This year proves to be quite a competitive year, both domestically and globally, with the Summer Olympics, the US Presidential elections and the UEFA European Football Championships, forecasting ad spend to grow by 5.6% (Borrell Associates).
Consumers are monitoring and tracking much in their life from spending patterns to personal fitness goals. This year more brands will create video content from budget trackers to activity trackers (IDC Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, March 30, 2015).
Completed views of vertical video ads are nine times greater than horizontal video ads views. As a result, this year marketers will use more vertical videos to connect more effectively with mobile consumers (Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends 2015 presentation, Ooyala Q2 Global Video Index, 2015).
Consumer spend on VR hardware and software is estimated to reach $21.8 billion by 2025. More mobile apps and 360-degree content will be this year for consumers to views (Tractica, “Virtual Reality for Consumer Markets”, July 2015).
An Unruly consumer survey reported that eight in 10 consumers mute video ads. Due to this behavior, advertisers are exploring new creative ways to tell their stories without sound (Unruly, Future of Video Advertising Survey n=3,200).
Emojis will continue to rule as important emotional connectors online. Along these lines emotional targeted videos will continue to be delivered to consumers especially for the purposes of sharing.
Media owners and ad tech companies will find new and different content partnerships in order to form strong alliances to remain competitive with Google and Facebook.
Advertisers are eager to re-connect with the ad avoiding consumer. Marketers will create more branded content and work to deliver it in methods that engages consumers. (Unruly Future of Advertising Survey, September 2015).
Close to half (49%) of all mobile users use a messaging app. Marketers will use messaging apps for narrowcast sharing and eMcommerce opportunities (US Mobile Phone Messaging App Users and Penetration, 2014).
The competition for peoples’ attention is getting harder to do and more-costly too. Companies will look to find competencies in agile marketing across all media, earned and paid. (ANA, Growth: Mastering Brands and Driving Results, Oct. That’s 2014).
As consumers look to escape the demands of always being “on” as well as the terror threats in all corners of the world, more and more people will look for those comfort moments and brands can help provide their needed escapism. Definitely expect more postings of cute little kittys (Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, 1970).
Crowdfunded journalism continued its growth trend in 2015, but it remains a small slice of the bigger picture, according to a report released last week by the Pew Research Center.
The report detailed the growth of journalism-specific Kickstarter campaigns since the crowdfunding site launched in April 2009. During that period, the number of funded journalism projects grew from 64 in 2010 to 173 in the first nine months of 2015.
The total revenue generated on Kickstarter also grew rapidly. In 2010, journalism projects received less than $300,000 in funding, but through nine months last year, that number had already surpassed $1.7 million.
Kickstarter campaigns have raised more than $6 million to support journalism since 2009.
Lessons from the Statehouse News Project
One of the news organizations taking advantage of journalism’s crowdfunding boom (albeit using Beacon, not Kickstarter) is InvestigateWest, a Seattle-based nonprofit news site that last year launched a crowdfunding campaign for its Statehouse News Project. (Disclosure: The author of this piece freelances for InvestigateWest.)
The ongoing project, which supports in-depth reporting on environmental legislation in Washington state, blew past its $2,500 goal last year and raised a total of $5,000 from 53 donors. After receiving positive feedback during the 2015 legislative session, InvestigateWest brought the campaign back again this year and has already raised $5,070 (and counting).
This time around, the Statehouse News Project is also backed by a $10,000 award from SVP Fast Pitch Seattle, a business pitch competition in which InvestigateWest won second place in the established nonprofit category in 2015. Jason Alcorn, associate director at InvestigateWest, says last year’s crowdfunded pilot helped strengthen the organization’s ability to chase even bigger money at SVP.
“It allowed us to tell Fast Pitch that we knew the project could work,” Alcorn said. “We’d done it at a small scale, and 80 percent of our donors said they would probably or definitely support the project again. And the qualitative feedback was that it was the best environmental reporting coming out of Olympia that anyone was reading.”
As InvestigateWest’s Statehouse News Project enters its second year, Alcorn shared some insights and tips for effective crowdfunding.
Produce a campaign video – Short promotional videos make it easy for partners, donors and other supporters to spread the word within their social networks, and crowdfunding campaigns featuring a video are more likely to get full funding, according to statistics from Beacon. “We did a video this year,” Alcorn said, “and that has helped with sharing on social media.”
