Media

Dear Diary, Nielsen to Retire Legacy TV Measurement

Dear Diary, There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just get to the point: It’s over. It’s not you, it’s me.

I just can’t remember everything I watched, when I watched it or for how long. There are just too many options these days. You understand, right? I hope we can still be friends… As of next month, Nielsen will do what many thought would never happen: ending diary measurement in the 140 DMAs still reliant on the paper and pencil TV measurement methodology, and moving to a passive measurement technology, which utilizes return path data¹ from set top boxes that they’ve been working on for almost a decade.

Nielsen is rightfully proud of this accomplishment, but change brings uncertainty. Obviously, local advertisers in the diary markets will be most impacted. A review of three months of data that’s available revealed a mixed bag.

At a macro level, the percentages of households using television (HUTs) and persons using television (PUTs) are up across households and all demos in nearly all markets and there’s been a major reduction on zero-rated quarter hours² for all stations and all markets. At a micro level, some stations were up, others down. Some dayparts were up, others down. For example, when we re-rated some of our buys with what Nielsen calls the impact data, we saw a ratings decline for one station in early morning by 36 percent, whereas a different station in the same market and daypart saw a ratings increase of 42 percent. This is just one example of many as to how this change in measurement methodology will impact local TV planning and buying.

We won’t really know the extent of the changes until it takes full effect, but we do know that there will be a trend break with the introduction of the new methodology and that it will take a year to 18 months to establish new trends. In the meantime, here’s what we’ll be keeping a close eye on:

Consistency of measurement
The expected reduction in zero-rated quarter hours
Changes in GRPs
The overall impact to pricing

We fully support Nielsen’s decision to replace the diaries with more accurate measurement technology and to continue to improve upon existing technologies. In fact, while the retirement of the diaries is getting the most attention, Nielsen is also rolling out enhancements that will affect all 210 DMAs. From adding Personal People Meter (PPM) technology to bolster local TV measurement in 25 Local People Meter (LPM) markets and 19 Meter markets to increasing the data set/panel size across all markets, everyone can expect a more accurate measurement going forward.

Only time will tell how impactful these changes will be on the local TV landscape, but we know that change (who could forget the switch to C3³ on the national side?) is the only constant and we’re ready to ride the wave.

Definition Key:

Return Path Data – Any information sent via a Return Path, including system information such as subscription and pay per view requests, also user interactivity, and potentially research information on audience size by channel
Zero-Rated Quarter Hours – Time and networks with no panelists viewing
C3 – The metric launched in 2007 referring to the ratings for average commercial minutes in live programming plus total playback by digital video recorder out to three days after

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Pitch Like a Pro

Journalists are friends. Not food. We all know this deep down, but sometimes must be reminded when we have an awesome new product or story and can’t help ourselves.

While it’s in a brand’s best interests to be persistent and energetic with the media, being savvy and accommodating will go a long way. Editors and producers have to pitch ideas and products up the chain the same way brands do. So, let’s make their lives easier, and in turn increase the odds that they’ll want to run with our story.

Make it Count

I had the privilege of recently attending the PR Bootcamp Media Relations Conference in NYC. And if I had a dime for every time someone said “be concise” at this conference, I’d have flown home in first class. But consider this interesting tip from Dr. Oz Producer Sasha Fuller. She says an email may have her attention for 20 seconds until she moves on to the next — and that’s if you’re lucky.

Is it even possible to read all of the product or interview details, key messages, potential story angles, company background and personal contact info in less than 20 seconds? Probably not.

The reality is that your email’s chances of being read hinge on the subject line. This is the real first impression, so make it stick. Journalists receive hundreds of emails every day with subject lines hinting at “New Product for Spring Cleaning!” So what’s different about yours? Tell them before they even open the email.

Also, include photos. No journalist can fully grasp what your product or spokesperson does unless they see it. Embedding a photo in an email for them to quickly scroll through on their commute home from work is a surefire way to make sure they see what you’re talking about.

Pro tip: Hyperlink to high-res photos, purchase links and webpages in your initial outreach so they don’t have to ask for it.

No Phone Calls

I thought I was the only person who truly hated phone calls. Call me a stereotypical millennial, but it turns out I’m not alone in this feeling. The refreshingly honest Molly Simms, senior editor of O, The Oprah Magazine, said when she or a colleague gets a call, they panic a bit inside. Journalists prefer email; plus, it’s how they stay organized and quickly skim their inbox for ideas.

Be Patience

I’m not kidding when I say that every single person who spoke at this conference emphasized, “have patience.” Editors like Hearst’s Taryn Mohrman have been in the game long enough to understand what we do in PR. They know getting ignored is a bummer. They feel the same pain, believe it or not, so let’s remember to be patient and also be respectful with those follow-ups.

