Key Approach in Digital Brand Marketing Strategy for the Gaming Industry

 

Traditional stereotypes of gamers used to be nerdy boys who were anti-social but these days, gamers are everyone from women to professional athletes and famous musicians such as Drake.

The gaming world rapidly evolving with AI and AR technologies and that has spurred tremendous growth in the mobile marketing space. Rightly so, the gaming industry is projected to be worth upwards of $200 billion in 2021. According to Nielsen, 64% of Americans aged 13+ play video games on a device therefore target marketing withing the gaming industry seems like a no-brainer.

So how are marketers taking advantage of this growing gaming marketplace to push brand awareness and capture market share? Well the key lies in gaming influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing has already been a strategy that major brands have been utilizing for years, and with gaming, it is the same approach where partnering up with a personality such as Ninja, brands like Adidas, can trigger a massive acceleration of product adoption and brand awareness.

However, the true secret to this strategy is inclusivity. Fortnite was a global breakout hit because not only is it available on all platforms. They took the age-old formula of the traditional combat games filled with stereotypical testosterone-filled action heroes and instead choose to create diverse, relatable characters. Women are also in love with games and because of these changes led by Fortnite in their games and having with plenty of strong female gaming influencers to be inspired by.

Marketers are traditionally trained to go niche, but marketing in the gaming industry involves everyone. By crafting a more inclusive, welcoming brand identity, businesses will be able to attract more attention and foster greater trust and loyalty with their customers. Also, who better to help businesses do exactly that than gaming influencers? If brands can partner with the right influencer, businesses can likely capture some bonus points when it comes to market share!

 

What will 2021 look like with Influencer Marketing?

Based on marketing industry data, influencer marketing is on track to become a $15 billion dollar industry by 2022 and it shows no sign of slowing down.  Most brands who have continued to double down on their social media marketing strategies intend to increase their marketing budgets for influencer marketing in 2021.

Some influencer marketing trends that are suspected to be drivers of social media marketing strategy  are the following:

• Video Content Will Remain King
• A Focus on Diversity and Inclusion
• The “No-Edit Edit” Will Evolve
• Value Driven Content
• More Ongoing Partnerships
• A Focus on Micro and Nano Influencers
• New Social Platforms and Creator Tools
• New Forms of Influencer Media

With social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok continuing to focus on delivering content through video and continued popularity among these active users, it is no surprise that video content will remain king. Furthermore, we have seen how social activism through various moments in 2020 have shown a spotlight on the need for diversity and inclusion of LGBTQ. As more brands are put under the microscope by their customers, their choice in who they partner with for their influencer marketing campaigns will be central to their strategy.

I believe the most important trends will be how influencers will approach content creation and drive deeper connections and value for the brands they support. For influence and brands to establish a deeper connection with their audience, their content will have to feel more “real” and “relatable” to their followers. This of course is how relationships, trust and loyalty can be established between users and influencers, and as a result, more influencers will have to provide their audiences with a little more glimpse into their authentic lives. However, striking a balance where authenticity and brand messaging is delivered without alienating followers will be challenging feat so it will be interesting to see what new forms of influencer media is developed to tackling this issue.

As we know whether the demand for products and services comes from followers, brands, or new technological developments, the best influencers have mastered the art of evolving to new trends. I have no doubt we can expect to see exciting new content and influencer marketing approaches across all of the social media platforms in 2021!

The Fat Jew - The King of Millennial Digital Media Marketing

 

For anyone who doesn’t know who “The Fat Jew” is, his name is Josh Ostrovsky, and in 2011, he set up an Instagram account under the username, @TheFatJewish. Within months, he had attracted thousands of followers through his offbeat content. He eventually went viral in 2013 after he posted a video parodying SoulCycle, in which he led a spin class for homeless people on Citi Bikes parked on the street. He now boosts 10.6M Instagram followers, 246K Twitter followers, and 976K Facebook likes and these staggering numbers continue to grow daily. 

Through his personal blend of meme generation, crass commentary, and cultural spirit he has captured the attention of not just his massive millennial audience, but that of Bloomberg, The New York Times, Katie Couric, amongst a laundry list of brands vying for an authentic voice that reaches an under-40 crowd. What he has managed to capture in his unique brand is by harnessing the power of social media and carefully crafted content is an inherent level of trust with his followers and deep engagement. This has led to brands, of the likes of Burger King, Virgin Mobile, Apple, Budweiser, Weight Watchers and Stella Artois and Seamless, to let him do what he does best by creating content that promotes these brands desperately trying to target the millennial audience. Time magazine named Ostrovsky to its 2015 list of The 30 Most Influential People on the Internet.

Parlaying his uncanny ability to build a following, in 2015 Ostrovsky decided to diversify from internet celebrity to entrepreneur. He along with his partners, launched a California-based wine company with White Girl Rose, a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and White Zinfandel which was followed by a canned sparkling wine called BABE. He crushed it.

I believe “The Fat Jew” brand that Ostrovsky has created is an amazing example of how an individual or even small business can find incredible success through successful social media and content media strategies. He has over time evolved from internet personality to entrepreneur, to film, television, commercials, modeling and fashion to publishing his own book in 2015 titled, Money, Pizza, Respect. I will admit that I have his book and he has not wavered in his unique brand messaging over the years. I think his ability to create content that aligns with his brand truly allows him to connect with his target audience in ways that some brands often can only dream of doing successfully. 

