Today in Digital Marketing - How Do You Solve a Problem Like Doja Cat?
Episode Date: May 18, 2022How Taco Bell pulled off a two-year ad campaign that feels like anything but an ad... Why one company is paying consumers to say no to third-party data tracking... TikTok unveils a new crowdsourced br...anded content tool... YouTube launches a new frequency capping solution... And do we trust Meta yet? Meta's own data indicates Facebook is spreading misinformation…Go Premium! No ads, weekend editions, story links, audio chapters, better audio quality, earlier release time, and more.Get each episode as a daily email newsletter (with images, videos, and links).HELPFUL LINKS:ADS: Reach thousands of marketers with our ad options.CLASSIFIED ADS: Only $20 — more infoMORE CONTENT: Email newsletter, expert interviews, and blog posts.HANG OUT: Join our Slack communityEnjoying the Show? Tweet about us • Rate and review • Send a voicemailFOLLOW US:The Show: LinkedIn • TikTok • Reddit • FB Page • FB GroupTod: Twitter • LinkedIn • TikTok • Twitch • InstagramDEALS:Jyll Saskin Gales — Inside Google Ads Andrew Foxwell — Foxwell Founders Membership • Scaling After iOS14 • All CoursesOthers — AppSumo lifetime marketing deals • Riverside.FM podcast recording siteCREDITS:Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation on Vancouver Island, Canada. Our associate producer is Steph Gunn. Ad coordination by RedCircle. Production coordination by Sarah Guild. Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.(If the links in the show notes do not work in your podcast app, visit https://todayindigital.com )Some links in these show notes may provide us with a commission.Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Today, how Taco Bell pulled off a two-year ad campaign that feels like anything but an ad.
Why one company is paying consumers to say no to third-party data tracking.
TikTok unveils a new crowdsourced branding content tool.
YouTube launches a new frequency capping solution.
And do we trust Meta yet?
When their own data indicates Facebook is still spreading misinformation?
It's Wednesday, May 18th.
I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing.
This is the story of how an angry tweet turned into a national ad campaign. It all started when
Taco Bell dropped the Mexican pizza from its menu and the musician Doja Cat tweeted to bring it back.
She wasn't working with the brand, just apparently a big fan of the menu item,
and that is when the partnership was formed.
In every tweet between the two,
the brand and rapper injected Mexican pizza into the conversation.
Doja Cat tweeted numerous times last year asking for the item,
while Taco Bell delivered playful comebacks,
all part of a marketing strategy, of course.
And after almost two years of this back and forth, Taco Bell is indeed bringing the Mexican pizza back tomorrow.
Today on Ad Week, there is a great piece up that explores why Doja Cat is actually the ideal brand partner for Taco Bell,
despite her being the average marketer's worst nightmare.
For instance, leading up to the Super Bowl, she posted a TikTok where she claims she's being forced to make the video for Taco Bell while expressing utter disinterest in the brand.
What's up, guys? It's Doja Cat, and I'm being forced to make this video for Taco Bell because they're saying that they have something in the works for you and for me.
And I don't feel special because they're not telling me what it is. So what am I doing? The partnership was designed to keep fans on their toes.
Doja Cat's leak of Taco Bell's Super Bowl spot, for example, was a scripted stunt.
Also, Doja Cat was very blunt about not wanting to create a Mexican pizza jingle that she was assigned to to perform on her social media.
During an Instagram live, she warned fans that if they see a jingle go live, they should be aware that it's contractual.
While this might have been a red flag for some brands,
Taco Bell leaned in, tweeting,
Congratulations, Doja Cat, on your big win.
We mean it, not just because we're contractually obligated to.
So why is this kind of anti-campaign working?
According to the Adweek piece,
quote, Taco Bell's love-hate affair with
Doja Cat reflects two diverging aspects of a trend across social media marketing. The adjacent
content that doesn't let outdated brand safety policies get in the way of something playful,
unquote. That said, Doja Cat is one of the biggest pop stars on the planet right now.
Would this same strategy work for a micro-influencer endorsing your brand?
Last week, we mentioned that it appeared that Meta had changed the way users' privacy settings
worked on its platform. If someone opted out of tracking on Instagram, but not Facebook,
they were automatically opted out of both by default. Or at least that was the speculation.
Corey Dobbin was one of those on Twitter who speculated that
if you saw a performance dip in the two weeks after they may or may not have turned this on,
this might be why.
He tried digging up documentation with more information about this change.
Couldn't find any.
Apparently it came informally from a rep.
This is how we get most of the product announcements from Meta these days.
Either a rep casually mentions, Oh hey, we're going to block all vowels next week. But anyway,
about your campaign, have you tried increasing your budget? Or they just put the new system in
place and rely on people on Twitter to screenshot and post it. So someone in our podcast Slack
community, which you should join, by the way, it's free today in digital.com slash Slack or tap the link in the show notes. This person runs a lot of ad campaigns and he has access to
actual human beings at Meta. So he thought he would ask both of his two reps. Rep one said,
quote, opting out of one platform's tracking does not opt out of all apps and platforms, unquote.
