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Australian publishers band together to form programmatic editorial video marketplace

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By Taruka Srivastav

Australian publishers Seven West Media, Network 10, SBS, Foxtel Media, Pedestrian Group and Daily Mail have joined forces to launch a programmatic ‘Editorial Video Marketplace’.

The new marketplace, run by Telaria, aims to simplify buyers’ access to this professionally produced premium content with daytime audience reach and scale, as per the official statement.

Luke Smith, head of programmatic sales and audiences at Seven West Media said: “The demand from advertisers has been clear – that there is a need for quality video delivering high viewability and completion rates within brand safe editorial environments at scale.

“It is important that the premium value and impact of editorial video is able to differentiate itself from other forms of short-form like social video. This marketplace, available programmatically, will be a means to make that easily accessible for buyers and advertisers at scale,”

Flaminia Sapori, head of partnerships at media agency Cadreon said: “It’s encouraging to finally start seeing publishers working collaboratively to provide alternative independent options in this space — creating ease of access, and most importantly, a new narrative for editorial video, giving it the credit it deserves, and perhaps start influencing more social budgets being redirected to new premium ecosystems.”

The news comes after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released its final digital platforms inquiry report in July calling on the government to act against the tech giants.

ACCC had raised concerns, at the starting of the year, about the market power of Facebook and Google including the companies impact on Australian businesses, particularly their ability to monetize content, as well as outlined concerns about the extent that consumers data is collected and used by companies to target advertising.

Feature Image Credit:The marketplace aims to simplify buyers’ access to this professionally produced premium content.

By Taruka Srivastav

Sourced from The Drum

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Digital You Real Personal Branding in the Virtual Age

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By William Arruda

What’s your story?

The most successful brands aren’t created, they are unearthed. Successful branding is based on authenticity. So how do you reveal your own brand? First, by searching yourself for answers to questions like these: What do you do better than anyone? What are you most proud of? What makes you lose track of time?

In Digital You: Real Personal Branding in the Virtual Age, branding authority William Arruda describes the 21st century world of personal branding and guides you to define, express, and expand your personal brand for the virtual world. Branding is not about being famous, Arruda explains; it’s about being selectively famous. It’s about more than social media excess. When you understand the true value of personal branding, you can use it as a serious career development strategy.

Digital You offers a deep dive to understanding and defining your unique promise of value—making a great first impression, mastering multimedia, and, ultimately, expanding your network and promoting thought leadership. You’ll learn how to develop, design, and sustain a personal brand throughout the fluid movements of any career. Understand how to be clear about your digital brand and your unique promise of value so you can increase your success and happiness at work and in life. It’s time to stop worrying about career extinction and start crafting a brand of distinction.

By William Arruda

Dubbed “the personal branding guru” by Entrepreneur magazine, William…Full Profile

Sourced from atd Association for Talent Development

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‘It’s found money’: YouTube stars look for ways to expand to Facebook

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By Tim Peterson

YouTube has largely reversed the changes to its verification program that were announced Sept. 19. However, the initial announcement to revoke some creators’ verified status served as a reminder that no other platform has yet emerged as a viable viewership- and revenue-generating alternative to Google’s video platform in the minds of creators. But YouTube stars continue to look for low-stakes opportunities to syndicate their YouTube videos to other platforms in hopes that they could become competition for YouTube.

Digital media company Jellysmack has begun working with YouTube creators to edit their YouTube videos for Facebook as well as Snapchat and establish the platforms as relatively passive income streams. Over the past two to three years, the publisher had developed its own tools to optimize the videos that Jellysmack posts to its own Facebook pages, such as Beauty Studio, which generated 269 million views on Facebook in August 2019, according to data from Tubular Labs. In the first quarter of 2019, it created a program to open up these tools to YouTube stars, who may be interested in expanding to Facebook in order to diversify their businesses but struggle to find the time to do so while continuing to manage their YouTube channels; in August Jellysmack began to add Snapchat to the program’s mix. In addition to assisting creators with tailoring their YouTube videos to run on the creator’s own Facebook page, Jellysmack helps them to find an audience on the social network by investing its own money to promote creators’ videos as ads on Facebook.

