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Industry-Research | Video

Buying, renting videos by title is not making the leap to digital

“All-access” subscription services are displacing spending on individual movies. According to a study by GfK, the desire to seek out and purchase content purposefully is giving way to a subscription mindset in a digital world. With so much content now available at will via online and subscription video services, ownership and renting of individual titles is becoming increasingly rare.

However, the report, offered as part of GfK’s The Home Technology Monitor™, shows that many consumers continue to prize their DVDs and other physical media, with their “Director’s Cuts,” audio commentaries, and other special features. They find that members of this viewer segment are less likely to add to their video libraries with intangible digital copies, suggesting that marketers need to be more proactive in understanding and reaching out to videophiles.

According to the study, less than half (46%) of consumers say they have ever purchased or rented a digital-only copy of a TV program or movie, compared with 86% who have ever bought or rented a DVD or Blu-ray disc, and 78% for VHS tapes. Among “digital-never” consumers – those who have never bought or rented a digital program or movie – 70% have bought or rented a DVD or Blu-ray disc, and 68% have done the same with a VHS tape.

In the study, at least two thirds of “digital nevers” mentioned the availability of an SVOD service as an important reason for not buying digital copies of individual titles. Key consumer concerns about digital-only formats include difficulty of use, inability to access all content across all devices, and need for an Internet connection to view.

Among those who do rent digital movies, 33% do so monthly, compared with a 60% frequency for those who rented VHS or disc movies in the past. Not only are consumers reporting fewer overall digital transactions, but also less frequency among those who are buying digital video.

The study also shows that, even though 37% of respondents had purchased DVD or Blu-ray discs that included access to a digital-only version of the video, two-thirds of these buyers have never activated the digital content – mostly because they have “no need” for it or are just “not interested.”

GfK’s report, “Physical versus Digital Video: A Tale of Three Media,” is based on interviews with 1,006 consumers on GfK’s KnowledgePanel®, which combines the capabilities of web-based interviewing with robust probability-based samples.

prosconsDV

Perspectives Image
Perspectives

DCN’s recommended reading: week of August 25, 2016

Our recommended reads from around the web: 

Innovation

Twitter looks to live streaming to spur growth

Twitter has been dealing with sluggish user growth for some time. As such, over the last year, since it brought back Jack Dorsey as CEO, the company has been experimenting with various ways to solve this sticky problem. One idea has involved signing some high-profile live streaming deals—including the NFL, CBSN and Bloomberg—and streaming content directly on Twitter.

Twitter understands its loyal user base loves to talk about politics, sports and the stock market. It is betting that by streaming content from these different content owners, it can attract new audience that hadn’t used it before who will presumably also join the conversation—at least that’s the theory. The fact is, however, that Twitter is not exactly the first place you think of to watch a football game or get stock reports from Bloomberg, but it is hoping to change that perception, and in the process begin to grow that stagnant user base.

What’s the strategy here?
On its face, it could be difficult to tease out the end game here. If everyone who uses Twitter is already talking about live events on the network, how is streaming content directly going to give them any additional lift?

It certainly a question that baffles Dan Rayburn, an analyst at Frost and Sullivan, who has been covering the streaming media market for years. “Obviously they have a strategy, but I don’t know what it is. I don’t get it. Twitter isn’t a place people think of for long form content,” he said. In Rayburn’s view, simply getting a deal to stream content won’t necessarily achieve the desired goal. “Just because they license content doesn’t mean people will go to see it,” he asserted.

Twitter obviously has a different spin, seeing live-streaming video as a strong adjunct to the real-time nature of Twitter. “In the past, the conversation has happened on a separate screen from the event itself. What we’re doing now through live-streaming video, both in Twitter and Periscope, is bringing the event and the conversation together on a single surface,” Twitter wrote in its Q1 2016 letter to shareholders (pdf) last April.

Meanwhile, the company has continued to expand its partnerships, announcing deals with 120 Sports, Campus Insiders, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and the Pac-12 Networks, in addition to the other previously announced partnerships.

Still an experiment
Twitter admits these are early days and it’s still tinkering with the best ways to deliver the live streaming content. In fact, in June it purchased Magic Pony, a startup that uses machine learning and visual processing technology to improve image delivery, especially on mobile. Twitter is hoping it can incorporate the technology into its streaming system to help deliver higher-quality streaming video at lower bandwidth, and in the process, improve the mobile viewing experience. This is particularly important because Twitter sees cord cutters and people on the go as prime candidates to access this new streaming content.

