editor, Author at Mediastreet

In News

Advertising budgets could take a $3B hit over coronavirus

March 31, 2020 No Comments

The coronavirus pandemic could slash as much as $3 billion from advertising and marketing budgets in 2020, according to a new report.

“This is a global human disaster that impacts every company,” said Jack Myers, who authored the report and who has been tracking the ad spend market since the 1980s.

On Monday, Myers released a new forecast on the ad spending impact of the COVID-19 outbreak — tripling his previous forecast of a $1 billion blow. Given how quickly the virus has been spreading — resulting in entire industries like Broadway shutting down — a decline of $3 billion is more likely, he said.

“What I saw a week ago as the worst-case scenario, I now see as the most likely scenario,” Myers told Media Ink.

Before the coronavirus forced retailers, restaurants and entertainment venues to close their doors, Myers was predicting $227 billion would be spent on advertising and marketing in the US this year— a 6.2 percent increase from 2019.

The $3 billion decline — to $224 billion — represents a 1 percent drop from the earlier forecast, meaning ad and marketing spending could still be up 4.8 percent from a year ago.

Because even as legacy media sees advertising grow 1 percent year over year, social media from platforms Facebook and Snap could see a 12 percent surge in ad spending to $30.8 billion, Myers said.

And as the coronavirus forces people to spend more time at home, streaming video platforms like Hulu, Pluto, Roku and Direct TV could see ad spending grow 42 percent, to $2.6 billion — up from his pre-coronavirus forecast for growth of 38 percent.

Broadcast TV may actually see a rise in ad spend due to increased demand for political ads leading up to the November presidential election — and the Olympics. Myers sees network TV ad sales up by 4 percent, or $100 million.

Of course, the Summer Olympics could also be canceled, Myers acknowledged, and sporting events have been put on hold.

Cable could see a decline in ad spending if it’s forced to halt production of popular dramas and resort to reruns.

Myers was already forecasting a 3.3 percent drop for cable before the coronavirus hit, but he now predicts a 6 percent decline of nearly $800 million to $27 billion.

Myers sees a 3 percent decline for digital news site advertising, but says the coronavirus may actually help newspaper ad spending, which he now predicts will be flat.

Feature Image Credit: JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images

By Keith J. Kelly

Sourced from New York Post

In News

Maybe publisher cooperation is a path forward for news, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of public media

March 31, 2020 No Comments

By Joshua Benton

In Norway and Sweden, a survey finds some people won’t pay for online news because the news from their free public broadcaster is good enough. That’s a feature, not a bug.

When making just about any kind of international comparison around news media, one thing quickly becomes clear: The Scandinavians blow the curve for everyone else.

While the U.S. government spends a measly $3 per capita on public broadcasting, Sweden spends $95 and Norway $125.

What percentage of a country’s residents pay for online news? In Canada, that’s 9 percent. In the U.S., 16 percent. But in Sweden? 27 percent. Norway? 34 percent.

What countries finish No. 1, 2, and 3 in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index? Norway, Finland, and Sweden. (The U.S. is No. 48.)

In the United States, there is roughly 1 copy of a newspaper printed each day for every 10.6 people. In Norway, it’s about 1 copy for every 2.6 people. The U.S. has roughly 33× as many people as Sweden, but only 13× as many daily newspapers. 80 percent of Finns read at least one print newspaper each week.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It’s almost embarrassing for the rest of us, to be frank.

But there can still be trouble in media paradise, at least according to this new report from the Tinius Trust. (It’s the largest shareholder in the Scandinavia-heavy media group Schibsted, which has negotiated the transition to digital as well as any media house worldwide. The Tinius Trust is designed “to ensure that Schibsted remains a media group characterized by free, independent editorial staffs, credibility, and quality and with long-term, healthy financial developments.”)

Here’s Kjersti Løken Stavrum, the trust’s CEO:

There is a limit to how many digital news subscriptions the public will want to pay for in the future — a ceiling that will impact media diversity…This is clear from the results of a new survey done in Norway and Sweden for the Tinius Trust — conducted by Norstat.

In Norway, 46% responded that they would only want 1-2 news subscriptions in the future. Almost half of the younger respondents aged 18-29 assume that they will not subscribe to digital news sources in the future at all.

The same trend has been identified in Sweden: 42% of respondents state that they only expect to have 1-2 digital news subscriptions, while 54% of 18 to 29-year olds say that they will not subscribe at all.

So even in the Asgard of Nordic media, lots of people say they either don’t expect to subscribe to any digital news outlets or, at best, only one or maybe two. (The actual numbers for Sweden: 45 percent say none, 28 percent say one, 14 percent say two. In Norway: 33 percent none, 27 percent one, 20 percent two. Shoutout to my fellow “six or more” news nerds.)

That most people will likely only subscribe to one digital news outlet (at most!) is a real issue we’ve written about before. It’s not that it’s different from what we had pre-Internet — after all, most people only subscribed to a single newspaper too.

But it is quite different from what we saw in the last decade-plus of the internet, when first blogs and then social media pushed people to see news sites as a neverending buffet, where it was totally fine to grab a couple cocktail shrimp from The Washington Post, some broccoli from Vox, some mashed potatoes from your local daily paper, and maybe a brownie from Vulture. As more of those sites go behind paywalls, we moved from an open buffet to ordering entrees off the menu — and normal people don’t order five different entrees to have a little bit of each. That’s as true in Oslo as in Orlando.

The Tinius Trust survey (of about 1,000 Swedes and 1,000 Norwegians) went further and asked what factors most keep their number of digital subscriptions low. The No. 1 response: “There is sufficient access to free, digital news,” in particular from those well-funded public broadcasters:

Almost half of the respondents in Norway (45%) pointed to the free content provided by the national broadcaster NRK. The figure for Sweden is somewhat lower but remains high, with 38% saying that they will not pay for content given that the Swedish national broadcasting agency SVT offers its content free of charge.

The figures are cause for concern.

Eh…is it? Depends how you view the mission of a public broadcaster, I suppose.

British media companies have long complained about the BBC crowding out for-profit media. Canadian media companies complain about the CBC. Some ill-informed Americans do the same about NPR or PBS. The underlying goal of public media, after all, is to make high-quality news and information available to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay.

By definition, that will reduce the number of people who want to pay for news. I call that a feature, not a bug. But the argument against public media seems to be gaining ground in some places. I would hope Scandinavia doesn’t become one of them. A study late last year found that, of Norwegians who don’t already subscribe to digital news, less than 10 percent of Norwegians say they’re even interested in someday doing so — meaning a trusted public broadcaster is critical to their information needs. Even in a country with the highest digital news subscription rate in the world.

