Today in Digital Marketing - Has Generation Z Killed Super Bowl Advertising?

Starting point is 00:00:00 I got a question for you. How many of you hate Google Analytics? Bet a lot of you raised your hand. Luckily, there's a better way to analyze your website and get actionable insights. Meet Oribi. Oribi is a unique marketing analysis tool. It captures all the events your visitors perform on your website without using code. It lets you analyze behavior patterns, build smart funnels, and get tons of actionable insights. Finally, you'll be able to understand your visitors and know what to change in order to convert more. No more blind spots.

Starting point is 00:00:32 And listeners of this podcast will get 20% off any plan. Start with a free trial at oribi.io slash today and use the coupon code today. That's O-R-I-B-I dot I-O slash TODAY for 20% off. Today, documents unsealed, and now we know why Google is in hot water over its ad strategy. Will this year see the rise of the independent digital agency? TikTok offers some brand safety for the risk-averse marketing directors among us. Has Gen Z killed Super Bowl ads? Google sends another product to the Google graveyard. And on the Premium Podcast, with more stories, no ads, audio chapters, and expert deep dive episodes,

Starting point is 00:01:15 tap the link in the notes for info, what you can learn from BuzzFeed's 60 e-commerce live streams last year. It's Monday, January 24th, 2022, and not 2021. Like I said Friday, happy Unification Day, Romania. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing, episode 546. New details leaked out over the weekend in the antitrust lawsuit against Google, in which the America's state of Texas says the company has been overcharging

Starting point is 00:01:45 advertisers. Well, a federal judge has now released a mostly unredacted version of the most recent complaint in the case. This one was actually originally filed in 2020. In that paperwork, the Texas attorney general says that Google often claimed it was participating in second price auctions where the winning bidder pays the second highest bid. However, it's now alleged that the tech giant was charging advertisers the price of the second highest bid while giving publishers. Those are the websites where the ads are shown the third highest bid and pocketing the difference. Google filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on Friday, and a Google spokesperson said the alleged scheme, which the lawsuit says was codenamed Project Bernanke, did not artificially

Starting point is 00:02:31 increase prices for buyers, but was, quote, one of many improvements Google ads made to optimize bids for advertisers. Could 2022 be the year for independent media agencies? An interesting piece today in Digiday asks whether their success will come from agency holding companies or consultancies that have attempted to penetrate agency territory. An informal survey of several independent agencies, including PMG, Crossmedia, Traction, and more, revealed some similarities among them. They all reported strong financial results for 2021. PMG's revenue grew 75% over 2020, Traction 30%, and the others cited double-digit percentage growth. More clients are switching to independent agencies. And all companies expressed optimism that they would maintain similar levels of growth this year. The executives said they base their success on their ability to adapt and invest in data-intensive tools,

Starting point is 00:03:33 their cultural adaptability to retain talent, and involving senior talent with clients so that they can help solve business problems that go beyond media buying and planning. It appears that independent firms may actually outperform consultancies by stealing clients and talent from the holding companies. The CEO of Traction explained that they considered their company to be more of a consultancy than an agency today. The company even erased its agency title and renamed itself a marketing accelerator, suggesting the term agency may be perceived by some clients

Starting point is 00:04:04 as having certain limitations that they are unable to solve. The article explains that independents have to ramp up data and analytics tools and expertise in order to distinguish themselves. And of course, we can't forget about the one looming uncertainty for all supply chain issues and inflation, both of which have the potential to damage the entire marketing ecosystem, since most CEOs have never dealt with anything like this before. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from

Starting point is 00:04:46 major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. TikTok and Zephyr have partnered to launch a brand safety and brand suitability post-bid measurement solution for in-feed ads on the app. The new partnership will let brands ensure that their TikTok ads are not displayed alongside potentially harmful or dangerous content. The company announced that brands using the solution will have access to deeper insights into brand safety and brand suitability for their campaigns. The insights provide clients with third-party assurance that their investment is delivered next to content that suits their brands,

Starting point is 00:05:29 protecting their reputation, and mitigating risk. So how will it work? The new product will be powered by Zephyr's Cognition AI machine learning engine, which provides advertisers with independent and video-level verification of their content adjacencies on TikTok. Zephyr will provide

Starting point is 00:05:45 clients with a reporting dashboard that gathers insights at the campaign, video, or creative level. And if you click on each campaign, you can view the campaign's performance against each category of GARM suitability risk. Still with TikTok for a moment, if you're still not convinced that the big companies are taking the platform seriously, consider this. State Farm has decided to forego its usual Super Bowl ad and instead focus on a TikTok hashtag challenge. The campaign has already launched on the app.

Starting point is 00:06:21 Users are asked to show off their talents with a duet and using the hashtag. On Super Bowl Sunday, the three best videos will be pinned to the company's page. Users will then pick their favorite video. This is a big change considering last year, the company splurged on Drake for its Super Bowl ad. The insurance provider says it's refocusing on TikTok, quote, to meet the next generation of consumers by showing up where they're spending their time and in spaces they're interested in, unquote. The second brand sidelining the Super Bowl is Coca-Cola, not for TikTok, but to make room to focus on existing sports marketing plans. As part of its Global Marketing Network partner selection, WPP was selected in November with a promise to revamp and modernize Coca-Cola's advertising and marketing strategy. And finally, another product in the Google graveyard, the company says it will be

Starting point is 00:07:13 discontinuing Cameos. Cameos were always a weird format, sort of stories, sort of videos. Nobody was quite sure how to use them. In an email it sent to those who used the service, the company explained that beginning February 17th, you will no longer be able to record videos through Cameos on Google, and any existing videos posted to Google Search and Discover won't be shown. The company says it learned a lot from the invite-only pilot, but will be focusing on other content creation projects. By the way, Cameos on Google is not related to the Cameos video app in which celebrities sell shoutouts to their fans.

Starting point is 00:07:53 On the show tomorrow, what are the five most important questions to ask your next SaaS provider? And what will global advertising look like now that Europe is banning the use of personal information in ad targeting? Claudio, Jamie, Mark, welcome to the Premium Podcast. Those three signed up over the weekend. The Premium Feed, just like this one, except with more stories, no ads, deep dive weekend episodes, chapters. You can jump between stories and my dad jokes are 15% funnier. Sign up by tapping the link in the episode notes or go to todayindigital.com slash premium feed.

Starting point is 00:08:30 All right, talk to you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Has Generation Z Killed Super Bowl Advertising?

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.