One of Twitter’s early streaming partners, CBSN decided to experiment with simultaneous streaming of the Democrat and Republican conventions on its site and Twitter. Christy Tanner, SVP and GM of CBS News Digital says the results were quite good with the network reporting a record 13.85 million streams during the two conventions. Although she didn’t break out the numbers, she did say broadcasting in both places resulted in a larger audience. “We did not see cannibalization by simultaneously streaming on Twitter and we were happy to reach a wider audience to create a deeper connection between our coverage and the voice of the audience,” she said.

Unfortunately, beyond that nobody is really talking about how Twitter plans to measure the success of the new content. “How do you judge the success [of live streaming] for Twitter. You can’t unless you have analytics they provide and if they don’t, we’re just left scratching our heads,” says analyst Rayburn.

Regardless, for Twitter, this is clearly part of a larger plan to solve the entrenched audience growth problem that has dogged the company for some time. In the process, it hopes to transform the business and revenue via advertising, but streaming live content alone is no guarantee of financial success, and only time will tell if the strategy is sound or not.

Advertising | Perspectives

To mock or not to mock? Avoiding fraudulent advertising campaign verification

To mock or not to mock? That is the question frequently asked by media publishers trying to meet advertiser demands related to digital campaign success. The industry’s intense focus on viewability and transparency issues associated with ad fraud hijacks the limelight from another vital area of interest for advertisers: Are campaigns actually running as contracted?

What the advertiser wants, the advertiser gets
To justify the millions (and millions!) of dollars spent promoting products, advertisers rightfully demand proof that their campaigns execute as promised. From expected ad rendering on the page to accurate targeting by geography and behavior profiles, advertisers want to know that the right ad has been served in the right way in the right location on the right page to the right demographic. In fact, when considering the average spend of a large-scale national campaign flight, many advertisers will assert they deserve to know their campaign is performing as promised.

Authenticated ad inventory yields benefits
The advertising ecosystem is a dynamic environment processing millions of ads covering billions in spend at any one time. Considering that 5% of display and mobile ads are served incorrectly at launch and countless more break during flight, publishers need to actively monitor and protect their ad-generated revenue channels.[i]

Authenticated ad inventory helps publishers secure ad revenue by avoiding pre-planned delivery overages to compensate for anticipated discrepancies. In addition, it also reduces the frequency of misfiring campaigns, thus minimizing instances of “make good” campaigns.

Ad verification is more than good looks
Reputable publishers recognize the value of their high-quality inventory and demonstrate it by providing proof of ad delivery according to established terms. This is a complicated prospect in an age of large-scale campaigns incorporating ads of varying formats (i.e., HTML5, pre/mid/post-roll video, native, etc.) through multiple platforms (i.e., display, tablet, smartphone, gaming consoles, etc.) across increasingly granular targeting segments.

A Photoshopped mock-up or full-page capture of the ad on a screen is a start, but it isn’t enough. Presenting a “mock-up” of how an ad should look could be considered fraudulent as it’s not a true representation of how an ad performs across all formats, devices and geographies. In fact, several industries (Tier 2 automotive, pharmaceutical, etc.) and countries (especially those in Latin America) regulate advertising-based billing processes and require third-party verified screenshots upon invoice presentation.

Beyond the visual of “how” an ad looks on a device, publishers must prove that each ad is delivered as contracted with the advertiser. Continuous monitoring of campaigns at launch and throughout flight will quickly detect errors associated with targeting, creative and device-specific issues that impede optimal campaign execution.

Authentication of possibly hundreds of ad combinations—by size, format, device and geography—is used by publishers to substantiate inventory value and by advertisers to audit and measure campaign ROI.