Just because a journalist doesn’t immediately respond doesn’t mean they’re not interested. Ellen Byron of The Wall Street Journal shared with us that she’ll file pitch-emails and sometimes come back to them years later.

Yes, years later.

Do You

At the end of the day, we all just want to share a compelling story. No one enjoys talking to a robot on the other side of a computer screen, so don’t be afraid to add some flavor into a pitch. After all, the worst that can happen is you don’t get a response, which is okay. Just do your research, be thoughtful and try to win journalists over with an enticing subject line to get the job done.

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The Age of Accountability

Welcome to the age of accountability, where brands are held to a higher standard, and where consumers have control. Gone are the days of big brands leveraging their weight to broadcast one-way messages, with no consequences when they misuse consumer trust. The steering wheel has been wrestled away from brands and is now being guided by a new wave of consumer conscience.

Take H&M for example, a brand known for low-priced, fashion-forward apparel, which came under fire months ago for featuring a young African American boy wearing a shirt reading: “Coolest monkey in the jungle.” The consumer backlash was loud, yet the brand’s response was quiet. It came across as racist and tone deaf to a culture that’s experiencing heightened racial awareness. They were on trial in the public court of consumer accountability.

Today, the best media agencies understand that everything is media. So, that H&M hoodie was media. The ecommerce site it once lived on is media. And the outpouring of frustration and disgust is media.

If everything is media, then each piece of the brand has the ability to communicate a message. In H&M’s case, it was an unintended message, but it was heard nonetheless.

So, what’s a brand to do? The natural reaction might be to play it safe, to dial the risk meter down a notch and to do less in an effort to avoid stumbling in the spotlight. But brands that can fight this urge and run in the opposite direction will win. In fact, brands that are willing to take on more risk will draw the most love and devotion. That’s fearless media.

Consider the Steph Curry Under Armour story. Curry, an NBA all-star, had previously been in talks with Nike but wanted to put a motivational Bible verse on his signature shoes. Under Armour not only let him put the verse on his shoes, they inked a lucrative deal with Curry to lock him down for the future. An analyst for Morgan Stanley projected Curry’s potential worth to Under Armour at more than a $14 billion.

Under Armour embodied the behavior critical in an environment that longs for brands to be more than just a vehicle for selling more stuff. For consumers to truly buy into a brand, they must first know a brand’s heart—it’s soul. Once an inner core is revealed and shared, consumer trust can grow quickly.

Brands now have to put their money where their mouth is. They must understand that motion creates emotion. And by taking action, brands invite consumers to make change together, forming tighter relationship chemistry. This co-stewardship of the brand creates a nearly unbreakable bond of trust that can weather the common storms of the marketplace.

Brands have to do more than just entertain and interrupt; they have to act. Those that do so with risk and authenticity will have a greater chance of winning.

Consider what your own brand could do to thrive in this age of accountability. Consider your brand’s value and what actions your brand could take to illustrate those values. Are you ready to be fearless?

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Community Management Check In: Focus On Personal

Welcome to a recurring series where we explore different areas of community management on social media. Community management is all about the relationships your brand has with its consumers in the social space and how you convert consumers to loyalists. Building that initial relationship can be tough, but it’s important to be responsive, attentive and transparent with consumers to build and maintain their trust. It’s part science, part art – and it’s always changing. Follow along as we delve into different questions we receive and how we approach community management.

In this instalment, we focus on making it personal. Today’s consumer is jaded – they crave personal, hands-on customer service, but they expect to talk to a robot. Community management is one space where your brand can surprise them! Social is all about being social, so having a personality, being compassionate and showing a sense of humility go a long way in this space. Putting real thought and care into responses and messages to members of the social community is a way for them to not only trust the brand, but to feel like they have their own unique relationship with the brand. Below are some common questions around being personal in community management:

What Are Your Thoughts On Verbal-Tone Changes Dependent On Platform?

Your tone changes between types of conversations. For example, a conversation with someone at a party will have a different tone then one had in an interview. Just like you may change your tone depending upon what kind of space you’re in, your brand’s voice should adapt to the social platform it’s on.

Some general rules of thumb:

Facebook: Mimics everyday conversations – straightforward and friendly customer service
Instagram: More fun and playful, using puns or emojis to express excitement and passion for users’ posts
Twitter: Depending on your brand persona, this could either be viewed as more technical and concise, focused on customer service, OR a place to have some fun showing off your brand personality and being involved in conversation, like Wendy’s

Of course, each conversation and interaction is unique. You should take each situation and consumer into account in crafting a response (i.e., don’t respond to a consumer who hurt themselves using your product with just a sad face emoji!)

