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Webinar Alert
This edition of the Wrap features a new category—The Values-Driven Marketplace—which reflects the meteoric rise of corporate activism and values-driven marketing. I wholeheartedly embrace this trend—I’ve been promoting it for years—but I worry that companies are launching into it without preparing their employees. When an automaker’s CEO says he opposes the travel ban, does he know how many employees working on the factory floor feel differently? How many employees will suddenly switch from being engaged to being actively disengaged? How many will seek employment with companies whose values are more closely aligned with their own? My webinar, set for noon ET on Thursday, February 23, will provide you with a roadmap for addressing employees as your company becomes a values-driven organization (which it will, even if it hasn’t yet). Details and registration
News
Met makes 375,000 copyright-free images available—Three great big cheers for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has released 375,000 images of works from its collection which you can use with no restrictions. The images are all of art in the U.S. public domain. Images include works by Rembrandt, Veneer, and Degas, “but the real treasures are the Met’s photographs of objects and relics from ages past.” The takeaway: In addition to providing me with a new source of images, this is a brilliant way to expose the museum’s collection to more people and make more people aware of the treasures on view at the museum. That is, people using the art will also be marketing the museum. Read more
Twitter takes a big step to shutting down trolls—Twitter announced in a blog post that it will take steps to identify abusive users and block them from creating new accounts and hide offensive tweets more effectively. The takeaway: While this move comes years after it should have, I genuinely hope it works. The abusive content on twitter is one big reason so many people either stay away from it or leave after they’ve joined, and few brands want their promoted posts and ads to be in the same proximity as hate-filled messaging. Read more
Apple is no longer the world’s most valuable brand—That distinction now goes to Google, according to Brand Finance’s Global 500 2017 report. Apple falls to the number two spot, followed by Amazon, AT&T, and Microsoft. The takeaway: One reason for the slip is Apple’s failure to maintain its grip on some tech-focused consumers. The Apple Watch has been a yawner of a product and the latest iterations of iPhones have been incremental with no big, exciting new features. With reports that the next iPhone will be a radical departure from previous models, we’ll have to see if Apple can retake the lead in 2018. Read more
Ford uses Facebook Live to unveil a new car—Ford Motor Company has a reputation for launching cars in unconventional venues. A few years back, eschewing the traditional Detroit Auto Show for the launch of a new car, it instead launched on a Facebook Page. Now, the new Expedition has seen its launch take place via Facebook Live. The takeaway: A Ford marketing manager said the vehicle doesn’t lend itself well to TV advertising, which may explain the decision to attract attention with a live-streamed event. Whether the Facebook Live unveiling succeeds, it’ll surely inspire others to launch products in a similar fashion. Read more
AMP adds source links—The Google-led Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) language now lets users share source links. Until now, you could only share Google’s own links, part of the effort to speed up content retrieval on mobile devices. But soon you’ll start seeing an “anchor button” that lets you long-tap the link to retrieve the related page. The takeaway: The more utilitarian AMP is, the better. Since it’s open-source, I’d like to see it succeed over Facebook’s competing Instant Articles, which exists only within Facebook’s walled garden. In case you didn’t know it, there’s a WordPress plugin that converts content to the AMP format. Read more
Flipboard doubles down on personalization—The newest upgrade to the Flipboard app takes advantage of what it has learned about your interests to deliver content you’re passionate about. Having identified your passions, Flipboard will deliver “a highly personalized feed for each passion,” allowing you to constantly see relevant content. The app is also designed to build community around your passions. The takeaway: Personalization is one of the critical keys to content success these days. For me, they got it mostly right based on the content I’ve been reading in Flipboard: marketing, business, technology, and the web. I’m also passionate about music but have never sought music-related content on Flipboard, so it didn’t show up. Any publisher that can proactively deliver what the reader is interested in will win. My biggest question is which vendor will be first to deliver this capability to an internal communications tool. Read more
Trends