Consider this
To verify accurate ad placement, execution and targeting, a publisher must consider these five factors:

  1. Legitimacy: Screenshots of ads in a live environment truthfully demonstrate that an ad is delivered to the right target. A “mock-up” or “test page” may display how an ad appears on a site, but in reality it provides a false sense of security for how the ad is actually executing. It also infers that the ad will render the same across all devices, OS, formats and geographies.
  1. Accuracy: Mock-ups can’t prove ad placement as many ad units only occur behind paywalls or require an IP address in order to serve the correct messaging to the individual user.
  1. Automation: Imagine scaling the manual process of verifying ads across the overwhelming number of devices, browsers, user profiles, formats, sizes and geo-locations. Without automation, the task is almost impossible. Leverage technology to streamline the process.
  1. Costs: Carefully consider the total cost of ownership when deciding between an in-house or outsourced process. While in-house resources are easier to control, it is difficult to secure funding and keep the staff engaged. On the flip side, outsourcing requires integration, training, probable coordination with targeting vendors, and continuous oversight which could ultimately be more costly than anticipated—not to mention the complications of managing a remote team, in a case of choosing a non-local entity if a non-native entity is selected.
  1. Quality Assurance: Reliance on mock-up designs to certify campaign execution will no catch errors that occur at launch or throughout the campaign flight.

Ad verification is a complex, yet critical endeavor for publishers looking to highlight inventory value. Don’t mock it.

ChrisChris Olson founded The Media Trust (@themediatrust) with Dave Crane in 2005. He currently serves as CEO, where he drives the company’s vision, direction and growth plans. Prior to establishing The Media Trust Company, he spent four years as the chief operating officer and board member at Spheric Media. From 1998 until 2000, he was the vice president, global equities at Commerzbank; and from 1993 until 1998, he was the vice president of electronic trading at Salomon Brothers, Inc.

[i] The Media Trust analysis of millions of ad campaigns verified over the course of 10 years
Perspectives

No comment: NPR joins the growing list of media companies shuttering comments

Given its moniker—that P does stand for public—it seems particularly significant that NPR has opted to cut comments from its site and instead focus its resources on social media as its means of engagement. As the company’s announcement points out, “NPR introduced public comments to its website eight years ago, when many of today’s most popular venues for digital interaction didn’t yet exist or were in their infancy.”

Another factor in the decision is the fact that only about 1% of its audience is currently commenting on its site. Bloomberg’s former digital editor Joshua Topolsky also cited low reader participation as a reason for Bloomberg’s recent decision to drop comments. Topolsky’s team felt that they’re more likely to reach a more representative cross-section of their audience via external social platforms.

NPR plans to focus on maintaining its presence across Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and Tumblr—as well as support journalists’ efforts to interact on their own accounts. Yet, undoubtedly, maintaining that presence across numerous (and ever-proliferating) social media sites takes a toll on any organization that must prioritize its resources.

Recode is another site that opted to focus on conversations in social media and to eliminate comments. According to founder Kara Swisher, social media provides a more optimal setting to “engage a smart audience that’s not trolling.” This sentiment was in large part shared by The Week’s Editor-in-Chief Ben Frumin who, upon announcing that the site would no longer include comments, specifically called out the problematic nature of pseudonymous commentators. Though it should be acknowledged that social media is not without its share of trolling and other bad behavior, something platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are struggling to combat.

Other sites that have opted out of comments sections cite research that connects unruly and unpleasant comments with a lowered estimation of the content and brand with which it is associated.

Organizations such as CBS, The New York Times and The Guardian remain committed to their comments sections (for now). To confront the issue head on, CBS decided to require all of its online commenters to use real names and The Guardian went so far as to undertake a study of its own comments section as part of a larger series on online harassment. The picture painted by the study was not pretty, with particularly bold lines underscoring the high level of vitriol aimed at female writers as well as those from ethnic and religious minority groups, and LGBT people.

While The Guardian does not plan to close down comments across the site, it has opted to reduce the number of places where comments are open, particularly around contentious subjects. The New York Times also limits the number of articles on which comments are permitted, though it plans to increase the number.

NPR’s Managing Editor for Digital News, Scott Montgomery, emphasizes the organization’s continued commitment to experimenting with opportunities for community engagement, such as the Hearken audience engagement platform, which is already used by dozens of NPR member stations. Yet as Elizabeth Jensen, NPR’s Ombudsman/Public Editor pointed out in her post examining the decision to eliminate comments, sites that are managing to keep comments civil are those that make a significant investment in moderation resources; resources that many media organizations need to apply to creating quality content and to continuously evolving distribution—and engagement—strategies.

NBC Olympics
Perspectives | Uncategorized

Here’s why NBC isn’t fretting over lower Olympics TV ratings

For so long, live sports were the one remaining chip that pay TV had to keep people from cutting the cord. But that chip is slowly losing its value, as Twitter scoops up more streaming sports, and ESPN considers launching its own streaming service.