Should My Brand Be Using Chatbots or Other Ai-Assisted Tech in Community Management?

This answer is somewhat complicated, and a bit of a yes-and-no situation. On platforms that offer this functionality, like Facebook, it’s definitely recommended to have an auto-response message in place to maintain a good response rate (which is visible to consumers) and also to set expectations with those who message you. This helps set a standard of your response time (24-48 hours, the next business day, 1-2 business days, etc.) and keeps consumers calm (and hopefully patient!) while awaiting your more personal response.

Beyond this AI-assisted tech, it’s a grey area. On the surface, using chatbots strips personality from your social platform. Most vendors out there are still working on understanding the intricacies of consumer questions, complaints and comments to have sophisticated and custom enough AI-responses. That being said, there are some brands who get hundreds of consumer questions a day that only require simple responses. Take a bank for example – people message on social every day asking what to do after they lose their card. The consumer is likely in a frantic, upset mindset, and having a quick, AI-assisted response can mean a world of difference to them and encourage loyalty with your brand. In large part, it’s a team effort between those who manage customer service and the bots they can safely put into place.

When deciding to integrate AI into your community management program, consider these three questions:

What are your most commonly asked questions? Do you get enough of the same questions asked to warrant putting a reliable bot in place to handle those?
Is the cost justified? Chatbots that are built specifically for your brand are not cheap, and you need to have a significant amount of daily activity to make the spend worth it.
Is there a way for you to use a bot and still make sure your community members know you care about them as individuals? If you are going to rely on bots, it’s important to explore other ways to make sure your consumers are still building trust with your brand.

What Are Thoughts On Using Names of Customer Service Reps in Responding?

This is another grey area that depends on your brand’s exact situation. Below are some reasons why you should and shouldn’t use a representative’s name in managing a community:

Why You Should Use a Rep’s Name:
- Consistency and User Flow: If your customer service team is integrated enough to continue conversations from one medium to another (i.e., from social media to phone), you can create a stronger consumer experience.
- Less Negativity: It’s been proven that consumers get less angry or upset if they know they’re talking to a real person as opposed to a nameless “brand.”
- More Human: As previously mentioned, consumers often expect to talk to a robot. Connecting them to a human instead can surprise and delight them.
Why You Shouldn’t Use a Rep’s Name:
- Protection: If you have a truly upset consumer, they may do what’s called “doxing,” to one of your employees. In the social era, it’s easy to find people, where they live and where they work. Omitting your employees’ names from the public space may protect them.
- Brand Reputation: Using representatives’ names can make your brand seem less cohesive, and more fractured. Employees are people, and on any given day, one could be having a bad day and accidentally misrepresent your brand. This could outlier experience could set the wrong expectations for your brand moving forward.
- Consistency: If you don’t have a fully integrated customer service team, using names in responses can get disjointed. Debbie may respond to their first message, and Tim has to respond to the second, and soon the consumer just wants one person to help them find a solution. Not using names allows for the appearance of continuity. People don’t want to be felt like they’re being passed around.

The reality is, this is an individual choice to make specifically for your brand and organization. If you do decide to use rep’s names, we recommend only using their names in private messages and not using their names in feed (in comments). Also, consider their signatures and ensure that they are succinct and don’t oversell their role.

As always, remember that every brand is different and that one size does not fit all. You should always consider what works best for your brand.

Next Article: 3 Ways to Take Your Community Management to the Next Level.

Click here to read the next article in our Community Management Series.

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Marketing To Millennials On Social Media

Millennials – everyone is talking about them, yet no one understands them. How they consume advertising has left marketers scratching their heads for quite some time.

Times are changing, and so are the traditional forms of advertising. In 2017, 81 percent of the US population owned a social network profile. Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat estimate that approximately 40 percent of the overall audience consists of millennial users. Tableau research studies show that the number of millennials on social will likely increase 5 percent by the end of 2018.

With a variety of unique experiences on social, each requiring a different approach, advertisers are challenged with serving a meaningful message to the right person at the right time.

Here are three tips for keeping up with the Millennial Movement:

1. Video Generates Engagement

Knowing where to find millennials is only half the battle – catching and keeping their attention is a different story. Facebook IQ data shares that millennials are 1.35-times more likely than baby boomers to say video is the best medium for discovering new products. While Twitter & Ogilvy share video consumption research, results prove that social feeds are the number one way video is discovered.

You may be thinking by now that it’s simple – serve video ads to millennials using social channels, and watch the results flow in! Right? Not quite, not all social placements are right for the millennial audience.

