Today in Digital Marketing - From Playtime to Paytime: Kidfluencers Are Now Legally Cashing In

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Friday, August 18th. Today, another advertiser exodus for Elon Musk as brands find their campaigns beside pro-Nazi content. Amazon's test put star ratings on the backburner. The marketing fortune tellers see revenue growth ahead. And did Snapchat's AI suddenly become sentient? I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. The Charlie bit my finger kid could have been a billionaire by now. Today, Illinois became the first state in the US to pass a law requiring child influencers to be paid.

Starting point is 00:00:39 The law is designed to safeguard underage influencers and minors featured in their parents' social media content. This applies to parents who are part of brand partnerships that include their kids, or even just talk about their kids in their content. A recent survey by The Motherhood, a marketing agency focusing on parenting influencers, found that almost all of the influencers in its network include their children in sponsored content. Starting next July, parents sharing videos of their children under 16 years old must set aside earnings generated from their posts into a trust fund accessible by the child once they turn 18. How much the child earns depends on how long they're featured in the video. For the law to apply, a child must appear in at least 30% of monetized videos over a 30-day period within the past year.

Starting point is 00:01:31 But the child doesn't have to be in the video to qualify. As I mentioned, a parent just telling a story about their kid counts. Kid fluencers can also, under the law, sue their parents if they weren't properly compensated, though NBC reports today that the bill does not provide government enforcement, which means families are responsible for compliance and legal action. Not even a week after ex-CEO Linda Iaccarino promised the platform formerly known as Twitter

Starting point is 00:02:02 was safe for advertisers, major brands are once again pulling out. Why? This time it's because their posts appeared alongside pro-Nazi content. The nonprofit research center Media Matters published a report this week revealing posts from major global bands being unknowingly promoted on a pro-Nazi profile. Fortune reported yesterday that since then, several companies like Gilead Sciences have stopped advertising after their content was promoted on hate accounts without their knowledge. Even companies that paid for brand safety measures

Starting point is 00:02:37 found their content running alongside anti-Semitic material, as seen with the NCTA, the Internet and Television Association. A spokesperson for the group said they had paid for precautions like exclusionary keywords and restricted ad placement, yet their content still surfaced on the offensive account, which received thousands of views. Other organizations, like the University of Maryland's football team, had their content promoted on the extremist account, which tweeted pro-Hitler propaganda, despite not paying for

Starting point is 00:03:05 such services on X for years, according to CNN. The sports team was reportedly unaware that their posts were being promoted, not only where they were placed, but that they were being promoted at all. This, of course, is a major concern for brands that remain on the platform. For businesses not knowing where, why, or when their content may appear beside hate speech is an unacceptable risk, according to most experts. One example of the more, shall we call them, relaxed policies against hate speech was circulating on social media this week. Someone created an account called Gas the MF Jews, so a user reported it as hateful and inappropriate.

Starting point is 00:03:43 That person got an email back from the platform, which read, quote, Hello, after reviewing the available information, we wanted to let you know that Gash the MF Jews hasn't broken our safety policies. You can block the account, which means they won't be able to follow you, see your tweets or message you, unquote. Once the screenshot started gaining traction on social media, Twitter suspended the account. But to be fair, they do have a point. You can't always just block Nazis and bigots and trolls, right?

Starting point is 00:04:15 Right? Well, funny story. Quoting Elon Musk in a post this morning, quote, block is going to be deleted as a feature except for DMs. So it seems Operation Burn Everything to the Ground is still in effect. While there's more brands and users are looking for an alternative to X, Tumblr's new look might seem very familiar. The platform is rolling out a new web design after testing it over the past month. The new layout looks a lot like X and

Starting point is 00:04:51 brings its platform's navigation bar to the left and the compose button to the lower left of the screen. The platform is also looking into making a collapsible version of this navigation and optimizing screen space for users with larger screens. Also notable, Tumblr says it's working on the technology to join ActivityPub. That's the network that connects Mastodon and similar systems, including, soon, Meta's Threads. The biggest e-commerce company in the world has introduced a perplexing shift in how product ratings are shown. Amazon is testing a new way to show star ratings in search results. The test shows an average star rating shown as a numeric value followed by a single gold star regardless of the average rating.