And for this year’s Olympics, NBC is letting more people see highlights on its NBC Sports app, while limiting live-streams to pay TV subscribers. The result is that NBC has seen a big shift from TV viewing to streaming for the Games in Rio — but all views are off from the highs in London in 2012.

As CNN’s Frank Pallotta put it, “After six days of prime time coverage, the NBC broadcast network is averaging 28.1 million viewers, about 20 percent fewer than it had during the London games in 2012. The totals are almost 10 percent lower than the Beijing games in 2008.”

And consumption habits have changed drastically since eight years ago, and even four years ago — with a lot more people consuming sports content on digital devices. But still, NBC attracted between 20.6 million and 33.4 million viewers on its broadcast network alone this year, according to Nielsen data. “Those are really big numbers by today’s standards,” Barry Lowenthal, president of media buying firm The Media Kitchen, told Reuters. NBC also saw a bump in TV ratings last Thursday thanks to emotional wins from popular Olympians — ratings which were quadruple the ratings of CBS, ABC and Fox combined.

Comparing any year to London requires some context: London’s 2012 opening ceremonies attracted 40.7 million viewers. That’s tough competition for anyone.

Hooked on Highlights

So it’s important not to discount these TV numbers, as well as not to overestimate how much growth is coming in through digital streams. Sure, NBC recently recorded its 100 billionth minute of live streaming, but the combined online and television network viewership in the first five days of the games was still 8.6 percent lower than the recorded numbers during 2012.

Online growth may be helping to offset the decline in TV ratings, but it may just be that the overall digital landscape — with people catching only the short clips of the highlights online and breaking news alerts coming onto phones before competitions are aired on tape delay — is making it more difficult to sit and watch a game continuously anywhere. With Hulu and Netflix and Amazon, as well as traditional TV programming, there’s a lot of competition for our attention.

“It’s not that we’re watching less, it’s that we’re watching more than three channels,” Victor Matheson, a professor at the College of the Holy Cross, told the Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint and Suzanne Vranica.

Advertising Remains in the Mix

Consumers have also become accustomed to one of the boons of streaming and on-demand viewership, which is that they don’t have to sit through ads. But the opposite is true with these Olympics. It’s harder to escape ads, whether you’re watching live to catch the action as it happens, or watching highlights on the app, where ads are shown at the beginning of each clip. And that adds up to quite a lot when the app continually crashes. (Of course the best way to avoid ads is to skip them on your DVR.)

Another potential relief from ads might come if Comcast (which has paid for the U.S. rights to broadcast the Olympics through 2032) offers a subscription package to consumers that eliminates ads entirely. That could be a way for the company to monetize that impatience.

In some ways, the challenge of reaching more fans — whether through traditional or newer mediums — is the challenge of knowing who those fans are and what they want. It’s not necessarily the case that all TV viewers will eventually migrate online. It’s also worth noting that this year is a bit exceptional with other news stories distracting audiences. From the presidential elections (whose conventions were also live-streamed) to the anxiety over the Zika virus, distractions from breaking news stories and events has been boundless. It could be easy for any sports event — yes, even the Olympics — to simply creep up on a person.

But no matter how you slice it — TV, social media, app, DVR, streaming, etc. — the Olympics are one of those cornerstone events that will always bring in paydays to networks, no matter how people get the content.

 

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Perspectives

DCN’s recommended reading: week of August 18, 2016

Our recommended reads from around the web: 

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Time for marketers to up their emoji game

Giving your audience what they want, when and how they want it has become the first tenet of effective marketing. But your audience also increasingly craves experiences (even preferring it over discounts, coupons and cash)—a development that turns the pressure up on companies to spark emotive, creative and personal communications that strike a chord.

It’s here that emojis—the fun smileys and pictographs that have become the fabric of how we engage and exchange across social networks and messaging—are bridging the gap, driving new levels of engagement delivered with a distinctly personal touch.

Emojis have evolved into a new, visual language, powering campaigns and communications by a wide range of media companies and brands including Disney, NASCAR, VH1and Warner Bros., to name a few. In fact emojis are so popular that Sony Pictures Animation is targeting an August 2017 release of a movie that brings the entire emoji library to life.

Emojis clearly cover the bases to quality as a new communication medium, which is why it’s critical to understand when and how to use them in campaigns and messaging. Miss a cue and customers could begin to experience what Ad Age calls emoji messaging fatigue.