2. Create a Mobile First Video Strategy

Putting marketing dollars behind mobile-only placements will ensure efforts are maximized towards units where the audience is most likely to engage. Of Facebook’s 215M monthly users, 93 percent access the platform through a mobile device. Therefore, you want to produce mobile, “snackable” video units. Units on FB under 15 seconds have an average completion rate of 75 percent.

So, is the solution to simply serve short videos to millennials on their mobile devices, through social channels? Unfortunately, it’s not that easy because unlike traditional TV video spots, there is no singular video ad experience on mobile social.

3. High Impact or No Impact

Social platforms offer many ways to serve video, between video sizes and creative placements, users can engage with video in a variety of ways, depending on the behaviors and interests of individual users. Vertical story placements across social platforms see high view rates, as the user has no other distractions on the screen, and video carousel placements allow advertisers to tell a story using multiple video units and opportunities for engagement. High-impact units like a canvas allow the user to choose what aspects of the ad they want to engage in.

In short, 2018 is a crucial year for advertisers to shift their focus to the channels and units that have proven to engage millennials. To make an impact on the millennial audience, develop a mobile-first strategy utilizing high-impact placements that engage users. Creating highly interactive units that are easily accessible on a user’s mobile device is not only recommended for all social platforms, but it is also crucial to the success of 2018 social media campaigns.

No longer can we rely on what has worked in the past; advertisers must leave their comfort zone to create experiences that speak to millennials in a meaningful and impactful way.

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What CPG’s Must Learn From the Direct to Consumer Revolution

The acronym “DTC” is best known as direct to consumer. But today, it also could stand for “death to CPGs.” Giant CPG brands with business models built on optimizing sell-through at retail are having market share taken from them. That market share is being taken by digitally native DTC brands that are attuned to changing consumer preferences.

For example, Away Luggage is a DTC brand that recently caught my attention on social media. A brand that understands how to create a better product and that brands must also focus on their meaning and values. They provide a better product, well designed, and at a better price. Away Luggage is able to optimize and reach potential consumers easily around an impact moment online that is easy to identify – intent to travel.

So What’s Going On

A 2015 McKinsey study of 730 consumer goods and retail companies with revenue of $500 million or more revealed almost one in five experienced:

Year-over-year revenue decline of more than 10 percent
Year-over-year decline of more than 20 percent in EBITDA

According to a recent article by AdAge, 90 percent-plus of US CPG brands are declining in market share and have lost $17B in sales to smaller players in the last five years.

There are now more consumer goods than ever. The average grocery store carries roughly 50 times as many products as 80 years ago, says economist James Bessen. Market researcher Mintel says the number of new packaged goods introduced each year—everything from food to cosmetics—has grown more than 30-fold over the past 50 years.

There’s no question that CPGs are experiencing death by 1,000 cuts. A shift in share from one big brand to another is no longer the year after year war the big CPGs are fighting. It’s the on-going battles against the inventors in their garages.

How Are They Doing it?

New and emerging brands can be “asset and inventory light.” Today, it is relatively easy to outsource manufacturing; there is a rapidly growing third-party logistics provider industry, and social media has enabled cost-effective media. These trends have resulted in an entrepreneurial renaissance in the consumer-products space.

Being a digitally native DTC brand is a major advantage with no sacred cows or clunky retail-laden processes required to follow. Through the use of e-commerce marketplaces and their own websites and apps, these brands are able to obtain scale in a much more rapid fashion and less expensively than relying on the brick-and-mortar retail channel alone.

I still find it fascinating that many CPGs treat their digitally owned retail channels just like another “store.” There are so many advantages to a DTC marketplace, but to win, CPGs must operate by a new set of rules.

Connect Directly with Influencers

Casper, the new upstart mattress company, a digital-first brand around sleep has upended the category initially through influencer marketing. All over Instagram and Twitter, you can find heavily retweeted and liked images, GIFs, and videos of influencers sitting and smiling with their blue and white-striped Casper deliveries. Content ranges from the everyday consumer to celebrities. When Kylie Jenner posted a picture of her new Casper mattress in March of 2015, it received over 800,000 likes and immediately doubled Casper’s net mattress sales.

The ability to talk directly to influencers via social channels has opened entirely new media strategies for entrepreneurs. Direct-to-consumer native brands are transparent, have “digital courage” and understand how to win and pitch influencers within categories where most big brands appear old school and out of touch.

First-Party Data Advantage

CPGs that sell through retailers are at the mercy of the retailer and what they are willing to provide. Digitally native brands selling from their platforms hold the keys to their data. By leveraging data, new-world CPGs start smart and get smarter through what they learn and then can quickly apply the knowledge to acquire new customers.

