In News

All of the anti-Semitic, racist, and xenophobic ad-targeting options offered by Big Tech

October 4, 2017 No Comments

Over the last few days, a slew of reporting, inspired by ProPublica, has revealed that it’s actually quite easy, through the programmatic structure of most online advertising, to create ads meant to target those who have espoused racist, antisemitic, or other hateful ideas.

Here’s a quick rundown of the major internet companies, and what has been discovered about their advertising platforms:

Facebook

On Sept. 14, ProPublica reported that Facebook allowed advertisers to target categories and ideas such as “Jew hater,” “How to burn jews,” and “History of ‘why jews ruin the world,’” based on interest Facebook users had expressed on the social network and terms with which they had used to describe themselves.

While Facebook removed those categories after ProPublica’s investigation, Slate then discovered that there are dozens of other racist, sexist, and xenophobic categories which advertisers could potentially target. It took Facebook less than a minute to approve ads against phrases like “Kill Muslimic Radicals”and “Ku-Klux-Klan,” and Slate found myriad other options, like “Killing Bitches,” “Killing Hajis,” and “Nazi Party (Canada).”

Facebook released a statement yesterday after ProPublica’s report, saying in part:

Keeping our community safe is critical to our mission. And to help ensure that targeting is not used for discriminatory purposes, we are removing these self-reported targeting fields until we have the right processes in place to help prevent this issue. We want Facebook to be a safe place for people and businesses, and we’ll continue to do everything we can to keep hate off Facebook.

Google

BuzzFeed discovered similar targeting issues on Google’s AdWords platform, which runs the advertisements you see on Google search results pages. Typing in keyword suggestions (which advertisers use to build their ads and figure out who to target) like “why do jews ruin everything” led to the system generating more keyword suggestions like “jews ruin the world” and “jewish parasites.” Buzzfeed was also able to build and launch a campaign around the phrase “black people ruin neighborhoods.”

When Quartz attempted to recreate BuzzFeed’s efforts using similar terms, or terms like those used by ProPublica and Slate, no keyword suggestions were returned. Google has since disabled many of the keywords that BuzzFeed tested.

Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google’s senior vice president in charge of ads, told Quartz in a statement:

Our goal is to prevent our keyword suggestions tool from making offensive suggestions, and to stop any offensive ads appearing. We have language that informs advertisers when their ads are offensive and therefore rejected. In this instance, ads didn’t run against the vast majority of these keywords, but we didn’t catch all these offensive suggestions. That’s not good enough and we’re not making excuses. We’ve already turned off these suggestions, and any ads that made it through, and will work harder to stop this from happening again.

Twitter

The Daily Beast was able to target similarly derogatory demographics on Twitter. It reported:

Twitter’s advertising platform tells prospective marketers it has 26.3 million users interested in the derogatory term “wetback,” 18.6 million accounts that are likely to engage with the word “Nazi,” and 14.5 million users who might be drawn to “n**ger.”

A Twitter representative told Quartz about the Daily Beast’s report:

The terms cited in this story have been blacklisted for several years and we are looking into why the campaign cited in this story were able to run for a very short period of time. Twitter actively prohibits and prevents any offensive ads from appearing on our platform, and we are committed to understanding 1) why this happened, and 2) how to keep it from happening again.

Snapchat

Quartz checked on Snapchat’s advertising platform to see if we were able to target using similar terms used on the other platforms. We were not able to: It seems that Snapchat’s demography isn’t quite as granular as the other platforms, which are far more text-based than Snapchat, and so it’s likely easier for them to glean what sorts of things its users are sharing than through all the videos and images posted to Snapchat.

Bing

Microsoft’s second-placed search network seems to have a similar problem to its other platforms. When Quartz created a test advertising campaign on Bing Ads, we weren’t able to directly target specifically loaded terms, but searching for just about any phrase in Bing’s “keyword suggestions” generator will generate specific keywords that you might want to try to target instead. Here’s one example, using “Hitler” as the search term:

Screen Shot 2017-09-15 at 5.51.52 PM — (Screenshot/Bing Ads)

A representative for Bing told Quartz:

We take steps to ensure our Bing Ads always meet reasonable standards. We are committed to working with partners who share our vision for relevant, impactful brand interaction and respect the integrity of consumer choice.

Yahoo

Quartz attempted to create an ad campaign on Yahoo, but it seems there’s no simple way to create one online without speaking to a representative from Oath (Yahoo’s parent company) first. And presumably fewer people would feel comfortable telling a sales rep the sorts of things they’re targeting than they would inputting them into a computer system. Hopefully.