Controversial marketer says alt-right is using his playbook—Ryan Holliday detailed the deceptive and unethical tactics he employed on behalf of brands in his book, “Trust Me, I’m Lying.” Those tactics, he says, are exactly what alt-right icons are using to spread their messages. For example, when the media reports on something outrageous they have said, 10% of the audience is hearing that person’s name for the first time as their message of hate resonates with them or awakens something dark inside them. Holliday’s advice: Regain the moral high ground. The takeaway: Holliday has a habit of talking out of both sides of his mouth. He claims his book was meant to warn the public about tactics he had abandoned, yet on a podcast interview to promote the book he insisted his staff was still available to conduct those kinds of assignments. Yet his advice here is worth listening to, since he has adopted the role of the black-hat hacker turned security expert. Read more
Programmatic ad buying places ads on hate sites—Programmatic ad buying is not all puppy dogs and sunshine. Mercedes-Benz is among a number of big brands whose ad budgets are flowing in part to to owners of content promoting everything from Nazi ideals to ISIS. Extremist sites earn the same $7.60 per 1,000 views as everybody else, and a hate site can generate millions of views. Other advertisers bitten by this bug include Honda, Thomson Reuters, and Disney. An advertisers trade body called programmatic advertising “a big concern for us.” The takeaway: The problem is that there is no human review of where ads are placed in programmatic buying and blacklisting sites means you have to be aware of them. Keeping up with them is a game of digital whack-a-mole. The solution won’t be appearing any time soon since disparate entities—advertisers, platforms, and media agencies—all figure into the fix. Read more
How to generate sustainable value from social media—Most social media events get a lot of attention for a few days, then vanish. But it is possible to move people into action for extended periods of time using social media. All you have to do is produce viral communication that features incentives matched with the motivations of the audience. “Our research shows that incentive networks are an important middle layer between ideologies and culture on the one hand, and the simple digital fingerprints left by social movements in online digital platforms such as Twitter and Facebook,” write the researchers in this MIT Sloan Management report. Most social media activity focuses on information diffusion; not enough focuses on recruitment incentives. That leads to a lot of likes but not much loyalty and stickiness. The takeaway: Not many marketers will pay attention to this research, which could give you an edge. Read more
Everyone is copying Snapchat Stores—First it was Instagram. Then Facebook. Now the Huffington Post is trying out the Snapchat Stories concept. A recent article for the mobile edition about Lady Gaga’s upcoming tour featured a storybook showing some of the singer’s wardrobes. Users swipe through the 10 vertical images and motion graphics. The takeaway: If you have an app that delivers content, you should be experimenting with a story-like feature of your own. Just as HuffPost is sure their iteration will be a hit, you can count on yours being popular, too, assuming the content itself is worth swiping through. This content format is a bona fide trend. Read more
Mobile users don’t use apps to access information—Mobile browsers are the preferred means of finding stuff via a mobile device, according to research from CodeFuel. Twenty-three percent of mobile users use the mobile browser, which gives them more freedom to search or browse than apps do. “That’s not to say that mobile apps are useless,” according to this report. “You just need to think more carefully about how they can benefit the consumer if you intend to put the massive time and expense into creating one.” The takeaway: Add to this the growing awareness of chatbots within messaging apps, and the future looks dim for apps. Read more
Where did I read that?—People don’t remember where they read news online. A new Pew Research Center study found that Millennials remember the news organization that delivered the stories they read 47% of the time while GenXers remember it 57% of the time. Print readers recall where they read a story more than online readers. People who read stories that came to them through email or a push notification also had better recall. They were less likely to remember the news organization behind an article if they saw it on Facebook or Twitter. The takeaway: If it’s important that people know where an article you produced came from, you’ll need to take extra steps to make sure they can recall it even if they saw it as a result of your efforts to get it online. Read more
What drives brand loyalty?—Five variables drive brand loyalty, according to Prophet’s Relentless Relevance Study: Dependability (it always delivers to expectations), it’s “better than others” (or the “only brand that does what it does”), it uses social media and content marketing well, it creates a light emotional connection (it “makes me happy”) and creates a heavy emotional connection (it “makes me feel inspired,” “has a purpose I believe in,” and “connects with me emotionally”). The trick is to determine whether you’re looking for “satisfied loyal” customers or “committed loyal” customers. The takeaway: Satisfied loyalty accrues to brands that deliver functional benefits like Band-Aid and Clorox; only dependability and a light emotional connection required. Other types of brands need to consider the other drivers. My focus is on the strong emotional connection which, in many cases, comes down to a company demonstrating that it lives its values. I am not convinced the Cloroxes and Band-Aids of the world won’t have to move in that direction as well as competitors steal market share by touting theirs. Read more