Choose the right project – Crowdfunding for investigative journalism can be difficult when story details must stay confidential and the finish line might be months away or more. Alcorn says InvestigateWest chose to fundraise for the Statehouse News Project because it offers donors a tangible return (regular news stories and analysis from Olympia) and it meets a clear need in Washington’s media landscape. “People can wrap their head around coverage of a particular set of issues during the legislature, because they know those issues aren’t being covered any more,” Alcorn said. “It’s a concrete gap in reporting that people see and understand.”
Consider ancillary benefits – For a mission-driven organization like InvestigateWest, raising money isn’t the only benefit of a crowdfunding campaign. “In our experience, people are more engaged with these stories because they have a direct personal investment in the project,” Alcorn said. “They were among the most-read stories we’ve ever had.”
Crowdfunding campaigns also create an opportunity for one-time contributors to turn into long-term supporters, Alcorn said.
“People are chipping into this who aren’t InvestigateWest donors,” he explained. “Crowdfunding brings new supporters to the organization more than anything else we do in terms of fundraising.”
InvestigateWest’s crowdfunding campaign on Beacon has raised more than $5000 for the Statehouse News Project.
Still a drop in the bucket
Despite the success of campaigns like InvestigateWest’s Statehouse News Project, crowdfunding continues to represent only a small part of what’s funding journalism. For example, the nearly $6.3 million that Kickstarter has raised for all journalism projects since 2009 would barely be enough to support the Texas Tribune’s operating budget for a single year. By comparison, journalism revenue generated through advertising approaches $20 billion annually, according to the Pew report.
The authors argue, however, that the steady growth of crowdfunded journalism is still an important trend.
“The growing activity here is about more than just dollars and cents or prizewinning reporting,” they write. “In today’s evolving digital era, it represents a new, niche segment of nontraditional journalism driven in large part by public interest and motivation.
“It is bringing voice and visibility to efforts that would likely otherwise go unnoticed or unfunded, adding yet another way for the public to engage in creating, funding and disseminating journalism and adding one more option to the arsenal of revenue sources that the industry is desperately seeking to build up.”
Ben DeJarnette is the associate editor at MediaShift. He is also a freelance contributor for Pacific Standard, InvestigateWest, Men’s Journal, Runner’s World, Oregon Quarterly and others. He’s on Twitter @BenDJduck.
This was originally posted on MediaShift, the premier destination for insight and analysis at the intersection of media and technology. Follow MediaShift on Twitter @mediashiftorg, or check them out on Facebook and subscribe to their email newsletters.
Non-human traffic continues to drive digital ad fraud at a significant cost to marketers. While overall fraud levels are unchanged from a year ago, digital advertising spend globally is estimated to grow by 15% increasing the advertiser loss to $7.2 billion in 2016 from $6.3 billion last year, according to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) in their newly released report with White Ops, a cyber security firm.
Additional key findings include:
Higher cost-per-thousand impressions (CPMs) were actually more vulnerable to fraud traffic. In fact, display CPMs over $10 had a 39% higher bot rates than lower display CPMs and video CPMs over $15 had 173% higher bot rates than lower video CPMs.
Programmatic ad buys displayed higher levels of fraud, especially among programmatic video. Programmatic display ads had 14% more bots than the study average, while programmatic video ads had 73% more bots than average. Interestingly, programmatic buys targeting Hispanics were nearly twice as likely to result in bot traffic than programmatic non-Hispanic targeted ads.
Publishers who acquire traffic through third parties (sourced traffic) registered a higher level of sophisticated bots.
The report advices marketers to continue working with The Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) and their recommendations. TAG was established last year by the IAB, the 4As and the ANA as an industry program to help eliminate digital advertising fraud and malware.
In addition, the report made the following recommendations:
Demand inventory transparency from your partners.
Request publishers to identify all third-party sources of traffic.
Consider adding language to insertion orders that notes there will be no payment for fraudulent impressions.
Use a third-party monitoring tomonitor all traffic.
Ensure that your anti-fraud policies are followed by all external partners.
Importantly, advertisers can reduce bot fraud and their costs by using anti-fraud policies and technologies. It’s critical for the industry to still remain focused on fraud reduction.
Industry leading stakeholders have set out to eradicate suspect impressions on a global level throughout the past year, and premium publishers and advertisers have begun to feel the impact of this industry shift to quality. Our Q4 2015 Quarterly Mobile Index (QMI) report, released today, shows that advertisers are directing ad spending towards higher-quality inventory with better targeting capabilities, especially through more transparent mobile private marketplaces (PMPs). As a result, premium publishers are garnering higher prices for their inventory and attracting more mobile ad spending.