Microsoft’s professional social network doesn’t seem to let users target based on arbitrary phrases or demographics. Other than geography, these are the only things you can target against on LinkedIn:

Screen Shot 2017-09-15 at 6.01.21 PM — (Screenshot/LinkedIn)

The only section that might have the potential for hateful terms would be in “Member groups”—but a cursory search of terms like those used above didn’t reveal many professional hate groups to target on the platform. We did, however, come across this group:

Screen Shot 2017-09-15 at 6.03.39 PM — (Screenshot/LinkedIn)

Upon further inspection, however, it seems that this group was set up by a LinkedIn employee trying to see whether they could set up a group with a title like this. Obviously, it worked:

LinkedIn sent Quartz the following statement:

Hate has no place on LinkedIn and will not be tolerated. When we are made aware of such content, we act swiftly to enforce our policy and remove said content. On Friday, a member of our team created a group solely for internal testing purposes and after a brief testing period, we took the group down.

By Mike Murphy.

Sourced from QUARTZ

In News

Facebook exec says focus on mobile helps soften the impact of FMCG giant’s reduced digital spend

September 27, 2017 No Comments

By Shawn Lim.

As the world’s biggest advertisers like Unilever and Proctor & Gamble continue to operate on lower advertising budgets and spend less on media buys in 2017, Facebook believes that putting its faith in mobile advertising will help it ride the storm going into the next year.

Ever since P&G’s top marketer Marc Pritchard announced that the Ariel and Pampers advertiser will review all of its agency contracts and called for more transparency in the media supply chain at the start of year, the advertising industry has seen some major shakeups.

Unilever dropped half of its creative agencies under its employment and reduced spend to $200m, while P&G reduced up to $140m of its ad spend and stopped investing in areas where it was unsafe for its brands, on top of its move to stop targeted ads on Facebook in 2016.

The cutbacks by the FMCG giants were necessary to clean up the supply chain and remove fraudulent inventory, acknowledges William Platt-Higgins, vice president, global client partnerships at Facebook in an interview with The Drum in Singapore, and notes that it is in everybody’s interest that fraud be eliminated from the ecosystem.

“We have seen various marketers and agencies taking a hard stance on this publicly and some clients very surgically try and cut out as much of that as possible. They have done so without any negative impact on their business because the inventory that they are weeding out is actually not good inventory to begin with,” explains Platt-Higgins.

“It won’t be eliminated completely, but I think all the clients that we work with in all regions of the world are focused on reducing fraud as much as they can and getting transparency into the supply chain by using third party verification.”

While Facebook has previously come under fire for reporting miscalculated metrics and for a lack of transparency because of its closed marketplac e around its user data, brands and agencies still trust the social media giant, according to Platt-Higgins, which is why all Facebook verticals are growing, including FMCG.

He also accuses critics of being green-eyed about Facebook’s strong, growing partnership with P&G and other big FMCGs, claiming that it is being brought earlier into the creative and strategy planning stages.

“They (Unilever and P&G) are very focused on maximising value for their investments and cleaning up as much of their supply as they can. They are looking to hold all media choices, not just digital media choices accountable,’ says Platt-Higgins.

“One of the things we are starting to hear is the advantage of any digital investment is it is more measurable than traditional offline investments. Digital channels, because they are measurable, the amount of data available on their efficacy and attribution to sales is large.

“What we are seeing from these conversations is ‘It is great that I am holding all my digital investments super accountable, because that is the right thing to do and I want to hold all my other investments as accountable as well’. What you will see increasingly is that investments will flow to media channels that are providing the higher returns of investment and the higher value, and they will recede from those that aren’t.

He also repeats a well-trotted out company line about its closed marketplace, as he says that the Facebook ecosystem does not qualify it as a ‘walled garden’. He explains that people are jealous of the quality of its data and its desire to protect its data, which comes as a result of its commitment to user privacy.

“We certainly hear it (walled gardens) and I don’t think that we would agree with that,” he adds, adding that the requests tend to boil down to various people or entities wanting more data on individuals, which breaches Facebook’s terms of service and the trust that people give when they join.

“That is something that we will and must protect. So that’s our stance on it,” asserts Platt-Higgins.

Quoting a book called ‘How Brands Grow’ by professor Byron Sharp at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, Platt-Higgins says Sharp’s words inspired Facebook to shift its focus to mobile advertising to cope with the FMCG giants’ lower ad spend and media buys. Sharp wrote that in order for brands to grow they need to bring new users into the franchise, and that consumers are not uniquely loyal to brands and instead tend to shop on a ‘consumer regiment’ of products because of mental and physical availability.

