News UK, whose brands include The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Sun newspapers as well as social video ad platform Unruly, has opened the doors of its new vertical video studio. The new V-Studio, which sits in News UK’s commercial division The Bridge, is a bid to boost the amount and quality of video on News UK-owned properties and elsewhere on the Web.
Naturally, V-Studio will both create vertical video advertising for its clients to distribute via its owned properties and platforms. However, it will also allow those same clients (for a fee) to distribute the mobile optimized videos across the Web.
The approach has raised concerns the vertical video studio aims to take on full-service digital agencies. However, while V-Studio certainly has the capabilities to do so, Milton Elias, head of mobile and video at News UK, says the strategy is to create, not compete. It’s all about producing “better video, better inventory and better engagement” to monetize an audience that has become “by default mobile-first,” he explains. Data that shows 91% of readers accessed The Sun newspaper on their mobile device in April, compared with 82% for The Times News UK. What’s more, The Sun also counted 8.7 million video views in the same month.
“Monetizing audiences and delivering a great user experience requires mobile video that has been created for mobile. That means thinking vertically,” Elias says. Easier said than done in a market where many brands somehow believe they can simply squeeze TV ads and assets onto a smaller screen, regardless of the user experience. “Effective mobile advertising needs video that was created for consumption on that device and fit for that purpose,” he adds.
This is where V-Studio comes in “offering clients and brands a canvas they can use to create vertical video assets seamlessly,” he explains. Less than a week after launch, Elias says the studio already boasts a “well-known luxry brand” as its first client, with more in the pipeline.
The top priority is to drive better results through higher engagement. The goal will be to enhance, rather than interrupt, the user experience. The seven video formats currently produced by the studio sit in the mobile scrolling flow, where users can choose to click on videos, or simply scroll past them.
Another focus of the V-Studio launch is harnessing News UK first party-data and touch points around content users engage with. This will allow marketers order to hone audience targeting and advertising relevancy . “In the beginning we’re selling them [ads] on a direct buy basis and we’re hoping to make that available on a programmatic guaranteed basis,” Elias says.
As he points out, the industry has seen a fundamental shift in how people consume media, particularly via mobile channels. Given that so much of today’s high impact ads are created for consumption on large horizontal screens, News UK wants to lead the charge in optimizing marketing messages for mobile engagement on its sites, and across the web.
Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. Full disclosure: She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.
In a world of ever-increasing choices in digital content experiences, 140 character limitations, chatbots, filters, conversational interfaces, and virtual reality, it may come as a surprise that senior executives still value long-form, research-based content and, yes, even the printed page for their business insights.
To find out how they want to receive business insights, Forbes Insights and Deloitte conducted a survey of almost 300 CXOs globally. We asked them about the types of content they want to read, what channels they prefer and where they get their most valuable business insights. Some of what they told us may surprise you. The report based on that survey, “Thought Leadership in Action: Strategic Content to Help CXOs Learn and Lead,” explains how to become a trusted, respected and sought-after source of thought leadership.
The study shows that many C-level executives defy prevailing wisdom, with more than one-third of them preferring traditional longer data-based formats, in print. The interest in long-form content may seem counterintuitive. In the era of “snackable” and omnichannel content, CXOs do find value in short-form content. However, they consider it “icing on the cake.” The needs of this particular audience are key: CXOs need to think and act strategically. Thus, they often opt for longer pieces that take them from hypothesis, through case studies, to conclusion, and are based on credible data.
While content needs to be designed for and distributed via multiple digital channels, there is still room for print, with half of CXOs saying that reading business insights in print is still important to them. Print tends to be the preferred format for taking in longer pieces. However, the preferred format also varies by type of publication. Output from consulting firms is usually read online, while management journals are consumed offline.
Our analysis of how CXOs want to receive business insights shows that they are most interested in strategic content. Such content delivers a narrative based on curated data that spells out the hypothesis and proceeds to prove or disprove it. In other words, strategic content provides guidance and actionable takeaways instead of simply signaling issues by presenting reams of data.
Thus, CXOs tend to favor organizations that can produce such long-form, credible content based on deep experience, which can help them set strategy or take the pulse of the market. Business publications and consulting firms come out on top of the list.
Different channels work for different types of content. This includes print, the most traditional—which is favored for longer pieces—and digital channels, which are preferred when reading general news media. What is most important is that each piece of thought leadership is presented on its most preferred channels for a given audience, and that it is designed for each specific channel to make it easily readable.
