marketing mix – right

Marketers have steadily improved the integration of digital strategy into overall brand strategy, but still face lingering doubts on achieving the appropriate media mix. Research is crucial.

Here’s a bold proclamation: “There are no lines between traditional and digital marketing,” according to the study Getting Digital Right 2016. In our third annual survey, Millward Brown Digital scans the horizon to assess the state of digital marketing. Based on responses garnered from more than 300 senior executives from brand, agencies, and media companies, we identified four principal findings for marketers navigating the evolving, multi-channel and cross-channel landscape.

1. Assemble the Team
Because customers now expect seamless experiences regardless of where and when they interact with brands, strategists have increasingly integrated ideas and implementation across traditional and digital channels. According to 74% of respondents, they have developed integrated strategies, representing a steady uptick from the 59% in 2014 and 67% in 2015. Note, however, that within the digital realm of Desktop/Laptop, Mobile and Social, there is room to improve integration; 33% of participants report these channels are not well integrated. A well-coordinated team will not only align digital and traditional strategies, but also maintain consistency within the digital sphere, so cross-channel efforts complement each other.

2. Master the Journey
Despite the importance of integration of traditional and digital strategies, 55% of marketers indicate they are not confident their organization understands how and where to reach and influence consumers in the buying process. Further, half of the respondents indicated they were not sure their organization has calibrated the media mix appropriately to align with the consumer’s journey. This 50% represents a worrisome increase from the 34% of 2014 and the 43% of 2015 that expressed uncertainty. In other words, creating the ideal mix of multiple channels – digital (total of 64%) and traditional (36%) – requires an even greater understanding of the consumer’s online and offline behaviors than before and pinpointing those touchpoints is essential for success.

3. Elevate Insights
Given this lack of confidence in calibrating the media mix, it is not surprising that marketers place an ever-greater emphasis on research and data. Indeed, brands, agencies and media companies all report they expect research budgets to increase in the next three years. Brand professionals are now more confident in how their organization uses Big Data than they were in 2015 – 41% compared to a shocking 14%! Still they remain less confident in their use of Big Data relative to their agency and media colleagues (59% and 60%, respectively). This suggests brand marketers may rely more heavily upon their counterparts at agencies and media companies for analysis. Because these agency and media marketers feel quite comfortable in their use of Big Data, they are more likely to generate actionable insights and devise ways to incorporate them into campaigns for their clients.

4. Unleash Impact
IncreasewithROITracking ROI of digital activities is a top priority for all respondents. It is the perennial issue: how to connect the dots between any promotional channel (or cross-channel) and the ultimate sale. The tools to track and effectively measure digital marketing continue to improve, yet measurable results from some segments, such as content marketing, events/conferences and webinars, remain murky. More research is needed, and, because brand marketers are less likely to substantially invest in such analysis, they will seek guidance from their agency and media partners who are allocating more dollars to this area. In fact, if they had the ability to better track ROI, nearly three-quarters of marketers would increase their spending in digital (74%) and cross-channel (71%) activities. The need to build tools that measure online and offline activities and how they lead to sales essentially unites all the themes discussed here: integrated traditional and digital teams, calculating the marketing mix and using research to understand and influence the customer journey.

So, now that three-quarters of marketers have evolved from siloed traditional and digital marketing teams to integrated brand strategists, there are plentiful opportunities to adjust media budgets in alignment with the consumer path to purchase. Synchronizing tactics within the digital realm creates a consistent consumer experience. Plus, an increased focus on research will permit measurement of campaigns, active incorporation of findings and adjustments to the marketing mix. The improved ROI for digital marketing will propel those integrated marketers to the head of the category. They will be getting digital right, and there truly will be no lines between traditional and digital marketing.

Feel free to download a copy of Getting Digital Right 2016 if you are interested in learning more.

Aaron Peterson is Corporate Marketing Manager for Millward Brown Digital (@Millward_Brown). As such, Aaron is a frequent contributor in industry media, hosts webinars, authors thought leadership, and manages the company’s flagship event, The Digital CMO Summit. Prior to his role in marketing, Aaron brings over 8 years of experience in client management and marketing research for Fortune 500 brands.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

The deal with disclosure and the ethics of native advertising

When it comes to native advertising, publishers are walking a fine line between reader trust and new revenue streams. For much of the short history of native advertising, publishers and media watchers have been debating about its transparency—or lack thereof—but in late 2015 the FTC weighed in and laid out a number of guidelines for publishers and advertisers to abide by.