Jellysmack and the creators share the revenue from the ads that Facebook sells against creators’ videos, according to Jellysmack CEO Michael Philippe; Jellysmack does not currently have the ability to sell ads against its videos on Facebook. Philippe declined to say how specifically the revenue is split between Jellysmack and creators but said that some creators in the program are making “six figures per month on Facebook.” Additionally, the processing of creators’ videos will help Jellysmack’s optimization tools understand different types of content than the types of videos it posts to its own Facebook pages, and Philippe hopes the program will help it to establish relationships with creators who may eventually star in Jellysmack’s original shows.

For YouTube stars and their talent managers, Jellysmack’s program is appealing for obvious reasons. “It’s found money,” said Adam Wescott, partner at talent management firm Select Media Management. “But it’s still a bit unproven. When it comes to Facebook, the CPMs don’t match YouTube.”

While Facebook has cultivated a crop of homegrown creators, the social network has struggled to win over YouTube stars for two main reasons. YouTube-centric creators are unsure whether Facebook can consistently deliver a large, intentional audience a la YouTube, as opposed to passive views from people scrolling through their news feeds. And even if the audience is there on Facebook, the money may not be, at least not enough to justify the effort required to either produce original videos for Facebook or edit their YouTube videos for the social network. Conceivably, creators could cross-post identical versions of their YouTube videos to Facebook, which is nice in theory but unproven in practice. “While it seems easy, there’s not really that payoff when you talk about monetization,” said Christina Jones, vp of talent at talent management firm Digital Brand Architects.

YouTube-centric creators like Lizzy Capri face a dilemma when looking to expand to Facebook. Since 2017, Capri, who is not involved in Jellysmack’s program, has worked to develop and hone a content strategy that has amassed her 3.9 million subscribers on YouTube. She would like to replicate that success on Facebook but recognizes that that would require replicating the time and effort she had to put into her YouTube channel because Facebook is “a whole different beast to learn,” she said. For example, she would have to edit her YouTube videos, which are usually more than 10 minutes long, for Facebook, where three- to five-minute videos perform best, she said. Additionally, she would have to determine how the profile of her audience on Facebook might compare to her YouTube audience and take that into account when tailoring videos for the platform. Because she knows the effort required to establish a successful channel on Facebook, she also knows that she doesn’t have “the bandwidth to do that right now,” she said.

Caylus Cunninghman, a creator who goes by the name “Infinite,” could probably make the time to grow his channel on Facebook, he said. But he doesn’t have to. As one of the creators in Jellysmack’s program, Cunningham has been able to “just leave it in [Jellysmack’s] hands because, at the end of the day, they know how to run a Facebook page, and I don’t really. I know YouTube,” he said.

Cunnigham had tried to get to know Facebook. In early 2018, he began uploading some gaming-related videos to Facebook to try out the platform but only attracted roughly 20,000 followers. That pales in comparison to the more than 12 million subscribers he has on accrued on YouTube since he started taking YouTube seriously in 2016. Then around April of this year, Cunningham began working with Jellysmack to edit his YouTube videos for a new Facebook page that has amassed 2 million followers to date.

Cunningham can customize whatever edits that Jellysmack makes to his videos, including their titles and thumbnail images. But he usually just leaves whatever optimizations are made by Jellysmack’s tools. Typically Jellysmack removes the intro and outro from his YouTube videos and adjusts the aspect ratio of his videos — which are produced horizontally for YouTube — so they can be more easily viewed when people are holding their phone’s vertically, he said.

