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Hello CMOs. U.K. brands are rethinking which accents are too posh to push their products, the Journal reports.
Long gone are the days when the airwaves were dominated with the clipped tones of the “Queen’s English.” Now, according to Grey London Chief Creative Officer Vicki Maguire, commercial voice actors these days should sound as if they are “able to hold a conversation...in a pub.”
Regional accents can still present a challenge when it comes to appealing to U.S. audiences. Jack Oddie, a voice-over artist with a Cumbrian accent, found American clients can sometimes struggle to understand certain words in his northern twang—“Money,” sounds like “munaay”. On those occasions, he’s asked to “make it a bit more southern.” It pays to be versatile, I guess?
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| War! What is it Good For? |
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Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. PHOTO: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Facebook isn’t just in crisis communications mode at the moment. It’s at war. That, anyway, is the stance Mr. Zuckerberg told his top lieutenants to adopt in June, as he urged them to move faster to address issues like security weaknesses and slowing user growth, the Journal’s Deepa Seetharaman reports.
The new approach hasn’t exactly flown with all Facebook’s executives. It has created tensions with longtime COO Sheryl Sandberg, for one. This spring, Mr. Zuckerberg blamed Ms. Sandberg and her staff for the public fallout over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, an exchange that left her wondering if her job was still secure, according to the report. Mr. Zuckerberg is reportedly pleased with progress made in recent months.
Mark Zuckerberg denounced the latest round of negative coverage of Facebook—kicked off by the New York Times last week—as “bullshit” in a Q&A session with staff on Friday, the Journal reports. He also said leaks to the media are largely caused by “bad morale” perpetuated by attacks in the media.
Facebook executives feel under siege and the mood inside camp is tense. One wonders what that will mean for how it positions its future moves to encourage growth, or ad products that utilize deep tracking or targeting.
Speaking of which, the Journal reports Mr. Zuckerberg clashed with Instagram’s co-founders over his desire to share location data on Instagram users with the core Facebook platform, which would improve its ad targeting. You’ll recall the founders abruptly resigned in September. Instagram began testing the change not long after they left. Move fast and test things!
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PHOTO: MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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It was never going to take long for the proliferation of influencers, microinfluencers and nanoinfluencers to spawn a wave of scams. We’ve heard a lot recently about influencer marketing fraud, where online personalities buy followers or use bots to trick marketers into thinking tons of people are engaging with their posts.
But sometimes influencers can be the victims. The Atlantic’s Taylor Lorenz reports on how influencers have had their accounts stolen after they were messaged about a promising big-bucks sponsorship opportunity. The influencer was then asked to log into a third-party analytics tool, a common request from brands and agencies looking to measure their influencer campaigns.
It turned out the tool was merely a phishing site. In this con, the scammer quickly seizes control of the influencer’s account, using it to spam their followers with sketchy “win an iPhone” promotions or do their own deals with unwitting advertisers.
As the report notes, the problem is exacerbated by the lack of a common infrastructure for influencer marketing deals. Contracts are often scrappily negotiated over direct message, different brands and agencies use different analytics platforms and Instagram’s ad policies don’t apply to these sorts of paid relationships.
Instagram says it’s “looking at the area closely” but marketers speaking to the Atlantic pushed for more transparency from the platform, such as offering an easy way to vet an Instagram page’s history.
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While we’re on the subject of the wild west of influencer marketing, make sure to read this cautionary tale from Wired about lash extensions company Lashify and its feud with a high-profile make-up artist. There's a surprising twist (or should I say curl?) at the end.
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| I'll Have What He's Having |
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PHOTO: ANDREW KELLY/REUTERS
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The 2018 midterm elections were a bonanza for media owners, with spending on local broadcast, local cable and digital up 78% compared with 2014 to a record $5.25 billion, according to Kantar Media. Spend on digital ads almost quadrupled from 2014’s level.
Having been outspent by Republicans on Facebook in 2016, this time around Democratic campaigns and aligned groups were outspending Republicans on Facebook by more than a two-to-one margin by last month, according to Democratic digital ad firm Bully Pulpit International. Republicans were still spending more on Google.
Michael Duncan, a partner and digital strategist at Republican firm Cavalry LLC, offered AP an explanation: Facebook is a better platform for lead generation and digital fundraising, which was why Democrats were using to target its existing base to drive email addresses and donations. But video—“and Google specifically”—are better platforms for changing the minds of new or undecided voters, he said.
Just like in the commercial world, the old debate about whether to use TV or digital to reach young audiences rears its head in politics, too. The Democrats remain disproportionately committed to TV advertising, strategists tell AP. “By focusing so much on broadcast TV ads, we are missing crucial audiences to talk to,” said Tim Lim, who worked on the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
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Editor’s Note: Friday’s newsletter included a Business Insider story about DoubleVerify’s investigation into connected-TV ad fraud—but didn’t include the link! Here’s the article.
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A debate inside Disney: How do you update the princess franchise without alienating fans of the classic characters? [WSJ]
Instagram’s head of growth, Bangaly Kaba, and Ameet Ranadive, who ran product for the app’s wellbeing initiative, are leaving the company. [Bloomberg]
YouTube has started showing dozens of free Hollywood movies with ad breaks. [Ad Age]
How Spotify and Pandora are expanding their podcasting efforts as they aim to capture more of consumers’ listening time. [WSJ]
Inside a viral fake news/“satire” operation that amasses as many as 6 million visitors each month, many of whom believe the content is factual. [Washington Post]
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