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Social Media’s ‘Awkward Adolescence’ |
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Hello CMOs. It’s a challenge many marketers will be familiar with: Do you follow your gut, or the data?
For Netflix’s executives, the dichotomy was whether to trust the algorithm...or to play nice with Jane Fonda. The company found that U.S. subscribers were more likely to click on the image promoting the comedy “Grace and Frankie” to U.S. subscribers when it only included Ms. Fonda’s co-star Lily Tomlin.
Netflix eventually decided to keep the picture of Ms. Fonda, the Journal reports. It’s one example of how the company is learning to defy the data and cater to the wishes of image-conscious A-listers. Naturally, those efforts sometimes lead to tensions between the Hollywood and Silicon Valley arms of the company.
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PHOTO: MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Marketers and ad-buyers probably remember Tim Kendall best as the executive charged with growing Pinterest’s advertising business—or perhaps from his time at Facebook, where he helped architect its early ad efforts.
So it may come as somewhat of a surprise that Mr. Kendall has deleted the Facebook app from his phone and has spent $7 million to fund a new mobile app called Moment that aims to help people limit the time they spend on their phones. Social media was producing unwanted negativity in his life and made him feel “inadequate,” Mr. Kendall said.
The Journal reports on how Mr. Kendall’s experience serves as another highlight of how social media is struggling with its “awkward adolescence.” Many users are now curbing their social media use and tech companies are scrambling to restore some of the early magic that tempted users to their platforms in the first place.
A return to those halcyon days is far from guaranteed. It may well be that users gradually migrate away from social media altogether. “People might prefer to go to the park to read a book,” said Pivotal Research’s senior analyst Brian Wieser. Pivot to...in-book advertising?
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PHOTO: THOMAS WHITE/REUTERS
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The magazine business is choppy water to swim in at the moment, given declines in newsstand sales and print ad revenue and a digital ad market dominated by Google and Facebook.
Despite those challenges, the power of a strong magazine brand still holds up. That’s the thinking behind Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon’s move to buy Fortune for $150 million. “He’s buying it as a personal investment because he loves the brand,” Alan Murray, Fortune’s president and soon-to-be chief executive once the sale is complete.
The plan, Mr. Jiaravanon said in a statement, is “to establish Fortune as the world’s leading business media brand.” Notice the absence of the word “magazine.” The company has been countering print declines by focusing more on growing digital ad revenue and its events business. Some 62% of Fortune’s revenue came from those parts of the business last year, Mr. Murray said.
What’s next on the agenda for Fortune’s publisher Meredith? The company sold Time magazine to Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne Benioff earlier this year, and said in March it was looking for a buyer for Sports Illustrated and Money.
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PHOTO: FABIO DE PAOLA/ZUMA PRESS
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Ad campaigns—particularly those designed for big tentpole moments like the holidays or the Super Bowl—are usually many months in the making. So it can be a galling experience when your ad is ready to drop and another brand is already out there on TV with the same soundtrack or a similar tagline.
Take U.K. supermarket Sainsbury’s, which began work on its Christmas ad this January, hiring “The Greatest Showman” director Michael Gracey to lead the 2018 push. The spot, which launched this weekend, shows a festive school play getting off to a nervous start but building into a feelgood piece of musical theater as the kids perform a rousing rendition of the ’90s New Radicals hit “Get What You Give.”
Now consider this joint spot for department store John Lewis and sister supermarket Waitrose, which launched in September. Another school play that builds into a Broadway-esque production as the children put on a performance of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Laura Boothby, Sainsbury’s head of broadcast marketing, insists that the similarities are a coincidence, and that her team didn’t consider axing the creative when the John Lewis ad landed. “When John Lewis launched they set a standard,” she said. “I wasn’t worried. It is right for Sainsbury’s, it was still the right thing for us.” Still, a tiny bit awkward as the John Lewis ad has still been airing recently on TV, in cinema and online, The Drum reported.
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Speaking of repeats, over to another U.K. Christmas ad that ruffled feathers last week. Iceland, another supermarket, said its festive ad had been “banned” by Clearcast, the organization that approves U.K. TV ads, for being too political. The ad in question repurposes an animated film produced by campaign group Greenpeace that tells the story of an orangutan whose rainforest habitat had been destroyed by palm-oil growers.
Technically, it wasn’t “banned.” Clearcast isn’t a regulator. Clearcast said it was unable to clear the ad because it didn’t comply with rules in the U.K.’s Code of Broadcast Advertising concerning “an advertisement which is inserted by or on behalf of a body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature.” In other words, it wasn’t the content of the ad, but the Greenpeace association that was the problem.
Still, there’s nothing like the word “ban” to grab some social media attention. The ad has racked up more than 3 million views on YouTube since it was posted last week and more than 600,000 people have signed a petition calling for Clearcast to reconsider its decision. "Some of the abuse that we have received has been genuinely shocking," Clearcast Managing Director Chris Mundy tweeted on Monday.
Brinsley Dresden, a partner at law firm Lewis Silkin, writes for Campaign that the situation highlights Clearcast’s unusual status as a non-regulator, meaning “there is little prospect of redress” following the organization’s decisions.
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$30.8 Billion |
The amount Alibaba generated in sales during its annual 24-hour Singles’ Day event on Sunday, a 27% increase on last year
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A look at the rise of “nanoinfluencers.” [New York Times]
SAP has agreed to acquire Qualtrics—a market analytics company that offers customer feedback surveys—for $8 billion. [WSJ]
Chip and Joanna Gaines, of “Fixer Upper” fame, are set to return to TV, having neared a deal with Discovery to rebrand one of its cable channels. [WSJ]
AT&T’s WarnerMedia has reportedly approached NBCUniversal to discuss ways of working together, such as licensing movies or TV shows for WarnerMedia’s upcoming new streaming service. [The Information]
Amazon is emerging as the chief rival to Roku. [Business Insider]
Yellow Tail is continuing its strategy to buy regional spots during the Super Bowl to circumvent Anheuser-Busch’s exclusive alcohol ad rights during the big game. [Adweek]
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