The Tinius Trust report doesn’t specifically say funding for public broadcasting is bad, to be clear. (Though “Free news from public service broadcasters prevents subscription sales” gets close to that ballpark, if not quite in it.) But the trust does say the status quo is harmful:

The Norwegian government’s media policy seeks to promote diversity in the media. It is a fact that democracy thrives where information is freely available and of many kinds. However, diversity is currently restricted to those who can pay for media access individually. If this leads to a rise in the number of persons entering the category known as “news avoiders”, there is cause for concern. Such a development would create new inequalities based on insufficient information about societal development, something that will be detrimental to society at large.

The solution the trust is pushing is some sort of shared arrangement between publishers — something on the spectrum between a shared login system across sites to a sort of super-subscription like what Spotify offers for music. Bring back the endless buffet, in other words — just maybe charge for admission this time.

In Scandinavia, the transition to charging for digital news subscriptions has been a success. From the readers’ point of view, however, the requirement to sign in to the various publications often stops them from accessing the story they want to read. In practice, signing-in solutions mean that most people will limit themselves to one or perhaps two paid-for news sources…

Spotify’s payment solution for music has, for many years, been an obvious model for editorial content, although developments have failed to materialize. Most persons in the media industry have heard readers complain about how much they would like to access individual articles without having to pay for an entire month or even longer news subscriptions. Such statements must sound like music to the ears of a player like Spotify.

Because the issue is this: if creating a joint sign-in solution for content in the same category — such as digital, editorial news — is beneficial, someone will produce it. And if the media players themselves don’t take the initiative, someone else will.

The paradox is that the editorial media can, in fact, cooperate. They have done so by means of news services such as NTB [the Norwegian News Agency] in Norway for more than 150 years and Tidningsutgivarna [a Swedish publishers association] in Sweden for almost a century…But time is running out. They need to make a move.

A single sign-on can allow publishers to improve their data for ad targeting, however marginally, vis-à-vis the tech titans and allow for better customization and discovery. (Schibsted has had its own single sign-on for all its sites since 2013.)

I’m always happy to see these sorts of efforts, despite my skepticism — not only because they might help their home country’s news ecosystem, but because they could be proving grounds for ideas that can be replicated elsewhere. Cooperation is a good thing! Maybe there is a future for a common platform that people can use across an entire country to get news and information from lots of different commercial sources.

It’s a lot easier to arrange cross-publisher cooperation in a small country like Norway or Sweden than in a megalith like the United States. But even in smaller countries, the track record isn’t stellar. There have been attempts at creating something like a country-wide paywall before (like Piano Media’s attempts in Slovenia and Slovakia almost a decade ago, which failed because readers weren’t interested). And companies like Blendle have gotten lots of publishers to sign on to a shared, article-based platform, but they’ve struggled to scale.

Experience tells me that consumer demand for such a product usually trails its creators’ interests. And getting lots of different media companies to cooperate is hard work. Nónio, a Google-funded attempt to do something similar between Portuguese publishers, has had a slow go of it, with the newspaper Público dropping out of the alliance in December. There are a number of similar initiatives across Europe currently, but none (to my knowledge — feel free to inform me otherwise) has set the world on fire. And they’ve mostly been oriented toward improved user data for advertising — the better to fight Google and Facebook — not shared subscriptions, which is a different kettle of fish in a thousand ways.

Still, whatever efforts are made on that front, one thing is clear: They shouldn’t come at the expense of a country’s existing common platform for news and information, the one that in most countries is the most trusted source of news — public media. As our media ecosystems shatter into a million pieces, a public service broadcaster’s role as a trusted central anchor free to all is more important than ever.

By Joshua Benton

Sourced from NiemanLab

In News

Greta Thunberg is schooling us all, says M&C Saatchi CCO Ben Golik

March 30, 2020 No Comments

By Danielle Gibson

M&C Saatchi’s chief creative officer, Ben Golik says that great ideas are those that travel and that one word says it all, Greta. “A seventeen-year-old woman is schooling us all.”

Ahead of The Drum Chip Shop Awards 2020, of which he is the chair of the jury, Golik talks to us about breaking the rules of advertising, why the industry is afraid to take risks, the effect social platforms have on creativity and what the future holds.

Is there a lack of ambition from the agency/creative community to break the rules?

Wow. That’s a negative start. But perhaps not an unfair one. It’s true that much of our work passes through the world unnoticed. So maybe we need to break some rules to bust that collective ennui?

But what are the rules of ambitious work? Let’s assume they stem from what we make, and how we make it.

What we make has never suffered so much innovation. Big data, bigger tech, countless channels. Park this stuff. The single most innovative thing we can offer, is insight. That unexpected prop, dramatised beautifully, is still the best way to add value to our clients’ businesses, and to our own.

As for how we make it, despite repeated calls for a “new agency model”, bright people bouncing ideas off each other still proves mightily successful. The ambition here has to be in achieving diversity throughout that process.

Work that truly understands the people it’s for? That’s ambition enough for me.

Who can break the rules and who can set them?

Another interesting question, because it’s really asking – where does the real power lie? The truth is, it’s never been with agencies. Or with clients. It’s always been with customers. With this view, I prefer to think that there is more opportunity than ever.

Customers are more marketing savvy than ever. So we must think smarter to excite them. Customers are more visually savvy than ever. So we must look better to entice them. Customers are more aware of the data we hold than ever. So we must respect what we know, and use it without entitlement. They’ve leveled up. So must we.

What is that one creative idea from the last decade that went way beyond advertising?

I believe that great ideas are those that travel. They enter the language. Other people claim them as their own. To do that, they need a handle – an easy way of being picked up, and carried forward. I’ve hated some of the best recent handles.

Make America Great Again. Four words. (Or one red cap.) But it smartly evokes a time when America led global culture, and their own suburban dream had not soured. Take Back Control; Get Brexit Done. Each three words. Each emotionally charged. Each totally intoxicating, and bang on for their disenchanted audience. Extinction Rebellion. We’re down to two words now. What a fucking great brand. Totally punk. Brilliantly British.

But, ultimately, I can get it down to one word. Greta. Thoroughly compelling. And without compromise. She stands by her ideas, and ideals, in a way that we fail to. Does everyone agree? Sadly, no. Has everyone heard? Hell, yes. A seventeen-year-old woman is schooling us all.

There are so many rules on social platforms that breaking the morale, the lines of creativity could have a negative impact. Could social platforms potentially have affected creativity negatively?

I do think social media has put new pressure on our output. Not because we were insensitive Luddites blindly abusing humankind, but because we haven’t always grasped nuance. A stereotype is an easy reach for a creative short on time. But it can also make the work fairly broad-brush.