This past holiday season, major brand advertisers looked to target mobile consumers with relevant advertising messages through mobile private marketplaces (PMP). This dynamic caused a 45 percent increase in weekly mobile PMP volume from the first week of the quarter through to the week of Black Friday. Looking ahead, the volume spikes in mobile PMP during Black Friday and Cyber Monday suggest similar rises in mobile ad prices and spending around this year’s landmark events, including the 2016 presidential election and major sporting events. Agencies looking to effectively execute on their advertiser clients’ strategic plans around major events should look to PMPs to buy timely, premium inventory, at scale.
The market opportunity in PMPs is significant, as eMarketer estimates that ad spending on PMPs in the U.S. will reach $3.65 billion this year, up from just $80 million in 2013. Globally, MAGNA GLOBAL projects that programmatic spending, which includes open auction, PMP and automated guaranteed, will rise to $37 billion by 2019.
PubMatic’s Q4 2015 Quarterly Mobile Index (QMI) report found five key trends that demonstrate mobile monetization growth:
Advertiser demand shifts towards higher-quality mobile PMP inventory to target mobile-obsessed holiday shoppers. Advertisers increasingly sought higher-quality mobile inventory to target holiday shoppers on mobile devices, as evidenced by mobile private marketplace volume spikes. Weekly mobile PMP monetized impression volume increased 45 percent from the start of the quarter through the week of Black Friday (Nov. 27).
By vertical, retail and technology spending drove PMP growth. Within mobile private marketplaces, the retail and technology verticals showed major volume gains ahead of Black Friday shopping, demonstrating that e-commerce and consumer technology sales likely drove ad spending. The increase in weekly PMP volume in retail and technology over that period was even higher, at 106% and 285%, respectively.
Opportunity for mobile growth remains strong on a global scale. The Americas and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) represented the largest opportunities in terms of volume, but the Asia Pacific (APAC) region was the fastest-growing mobile opportunity.
The Android app ad awakens. Android app ads increased the most in terms of both price and volume, while CPMS increased across all mobile platforms, including IOS app, mobile web and tablet web.
Mobile gap remains closed. Mobile CPMs are still higher than desktop CPMs, and both mobile and desktop CPMs grew a healthy 36% year-over-year.
A new World Bank report says that while the internet, mobile phones and other digital technologies are spreading rapidly throughout the developing world, the anticipated digital dividends of higher growth, more jobs, and better public services have fallen short of expectations, and 60% of the world’s population remains excluded from the ever-expanding digital economy.
According to the new ‘World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends,’ authored by Co-Directors, Deepak Mishra and Uwe Deichmann and team, the benefits of rapid digital expansion have been skewed towards the wealthy, skilled, and influential around the world, who are better positioned to take advantage of the new technologies. In addition, though the number of internet users worldwide has more than tripled since 2005, four billion people still lack access to the internet.
The report explores the impact of the internet, mobile phones, and related technologies on economic development. Part 1 shows that potential gains from digital technologies are high, but often remain unrealized. Part 2 proposes policies to expand connectivity, accelerate complementary reforms in sectors beyond information and communication technology (ICT), and address global coordination problems.
Among the key findings:
Digital technologies promote development and
generate digital dividends.
By reducing information costs, digital technologies greatly
lower the cost of economic and social transactions for
firms, individuals, and the public sector.
Connectivity is vital, but not enough to realize the full development benefits as regulations, skills, and institutions also play essential roles.
Connectivity for all remains an important goal and a tremendous challenge. But countries also need to create favorable conditions for technology to be effective.
Market competition, public-private partnerships, and effective regulation of internet and mobile operators encourage private investment that can make access universal and affordable.
Digital development strategies need to be broader than information and communication technology strategies.
Consumers are willing to trade some amount of privacy for a returned benefit reports a new Pew Research Center study. Americans see privacy tradeoffs as conditional and very context related. The type of company collecting the data, as well as how trustworthy it is plays an important role. Though, consumers still report concerns with potential consequences such as data breaches that could have damaging effects. Consumers are not pleased when data is collected for one purpose and is used for another and they are often suspicion about the data collectors.