While Cunningham has established a large following on Facebook, YouTube continues to generate more views and revenue. He estimated that his YouTube videos typically receive two to three times as many views and ad dollars as his Facebook videos. However, considering that Jellysmack is handling the heavy lifting in adapting his YouTube videos for Facebook, whatever views and revenue he can reap from Facebook is pretty much all profit. While Jellysmack has effectively made Facebook a passive income stream for Cunningham, the platform is beginning to take a more active role in his content strategy. “Sometimes when I’m making my YouTube videos, I do think of Facebook now,” said Cunningham.

By Tim Peterson

Sourced from DIGIDAY

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20 Fall Marketing Ideas That Will Get Your Business Noticed

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Sourced from Square Up

Fall is an ideal time to promote your business: people are back in town after vacation, kids are back to school, and everyone’s ready for a fresh start. Take advantage of the season’s opportunities with these marketing ideas.

1. Launch an Instagram photo contest: Invite customers to post pictures of themselves engaged in their favorite fall activities (apple picking, flag football, etc.) with a designated hashtag. Choose a winner and offer them a free gift, and re-gram the photo on your account.

2. Hold a “can-do” event: Email customers offering them a discount when they bring in canned and other nonperishable food items to donate to a local food pantry.

3. Put your name on it: Ditch the paper or plastic bags (at least temporarily) in favor of reusable shopping bags featuring your business’s name. You could also encourage customers to carry it by offering a discount when they bring it into the store.

4. Sponsor a team: Support young athletes in a way that fits with your business. For example, if you sell women’s clothing, maybe partner with a girls’ soccer team. Or if you run a restaurant, make your establishment the official pregame coffee spot for parents or postgame hangout for players.

5. Advertise on local blogs: Identify the most popular blogs in your community for news, style, food — whatever best aligns with your business — and advertise special promotions for readers. Not only are the rates less expensive, but you can more easily reach your target market.

6. Hit the festival circuit: Chances are that organizations in your area host a fall fair or Oktoberfest, so find out how to set up a booth or get involved in sponsoring the event.

7. Host a social IRL party: Invite all your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram followers to meet up in person at your store for a shopping party with special promotions and giveaways.

8. Offer an appealing deal: Entice people in by offering a discount. You can promote your sale via window signage, social media posts, or Square’s email marketing software.

9. Lend your space: Reach out to a favorite local charity, like an animal shelter, and offer them your shop for a fundraising event.

10. Celebrate new holidays: Halloween and Thanksgiving get all the glory, but you can make your business stand out with fun, social media–friendly holidays unique to your business, like a “Sweater Weather Saturday” sale or a “Pumpkin Spice Appreciation Day” event.

11. Start a deal-of-the-week email: Send targeted messages to customers with Square’s email marketing tools offering special discounts on specific items or services.

12. Team up with local businesses: Work with other neighborhood shops to pool your resources (and social media reach) to throw an autumn-themed weekend event with food, entertainment, and lots of special promotions.

13. Bring in the experts: Identify common problems among your customers (home organization, wardrobe ideas, hair updates), and designate a day to offer the expertise of your staff and outside consultants with free in-store consultations.

14. Throw a “treat yo’self” party: Email your best customers (it’s easy to identify them with Square’s tools) and invite them to a special event with complimentary manicures, chair massages, and makeup application along with cocktails and appetizers.

15. Spend now, save later: Holiday shopping season is looming, so tempt your customers with a deal: if they spend a certain amount now, they’ll get a designated amount off their purchase after Thanksgiving.

16. Get media savvy: Reach out to local TV news, radio shows, and podcasts to pitch seasonal stories that relate to your business, like fall fashion updates, seasonal recipes, and more.

17. Hire fresh talent: Need new photography, graphic design, or social media help? Reach out to local high schools, colleges, and design schools for talented young employees who can give your business a fresh perspective (and audience).

18. Donate to local auctions: Fall is a huge fundraising time for schools and charity organizations, so reach out to some of your favorites and offer goods and services for raffles and silent auctions. You’ll raise awareness about your business and be a good neighbor.

