This Week #22: Week beginning Monday 2 December

Strap in.

Blame digital

Car tax. Fun topic. This article says that the digital car tax system is to be blamed for revenue loss.

Maybe people are just forgetting to renew their car tax because they no longer have a physical reminder? I don’t remember getting an email to remind me my car tax was due for renewal — or a text.

I think it’s the process and the expected behaviour change that’s to blame here, not just because the whole thing is now digital. If you’re gonna make a “digital thing” make sure you take people on that journey properly.

FB ad limits?

Hat tip to Dan/Torchbox for this one. This Facebook for Developers post says:

In mid 2020, we are implementing a limit on the number of ads each Page can run at the same time. The ad limits will impact just a small percentage of advertisers, and we plan to share more details about the limits early next year.

Have a read of the rest of it. I don’t think this is going to impact many of you reading this, but a large health institution who uses one particular Page to run lots of adverts for other bodies might want to pay attention, just in case. I’m asking around to see if I can find out any more detail.

#GivingTuesday came and went

I was rather underwhelmed. Has everyone given up on this, or do they just not know how to add it to their fundraising mix at an already-busy time of year? Was it ever really a thing?

There was lots of generic “asking for money because it’s Giving Tuesday’ content. There were pieces with multiple asks talking about about all the ways you can give to a charity. It was all a bit yawn. I really liked Marie Curie’s approach (that I think they’ve been doing for a couple of years) of giving thanks to people. Instead of asking for something, just show a bit of love and gratitude — strengthen those relationships, surprise and delight…

I’d love to see them scale this up. The fact they picked influencers/famous people to send videos to makes some sense, but treating regular supporters as special, regardless of follower counts or fame, would be so much better. Obvs that’s a resource issue, but not an insurmountable challenge.

Prime x Premier League

I’m fascinated by Amazon dipping their toe into streaming Premier League matches. I watched one of the first games they streamed and it just felt right. I don’t have Sky or BT so for me, this was accessible.

How we consume football is changing, and it’s about time. I don’t watch Match of the Day any more because I catch all the highlights on YouTube. Some people search Twitter for goals during games. Amazon’s progress here is a glimpse of the future. In-game stats, the ability to turn off commentary, loads of games streaming at once so you can pick what you want…

This article is an interesting glimpse into their advertising model. This tweet shows the joined up approach between clubs and Amazon. A piece from FourFourTwo aswell about how club’s could respond.

It’s all new and different and I like it.

There were the obvious complaints about poor streaming service and a bit of a lag at times. But this is still a relatively new way of doing things, and so it’ll only get better. On the whole, I think sentiment was very positive. I hope there’s more to come.

And just quickly…

• Reddit’s 2019 Year in Review. This is good, lots of data from the year on one of the internet’s most influential sites. Quite the US focus to a lot of it. But I’m a sucker for end of year lists.
• Here’s Spotify’s one (Wrapped lists for inividual users came out on 5 December and I love it. Obvs mine’s an utter embarrassment ‘cause I have kids, so I won’t be sharing it). Their stealing of Instagram Stories layout (see below – this is from Wrapped, not Insta) and functionality is GENIUS. Prepare yourself for your Stories feed being flooding with these… But not mine.

• Any good charity equivalents of compiling end of year data and whatnot?
• Great CharityComms post about how the RNLI came out fighting. This is good, and a great case study to help you prep for this sort of thing, which is always sensible.
• Building a diverse design team in challenging circumstances is a good read you should make the time for.
• The most creative ads of 2019 that you probably haven’t seen.
• As of December, publishers can’t send out newsletters via WhatsApp. I think this is a shame as the one I’m subscribed to is very good and I like it. Better than email. And it’s not spam if I’ve opted in — and want — to receive it.