DIGITAL MEDIA DIGEST: FEB ‘19
A monthly look at the world of digital from NORTH’s point of view
Spotify Making Big Podcast Moves
By Izzy Kramer, Media Planner
Spotify is shaking up the podcast industry having acquired Gimlet and Anchor in early February.
Gimlet Media is a podcast production and distribution network and have called themselves the “HBO of audio”. This is demonstrated through their refined list of shows that run the gamut of genres, including The Nod and Science Vs and Crimetown.
Anchor, is a podcast recording and distribution app that, as they put it, “is the easiest way to make a podcast, ever.” It allows for anyone with access to their app to produce their own podcast.
These acquisitions have quickly transitioned Spotify into a major competitor to Apple. According to an interview with Gimlet’s founders, Spotify now accounts for nearly 20-percent of all podcast listening, a significant jump from the 7-percent reported in mid-2018.
Another valuable asset that makes Spotify competitive is their first-party data. Spotify has said they want to become “the R&D department of the music industry.” Their aspirations have been pretty clear thanks to this OOH campaign and similar others. Now, with these acquisitions boosting Spotify’s podcast listening share and the promise to continue growing, Apple could slowly lose their grip on control over podcast user data.
Furthermore, from the get-go Spotify has had a willingness to transparently provide data, launching the Spotify for Podcasters analytics tool months before the Gimlet/Anchor acquisitions. (It took Apple over a decade to provide in-episode analytics which we wrote about December 2017). Spotify’s most recent shareholder letter revealed that on a monthly basis over 10,000 podcasters are utilizing the Spotify for Podcasters tool which was released in October.
If this upward trajectory continues, Spotify could become a leader in podcasting based on their data collection and willingness to transparently provide this data. And while Spotify understands that podcasting won’t be more lucrative than their bread and butter of music, I think they might be surprised by the power of podcasts. According to the IAB, “US podcast advertising revenue is expected to grow more than 110% by 2020, to $659 million.”
Podcast advertising is like the wild west. It is a frontier still being discovered with seemingly boundless space to expand that is continuously changing. Spotify has provided itself the chance to take this opportunity by the reins.
Marie Kondo- Succeeding Where Karl Marx and Communism Failed
By Devon Brown, Performance Marketing Manager
Marie Kondo is the latest, greatest cultural firestorm. Her wildly popular book “The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying Up” was published in the U.S. four years ago and was an immediate bestseller. After the book had gone as far as it could on its own, the next natural step was a television show, which premiered on Netflix in January.
The method of tidying she teaches is a structured, step-by-step process for people who want to declutter their homes. It encompasses the overarching themes of simplifying, decluttering, creating a calm space, etc. These are all trends that Americans have been hungry for the last few years. The widely accepted theory as to why we’re craving these methods is that consumerism leads to an excess of stuff, the stuff weighs us down emotionally and causes anxiety, and we become less secure, more irritable and more depressed people as a result.
In another wildly popular bestseller “Sapiens”, Yuval Noah Harari argues that capitalism, and by consequence consumerism, is essentially a religion, defined as a set of ethics that humans believe, adopt, then adhere their behavior to. In this case, the basic ethics and principles are that economic growth is good for humanity, fosters societal obedience, and creates prosperity for all. If you accept that logic, he also opines that capitalism and consumerism have been the most effective religion in the history of mankind. According to Harari, consumerism is such an effective code of ethics that most people adopt and commit their lives to it without fail. People buy new shoes religiously, even if they don’t need them; they purchase the best house they can with their money, they fill their house with as many toys and things as they can, and they suffer greatly in jobs they hate in pursuit of fostering this code of ethics. When people behave similarly in traditional organized religions, we call them extremists or martyrs.
The capitalist code of ethics as we know it today has been around since the 1700s, and people are just now starting to truly push back in big cultural ways. Yes, there was Karl Marx and communism that raised the issues of capitalism, but at the time capitalism had such a strong foothold that those were both viewed as radical political ideals — fringe and extreme for their times. The last few years is the only time since its modern definition and broad adoption that capitalism and consumerism have been pushed back on. What’s even more extraordinary about recent attitudes is that this resistance is widely accepted and viewed as normal, healthy, beneficial to society, and even the sign of an enlightened mind.