How amazing, then, to have this newfound spotlight of social critique? We must actually understand people, include them, and respect them. Genuinely, our work now has permission to have all the quirk, nuance and specificity of society itself – which can only be a brilliant invitation for ideas that stretch beyond the expected?

Do you think advertising is afraid to take risks with its model?

I think individual agencies are desperate to take risks. With remuneration models, and to push back on the pitch process. But individually, we can feel powerless. We know that we’ll immediately be undercut, or over-promised, by an agency more desperate keen than our own.

So we toe the line. We give away too much, for too little. We devalue our best people, and our best ideas, in the hope of acceptance. That elusive ‘yes’. The only way to truly change the paradigm is to align. Agencies must work together for a system that better serves us all.

I see a brighter future where we don’t give away the farm, for the chance to plough a field.

Over the next decade, how can agencies/creatives be pushing the boundaries of creativity? How can they move the industry forward?

I’ll take the creatives option of the question for this answer. Creatives need to spend more time with planners, not with their briefs. Creatives need to spend more time with clients, not with their feedback. Only by driving the conversation, can we drive change.

What are your expectations for The Chip Shop Awards entries?

The best stuff in The Chip Shop Awards is never the work the client was right to swerve. It’s the work that was born brave but somehow didn’t survive the system. We’ll be looking for ideas that are smart, and sensitive, and suitable. But that sadly found their final media placement on slide 72 of the PowerPoint.

It’s brilliant and bonkers that we award work that might not even have been made. (No wonder people judge us.) But ultimately, that’s why we all keep turning up. To make great stuff that sometimes sees the light of day. (Maybe that’s why we’re so happy to give it away?) Big up the Chip Shop for shining some light into the bottom drawer. Let’s hope someone pays us to make it next year.

Feature Credit Image:Greta Thunberg is schooling us all, says M&C Saatchi CCO, Ben Golik

By Danielle Gibson

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Get to Know Your Employees: The Lowdown on People Analytics

March 30, 2020 No Comments

By Karen McCandless

Knowing as much about your employees as possible helps you create a better work environment and make informed decisions. Find out how you can use people analytics to transform your workplace.

Experience can help you make better decisions. You feel like you’ve seen it all and know what the outcome will be and what action you need to take.

But basing a decision on gut feeling, while useful in some circumstances, is limiting. Situations change, people change, companies are different, people are different.

Instinct and gut feeling can help guide you, but you need to back up your decision with data. People analytics — also sometimes known as human analytics or HR analytics — can improve your decision making by providing an unbiased analysis of the situation.

These analytics can also help you gain the trust of your employees, as you can show why you’ve made certain decisions, and how they will benefit your business.

Overview: What are people analytics?

Understanding what your employees are doing and why they are doing it is the foundation for a successful business.

With people analytics, you can use all of your human resources data to get an insight into exactly what is going on in your company, in both a positive and negative way. This differs from workforce analytics, which looks at the processes and tools you use to run the HR department.

People analytics tracks HR metrics to answer questions like these:

Do you have a high employee turnover? Why?
How long does it take you to recruit candidates?
What do employees care about and want to see more, and less, of?
Who are your best-performing employees?

You can use this data to make changes that improve the way you manage your workforce.

Why are people analytics important?

Using people analytics correctly can be very beneficial to your business, whether it’s through improving decision making, giving you the ability to try new ways of managing your workforce, or boosting employee morale.

Improve decision making

If more than one person is involved in making a decision, then it can be difficult to come to a consensus when there’s a difference in opinion. But if you’ve got the data and analytics to back up your decision and show the benefits, then it’s harder to argue.

This means you can not only speed up decision making but also feel more confident that you’re doing the right thing.

Try new approaches

As a company grows, it often becomes less agile and less likely to try new approaches.

People analytics has two roles here. Firstly, it can help you win buy-in for taking a new approach. Secondly, as you can measure the success of any new process, if it’s working, people can clearly see the benefits. If it’s not working, you know early on and can change tack or stop the experiment altogether.

Boost employee morale

A lot of people feel like workplaces are not fair. They question why decisions are made, openly and behind closed doors, and they can lose confidence in the company if they feel like the wrong decision has been made or they have been unfairly punished or not rewarded.

When you can use analytics to back up your decisions and provide detailed explanations, employees are more likely to understand and accept them. This also means they are more likely to work to implement and support these decisions.

Challenges of using people analytics

It’s not all plain sailing. Some roadblocks can prevent companies from making the most of their people data.

Siloed data

To make the best use of people analytics, you need to be able to share data from different systems between different departments.

For example, if your employees are quitting because they aren’t being paid enough, then you need data from your payroll system to identify issues and see what changes you need to make.

If your data resides in silos across different systems that you can’t access, you won’t be able to get an accurate picture of what’s going on.

Data privacy laws

It’s important to collect, store, and use data in a way that ensures you comply with regulations. Whether that’s GDPR or state or federal laws, you need to have policies in place that ensure that everyone who has access to people data knows how and when they can use it.

Securing that data is important too, and it can be expensive to ensure it’s not vulnerable to outside attacks, especially for small businesses with limited budgets.

Employee suspicions

Employees might feel like you don’t trust them or that you’re trying to spy on them if you suddenly start collecting a lot more data. This can affect the morale of any workplace.

Adding your policy on data collection to your employee handbook can help your workers understand why you’re collecting the data, how it will benefit the company, and how it can be used to improve the workplace as a whole.

Ways you can use people analytics in your business

People analytics can have far-reaching benefits for different parts of your business, from sourcing candidates to managing their performance, and working out how to retain top talent.

Recruiting

From creating a job ad, to targeting the right people, to interviewing candidates, people analytics can help you transform your recruiting process.

By monitoring the success of your job ads, you can find out what kind of language and design resonates with candidates and improves the application rate from top talent.

And by using keywords and demographic data such as location, you can make sure your ad gets in front of the right people.

People analytics can also help you decide the qualities you’re looking for in candidates and screen out unsuitable applicants more quickly. You can also get an overview of how each job ad is performing and find out if you need to make any alterations.

Tip: Standalone recruiting software, or recruiting functionality within HR software, can give you the insight you need to hire better candidates quicker and more efficiently. Hiring software Workable’s main dashboard displays the analytics of each job ad, which helps you understand what is working and what you need to change.

Workable’s main dashboard displays the performance of each job ad.

Performance management

Whether your employees are performing well or badly, people analytics can help you find out why, as well as evaluate what you can do to either turn the situation around or reward star talent.

You can collect 360-degree feedback on a regular basis, meaning that people get feedback from peers, managers, and employees.

You can also track the progress of goals by each individual employee, by department, and over the company as a whole.

If you notice that you are not close to meeting those goals, then you can delve deeper to find out why, as well as adjust the goals if they aren’t realistic.

