Today in Digital Marketing - Face Coverings: Show Them in Ads or Not?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, in your next online video ad, should you reference the pandemic? We have some numbers. Microsoft adds a new support channel for digital marketers. A possible gig for those of you in the SEO space. And I think I didn't screw up the live stream today. It's Thursday, November 19th, 2020. Happy Flag Day, Brazil. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing.

Starting point is 00:00:26 Well, damn you, Etsy. We'll see the kids soon. And your damn new TV and online ad. I know. The ad shows an older couple FaceTiming with their kids and grandkids, and one of them is like, open my package. Mom, mom, open the blue one. And inside, it's a stuffed toy. Kind of janky looking and that cute a kid probably made this way.

Starting point is 00:00:46 You're supposed to hug it when you can't see us. And then they crank up the tears. I miss you, Grandma. See you really soon. Honestly, Etsy, I am having a bad enough week thanks to dropping back down to silver in Overwatch. I do not need to be further emotionally manipulated. But you can't blame Etsy. Everyone's doing it now.

Starting point is 00:01:06 The holidays plus the pandemic is a big theme these days. New research from Ace Metrics shows COVID-19 themes appeared in 32% of holiday ads. And the most common theme was comparing the new normal with traditional seasonal concepts. And those brands that did have a pandemic theme scored slightly better with viewers than those without. The study found fewer than one in 10 ads featured people wearing masks, and of the ads that did, they were mostly retail stores showing people shopping while

Starting point is 00:01:38 wearing a face covering. There wasn't much favorability difference between ads with masks or ads without. Quoting MarketingDive.com, given the usual state of the holidays this year, brands may feel pressure to walk a fine line in their messaging, balancing themes of connection and warmth while avoiding depictions of in-person gatherings. Acemetrics' report emphasizes that referencing the realities of the pandemic isn't necessarily a recipe for success,

Starting point is 00:02:04 even as COVID-19 safety measures take on fresh urgency, with virus cases climbing to new peaks around the country. In fact, an overwhelming majority of viewers surveyed by Acemetrics did not seem to care or comment on ads featuring get-togethers of friends and family with no social distancing measures or masks in place. Few fewer than 1% of viewers, on average, called out their negative feelings towards such ads, unquote. One interesting stat from the research, 7% of ads they analyzed showed some kind of Zoom party. By the way, that Etsy ad was among the top five highest scoring ads,

Starting point is 00:02:40 with a relevant score of 29% above the baseline. If you've wanted to try your hands with some Bing ads, sorry, Microsoft ads, the company has relaunched its community forums. I wish I could give you a simple URL like community.microsoft.com, but it's a ridiculously long URL. As I mentioned, this is a relaunch. SCroundtable.com says this is actually the third relaunch that they're aware of. Microsoft says it will let users share ideas, ask questions, and get information from peers. Interestingly, they also say they will be seeding the forums with their own Microsoft ad reps who will regularly monitor the forums to provide

Starting point is 00:03:23 answers to any burning questions. Facebook also claims that they do this in their forums, but honestly, the few times you ever see a rep in there, they're just copy and pasting some boilerplate text with a link to a form to complete. Google keeps adding to its version of Zoom. It calls Google Meet. They now have breakout rooms, and normally I wouldn't cover something like this because it's not directly related to digital marketing.

Starting point is 00:03:49 But I have to say there are some applications here for us all, maybe creating online events or using it internally for agency town halls. It's quite a cool system. You get everyone in one Google Meet. Then it will automatically break people apart into separate subrooms. You don't need to know a second URL or know the URL ahead of time. They launched this for their education customers last month and are rolling it out now to people on its Workspace program,

Starting point is 00:04:13 formerly known as G Suite, to pretty much all the plans from Essentials and up. They also added a couple of new features from the initial school release. Now participants can ask for help when they're in a breakout room and the moderator can see the request from the moderator panel and then go and join the breakout room. Also, the moderator can set up a timer for each breakout session. Participants in that breakout will see a banner to keep track of how much more time they have in the breakout room. They'll also be alerted when there are 30 seconds left so they can wrap things up. And dial-in phone participants can now be assigned to breakout rooms.

Starting point is 00:04:47 In two weeks, anonymous users will also be able to be added to the breakout rooms. This feature is live now. I'm Darian Kovacs, host of Marketing Jam, and this year we've got some great guests coming on the show. I'm talking with Guy Kawasaki, Malcolm Gladwell, DHH,

Starting point is 00:05:11 Seth Godin, Google, Facebook, Audible, GoDaddy, and Rand Fishkin, and many, many more. Our weekly show dives deep into marketing trends, the landscape, and our inside scoop from some very cool people. Check us out wherever you listen to your podcasts. Marketing Jam. Marketing. Marking Jam. Marking Jam. Marking Jam. If you're looking for a new gig and have some SEO chops, searchenginejournal.com is looking for its next managing editor, starting date of yesterday. You'll be editing pieces like articles, guides, and how-tos from their collective of practitioners, plus providing breaking news coverage,

Starting point is 00:05:39 maybe even publishing e-books. It's a big site in that space. It gets more than 3 million page views each month. If you're interested, there's a link in the transcript of today's show. Remember, you can always read the full verbatim transcript of any episode. Just go to todayindigital.com and click the episode you want. And finally, guess who's having problems with ad delivery on their platform? Yes, Facebook. I know, right?

Starting point is 00:06:06 Who'd have thought? They said they're recovering from the issues, but, you know, this is Facebook. Recovering is relative. It's not always Facebook, of course. Twitter has slowed the rollout of their version of stories yesterday because of some bugginess. Which brings us to a podcast review from Cooper A. Loop in the U.S. who wrote from his quick, informative digital marketing news updates to his obvious disdain for Facebook. What's not to love? In all seriousness, amazing podcast. Keep up the great work.

Starting point is 00:06:39 Thank you, Cooper. Giving us a rating and a review really does help spread the word, you know, recommendation algorithms and all. There's an easy link that will take you right to the review page of your favorite podcast app. It is at ratethispodcast.com slash today. There's also a link in the episode notes. So yesterday was the first day of live streaming the production of the podcast. Two people came by to watch and they were treated to a mistake I made in the recording. A mistake so bad I had to re-record the whole thing.

Starting point is 00:07:12 So now we've got a processed voice track that we just drop in here. Whoops. That's not right. What happened to my voice? Did I lose the... Did that not record? Oh my god, are you kidding me? I'm live streaming every weekday, so if you'd like to drop by and see how the sausage is made, I usually start around noon Pacific time or so.

Starting point is 00:07:34 If I have things set up right, the stream should be on my Twitter account, my Twitch account, and this podcast's YouTube account, so we'll see. At the very least, for sure, it's on Twitch, which is twitch.tv slash Todd Maffin. I checked it, actually, as it was going out just now, as I'm recording this, and it seemed to be on Twitter

Starting point is 00:07:52 just fine, so that worked out as well. There's a link in the notes that'll take you there. There's even a live camera in the voicing booth. Okay, that's it. Talk to you tomorrow. 🎵

Today in Digital Marketing - Face Coverings: Show Them in Ads or Not?

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