Bruce H. Rogers is the Chief Insights Officer for Forbes Media. He is responsible for managing the Insights division, which creates and distributes thought-leadership, research-based content for blue-chip customers such as IBM, Google, KPMG, SAP, CIT, and Deloitte and he oversees the Forbes Insights content channel. He is also responsible for the company’s CMO Practice overseeing the group’s creation of content through the Forbes CMO Network section of Forbes.com, and events such as the annual Forbes CMO Summit. Prior to this role, Rogers was the Chief Brand Officer responsible for all integrated marketing, brand communication, research and sales support activities for Forbes Media.
When Apple announced last year that it would offer mobile ad blocking on iOS 9, and Google stated it would crack down on interstitial ads on mobile websites, publishers went immediately to sky-is-falling mode, predicting that these moves would undermine their chances for mobile ad revenues. But so far the panic has been overblown, especially in the U.S.
What appears to be a burgeoning trend in Asia is still in its infancy here. This gives publishers a bit of time to readjust their advertising formats to meet consumers halfway.
That said, Google, with its own vested interests, has just announced a new offering that will definitely push publishers: A new ad blocker. Thetech giant prefers to call an “ad filter” which will be integrated into its widely popular Chrome browser. It’s a move that’s likely to shake the entire advertising industry. Then again, it may just help to thwart the dreaded rise of further third-party ad blockers.
But Apple announced its own Safari ad-blocker in the new High Sierra operating system for desktops. This one would block auto-play videos as well as ad tracking across the Internet. While Google is taking a more collaborative approach with publishers, Apple is “taking a harder line,” as Undertone’s Eric Franchi told Adweek.
Mobile Ad-Blocking Uneven
The 2016 report from Pageview, a company in the business of trying to get publishers to reevaluate their advertising models, caused a stir among some circles for its analysis of global ad blocking. Ad blocking increased by 30% last year. And among the 615 million devices blocking ads, more than half — 308 million, to be precise — were blocking on mobile. Taken in another light, that’s 16% of all smartphone users in the entire world.
Yet 94% of all that mobile ad blocking took place in the Asia-Pacific region — in countries where Internet penetration is increasingly mobile-first, and where data prices are too high for most users to want to tolerate video and other data-heavy ads. North America and Europe, meanwhile, were much calmer in comparison, no doubt thanks to more affordable data packages.
A sampling of some of these global figures show what’s exactly at stake:
In India, mobile ad blocking is at 28%, whereas desktop ad blocking is a mere one percent.
In Indonesia, 58% of users block on mobile, while just 8% do so on desktop.
In the U.S., one percent of users block on mobile, whereas 18% do so on desktop.
In the U.K., content compensation platform Sourcepointreports ad blocking is at about 18%. The figure is slightly higher in France and Germany. However, data suggests that these rates are stabilizing due to more effective communication between users and publishers.
The Underlying Concerns
It’s pretty obvious why ad blocking on mobile is increasing: Users don’t like the ad experience, and publishers aren’t effectively communicating to readers about why their use of an ad blocker is detrimental to their business.
A fair number of users don’t want to see ads at all. However, users aren’t simply hating on the content of ads. Among the reasons people chose to use an ad blocker were privacy concerns and irritation at interruptions. Users who block ads tend to be highly educated and aware of the ecosystem they’re involved in.
That being said, of course publishers feel threatened. The West may be slow to block on mobile, but the world’s next billion Internet users are going to be mobile-first.
Still, it’s not an apocalypse. In the current climate, publishers need to be more transparent to users about what’s at stake — and how they can make a difference.
Google, Apple Making Moves in Browsers
In an environment like this, it’s no surprise Google has announced what it’s hinted at for some time: A new ad blocker for its Chrome browser. The new browser will create a higher bar for the kinds of ads that appear on the web by filtering out the more annoying ones, like auto-playing video ads. The goal of the blocker, which is slated to come out in 2018, is to create a better user experience. The Coalition for Better Ads, an industry group Google belongs to, is creating the standard for permissible ads.
The tech giant is signaling its collaborative intent by giving publishers six months to prepare for the ad blocker’s release, and to adjust their advertisements accordingly. It will then essentially grade publishers on the kind of advertising they’re offering. Google is also launching a feature called “funding choices.” This will let publishers charge users per page view if they’re already using an ad blocker.