Tip: Instead of trying to collect and analyze data manually, implement a solution that can automate the process. HR software such as Zenefits contains performance management functionality that can help you keep an eye on your goal progress at different levels, as well as centralize your feedback data.

Zenefits centralizes all performance management data so you can keep a track of your progress.

Talent management

Hiring talented people isn’t enough. You need to make sure you are keeping them satisfied and helping them develop their skills so they don’t walk out the door and take their expertise to your competitors.

Talent analytics, a subset of people analytics dedicated to managing talent, looks at areas such as employee performance learning and development, employee engagement, and succession planning.

By identifying your top employees through your performance management processes and data, you can start to put an action plan in place that truly engages talent enough to make them stay. You can also use this data to pick out future leaders who you can train up to take over from your current managers.

This also extends to providing thoughtful offboarding processes that collect data about why employees are leaving, as well as what kind of learning and development opportunities you could have given them to make them stay.

Tip: Centralizing your data is key, especially when it comes to a far-reaching area, such as talent management. By keeping all the tasks and information in one place, you can spot patterns and trends and take actions based on this data. BambooHR helps you to create employee directories that not only contain basic demographic data, but also information on compensation, performance management, training, offboarding, and time off.

BambooHR centralizes all HR data to help you get to know your employees better.

Employee retention

Understanding who is leaving your company and why is key to improving your employee retention rate.

With people analytics, you can analyze the characteristics and what the people leaving have in common. Do they have the same boss? Are they similar ages? How long have they been at the company?

Ask them why they’re leaving. This can be in the form of an exit interview before they leave or an informal chat. Use this information to proactively identify people who might be likely to leave. Then you can put processes into place to stop that happening.

Tip: Send out surveys to find out what is bothering people while they are still at the company, and what they’d like to see more of. Bring this data together to see what changes you need to make at your company. Workforce management software like Workday lets you create anonymous surveys on different subjects. You can then get an overview of this data to spot trends and get insight.

Workday lets you create surveys to understand employee satisfaction.

Workforce management

Unsurprisingly, people management is a crucial part of people analytics. Being able to staff your business correctly is crucial to optimizing profit and driving revenue while ensuring your workers are productive and satisfied.

Understaff your business and you’ll end up with stressed-out employees who aren’t committed to your company. Overstaff your business and you’ll take a hit to your bottom line.

By using human resources analytics, you can use past data to predict how many people you will need for different shifts and different times of the year.

You can also track patterns in absences, noting if people get sick or want to take time off at certain times of the year, while better managing employee vacation to ensure people don’t take too much time off during a busy period.

Tip: Many businesses still manage absences in an Excel spreadsheet. There are several issues with this. The first is version control. How can everyone ensure they are working from the latest copy? The second regards access. Having to email everyone each time they need access to the spreadsheet takes time.

That’s why you need to automate the process so you can see the latest version of your data at any time, from anywhere. With BambooHR, you can not only get an overview of absences across the whole company, but you can drill down to each individual employee. This allows you to take action to understand if there is an issue and why and fix it before it gets too serious.

BambooHR lets you see absences on an individual basis.

Becoming a data-driven HR department

Becoming a data-driven people analyst takes the guesswork away from your HR decisions and allows you to make changes that are backed up by facts and concrete information.

You can spot trends that help you proactively make decisions that will improve the workplace, boost revenue, and keep employees happy.

By integrating people analytics into every area of your HR responsibilities, you can become more efficient and productive, boost employee morale, and take action that drives revenue and boosts profit.

By Karen McCandless

Sourced from the blueprint

In News

Virtual dance parties and Slack contests : How ad firms are boosting employee morale during the coronavirus lockdown

March 30, 2020 No Comments

By Lara O’Reilly.

Advertising companies are getting used to a new normal as the coronavirus crisis grinds on in all its uncertainty. The next item on the agenda for many managers in the industry has been to address their employees’ mental health and attempting to ensure they feel supported during the fast-changing pandemic that’s thrown people’s business and personal lives into disarray.

Facebook is reportedly paying each of its employees a $1,000 bonus to help them through this period, the Information reported, plus it has launched a $100 million small business grant program. Not every company has that kind of cash at hand — especially in the ad business, which was already in a period of tumult before clients began pausing spend as the coronavirus escalated. But befitting for businesses in a creative industry, many advertising agencies and vendors have been coming up with novel ways to keep employees engaged, motivated and not going crazy stuck at home.

Now most advertising agencies and vendors have their video conferencing and business-networking setups in order to accommodate business calls, many companies are repurposing the tech for the happy hours, lunch breaks, fitness sessions and other social activities that would have ordinarily taken place in the office.

“What you really miss without being in an office is just those serendipity moments when you speak to people when you make a coffee or walk past their desk — all that stuff is just gone so we’re just trying to do anything we can to recreate that,” said Andrew Turner, commercial director at digital agency NMPi.

NMPi parent company Incubeta has kicked off a daily five-minute afternoon dance party with a dedicated Spotify playlist held over Google Hangouts to boost morale and energy levels.

Other agencies are also encouraging employees not to be sedentary as they are forced to spend much of their time inside and away from others.

Global digital agency Huge has switched its Thursday pilates session in London to a Google Hangout and turned its “Huge100 Club” Wednesday lunchtime run into a virtual event, where employees are encouraged to share selfies and videos of their neighborhoods on its Slack channels.

We Are Social in Italy, where the country has been on lockdown for over week, has hosted events led by professionals over Google Hangouts that include smart yoga and muscle strengthening morning classes and mindfulness evening streaming sessions.

Elsewhere, software and data company VideoAmp is providing a kettle bell and two dumbbells shipped directly to staff for at-home workouts.

Redbud Media, a U.K. data ad tech consultancy, is encouraging remote employee social interaction through the medium of multiplayer online video games. At 1 p.m. GMT Wednesday, employees will be encouraged to compete in the 2D battle royale game “Zombs Royale.” The last player standing will get to choose the next day’s game.

“My biggest concern is making sure the team’s mental health is good,” said Chloe Grutchfield, RedBud cofounder. “Some people are OK dealing with isolation and not seeing their colleagues every day, but some of us need some more interaction and need a way to structure their day.”

Food can also play an important role in improving the mood of the workforce.

The majority of staff at consultancy Digital Decisions are based in Netherlands, one of the latest European countries to enter a lockdown situation this week. Many supermarkets there have frequently been understocked recently but restaurants are still open for delivery, said CEO Ruben Schreurs. Each day Schreurs hosts a “Wheel of Fortune” competition using Zoom and an online tool called Wheel of Names, where the winner receives a lunch delivery of their choice.

