DIGITAL MEDIA DIGEST: JUL ‘16
A monthly look at the world of digital from NORTH’s point of view
Pokémon Go Mania
Caroline Desmond, Director of Media Strategy
The old Nintendo game from the mid-nineties is back. Released on July 5, Pokémon Go encourages players to catch all 151 original Pokemon in an augmented reality mobile app experience. Through the app, players can virtually launch red and white “Poké Balls” at creatures overlaid onto real life settings.
With very little paid promotion, Pokémon Go has been downloaded 7.5MM times in the US. For perspective, the US Census reports US population at ~324MM adults. Of those, Statista reports 64% are smartphone owners (or 207MM US adults), Of these 4% have opted in to Pokémon Go after just over a week since launch. For reference, this is already more than the 2% of smartphone users who have downloaded Tinder in its total four years of existence, and Pokémon Go is already pacing to exceed daily active users on Twitter. On Android alone, Pokémon Go reported 3% of daily active users (and that was last Friday); well on its way to exceeding the 3.5% of daily active users on Twitter.
Still, 95% of US smartphone users have not downloaded the app, so if you’re asking yourself whether you are the only one not playing the game, the answer is no. Indeed you are not. It makes it seem all the more absurd that there is already talk of brands jumping on the bandwagon and paid advertising opportunities that would allow for sponsored locations within the game.
Will it be a legit ad platform that rivals other mobile first platforms for advertiser dollars? At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I’ll believe it when I see it. Anyone remember Meerkat, the darling of SXSW in 2015? A year later, and Meerkat’s rank in iOS and Android is basically nonexistent relative to competitor Periscope.
For brands that are considering it, there’s the added concern of what happens when you encourage people to take a stroll through the real world with their eyes glued to their smartphone. Granted this is something people already do to an alarming rate, through crosswalks, along busy thoroughfares, etc. As brand marketers, we have a responsibility to at least do our best not to add to the problem. A week in, and we’ve already seen people falling off cliffs, attacked, robbed and carjacked as a result of Pokémon Go players not paying attention to their surroundings. As brands begin to (rightly so) encourage people to enjoy their mobile devices responsibly (apps that limit texting and driving for example), it’s worth considering when and where it’s appropriate to encourage engagement with a sponsored location. In the meantime, happy Pokémon hunting, and enjoy responsibly.
Social Video: Is Your Audience Listening?
By Nathan Johnson, Assistant Media Planner
We’ve come to know Snapchat as the social app that strays from the pack. It started back when the digital video space was ruled by horizontal video and the idea of vertical content seemed…well, silly. However, Snapchat knew the behaviors of its audience and began pushing publishers to create more vertical content. Fast forward one year later and vertical content has become largely accepted as a way to take full advantage of the real estate on mobile devices.
More recently, Snapchat is out to prove the importance of audio, which recently has fallen toward the wayside. Facebook is likely responsible for this as they have for the past year advised brands to create videos that can be viewed without sound due to the fact that roughly 85% of their user base doesn’t turn on the sound. Being such a massive social player, many advertisers and brands began applying this rule to all social platforms, but may have put both feet in too quickly. For example, Snapchat claims that two thirds of their users watch video with the sound on.
So what are advertisers to do — sound or no sound? The answer is actually quite simple. Create content that that is first and foremost enjoyable and secondly aligns with the platform’s audience behaviors. As Jordan Delapoer, the director of brand strategy at NORTH, put it:
“While I believe sound, music in particular, is a fundamental piece of creating a compelling narrative, it isn’t our job in social to try and convince people to do something they otherwise wouldn’t. Our job is to understand how people want to use the platform and adapt.”
Advertisers must stop assuming all behaviors are the same across social apps and begin to analyze each considered platform to discover how each is being used.
Sometime’s it’s not always feasible to create custom content for each channel and in those circumstances it’s still fine to create content that is playable without audio. For example, using text overlays in short form video is still a great strategy because it works with audiences that prefer sound and those that don’t.
The main thing to remember is our job is to enhance to the user’s experience. If our video content is doing anything other than that, we should carefully revisit our strategy.
