Today in Digital Marketing - 121: You May Be Getting FREE Google Ads Soon

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

The United Nations wants you to make public health ads for it Google is giving out free ad credit Facebook makes its Facebook Live product more open And what is the perfect tone to hit with your ads these days? An ad from Jack Daniels nails it. Can you help spread the word? Review this podcast at https://ratethispodcast.com/today AND/OR click https://ctt.ac/o713H to preview a tweet you can publish Today in Digital Marketing is brought to you by engageQ digital. Can we help you with YOUR brand’s digital marketing and social media? Let’s chat. http://www.engageQ.com or call 1-855-863-6233. TOD’S SOCIAL MEDIA: Tod’s web site: http://TodMaffin.com Tod’s agency: http://engageQ.com LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/todmaffin Twitter: http://twitter.com/todmaffin Instagram: http://instagram.com/todmaffin Facebook: http://facebook.com/tmaffin TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@todmaffin Mixer: https://mixer.com/HappyRadioGuy SOURCES: https://wersm.com/are-you-a-creative-the-u-n-needs-your-help/ https://wersm.com/facebook-live-is-getting-a-bunch-of-new-features/ https://wersm.com/google-announces-340-million-in-ads-credits-available-to-all-smbs/ https://www.searchenginejournal.com/youtube-ad-revenues-creative-output-may-grow-during-coronavirus/357844/ https://www.marketingdive.com/news/iab-mission-based-marketing-jumps-42-amid-coronavirus/575079/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmVRFui61U4 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/todayindigital/messageOur Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It is Monday, March 30th, 2020. I'm Todd Maffin. Today, the United Nations wants you to make public health ads for it. Google is giving out free ad credits. Facebook makes its Facebook Live product more open. And what is the perfect tone to hit with your ads these days? An ad from Jack Daniels nails it. Here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing. We are beginning to see some numbers now about how the advertising industry is being affected by COVID-19.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau just released the results of a survey it took of its members. And here's a summary. Almost three quarters of ad executives say the pandemic is having a greater effect on advertising than the 2008 financial crisis that ushered in the last recession. 70% of media buyers have adjusted or paused their ad spend, 16% still trying to decide what they're going to do next. And more worrying, people say this will affect future years. About three quarters of media buyers said the coronavirus will affect their 2020 and 2021 spending commitments by about a 20% drop from their original plans. About a quarter of them have paused all ad spend for

the remainder of Q1 and Q2. 46% have adjusted ad spend for those periods. And almost two-thirds of advertisers have changed their messaging because of the pandemic. And what messaging are they leaning toward? As you'd expect, mission-based marketing and cause-related marketing, both up a little over 40%. So while publishers may be seeing less ad revenue in the coming year, one possible winner in all this might be YouTube. Like many other social platforms, YouTube's CPM has dropped in the last week or two, but analysts say it's not from what you'd think. Fewer advertisers in the auction.

No, it's mostly from a dramatic increase in user consumption. Of course, people are at home, so they're watching more YouTube. Quoting Search Engine Journal, with users at home captive to their screens, YouTube provides an endless stream of entertainment and how-to videos that are being searched for and watched more often. This means more video watched, more time on the platform, and that equates to more opportunities for ads to be shown. This balance of increased content demand could trigger an influx of ad supply. Turns out increased competition isn't the only factor here. Smaller content creators are just faster at getting videos put together than large brands, and they are closely following the trends and jumping on them, making videos on quarantine-friendly topics like kids' entertainment, fitness, home

cooking, and so on. Another platform seeing a ton of traffic amidst this pandemic is, of course, Facebook, and in particular, Facebook Live. And so, the company's rolled out some improvements that you may want to know about in case your brand is using Facebook Live. The new additions include automatic closed captioning. They're also planning to release an audio-only mode that lets the users be in listen-only mode, those features rolling out globally in the next few weeks. Also, and this is a big change for them, Facebook will let people watch Facebook Lives even if they don't have a Facebook account. This has been part of the reason brands have been loathe to use Facebook as their live platform. They're also adding a way for people to actually call in to hear audio, as in call from regular cell phones or landlines. So, to me, this seems to be them positioning themselves as a kind of one-way Zoom clone. Considering a lot of the other one-to-many

platforms like WebEx and GoToWebinar are still priced pretty high for big volume, this might be a good option for your brand if you want to get into doing live streams. Google is giving out $340 million in Google Ads credits to all small and medium-sized businesses. They say as long as you've had an active Google Ads account since the beginning of 2019, the credits will just appear in your account and you can use them anytime until the end of 2020. And they apply across all of Google's advertising platforms, including YouTube. Google has moved quickly to help brands and organizations. $250 million in free ads for the World Health Organization

and more than 100 other government health agencies. $20 million in ad grants to community financial institutions. And $20 million in Google Cloud credits for scientists to collaborate on a vaccine. Many creative agencies have got a lot of time on their hands right now. Clients' ad campaigns on pause, entire accounts put on hold. Well, if your shop has some extra time on its hands, the United Nations wants your help. They have issued a global open brief for creatives to communicate public health messaging. They have a deck that outlines the six themes that they want communicated.

Personal hygiene, social distancing, knowing the symptoms, kindness contagion, myth busting, and donations. And it's not just agencies that they're looking for help from. They want to reach out to influencers, content creators, talent networks, media owners, publishers, and bloggers. If that's something that you think you would be up for, there is a link to their Google Drive containing the deck and other assets in this episode's description.

And finally, just a beautiful ad out now from Jack Daniels Whiskey. Starts with a guy singing to a woman over FaceTime, and then clips of other people connecting with others while in self-isolation. Two guys playing chess via a cell phone video, a woman playing hangman with a chalkboard on her balcony with a neighbor next door. And yes, a couple of people are drinking Jack Daniels in the shots, but honestly, it's not obtrusive.

It's a beautiful ad. And if you are looking for a kind of template for your own creative through this, this might be it. I hope you're well and staying at home, friends. Talk to you tomorrow. To let them show you true colors, true colors, how beautiful. I miss you. Miss you.