Elsewhere, Ralph Creative — which has offices in London, New York and Los Angeles — is setting up competitions on Slack, which rewards winners with food delivery vouchers.

“This all helps give people non-project related stuff to interact with and gives a lift each day,” said Ralph co-founder Chris Hassell.

Other ad companies have looked at ways to improve the physical environments their employees now find themselves working from for the foreseeable future.

Good-Loop, an platform that lets viewers of video ads send donations to their chosen charities, has given each of its employees £50 ($60) to help spruce up their home offices.

Having built the business from her kitchen, Good-Loop cofounder Amy Williams, said she has first-hand experience of having no colleagues, structure and “this weird feeling where you get up, walk 2 meters, sit down and you’re at work.”

“Having those small little items or objects that make it more symbolically professional can be psychologically helpful,” said Williams. “Be it a desktop screen you plug your laptop into, a pot plant you put on your desk, or just something that makes you feel like you created a space that helps you delineate work from home.”

By Lara O’Reilly.

Sourced from DIGIDAY

In News

Glued to TV for Now, but When Programming Thins and Bills Mount …

March 27, 2020 No Comments

By Edmund Lee and John Koblin.

More Netflix. Less ESPN. The pandemic means a greater number of television viewers in the short term, but signals a potential threat to the ecosystem protecting the industry.

It happened around the world, and now it’s happening in the United States: The more people stay home to avoid the coronavirus pandemic, the more they find themselves glued to their screens.

In South Korea, as cases spiked, television viewership shot up 17 percent, according to Nielsen. Last month in Italy, the size of the TV audience increased 6.5 percent, with a 12 percent rise in hard-hit Lombardy.

The same trend has arrived in the United States. In the Seattle area, total television use increased 22 percent on March 11 from the week before, according to Nielsen. In New York that day, as more people started working from home, use went up 8 percent. (Total use, as defined by Nielsen, includes live television, on-demand viewing, streaming and gaming.)

But for media companies, the benefit of having a bigger-than-usual audience may be short-lived as the outbreak threatens to undercut the very structure of their business. With businesses scaling back workers and analysts warning of a recession as global economies slow, a significant number of viewers may decide in the coming months to break away from cable or cut back on streaming subscriptions.

The gain in audience size “will be replaced pretty quickly by the necessity of reducing monthly bills, when people will have to deal with the financial impacts of a recession,” said Craig Moffett, a co-founder of the research firm MoffettNathanson. “Cord cutting will accelerate with a vengeance.”

The Walt Disney Company, ViacomCBS and other media giants face a pivotal moment as the delicate ecosystem that protects their business — live content tied to high-cost subscriptions — erodes even faster. It started last week with the sudden disappearance of a dependable asset: sports programming.

Live sports coverage generates billions of advertising dollars and fuels television subscriptions — a combination that delivers fat profits. Now the industry is facing the postponement and cancellation of almost every major sporting event, including the Masters golf tournament, a CBS staple, as well as the remainder of the National Basketball Association season and postseason, which are consistent draws for the AT&T-owned Turner channels and Disney’s ESPN and ABC networks.

The sports coverage has become critical at a time when the audience appetite for dramas and sitcoms has shrunk. Advertisers spend more than $2 billion on live games and tournaments during this part of the year, according to Kantar Media. And with LeBron James benched indefinitely, ESPN is expected to lose $481 million in N.B.A.-related advertising; for Turner, the loss will be about $210 million, according to MoffettNathanson.

In statements, ESPN and AT&T’s WarnerMedia said they were confident that they would weather the challenge, but declined to make executives available for interviews. For now, ESPN has filled the gaps by running “SportsCenter” nearly nonstop.

Karl Ravech on ESPN after the announcement of the cancellation of the Southeastern Conference men’s basketball tournament in Nashville last week. — Credit…Andy Lyons/Getty Images

NBCUniversal executives have been eagle eyed on the Tokyo Olympics ever since President Trump called last week for a possible postponement. More than $1.25 billion in advertising commitments are on the line for the network and its parent company, Comcast.

The overall TV industry calendar has also been upended, thanks to the scrapping of the upfronts, the annual schmooze-fest of advertisers, television executives and prime-time stars.

Instead of locking in ad deals over canapés and cocktails after splashy presentations at Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall and other New York venues, the usual attendees at this springtime gathering will have to find another way to broker the roughly $20 billion in marketing agreements for the 2020-21 season.

“We’ll miss Carnegie Hall and our agency dinners this year,” Jo Ann Ross, the head of advertising sales at CBS, said in a statement, adding, “We won’t miss a beat.”

Brian Wieser, the head of analysis and research at the media buying giant GroupM, wondered about the possible long-term effects of the pandemic on the industry.

“Will lack of advertising demand in the spring make it so pent up that when the upfronts are being negotiated, advertising will come back rapidly, or does it go away forever?” he asked. “Right now odds don’t look great, but nobody really knows.”

At a time when millions of isolated people are likely to tune in, the media industrial complex is grinding to a halt — and it is unclear when it will start back up again.

Warner Bros. has halted production on more than 70 television series. Netflix has suspended production on all scripted series and films in the United States and Canada for at least two weeks.

Most late-night talk shows, a major profit center for broadcasters, have announced that they will go dark through at least March 30. (On Monday, Stephen Colbert broke the silence with surprise segments filmed from his bathtub.) “Saturday Night Live” announced on Monday that it was halting production indefinitely, with six episodes to go in the current season.

A piano onstage at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, which canceled events because of the virus. — Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

Other programs shot before live audiences will not be affected. The current season’s remaining episodes of NBC’s “Ellen’s Game of Games” and Fox’s “The Masked Singer” are already in the can, as are the next six weeks of NBC’s “The Voice.” But a question mark hangs over the final episodes of “The Voice” — episodes that, in previous years, have been shot live before a studio audience.

The suspensions call into doubt the industry’s push into live and event-based content, a strategy designed to create programming that’s not easily replicated on the web.

“It looked like a good bet until two weeks ago,” Mr. Moffett said. “Now these companies look like they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus are likely to see a “surge” in viewership, now that traditional television has lost some of its “most valuable content,” said Matthew Ball, a media executive and former head of strategy at Amazon Studios.

Disney took advantage of the newly homebound by releasing its animated hit “Frozen 2” on Disney Plus three months earlier than planned. In a break from Hollywood’s standard practice, Universal announced on Monday that it would make its films available for rental via streaming the same day as their theatrical releases.

Soon-to-launch platforms could attract more viewers than expected during the nightmarish pandemic situation. Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, has an April 15 start date. AT&T’s HBO Max is set for a May debut. Quibi, the short-form content service from Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, is scheduled for an April 6 launch.

“This might not last, but it gives them all a much better and lower-cost shot at proving their value to audiences,” Mr. Ball said.