He claims that this approach by Facebook has seen it reach 500,000 households in the Philippines for Nestle’s all-purpose cream product campaign using Facebook and Instagram. While in the UK, 37 FMCG campaigns that made use of its tools drove a 3.7% increase in sales, and of those people buying those products 60% were non-brand buyers. In the US, 200 campaigns on Facebook and Instagram drove an increase in household penetration, bringing new users in 72% of the time.

“Over the last number of years, as people shifted to mobile devices, the concept of both mental and physical availability has changed. If you are in the business of growing your brand, what you need to master is mobile marketing,” says Platt-Higgins.

“This is where we have been spending most of our time. Not only is Facebook and Instagram driving sales, but they are disproportionately driving household penetration and bringing new users in because of mobile.

“In Indonesia or India, where there might be power outages from television, the opportunity to reach people with mobile and bring top-of-mind awareness and mental availability is huge.”

However, Platt-Higgins admits that simply porting assets from television onto mobile does not necessarily work and Facebook is constantly reminding itself that the way people consume content is different. He adds that if a brand is not building for the mobile environment intentionally and with craft, care, seniority, thoughtfulness and senior stakeholder-management stewardship, as well as optimising for mobile, then it is a missed opportunity.

“Brands need to optimise in three areas. One is the reach, where often what we find is that clients have gone too narrow with their reach and that can be a drag on their results. We see that the frequency is not optimised and not reaching people enough or too often. The most important thing is how the creative is being optimised for mobile,” explains Platt-Higgins.

“We spend a lot of time trying to audit and show whether or not the work has been optimised for mobile and if it has, how we can make it even better.

“If we can get those three things right, we find that we can disproportionately drive sales and Facebook has a direct attribution to sales. That is the only equation that people are interested in.”

Platt-Higgins’ advice on mobile certainly carry weight, as a report by eMarketer found that FMCG brands are expected to invest 28% more in mobile advertising in 2017 in the UK.

By Shawn Lim

Sourced from THEDRUM

In News

How Social Platforms Are Using Video to Capture Audience Attention

September 6, 2017 No Comments

Sourced from eMarketer

Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter want a piece of the digital video advertising pie

Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter are embarking on a massive land grab for video content, hoping to drive increased usage and capture a greater portion of digital video ad revenues with familiar ad formats such as pre-roll and mid-roll.

“Consumers—particularly young people—are viewing video programming on more devices and in more destinations than ever before, and social platforms want to capture their attention,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer principal analyst and author of the new report, “Video Advertising in Social Media 2017: Showtime for Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter.” (Subscribers to eMarketer PRO can access the report here. Nonsubscribers can purchase the report here.)

Video advertising has become an important revenue stream for social media properties. But they want more.

Being pigeonholed in the “social” bucket has stymied growth. The broader digital video ad business is something that all social properties have been lusting after.

eMarketer forecasts US digital video ad spending outside of social platforms will reach $13.23 billion this year, up 23.7% from 2016. By 2021, spending will reach $22.18 billion.

eMarketer does not include video outlays on social platforms in its digital video ad spending forecast, instead counting them in the rich media forecast. Rich media, which will be a $10.33 billion market in the US this year, includes such ad types as flash, JavaScript and video that does not appear as part of a video player.

Companies like Facebook “know their users have an increasing appetite for video content and are actively making a play for brand marketing dollars that would traditionally go to online video or broadcast TV buys,” said Todd Silverstein, US head of performance marketing at Edelman.

Although Facebook has deep pockets and an enormous audience, its success is by no means assured. Consumers today don’t go there to watch shows, so Facebook must change their behavior by offering great programming and a winning video platform.

Meanwhile, Snapchat’s “Shows” are quite short, benefiting its position as a place for creative, quick-hit content for young people. TV networks are the primary programming partners, and the ads use Snapchat’s familiar vertical video format.

However, many marketers have yet to get comfortable with creating video ads on Snapchat. As the company continues to roll out programming, the challenge will be to convince them to develop for its unique format.

Twitter is relying on its real-time roots, emphasizing live and event-driven video content. Like Snapchat, Twitter has turned to a familiar format—its Amplify video publisher partner program—for delivering ads in its new shows. The company has a lot riding on its video initiatives, given its slumping user growth and resulting falloff in ad revenues.

In News

Travel Marketing: The Rise of the “Instagrammable Holiday”

August 21, 2017 No Comments

If you are marketing a travel destination, you only need one mantra: Deliver an ‘Instagrammable holiday’ or go home.

This conclusion is based on the findings from Travelzoo’s Autumn Travel Trends Survey* issued today. (Never heard of Travelzoo? Neither have we, but the organisation has 28 million members! What?)

The survey reveals that how a holiday photo will look on social media platforms is an important consideration for 55% of those born after 1996 (Generation Z). The appeal of social bragging declines going back each generation. Millennials (those born between 1987 and 1995) are highly focused on the photogenic appeal of their holiday choice (42%), but just 10% of both late and early Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1965) consider this when booking a holiday.