According to the FTC, in general, disclosures should be:

  • in clear and unambiguous language;
  • as close as possible to the native ads to which they relate;
  • in a font and color that’s easy to read;
  • in a shade that stands out against the background;
  • for video ads, on the screen long enough to be noticed, read, and understood; and
  • for audio disclosures, read at a cadence that’s easy for consumers to follow and in words consumers will understand

As recently as April, however, AdWeek reported that 70% of Native Advertising did not comply with the FTC’s recommendations. Now Polar has taken a (slightly different) look at “The State of Disclosure.” The report found that 7.5% of native ads still aren’t using any terms to label their sponsored content. Yet, even with the hold outs, the report concludes, “2015’s FTC Guidelines for Native Advertising have influenced the levels and types of disclosure premium publishers are using on native placements.”

Polar found the most commonly used disclosure term is “Sponsored”—and all of its variants—appearing in over 55% of native ads. “Promoted” comes in next. Terms like “Partner” and “Presented By” are less popular than just not disclosing at all.

“Promoted” however is the best performing term, with a 0.19% CTR, compared to “Sponsored” with a 0.16% CTR. Still, there is more to the story. For desktop audiences, the term “Sponsored” marginally outperformed “Promoted” by approximately 26%. On mobile devices “promoted” dramatically outperformed “sponsored” by 105%.

So why aren’t companies hopping on board with “Promoted” if it delivers more clicks? Carla Johnson, an executive level strategist at Type A Communications, says, “I think this is for a couple of reasons. One is that the term ‘sponsored’ is a more commonly used term than ‘promoted’ and companies want to use terms with which people are familiar. It could also be that many companies don’t know the performance difference between the two. The interesting thing about the statistic is what the performance of both would be if they were used in equal volume.”

“This remains a thorny issue for publishers and advertisers alike—see Jon Oliver’s coverage of the topic on his HBO show for a good laugh—and publishers seem to just prefer the ring of ‘sponsored’ to ‘promoted’, even though the differences are indistinguishable,” according to Tim Bourgeois, Executive Editor of ChiefDigitalOfficer.net, and digital strategist at East Coast Catalyst. “Also, while most marketers and agencies are increasingly embracing data-driven tactics, they are also constantly making trade-offs between performance and aesthetics, and this is an example of where aesthetics is winning out, at least for the short term.”

When it comes to disclosure, it isn’t all about terms. Polar found that over 85% of native ad units contained only one disclosure term, but most incorporated two to three design elements—such as shading, a distinct border, or “info icons.” This is where things get murky. Relying on your audience to understand that a slightly grayed out box, or a different color border means that a post is actually a native ad—and not just a design choice—is less than transparent. For those immersed in the world of digital media and marketing these may seem like clear indicators of native content, but to the average reader, they don’t mean much. If these elements are accompanied by a clear “Sponsored” disclosure they can only serve to further call attention to the nature of that content, but without it, they are virtually meaningless.

Even with clear disclosures, audiences seem to still struggle to identify the difference between native ads and editorial content. MediaPost reported that in a Grady College experiment, “Overall, only 17 out of 242 subjects—under 8%—were able to identify native advertising as a paid marketing message in this experiment.” Experimenters “displayed 12 different versions of the ad, with varying types of disclosure labels (“advertising,” “sponsored by,” “brand voice,” and “presented by”), as well as different positions for the disclosure label including at the top, middle, and bottom of the page.”

With results like that, one has to wonder if the only thing left to do is point a giant neon arrow at sponsored posts. But readers’ inability to separate editorial from advertising content also says something else about native advertising—maybe even something good. If the goal of native advertising—and, more widely, content marketing as a whole—is to provide content that is on par with editorial content, then “Mission Accomplished!”

With Folio reporting that “Over two-thirds of magazine publishers leverage their own editorial teams to produce native advertisements, according to a study from FIPP and the Native Advertising Institute” it seems only natural that the quality of the content would make it virtually indistinguishable from the editorial. Whether or not you think that’s ethical depends on your outlook.

If you’re a marketer looking to deliver great native advertising, you’re probably thrilled that your audience can’t tell the difference between your copy and editorial. If you’re a reader, you might not be thrilled that you’re being fed advertising in the guise of editorial.