Video
Video is the new blogging—Research from Vidyard finds businesses on average create 18 new videos per month, roughly equal to the frequency of blogging. Hubspot’s Brian Halligan said he believes half of a company’s content marketing should feature video. Fifty-six percent of business videos in the past year were two minutes or shorter, underscoring the idea that these videos have the characteristics of a lot of blogs (i.e., quick reads). And more than half of videos shorter than 90 seconds are watched to completion. The takeaway: Make more videos. Duh. Read more
Mobile live streaming comes to YouTube—If you have more than 10,000 subscribers on your YouTube channel, you will soon have access to mobile live streaming. “Streamed videos can be searched for, found via recommendations or playlists, and protected from unauthorized use.” YouTube is also introducing Super Chat, a live stream monetization tool that allows fans to pay to get attention with chat messages highlighted in bright colors that remain pinned at the top of the chat window for up to five hours. The takeaway: YouTube’s slow and deliberate approach to competing with Facebook Live is intriguing. For fans of existing YouTube stars, watching live streams will be a big deal. For new channels, though, I wonder if Facebook Live isn’t the better alternative. Read more
Silent videos in users’ feeds perform best—Want to get people to watch your video? Keep it under 15 seconds and make sure it shows up in users’ social media feeds in silent mode. A study from Twitter and Omnicom Media Group found when viewed in-feed, “videos were 7 percent more personally relevant and stimulated 14 percent more memory encoding than when watched full-screen.” The takeaway: Some experts were confounded by these results, which may well apply more to Twitter than Facebook or other networks. I do tend to watch Twitter videos in-feed but open those I find on Facebook to full-screen. How about you? Read more
As if video wasn’t already big enough…—video will represent 78% of all mobile traffic and live streaming video will account for 5% of all mobile video traffic by 2021, according to Cisco Systems. One reason, Cisco says, is that more people will use mobile phones than have bank accounts, running water, or landlines by 2021, by which time mobile will represent 20% of total Ip traffic globally. The takeaway: Watch for opportunities to use cross-platform approaches with TV establishing the brand with follow-ups on mobile driving the call to action, as suggested by Cisco’s report. Read more
Twitter shifts focus to video ads—While Twitter’s recent earnings report may have tanked its stock, usage is up, in part due to the attention it has gained thanks to a certain political figure. Seeing the video on the wall, Twitter is also shifting its advertising model from promoted tweets to video ads. The takeaway: Keep them to 15 seconds or less and make sure they can be viewed in silent mode and video ads on Twitter might, just might, boost the company’s fortunes, especially if the company can maintain the trend addressed in the next item. Read more
Premium video attracts Twitter users—In its not-so-great fourth quarter report, Twitter did have some encouraging news, including the fact that its premium live video content attracted 31 million unique viewers who watched 600 hours of sports and red carpet events. The takeaway: I wonder how many brands are reaching out to Twitter to live-stream their bit events instead of (or in addition to) hoping to attract attention by live-streaming it themselves via Periscope or Facebook Live. Read more
The Values-Driven Marketplace
The principles of brand leadership in a values-driven marketplace—Deloitte’s Impact Project survey examines emerging forces shaping brands in the current “values-driven marketplace.” (Remember that term, values-driven marketplace. That’s what we’re all operating in today.) The survey “revealed a common desire to drive change and build loyalty.” The report highlighted four emerging categories of brands: Y-prophets are brand evangelists committed to a higher-order mission, free radicals are outliers who break the rules and challenge the established order, tiny titans stay small and intimate, and re-starts are established big brands reimagining themselves for the 21st century. Six common principles guide these segments: transparency, values, embracing technology, continuous improvement, getting more personal, and making a lot of strategic small bets. The takeaway: The insights from this report are important. I can’t recommend strongly enough that you read it. Read more