Joel Brandon-Bravo, Travelzoo’s General Manager in the UK said, “It’s mid-August now and peak ‘posting season.’ Most people’s social media feeds are full of images of friends and family enjoying the sunshine. Let’s face it, when you’re stuck in the office on a rainy day those feeds can become irritating. But there is a holiday show-off in most of us and many hoteliers are getting wise to the power of making their properties as ‘Instagram-ready’ as possible.

“Some restaurants and hotels Travelzoo works with tell us they are starting to train staff in how to take great photos for social media as they are seeing how guests love to share their experience in real-time and want to be part of that process. Our research shows this focus is not misplaced and the importance of how photogenic a hotel, restaurant or destination is should not be underestimated. The tourist of today sees where they travel as a way of expressing themselves and this will only increase with future generations. Being seen in aspirational destinations that photograph well will become one of the most significant considerations a person will make before booking.”

In terms of the power of social media to influence holiday bookings, the generational split is vast. Almost two thirds of Generation Z use social media for inspiration on what to book, but only 10% of older Boomers (those born from 1946–1954) say social media has an influence on their decision making. For Millennials and Gen Z, Facebook and Instagram are the most powerful channels, with Facebook marginally more influential for Millennials.

Savvy hotels, restaurants and resorts are realising how important it is to enable customers to create the best visual impression of their experience. Thomas Cook recently opened a new line of resorts called Casa Cook, which have been designed with features that will photograph well and appeal to a younger demographic.

Travelzoo works with London restaurant Galvin at Windows, whose General Manager Fred Sirieix says, “Our image online is very important. We take great care in the imagery we post and how we appear.” Staff at Galvin receive training in how to take photos that are suitable for Instagram and other platforms because they understand how important it is for their restaurant. Sirieix stresses that while the online image is managed carefully it is important to be authentic. He believes in the importance of not appearing too “manufactured” in your online imagery and explains how “our Instagram is loaded with fun videos in order to show our personality.”

Generation X (those born from 1966–1986) is the most concerned of all generations about privacy online and limit posting on holiday because of this. Millennials are the least concerned about their privacy being compromised through social media but this group are the most aware (34%) of the pressure to project the image of the ‘perfect holiday’ while they are on a trip. Authenticity is a trend most noted by Generation Z, with one in four saying they think people are doing less obviously touristy activities on holiday.

While the appetite to share the holiday experience on social media shows no sign of abating, the survey also reveals an awareness of the benefits of switching off digitally – and this is true across all generations polled. Despite their love of social media 53% of Millennials and 45% of those born after 1996 say the idea of totally disconnecting digitally on holiday is appealing to them and over 60% of Generation Z say switching off from social media and emails would help them recharge more on holiday.

About the Research
*Travelzoo’s Autumn 2017 Travel Trends Survey was conducted among 1000 consumers in the United Kingdom, who completed an online questionnaire sent out by third-party research agency One Poll. The questionnaires were completed between 21–24 July, 2017.

In News

Look out, YouTube and Facebook: Amazon’s coming for video publishers

August 9, 2017 No Comments

By Sahil Patel

YouTube and Facebook get a bulk of the attention from digital publishers looking to build and scale video businesses. Meanwhile, for the past year, Amazon has built a platform that not only offers publishers another place to distribute videos but also the opportunity to make money from day one.

Last year, Amazon opened up its Prime streaming platform to video publishers and creators of all sizes, allowing them to distribute individual videos, themed video collections, entire seasons of shows and even their subscription channels. Called Amazon Video Direct, the program gives participating publishers access to the estimated 79 million people who pay for Prime in the U.S. alone.

One publisher in the Amazon Video Direct program said it earned mid-five figures on Amazon during its first month on the program last year — nearly four times the amount it made from YouTube ad sales during the same month. “That was an eye-opener, and we’ve been putting up more titles [on Amazon] since then,” said this publishing exec.

Amazon itself said the Video Direct program paid out “tens of millions of dollars” in royalties in its first year, with “billions of minutes” streamed.

“We are encouraged by the positive response and adoption from content creators, as well as the high level of engagement by Amazon Video customers,” said Eric Orme, head of Amazon Video Direct.

Video publishers have a number of ways to make money from the Amazon Video Direct program. If they choose to distribute individual videos and shows within the Amazon Prime subscription video service, they get paid 15 cents per hour streamed in the U.S. and 6 cents per hour streamed in the U.K., Germany and Japan. Publishers also have the option to sell individual movies, shows and video packages to customers, retaining 50 percent of all revenue made from purchases or rentals. There’s also an ad-supported, free portal, through which Amazon pays out 55 cents to every dollar generated from pre-roll ads. Finally, they can sell add-on subscriptions.