Here’s what it comes down to: If you’re a publisher you need to clearly mark your native advertising with disclosure terms, not just “design elements,” and continue to strive to make the content as compelling and useful as your editorial. From there it’s incumbent upon audiences to be more discerning—to pay more attention to what they are reading or watching—because unless there is a major sea change in the business of digital content (and audiences’ willingness to pay for it) native advertising is here to stay.

By day, I am the editor of EContent, where I cover the world of digital media and marketing. By night I am a reader and writer of books (including Inside Content Marketing), NPR addict, and avid gardener. Find out more at TheresaCramer.com or @TheresaCramer on Twitter.

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue

Why Google’s crackdown on mobile pop-ups might be a good thing

It’s a relief for consumers and a worry for publishers: Google is cracking down on interstitial ads on mobile websites, thereby forcing publishers to rethink and revamp their mobile advertising strategies. And while the rationale might be good for Google and the ecosystem, it is worrying that the tech giant has so much power to act unilaterally.

These pop-ups, which publishers typically use to get a visitor to “like” a page on Facebook or sign up for a newsletter or serve an ad, for example, have become nearly ubiquitous across websites. Online publishers rely on them to help generate more subscribers or ad conversions. On mobile devices, where screens are smaller, these interstitials sometimes take up the entire screen, making users hunt around for a way to close them.

Dissuading Publishers
Let’s face it: These ads can be very annoying. And effective January 10, 2017, Google plans to dissuade publishers from using them by ranking those websites lower in its search results. As Mashable’s Emma Hinchliffe put it, “Google is pushing websites to choose between a high search ranking and obtrusive but lucrative ads.”

To be clear, not all interstitial ads will be penalized. Google has outlined the specifics of what it will deem appropriate versus obtrusive. Interstitials asking for age verification or permission to utilize cookies on a device are fine if used responsibly, as are banner ads that only take up a “reasonable amount of screen space,” according to a blog post by Google. But other commonly used ads that make content inaccessible, such as a pop-up that covers the main content of a website, or an interstitial that blocks the page unless a user closes the ad, are a no-no.

It’s an example of just how much authority Google has when it comes to advertising, as lower search rankings lead to less traffic on a website. But of course, more traffic—and the revenue that comes with it—is precisely what publishers and online operators want. So with this new scheme set to go into effect, using interstitials is tantamount to a lose-lose situation, as “Google’s continued nudges could make a difference in the long run,” according to The Verge’s Jacob Kastrenakes. The company had previously issued a penalty in November 2015 for the interstitial ads that asked users to install a mobile app, and is now somewhat rolling that penalty into this new decree.

Advantage of ad scrollers
What’s a publisher to do? Well, re-conceptualizing a mobile advertising strategy is obviously in order, to find out what mobile formats actually work. But it may not be as hard as some publishers think. A recent study by the IAB, the mobile advertising services provider PadSquad and the company Celtra, which works in display advertising, for example, found that “ad scrollers” may be the way to go. It’s an emerging mobile ad concept that allows the user to scroll the advertisement smoothly on or off the screen, and decreases “the tendency to block or overlook ads in the process,” The Drum’s Laurie Fullerton reported. The study delivered some stunning results on what happened when the scroller was used:

  • Brand category awareness increased by almost 26%
  • Ad awareness increased by almost 10%
  • Those who saw the ad were 17% more likely to consider it “distinctive”
  • Thirty-five percent of those who viewed the scroller ad expressed “positive feelings” about how the ad revealed itself
  • Sixty-three percent of those who saw the ad reported a higher purchasing intent after viewing

The study also showed that these ads were a hit with certain target audiences, namely Millennials. Forty-four percent of Millennials who viewed the ad reported positive feelings about the way the ad revealed itself, compared to 31% of those age 35 and over. Moreover, “while women saw the larger brand increases, men were much more impressed with the scroller’s look and feel,” according to the IAB.

Given that mobile advertising spending in the U.S. will increase by 41% this year and constitute 72.2% of all digital ad spending in 2019 (to become a $65.87 billion industry), publishers can’t afford to use ads without thinking of the big picture. But with smart and strategic understanding, publishers should be able to roll with Google’s changes. In fact, it might just push publishers onto better methods.