Apple, meanwhile, announced new features for Safari in its glitzy announcements at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference recently. While they might not have been as sexy as the new HomePod speaker system or multi-tasking iPads, the default setting in Safari to block ad tracking and auto-play video will make a huge difference for publishers. (Irony alert: The link above to Apple’s website listing its new products does include — gasp! — an auto-play video ad.)
While it’s discomforting that Google and Apple wield such dominance, the companies are at least taking leadership positions where others haven’t. And they’re doing so while mobile ad blocking is still on peoples’ minds, but before it’s become unstoppable. The time is right for publishers to get their advertising house in order.
Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends Report is often referred to as the state of the union for the media and technology industry. In it, Meeker—a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (KPCB)—highlights the biggest internet developments for the coming year. Her report provides insights on digital adoption, identifies which interfaces are resonating, and examines the dynamics of ecommerce.
Some key takeaways from her presentation:
Mobile dominates digital usage. U.S. adults now spend 5.6 hours a day using digital media, 3.1 hours (from 2.8 in 2015) via mobile devices and 2.2 hours on desktop and laptop.
The ad spend on mobile is not proportionate to the share of time spent on mobile. While consumers spend 28% of their time on mobile, only 21% of the digital ad dollars is spent on mobile media. This is expected to correct itself in the second half of this year.
As internet advertising continues to increase, the growth is concentrated in Google and Facebook, the internet duopoly. Meeker’s report notes that Google and Facebook control 85% of online ad growth. Google’s ad revenue grew 20% and Facebook 62% in 2016. For everyone else, the growth was less than 10% year over year.
Internet users are concerned about their privacy and security online. Consumers report being concerned with how their data is being collected, used and stored. Consistency and self-regulation of privacy policies are important steps in the monitoring the Internet ecosystem.
Where Meeker’s insights meet opportunity:
Voice recognition software and devices such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home are reshaping the consumer digital experience. In fact, Amazon Echo is now installed in 11 million households in the U.S. Further, 20% of all mobile searches are now voice activated.
Gaming goes mainstream. There are now 2.6 billion gamers today compared to a 100 million in 1995. In fact, viewing time for eSports, professional video gaming live-events and tournament, increased by 40% compared to a year ago. The gaming revenue concentration remains in Asia, with 47% of 2016’s $100 billion global market. Meeker believes video gaming’s socially engaging features will offer new businesses opportunities and sporting events.
Streaming music helps revives the music industry. Spotify, the marketplace leader, exceeded physical music sales, adding to the first revenue growth in the music industry in the last 16 years. Free trials are also driving sampling and subscription sign-ups.
Healthcare data is flowing with approximately 25% of U.S. consumers owning a wearable device, up 12% from a year ago. Further, 6 in 10 people report they are willing to share with health information with Google. Collecting and analyzing healthcare data has huge implications for the medical and healthcare sector from aiding clinical trials to identifying geographical and environmental healthcare concerns.
The marketplace is rapidly advancing and continues to grow in importance. According to Meeker, the top 20 Internet companies—many of which were not around before 1995—have a market value of nearly $3 trillion. New media platforms and information technologies are transforming new market economies. Yet it is important to note that Meeker sees new opportunities across multiple platforms to connect and add value for consumers.
Does improving page load time positively impact readership?
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project was launched in February 2016 to address both the increasing bloat of web pages and the subsequent consequences of a diminished user experience for readers, publishers, and advertisers. By creating a platform from which media companies could publish clean, streamlined versions of their articles, AMP promised to speed up the average page load time and make it easier for visitors to stick around and read their content.
But how does it deliver on this promise, and what is the impact on consumer engagement?
The Effect on Publisher Traffic
Chartbeat pulled actual consumer behavior data across 360 sites using AMP and FIA from June 2016 to May 2017. Our research shows that, while usage rates and the subsequent number of articles consumed on each platform differs, it turns out that both AMP and FIA content have been receiving larger and larger shares of publishers’ mobile traffic, and at fairly equal rates. As of mid-May 2017, a typical publisher who implemented AMP saw 16% of all mobile traffic on their AMP content. Comparatively, publishers with FIA saw 14.8% of all mobile traffic on FIA content.
The Need for Speed
These days, web experiences are all about speed. Almost half (47%) of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less. Even more significantly, 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load, meaning they never reach the published content at all. So how are AMP and IA optimizing page load times?