Some of the best-performing campaigns are when we can build “look-alikes” from current customers. For CPGs and retailers who predominantly rely on third parties to sell their products, the only data they can provide are their CRM files which are paltry compared to DTC digitally native companies.

It is estimated that Unilever bought Dollar Shave Club for close to $1 billion in 2016. Much of the premium stems from the value Unilever placed on the razor-seller’s brand, customer-relationship skills and 3 million new customers that Unilever could immediately leverage across their portfolio – a big first-party data DTC advantage compared to their competition.

Personalized Discovery

Consumers’ media rituals now live “in the stream.” Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have re-programmed our brains to react with our thumbs. The right message and the right time in the right social stream can easily drive a purchase.

Brands can be discovered and bought with as little as one impression. In fact, the 2018 KPCB Internet Trends report finds that 55 percent of people bought a product online after seeing it on social media.

Targeting criteria based on interest, behaviors, likes and activity can catch “willing thumbs” at opportune moments. In the old-world media model, we had a primary and secondary target all based on demographics – that’s it. Digitally native, new-world DTC CPG and retailers have hundreds of campaigns with hundreds of audiences serving dynamic ads where algorithms decide who to show the ads enabling brands to reach people who have expressed interest.

DTC brands like Gravity Blankets, Chubbies Apparel, Knockaround Sunglasses and Epic Canvas are all brands I have found and purchased from via well-timed, creative social paid ads delivered to me in my stream.

At Empower, we are pushing our clients to find and establish their niche by clarifying specific audiences in their media distribution. The only way to do this is to think DTC, which should also imply “doing things collaboratively.” To win the battles and ultimately the war, agency and client must be in the trenches together.

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Is Native Advertising Part Of Your Digital Strategy?

It is becoming increasingly difficult for brands to connect with consumers in a fragmented media landscape. Consumers are accessing content when and where they want to, how they want to, on multiple platforms and devices.

One way to break the clutter, avoid ad blocking and beat banner blindness is through native advertising. Native advertising is defined by sponsored content that fits the natural form, function, look and feel of a website. Native ads are not intrusive, but discoverable. According to eMarketer, native advertising is expected to make up roughly 58 percent or $28 billion dollars of digital display ad spend in 2018. This increase is attributed to the growth in native social (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and programmatic advertising.

Social platforms and demand side platforms (DSPs) have made it easy for brands to distribute content through the use of automation and UI access. Within the past two years, DSPs have ramped up their native capabilities by integrating with native marketplaces and legacy native partners like ShareThrough, Triplelift and Nativo. These integrations mean brands are able to buy native ads quickly using their own data sets, without IOs and minimum spends.

Additionally, publishers have redesigned sites to embrace the native change. The barrier to start exploring native is low. Just follow these two steps:

Use social ads to test non-social programmatic native opportunities to expand reach. If you’ve already created social ads – imagery and copy, try testing them in DSP platforms.
Use existing content to create native ads. If you already have a blog or website filled with rich content, use those same images and headlines to create native ads.

Not only is native easy to implement, but it’s also proving its sales value. In Q4 of 2017, an Empower client and large national retailer, saw twice the return on ad spend (ROAS) with native ad units over traditional standard display units. The retailer creates, changes and optimizes their native ads frequently to gain consumer attention – and it is working!

Making native part of your digital strategy is key to brand success. If done well, native advertising can lead to more meaningful relationships with consumers and ultimately increase revenue for brands.

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Empower’s Annual Connect Event Reveals Critical Marketing Strategy

This will be part one of a multi-part series featuring Empower’s Connect’18 Home Summit. Tune into our podcast, Breakfast First to hear more from Connect guest and speaker, John Feld, senior vice president of programming at HGTV. And you’ll even hear from Fixer Upper star and famous woodworker, Clint Harp. Focusing entirely on the home shopping category, Empower hosted the biggest brands in media, home and technology to discuss the future of marketing and drive deeper connections with customers.

For two days, Cincinnati’s OTR neighborhood was the epicenter of the marketing universe. The guest list at Empower’s recent Connect’18 event featured the biggest brands in the home category, including Ashley HomeStore, Formica, Shaw Floors, Gorilla Glue, O-Cedar and Dremel, along with Silicon Valley titans like Google, Amazon, Hulu and Roku.

The goal of Connect’18 was to blend the best minds of the home industry with media and technology to better personalize marketing. Connect’s theme focused heavily on story, and how even heavyweight home brands like the ones just mentioned must tell a story that resonates with consumers.

“Things have changed dramatically from the way they used to be,” says Tim Glover, Empower’s vice president of account services. “Attention used to be abundant. You could just throw your brand and message on TV or a billboard and get millions of impressions. But what happens when everyone has their own screen? People today have more options than ever in the content they’ll consume. Today, attention is at a premium.”