In this vein, Appboy, a company that offers a customer relationship suite for mobile-first marketers, has released new research that delves into the emoji-as-a-medium phenomenon. In addition to quantifying the use and response to emojis in marketing messages, the research also draws on a survey of 500+ consumers in the U.K. and the U.S. to understand people’s perception of emojis in personal communications.

EmojiStudy1

Predictably, respondents ages 14-24—a population well accustomed to using mobile, messaging and the emojis that have been around since the 1990s—use emojis “more often and frequently than users over the age of 45. But younger audiences aren’t just open to using this medium for messaging among themselves; they also have a more positive perception of brands that use emojis to connect with them directly.

It also comes as no surprise that younger audiences, weaned on SMS, are “more open” to emoji messages that arrive via text messaging than emojis that are delivered by email.

Overall, males are more likely that females to have a negative perception of emoji—no matter how they are delivered. This makes sense if we consider that females are also the biggest users of social media and the biggest fans of communication in all its forms and formats.

This is why Appboy suggests companies might be missing out on the opportunity to communicate with female consumers in a way that is more aligned with their preference for emojis. Despite the fact that females use emojis more than males, nearly 40% recall never receiving an emoji message from a brand. Appboy reads this to mean that “there could be an opportunity for brands to up their emoji game as a third of [all] consumers have never received an emoji message from a brand.”

The data around usage and conversion confirms emoji messaging could be more than a missed opportunity. It may also be the most effective way to personalize communications and campaigns.

A review of over 250 apps and 6 billion push notification and messages that were sent via the Appboy platform from June 2015 to June 2016 shows:

  • Conversion rates are up 135% year-over-year and have hit “an all time high”
  • Open rates on emoji messages delivered as push notifications reached 4% on Android in June 2016—068% higher than June 2015. Meantime, open rates on Apple’s IOS have been fluctuating between 1-2%—reaching levels in June 2016 that represent up to 209% uplift over June 2015.
  • Emoji use in email subject lines may lag behind use in push notification, but emails are seeing higher open rates, increasing 15% year-over-year. But while emojis may be eye-catching their presence in the subject head doesn’t appear to influence actual click through rates.

Connect the dots, and there are plenty of good reasons for companies to get more active—and smarter—about how they use emojis in their messaging and marketing. But the meteoric rise of emoji use and its positive perception among a significant percentage of consumers is no reason to ignore best practice. Emojis may liven up the “conversation” but companies still need to ensure they deliver messages people will appreciate, not dismiss as spam.

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

Step up your networking game: Make the most of events

As an ad sales executive, conferences are a “no-brainer” way to meet people and, while the Summer may be a bit quiet, this September kicks off event season in earnest so it’s time to think about making the most of your business travel. Whether you are attending a training event, participating as a vendor, sponsor or even if your company is hosting the event, there are always great opportunities to meet new prospects or enhance an existing relationship. Face-to-face time is still a powerful driver in closing sales. After 20 years of attending and participating in such events, I wanted to share a few of my top takeaways for sales leaders.

  1. Design your mission. Look up the attendees and determine if you have any known prospects or clients that will be in attendance. If so, reach out to them ASAP and let them know you will be at the event, schedule some time to catch up and determine if your new offerings are a fit for their changing business. Use this roster as a prospect list too, in order to figure out which other attendees make sense for your business. Then you can be on the lookout for them. If it is a big event, I often print out a target list that includes photos to review in advance of the event, which helps me find my prospects in the crowd.
  2. More peanuts, please. Networking can start before you even arrive. I can’t count the number of times I have met a fellow conference attendee en route to the event location, whether at the airport, on the flight or train. I recommend requesting the middle seat on the plane. Before you roll your eyes, think about it: This gives you twice the odds of a productive connection than if you sit on the aisle or by the window.
  3. Let’s lunch. Once you are at an event, never eat with your coworkers or alone. Don’t think of breaks in the program as a time to catch up on emails or with your teammates. This is prime networking time! Always eat with people you don’t know in an open-seating venue. And like the airplane, sit where you can converse with more than one person.
  4. Be social. Attend the pre- and post-function gatherings, cocktail receptions—everything. Yes, we are all tired after a full day of sessions, but these planned networking events are great places to make connections. Remember, most people at the event are in the same boat as you: They want to make new connections.
  5. Be prepared. Never, ever, ever run out of business cards. Bring lots. If you need this explained, you’re in the wrong business. Every piece of luggage I own has business cards stashed in it somewhere.
  6. Deliver the hook. Have a very short compelling statement about how you can help your prospects solve their problems. While this is an “elevator pitch”, keep in mind that no one really cares what you do; prospects want to know that you can help them. After considering the type of attendees at particular event, take the time to create a few versions. During small talk you can learn enough about your prospect to determine which one to use to capture their attention.
  7. Be an early bird. Go to the breakout sessions 15 minutes early. You’ll be the only one in the room…with the speaker. This can be a great way to network one-on-one with industry leaders, consultants, and people you might not otherwise get an opportunity to meet.
  8. Be a connector. If you know someone that a fellow attendee is trying to meet, provide an email introduction after the conference. This positions you as a valuable resource within your industry. The people you introduce will be more likely to return the favor in the future, and make introductions on your behalf to potential prospects.

