Topping a list of 10 brands that were recognized for highly effective work this year, Netflix isn't what you would call a quintessential marketer. For one, the streaming video service does little in the way of traditional marketing. And what it does do, it doesn't like to discuss. The A-list.
Once a mysterious entity shrouded in secrets, luxury fashion brands have been forced to adapt for the digital age by overhauling their season-based approach to selling, and making goods available immediately via an online click. However, they are now at risk of “devaluing” their brands by bowing to the pressure of younger audiences who are constantly demanding for the new, and instantly. New - now.
This year has seen a series of moves that further consolidate the media landscape. Verizon is close to acquiring Yahoo, the creation of Group Nine Media came out of the merger of 4 distinct digital media companies, and NBC acquired DreamWorks Animation for approximately $3.8B. While acquisitions are nothing new to the industry, averaging 20 per year since 2012, media companies are now planting their flag in emerging tech areas such as VR/AR. The hottest item of the year.
Snapchat ads are getting a bit more targeted. The mobile app has inked a deal with Foursquare to power its location-based geofilters with more data that marketers can use to pinpoint where their ads are served. While Snapchat started offering location data to geofilter advertisers a year ago, brands in theory will now be able to create more targeted and specific parameters for geofilters using Foursquare's data. Fine-tuning with Foursquare.
Those article recommendation boxes at the bottom of publishers’ article pages have a clickbait problem, which is why prestige publishers Slate and The New Yorker recently removed the modules from their sites and others are reconsidering them. In testing, “it makes people angry,” About.com CEO Neil Vogel said of the content in the modules. But how do these links get there in the first place? Survival of the spammy-est.
In a platform world, publishers face tough decisions on where to place their resources. In August, The Economist faced this head on and axed its ailing Pinterest and Tumblr accounts while ramping up its commitment to LinkedIn. The publisher had been experimenting on Pinterest for the past six months. But even with a social media team that had grown from two to 10 people, The Economist couldn’t make it click. Not for the serious.
Premium publishers and broadcasters have been long aware that programmatic sales are an integral part of their ad strategy. Having moved far beyond the basics of exchanges, publishers are now concentrating on how to take advantage of the methods that have come to the fore this year: automated guaranteed and ad reinsertion. Efficient intimacy.
Technology is moving forward at a breakneck pace in today’s world. New tools and innovations are emerging daily. It can be incredibly overwhelming to marketers who are trying to provide the most up-to-date experiences for their audience, but it doesn’t have to be. After looking at the rising trends across the digital landscape, it’s clear there are three major concepts that should be your focus: experiential, storytelling, and wearable tech. Go time, folks.
Advertising has had a long history of being much-maligned. Nobody likes ads, we just put up with them. We recognize that they prey on our insecurities but, by virtue of both their prominence and ubiquity, can’t escape them. Well, one company appears to agree that its public ads do belong to you, and are yours to take and re-use. They're on to something.
Google, which is set to report Q3 earnings this week, now makes more ad dollars from mobile than from the desktop globally, according to eMarketer’s latest estimates of ad revenues at major publishers. But in its home market of the US, that revenue flip is still in the (very near) future. Mobile now reigns.