Google LEANs Forward
Stacey Inderabudhi, Senior Media Planner
Before you read this you might want to check out your Google My Activity page. I’m serious. My Activity is a new data dashboard that Google has rolled out and it houses every piece of information that the company has ever collected from you. I didn’t think this would creep me out because I know my online activities are ever-tracked, but it did…thoroughly. Seeing the entirety of my Google-culled data in one central place was, in a word, eye-opening. After falling down the rabbit hole of my own My Activity page, I can now recount April 11, 2014; what pit stops I made on a drive to Palm Springs, the timing of each, and the approximate speeds I was traveling. Thanks, Google!
Actually, what I should be thankful for is not access to this data, but the ability to delete whatever I’d like from the record. Within the ad personalization section, users can remove search and browsing history by date, product (search, maps, YouTube, etc.) or topic. All for the sake of data privacy and ad relevance. For instance, if I was in the market for a new car and made a purchase yesterday, I could delete my “car” search history to ensure I am no longer served car-related ads. Of course, Google does warn users against deleting data, assuring that it makes their “services more useful.” That notwithstanding, this transparency and control is a huge step for the company and truly puts users in the drivers seat.
The launch of My Activity is one of many tactics Google has employed in the recent past that seem to be inspired by IAB’s LEAN principles. LEAN stands for Light, Encrypted, Ad choice supported, Non-invasive ads; which are all principles intended to guide the industry toward a new era of advertising standards to blunt the rise of ad blocker usage. This new dashboard in particular speaks to the the ad-choice supported pillar, which notes that users should have the ability to know who is utilizing their data, how, and have the opportunity to opt-out.
With Google commanding a large portion of the digital ad industry, they are well aware of the impact of ad blocking. The company is even reported to pay $25MM annually to Eyeo, Adblock Plus’ parent company, to whitelist their ads and ensure they run. They’ve also taken more proactive steps (in the vein of the My Activity dashboard) which have come a lot quicker since the creation of their “sustainable advertising” team in 2014, which is devoted entirely to combating ad blocking. Another strategy Google has taken, is the development of new technology such as AMP (accelerated mobile pages). AMP allows publisher pages and of course their associated ads, to load quickly and frictionlessly for consumers; another move that aligns with LEAN standards.
The introduction of My Activity and the multiple efforts Google has made to halt the ad blocking juggernaut is further evidence that the industry needs to take a consumer-first approach. Consumers already held the power to watch/read/hear what they want, when they want and now they have the ability to alter their paper trail of data. For marketers, it is now more important than ever to put consumers on a pedestal and focus in on capturing their attention by creating content and ad experiences that are both valuable and relevant.
Google Unveils Showcase Shopping Ads
By: Crystal Stanford, SEM/PPC Manager
Last week Google unveiled a new mobile ad format that many brand advertisers, especially those with an e-commerce presence, will likely be excited to test. The new format is Showcase Shopping ads, and it’s said that they’ll be rolled out in time for this year’s holiday shopping season.
Showcase Shopping ads are part of Google’s mobile-first strategy, and are also part of an endeavor to deliver more flexible search units to brand advertisers who want to customize how their brands and products appear on a search engine results page (SERP), particularly on mobile. The new unit will only show up for broader category searches on mobile such as “women’s clothing”, “running shoes”, “winter coats for men”, etc. According to Google, category searches currently make up about 40 percent of product queries.
When a user plugs a category search into their mobile browser, Google will return Showcase Shopping ads at the top of the results page that will feature various Showcase Shopping advertisers who stock products within the searcher’s intended category. See example below:
The example uses “summer dresses” as the query, and it shows various advertisers such as Nordstrom and ASOS occupying the Showcase Shopping units in prominent positions at the top of the SERP. Instead of a variety of “summer dresses” displaying in the traditional Google Shopping ad format, Google delivers an immersive experience with the Showcase Shopping unit, allowing searchers to dive into their retailer of choice to view a number of “summer dresses” available online.
The immersive experience is very much like Facebook’s recently rolled out Canvas ad unit, in which a viewer is encouraged to click and expand a smaller in-feed unit. The unit then expands and takes over the entire vertical screen of your mobile device, very similar to a Snapchat-style experience, taking the searcher into a gallery of products related to their query.
In terms of the working details of the new unit, advertisers will be charged when users click through to the retailer website instead of when they expand the unit. The unit will also require setting up a product feed in Google Merchant Center. The roll out of this unit further underscores the importance of being present in mobile searches, as well as the importance of product feeds for brand advertisers with an ecommerce presence. Google Shopping units will now command the most real estate on mobile product pages, and Showcase Shopping ads represent a valuable opportunity for an impactful presence on product category searches.