Pew provided the research participants with six scenarios that involved sharing some level of their personal data in exchange for using a product or service. The participants, adults 18-plus, were then asked whether what they were offered in return was “acceptable”, “not acceptable”, or “it depends”.
#1 Surveillance in the workplace Office surveillance cameras with facial recognition are placed in the workplace. Surveillance footage can also track measures of employee attendance and performance. Retention of footage is not specified.
One-half of the consumers (54%) surveyed reported that the installation of surveillance cameras at work and the retention of the data is acceptable, while one fifth (21%) said the tradeoff depended on the circumstances.
#2 Health information website A new health information website used by doctors to manage patient health records. Doctors can upload files for patient access. The website is promised to be a secure site.
Fifty-two percent of consumers reported this was acceptable while 26% said it depended on the details.
#3 Loyalty card
A free loyalty card offered to customers to save money on purchases in exchange for the tracking of personal shopping habits. This data can be sold to third parties.
Less than one-half (47%) of adults said this is acceptable and 20% reported it depended on the details of the offer. Interestingly 39% of consumers 50-plus said they would not accept this offer compared to 27% of adults 18-49.
#4 Insurance offering
An insurance company offered a discount to consumers that agreed to place a device in their car that monitors driving speed and location. The data can be analyzed for driving habits which may offer additional rewards for safe driving.
Just over one-third of consumers (37%) found this acceptable and 16% said the decision depended on the circumstances. Importantly, 45% of consumers reported the tradeoff was not acceptable.
#5 Social media site A new social media platform manages communications for class reunions. Targeted advertising is served to consumers in exchange for free access.
Fifty-one percent of consumers did not find this plan acceptable compared to one-third who said it was acceptable.
#6 Smart thermostat An inexpensive thermostat sensor learns the temperature zone and movements in a consumer’s household and can possibly save money on energy bills. It’s programmable remote is given in exchange for sharing household data of the basic activities that take place in the home.
More than half (55%) of consumers found this offer not acceptable while 37% claimed it was acceptable.
What does this all mean for the future of consumer privacy? Many consumers see data tracking unstoppable. And while most consumers understand the need for government surveillance with the threat of terrorism, there still is the opinion that there should be limits on what activities can be monitored and how long the data can be retained.
The International News Media Association (INMA) newly released report focuses on revenue diversification beyond the scope of print and digital media. This report presents 14 case studies of global publishers in ten countries where new value is being found from to highlight ground-breaking success stories for revenue diversification.
The report identifies five key strategies port to promote diversification: (1) opening new markets, (2) reaching new audiences, (3) creating new partnerships, (4) making smart acquisitions, and (5) seeking steady income.
In additional to revenue diversification, acquiring the right talent is also critical for innovation to develop new competencies and explore new revenue streams.
New revenue streams highlighted in the case studies include:
El Colombiano, Colombia:Collaborative digital advertising sales company.
The Dallas Morning News, USA:Content marketing, marketing automation, branded merchandise, SEO, event marketing.
W. Scripps Company, USA:Podcasting.
Grupo Nación, Costa Rica:Digital printing.
Independent Media, South Africa:Events for public institutions.
KM Media Group, UK:Creative services for local businesses.
Kompas, Indonesia:Collaborating to build smarter cities.
com, USA:Incubator.
Rheinische Post Mediengruppe, Germany:Mail delivery.
Rodale/Hearst UK:Vitamin co-branding.
Singapore Press Holdings, Singapore:Retail properties and events.
Toronto Star, Canada:Sample packs for Millennials.
Vecerniji list, Croatia:Exercise classes.
The Washington Post, USA:Technology vendor.
Notably, media companies are looking at new ideas and strategies to connect to their core business and services in collaborative ventures and licensing deals with other partners.
As The Tow Center for Journalism’s newly released Guide to Automated Journalism points out, the use of algorithms to automatically generate news from structured data is increasingly impacting the journalistic industry. These algorithms can quickly and inexpensively create high volumes of news stories for a given topic. According to Tow, this has fueled journalists’ fears that automated content production will eventually eliminate newsroom jobs, while at the same time scholars and practitioners see the technology’s potential to improve news quality.
Tow’s guide summarizes recent research on the topic to provide overview of the current state of automated journalism, discusses key questions and potential implications of its adoption, and suggest avenues for future research.
Among the key findings…
For news consumers
People rate automated news as more credible than human-written news but do not particularly enjoy reading automated content.
