In an industry plagued by issues of viewability, banner blindness, ad blocking and fraud, brands are up against a tough challenge on how to generate the results they need from their marketing spend. Despite advertising budgets increasingly shifting to mobile, it’s a world that is complex and filled with stereotypes and misconceptions, which prevents many…
Gillette recently launched an advertisement “The Best Men Can Be” on Twitter that plays on their tagline and offers a perspective on modern day masculinity. The ad has generated strong reactions on social channels, and the brand is facing a wave of backlash to the advertisement. Twitter has exploded with chatter. There have been jokes…
Imagine that a consumer is thinking of buying a new car. After Googling, YouTubing and checking social media, she keeps coming across the same model. There’s an answer to every question she asks online about it and credible sources indicate that this is the car for her. While it might seem to the consumer that…
Did you know that August was Catfish Month? The designation was originally conceived to honor the hardworking catfish farmers of America, but “catfish” has taken on a whole meaning in the age of social media. Nowadays, a catfish more commonly refers to an individual who assumes another identity online and uses it to lure an…
What do WW, Dunkin’ and Apple have in common? The connection between fitness, coffee and the technology company may not be obvious at first, but once you go back in time, you’ll know right away. Previously known as Weight Watchers, Dunkin’ Donuts and Apple Computer, each of the three companies found themselves needing a name…
Customer care through Facebook, Twitter and other channels has changed the way consumers interact with brands through every step of the customer journey. It was recently found that 93 percent of brand tweets are 1:1 interactions with customers, which means only 7 percent of brand tweets are traditional marketing content. Meeting customers where they are…
Just because everyone’s thinking about 5G doesn’t mean everyone understands what it is or what it might imply for their industries and brands. You might have a better idea if you’d attended CES where it was a hot topic. For those of you not lucky enough to be one of the 180,000 attendees, here’s a…
Whether you follow popular culture or not, Netflix’s latest interactive Black Mirror episode has got marketers and consumers all over the world talking. But what does this new technology mean for branded content? This isn’t the first move toward interactive content. Black Mirror may have caught everyone’s attention, but brands and entertainment suppliers have been…
Web-only brands (often referred to as digitally native vertical brands, or DNVB) are the subject of a lot of controversy. On one hand, we’ve seen impressive exits for companies like Bonobos, but on the other hand, there has been a steady parade of failures in the subscription box sub-category of web-only brands. Birchbox is among…
Now that CES 2019 has ended, marketers are feverishly working to deliver presentations and POVs that justify the large contingents they sent to Las Vegas last week to chart the biggest innovative trends facing 2019. But the reality of CES 2019 is that it was not a year of “new.” Now first, let me say…
You’ve no doubt already seen the furor around Gillette’s “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be” spot. Just a day into its release, and it’s attracted huge amounts of praise and criticism for its focus on bullying, the #MeToo movement and toxic masculinity. In the wake of #MeToo, masculinity has become an explosive topic both…
If the tone of CES is any indication, 2019 promises to be a more collaborative and positive year for digital advertising. At the event, Marc Pritchard put the state of progress as “largely finished with round one.” The comment was specific to the industry’s journey toward transparency, but aptly mirrored the spirit of every conversation….
Television news matters. The networks should be monitored, scrutinized, criticized and applauded when appropriate. And all of the scrutiny makes TV news better. That was the simple idea behind the launch of my blog CableNewser 15 years ago. I was a television news junkie, and I wanted to read more about the shows, the stars…
As expected, there was a ton of buzz about voice tech at CES this year, thanks to toilets, shower heads and trash cans you can talk to. There was even a robot that, if asked, pours you a beer. It’s all about the smart home of the future, which will be reliant on AI. And…
When AT&T acquired AppNexus last year, it was the latest chapter in the emerging narrative of the rise of the super publisher. By way of definition, super publishers are scaled, vertically integrated companies like AT&T, Amazon and the Verizon Media Group (formerly Oath), who have shaken up the digital ad landscape, in some cases through…
The ability to purchase products gets easier every day. The process of going to a store, perusing products and checking out has been reduced to minutes by mobile phones and smart devices that can facilitate a purchase with a simple click or command. But as voice-powered devices become more ubiquitous, the act of browsing–whether aisles,…
This past year has been an incredible year for women. Wonderful work has been done by so many different women. But it was Janelle Mon?e’s triumphant song “Django Jane,” which proclaimed the exhaustion of having your agency taken away, that finally made me realize I needed to write about my experience in advertising because I…
To state the obvious, CES is massive. If your brand is trying to make an impact at the biggest technology trade show on the planet, you’re not alone. I’ve done the rodeo many times, launched products there with multiple companies and experienced all of the successes (and failures) of breaking through the CES noise. So…
Even in an era of infinite digital metrics, publishers and brands are still faced with an age-old problem: It’s hard to measure how your content affects people. Mention ROI, and most brand marketers go white from memories of a budget meeting gone wrong. Impressions, page views, shares, scroll depth, time spent, brand lift: The best…
In a fast-paced, competitive landscape, brands are doing everything they can to stand out and connect with the new consumer. But how many brands are actually reaching the consumer in a meaningful way? Havas recently put out a brand survey that sheds light on a disturbing reality. After surveying 1,500 global brands and more than…
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