And most importantly, remember to ask the most powerful question there is: “How can I help you?” You immediately demonstrate that it’s not about you; it’s about them. Too often “amateur networkers” are only thinking how people might help them. That’s backward! If you ask how you can help someone that you’ve just met, you immediately build rapport. Plus, most often their natural response after they’ve answered, is to return the favor and ask, “How can I help you?” Thus, a valuable contact is born.

Attend your next conference with the list of event attendees, your prospect wish list, and plenty of business cards in hand. From the time you set foot on the plane, to leaving the convention center or hotel, always be networking. Make a lasting impression on new connections, and nurture existing relationships to surpass your sales goals.

JenWilgaJen Wilga (@JenniferWilga) is a dynamic sales champion who is leading MediaRadar’s global expansion efforts. She joins the team with over 20 years of experience in SaaS solutions. Prior to joining MediaRadar, Jen played a critical role in developing and executing the sales strategy for Careerbuilder’s HR SaaS solutions. Jen received her BA from Misericordia University.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Perspectives

Diversity is the engine of growth

With the election in full swing, I expect that, like me, you’ve watched your Twitter feed become a steady stream of: “He said what?” Shock and awe reactions to absurd, blanket statements and misguided opinions causing social media to light up. While it can be an adrenaline rush to watch a tweet-storm effort to beat back stupidity—the so-called “self-cleaning oven” of social—it can also be very dangerous and result in half-baked perspectives that confirm one’s own biases.

When I see this phenomenon happening in a way that impacts digital media, in my role as the leader of the only association exclusively focused on the creators of digital content, I feel compelled to speak out. It’s now been two weeks since a top advertising executive sent a terrible message to the media industry on gender diversity declaring, “the [expletive] debate is all over.” He went on to suggest the lack of women in leadership roles was not a problem, pointing to other industries as much worse.

While I might like to believe it’s true, I can’t emphasize enough how fundamentally flawed this perspective is. I was pleased to see that his bosses appear to have come to the same conclusion as they quickly and decisively showed him the door. Simply waiting to see how the industry reacts would be a testament to an organization that doesn’t practice what it preaches.

Where does this leave us? As an industry, we must accept the reality that this debate will never be over; gender equality, like all issues of diversity, must be a constant consideration as we ask ourselves: Are we doing enough? What are we missing? Who is being overlooked? There will be no bombastic finish line celebration. To declare victory, as this chief executive did, is not only naïve but a major setback. Rather, let’s celebrate each small victory and continue to set the bar ever-higher

As the media industry, this realization is paramount. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, famously stated at Davos earlier this year that “diversity is the engine of invention. It generates creativity that enriches the world.” I completely agree with this statement. Understanding and respecting your audiences in a fast changing world happens only by being inclusive and inspiring all viewpoints. Diversity isn’t simply a matter of what boxes you check.

As a trade association, we focus our energy on advancing the future of trusted content. We believe that this only happens through promoting diversity in leadership and the types of companies we represent. To that end, just two years ago, we put in a motion a renewed effort that has truly been an engine of growth. We recently noted at an industry event that 15 of our last 30 new board members have been female. I’m incredibly thrilled by this as DCN doesn’t get to choose these member representatives. This means that our member companies are putting their top female executives in positions of leadership and influence.

Additionally, since I came aboard two years ago as a certifiably white male, we’ve added four strong female media leaders to our Executive Committee including our Co-Chair Christy Tanner at CBS. Indeed, leadership starts at the top. That being said, we’re merely a trade association; a representative proxy for our membership. And, to be honest we see significant challenges, which will never completely go away.

