|
Only Apple Can Hurt Facebook; Super Bowl Floodgates Open; New York Goes After Social-Media Fraud |
|
|
| |
|
The recent history of consumer boycotts continues to underwhelm: Facebook ended a 2018 full of controversy and unflattering memes with 9% more monthly active users worldwide than a year earlier and 1% more in the U.S. and Canada. If a 1% lift doesn't impress
you, it's at least fair to say there's no evidence of mass defections.
And if advertisers were ever going to delete Facebook, they weren’t going to do it before consumers did. Revenue growth slowed in the fourth quarter, but was still 30%. That leaves Apple this week as basically the only one really putting the hurt on Facebook.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson in Amazon’s Super bowl ad for the Alexa. PHOTO: AMAZON
|
|
|
Amazon ads will take up two and a half minutes in the Super Bowl this Sunday, conspicuously extending a streak in the game that’s part of a larger TV advertising blitz by the company. Amazon was one of the top 15 national TV spenders last year, shelling out more than companies such as Toyota and McDonald’s, The Wall Street Journal reports. Other tech heavyweights are also investing heavily in expanded TV advertising.
“They have to do mass marketing to grow, to cement their positions and to guard against those coming up from behind,” said Jon Swallen, chief research officer at Kantar.
Google will also repeat in the Super Bowl this year. Facebook, whose recent TV ads have been a mix of Portal commercials and corporate apologies, is continuing to stay away.
|
|
|
|
PHOTO: AVOCADOS FROM MEXICO
|
|
|
The gates are open for Super Bowl ads, with Mercedes-Benz joining the pack of pre-releases early this morning. Its spot, about a man who finds the world suddenly fulfilling his every idle wish, joins a pile of pre-releases from Wednesday that includes:
Meanwhile Fiat Chrysler, which has advertised in the game since 2009 without pre-releasing a spot or even a teaser, is acting out of character, releasing digital ads for Ram, Dodge and Jeep that it describes as “a taste of what’s to come.”
|
|
|
|
“Without trust, advertising has no future. A brand without trust is just a product. Advertising without trust is just noise.”
| — Unilever CMO Keith Weed, speaking at the Advertising Association’s conference in London on Wednesday |
|
|
|
|
20 |
the number of Instagram posts by Kendall Jenner that a Super Bowl advertiser could get if it didn't buy that big-game commercial, per Digiday’s calculations in “Sliding Doors: Super Bowl Remorse” (unofficial title)
|
|
|
|
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a settlement with Devumi, a defunct company that sold fake followers and “likes,” and promised “to continue to find and stop anyone who sells online deception.” [CNN]
Here’s a visual explanation of why advertisers pay for a Super Bowl spot. [WSJ]
Go behind the scenes of the Mercedes-Benz Super Bowl ad. [Ad Age]
A new company is picking up where Aereo, which used antennas to collect broadcast TV signals for retransmission to its subscribers, was sued into oblivion. [The New York Times]
The women running for president are “breaking the rules of branding.” [Fast Company]
|
|
|
We bring you the most important (and intriguing) marketing news every day. Write me at nat.ives@wsj.com any time with feedback on the newsletter or comments on specific items. We want to hear from you.
And follow the CMO Today team on Twitter: @wsjCMO, @natives, @larakiara, @alexbruell.
|
|
|