Perspectives Image
Perspectives

DCN’s recommended reading: week of September 1, 2016

Our recommended reads from around the web: 

Innovation

Q&A: Ron Lamprecht on NBCUniversal’s Snapchat partnership

NBCUniversal recently made headlines after striking a content and advertising portfolio partnership with Snapchat. The partnership is part of a new digital content initiative to produce and distribute original shows for mobile and social platforms from NBCUniversal’s leading networks, franchises and personalities.

Ron Lamprecht, EVP of Business Development and Digital Distribution in the Content Distribution Group, has been tapped to lead the company’s effort. Ron offers a look inside the initiative:

Tell us about this new mobile-first original content initiative?

Lamprecht: Nobody makes premium video better than NBCUniversal. We deliver more ratings with our portfolio than any other programmer. We have the best shows, most creative storytellers and biggest personalities in entertainment, sports and news. And, as audience behavior changes and viewers expect content on their mobile and social platforms, we are adapting to deliver them the best experience. We have to make sure NBCUniversal’s content continues to appeal to all viewers no matter where they are consuming it. We are tapping into our talent and franchises and using our scale to make a meaningful and immediate impact in the digital space. This will benefit us on emerging platforms and also further promote our on-air content.

Who is producing the content and how will it be different from your current digital content?

Lamprecht: Thanks to Steve Burke’s vision and leadership, NBCUniversal’s networks now have the resources and opportunity to create new shows specifically tailored for platforms like Snapchat. We are not talking about re-purposed clips from TV shows (though those will still be created). Much of the new content will be original productions of high quality, short-form content for viewing specifically on smaller screen in a vertical format, instead of the tradition horizontal “TV” screens in our homes.

Why start with Snapchat?

Lamprecht: Snapchat has quickly become one of the most highly trafficked social networks and it is wildly popular with millennials and younger generations. It has millions of active daily users and it offers a fun and unique delivery platform for video content. We believe this is a platform where our brands can thrive while at the same time promoting and growing our network fan base. With Snapchat, we will build a best-in-class production capability for devices, and a younger demographic. We will provide immediate data on what’s working and what’s not to all the NBCUniversal brands to ensure we’re delivering the best possible experience to our consumers.

How is this content different from other popular Snapchat content?

Lamprecht: Most Snapchat content is magazine-style or user generated video. Our content will be the quality video production that audiences expect from us. And it will be groundbreaking for the industry in a number of areas. First, NBC is ahead of its peers in creating original Snapchat shows. The Voice on Snapchat will be the first ever reality competition show to expand its storytelling onto Snapchat. On the cable side, E! News is launching a unique and humorous look at all things pop culture in a new show called The Rundown. Later this fall we will have original content from The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live. And we are already live with exciting and original content from the Rio Olympics, which was co-produced by Buzzfeed.

What is next?

Lamprecht: Snapchat is just the start. We are working with others—digital distributors, social media networks and traditional cable, satellite and telco distributors—to reach new content and advertising partnerships for the mobile-first digital content we are producing. There is no programming group with a more diverse and powerful lineup than NBCUniversal. As our networks are working hard to produce new content and grow our audiences, we will keep working with technology platforms and other partners to deliver the best content to our audiences.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on NBCUniversal's corporate site.
Perspectives

Low Olympics ratings: What went wrong and what can we glean?

Everyone has been talking about the disappointing viewership of this year’s Olympics. Deadline reported that the Rio Olympics numbers had fallen 12% night-for-night from 2012. Additionally, the final Friday for Rio saw an audience drop of 19% from the comparable night of London 2012, which was also one of the lowest rated nights of that Olympics four years ago. Moreover, viewership among 18-to-49-year-old’s dropped by 25%.

While the viewer shift to live-streaming is one factor, that’s still a big dip. So, what happened?

The Buzz Before and During: A Comparison
Outbrain took a look to see if our headline data on the Olympics for 2012 vs. 2016 offered any insights. Here’s what we found.

The most clicked headline in 2012 was “The 8 Richest Athletes at the 2012 Olympics,” which was published four days after the 2012 Olympics began.

However, in 2016, the biggest spike in Olympics data consumption happened on 7/24/2016, 12 days before the opening ceremonies: “IOC decides against complete ban on Russians from Rio Olympics,” an Associated Press story that ran on multiple outlets.