Chartbeat analysis shows that AMP loads roughly four times faster than the standard mobile site experience, and Instant Articles load even more quickly. In fact, 88% of Instant Articles load too quickly for us to even register a load time. Now that’s fast.
This is a big deal, and proves that both initiatives are delivering on the promise of providing a much quicker load time to improve reader experience. And publishers are seeing the effects — with less time spent waiting for pages to load, consumers have more time freed up for engaging with content.
Better User Experience, More Engaged Readers
With so many distributed ways of finding content and such short consumer attention spans, every second counts. So how does AMP stack up?
Chartbeat’s data shows that readers engage with AMP content for 35% longer than standard mobile web content. They spend an average of 48 seconds with AMP content vs. 36 seconds with mobile web content when coming from search. The fact that readers are engaging for so much longer than they normally would suggests that user experience really does matter in catching and holding attention.
The Future of High Speed Mobile
One big question still remains: Will publishers continue to scale their efforts and should these high speed platforms become the mobile industry norm?
While the increase in engaged time for publishers who have adopted both AMP and FIA are compelling, the jury is still out on whether the end justifies the means. The numbers here demonstrate that consumers clearly value these optimized mobile experiences and this may just be the evidence we need to validate their potential. However, larger questions still remain around each on both publisher value and quality.
As publishers continue to use these platforms and readers continue to react, it will be interesting to see how AMP and Facebook IA evolve in the future – possibly in two completely different directions.
At the end of the day, visitors deserve a fast, clean, enjoyable reading experience where they spend most of their time – on mobile. And publishers can benefit from a more effective mobile environment where they can distribute and monetize content and scale their success. But at what cost? How can we make this win-win?
John Saroff is Chief Executive Officer of Chartbeat, a leading content intelligence platform used by more than 50,000 of the world’s top media properties in over 60 countries. He has worked on the cutting-edge of media and technology for 17+ years, setting the daily operations and business development agendas of companies as diverse as Google, NBC-Universal and vente-privee. John received his undergraduate degree in History from Haverford College and a joint degree in Law and Business from Columbia University.
Immersive video—powered by 360° cameras and 3D platforms—is poised to make a significant impact with audiences across devices. Indeed, the advance of and Virtual Reality (VR) changes all the rules, shifting the focus from reach as the measure of effective content and storytelling to depth. More and more companies are embracing VR to connect with people on a deeper level. A new video gold rush is on, as companies race to understand and integrate some form of mixed reality into their content and marketing strategies to move and monetize their audiences.
USA Today Network, which has become one of the most prominent VR content creators in the news business, is one company that doesn’t have to play catch up. Last year it claimed the pole position, launching the first-ever weekly VR news show. “VRtually There” is a collaboration between its editorial team and in-house agency, Get Creative. The intent is to create awareness for brands such as Toyota through content aimed to educate and inspire consumers.
Kelly Andresen, SVP, Head of GET Creative, USA TODAY NETWORK
Peggy Anne Salz—mobile analyst and Content Marketing Strategist at MobileGroove—caught up with Kelly Andresen, SVP and Head of USA Today Network’s Get Creative, to talk about the rules of immersive storytelling and the impact of VR on content, context and the consumer.
At one level, content has to be crafted to appeal to audiences, which means it has to valuable and relevant. But the advance of mobile and apps means content also needs to be more contextual. How do you manage both?
We see a range. At one end, it’s all about a 100% fully custom and bespoke approach. In those cases, we work with clients and their agencies to make recommendations on the best content to reach their audiences and their KPIs. But on the other end of the spectrum, we also see local clients who don’t just want to tell a compelling story to their customers and potential customers. They also need to drive immediate results like in-store traffic or ecommerce. In those cases, it’s about creating a context—and the right environment—for them to showcase their content and advertising message. So, in that case, it’s really about creating custom content, not branded content. It needs to provide an environment and a context where there the advertiser can showcase their specific advertising message or their unique proposition that will raise awareness of their brand and drive immediate action.
Contextual content for a local audience sounds like a good opportunity for local advertisers, which might not have the budget for content marketing,. They can piggyback” on the content you create and distribute….