Very little revenue is coming in from the ad-supported side at the moment, according to multiple sources. However, the dollars generated from distributing inside the Prime subscription service, while fluctuating month to month, are proving to be noticeable. It’s enough money that HowStuffWorks started to produce long-form shows last year that can be distributed on Amazon.

Comedy studio Jash, meanwhile, is seeing enough revenue from Amazon that it plans to publish new episodes of “Norm Macdonald Live,” its comedy talk show with the famous comedian, on Amazon the day they premiere.

“Because Amazon is starting to pop up, I can create a show like this that’s a little bit higher profile, and I can do it at a profit with better margins than I see in traditional entertainment,” said Mickey Meyer, co-founder of Jash. For instance, on a show like “The High Court,” which airs on Comedy Central, the margin is the typical 10 percent that production company gets in TV. By controlling production and distribution on “Norm Macdonald Live,” Jash has the chance to make more. “Platforms like Amazon that place a value on premium content are bigger factors in this overall shift everyone’s seen from traditional to digital development.”

The Video Direct program, however, is not the only way video companies can distribute and make money on Amazon. There’s also the Amazon Channels program, which allows companies with subscription streaming services to sell those products to Prime customers. Today, this program boasts more than 100 partners, including premium cable channels such as HBO, Showtime and Starz, as well as numerous channels from mid-tier and digital publishers including Defy Media, Fullscreen, Fandor and The Enthusiast Network.

The deal terms vary, but multiple sources said Amazon typically takes a 30 to 40 percent cut of subscription revenue generated through this program. A research note from BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield in June said Amazon Channels account for half of the subscribers for HBO and as much as 75 percent for Starz’s streaming channel. The percentages vary, as multiple sources told Digiday that Amazon Channels account for anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of total subscribers of their streaming channels. One publisher said subscriber numbers doubled in the first three months after launching its streaming service on Amazon last year, though the growth has recently dipped, likely due to an annual summer seasonal drop.

“We want to play with companies that have the opportunity to be in it for the long haul, and Amazon is one of the companies that has that potential,” said Mark Garner, svp of distribution and digital content licensing at A+E Networks, which distributes two streaming services — History Vault and Lifetime Movie Club — through Amazon Channels.

Still, there is one more way to partner with Amazon — and that’s through the company’s original video business. So far, Condé Nast and Playboy have sold shows to Amazon Studios with the documentary series “The New Yorker Presents” and “American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story,” respectively. This is where Amazon competes with Netflix, TV networks and film studios, and it’s an area that top digital publishers are eyeing as they invest more in long-form and feature-length video.

“We’re targeting more feature films to bring to them,” said Dawn Ostroff, president of Condé Nast Entertainment, which also premiered the documentary TV series “Last Chance U” on Netflix in June 2016. “They’ve really risen as being one of the most sought-after places to sell because they stand for prestige.”

YouTube and Facebook will continue to be the platforms where a lot of digital publishers spend a lot of their time, resources and money to cultivate audiences — the scale is there. But with the amount of royalties and subscription-related revenue Amazon paid out in the past year alone, video companies — whether they’re TV networks, production studios or smaller, digital publishers — are treating Amazon as seriously as they do any other video distribution platform.

“Most of the time, when you launch on a new platform, you have a very long ramp toward success,” said Erick Opeka, evp of digital networks for Cinedigm, which distributes three streaming channels — Docurama, CONtv and the Dove Channel — through Amazon. “With Amazon, we saw success out of the gate immediately — it gave us breathing room to focus on how to grow our own direct-to-consumer streaming business.”

By Sahil Patel

Sourced from DIGIDAY

In News

A Small Change on Facebook May Require Major Updates for Your Website

August 3, 2017 No Comments

By Peter Roesler.

Facebook to Remove the Ability to Edit Link Previews in Attempt to Curb Spam and Fake News

Have you ever wanted to share a link for your website on Facebook, only to discover you weren’t happy with the automatically generated preview? Normally, you would just change the headline, description and pop in a better picture. But in the near future, that won’t be option for many Facebook pages, and possible all of them in the future. This may sound like a minor thing, but it actually means that many website owners need to update their websites if they intend to continue using Facebook as part of a content marketing and link sharing campaign.

Over the next few weeks and months, Facebook will make changes to its Graph API, which determines how your website or app interacts with Facebook to produce link previews. Removing the ability to edit link previews is part of Facebook’s larger campaign to prevent the platform’s use in misinformation campaigns. But using such a sweeping measure means that regular business owners will be prevented from editing their links for legitimate reasons.