What can we do? Well, in many ways, we act as a thought leadership center for our members, a process that relies on open and candid discussion. Our team programs member day events with a keen eye on diversity. I’m thrilled to see our (mostly-female) leadership always take this into consideration, while recognizing we must do more. We regularly include topics on our member day agendas that focus on delivering on this challenge, particularly in areas where there is too often underrepresentation. We also work hard to promote diversity in our participation in industry events such as our Advertising Week panel “Who’s winning at sports content,” which featured some of the brightest people in the business. Oh yes, all women and diverse in business and perspective.

As a nation, we’re celebrating the first nomination of a woman for the office of President by a major political party. We can certainly be pleased with this milestone, while simultaneously being embarrassed that it took this long. And we need to take an honest look at decisions made even as we celebrate this momentous occurrence such as the choice made by several major newspapers to mark the momentous occasion with front page photos of her husband, not the person who might be our first female president.

My ask of the industry is truth and candor. Challenge us wherever this an opportunity to do more. I know that despite the modest progress we’ve seen at DCN on gender diversity, there is significant work to be done on ethnic and racial diversity. Awareness and self-awareness are key to continued progress. Let’s have a bit of humility to not try to be the executive celebrating alone at a fictional finish line. And by all means, we need to clearly see both the challenges and opportunities in the road ahead.

Perspectives Image
Perspectives

DCN’s recommended reading: week of August 11, 2016

Our recommended reads from around the web: 

Advertising | Industry-Research

Publishers increase mobile investment

Mobile is an ever-increasingly important platform in digital publishing as consumers spend more time on their devices. In fact, three-quarter of publishers (75%) stated they will increase their mobile investment in the next 12 months, reported AOL’s 2016 Publisher Outlook Report, which surveyed 300 publishers in the U.S.

Further, nearly half of the publishers plan on increasing their mobile investment up to 25% more and 10% plan on increasing their investment from 50-100% more in the next 12 months. Publishers also anticipate video ad sales to be the top revenue performer of the year.

Ad blockers, quality creative and quality experiences are top challenges publishers face today, while better audience metrics, interactive and engaging ad units, mobile-first video and faster ad loads offer big opportunities.

Publishers rank their biggest mobile opportunities as:

  1. Better audience metrics – 43%
  2. Interactive, engaging ad units – 43%
  3. Mobile-first video (creative and formatting) – 42%
  4. Faster ad loads – 42%
  5. More mobile web-based content – 42%
  6. Cross-screen tracking and measurement – 40%
  7. Customized / personalized creative – 39%
  8. More app offerings – 38%
  9. Mobile commerce – 38%
  10. Gamification of content – 27%

And rank their primary challenges as:

  1. Ad blockers – 49%
  2. Quality of consumer experience – 44%
  3. Quality of content/creative – 42%
  4. App installations – 38%
  5. Measurement deficits – 31%
  6. Platform and service costs – 30%
  7. Off platform monetization – 30%
  8. Off network traffic / audience – 27%
  9. Lagging advertising spend – 27%
  10. Inadequate revenue/ROI – 24%

Distribution platforms for content have also emerged this year. Companies like Facebook, Apple, Twitter and Snapchat are all trying to attract readers to keep using their platforms while consuming publisher’s content. Over 90% of publishers believe distributed media has had a positive effect; 53% report it’s “extremely positive.” By and large, publishers also said that syndication is vital with approximately 25-50% of their traffic coming via syndication referrals.

More and more publishers are increasingly assessing new and alternative monetization strategies beyond advertising. For now, more than 75% of publishers pursue subscription and ad supported business models. Of those focused on subscriptions, over 75% expect to grow their subscription choices in the next 12 months.

While publishers are still very dependent on advertising revenue, the way of doing business has changed. Seven in 10 publishers (71%) sell inventory via programmatic with many using a private marketplace. Private marketplaces allow publishers to offer their own inventory to buyers in a more transparent and controlled environment. More than half of publishers (56%) depend on at least one private marketplace and 28% use multiple PMPs.

Publishers continue to evolve with the times, building new technologies, developing new revenue sources and even creating internal agencies to develop new creative. Publishers must continue to re-think how people are consuming content, how to deliver it, how it lives across platform and how to monetize it beyond advertising dollars.

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