And it’s this crucial insight that brought so many people from so many brands together to Empower’s Connect’18 Home Summit. While the event tackled numerous topics, there was one critical question Connect aimed to answer: How can brands in the home space continue to tell their story and resonate with consumers when they have less control over their own narrative?

Answers to this question proved to be most enlightening and gave everyone in attendance something to take home.

“We are constantly looking for relevance,” said Jon Wayman of Meredith Corporation, a media giant that did over $1.6 billion in revenue in 2016. That’s advice from a corporation with 42 brands beneath its umbrella emphasizing the importance of resonating with your audience. The advice would be a reoccurring theme.

Even John Feld, HGTV’s senior vice president of programming, emphasized his station’s ruthless pursuit of relevant content during a time when his audience demographic was evolving. “We had to evolve our brand’s story for a millennial audience,” said Feld. “The data told us we were losing males from our viewing audience. So, we realized we needed to ‘add sawdust’ to our programming to re-engage them. That’s a big reason behind all the DIY and renovation program you see of late.”

Another call for relevant content came during a live panel discussion with reps from Hulu, Roku, HGTV, NCC Media and Empower. During a segment titled “Is TV Dead? No, It’s Having Babies,” Roku maintained that its two biggest challenges for the foreseeable future are creating an AI that’s better at discerning content patterns of watchers and audience development.

If by now you’re noticing a theme, then the Connect’18 Home Summit has worked. Because at its core, among all festivities and entertainment, Connect’18 was a call for quality, consumer-focused content, for brands, content creators and advertisers alike.

“Make it personal is one of our core six values at Empower,” says CEO Jim Price, who facilitated his eighth annual Connect event. “And during a time when consumers have more say than ever before over the content they’ll encounter, the need to make it personal is paramount.”

And making it personal doesn’t happen by accident. Notice how virtually all of these action plans begin with data insight. There’s no guesswork involved in making your marketing personal. The data will tell you what your audience wants, and it’s on your brand to listen.

“Data isn’t sexy,” says Wayman from Meredith. “But its application is.” Leaning on data enables brands like Meredith to serve only the most meaningful, relevant content to its audiences.

The team at Apartment Therapy, a popular lifestyle blog publishing company focused on design and décor, also understands this. Of late, their challenge has been convincing home-décor brands to pivot from product shots to animated illustrations. They’ve leaned on their data insights to convince clients to embrace the creativity behind telling their brand’s story. Even if it means getting comfortable being uncomfortable.

“Our most popular Instagram post ever was a millennial apartment bingo card,” said Chris Phillips, a marketing leader within Apartment Therapy. It was a small, pink bingo card featuring the hottest trends in millennial apartment living, trends identified by data and realized creatively.

Realise Your Story. Then Tell It

The Connec’t18 Home Summit’s theme was ‘What’s Your Story?’, and how every brand had its own to share with its audience. And telling that story in a meaningful way, whether digitally, on TV or radio, means making it personal.

Consider this story about Pizza Hut’s former CEO, who decided to call his top 10 Most Valued Customers (MVC). One MVC he called was a single mom of a big family that worked three jobs, which is why her kids ordered pizza multiple times a week. But instead of just thanking the mom for her business, he took the time to listen to her story – valuing her not just as a customer, but also as a person. Yes, his phone call made an impression on her, but the key insights learned also served as a guiding principle for future marketing ideas. That’s how one national brand made it personal.

From a marketing perspective, if we listen to our customers more, we can do an even better job making sure we understand them and putting them at the center of our brand’s story. That was the key takeaway from Empower’s Connect’18 Home Summit, and how your brand, regardless of industry, will stay competitive in an economy increasingly based on attention.

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Five Lessons Jonathan Mildenhall Taught Me About Trust As A Marketer

“If I had my wish for the industry it would be (to) get back to work that shapes culture for the better,” said Jonathan Mildenhall, internationally renowned marketing expert and former Airbnb CMO.

You could feel the goose bumps on the arms of the thousands of people who witnessed Jonathan Mildenhall’s keynote speech at PRSA’s 2018 International conference. After sitting down with Jonathan to reflect on his career and our ever-changing industry, I walked away with five lessons in trust, for us marketers, to use to improve ourselves, our teams and our results.

1. I’ve Got Your Back

A common four-word phrase improv comedians use before getting on stage, means something even greater to Jonathan. As leaders, we have to build trust with our teams and one way Jonathan does that is by being the protector of his people and their ideas.

“If the creative idea works, they get the glory. If it fails, I take the bullet. Creativity is a scary and chaotic process and it just takes one person at the table to show confidence and enhance the confidence of the group,” said Jonathan.