19. Host a swap party: Create a Facebook invite and ask all your fans to bring in one good-as-new item for a clothing or home goods swap and shopping party. Donate any unclaimed items to charity.

20. Get some, give some: Promote your store’s personalized Square gift cards for preholiday shopping by offering a deal for buying in multiples, like get a free $15 gift card for every $100 you spend on gift cards.

Sourced from Square Up

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Is Alibaba Really The Amazon Of China?

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By Trefis Team

Alibaba is often referred to as the ‘Amazon of China’ because of its growth trajectory being nearly identical to that of Amazon. Both companies started off as e-commerce platforms, but over the years evolved into much more diversified companies with a significant focus on technology. But are their business models really similar to each other?

Trefis attempts to answer this question by comparing the various revenue streams for Alibaba vs Amazon in an interactive dashboard. While Amazon is the larger of the two companies by a significant margin, both companies have quite similar revenue streams.

  • When comparing Commerce as well as Cloud revenues, Amazon’s revenues are nearly 15x that of Alibaba’s.
  • However, Alibaba’s advertising revenues are quite comparable to that of Amazon’s.
  • The gap between Subscription Revenues for both companies is likely to continue expanding on the back of Amazon’s wider and more local focused reach.
  • Despite the law of large numbers being against Amazon, the U.S. company’s reach is likely to remain an order of magnitude higher than that for the Chinese giant.
  • That said, a side-by-side comparison of the two companies shows that Alibaba’s title of ‘Amazon of China’ really does fit.
Today In: Money

You can see more Trefis technology company data here.

A Detailed Comparison Of Historical & Expected Trends In Revenues For Both Companies

Total Revenues

Amazon revenues:

  • 2016 revenue $136 bn; 2018 revenue $232.9 bn; 2016-18 growth of 71.3%.
  • 2020E revenue of $350.2 bn; 2018-20E growth of 50.4%.

Alibaba revenues:

  • 2016 revenue $9.4 bn; 2018 revenue $23.2 bn; 2016-18 growth of 146.1%.
  • 2020E revenue of $41.7 bn; 2018-20E growth of 79.9%.

Ratio of Amazon’s to Alibaba’s total revenues had reached from 14.5x in 2016 to 10.1x in 2018. Considering 2018-20E growth of 50.4% in Amazon’s total revenues versus expectations of 79.9% for Alibaba’s total revenues, we expect the ratio of revenues to narrow further to 8.4x by 2020.

Below, we summarize key trends from our detailed interactive dashboard comparing revenue streams for Alibaba vs Amazon

Commerce revenue

Ratio of Amazon’s to Alibaba’s commerce revenues have fallen from 33.6x in 2016 to 17.3x in 2018. Considering 2018-20E growth of 39.8% in Amazon’s commerce revenues versus expectations of 97.2% for Alibaba’scommerce revenues, we expect the ratio of revenues to shrink further to 12.2x by 2020.

Cloud revenue

Ratio of Amazon’s to Alibaba’s cloud revenues had reached from 32.6x in 2016 to 17.5x in 2018. Considering 2018-20E growth of 75.5% in Amazon’s cloud revenues versus expectations of 145.8% for Alibaba’s cloud revenues, we expect the ratio of revenues to reach 12.5x.

Advertising revenue

Notably, Alibaba’s advertising revenues have been larger than Amazon’s over 2016-17. But the ratio of Amazon’s to Alibaba’s advertising revenues flipped from 0.6x in 2016 to 1.1x in 2018. Given Amazon’s push into advertising over recent years, we expect the ratio of revenues to reach 1.7x by 2020 in Amazon’s favor.

Subscription revenue

Ratio of Amazon’s to Alibaba’s subscription revenues had reached from 6.6x in 2016 to 7.7x in 2018. Considering 2018-20E growth of 80.3% in Amazon’s subscription revenues (driven by the geographical expansion in Amazon Prime video offerings) versus expectations of 60.4% for Alibaba’s subscription revenues, we expect the ratio of revenues to reach 8.7x.