Yes, but it is also a challenge for the industry as no one has really cracked local branded content at scale. Getting it right is expensive for these advertisers, and long approval processes don’t match what local advertisers need if they want to engage customers in the right time and place. It’s doesn’t fit the content of the individual. That’s where we have a unique opportunity because we are a network of 110 sites with actual physical locations, real journalists, and real connections to our communities across the U.S. This gives the infrastructure and the team to be able to create really unique solutions at an affordable price that will still drive results in the local markets. It’s an area I am going to be very focused on in 2017 as we work to build out a local branded content solution at scale.
We’re also focused on how can we revolutionize the model to help retailers tell great stories with content that also allow them to bring customers in-store. I’m particularly excited about our partnership with Walgreens, one of the nation’s largest pharmacies that also offers beauty products. They are pursuing a strategy to brand themselves as a destination for beauty products. This makeover extends to creating an entire content strategy. That’s where we’ve partnered to create original content in the form of photo galleries and 2D videos showing customers how they can “get the look” with products. Distribution of this content across all channels, including social, drives awareness of the brand. It also changes brand perception and drives calls to action including signups for the beauty program. It shows us how branded content and custom content can work for both local and national advertisers, in the right context, to move customers across all steps of the marketing funnel.
You have a multi-dimensional view of content, customers and context. You have also added virtual reality to the mix. How are you using it to tell stories that engage your audience – over a 115 million unique every month – and serve your advertisers?
The USA Today Network has taken a leadership position in the creation of high-quality premium virtual reality content, and we’ve been doing it for three years. That doesn’t sound like very long but that’s light years in the VR world. When I joined the company in 2015, the company had already made significant investments in the virtual reality space. For one, it requires a team of people who know coding and how to capture the content. It requires people who are familiar with the specialized 360° cameras, and more importantly: how to tell stories in this medium because it’s very different from any other medium.
I was fortunate to step in and build out a brand-new content studio, which has expanded to a full service in-house agency. It takes advantage of the learnings and expertise that existed in order to cultivate those same capabilities within our branded content studio. I hired people who had produced the award-winning VR and 360° video from our newsrooms to join our branded content team. Our value proposition going out to advertisers was about leveraging our knowledge to help them leapfrog and try out VR at an effective price. They also benefit from our ability to produce that content quickly and consistently.
The VR shows with Toyota are a milestone. What other VR content have you produced since?
We’ve produced original content for the 2017 Toyota Camry as well as original VR work with Google Nest. We’ve seen a lot of excitement and engagement around it. But what is unique about our offering is that we can not only create the content, we can also distribute it to an audience that is actively consuming it and looking for it because they have come to associate VR with our brand.
In theory, because VR is immersive, people can watch it for hours. How do you keep people engaged?
Number one is the storytelling. Number two is the tech. It may sound silly, but it comes down to small details, like where to put the camera, that make a big difference. For example, Honda has created the fastest two-seater in IndyCar racing. When we did the first shoot we fixed the 360° camera to the helmet. But then, when we saw this footage afterwards, it felt like you are floating above the race track instead of actually driving on the race track. It’s small things like where you place the camera make a huge difference in how the viewer experiences the content.
What is going to keep a viewer engaged? You have to give them the freedom to enjoy the content but the direction to get the most out of the experience. With 2D video you can direct viewers to look by where you put the camera. In 360 and VR, a viewer can look wherever they want. They can look up, they can look down, they can look around. So we’ve experimented with audio cues to help them look where they need to look in order to help the story along and make sure the viewer has an awesome experience.
That is about the technology, but the attraction of VR is also how it can create a sense of empathy…
We’ve seen that VR does that, which is why we believe it’s perfect for two main types of storytelling. One is transporting people. In this scenario, the content transports people to places they may never otherwise be able to experience, like the inside of a volcano or to the top of a high wire. They can experience the thrill of doing something they may never do in real life. The second is triggering emotion, empathy in particular. In this scenario, the content help tell a human story that enables people to literally experience what life is like in someone else’s shoes. Those two storylines are what drives our VR production, because both on the editorial side as well as on our branded content advertising side.
It sounds as if VR – done well – is also a way to beat ad blocking.
Ad blocking is a challenge for the content industry. But, at its core, it’s a call from consumers. They’re saying, “We want a better experience.” And I think this is a call to action for all of us to really deliver better experiences. So, yes, we are focused on creating better experiences for our audience, and our advertisers, and VR allows us to do this.
VR is in its infancy; it’s early days. What do you see as it matures?