Online Retail is the Way of the Future - Analyzing 2020 Black Friday & Cyber Monday

With so many Americans stuck at home since March, people have become entrenched in online shopping, however for more retail stores who have traditionally relied on brick and mortar stores, they have had to quickly establish an online presence to take advantage of the biggest shopping days of the year. This meant, marketing and customer brand awareness and engagement efforts had to be robust.

Well for those retailers that had successfully established an online retail presence, Cyber Monday was projected to be the largest online shopping day in U.S. history and it delivered just that - a 15.1% increase over last year with $10.8 billion in review for that day. These results are impressive despite early discounts from retailers to jumpstart the holiday shopping season. 

On the other hand, in-store analytics provided by RetailNext reported brick and mortar stores were down 42.3% for the weekend (Friday through Sunday), with conversion (% of shoppers that make a purchase) and average transaction value up 3.8% and 4.9%, respectively. As a result, sales in brick and mortar stores were only down 23.9% because they were advantaged by the increases in conversion and average transaction value. Although, COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions are still in place across the country in varying degrees, foot traffic overall for both non-mall stores and mall stores only down 41% vs 44% year-on-year, respectively. What is interesting about the small 3% delta between 2019 vs 2020 is that shopper traffic was largely down by 49% in 2020 vs 2019 during Black Friday shopping, vs only down 23% during Cyber Monday (seen as a positive trend). What that interesting data allows us to conclude is that more shoppers took advantage of online purchasing and utilized curb-side pick-ups or avoided shopping days that were overly busy or congested. 

If this trend is any indication of how the rest of the holiday season is going to transpire, it will mean online sales will continue to be the primary driver of retail business, especially when thinking about keeping businesses alive through this pandemic and successfully growing market share into the future. 

For reference, below are the numbers for Cyber Monday and Black Friday Weekend

• Cyber Monday online sales: $10.8 billion (+15.1% from 2019)
• Season-to-date online spending: $106.5 billion (+27.7% from 2019)
• Projected online sales for Giving Tuesday (12/1): $4.1 billion
• Percentage of total Cyber Monday sales during 7-11pm PST: 25%
• Percentage of total Cyber Monday sales from mobiles devices: 37%
• Small retailers vs large retailers sales on Cyber Monday compared to Oct daily average: 501% vs 486%, respectively

The debate of net neutrality is back

The debate of net neutrality never gets old. Actually it is time to raise that topic again now that Joe Biden will take office in January. Trump threw out Obama-era’s neutrality rules and now Democrats are getting ready to take back Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reinstate those rules. 

 

So what is net neutrality? Without net neutrality, broadband companies become the gatekeepers of internet. They could block people’s access to certain websites or apps or slow down the internet, and then charge consumers additional fees to speed up the internet. More subtlety, they could also prioritize people getting access faster to their own content and slow down the internet for competitors’ content. For example, if you were using AT&T network, you might find that watching HBO Max is smooth and HD and watching Peacocktv is slow, because AT&T owns Time Warner, who owns HBO, and Peacocktv is owned by NBC Universal, which is owned by AT&T’s competitor Comcast.

 

With the new administration, FCC will reinstate net neutrality protections and take some power off broadband companies’ hands. It will likely be met with lawsuits, but federal courts have always been on FCC’s side. However, we will have to wait for the Senate elections to be over and see if the Democrats will take over the Senate. Otherwise, this fight will go on and on.

Why sport and gaming are a powerful combination for consumers?

November 2020

Marketingweek.com

 

There has been a rise in the consumption of both sports and video games videos online through platforms like YouTube. Marketers have noticed this behavioral trend and sees valuable marketing opportunities. Games such as FIFA, Madden NFL, and Pro Evolution Soccer have a global popularity selling over 100 million copies through their lifetime. And most recently, gaming has become a spectator sport with eSports being established. This market is valued at over $950 million in 2020 and projected to grow to $1.6 billion by 2023. 

This creates the opportunity for brands to market towards engaged consumers consuming sports and video game content on YouTube. With sports, people like to watch the highlights, live streams, behind the scenes content with their favorite athlete. With gaming, people like to watch YouTube creators play, discuss, and review video games.

Brands understand that there is a great opportunity to market towards sports and gaming enthusiasts on YouTube. Between June 2019 and June 2020, time spent by consumers watching rugby increased by 100%, golf by 120%, and cycling by 70% in the UK.

Sky Sports marketing director Robbie Balfour says that YouTube allows them to broadcast their online content to create a story through advertising and retargeting for future conversions. The brand times its YouTube campaigns to the start of an important sports event such as a new football season or Formula One to initiate their action to become a customer of their TV sports channel and live streaming online.

Watching gaming content is gaining broad popularity with Goldman Sachs forecasting eSports will reach the same number of viewing audience 300 million as the NFL by 2022. In 2019, there has been more than 35 million channels that uploaded a gaming video on YouTube. And 55,000 new channels that uploaded at least one gaming video saw subscribers exceed 100,000 during the same time. Gaming content is driving this growth in channels and brands. Consumers not only want to consume content but also follow commentary and reviews of professional gamers. This is great news for marketers who now have access to an engaged audience that is looking for a total experience.

Gifting in the Age of Coronavirus

 Given it seems that Coronavirus is here to stay at least until the first half of next year, it looks like we are in for a socially distance holiday season.  As part of the new norm to minimize contact, the landscape of gift giving has also evolved.  On one had people will be looking for gifts that can be shared remotely, for instance the classic online gift card.  In fact, gift card sales are already booming with growth of over 100% versus same sales this quarter last year according to Digital Commerce.  Additionally there is some thought that not only will e-gift cards boom in sales, but also contactless or even mobile gift cards to minimize the amount of required contact if used in store.