Executive Tip – Say these four simple words the next time you brief your teams. When you eliminate the fear of failing, revolutionary ideas emerge.

2. Have a Clear Purpose

It’s a known fact that purpose-driven companies attract and retain talent at a much higher rate than those who haven’t clearly articulated their purpose. Particularly with millennials, which is the largest generation in the US labor force today. (More than one-in-three American labor force participants are Millennials according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.) Brand purpose drives performance and ensures the right kind of growth. For example, Coca-Cola’s brand purpose is to be, “the antidote to modern day woes.” When your purpose is so personal, like Coca-Cola’s, it gives you permission to address the hard issues facing our society and to be a driving force in shaping culture.

“If the ad industry would just understand you can create hugely valuable brands by doing your part to shape culture rather than just flog the next transaction. The advertising industry has lost its confidence. It’s lost the thing it can do better than anyone else which is insert brands at the heart of the cultural zeitgeist.”

Executive Tip – Set a purpose for yourself, one that’s deeply personal. A personal purpose is what you build your legacy on. It’s the way you show up as a human and guide your key decisions.

3. Dig into Your Brand Archives

That’s where brand truth lies. Jonathan spent a portion of his onboarding at Coca-Cola combing through the archives to understand how the brand has communicated and evolved over time. His vision for the brand came into crystal clear focus when he came across this single piece of creative from the late 1960’s titled, “Boys on a Bench.” Yes, it features African-Americans and whites together in Coca-Cola advertising for the first time. But hidden in this message is the fact that the boys are sitting shoulder to shoulder, with their arms touching on a segregation bench. This, “work with purpose,” became Jonathan’s rallying cry. That mindset is responsible for culturally relevant campaigns like “America the Beautiful and an effort to bring Pakistan and India together.”

While tackling some of our world’s deepest issues works for Coca-Cola, it doesn’t work for every brand. Jonathan offers advice for brands who aren’t sure if they should insert themselves into politically or socially charged issues.

Executive Tip – Jonathan said it best, “Unless the issue is an existing part of the company’s narrative, you shouldn’t lean into it.”

4. Trust Disruption When It Offers Value

Not only is Airbnb disrupting the hotel and travel industry, but it’s also disrupting marketing. When faced with a challenge or roadblock, don’t turn around. Trust that there’s an alternate route. That’s exactly what Jonathan’s Airbnb team did when they were shut out of Hollywood’s biggest night, the Oscar’s. Between big budgets they didn’t have and a competing sponsor raising red flags, Airbnb had to find a different way into the Oscars conversation without stepping foot into the actual event. #LiveInTheMovies is a case study for those who have all odds stacked against them, minuscule budgets, and the ability to succeed without permission or access to the very thing you need. Because Airbnb had cultural relevance and consumer trust, it found its voice within the Oscar’s conversation and become the most talked about brand of the night.

Executive Tip – Trust your gut. When faced with a No, turn it into a Yes, And. Another improv principle, Yes, And is about embracing the power of positivity and building on possibilities.

5. Consumer Trust is the Only KPI

Airbnb learned this lesson early on. When the brand realized some customers were being discriminated against, they immediately took a zero tolerance stance and had to rebuild consumer and community trust. This meant removing the bad characters, managing growth expectations, and telling the world about the true values of the company. As a result, Airbnb launched this deeply personal “We Accept” message during the Superbowl.

“Trust is something you only have once with consumers and once with a community. If you do not bake a clear trust narrative into your business then you can end up making decisions that completely compromise the company purpose. It’s expensive to repair trust and it’s hard to survive when trust has been compromised,”said Jonathan.

Executive Tip – Start measuring trust. In fact, Jonathan would add, “Invest heavily in measuring it.” We have to hold trust measures like conversations, loyalty and transparency at the same weight we hold awareness, conversions and sales.

So what’s your responsibility as a modern day marketer to build and maintain trust? I’ll leave you with these three core tenets:

Be transparent in all your communication, inside and outside of your organization. Honest communication is the only communication.
Bring in external stakeholders to hold you accountable. They can be objective and remove emotion from the equation.
Have the confidence in your team and the confidence to be creative in your response.

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Facebook Is Shutting Down The Use Of Third-Party Data And Here’s What To Do About It

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook announced changes to how much data apps can request from users and new tools to ensure people have more control over their information on Facebook.