We’ve all only scratched the surface of how we can use virtual reality as a storytelling medium. I can definitely see a future where, instead of sharing text or sharing photos like we do on social channels or even on our phones, we share whole virtual reality experiences. People can capture entire experiences and share them as content. We’re not there yet from a technical standpoint, but I do think I can see adoption and technology going in that direction. I also think we will see new kinds of interactivity. Experiences with brands and content companies will move beyond contests and quizzes. The next wave is all about enabling and empowering people to interact with brands and the content they produce to build deeper connections for both.-
Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. Full disclosure: She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.
Today, business leaders across the US are aware of the importance of digital transformation, regardless of their industry. However, as most know, it is not an easy undertaking and needs to go well beyond buzzwords to truly change an organization.
It is helpful to understand how leaders prioritize digital transformation and how they evaluate their progress. To that end, digital consultant and company builder etventure, with the support of market research firm YouGov, has published the results of their study “Digital Transformation and Cooperation with Startups.” The aim of the study was to ascertain the current state of digital transformation in mid-to-large companies. It looks at the significance of digitization; progress and barriers; digital transformation activities; and the impact on employees. The report also examines cooperation with startups as a means to accelerate digital transformation in larger, more established organizations.
The State of Digital Transformation
The report identifies three levels of digitization: incremental, transformative and disruptive. Incremental digitization involves the digitization of existing business processes and customer experience. Transformative digitization involves new digital business models, while disruptive digitization is a radical reinvention of the existing business. Digital transformation, for the purposes of this study, include transformative and disruptive digitization. However, the report does not view incremental digitization as transformation.
Survey respondents recognize the importance of digital transformation and have made it a top priority. Unfortunately, while the overwhelming majority of companies surveyed rank digitization as critically important to their businesses, the study found that many of the activities classified as digital transformation are actually incremental changes. According to the report, “many businesses have a false sense of security.” They also find that transformation is often delegated rather than aggressively driven from the top.
Other key takeaways include:
There is a heavy reliance on IT teams to deliver transformation initiatives, even though many IT teams lack the entrepreneurial DNA required for true transformation.
Although survey respondents rank digital transformation as business-critical, only 3% of business state their CEOs are directly involved with management of digital transformation.
Nearly all survey respondents are currently undertaking some form of digital project. However, these projects are rarely disruptive or transformational.
Traditional business environments are poorly suited for digital transformation, as true transformation cannot be a part-time exercise.
Businesses lack an appreciation for how true transformation might lead to a fundamental shakeup of business, with a significant impact on employees at all levels.
The majority of businesses surveyed do not see startups as a threat.
Moving Forward
While it is heartening to read that leaders believe that the vast majority of their staff are equipped to undertake digital transformation, they point out that it is unrealistic to assume, as survey respondents indicate, that 90% of employees are ready for the challenges make an impact on revenue or market share in less than one year. Digital transformation isn’t just about digital processes and business models. Instead, true digital transformation requires significant cultural change. Thus, it is essential to help employees prepare for digital transformation.
While many businesses put all their energy into driving digital transformation themselves, another way of coping with digital transformation is to cooperate with the disrupters themselves: startups. Most startups are in dire need of what traditional businesses have – an established customer base, market experience and reach. For traditional businesses, collaboration with startups enables them to get on the fast track to true transformation – with low risk. Cooperation between corporations and startups brings together two very different cultures, which can be challenging. However, the report views corporate/startup collaboration as typically a win-win.
As you consider updates to the ePrivacy Directive, we are writing to offer the perspective of premium publishers of digital media content. Digital Content Next (DCN) was founded in 2001 and remains the only U.S.-based trade association that exclusively represents premium digital content creators. Several of our members are based in Europe and many more have a substantial presence in Europe. DCN members include many of the Internet’s most trusted and respected media brands, collectively reaching an unduplicated audience of 230.6 million unique visitors – or 100% of the U.S. online population monthly. Importantly, DCN members maintain direct, trusted relationships with consumers and advertisers.
We agree with the need to update and modernize the ePrivacy Directive to account for new technologies that are employed to track consumers in the digital world and hope to see a text which will more closely harmonize the Directive with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). As you consider changes to the text of the Draft Regulation, we encourage you to focus on consumer expectations.