While on one had many people are gifting in a way to minimize contact, the months of social distancing is increasing many people's desire for closeness and connection.  The forced isolation has been very stressful for people, especially individuals living on their own and this feeling will likely only be exacerbated during the holiday season.  With that in mind, there are many suggestions for gifts to help overcome that feeling of loneliness and sadness while still respecting social distancing:

Some fun ideas from Business Insider

Some advice on sending from Fortune

Some personalized gift ideas from Shutterfly

Some Coronavirus care packages from Brilliantgifts

Some ideas for employees working from home from Reading Eagle

Some gift ideas for essential workers from USA Today

Some pick-me-up gift ideas from Newsweek

This should give you a great starting point for planning your holiday gift lists this year!  Wishing everyone a happy and safe holiday season.

By Friends, for Friends: The Holiday Gift Guide!

The holidays are quickly approaching and I have a handful of amazingly talented friends who's companies have some serious gifting potential. Not to mention, you would be supporting female-founded, female-led, small businesses - what's not to love!

JIGGY PUZZLES

Puzzles worth framing

From the Founder: 5 years ago, I was working around the clock at an early startup and fell in love with jigsaw puzzles as my nightly meditation. I was doing one every week and the stress relief was great, but the designs were outdated and well, lame. I started dreaming up a puzzle that would be beautiful for both the doing and the decorating, that would look good before, during and after completion. I knew I wanted to support and highlight the work of amazing female artists and after a year of curating the art and reimagining and designing the packaging, JIGGY was born. I hope JIGGY inspires you to unplug and experience art in a whole new way, in pieces. -Kaylin Marcotte

Gift Suggestions: Anything from the new holiday collection!

Price Range: $40++

www.jiggypuzzles.com | @jiggypuzzles

Crown Affair

Ritual-focused Hair Care

From The Founder: When I started Crown Affair, I wanted to create high quality haircare rooted in ritual. For me, haircare is a daily practice, a part of being well and caring for myself. But after years of conversations, I realized it was much more frustrating than relaxing for so many people in my life. So I decided to create a new kind of haircare brand—one with clean ingredients, effective formulations, and beautiful handmade tools you’ll look forward to using every day. Crown Affair is a love letter to those who seek to change their relationship with their hair, appreciate its natural beauty, and, most importantly, take care. -Dianna Cohen

Gift Suggestions: The Comb 001, The Towel, The Scrunchie (life changing)

Price Range: $15++

www.crownaffair.com | @crownaffair

Mowellens

CBD-based wellness and skincare

From the Founder: I began to see life differently in 2012 when my husband was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer. The zeal and vigor to shine in the midst of impediments, the ability to find peace in the unknown, the intuition to live with endless purpose, became my life mission. Mowellens was founded on the principles of unparalleled quality, efficacy, and purpose. Infusing these principles into our ethos requires a commitment and dedication to cultivating hemp for a better planet, supreme sourcing standards for interconnectedness, innovation in a burgeoning industry, and formulations for regeneration, repair, and perspective. We are passionate about creating skin and health rituals to give you confidence and trust, believing in the purpose behind the product. I believe feeling better and becoming a better version of you can be achieved with ease. And I hope Mowellens helps you find ease in the effort it takes to get there. - Amy Duncan

Gift Suggestions: Inner Peace, Radiant Scrub, One For All

Price Range: $50++

www.mowellens.com | @mowellens

Beekeeper's Naturals

Clean Remedies to keep you healthy and happy this winter

From the Founder: Your medicine cabinet should be filled with remedies that you can rely on. I want you to have access to solutions that are clean, potent, affordable, and a friend to the environment—that are absolutely free of the additives, refined sugars, and side effects that slow us down. Beekeeper's Naturals' mission is to break down the system, to restore your trust in your remedies, and to redefine what goes into the medicine cabinet. After all, healthy should be your natural state of being. When your body is supported and you feel your best, there's nothing to stop you from living life to the fullest, reaching new heights, and changing the world. - Carly Stein

Gift Suggestions: Hive Pharmacy Travel Kit, Honey Flight, Immune Support Essentials

Price Range: $15++

www.beekeepersnaturals.com | @beekeepers_naturals

The Rise of "Community" In Venture Capital

Platform or "Community" is a relatively new function that serves to improve a VC firm’s offering to portfolio companies. Over the last 15 years Union Square Ventures (est. 2003), First Round Capital (2004) and Andreessen Horowitz (2009) – have differentiated themselves by providing more systematic, tangible value-add through (i) network-harnessing platforms, and (ii) significant portfolio support staff, which both theoretically add value post-close and make their VC firms more attractive to founders. In short, VC firms now believe that in today’s crowded venture capital landscape, it’s the value-add that really makes the difference in winning deals.

The platform role is not uniform across funds. Rather, a Director of Platform will have a different focus depending on the philosophy, priorities, and size of their fund and the needs of their portfolio. Some are strong on content, some on talent. Some rule the event space, and some focus solely on community building. Some wear lots of hats and are spread across a half dozen different areas, acting as a swiss army knife for fund operations and portfolio company network management.

More so, Director’s of Platform / Community greatly struggled with KPIS and measurement of their effectiveness. 