Automated news is currently most suited for topics where providing facts in a quick and efficient way is more important than sophisticated narration, or where news did not exist previously and consumers thus have low expectations regarding the quality of the writing.
Little is known about news consumers’ demand for algorithmic transparency, such as whether they need (or want) to understand how algorithms work.
For news organizations
Since algorithms cannot be held accountable for errors, liability for automated content will rest with a natural person (e.g., the journalist or the publisher).
Algorithmic transparency and accountability will become critical when errors occur, in particular when covering controversial topics and/or personalizing news.
Apart from basic guidelines that news organizations should follow when automatically generating news, little is known about which information should be made transparent regarding how the algorithms work.
Consumers cannot distinguish online native advertising from online editorial content according to a research study conducted by assistant professors Bartosz W. Wojdynski and Nathaniel J. Evans from the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Their research included two separate studies to assess consumers’ recognition of paid advertising content.
Sponsored content is often designed to look as if it is a part of the editorial content. Noting this, publishers identify native ads and disclose it as promotional content. Business Insider Intelligence forecasts spending on online native advertisements will grow to $21 billion by 2018 from $7.9 billion in 2015. The growth of native advertising online has brought forward questions regarding the consumers’ ability to recognize them as advertisement.
The professors first study invited subjects to read online content featuring two stories: one that was editorial content and one that was a native ad. The study assessed the impact of the disclosure label and whether consumers could identify sponsored articles as advertising content. The second study included eye-tracking to help determine the best position for visual attention to disclosure labels. In the first study 7% of readers identified the content as advertising, and in the second eye-tracking study, 17% identified the articles as advertising. Further, the second study also found that readers were seven times more likely to identify as advertising those articles that used “advertising” or “sponsored content” in the disclosure label versus those that used terms like “brand voice” or “presented by.”
The practice of online native advertising is still evolving as advertisers work creatively to reach consumers. Importantly, as native advertising becomes more prevalent it’s essential to identify best practice by monitor the impact of designs of the disclosure labels on consumers’ recognition.
Media and entertainment business and technology executives are worried about the security of the cloud. And while massive distributed denial of service (DDOS) are happening with regularity, most media execs are not familiar with the details of DDOS, nor are they confident that their site could withstand such an attack, according to a recent survey of 261 media and entertainment executives by Broadcasting & Cable and VideoEdge Magazines. According to their report, Secure My Site –Media Security Concerns, Beliefs and Attitudes, perceived and real threats make security a major issue for media companies in the U.S. today. In fact, over half of the media and entertainment executives surveyed said that they have lost sleep over the potential threats to security posed by cyber-attacks, with 13% saying they often endure sleepless nights.
Nearly 80% of media executives said that Web security is “very important” or “extremely important” to their organizations, and virtually all of them plan to spend the same amount or more on security solutions in the coming year.
Traditional TV companies (broadcasters, pay TV companies, and programming service providers) are even more focused on security, with 89% of executives from these companies saying security is at least “very important” to their business.
Though media executives are reluctant to admit security problems, 28% of survey participants said their organizations have experienced a cyber-attack or data breach. Almost all of those reported that one or more corporate Web sites were forced offline because of the incident.
The most common problem appears to be Web site defacement, as 75% of cyber-attack victims said that hackers changed the appearance of their site, which can be detrimental to the brand.
A quarter of the media executives surveyed said that their corporate data were breached as a result of the cyber-attack they suffered, though 38% say they suffered a loss of corporate intellectual property.
The 2015 DCN Consumer Ad Block Report explores the increasing threat posed by ad blocking software. The Report examines consumer attitudes toward ad blocking software, finding that 33% of U.S. consumers are very likely or somewhat likely to try ad blocking software in the next three months. Available to DCN members only, the report offers additional insights into awareness and usage of ad blocking software, attitudes towards perceived performance impact on browsing experience, and how perceptions differ between premium content and social media sites.
According to DCN Research Director Rande Price, survey responses often over-estimate actual behavior, therefore a “discounting” formula was applied to attempt to estimate intended install rates. “We estimate about half of the ‘very likely’ responders and one quarter of the ‘somewhat likely’ responders – a net take rate of 9% – will opt out of advertising in the next three months,” said Price.
Additional findings from the report:
Experience: More than 70% dislike ads that expand over content or play with sound.
Tracking: 68% are concerned when ads track their behavior.
Performance: 57% note their web pages load too slowly with ads.
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