Context is Key
Consumers have nearly unlimited choices over where they can find news and entertainment online. If a consumer does not trust the site or the content, they can and do choose to go elsewhere. This creates a dynamic in which consumer-facing websites and apps must continue to earn the trust of their audiences or risk losing them. A key to maintaining that trust is to collect and use a consumer’s data in ways that meet with the consumer’s expectations. For example, when consumers visit a premium publisher’s site or app, they expect their data will be collected and used in ways to benefit their experience for purposes such as analytics, fraud protection, personalization, subscriptions and content recommendation. Consumers also are not likely to be concerned when their data will be used for benign purposes such as audience measurement or other uses where data is aggregated. At the same time, publishers need to be able to monetize their content through advertising in order to minimize costs for consumers. Certainly, there are also societal benefits from properly funded news organizations.
However, most consumers do not approve of their data being collected in one context and then used in a different context. For instance, absent any transparency, a consumer would not expect or even know that a data broker or a broadband service provider might be tracking their activity across the internet for the purpose of building a profile about them, which could then be used to deliver targeted advertising. A consumer might see the value in allowing a social media company or a search engine to track their activity while using their website or app, but that consumer would not approve of those companies continuing to track them long after the consumer had left their domain and visited a different website.
Our position is that the ePrivacy Regulation should require transparency and consumer consent in cases where consumer data will be collected and used across multiple contexts.Consumers understand and can see the benefits of the collection and use of their data within a single context. Conversely, collection and use of consumer data across different contexts is far less transparent and is much less likely to result in direct benefits for consumers. While differentiating between data collection and use within a single context versus data collection and use across multiple contexts would map with an average consumer’s expectation, it would have the additional benefit of avoiding over-notification of consumers. As the Draft Regulation notes in (22) of the preamble, “end-users are overloaded with requests to provide consent.” When consumers are flooded with notifications in digital media,they tend to become fatigued. They can also become annoyed when notifications cause friction in their digital experience – especially when they are simply attempting to access content from a trusted source. By focusing consent requirements on non-transparent data collection and use, the ePrivacy Regulation would minimize friction where consumers have trusted relationships while also creating a choice mechanism where a relationship does not exist.
The Role of Browsers
Finally, the current version of the ePrivacy Regulation suggests a central role for browsers in obtaining and storing consumer consent. While there may be merits to providing clear choices to consumers at the browser level, we are concerned that by making the browsers the sole point of obtaining consent for tracking, there could be an unintended consequence of increasing the leverage of large companies with browsers or platforms in the digital ecosystem, such as Google and Facebook, particularly if their primary business is selling advertising across the web thereby competing with publishers. At the same time, it would not make sense to require publishers to ask consumers for consent to track all of their activity across the internet. Indeed, publishers would likely ask consumers for consent to be tracked by the publisher and their chosen third party partners solely while on the site. As you consider the role that browsers can and should play, it is important that options are preserved and encouraged for narrow consent required for delivery of the context in which value is being delivered to the consumer.
We appreciate your efforts to protect the rights of European citizens. Please let us know if we can be of assistance.
Whether your browsing history should be private by default has become a key question in the past year. Shortly after the election, Congress repealed privacy rules that would have required broadband providers to get consent from consumers before they could share this consumer data with advertisers. Members of Congress noted that it was unfair to apply these rules only to the internet providers but not to other giant digital companies, including Facebook and Google. When Senators and Representatives returned to their home districts, however, they promptly got blasted by some of their constituents for appearing to protect the shady practices of cable companies.
Partly in response to the backlash, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced the BROWSER Act. It’s a bill designed to level the playing field for companies that collect data about consumers at massive scale. And it is inclusive of all companies that are able to collect data across much of the web like ISPs, Google and Facebook. At the same time, the bill guarantees more transparency and choices for consumers. Ignore the shrill extremists in this debate. For good faith actors representing industry or consumer groups, there’s a lot to like about this bill.
In short, the bill would require companies to obtain opt-in consent from consumers before using “sensitive” data. This would include financial, location, and health information as well as browsing history and app usage. Some have argued browsing history and app usage shouldn’t rise to the level of sensitive information. However, common sense suggests otherwise. How would you feel if someone tried to buy and then publish a list of the websites you visit? In short, this bill says where you go in both the real and virtual worlds should remain private until you grant consent. I find it hard to argue with this.