“By removing the ability to customize link metadata (i.e. headline, description, image) from all link sharing entry points on Facebook, we are eliminating a channel that has been abused to post false news,” explains Matthew Robertson in a post on the Facebook Developers Blog. “We also understand that many publishers have workflows that rely on overwriting link preview metadata to customize how their content appears to audiences on Facebook. We’re committed to a solution that supports them.”

Facebook first announced the changes at a conference earlier this year, but these changes to editing links went into effect 90 days from that announcement. Even with the advanced notice, publishers weren’t pleased as the time to implementation grew closer. Many of the comments on the Developers Blog post were negative. But since the changes have yet to be fully implemented, it’s hard to know what the effect will be.

Facebook is aware of the challenges this will cause for content creators and they seem to be searching for a workaround that would satisfy all sides. Though, they say that such a solution will have to wait.

“We’re working to find other solutions that allow publishers to share customized content on our platform, and we will have more to share in the coming weeks,” said Robertson.

In the meantime, this change means that website owners may need to update their sites. If your site’s links don’t automatically fill with the proper information, then you need to update the metadata for the pages on your website. Otherwise, the automatically created link box for certain posts may not look right.

Depending on how the site is structured, this can be very easy or extremely hard. Most content management systems, like WordPress, have plugins that handle all the snippet generation for social media. These plugins will need to be updated so they meet the new guidelines from Facebook. So long as your plugin developer is up to date and your plugin has the latest version, everything should be fine.

However, if a site doesn’t have automatically generated snippets or they were highly customized for the old format, then the site may need an overhaul to make sure all the pages have proper previews. Either way, it’s important to know your site’s status.

Remember, having the correct preview on social media isn’t just about the business’s social media page. If someone visits a site and tries to share a link with their friends, it’s important that the automatically generated preview creates the best impression. This is how things spread on social media. Without an interesting headline, description and image, most people aren’t going to pay attention to or click on the link.

So make sure your site is ready for changes to Facebook’s Open Graph. It may sound all technical, but the implications for your business’s advertising and marketing campaigns are big.

For more recent news about social media marketing, read this article on the benefits of using social media to spread video content.

By Peter Roesler.

Sourced from Inc.

In News

Facebook launches UK initiative to counter online extremist material

July 12, 2017 No Comments

Sourced from Reuters.

Facebook Inc is launching a UK program to train and fund local organizations to combat extremist material online, as internet companies attempt to clamp down on hate speech and violent content on their services.

Facebook, which outlined new efforts to remove extremist and terrorism content from its social media platform last week, will launch the Online Civil Courage Initiative in the UK on Friday, the company said in a statement.

The new initiative will train non-governmental organizations to help them monitor and respond to extremist content and create a dedicated support desk so they can communicate directly with Facebook, the company said.

“There is no place for hate or violence on Facebook,” said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer. “We use technology like AI to find and remove terrorist propaganda, and we have teams of counterterrorism experts and reviewers around the world working to keep extremist content off our platform.”

The British government has stepped up attacks on Silicon Valley internet companies for not acting quickly enough to take down extremist online propaganda and fostering “safe places” where extremists can breed following a string of attacks in recent months in London and Manchester.

Facebook, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter Inc have responded by saying they have made heavy investments and employed thousands of people to take down hate speech and violent content over the past two years. Security analysts say the efforts have dramatically reduced the use of these platforms for jihadist recruitment efforts, although more work needs to be done.

Prime Minister Theresa May has sought to enlist British public opinion to force the U.S. internet players to work more closely with the government rather than proposing new legislation or policies to assert greater control over the web.

Earlier this week, May urged fellow European Union leaders at a meeting in Brussels to join her in putting pressure on tech companies to ‘rid terrorist material from the internet in all our languages’.

She called for the internet companies to shift from reactively removing content when they are notified of it, toward greater use of automatic detection and removal tools – and ultimately preventing it from appearing on their platforms in the first place.

(Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in Berlin and Julia Fioretti in Brussels and Michael Holden in London; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier).

Feature Image: The logo of the social network Facebook is seen on a beach during the Cannes Lions in Cannes, France, June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

Sourced from Reuters.

In News

At Cannes, advertisers are still hunting for an alternative to Google and Facebook

July 11, 2017 No Comments

By Kurt Wagner

Plus new attendees, two ways to look at live video and a Snapchat-branded Ferris wheel.

The biggest spenders and personalities from the advertising and media worlds descended on the French Riviera this past week for Cannes Lions, an extravagant week-long party full of elaborate dinners, exclusive concerts and a limitless supply of rosé.