To get a clear answer I contacted the VC Platform Community - a membership community of about 200 Heads of Platforms in Venture. As it turns out, they did not have distinct answers to my questions on the role and metrics for performance. As such, I compiled my research from my calls, meetings and readings and this is what I surmised of the role:

Responsibilities: 

• Focuses: events, marketing, and new initiatives

• inclusive of operations, business development, community, content and communications, event planning, talent support. 

• Manifested in the following ways:

• Business Development (by making strategic connections to customers, partners, and acquirers)

• Talent (we’ve strategically sourced hundreds of people for our portfolio companies, dozens of which have been hired)

• Communications (assisting with strategic messaging and PR)

• Events (like a CEO Summit; quarterly workshops for all CTOs, product, marketing, people ops, and ops teams; curated events with Fortune 500s, and one-off portfolio-wide events like a celebration of International Women’s Day)

• Portfolio Company Community (a network to share talent, best practices, and resources – with a curated resource database, along with a hundreds-strong Slack team open to any employee at any company)

Size Matters:

• Director of Platform is a role that’s constantly evolving based on size, stage and maturity of the companies across our two funds. A CEO of a 200-person company that’s raised $50M, for instance, will need help with different initiatives than a CEO of a 10-person company that’s raised $1M. At 64 companies strong, there’s enough critical mass among our portfolio company marketers, technical teams, people ops professionals, product managers, and others to easily find an answer to a question, or to be pointed in the right direction.

KPIS are Confusing:

• “Platform” can be boiled down to this: how do we connect the companies we invest in to our network, or to a network we can access? We keep two end goals in mind: help our companies be successful, and enhance deal flow. Like venture itself, it’s a long-term play with a lot of little wins along the way.

• Dan Kozikowski @ FirstMark Capital has found that “qualitative feedback and measuring what you can control, are the best ways to buy social capital with the team and LPs, too.” The consensus shared was that measuring activities such as introductions made to talent and/or corporates, portfolio coverage / attendance at events, the number of successful introductions made to follow-on investors and deals closed off the back of a meeting with the platform team are good data points to work with.

In Conclusion:

• The logic of the VC platform model in the context of the overall firm functions as follows: 1) The firm makes investments in post-investment resources or support staff (in red below); 2) these investments then lead to a 2-sided positive feedback loop, in which these resources may lead companies to perform better (IMPACT 2) and also generate better deal flow as a result of the firm’s enhanced brand reputation for supporting founders (IMPACT 1). These feedback loops directly and indirectly improve fund performance, and so the positive feedback loop goes on

The challenge of the New York Strand Bookstore in E-Commerce era

The growth and acceptance of buying physical items online has give the offline shopping a great pressure and challenge, especially during the recent pandemic period.

As we all know, it becomes very popular to buy cloths online. But It was very rare if you heard someone bought vegetable and meat online before. However, nowadays such type of shopping also becomes very popular.

The offline business becomes more and more challenges due to the drastic growth of E-commerce platform.

One of the areas that was hurt badly is probably the bookstore business.

Recently, The Strand Bookstore, a landmark of literary New York, is in serious trouble, appealing for customers to help it stave off closure amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Founded in 1927, the Strand Bookstore has survived for 93 years over the Great Depression, two world wars, big box bookstores, ebooks and online behemoths. The Strand Bookstore are the last of the 48 bookstores still standing from 4th Avenue’s famous Book Row but now is struggling of business continuations.

Well, given the invention of the vaccine, the coronavirus may be well controlled soon, but does it mean that the offline business such as Strand Bookstore would turn around to continues its prosperity of the old days? What is the future of the online store given the rapid growth of E-commerce? Is it possible that the offline shopping would eventually be disappeared?

 

 

 

 

Snapchat and AR based Advertising

Snapchat recently announced additional features to its Snap Camera. For example, you can now scan plants, dogs and different products with the Snap camera function to identify plants, dog breeds or get additional product information.

Snapcodes have been around for a couple of years but the new features allow users to get more information on certain products such as nutrition or customer reviews if you scan wines for example.

Snapchat also has partnered with McDonalds and Coca Cola that gives users promotions by scanning the logo.

 

Snapchat also has a partnership with Amazon that allows users to scan an image or snap a photo of a product that can be purchased through Amazon.

These new features are another step towards the next stage of AR and the integration of emerging marketing trends into social media platforms. It would be interesting to see if the scanning tool will be combined with a payment feature in the future that allows shoppers to check out a product in store through the Snap app directly.  This would be a very powerful tool allowing Snap to tailor ads to users based on their shopping interest and shop location.

A nudge to be nicer

 This week, YouTube rolled out a new feature that aims to combat hurtful and inappropriate comments on users’ video channels. This change follows a year during which the social media giant has been heavily criticized for failing to reign in hate speech and misinformation on its platform. 

Based on what content gets repeatedly flagged by users, YoutTube’s AI-powered systems will learn what’s considered offensive. This feature will improve over time, as the technology gets better at detection and the system itself is further developed.

When the system detects that a user is about to post something offensive, it will send out a warning to “Keep comments respectful” and prompt users to check the site’s Community Guidelines if they’re not sure if a comment is appropriate. The user then has the option to edit the comment or “post anyway.”

These intentional pauses are designed to stop users from reacting impulsively, and instead nudge them to be more thoughtful in what they write in commenting sections. In the past, platforms have been hesitant to implement such measures as they can reduce user engagement. However, social media companies have been under pressure to combat hate speech and make their platforms a more respectful environment. 