The streaming players may find themselves in a price war. “Cost will become that much more urgent,” Mr. Moffett said. “There are going to be very large parts of the population out of work.”

Warner Media headquarters at Hudson Yards in Manhattan. — Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

The chaotic events of recent days suggest the futility of predicting what will happen next as the virus creeps into previously unaffected areas. A CNN presentation for advertisers held on March 5 — less than two weeks ago — seems almost quaint in retrospect.

It took place at the network’s new headquarters in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards complex. The room was so packed that some advertisers had to be seated in an overflow area.

In front of the crowd — after the anchor Anderson Cooper quipped that he had “shaken, like, 50 hands today” — the CNN president Jeff Zucker asked the network’s chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, if it was “OK for these folks to go to a room of about 250 people.”

“No,” Mr. Gupta answered half seriously, to laughs from the crowd.

Tiffany Hsu contributed reporting.

Feature Image Credit: Credit…Hunter Kerhart for The New York Times

By Edmund Lee and John Koblin

Edmund Lee covers the media industry as it grapples with changes from Silicon Valley. Before joining The Times he was the managing editor at Vox Media’s Recode. @edmundlee

John Koblin covers the television industry. He reports on the companies and personalities behind the scripted TV boom, and the networks that broadcast the news. He previously covered fashion. @koblin

Sourced from The New York Times

In News

From bidets to meat thermometers, how publishers’ commerce businesses adapt

March 27, 2020 No Comments

By Lucinda Southern.

The second most-read article on The New York Times’ product recommendation site was its guide to the best bidets. The guide, which Wirecutter crowned the Toto Washlet C200 ($430 from Amazon) as the winner, has been published on the site for years, subject to recent updates. Traffic to the guide increase by 5000% compared with the same period the year before, according to the publisher. It’s a quirky but grim sign of the far-reaching impacts that coronavirus has on every aspect of peoples’ lives.

“The coronavirus pandemic is the story, it’s a topic with a lot of confusion, there’s a lack of clarity and misinformation,” said Ben Frumin, editor-in-chief at Wirecutter. “Our role is to offer clear-eyed, sober and actionable advice for people to get through it. It’s taken over really every aspect of peoples’ lives.”

For Wirecutter, who’s 100 journalists have published roughly 36 articles on how to prepare for the impact of the virus, reader interest over the last few months falls into three categories: How to stay clean and healthy, emergency preparation kits and working from home. Roughly half of the content on site is currently related to the virus but there’s no quota. Wirecutter is one of many publishers leaning into this type of content.

Over the last two months, articles have been springing up online to help people prepare for a new world where governments and companies mandate working from home and personal hygiene is of heightened importance. As people adjust to new ways of working, publishers are adapting their strategies to offer more service content, like how to stay active indoors, the best gear for parents working from home and wellness support, like the best meditation apps. For affiliate publishers, it’s an opportunity to earn some revenue in a time when ad budgets are in flux, a recession is on the horizon and events are being canceled or moved online.

New York Media’s The Strategist started its coverage of the coronavirus at the end of January when the N95 respirator masks — which filter out at least 95% of airborne particles — were out-of-stock online and the publisher suggested alternatives. Since then, it’s run pieces ranging from the best emergency preparedness kits to the top hand sanitizer (according to enthusiastic Amazon reviewers).

As millions of employees have started to set up their own office from home, publishers like Business Insider, CNET and Wired are publishing articles on the best gear, lamps, keyboards, headsets and office chairs for a more comfortable way to work from home.

“A lot of what we’re covering is basic hygiene stuff,” said Zack Sullivan, chief revenue officer at Future, where brands like Gizmodo and T3 are pushing out content like the coffee, tea and snacks you need for working from home and the best office chairs. “We’re adjusting the content to cover it better. Anything that publications can do to help people on their journey makes sense, we all have to capitalize on areas of opportunity, now that events are pressurized.”

Apparel choices are also changing. For people looking for comfortable clothes that aren’t pajamas, there’s this piece from The Strategist: “My go-to work-from-home pants feel like sweats but make me look like Shiv Roy.” Female-focused publisher Stylist spoke with 10 retail clients last week about how to best showcase their products to an audience looking for the right working-from-home kit, whether that’s the right outfit to wear, keyboard or yoga mat via its product recommendation hub and email newsletter, Stylist Loves. The hub features articles like “what to wear if you’re working from home” with links to retailers like Swedish high street brand H&M. Stylist has prepared content solutions on Stylist Loves for department stores and athleisure brands with products people need to maximize working from home.

“The worst thing you can do in business is freeze,” said Owen Wyatt, managing director at Stylist. “People need things delivered to their house. Clients can either be part of that conversation or not. Retail clients are suffering a lack of footfall on the high street, we’re working to help high street brands build digital and e-commerce propositions. We’re not going to be doing 50 Dettol advertorials in the next week.”

Stylist Loves is showing signs of being a fast-growing product, said Wyatt. It now accounts for 25% of Stylist’s digital revenue. One brand spent £6,000 ($7,300) on sponsored content and then sold £16,000 ($19,500) worth of goods from sending out one email to Stylist Love’s database of 150,000 people.

“We’ve seen a big spike in affiliate revenues from the weekend,” said Nick Flood, managing director, digital, at Dennis Publishing. Items related to working from home were responsible for most of the sales as more employees switch to working remotely, although Flood would not share specific figures.

News publishers are being more ruthlessly penalized due to advertisers flagrantly adding “coronavirus” and associated terms to keyword blocklists, meaning they are taking a hit on revenue. Future is one of the publishers that has instructed its team not to mention the virus on content like working-from-home guides unless it’s really relevant so it’s still eligible for earning money through ads.

“For advertisers, the affiliate channel is pretty low risk,” said James Bentley, UK strategy director at affiliate network company, Awin. “You only pay for the sale, it’s pure performance: If sales decrease, expenditure on the program will inevitably reduce in line.”

“Advertisers can also control commissions by product type,” said Bentley. “If they see a big growth in stay-at-home wear they can encourage publishers through changing the commission rate. There are a lot of different levers in that channel.”

For now, publishers interviewed for this piece aren’t seeing supply restricted from their affiliate partners, although there are shortages online pushing Amazon to hire 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers. But publishers adept in content and commerce will get more creative with their content as too many working-from-home guides begin to look generic.

Wirecutter’s top-performing guide by traffic over the last weekend was this on the best thermometer for kids and adults. Because the retailers are running low on stock, this week Wirecutter is publishing a “do it yourself”-style hack piece on what type of meat thermometer to use instead and where to get it.

“We cannot say ‘this is the best product as a result of our testing’ and then if it’s out of stock just shrug,” said Frumin. “Right now people really want something that works. It’s about solving problem, we’re meeting readers where they are.”