To further improve consumer privacy, Facebook has notified advertisers that they will be shutting down Partner Categories, their targeting solution that enables third-party data providers to offer their data directly on Facebook. The third-party data shutdown will take place over the next six months to give advertisers time to adapt and update their targeting. The timeline, which was created to comply with the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union, is as follows:

May 10: After this date, you will no longer be able to create or edit campaign using Partner Categories built on audiences from the UK, Germany and France; however, they will be allowed to continue running until May 24.
May 25: We will no longer deliver to Partner Categories built on audiences from the UK, Germany and France, and these targeting options will no longer be available for use on our platform. You will be notified to update any targeting containing impacted Partner Categories before this date.
June 30: This is the last day for creating new or editing existing campaigns using non-EU Partner Categories. They will be allowed to run until September 30.
October 1: All other Partner Categories will no longer be available as targeting options on our platform and we will stop delivering against these audiences. You will be notified to update your targeting by this date.

Partner Categories and How They Are Used

Partner Categories launched back in 2013 as a partnership between Facebook and major data providers: Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom and Oracle’s BlueKai. It launched to help solve Facebook’s biggest struggle at the time and prove to advertisers that their ads are an effective way to reach exact customers that buy their products. Brands were already utilizing data from these providers to target direct mail, email marketing and other online ads, so it made sense to use the same targeting data on Facebook.

Partner Categories delivered major value for advertisers, especially those that may not have had sufficient first-party data. It gave advertisers access to more than the standard demographic and interest data. Now armed with data on where consumers shop, how they shop, products and brands they purchase, the publications they read, websites they browse, their demographic and psychographic attributes. If you wanted to find career-driven millennials who spend $25k or more on a credit card and are currently in market for a new car, you could.

Here are a few things that advertisers who relied on this partnership need to know to mitigate the impact:

Put First-Party Data First

First-party data is king. This is your own data, the data you collect from your CRM, website (pixel), mobile app, etc. First-party data is often thought of as the most valuable data you have because of its quality. It’s data collected from your customers and their interactions with your business. If you are not already leveraging your first-party data, you are basically leaving money on the table.

Put a Pixel On It and Retarget

This shift makes the Facebook pixel even more critical. It’s been best practice to install the Facebook pixel on your website in order to create audiences on Facebook for remarketing. For online retailers, this has been critical. It’s now just as important for every business, regardless of industry, to remarket to someone that has indicated interest by a website visit. Seek out and test advertising on other platforms that still leverage third-party data. Driving traffic to your website while utilizing this data on other platforms will fuel your retargeting efforts on Facebook and drive conversions.

Choose Your Ad Formats Wisely

The type of ad format and creative you use in your ads is now even more important. Video, canvas, and lead forms all have retargeting capabilities based on user engagement. Creating audiences of people who watched at least 75 percent of a video or who opened your canvas or lead form are just some of the potential options available.

Segmentation is Key

Knowing your customer is a must. Segmenting audiences based on their interests and behaviors is essential. Create audiences of people based on what pages they are visiting on your website and how often they visit, then deliver relevant and engaging messaging. You can automate this process by utilizing Dynamic Ads. Analyze your most valuable customers to discover purchase patterns and identify potential upsell/cross-sell opportunities. Don’t waste your money being irrelevant.

Use Lookalike Audiences for Scale

Facebook creates lookalike audiences by identifying common qualities of the people in your source audience (customer list, website pixel, etc.). Create lookalike audiences based on your audience segments from above to find new people to whom you’ll introduce your brand or product.

Bringing Direct Buying To The Social Space

Direct buys from premium publishers will no longer only be utilized for broadcast and display campaigns. Advertisers should look to work with premium publishers to execute Facebook campaigns, not only to add relevancy and credibility to content, but primarily to access their first-party data pools.

Partnering with trusted publishers who align with your vertical and support your brand messaging will help create a deep connection between consumers and the promoted product or service. Working with publishers such as Discovery, ABC, Buzzfeed, etc., allows advertisers to ensure their media is being served in the right place at the right time, and most importantly, to the right people.

For example, a home improvement product promoting a custom video through an HGTV social placement is the perfect mix of media, message and audience.

What’s Next?

Only time will tell just how much of an effect this will have on advertisers and if they choose to shift advertising budgets elsewhere. Third-party data providers did charge a premium to use their data, so we do not anticipate a rise in CPMs, but the efficacy of ads will remain uncertain. There is also the chance that Facebook brings some of the third-party data in-house and offers it to advertisers.

An important thing to note is Facebook has long collected data from its users. The like button, Facebook login plugin and Facebook pixel have been installed on websites around the globe, so it’s not unreasonable to think that Facebook could replicate a lot of what third-party data partners offered. We believe Facebook will offer new ways to apply their own data to enhance their targeting capabilities.

In the meantime, be sure to incorporate the five strategies above to ensure you’re gathering the best data possible once Facebook no longer allows third-party data.

Link:

Facebook announced changes to how much data apps can request from users

Link:

Ensure people have more control over their information on Facebook

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