Reddit shares a glimpse behind the curtain, revealing a super-powered base

 Reddit recently, for the first time ever, revealed its daily user count and growth vs. YAG. They shared the info with good reason, too: 52MM daily users (a 44% increase vs. YAG), is quite the flex. While not even going close to toe-to-toe with Facebook's goliath numbers, their public share is revealing. Reddit is making the mainstream push.

Is this an effort to woo advertisers? Certainly if I were considering a Reddit campaign I would want to know the available reach. Others have dabbled in advertising and found Reddit's userbase to require extra consideration. Reddit has done well for itself so far, not disclosing profitability but showing strong revenues. I expect that this transparency is part of a push to encourage additional ad spending, helping break even if they have not done so, already.

Does this mean Reddit is growing responsibly, or are they flailing in the deep end looking for a lifeline? One blogger suggests that advertising on Reddit is challenging, and the base does not engage with adverts much at all. Organic posts on Reddit seem to fare better, likely because users don't immediately realize they are being advertised to.

Maybe while Reddit is a good way to engage with fans of your brand or increase awareness through a well-designed engagement strategy, inorganic advertising has some kinks to be worked out.

 Spotify Wrapped: 2020 Edition

This year's Spotify Wrapped was released on December 1. As every year, it provided a highly personalized summary of each user's listening history and behavioral patterns on the app, packaged in the form of stories 

The personalized experience, available on the apps, was different this year in that is included fun quizzes that put listeners to the test, asking questions about their top podcasts, artists and decades of music.

Titled as "One song helped you get through it all" (referring to the disastrous 2020), the streaming service also summarized the "Story of Your 2020 with your Top Song" by showcasing the dates the users streamed their songs for the first time, up to the days with the most streams.

As per usual, Spotify also curated personalized "Your Top Songs 2020" playlists with the users' top 100 songs of the year; as a bonus surprise, Spotify also created a "Missed Hits" discovery playlist with another 100 songs that the users might have missed this year but can continue to listen to.

Every year, Spotify delivers highly relevant data insights packaged as fun facts customized to each user individually, representing it in a fun and playful way. Interestingly enough, while one would expect there to be privacy concerns about Spotify's extensive use of data from user behavior patterns on the platform, the truth is, the streaming service provides significant value to its users, making the exchange between their data and data use less concerning and more enjoyable.

Spotify also experimented with a new format this year -- stories -- that they are planning on releasing in the future. This is yet another company introducing the stories format, followed by Twitter and LinkedIn.

Can AI-powered ads be more creative?

 In an era when artificial intelligence can play chess to defeat international masters, artificial intelligence's "creative" work, especially advertising creativity, has always been considered potentially a disruptor for the digital advertising world. 

AI has been utilized in advertising for quite some time. The combination of artificial intelligence and digital advertising has long been around. In terms of precision advertising, artificial intelligence provides powerful technical support for accurate reach of advertising users. Recently, the continuous development of artificial intelligence has provided a greater development space for mobile advertising-creative design and customization of advertising.

For example, Google's BERT technology can process one word in the context of all other terms in a sentence, rather than one after another. BERT also enables anyone to train their latest question answering system. The customization of search results and result pages based on the learning of the user's past interactions and preferences is another application of machine learning used in search.  Many advertising technology companies have been committed to using AI and machine learning to find suitable audiences to write better ads than humans and to increase conversion rates and interactions with target audiences. There are also some AI-led developments in creating dynamic advertisements and landing pages to personalize marketing messages in real-time. AI has certain applications in content creation. It can use technologies such as natural language generation (NLG) to determine the logic of individualization and manage individual-specific content. According to the goals set by advertisers, Google uses various contextual signals (through search data) to predict user behavior and influence bidding. Facebook also incorporated machine learning into the planning and execution of campaigns, as well as ad placement and ad placement. Similarly, in terms of natural search, the machine learning-based product ALPS reverse-engineered Google's ranking algorithm, and can accurately quantify ranking drivers, provide accurate suggestions for changes, and predict the effects of SEO measures before they are implemented.

Artificial intelligence brings more possibilities for advertising innovation. And novel advertising forms can increase the interest of advertising, attract users, and bring higher conversions. Advertising forms have been continuously innovated since their development, including rich advertising forms such as incentive videos, native information stream videos, and native advertisements. The personalized presentation of mobile advertising can optimize advertising effects. At present, many mobile third-parties use specialized mobile advertising creative design teams to design more creative advertisements using artificial intelligence technology. For example, Mobvista has established a creative laboratory dedicated to digital advertising. It designs and develops new advertising ideas for various advertising formats, including Playable, Interactive Endcard, AR/VR, panoramic, etc., and then combines cutting-edge algorithm frameworks for interactive materials Automated generation and production. Through the innovative system of advertising combined with AI technology, it can bring the ultimate interactive experience to users, and achieve a win-win situation for advertisers, delivery platforms, and traffic.

At the same time, artificial intelligence is also a hotbed of customized and personalized advertising. Big data is the foundation of artificial intelligence. Based on user portraits generated by big data, artificial intelligence can help advertisers identify consumers or potential consumers, quickly analyze and decide what users need, and design more personalized advertisements. And how to deliver and display with the material creation that can most touch the user's mind, which includes multi-dimensional and multi-level optimization work: the generation of personalized advertising templates, the dynamic filling of personalized materials, and the optimal combination of presentation. In the future, with the assistance of artificial intelligence, companies no longer need to rely on lifeless surface data to "guess" the response of the consumer market and can customize unique advertising experiences according to consumers' preferences and needs.