OutbrainHeadlines

Additionally, 7 out of 10 of the top headlines we pulled from June 1st to the day after the Olympics were also arguably negative. And while the Top 10 Olympic Headlines in 2012 weren’t exactly beacons of positivity, their tenor was certainly more playful than grave.

A deeper look into our data from the period of 6/26/16 to 7/28/16 also reveals that whereas the largest content volume by keyword around the Olympics contained the keywords Russia and Zika, the two most in demand keywords (which were offered to audiences in relatively low volumes) were track and basketball.

So, while people may have wanted to read about the athletes and more positive (or even silly) stories, the majority of the content on the Olympics was far more negative.

One extrapolation is that all the negative coverage could have impacted the excitement going into the Olympics. Also, because the negative buzz peaked so early, it is possible that people were turned off by the games and neglected to consume content—or tune in—as the event progressed.

However, that’s just once piece of the puzzle. When taking in the bigger picture of the Olympics media coverage, here are some additional theories as to why we saw the ratings slip.

1. Competing Headlines
Pre-Olympics, our focus was elsewhere—particularly among the coveted Millennial Audience. If anything, July was the month of Pokemon Go, a viral sensation. One theory is that for these viewers, VR proved more engaging than real sports unfolding in front of them. Additionally, no one will disagree that this year’s election is uniquely engaging, with a new devastating headline emerging daily—if not hourly. It may have also been a distraction.

2. Complementary Headlines
It is also possible that the “IOC decides against complete ban on Russians from Rio Olympics” story took on more steam because of how it tapped into the overall narrative about Russia that has been unfolding in the US media. It is notable that July 27 (the peak consumption day for Olympics related content) was also when the Russia DNC hack gained credibility by American Intelligence. News outlets released a number of stories about this on July 27, the same day that the IOC Olympics headline peaked. While just a theory, it is possible that the Russia vs. American storyline was starting to sharpen and that the IOC’s ban lift only fueled more flame in the fire. It is also possible that people were just increasingly more interested in Russian-dominated storylines. Publishers may also have seen more click-throughs with this type of content and spotlighted it.

3. The Negative Headlines Didn’t Stop
Throughout the games there were sexist and racists media blunders all over the place. Add to this, the green Olympic pool and the Ryan Lochte embarrassment later in the game. These factors clearly contributed to the overwhelmingly negative tenor of the Olympics narrative this year, drowning out any positive coverage that emerged.

4. Olympics is No Longer a TV Event
No surprise here—we’re witnessing the demise of “event TV.” Super Bowl ratings also saw all-time lows and so did March Madness Championship ratings. Whereas people used to sit around the TV watching the Olympics together—and most live sporting events—that is happening less and less. Instead, people tune in on different mediums. (Such as Snapchat.) The recent Olympics ratings only further support this trend.  And to be honest, while 2012 Olympics ratings were better than this year, they were also an all-time low, which may suggest an overall trend towards declining Olympic viewership. Then again, it is possible that by embracing alternative viewing experiences (and a content narrative that consumers enjoy), this trend could be reversed.

5. The US Performs Too Well
Slate’s Justin Peters had an interesting theory that the US victory has become so normalized that viewers now ignore great performances. The drama—particularly for most covered sports like swimming and gymnastics—wasn’t there. Meanwhile, the sports the U.S. doesn’t dominate, like table tennis, badminton, and diving weren’t extensively covered by NBC.

What’s Next?
Already, there’s buzz about Japan hosting the next Olympics and everyone hopes that the next Olympics will be a turn in a positive direction. Early headlines seem promising, with their prime minister dressed up as Mario, “green” medals, and exciting new technology. But will it be enough to draw people in and will the headlines be as positive a month before the Olympic events commence? And, moreover, will it be enough to combat all the other competing trends? We’ll have to wait and see how it all unfolds.

As our data shows, exposure to positive or negative headlines early on definitely does appear to be one piece of the story. Overall, what we do know is that 2016 viewers were not as engaged as in years past. Whatever the reason, they tuned out. And the marketers that rely on their dollars will need to work hard to get them to tune back in.

JenniferBassettJennifer Bassett is Outbrain’s Managing Editor. She has 10+ years of experience in the content strategy and editorial space. She began her career as a book editor and has consulted for top agencies, non-profits, and media companies including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Havas Worldwide New York, and Interbrand. When she’s not talking content, she’s playing music with her bands The Missing Footage and The Living Kills. You can read more of her writing at jennifer-bassett.com.

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