What’s behind Trefis? See How It’s Powering New Collaboration and What-Ifs

Feature Image Credit: The Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. logo is displayed outside the company’s offices in Beijing, China

By Trefis Team

Led by MIT engineers and Wall Street analysts, Trefis (through its dashboards platform dashboards.trefis.com) helps you understand how a company’s products, that you touch, read, or hear about everyday, impact its stock price. Surprisingly, the founders of Trefis discovered that along with most other people they just did not understand even the seemingly familiar companies around them: Apple, Google, Coca Cola, Walmart, GE, Ford, Gap, and others. This might include you though you may have invested money in these companies, or may have been working with one of them for years as an employee, or have consulted with them as an expert for a long time. You can play with assumptions, or try scenarios, as-well-as ask questions to other users and experts. The platform uses extensive data to show in a single snapshot what drives the value of a company’s business. Trefis is currently used by hundreds of thousands of investors, company employees, and business professionals.

Sourced from Forbes

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17,000 data points from 50 top brands prove that diversity in ads is good for their bottom lines

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By Jeff Beer

A new study from Deloitte agency Heat found that representation in ads correlated with an increase in both stock price and public perception.

It should go without saying that working to ensure advertising is inclusive, diverse, and representative is just the right thing for brands to do.

While there have been improvements over the past decade, though, too often inclusion is treated as a box to tick.

Woman? Check.

POC? Check.

Still, the work fails to illustrate these people as three-dimensional human beings.

Now, a new study from Deloitte-owned agency Heat has found that brands that have figured out how to do just that are seeing a boost to both public perception and their stock price. “We embarked on this to try to prove that diversity in advertising is actually good for business,” says Heat’s head of strategy Maggie Gross, adding that the goal was to connect the desire among many companies to create more diverse advertising with the pressure of business results.

The “Heat Test” study looked at ads for 50 brands from the Top 200 media spenders, across eight industries. Ultimately this encompassed more than 17,000 data points. The agency then consulted with Duke University anthropology professor Dr. William O’Barr and UT Austin advertising professor Dr. Kevin Thomas on what diversity in advertising should look like. They identified key metrics, such as showcasing diversity in primary roles (speaking roles versus background), illustrating diverse characters in positions of power (buying a burger versus selling the burger), and contrasting stereotypical roles (woman cooking versus woman pursuing a career).

They found that 94% of the brands in the study had at least one occurrence of women in a primary role, 57% of which were in positions of power, but even half of those roles still featured a stereotypical element like empathetic mom, devoted wife, or boy-focused girl. Also, 92% of the brands studied had at least one occurrence of a person of color in a primary role, but only 15% of those were culturally diverse.

Where things really fell off was in representation of both the LGBTQ+ community and in depicting individuals with a disability. Less than 1% of ads represented a character who would identify as LGBTQ+. Despite one in four American adults living with some type of disability, again, less than 1% of the ads featured a character with one.

The research also found that 90% of ads didn’t include people of lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Some of these findings mirror those in a University of Southern California study earlier this month on diversity and representation in films, which found that among the top 100 highest-grossing films of 2018, less than 2% of onscreen characters had a disability, and LGBTQ characters made up only 1.3% of speaking roles.

Heat’s researchers looked at the stock growth of each brand over the past seven quarters, as well as Brand Index scores to get a sense of how the corresponding ads impacted public perception as well as the bottom line. Turns out, brands that scored highest in the study averaged a 44% stock increase over the past two years and were 83% more likely to see a boost in their Brand Index scores than lower scoring brands.

Gross says they’re not calling out specific brands, but the message to brand marketers and ad agency creatives here is to reflect on what they could do differently, from adjusting the way that creative teams are briefed to how they write scripts and put together casting recommendations so that they can track and measure the process.

