|
|
Hello CMOs. Brands aren't the only ones boosting Twitter messages. Welcome to the world of "Weird Promoted Tweets,” where individuals pay to promote their tweets for their own perverse purposes.
A Weird Promoted Tweet could be a joke, selfie, customer-service rant or a message throwing shade at other users. As The Ringer puts it, “they’re personal missives the tweeter simply felt gassed up enough about to pay legal tender to disseminate online.”
Take a look for yourself. The @advertisedtwit account collects examples of Promoted Tweets and plunges you into this often bizarro phenomenon.
To make sure we bring you CMO Today at the best possible time, we're testing two alternative schedules this week: delivery an hour later than usual (at 9 a.m. ET) this week, and an hour earlier (7 a.m.) next week. We'll watch the numbers closely, but you can also reply to this email to tell us your preference.
|
|
|
|
|
|
![](http://i2.createsend1.com/ei/d/F4/AEC/68D/csimport/wsj-446104811.073053.jpeg) |
PHOTO: NICHOLAS KAMM/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
|
|
|
Back in 2016, when Verizon announced its plans to acquire Yahoo, the telecommunications company had big ambitions to take on Google and Facebook for a bigger slice of the digital advertising pie. “All we need to do is take more than our fair share of the growth of the market and this will be a success for us,” said then-Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam at the time.
So far, the opposite has happened. The market share of Oath, the Verizon advertising unit that combined Yahoo and AOL, has shrunk, and Verizon executives said in October they don’t expect the unit to reach its goal of generating $10 billion in revenue by 2020.
Now Verizon executives are looking for new ways for Oath to make money aside from ads. The Journal’s Sarah Krouse reports the unit is exploring ideas such as charging for HuffPost news and Yahoo Sports content. A Yahoo Finance subscription service is already planned for next year.
Verizon executives have embarked on an effort to identify the unit’s strongest brands. The initiative has been dubbed “Project Purple,” a name some employees see as a nod to Yahoo and a sign that its brands would be at the heart of any subscription products. It’s likely more mergers or disposals of brands (remember go90?) are on the way.
|
|
|
A tale of two ad forecasts. Interpublic ad-buying group Magna has raised its global ad spending forecast for 2018 to 7.2% to $442 billion, up from an earlier projection of 6.4%. That rate of growth is expected to slow down next year, although Magna also increased its expectations for 2019 ad-spending growth to 4.7% from 4%.
Magna was optimistic about a surge in online ad spending, largely driven by small advertisers. (It’s not all great news for holding companies, though, as those advertisers—many of them new entrants—tend not to use large agency networks. )
In a separate report, WPP’s GroupM downgraded its 2019 global ad-spending growth forecast to 3.6% from 3.9%.
GroupM's forecasters are jittery about economic uncertainty and challenges facing the automotive and packaged-goods industries.
|
|
|
![](http://i3.createsend1.com/ei/d/F4/AEC/68D/csimport/wsj-545876351.073431.jpeg) |
PHOTO: STEPHEN BRASHEAR/GETTY IMAGES
|
|
|
With more than half of American homes soon expected to have a smart speaker inside them, marketers are rushing to figure out their voice strategies. It’s no longer just about one-off experiments—there’s an increasing realization that voice needs to become a serious marketing investment, Abbey Klaassen, president in New York of the ad agency 360i, told the New York Times.
The Times article looks at some early examples of voice activation for marketing by brands including HBO, Procter & Gamble and Estée Lauder.
Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home don’t carry paid-for ads. Nevertheless, the tech companies have been working with marketers and ad agencies to develop smart-speaker applications as they look to grow out their marketplaces with fun or useful applications.
Marketers typically only get basic data back about how users are interacting with their voice applications. But 360i managed to get a more detailed look in one meeting with Amazon. Among the insights gathered by Alexa: the exact moments when users got frustrated with the voice app and started swearing at their speakers. We’ve all been there.
|
|
|
![](http://i4.createsend1.com/ei/d/F4/AEC/68D/csimport/im-39980.073701.jpg) |
Eddie Kim, founder and chief executive at Memo. PHOTO: MEMO
|
|
|
Many marketers use media-monitoring services to track mentions of their companies in the news and on social media. Now a new startup, Memo, plans to give marketers and their agencies more detailed insights into who is reading specific articles, Ben Mullin reports for CMO Today.
Memo will charge customers by the article—an average of about $100 per story—to get metrics such as page views, scroll depth and engaged reading time.
For publishers, Memo’s marketplace will provide “100% gross margin,” according to the company’s founder Eddie Kim. That’s because Memo’s service is based on information publishers already own but don’t tend to share.
Not just that, but Memo could serve as a lead-generation tool if brands learn that their content is resonating with readers of a certain publication and decide to buy more ads to reach them.
|
|
|
“We frequently don't build the best technology platforms to tackle big social challenges, because often there is no immediate promise of commercial return.”
| — Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s prepared remarks from a speech given at the Centre for Entrepreneurs in London last week. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Nexstar Media Group has reportedly agreed to buy Tribune Media for $4.1 billion, which would make it the largest local U.S. TV station operator. The news comes around four months after regulators effectively blocked Sinclair Broadcasting’s efforts to acquire Tribune for $3.9 billion. [Reuters]
Cybersecurity experts say Marriott missed a significant chance to halt its data breach, which involved the theft of personal information on up to 500 million customers. The data theft threatens to damage Marriott’s reputation at a time when its dominance is being challenged by traditional rivals and upstarts like Airbnb. [WSJ]
Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital said Monday it is in advanced talks to acquire programmatic buying consultancy MightyHive. [Reuters]
How the arrival of Amazon’s consolidated selling system One Vendor could be both an efficiency play and a way to exercise more control over how brands appear on the e-commerce site. [Digiday]
The fight against ad fraud is moving to apps from websites, but crucial support from Apple is yet to be solidified. [Ad Age]
Adam & Eve founders David Golding and James Murphy are leaving the company to launch a new creative agency. The creative agency was acquired by Omnicom's DDB Worldwide in 2012. [Campaign]
|
|
|
|
|