AI certainly brings better technical capabilities to digital advertising. Only when technology is used as a tool to serve creativity can the best publicity effect be achieved.

The rise of retail media networks calls for standardization

 

Amazon is challenging Facebook and Googles dominance in the advertising space, primarily becuase of its consumer spending data.  Retailers are all seeking to capitalize on their understanding of their customers.  Walmart recently announced an a platform to allow marketers to buy sponsor product placements.  The value of offline purchase data is much greater than the programmatic assumptions of the past decade.  This could lead to a much more fragmented market for the advertising industry. 

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/the-rise-of-retail-media-networks-calls-for-standardization/589413/

Ad spend retraction due to COVID-19 worse than expected: WARC

 

Global ad spending is expected to fall by over $50bn due to COVID and is expected to take over two years to recover to pre COVID levels of spending, which is twice the drop experienced in the '07/'08 financial crisis.  The drop is primarily driven by the auto, retail, and travel sector, which have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic.  However, much of this decline is attributable to traditional marketing.  Online marketing by contrast, which accounts for half of spend, is flat year over year.  The only sub category that should experience growth is online video.  This isn't all that surprising but further reinforces the idea that the pandemic has imply accelerated trends that were already in motion.  

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/ad-spendings-retraction-because-of-covid-19-is-worse-than-expected-warc-s/589870/

What Facebook's Acquisition of Kustomer means for the future of Social Commerce

 

Facebooks $1 billion dollar acquisition of CRM platform Kustomer is a strong single at how Facebook views the future of its own platform.  Customers aren't concerned with the particular channel, as much as they are about getting brands to respond to them.  Incorporating Kustomer's technology with Facebook is a move toward onmi-channel communication for companies with customers regardless of the particular channel the customer reaches out.  If small companies are able to focus their efforts on a single platform but reach customers wherever they are across the internet, it will be a boost to Facebook.  They will become the defacto platform for any business looking to extend their reach.  Beyond the advertising channel, they will become the platform that small to medium companies may begin to run their entire marketing departments.

This purchase, as well, helps to provide context for the Salesforce acquisition of Slack.  Although not directly comparable, enough similarities to see the way companies are viewing the importance of having CRM capabilities built into the social platforms companies are using to understand how to effectively target customers on the web.  Facebook acquired WhatsApp and has made moves to utilize the app to make transactions easier for businesses.  

Salesforce can see these moves by Facebook to transition into the business software business as a threat. Facebook's previous acquisitions have traditionally been with the intent to provide additional features for its users.  These moves single that software companies catering to the business should beware of the tech giants which are responding to the way customers have embraced social media, and its ability to conduct commerce. 

Source: 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-nears-purchase-of-startup-in-deal-that-values-it-at-1-billion-11606750196

https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/30/facebook-confirms-it-has-acquired-kustomer-sources-say-for-1b/

 Tweets vs. Fleets?

Twitter recently introduced a new content format -- "Fleets" -- that eerily (strategically?) resembles the "stories" format that Snapchat spearheaded and Instagram so skillfully copied.

According to Twitter, the new format aims to create a more active and safer space for users to express themselves and participate -- especially for those who were "intimidated" by the open and public nature of tweeting in the traditional way.

This is also a strategy to engage the silent "lurkers" on Twitter -- there is a trend of users who prefer to consume content from the more active users, but don't usually contribute to the discussions themselves. A lot of users prefer to passively read tweets and are scared to contribute because of the risk of getting "flamed" publicly.

So essentially, what Twitter is doing is taking the pressure off of the users by making their contributions more transient and "fleeting," lowering the barrier of entry even for the most easily intimidated users.

Whether users really need this feature, only time will show. The truth is, if people did have the intention to make something permanent as part of the "cancel culture," they still have the option to take a screenshot of the "fleet" and share it through permanent tweets instead.

But ultimately, it's up to the users to use -- or abandon -- the feature.

Will AR dominate our next decade?

 Smart phone, especially iPhone, defines the decade of 2010-2020. “Mobile first” become the motto of most tech companies. What will the next thing that will define the next decade? Apple again, might have the answer for us – AR. 

 

AR made its debut to mainstream users with a hit game Pokemon Go, as well as other furniture apps. While other big techs all have been actively exploring goggles and glasses for AR, every new iPhone 12 Pro has a depth-sensing lidar sensor that can do advanced 3D-scanning for a depth map as well as more AR capabilities. Apple is keen on making AR work with what everyone already has – their phone than another extra device. However, we predict that one killer app is needed to kick off the AR in mass consumers. Right now, there are more than 10,000 iOS apps that use AR, that helps people to live their lives better. COVID also accelerated the trend for AR adaptation by forcing many of the physical stores to close. Furniture and home improvement has been the first to try out AR, and Home Depot data showed that people are more like to buy if they use the AR. Art exhibition can also use the location information to “install” art wherever they would like.

Amazon launches Online Pharmacy

 

This week, Amazon announced its launch of Amazon Pharmacy, an online and mobile prescription medication ordering service. This move comes a little over two years after its acquisition of Pillpack for $753 million. 

The company said its online pharmacy will offer commonly prescribed medications in the U.S. After setting up a profile, users can have their doctors sent prescriptions directly to Amazon.  