Tech companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter rented out sprawling beachside cabanas for the week to host meetings and schmooze with business partners.

Others, like Spotify and Verizon’s newly formed AOL-Yahoo tie-up, Oath, threw big parties with expensive musical performances. (In Oath’s case it was Fleetwood Mac front-woman Stevie Nicks; Spotify had Solange Knowles, sister of Beyonce.) Medialink and iHeartMedia threw their very exclusive dinner party again this year where R&B star The Weeknd performed for celebrities like Ryan Seacrest and CEOs like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey.

But despite all the distractions — and there were plenty — Cannes is also a place where actual deals get done. Many ad buyers and ad sellers use the week to plan out spending for the second half of the year, and who shows up and who makes a scene can give you a good idea of the current pecking order for the industry.

Recode attended, too. Here’s a glimpse from our notebook at some of the biggest themes of the week.

Who’s No. 3?

The big, 60,000-foot takeaway from dozens of conversations this week is something that we’ve all known for a while: Facebook and Google are absolutely dominating the digital ad market, and buyers are eager for a third player to offer some competition.

What was different this year from years past is that folks no longer believe that the third player, if one ever emerges, will be another platform, like a Twitter or Snapchat. Instead, it feels like No. 3 might be a content provider, a company like Verizon-owned Oath or Comcast-owned NBCUniversal*, that has more control over the content they distribute.

There are a couple of reasons why this matters. One is that advertisers claim they don’t get enough data from Facebook and Google about who, specifically, they’re reaching with their ads.

The hope is a third player might share more of that info. But the other important reason is “ad adjacency,” which is ad industry speak for making sure your ads don’t appear next to something offensive, like an ISIS video.

Google and Facebook are platforms that carry content created by other people. A media company would theoretically have more control over said content, and thus ensure the ads are shown in the appropriate context. Still, no one expects that a third player will emerge quickly. That means we’ll probably be having similar discussions with ad buyers next year.

Could Facebook’s Live video problem become an advertising problem?

Speaking of adjacency … People are using Facebook Live for all kinds of horrible things, including suicides and beatings. And while the company is just starting to roll out ads within Facebook Live videos (and only from videos produced by hand-selected partners), two ad buyers we spoke with said their clients are already starting to question whether or not they’d want want to buy a Facebook Live video ad and be associated with the product at all.

The ads are so new that this is not yet a significant problem, but it’s also not a great sign for Facebook, which is finally making its big push into mid-roll video ads.

Twitter, meanwhile, is selling “live”

Virtually everyone in Twitter’s upper ranks was at Cannes this year. CEO Jack Dorsey spoke on a panel mid-week and, surprisingly, wasn’t asked much of anything about Twitter’s business. But we chatted with VP of Global Revenue Matt Derella at the company’s fancy beach cabana and he explained that Twitter is trying to sell video ads to accompany the live video content it’s been gathering for the past year. (Twitter spent time at Cannes selling ads for its NFL streaming package last year, but it doesn’t have those same streams this year.)

Derella says selling video ads for its live video streams is similar in process to selling traditional TV ads, but Twitter’s video ads are different in that they’re more targeted than TV ads, and mostly built for mobile devices.

“I don’t think it’s going to be as simple as TV 2.0,” he explained. “Some of the biggest CPG marketers in the world are taking their 15 and 30 [second ads], and we’re working with them and actually re-cutting them for Twitter.”

Twitter’s beach cabana at Cannes Lions in France - 2017.

Jeffrey Katzenberg has an idea for “New TV”

DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg was in town to pitch advertisers on his idea for what he’s calling “New TV.” The idea is to turn what has traditionally been a multi-hour program — a three-hour movie, for instance — into multiple shorter episodes and deliver that to people on mobile devices. He described it like cutting a book into short chapters.

But Katzenberg, who spoke with us from a suite on the top floor of the Carlton Hotel overlooking the marina, said he doesn’t want to create the kind of quick-to-produce internet videos that might do well for sites like NowThis or BuzzFeed’s Tasty unit. He wants to spend millions and produce videos that compare in quality to what you might see in the movie theatre.

The problem? The existing platforms that would be logical fits to distribute something like this — Facebook or YouTube — don’t offer an advertising model that can support that kind of production budget, Katzenberg says. That means he might try and build a platform himself, or work with an existing player to build something together.

“I don’t know. I’m in that process right now,” he said. “Over the last eight weeks I have met with what I believe are all of the potential enterprises that this might be a good fit for.”

Snapchat may not be doomed after all

Snapchat, whose presence in Cannes included an exclusive meeting compound surrounded by bushes and body guards (again) plus a giant yellow Ferris wheel, missed its Q1 revenue estimates this year, but ad buyers we spoke to in Cannes aren’t as concerned about the company’s business prospects as investors are.