“It’s less about checking a box and making sure, frankly, you have a woman or a person of color in your ad,” says Gross. “It’s about recognizing that diverse people are complex, relatable human beings. It’s no longer a question of if you should do this but if you can afford not to.”

Feature Image Credit: [Photo: Oleksandr Pidvalnyi/Pexels]

By Jeff Beer

Jeff Beer is a staff editor at Fast Company, covering advertising, marketing, and brand creativity. He lives in Toronto. More

Sourced from Fast Company

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7 reasons why effective PR is more important than ever

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By Dorothy Crenshaw 

Landing coverage in reputable news outlets is essential in this era of dwindling public trust. Skilled practitioners can seize the moment, with help from technology for metrics and scale.

Drastic changes in the media and cultural landscape have altered PR and marketing in recent years.

Challenges for PR practitioners include a faster-than-ever news cycle and what seems like constant political and cultural controversy. Combine that with an erosion of faith in government and private institutions, and it can make for a difficult environment.

How do we navigate the media landscape when “fake news” accusations are thrown around and the very business of media is under siege?

Yet the business of public relations is thriving. One reason is that PR is more relevant—and valuable—than ever. Here’s why:

1. Credibility is paramount.

According to the Cision State of the Media Report, 59% of U.S. consumers say they are suspicious of news content. On social media platforms, skepticism is far greater, as it should be.

This means the credibility of media outlets and other information sources is more important than in the past. The public values journalism, and people are moving to media channels they trust. Traditional news outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post have reported double-digit increases, and cable news ad revenue is up a whopping 25%.

PR practitioners understand that a brand or personal reputation built through bylined content, executive speeches, legitimate user reviews and media profiles will earn the credibility that comes from implied endorsement by recognized third parties. That beats self-promotion every time.

2. PR drives SEO.

PR’s role goes beyond earned media coverage, but it’s still an essential piece of many PR campaigns. Established publications that link to a brand will boost search listings due to their domain authority, and ever since Google determined that brand mentions are “implied links,” they work harder to drive SEO. Anyone who has managed a content marketing program understands high-quality, “evergreen” content can live for years, pushing up page rank and attracting traffic for a brand or business.

3. PR generates influence.

Beyond earned media, typical PR tactics build relationships, engage influencers, and even help change public perception and behavior. PR skills once used exclusively in media relations are easily transferred to social community management, influencer relations, and content marketing. Word-of-mouth PR spread on social media platforms is not only cost-effective, but highly trackable and persuasive.

4. PR is (nearly) immune to ad blocking.

Publisher panic over ad blocking has largely receded, but the number of blocked impressions on mobile is growing as browsing migrates to mobile devices. What’s bad for digital content providers is also bad for the PR industry. Ad blocking cuts revenue for digital publishers just when they need it most. Yet PR programs that generate visibility through earned and owned content are more valuable than ever during times of digital marketing disruption.

5. PR is more measurable than ever.

Today, the outcomes of a PR program are more measurable than they’ve ever been, thanks to a concerted effort by the industry, but also to digital tools. Of course, metrics will always vary by program, but even with simple (and free) tools like Google trends and access to web analytics, we can often pinpoint the impact of earned and owned content and social sharing with a fair degree of accuracy. One digital business service has found that business profitability coincides almost perfectly with peaks in web analytics driven by earned media.

6. Goodwill has value.

What is more valuable than a brand (or personal) reputation? Many PR deliverables are powerful in building reputation over time, and social media accelerates and amplifies their impact. A glowing review (or unfortunate video interview) can blow up on social platforms in the time it takes to say, “Call the PR firm.” It’s hard to put a price tag on customer loyalty or positive perception, but in today’s unpredictable media environment, it’s like money in the bank.

7. Technology helps it scale.

What we do to generate earned media is not always efficient, and it has traditionally been hard to scale. Yet many agencies have added capabilities in content marketing, digital content creation and brand journalism that can amplify earned media or add to its impact through shareable content. Automation has changed intelligence gathering and data analysis, which often inform a PR program’s messaging and content.