Continuing its ambition to become a one-stop-shop for medicine and wellness, Amazon’s push into the pharmacy business has sent shares of giant drugstore chains such as CVS and Walgreens plummeting. However, industry experts expect the move to mostly affect smaller drugstores that don’t have the purchasing power of retail giants or deals with insurers.

With a track record of disruption in several industries (i.e. booksellers, supermarkets, shipping companies), Amazon’s impact on the pharmacy business will be profound. 

The Future of Black Friday Shopping

This year will be a very different holiday shopping experience. There is no doubt that online shopping will increase this holiday season as we continue to socially distance. Amazon and other e-retailers will be well positioned to benefit from the holiday shopping activity as in store events might even be cancelled or are shifting online as stores do not want to attract large crowd. Target, Kohl's, and Walmart have already decided to keep their doors closed.

This holiday season may just be the first push to a quite different Black Friday shopping of the future.

Here are a few things that will make holiday shopping a different experience this year and may even stay.

• Curbside pickup has become popular not just for restaurants during the pandemic and is likely going to stay. It will take a while until we get comfortable using mass transportation and customers with a car will continue run errands using curbside pickup. Curbside pickup may be a way for brick and mortar retailers to stay relevant and claim a share of sales otherwise moving to online retailer. (https://blackfriday.com/news/stores-with-curbside-pickup)
• Black Friday won’t be just on Friday this year. It’s more like a month as retailers are trying to lure shoppers to make purchases. Deals might be even better and available online this year as customers have been to lure more shoppers. 
• QR Codes have gained popularity to receive special offers or updates by scanning a QR code in a  magazine or store front. The Black Friday of the future will probably turn toward tech to make this a more immersive experience such as AR ad circulars where you can scan QR codes and see special deals and product information on your phone.
• Amazon has some exclusive offers just for Amazon Alexa (https://www.smartenlight.com/alexa-what-are-my-deals/) to get customers to use voice enabled shopping

It will surely be an interesting holiday season for the retail industry.

Are AdBlockers ethical?

"Ad blocking" is a kind of software, usually in the form of a browser plug-in, but now it is more of a mobile application. They prevent advertisements from appearing when you browse the web or App.

Most people using Chrome or Firefox browsers have AdBlocker turned on by default. While many websites have come up with ways to get around that, AdBlocker and similar extensions are effectively reducing the reach of advertisers, especially on 3-party websites. However, is this behavior ethical?

According to the latest report from PageFair, the well-known adblocking plugin Adblock has a huge impact on website traffic and revenue. PageFair's report stated that Adblock has hidden costs. It not only reduces the revenue of small and medium-sized websites, but it also reduces traffic. For every 1% increase in the total website traffic filtered by Adblock, the website traffic of small and medium-sized websites drops by 0.67%. Filtering ads by Adblock usually results in a temporary increase in traffic on the site. This short-term effect is because Adblock users can enjoy the site without advertising. In the past three years, the traffic level of most websites with high Adblock filtering rate has been significantly lower than other websites. Thanks to Adblock, the traffic of the 2,574 websites in the study dropped by an average of 8% in 35 months.

Those who oppose ad blocking usually focus on its potential threat to the Internet economy. Advertising is the mainstream business model on the Internet. Therefore, if everyone uses ad-blocking software, will the Internet lose its appeal and crash? If you can't see the advertisement, then, isn't the service you are using now a truly free product? When using ad blocking software, have you violated your agreement with the network service provider? Is ad blocking an "obvious robbery" as described by AdAge?

In response to these doubts, proponents of ad-blocking often point out that most ads are "annoying" and blocking can make them better. In addition, users who block advertisements would never buy the goods in the advertisements. Many users also object to advertisers tracking their browsing data and online behavior. Some people block ads because they want pages to load faster or reduce overall data usage.

It is reported that AdBlocker now not only intercepts advertisements but also charges these advertisers, it has become a guard for Internet portals. It has made strict criteria for these advertisements, and only allows acceptable advertisements to enter. Let advertisers purchase the permission to display "acceptable" ads so that even users who have installed ad-blocking can see these ads.

Whether ad blocking software is infringing or not, there is no sound answer yet. This debate is still ongoing. At the same time as consumers of advertisements and websites, we can think about the meaning of pop-up advertisements: you can use the browser for free, you can retrieve any information you want to find, and you can see the latest and most popular high-quality videos for free. Some people get used to using news for free but ignore the production of these websites, and maintenance also requires a lot of energy and financial resources. If these sites charge you, how much do you have to pay? If fees are charged, does it violate the original intention of the "Internet" for interconnection? If the advertising business of technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Tencent, and Alibaba is banned, and investment in cutting-edge technology research and development such as artificial intelligence, will there be enough financial resources and motivation for innovation?

In the long run, ad blocking may have a potential benefit for advertisers and publishers: in the end, it may eliminate the biggest waste of the advertising industry. If ad-blocking becomes more widespread, it will force advertisers to introduce more concise and less intrusive ads, and the way they handle information about us will be much more transparent than in the past, otherwise, they will face the danger of being blocked forever.

Shopify is rushing to prepare big retailers, restaurants, and grocers for the post-Thanksgiving boom

11/20/2020 - CNBC.com 

Shopify is a tech company that provides retailers the tools to build a website, add checkout functionality, manage orders, and integrate with other sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok. Subscription pricing ranges from $29 to $2,000 per month across small retailers to large national brands. More recently, big brands have leveraged Shopify’s platform to establish a significant digital presence.