Each of the five ad buyers we spoke with said their clients are eager to spend money on Snapchat, and one said he recommends Snapchat in every media package he sends to his clients.

So if everyone wants to give Snap money, why isn’t the company’s business bigger? These buyers claim that it’s a combination of things. Snap is still building its ad technology, like automated ad-buying software and better measurement tools. And it also takes bigger advertisers a long time to adopt anything new — and Snapchat’s business, which is just three years old, is still very new.

New arrivals

Reddit sent its sales team to Cannes for the first time this year alongside founder Alexis Ohanian. Pinterest has been at Cannes the past four years, but this was by far the company’s biggest presence. It rented a fancy beach pier, and executives told us that they are pushing their new search advertising units in conversations with marketers. (For more on that, and the rest of Pinterest’s business, you can read our profile of Pinterest’s President Tim Kendall here.)

Facebook Messenger was also in Cannes selling ads for the first time. It’s also showing advertisers its new inbox ads that it started testing back in January.

“We are selling mostly News Feed ads that push people to Messenger but we [are] also starting to educate … and teach people about those [inbox] ads coming inside Messenger as well,” explained Messenger’s product boss Stan Chudnovsky over breakfast on Facebook’s beach pier.

The New York Times is not opposing Donald Trump

The Times’s Deputy Publisher, AG Sulzberger, defended the paper’s reporting on President Trump during a panel at a beachside cabana hosted by media giant OMD this week.

Sulzberger, who will eventually take over as publisher, said that while the Times’ coverage isn’t flattering of Trump, the paper is not trying to actively oppose him either. Eventually, opposition groups come into power, Sulzberger explained, and he doesn’t want the paper to be fighting for any particular side. “The New York Times is nobody’s lapdog,” he added.

Feature Image: Solange Knowles performing at Spotify’s beach party during Cannes LionsTony Barson / Getty Images Entertainment

By Kurt Wagner

Sourced from recode

In News

What Kind of Facebook User Are You?

July 6, 2017 No Comments

There are selfies, relationship builders, town criers, and window shoppers.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

On an average day, 1.28 billion people check it. Monthly? Nearly 2 billion. And according to one recent estimate, the average Facebook user spends 35 minutes a day on the platform – which makes for a whole lot of daily and monthly minutes.

In a recently published study, a trio of Brigham Young University communications professors explores why.

“What is it about this social-media platform that has taken over the world?” asked lead author Tom Robinson. “Why are people so willing to put their lives on display? Nobody has ever really asked the question, ‘Why do you like this?'”

Based on subject responses, the research team identified four categories of Facebook users: relationship builders, town criers, selfies and window shoppers.

Relationship Builders

Relationship builders post, respond to others’ posts and use additional Facebook features primarily in an attempt to fortify relationships that exist beyond their virtual world. “They use it as an extension of their real life, with their family and real-life friends,” Robinson said. People in this group identified strongly with such statements as “Facebook helps me to express love to my family and lets my family express love to me.”

Town Criers

Town criers, on the other hand, experience a much larger gap between their real and virtual worlds. Unconcerned with sharing photos, stories or other information about themselves, they instead “want to inform everybody about what’s going on,” Robinson said. Like town criers from days of yore, “they’re pushing out information.” They repost news stories, announce events – but may otherwise neglect their profile pages, preferring to update family and friends through alternative means.

Selfies

Selfies use Facebook to self-promote. Like relationship builders, they post pictures, videos and text updates – but unlike relationship builders, they’re focused on getting attention, likes and comments. Study participants in this category identified highly with the statement “The more ‘like’ notification alarms I receive, the more I feel approved by my peers.” Selfies, said study co-author Kris Boyle, use the platform “to present an image of themselves, whether it’s accurate or not.”

Window Shoppers

Window shoppers, like town criers, feel a sense of social obligation to be on Facebook but rarely post personal information. Unlike town criers, these users, said study co-author Clark Callahan, “want to see what other people are doing. It’s the social-media equivalent of people watching.” Window shoppers identified with such statements as “I can freely look at the Facebook profile of someone I have a crush on and know their interests and relationship status.”

Though previous Facebook-related research has explored users with relationship-builder and selfie characteristics, Robinson said, the town criers and window shoppers were an unexpected find. “Nobody had really talked about these users before, but when we thought about it, they both made a lot of sense.”

Facebook users may identify to some degree with more than one category. Boyle noted that most people have at least some selfie tendencies, for example. But users typically identify more with one than others. “Everybody we’ve talked to will say, ‘I’m part of this and part of this, but I’m mostly this.'”

Photo credit: Nate Edwards/BYU Photo