By Dorothy Crenshaw 

Dorothy Crenshaw is CEO of Crenshaw Communications. A version of this post first appeared on the Crenshaw Communications blog.

Sourced from

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This Is A Creative Emergency – Why Advertising Must Stop Playing Both Sides On Climate Change

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By Solitaire Townsend

On the 31st March 1929, a young woman stepped out into a bustling New York street in the height of the Easter Day Parade. She lit up a Lucky Strike cigarette, provoking gasps of outrage. Ten other women followed her down the street, brandishing their new ‘torches of freedom’. An early example of spontaneous feminism perhaps? In fact, it was an early example of the power of advertising. The women had been hired by Edward Bernays, the father of advertising (and nephew to psychologist Sigmund Freud). Her gesture of liberation was engineered in front of a waiting audience of journalists, and the story spread across America. Bernays’ masterstroke was a resounding success: sales of cigarettes among women soared. Of course, advertising itself has also skyrocketed since Bernays’ day. Children as young as two can now recognise an average of around eight brand logos. Unsurprising considering that people see anything from 360 to 5,000 ads every day. And that avalanche of selling really does work (at least for the businesses paying for them): seeing ads for a drug make it more effective, and ads for unhealthy foods can make them seem healthier.

That cultural impact is compelling, which is why I’ve dedicated my career to wielding that huge power of creativity and storytelling against the greatest threat of our time: the climate emergency.

But of course, that power also has a price tag, and I’m deeply concerned that the wrong people are paying it. The fossil fuel industry has ploughed a whopping US$1.4 billion into PR and advertising over the last decade, six times more than spent on renewable energy interests. That ratio makes one thing clear: the advertising industry is putting the weight of its creativity behind the causes of climate change, not the solutions to it. No wonder then that climate denial and confusion continue to hinder progress on these issues. They are the products of this marketing investment, which has been highly effective.

High-carbon clients

Futerra

The tobacco industry used to be one of the biggest advertisers (and in some place they still are). But in many countries, the brand names, logos and messaging about cigarettes have disappeared from our TV screens, sports sponsorships, POS and ATL. And as a result, smoking rates plummeted.

  • Clients requiring their agencies to disclose the high carbon revenue in their portfolios, especially when briefing them on purpose, sustainability or impact work. This could become a new agency procurement criteria, led by client brands that have themselves made huge efforts to make their businesses more sustainable (a chance for the much-maligned procurement team to become heroes). Might they even one day refuse to work with agencies who continue to represent fossil fuel and high carbon interests?
  • Growing numbers of advertising/marketing/PR and creative agencies will commit to refuse briefs from oil, coal and gas. Not least because the very best individual creatives will withdraw their talent from destruction.
  • The most progressive cities, regions or indeed countries, will regulate against non-renewables energy advertising. Following the decades-old ban of advertising near schools or promoting cigarette brands at sporting events.
  • Media companies and platforms (from traditional to digital) will refuse to accept media revenue from high-carbon advertisers. Staff at the Radio Times in the UK have already called for a boycott of such ads in their magazine.
  • The most breakthrough, of course, would be the non-renewable energy companies themselves voluntarily withdraw from advertising and marketing.

By Solitaire Townsend

Follow me on Twitter.

I believe that sustainability is the greatest entrepreneurial opportunity of a generation. So, in 2001 I co-founded the global change agency Futerra, which uses strategic logic and creative magic to make sustainability really work. Today we have offices in London, New York, Stockholm and Mexico City serving the worlds most respected corporations, breakthrough entrepreneurs and even the occasional government. I’ve been ‘Ethical Entrepreneur of the Year’, member of the United Nations Sustainable Lifestyles Taskforce and a London Leader for Sustainability. After 20 years of working in sustainability I know what real change looks like. Read my new book The Happy Hero – How To Change Your Life By Changing The World.