Starting point is 00:05:39 Then next to the gold star in parenthesis is a percentage of what reviews are five stars. So far, it looks like this test is available in India and Germany. Although The Verge reported yesterday that this new display doesn't seem to have reached the US yet, there are more versions of this test. Quote, some show an average rating, one gold star, and then what appears to be the total number of reviews. Others swap out the single star for five star icons, though in the few examples where I've seen these, all five are filled in, even if the average rating is closer to four

Starting point is 00:06:12 than it is to five. It's all pretty confusing, unquote. Again, this is the test. Amazon tests things lots, but still kind of interesting to see. Marketers are gaining clarity on their performance during a turbulent year. A new Digiday survey published today found an upbeat outlook among agency professionals, despite uncertainty within that industry.

Starting point is 00:06:39 The majority reported that their company's overall revenue has increased in the last 12 months, and the same applies to brand and retail marketers. These revenue gains were also reflected in staffing at agencies. 85% of agency pros said their companies invested in overall staffing in the past year. Three-quarters of brand and retail professionals indicated the same. Although brands and agencies both displayed optimism about the past year, the survey found contrasting views regarding the next 12 months. Both groups are still optimistic about revenue expectations for the coming year, but to different degrees. Two-thirds of agency pros said they expect overall revenue to increase in the next year, whereas half of brand and retailer pros said the same.

Starting point is 00:07:24 But fewer agency pros expect their companies to invest in staffing. By contrast, brands and retailers are even less optimistic about boosting their workforce, with only a quarter expecting their companies to spend more on staffing in the coming year. And finally, earlier this week, Snapchat's My AI posted its own story to the app and then gaslit users when they asked questions about it. The AI's story seemed to be a photo of a ceiling, though wasn't really entirely clear. Shortly after, the AI, which usually responds instantly like other AI chatbots, mysteriously went offline. Snapchatters quickly took to other social media platforms to post their thoughts and mild terror. Once the AI came back online, users could ask the system what happened.

Starting point is 00:08:17 In response to one user, it said the post was a, quote, fun way to mix things up. In another conversation, my AI said that the post was just a, quote, spooky ghost prank that was hilarious and gave us quite a scare, unquote. Snapchat has confirmed the bot did not develop self-awareness. Instead, its rogue behavior was due to a glitch in the matrix. A programming note to end this week. You may notice that starting Monday, the quality of this show's writing will deteriorate dramatically. And that is because Steph is leaving for a year and I will be writing for a while. And Steph, you are leaving for some bullshit reason.

Starting point is 00:09:05 Yeah, yeah. Something, yeah. What is it again? I lost the paper. Oh, just having a baby. Just having a baby. Soon, right? In like

Starting point is 00:09:12 a couple of weeks? A week? Next weekend is technically my due date. So really just any time now. It's our first baby. So like there's

Starting point is 00:09:21 a lot of unknown. So any type of like minor symptom, you're're like am i going in labor oh yeah well i'm sure we will get flooded with with um nice messages as always happens every time you you guest host um we always get messages saying can you just leave step and you can just go do like some office work or something, roughly, that we've been together. So you've been here for about half of the shows, because we're getting close to 1,000 episodes.

Starting point is 00:09:50 Yeah, I remember when I first started a couple years ago, we just hit 500, and we're almost at 1,000. You're an old-timer now. Well, I speak on behalf of everyone who's listening, everyone subscribed to our newsletter, everyone here at the EngageQ agency. I say good luck. we wish you the best. And let us know once you've rested, not urgently, what's happened.

Starting point is 00:10:12 And I guess we'll see you in a year. Absolutely. And that will do it for the week. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of the Tsunamic First Nation on Vancouver Island. Our associate producer is the intrepid Steph Gunn, production coordinator Sarah Guild, music licensing by Source Audio, ad coordination by Red Circle,

Starting point is 00:10:35 and our theme composer Mark Blavis' dad joke of the week, why did the new dad bring a ladder to the hospital when his wife was having a baby? He heard it was time to step up. Good luck, Steph. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.

Today in Digital Marketing - From Playtime to Paytime: Kidfluencers Are Now Legally Cashing In

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