By Lucinda Southern

Sourced from DIGIDAY

In News

‘The economy needs marketers’ during the coronavirus crisis: Wake-Up Call

March 27, 2020 No Comments

By Judann Pollack.

Plus, How China’s agencies are going back to work and will your phone track you in the name of public health?

What 9/11 can teach us about marketing in the time of coronavirus

With the economy reeling and uncertainty lingering, there may be a tendency to put brand plans on hold and freeze spending. But Bradley Johnson, looking at the current crisis through the lens of 9/11, maintains that would be counterproductive. “The economy needs marketers and marketing,” Johnson writes, recalling General Motors’ “Keep America Rolling” campaign (see next item) in 2001. “Marketing helps drive commerce. Marketers have an opportunity to give consumers a reason to spend—deals, products, services—even when we are bunkered up and hunkered down.” Johnson points to how comments from industry executives in 2001 seem eerily familiar (“We are on hold, and taking it day by day. Nothing is typical anymore.“) and recalls Ad Age’s counsel to the market just days after 9/11.

“Time stood still during other crisis events,” Ad Age wrote to readers at the time. “After each, we sought explanations, took actions and grieved. We did not forget those times, and we will never forget what happened Sept. 11. But we moved ahead for the good of the nation in the wake of other crises. So it must be now.”

General Motors looks to roll again

General Motors is taking a page from its own “Keep America Rolling” playbook mentioned above. According to Automotive News, the company is offering 0 percent interest, 84-month loans and deferred payments of up to 120 days to customers in top credit tiers. Ford and Hyundai have announced similar programs aimed at helping buyers as the coronavirus pandemic causes economic uncertainty. The programs “demonstrate for customers that we’re there for them,” GM spokesman Jim Cain told Automotive News. “The financing offers are a way to reinvigorate people.”

China could lead the way back

While the U.S. and much of the world is just beginning to feel the full extent of the coronavirus, agencies in China are starting to return to their offices for the first time since January. “Chinese agencies and marketers started [preparing] early and thankfully finished early,” R3 Co-Founder and Principal Greg Paull tells Ad Age’s Lindsay Rittenhouse. “By extending Chinese New Year and strictly following government guidelines, it’s meant that life is more ‘back to normal’ now than any other client-agency ecosystem on Earth.” Read the story here to learn how local agency executives are beginning the recovery process.

Ad Council jumps into action

The Ad Council is teaming up with the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to “provide critical and urgent messages to the American public,” the group said in a statement. These will be disseminated by media companies and digital platforms who have donated inventory on their TV channels, radio networks, social pages, outdoor space and other digital media. “National broadcast PSAs featuring the U.S. Surgeon General will communicate the ways Americans can protect themselves and those most at risk,” writes Jeanine Poggi. “That script, developed by Group SJR, will also be made available as a template for media companies to create assets with their own local and state public health officials.”

ViacomCBS, meanwhile, is using its airtime to explain the importance of social distancing with a push called #AloneTogether via the Ad Council. The push encourages people “to find comfort and connection through entertainment” and reminds people that social distancing doesn’t have to mean social isolation. Read more here.

Is your phone spying on you?

While technology is allowing widespread working from home, it may also take a darker turn as quarantines, curfews and lockdowns take hold in many areas around the country. The Washington Post is reporting that the U.S. government is “in active talks with Facebook, Google and a wide array of tech companies and health experts about how they can use location data gleaned from Americans’ phones to combat novel coronavirus, including tracking whether people are keeping one another at a safe distances to stem the outbreak.” The idea, says the Post, is to collect the data anonymously in aggregate to map the spread of infection. But as the ad industry well knows, privacy concerns are a major flashpoint with consumers.

Just briefly

PHD scores a win: Diageo chose Omnicom Media Group’s PHD as its agency of record across the majority of its global media business following a “closely contested review,” says Isabel Massey, the brand’s global media director. The review, which kicked off in September 2019, involved longtime incumbent Dentsu Aegis Network’s Carat. The incumbent agency had previously handled media responsibilities for North America, Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Life after Lesser: AT&T’s John Stankey sent a note to employees this week reassuring them on the future of the company’s Xandr ad unit following the departure of CEO Brian Lesser. “While I am disappointed Brian will not be with us for the next chapter, I want you to know that our commitment to making advertising matter has not changed,” Stankey, who is president and chief operating officer at AT&T and CEO of WarnerMedia, wrote in a memo obtained by Ad Age.

Home cooking: Amazon is pausing shipments of non-essential products to its warehouses as it tries to manage its supply chain strained by coronavirus-related demand, writes Garett Sloane. But what’s essential might be up for debate. Among several Amazon Fresh items ordered by this writer, only one was limited: Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

Feature Image Credit: GM

By Judann Pollack.

Sourced from AdAge

Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, adaily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. If you’re reading this online or in a forwarded email, here’s the link to sign up for the Wake-Up Call newsletters.

In News

The Press Business: Meet the ad men trying to breath new life into print

March 26, 2020 No Comments

By Alex Daniel.

The last decade has been a slow motion car crash for print media. Sales have suffered a precipitous fall, trusted newspapers and magazines have retreated onto the internet, and scores of cherished outlets have shut up shop entirely. In 2018, the chief executive of the New York Times, Mark Thompson, estimated that the newspaper’s print product had about a decade left. “There may come a point when the economics of [the print paper] no longer make sense for us,” he said.

But two print advertising stalwarts are refusing to go down without a fight. After distinguished careers at major marketing agencies, Steve Goodman and Peter Thomson last year did the seemingly unthinkable and set up The Press Business, a boutique firm which specialises in getting adverts in print newspapers. “Clearly, it is a little counterintuitive,” says Goodman, a former director at UK advertising giant WPP. “When we spoke to friends both in and out of the industry, people said: ‘What on earth are you doing?’”

Indeed, circulation figures make for grim reading. The Sun, Britain’s bestselling print publication, has gone from more than 3m copies per day at the start of 2010 to just 1.2m a decade later. Free newspapers like City A.M. have fared better, but have also taken a knock. Print advertising spending has subsequently plummeted, from an annual £6bn across the industry before the global financial crisis to less than £2.5bn last year. So why are Goodman and Thomson doing it?

It is all a question of demand — which is very much alive, Goodman tells me. “There is no question circulation is going down,” he says. “But there are still significant numbers of newspapers being sold every day, and clients still find print very effective. That will continue to be the case for quite a long time to come. It is not going to switch off overnight.”

Major marketing firms, however, are rapidly losing interest in print, and have subsequently stopped spending money on it. Like newspapers, some have merged their print and digital teams altogether. As a result, Goodman tells me, those agencies are left with a team full of digital specialists who “every now and then [are] told to go off and buy a print campaign, without having a clue about the craft behind doing that correctly”.