The bill goes a step further in prohibiting companies from altering or denying service for consumers who do not opt-in. This provision is likely to draw the ire of industry lobbyists. But there’s a lot of merit in putting the onus on companies to develop a good “elevator pitch” for consumers. Companies that convince customers of the value to consumers are likely to be rewarded with their business—and trust.
The bill also requires a “clear and conspicuous” privacy policy that is easy to find. This generally codifies what is standard practice for good actors today. It’s unlikely that anyone can make a credible argument against providing transparency for consumers.
Finally, the bill designates enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This is something that the entire cable lobby advocated for just a few months ago. Consumer advocates might want more robust enforcement tools for the FTC, but I question whether the federal rulemaking procedure is agile enough to adapt to changing technologies and business models. FTC guidance and enforcement cases can provide useful direction and clear lines for appropriate behavior.
To be clear, this is just the beginning of a long and uncertain legislative process. But, it’s an important development that Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), a conservative Republican with a decent amount of experience with tech issues, has moved down this path. The fact that a few voices at the edges of the spectrum are opposed means she probably got it exactly right.
A wired and collaborative culture makes it easy to manipulate the media and with it, public opinion. Today’s digital communication landscape offers a ready means for radicalized groups to bias the media spread their beliefs. Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis offer insightful context to media manipulation and disinformation in their powerful new report, Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online.
The report focuses on how internet subcultures use the media ecosystem to Influence the news and spread their ideas. It identifies who is involved, their motivations, and where they function online. This report is s a must-read in today’s fake news media environment.
Getting to know the bad actor(s) is the starting point. Often bad actors are identified as “alt-right” but Marwick and Lewis point out that this definition is limited. The bad actors include a mix of conspiracy theorists, techno-libertarians, white nationalists, men’s rights advocates, trolls, anti-feminists, anti-immigration activists, as well as bored young people.
Trolls
Trolling is a strategic tool used by bad actors. The goal of trolling is to incite responses in its targets, be it specific individuals or a group of like-minded people. This internet behavior involves commenting and sharing content and opinions with the intent to anger or frustrate the targeted in order to provoke a reaction.
Four unique characteristics of trolling include:
Deliberate use of offensive speech
Opposition toward sensationalism in the mainstream media
Generate emotional effect in targets
Maintain ambiguity
Conspiracy theorists often use trolling in their attempt to dominate the information on the internet to increases fears about a loss of control.
Currently, top fears include:
Loss of white majority in the U.S.
Islamophobia
Fear of immigration
Fear of the emasculation
Transphobia and homophobia
Fear of Jewish conspiracy
Memes and Bots
An internet meme is another powerful internet tool for galvanizing people around a core issue. A meme, often an image with a comment, portrays a slice of culture. Again, the goal is often provocation as the meme is shared and circulated online. When a distorted or radicalized meme goes viral, it’s a home-run for the bad actor’s team.
Social bots, software that creates content on social media to interact with people, are also significant manipulators of media. Bots can be used to increase the numbers of followers a government official has; or spread propaganda and false information. Often the believability of fake news is based on the number of comments or likes an article receives, which can be generated by bots. Bots can easily add the appearance of weight to the masquerade of fake news.
Conspiracy Theory
Notable online trolls and their conspiracy theorists act as powerful influencers of media manipulation. They have the power to amplify messaging and move marginal beliefs to major concerns in mainstream media. Marwick and Lewis identify two noted leaders in this realm: Richard Spencer, the white supremacist leader of the National Policy Institute and editor of altright.com and Milo Yiannopolous, the anti-feminist, anti-Islam media personality who was pressured to resign from The Breitbart Report. Social participation is encouraged to propagate radical beliefs in mainstream media. Several dedicated blogs, websites, forums and message boards where collaboration of the fringe is encouraged include:
Alex Jones’s Infowars – conspiracy theorist
Roosh V’s blog Return of Kings – men’s rights movement
The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website
Sub-threads in comment sections and forums of Right Stuff and The Daily Stormer;
Social Media
Mainstream sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, are also used to spread and amplify extreme messaging. Private groups find social media a fertile place to share thoughts on social networks of similar people. Using Twitter hashtags and Facebook’s like and share symbols allow individuals to rally troops of like-minded people.
Marwick’s and Lewis’ report provides insight into the current mistrusted media landscape. It offers a clear-eyed view as to how the far-right and other radicals are successful at spreading their messaging. It’s only after we understand of how fake news is create and amplified that we can begin to disband the culprits.
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