Sourced from Forbes

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Ex-Shortlist chief Mike Soutar named Evening Standard CEO

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By John McCarthy

Media veteran Mike Soutar, a former editor of FHM and co-founder of Shortlist Media, has been appointed chief executive of The Evening Standard.

The news brand, edited by former chancellor George Osborne, has suffered a turbulent time financially and has brought Soutar aboard to course correct.

Having co-founded Shortlist magazine (now defunct but survived by sister title Stylist), Soutar brings expertise in managing a print product distributed freely in cities, which is the model deployed by The Standard. He starts in the newly created role on 7 October.

Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Evening Standard, said: “We are delighted that Mike has joined the Evening Standard at this important time for the company and wider industry and are confident that his vast media experience and leadership skills will make a great success of this new role.”

Soutar added: “I’ve been a regular reader of the Evening Standard since the late 1980s when I first moved to London. I look forward to working with the talented team to grow an even stronger business that will continue to play a central role in shaping and reporting the cultural and political development of the greatest city in the world.”

The title recently made editorial cuts and spoke of knitting digital and print teams closer.

Soutar, who has also served as a director at Ti Media and editor of Smash Hits, previously talked The Drum through the evolution of lad culture, having seen how profitable it was at the height of his FHM reign.

Feature Image Credit: Mike Soutar, media exec, featuring on BBC show The Apprentice

By John McCarthy

Sourced from The Drum

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The Best Time Of Day To Post On Instagram Is More Complicated Than You Think

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By Syeda Khaula Saad

With the complicated algorithms and secrets behind hashtags, Instagram isn’t just a hobby anymore — it’s a science. And if you’re one of the hopefuls trying to break into the world of social media stardom, you’re going to want to get in on the rules. But before you even begin to delve into the art of making captions or following the right people, one of the key components to gaining traction and attention to your posts is figuring out the best time of day to post on Instagram.

With all the changes to Instagram’s algorithm in recent years, it can be difficult to keep up with who’s seeing your post and why. “Now that feed is no longer chronological, the old rules on timings are not quite concrete,” Rosanna Falconer, digital strategy and brand consultant, tells Bustle. But people like Falconer, who are familiar with Instagram and its algorithms, know how to use the platform in their favour. “To play the algorithm, it’s important you get instant, strong engagement (likes, comments, saves),” she says.

A lot of it has to do with understanding that Instagram shows other users certain posts depending on interest, relationships, and timeliness, according to TechCrunch. This means that when you see a post, you’re seeing it because Instagram determined it would be something you’re interested in because of your past likes. It also means that you’re seeing it because of your previous interactions with whoever posted it, and of course, the time it was posted. And while the first two require a close assessment of your followers and interactions, you can work on timeliness.

After analysing 12 million Instagram posts, Later.com, a marketing platform for Instagram, determined that the best time to post on Instagram was between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. EST. Even though it’s based on millions upon millions of posts, however, this answer isn’t necessarily reflective of every single user’s Instagram. Forbes, for example, determined that the best time to post is anytime between Tuesday and Friday between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m EST.

The reasoning behind these discrepancies is that when it comes down to it, the best time to post is based upon the individual user and where they’re posting from. “This will depend from account to account based on factors like demographic, age group, etc.” Falconer says. “For example, if the majority of your followers are USA-based, there’s no point posting at 7:30 a.m. GMT.”

Woman looking at publicly shared photo on social network

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Molly Marshall, an Instagram marketing strategist, tells Bustle that the process of finding the best time might take some guessing and checking. “You can use your Instagram analytics to make your best guess, and test from there,” she says. “You may find a time that you think works really well for you, but it’s important to test that against something else, because you could be surprised!”

The important thing about finding the best time for your posts on Instagram is knowing your audience and their habits, which might take you a while to really catch up on. But if you pay close attention and use the guess-and-check method, you’ll be sure you find your posting sweet-spot.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

Sourced from BUSTLE

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