That intersection — where demand for print advertising meets a lack of expertise at major agencies — is where the two ad men come in. Goodman became director of UK press at Group M, WPP’s media investment arm, in 2006, and for several years was in charge of more than a quarter of all spending on print ads in Britain. Thomson, meanwhile, founded M2M in 2003, an ad agency which was taken over by US giant Omnicom before eventually closing its UK business in 2016. Between them, they have 70 years’ experience in their trade.

In July last year, they met for coffee. Goodman floated the idea, and the months that followed involved “watching my savings diminish,” says Thomson. Their business model involves taking on the print marketing operations for bigger independent agencies for whom it is no longer profitable. They officially opened for business in January, having moved into their new office space in King’s Cross. This is where I meet them.

Thomson, especially, is thinking big. Within 20 minutes of sitting down he has already quoted John Maynard Keynes and Warren Buffett at me. Not only does he want The Press Business to fill a gap in the market, but he also hopes to launch a broader crusade against “dubious practices” employed by the big ad agencies. “At times, Ithink our industry behaves like bloody football agents,” he says. “It is murky as you like, driven by self interest, and not doing the best jobs for clients.”

These “shenanigans,” as he calls them, mainly come in the form of advertising kickbacks, whereby newspapers reward agencies for buying ad space in bulk with cash, fees or other benefits. Larger firms have faced widespread accusations of pocketing rebates that should be passed on to the customers who have paid for the space, as well as persuading unwitting clients to spend money on ads not because it helps them, but because it allowed the agency to get the extra cash.

Inefficient planning of ads with news outlets, which kickback culture contributes to, is costing brands in the UK £3bn in profit every year, according to research by marketing body Newsworks. Thomson hopes The Print Business can help clients reduce that figure by rejecting rebates, being more transparent, and planning campaigns more effectively than bigger competitors. Leading by example, he says, is part of his “long-term vision to change the way the industry is remunerated”.

For now, however, their efforts are concentrated on winning business — and the early signs seem promising. Goodman says the company is already “quite deep” in talks to take over the print buying operations of several independent agencies. “We’ve pretty much been appointed by one of them already,” he says, stopping short of telling me which one.

In one sense, Thomson admits, “we are zigging while everyone else is zagging”. But in another, the move reflects a wider trend sweeping the industry, which has seen clients turn to specialist, channel-specific agencies rather than using the big names across all disciplines. “And like they have done in other media,” says Goodman, “we believe now is the time that they will start considering that in print.”

Steve Goodman and Peter Thomson are founders of The Press Business

Feature Image Credit: Newspaper sales have declined steeply in recent years (via Getty Images)

By Alex Daniel

Sourced from CITY A.M.

In News

How to Stay Connected with People if You’re Stuck at Home

March 26, 2020 No Comments

By Terri Pous.

The concept of social distancing is one that I, an extrovert, initially was dubious I’d ever be able to grasp. It involves avoiding large gatherings and public transportation (if possible), keeping at least six-foot distance from other people, and generally just staying home as much as possible. Doing so helps to ensure that you have a lower chance of getting sick and that you’re less likely to get others sick. Together, this means we can “flatten the curve” so that more resources are available to the sick when they need it. Seeing how much of a difference it can make, though, caused me to immediately hunker down in my studio apartment for as long as possible to do my part.

If you’re taking similar measures to avoid non-essential public activity, it might seem like you’ll lose touch with friends and loved ones pretty quickly. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If anything, all of the extra time at home might make you more able to connect with people (hello, FaceTime). Here are some simple ways to feel close to anyone you might not see in person for awhile.

Play board games

There are actually so many ways to play board games with people you’re miles away from. I know from experience: one time, I “played” Yahtzee with my sister over FaceTime (I rolled for her and she told me what to keep), and she got three Yahtzees and absolutely clobbered me. I’m still bitter—but definitely recommend trying this with any game you like. Some games, like Ticket to Ride and Scrabble, have app versions that let you play friends and family by logging in (both app versions are better than the real game, imo). Short of that, you can channel these innovative friends and play a virtual game of Codenames.

Take the same online workout class

If you use Peloton, Obé, Mirror, or any of the countless other home workout options, then sync up and take the same class at the same time (you can even FaceTime each other while you do it!). Call or text each other before or after to motivate each other and do a debrief once it’s over. You can also look up workouts on YouTube or take a yoga class on Twitch together!

Challenge eachother to “bake-offs”

Baking is therapeutic for me, and if what I make brings joy to other people? Bring it on. Challenge a friend who also wants to bake to make a type of dessert (cookies, cake, pie, whatever strikes your fancy), and then send each other photos of the outcome. If you both generally have the same recipes, then do a swap once you’re done! Bonus: if you both live with other people who are willing to participate as taste testers, have them give grades and see who gets the highest score.

Plan group FaceTime hangouts

This is basically what it sounds like—make a plan for a group of you (whether it’s friends, siblings, cousins, coworkers who really like each other, whatever) to all FaceTime each other at the same time, and just… hang out. This is also doable with Skype, Google Hangouts, or whatever video chatting platform you prefer. It’s a surprisingly pleasant way to all catch up and get off of the dreaded group chat for once.

Make some pen pals

Now seems like a great time to catch up on correspondence, huh? Bust out some old stationery (I have so many cards and nice paper goods that can be put to use) and write to someone! This is especially nice to do with someone you’ve lost touch with—instead of trying to cram life updates into texts, write what’s been going on with you. You’ll be amazed at how much you have to share with each other. If you’d rather not put an extra burden on postal service workers, feel free to send a long, thoughtful email instead.

Binge the same TV show

Pick a show you’ve never seen, watch it at the same time, and then debrief on a regular basis! You can “watch” together by putting on the same episode simultaneously, or you can say “Let’s plan to discuss the first five episodes of ‘Mad Men’” by Friday. Take notes, drink Martinis, and debate your favorite ad slogans (the correct answer is the Jaguar one).

And place phone calls

It’s easy to forget how great a phone call can feel. I know millennials “hate” phone calls and, in general, texting is usually more popular, but I love a good, old-fashioned call. I do it while I’m disinfecting, organizing, working on a puzzle (both jigsaw and crossword), you name it. I’ve talked to so many more recently than I might’ve otherwise, and love the warm-fuzzies I feel after 30 minutes of communicating, even if they’re far away. It’s the perfect way to check in periodically on everyone you know to see how they’re doing—and hopefully share a laugh over something trivial amidst all of the chaos.

apartment therapy independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission.

Feature Image Credit: Georgijevic/Getty Images