Activism sells better than sex—If you’ve been a longtime Wrap reader, you know this is something I have been persisting in touting for years: “Companies are now attempting to outdo each other with major acts of generosity, but there’s a catch,” writes The Guardian’s Alex Holder. “They’ll do good as long as they can make sure their customers know about it. There is no room for humility when a brand does a good deed.” The takeaway: This is the big problem I had with the book, “Trust Me, PR is Dead,” which argued that companies that do good won’t need PR. Hogwash, says I. Companies will compete with each other over altruism because ignoring it is a recipe for failure. That competition includes making sure their goodness is well known. But let’s face it: Communicating how great our company is sounds a lot more fun that dealing with the latest crisis. Read more
Younger consumers like ads that highlight diversity—Commercials with a progressive message appeal to younger viewers in particular, according to a Barkley and Futurecast survey. A majority of respondents of all ages said they prefer ads that “show real people, not just gender stereotypes from the past.” In a Harris Poll survey, Millennial respondents said they prefer movies and TV shows with multicultural casts. The takeaway: This is more evidence that companies need to jump into the activist role, even if its subtly, or risk losing business to competitors who are willing to make that leap. Read more
Consumer activism is just getting started—Consumer activism is growing rapidly, the result of record levels of distrust and the ability to connect with like-minded people quickly. So says Edelman global strategy director David Armano, who notes that earning customer commitment requires companies to demonstrate values the customer shares and to engage in a relationship that is mutually beneficial. Starbucks’ promise to hire 10,000 refugees and Lyft’s pledge of $1 million to the ACLU are examples of brands being proactive in demonstrating what they stand for in order to earn commitment from like-minded consumers. The takeaway: This is just one more approach to what is becoming a clear business mandate to clarify values and take specific action to prove you mean what you say. Read more
AI and Chatbots
Twitter is betting on AI—With its stock tumbling on missed earnings, Twitter is setting its sites on a machine-learning future. “I am excited about really making sure that we apply artificial intelligence and machine learning in the right ways and that we really meet that superpower of being that little bird that told you something that you couldn’t find anywhere else,” CEO Jack Dorsey told analysts during an earnings call. He also noted growth in daily active users, engagement, and tweet impressions. The takeaway: Twitter’s new mission is to break news and get information to people faster than its competitors, which is fine, but with its huge earnings miss, you have to wonder how much time investors will give Dorsey to right the ship. Read more
AI is behind Pinterest’s new visual search—Open your Pinterest app, tap the camera icon, shoot a picture of something you like, and Pinterest will show you a list of pins for similar-looking items. The new feature, called Lens (of course), goes beyond shopping. Take a picture of a food item and Lens will show you recipe pins that use that item as a main ingredient. “A picture of a sweater could lead to different styles of it or how to wear it.” Pinterest also launched Shop The Look, “which uses object recognition to automatically detect and search for items in a photo,” displaying Buyable pins for items in the picture. The takeaway: As we continue our shift to visual content, the idea of discovery by showing rather than telling Pinterest what you’re interested in makes a ton of sense. Coupled with ease of use, these features should attract a lot of usage. Read more
Meet “social artificial intelligence”—It’s “a form of collecting and sifting through customer history, user-generated content, and data from social media channels to generate more relevant content and, as a result, a more meaningful experience for followers,” according to a VentureBeat report. A growing number of social networks are investing in the technologies that drive social AI. According to Deloitte’s John Hagel, “the new wave of technology could actually be an exciting opportunity for brands to free up their time for more real, creative work.” One example comes from The New York Times, which uses a chatbot to automate some of the 300 messages it posts every day to its social media pages, freeing up staff time for creating more substantial content and monitoring responses. The takeaway: For content marketers, social AI can be a real boon, allowing you to find followers with facial recognition, surface the most valuable conversations, and more. So far, publishers seem to be latching onto the idea but marketers won’t be far behind. Read more