Due to the COVID pandemic, there has been a large adoption and shift to e-commerce and online spending. It is projected by eMarketer that Black Friday online sales will surge 39% to $10.2B and Cyber Monday online sales will also jump 38% to $12.9B.

Now large national brands like Heinz, Chipotle, and Schwinn are using Shopify’s e-commerce software for the first time to take advantage of this paradigm shift. Heinz was able to set up a store to go direct-to-consumer for their condiments category. Chipotle introduced a virtual farmers’ market to allow farmers who are part of the restaurant company’s supply chain to sell meat, dairy, and other products direct to consumers.

Shopify’s business has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the stay-at-home result of the pandemic and stock has increased 143% this year and revenue has doubled in third quarter to $767M. Market cap of $118B makes it the most valuable company in Canada. They are certainly the leader in the industry with BigCommerce being a smaller rival also experiencing growth. Although large brands have added recent momentum, it is the small businesses that remain the engine and critical to Shopify’s long term success.

Mobile marketing channel or desktop channel?

Although making the app available in the mobile undergoes long and complex arrangement with the mobile phone company, the development, evolution, and popularity of apps on the mobile phone is just simply drastic. You would not be surprised at all if someone told you he or she has over 10 apps on his or her mobile phone.

Mobile as a marketing channel just becomes more and more popular and important. There are several key apps in my iPhone which I need to check almost every day: WhatsApp to communicate with classmates for group project and class discussion, LinkedIn App to communicate and keep in touch with my networks, and Zillow App to track the new house on the market for my house hunting effort. Although, the design and content in the apps sometimes are way simple and may not be user friendly comparing with their corresponding website in desktop version, they still provide us a very convenient tool to grasp the information on time. Especially, the capability to be able to gather information at any time when we are away from our desk: during lunch time, during commute time, during vacation time, etc. Such needs and convenience make the mobile app development has more momentum to grow up in the future.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed our lifestyles and probably will change our perspectives in business and marketing including the mobile marketing channel.

We have been working from home and spending most of our time in front of computer since early this year. The staying at home and sheltering in place have suddenly changed our behavior in grabbing information. The desktop screen is much more convenient than the tiny mobile phone screen and people start to spend more and more time on desktop than on mobile phones. Since Pandemic start, I seldom use the CanvasGSB app in my iPhone but rather go to canvas website in my laptop to obtain the relevant information and I spend most of my house hunting in Zillow website in my laptop rather than in my iPhone.

Such change in lifestyle in the whole country and in the whole world raises a strategy questions for any business people: should we continue focus on mobile marketing channel or should we modify our strategy and switch our efforts to concentrate on website desktop marketing channel?

Tips for a Social Distance Thanksgiving

With Covid cases hitting an all time high and the second wave in full swing just in time for the Thanksgiving, there are many tools in this digital age that can help us to have a safe and happy holiday.   There are a number of guides to help people host a fully remote Thanksgiving thanks to The New York Times and Mashable.

For me here are the top tips:

- Use a good video chat platform: Microsoft has launched a lower tier free version of their business product for up to 300 people and 24 hour use.  Better than having to keep resending Zoom links every 45 minutes!

- Pre-order the meal online and save the hassle and mess in the kitchen:  Grub Guides offers a range of choices in NYC

- Host a digital movie screening: Disney+ offers a GroupWatch feature or Amazon Prime has Watch Party

- Enjoy some remote games post dinner: My personal favorites: Online Codesnames (free) and you can add your own words or all the rage with the younger generation, Among Us ($5 flat fee app) but very addictive

Happy Thanksgiving!  Hopefully this helps make holiday in the time of Covid a little bit brighter!

Can We Trust the Data: LinkedIn admits to an Oopsie

 LinkedIn has confessed to some glitches in their system that lead to advertisers overpaying for their ad space. Granted, they claim the overcharges were very small, in most cases less than a total of $25, but this has me wondering how common overcharging for digital ads is, and how well it is policed.

Not quite so recently, but still in most seasoned digital marketers' minds is Facebook's snafu on video view time.

It seems the issue may be rooted in what truly counts as a viewable ad, which surely has Oracle squirming. I don't question that this was an innocent mistake, and kudos to Microsoft's LinkedIn for reporting it, but that could be to avoid lawsuits.

What it ultimately goes to show is that when the firm that is charging you supplies all the data, its best to do your own research and learn some best practices. This may be a fact of life life in the constantly evolving world of digital marketing. Staying abreast of current technology and thinking about potential loopholes may help out your costs.

Twitters Disclaimer Has Turned Meme

 Twitter's attempt to combat false claims and fake news, or at least "provide context", has turned into something of a punchline.  And some brands are even getting in on the joke.[1]

Is this clever messaging, or undermining Twitter's efforts to fact-check. What are the responsibilities for companies such as Twitter to perform such a function? It seems like just a harmless joke, but if the effort isn't taken seriously it may be abandoned.  A study has demonstrated that exposure to social media can make consumers of news more biased. [2] This alone would seem to indicate that some responsibility lies with these platforms to do something about falsehoods. Or is the responsibility on our news institutions that seem to have struggled to adapt to a world with social media, and in a post-truth era. How do we as consumers navigate this new world?

Perhaps being able to find humor in a situation is the best way to acknowledge that there is an issue.  I personally feel the posts are riding a very thin line, and time will judge how such posts age.

Sources: 

[1] https://adage.com/article/digital/brands-have-fun-claim-disputed-twitter-meme/2295311

[2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hbe2.185