Hasta La Creative!

Some of the digital media brands most associated with men are starting to either broaden their focus beyond traditional bro content or clean up their act a bit, all the better to attract readers of all genders and play nice with much-coveted advertisers.

It seems that few brands these days really want to be seen as being for men, which is notable considering that a bunch of blatantly female-focused publications — Bustle, Broadly, Lenny Letter, Motto, among them — have arrived over the past few years. (One notable example is Beta Male, a New York magazine popup blog that attracted some internet ire along with a solid readership.)

Thrillist Media Group, for example, is often described as being for millennial men. But the company would like to change that perception. “Over the last year or so, Thrillist has been shifting beyond being a solely male-focused media brand,” a spokeswoman told Ad Age as she declined an interview request for an article about men’s media.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Seismic. That’s the best description of the revelation that Facebook inflated the level of its users’ time commitment to video. “Inflated” as in 60% to 80% too high, according to the first round of credible estimates. Predictably, the news triggered an earthquake from U.S. advertisers, and we probably haven’t felt the last of it.

Why? Telling advertisers that they weren’t billed for inflated audience numbers, and providing third-party verification that their ads ran, doesn’t solve the underlying issue of transparency. The single biggest decision advertisers make is allocation: which media channels receive how much of the budget. To get this right, advertisers rely on credible, comparable audience estimates. No one buys media on time spent, but everyone allocates with it. As the video marketplace expands, the pressure for transparent time measures will only increase.

Before the new revelations, Facebook’s promise for advertisers was rightly compelling: mining/matching/marrying advertiser data and Facebook data for precision targeting, with ads served just-in-time to mobile viewers, all powered by “world class” Facebook data. There was a meteoric rise in ad dollars directed at Facebook Mobile, and the social media units at agencies gave rise to social-dedicated agencies.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Continue reading at AdAge.com

On Sept. 21, during an address to a Laborers’ International Union of North America meeting in Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton said, “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead, you might ask.” Somebody in the Trump campaign probably said “Yes! Thank you, Hillary!” when viewing the footage — especially since Clinton was speaking to the group via a video-conference link, which caused her to bark the words out in an unusually awkward fashion.

Now the Trump campaign has released a 30-second ad that uses Clinton’s unfortunate soundbite against her, and answers the question with a folksy voiceover: “Maybe it’s because the director of the FBI says you lied about your emails.” (Cue a clip of FBI Director James Comey testifying before Congress.) “Or maybe because your policies have allowed ISIS and terrorism to spread.” (Cue scary clips of ISIS.) “Or maybe it’s because you called Americans deplorable.” (Cue a clip of Clinton saying half of Trump’s supporters belong in the “basket of deplorables.”) In the end, Clinton’s “Why” clip is replayed, followed by a weary response from the announcer: “Do you really need to ask?”

It’s worth noting that the Trump campaign previously released a 40-second version of this piece as a web ad, which was saved and uploaded to YouTube by the All Political Ads channel. Compare the new version (above) to the earlier version (below) to see some striking changes — particularly the use of a filter on the opening clip of Clinton that drains the color out of her face and gives her surroundings a sinister, dungeon-like gloom.

Continue reading at AdAge.com