Lessons learned from Expedia’s Messenger chatbot—An early adopter of chatbots on Facebook’s Messenger platform, Expedia has found the road bumpy but remains convinced that chatbots are “potentially the next evolution in discovery.” The bot was developed to encourage travelers to make Expedia part of the decision process rather than visit the site after they have decided when and where to travel. Yet most inquiries are from customers looking for customer service, which the bot was not programmed to address; it directs them to the website. “Clearly defining what role the chatbot will have in the booking process is key to retaining the user’s attention,” an Expedia exec said. The takeaway: There’s no doubt that we’re in the trial-and-error days of chatbots. Despite its setbacks, #Expedia still sees “a huge opportunity for bots in the travel experience.” I see that same opportunity in just about any experience. Read more
The key AI question: Can it reduce costs?—How AI will change the workplace depends on how it will reduce costs, according to the scholars who authored this MIT Sloan Management analysis. “The task that AI makes abundant and inexpensive is prediction—in other words, the ability to take information you have and generate information you didn’t previously have,” they write. Since AI reduces the cost of prediction, its value rises when dealing with situations in which a lot of data is available and accessible. “In cases where whole decisions can be clearly defined with an algorithm, we expect to see computers replace humans.” As prediction leads to cheaper and faster prediction, humans will be more in demand for judgment-related skills—that is, using the prediction to take action that require uniquely human abilities. Since so many management roles are based on prediction (such as hiring and promoting), managers will need to up their judgment skills in the application of predictions AI has made. The takeaway: Pay attention to this, internal communicators. The time to start preparing your workforce is now, not when layoffs and fundamental changes to job descriptions are upon the workforce. Read more
Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality
Google adds WebVR to Chrome—Google’s addition of WebVR technology to Chrome will let users experience VR without needing to open a native VR app. You will be able to view VR content and 360-degree videos just by looking at the browser or by donning the Daydream headset. Support for other headsets is coming soon, including Google’s Cardboard platform. The takeaway: The more accessible VR content is, the faster the public will adopt it. Of course, just viewing it on a web browser without the immersive effect of a headset can leave some scratching their heads, wondering what the big deal is. Read more
VR isn’t high on most advertisers lists—That fact that nearly half of U.S. online adults have never heard about VR and 46% say they don’t see a use for it in their daily lives won’t be fixed by advertising, since only 8% of marketers are using VR in their advertising and 35% say they have no intention or have reservations about using it. Another 57% say VR doesn’t make sense for their advertising. The takeaway: I suspect this will change as VR adoption trends upward and the tools for producing VR content get cheaper. Advertisers want to be where their customers are. When their customers are using VR routinely, they’ll find reasons to produce VR ads as long as they’re relevant and deliver results. Read more
SC Johnson brings its sustainability initiative to life via VR—SC Johnson’s new sustainability initiative is matches every acre of rainforest protected via a donation on the Conservation International website. (It costs about $25 to protect an acre.) To promote the initiative, the company has produced an immersive video you can watch on any VR headset using the Jaunt VR app. “Under the Canopy” features an indigenous guide with narration by actor Lee Pace. The takeaway: Most people will never visit the rainforest. Putting them virtually in one is a brilliant way to convey the urgency of saving it. I have installed the Jaunt VR app just so I can watch this. Read more
Facebook closing hundreds of Oculus VR pop-ups at Best Buy—Best Buy has managed to stay afloat as other electronics retailers have vanished, in part by giving some of its floor space to brands for showcasing their products. Facebook was one of those with in-store pop-ups where shoppers could don an Oculus Rift headset and experience Virtual Reality. Shoppers don’t seem to care. It’s not uncommon for the pop-ups “to go for days without giving a single demonstration,” leading Facebook to close down 200 of its 500 demo stations. Facebook still believes live demos are the best way for people to learn about VR. The takeaway: I agree wholeheartedly that experiencing VR is the best way to grasp it. I’m not sure an in-store pop-up is how to go about it. Getting influencers to share their experiences with friends and family strikes me as more effective. When I did a VR presentation a couple years ago I passed a headset around the audience. That probably convinced more people to get their own than those 200 pop-ups combined. (Okay, I exaggerate, but you get the point…) Read more
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This week’s Wrap image is a statuette of Wah from Dynasty 12 of the Middle Kingdom, during the reign of Amenemhat I. “The linen wrap may imitate the type of long skirt worn by Middle Kingdom officials.” It’s one of the 375,000 images freely available from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Digital Collection, the subject of the first news item above.