But, 300 years is a lot of work to be undone. This is where Marie Kondo has been so effective. She brings more to the table than vapid “clean your space for a happy life” advice. She provides structure, a process, and tactical, step-by-step directions. Sadly, the rigor that’s needed to undo hundreds of years of cultural and societal pressure. The capitalist code of ethics has told us that to be happy, we need to buy. Own new. Own more.
Finally, Marie Kondo is saying what Karl Marx said 200 years ago, and communism tried to force down everyone throats, but she does it in a charming, kind, approachable way. That happiness comes from peacefulness and relaxation. Less really is more. Furthermore, she also encapsulates many of the one-off trends that internet articles and self-help books have been priming us to accept for years. Her methods are a one-stop-shop for minimalism, cleanliness, tidiness, meditation, calmness, and inner tranquility. All of these zen trends that have been one-offed and hinted at in culture for the past few years have finally come together in a scrum-status tidying superpower.
So, is Marie Kondo the hero we need? The answer to everything? Is sparking joy in our personal space such a profoundly nurturing form of self-care that it can undo many of the societal pressures we’ve put on ourselves? It’s certainly possible. And for some this may just solve all of their problems. Does this badass superhero also happen to be female? Yes, yes she does.
Do or Don’t: Outstream Video Advertising
Caroline Desmond, Director of Media Strategy
“Outstream” video advertising is a type of native ad unit where video appears within the editorial content well and outside of a streaming video player. It stands in sharp contrast to “instream” video that appears as pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll in a video platform like YouTube, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc. As more brands invest in digital video, outstream video ads may offer a tempting alternative for those seeking to avoid or mitigate the increasing rates associated with instream video players. However, if proper safeguards are not put in place, outstream comes with a set of pitfalls that could outweigh the benefits of its efficient reach.
According to one video provider, “US digital video ad spending is predicted to reach $28.08 billion in 2020” and “nearly 75% of media buyers will move spend out of TV and into digital video this year.” And the reality is, the influx in digital video demand among advertisers is outpacing the growth of available content and audience impressions on some in-stream video platforms. This has forced CPMs upward to account for supply and demand. For example, on streaming video platforms like Hulu, CPM increases have increasingly required brands to commit to upfront deals in order to lock CPMs into the $30-$40 range and avoid rate hikes of 2–3X upfront rates during peak demand times — on par with national TV rates.
In light of the increasing demand and cost of instream video, brands sometimes turn to outstream video as a less expensive alternative. According to TripleLift, a native advertising company, outstream video currently makes up about a quarter of non-social native ad spend. (“Native” as in ads appearing within editorial content.)
Native ad companies like TripleLift, however, are not the only media companies interested in offering brands a cheaper alternative for video content distribution. Last April, Google got into the outstream video category offering advertisers the ability to reach users with video content outside of YouTube. Google outstream video ads are specifically designed for mobile and tablet devices. They appear on Google partner sites/apps outside of YouTube and play in either an app or within content on the page.
Notably, Google only charges for outstream video ads if an ad is viewable — in other words, Google applies viewable cost-per-thousand impression (vCPM) pricing. In line with industry standards, Google counts a viewable impression when 50% of the ad screen space is visible for two seconds or more of continuous video play. This is worth noting, because the biggest potential pitfall associated with outstream video is the risk that ads are not seen at all despite video metrics showing high video completion rates.
Digiday recently elaborated on this concern in an article discussing a growing suspicion among digital ad buyers that outstream video ads continue to play to completion while they are out of view and that out-of-view plays are being counted toward an ad’s completion rate. Many agencies (ours included) use metrics like video completion rate to gauge the level of engagement an audience has with creative, so it is unsettling to think that a type of video ad could be falsely inflating these metrics.
What’s an advertiser to do? The best thing when running an outstream video ad buy is to make sure to monitor both video completions and viewable impressions. Where video completions exceed viewable impressions, this is a signal that outstream video ads may be playing out of view.
In summary, the old mantra of “everything in moderation” is fitting where there might be a temptation to overcorrect a video media mix more in favor of the cheap efficient reach offered by outstream video ads. Outstream video should supplement but not replace the quality views to be had within instream video players. As they say, you get what you pay for.