But rep two told them, quote,
if a user has linked their Facebook and Instagram accounts,
their opt-out will now be applied to all of their linked accounts, unquote.
We asked Meta for the official ruling on this earlier today
and had not heard back by deadline.
So, assuming both can't be true, which is it?
I'm inclined to believe the latter.
If only because the text that came back from Rep 2 was lengthier.
It read more like it came from some kind of official template.
Looked like it went through a communications committee, you know what I mean?
Phrases like, we recognize that this might impact your campaigns.
We appreciate your understanding.
But also from a policy and legislative point of view,
Meta probably wants to be more on the privacy side of things.
So, anyway, looks like this is indeed why performance dipped. and legislative point of view, Meta probably wants to be more on the privacy side of things.
So anyway,
looks like this is indeed why performance dipped.
Meta is opting users
out of tracking
across its whole ecosystem
if they opt out from one app.
Unless they aren't.
I mean, come on,
how much more clearly
do they have to make it
for you people?
Jeez.
Ahead of the cookiepocalypse, one company is rewarding consumers for saying no
to third-party data tracking. In order to give consumers a better sense of what's happening with
their data, SMS and email marketing platform Klaviyo has created a campaign where it pays
people $100 to decline cookies. The company launched its Buy Cookies, Hello Cash Giveaway campaign yesterday, where through
May 31st, the first 40 entries will receive a $100 gift card.
All participants have to do is send a screenshot of themselves declining cookies and emailing
it to nocookies at klaviyo.com.
Through the contest landing page, the initiative aims to inform people about what
cookies are, how they work, what it really means to accept all cookies on a website.
Klaviyo says it is committed to educating consumers about what they're accepting
and opting into. A company spokesperson said that while the company is running posts on its
social media promoting the contest, no money has been spent on running ads.
Going to go out on a limb here, maybe because they don't have a way of targeting people now?
Well, if all that talk about Doja Cat and self-deprecating marketing partnerships has
piqued your interest, TikTok has launched a new tool that may be able to help you get started.
Today, the social media app unveiled Branded Mission,
a new ad tool that allows advertisers to crowdsource content directly from creators on TikTok
and turn top-performing videos into ads.
For marketers, Branded Mission enables brands
to invite creators to contribute to a campaign.
TikTok says advertisers can engage the community
to participate in these branded campaigns,
let the creators tell the most relatable brand story in an authentic way, and deliver a diverse ecosystem of creators who are the main drivers of culture on TikTok.
Basically, the platform has cut out the middle person by eliminating the need to go through an influencer agency and instead go straight to the source. your financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. YouTube unveiled a new ad frequency
capping tool for marketers at its Brandcast presentation yesterday. The new frequency
capping tool will let advertisers using Google Ads set weekly limits on how often their spots
appear to viewers. That, according to Google's president, might be a solution for one of connected TV's lingering problems.
Viewers seeing the same ads repeatedly in a single viewing session.
Previously, capping was per campaign.
The new solution allows weekly capping.
And with this solution, an advertiser can also ensure that a viewer saw their ad three times a week, not just on average. This doesn't only apply to YouTube, but all
connected TV inventory that can be purchased through Google Display and Video360, which covers
over 90% of ad-supported connected TV households, those numbers from Adweek. The president of Google
also noted that DoorDash's use of this tool led to a 50% increase
in driver signups. Meta released its latest version of its widely viewed content report
yesterday, which continues to be a bit of a dumpster fire. The report details some of the
most popular posts on Facebook in the US. And while Meta claims that the most popular links, quote, ranged from humor culture to DIY, unquote,
its own data indicates that misinformation, divisive content, and other material that violates its policies are still gaming Facebook's algorithm.
Out of the most widely viewed links, two of the top 20 shared URLs were
eventually found to be in violation of policy after receiving about 30 million views each.
But it gets worse. Meta has also updated its methodology to ensure that it more accurately
reflects what users are actually seeing. This means links that don't render previews are no longer even
being counted.
With the new methodology, six out of the top 20 shared links on Facebook were eventually
found to be in violation of Facebook's policies.
The videos had received a collective 112 million views before Facebook's moderators removed
them. As the report shows, Meta is amplifying questionable content, but we have no way of knowing what
it is or was since Meta doesn't report those details.
Google's Russian subsidiary plans to file for bankruptcy after authorities seized the
company's bank account,
preventing it from paying employees and vendors, according to Reuters.
A note posted on Russia's official registry today stated that the Google subsidiary was intending to declare bankruptcy and since March 22 had foreseen an inability to fulfill
its monetary obligations. The tech giant, which has already paused ads in Russia,
says its free
services will remain available for Russian users for the time being, including Google Search,
YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and more. A few small items to wrap up today. First, a new report has found
that over half of marketers have lost revenue since Apple's IDFA changes.
Google's phasing out of third-party cookies, new privacy updates, and changing ad regulations.
The report from Bango argues that these issues are the four horsemen of the app-ocalypse.
Get it?
And are changing the face of app marketing forever.
Two-thirds of marketers also worry about the implications of Google removing third-party
data on their user acquisition strategy, while nearly 60% agree that user privacy is a top
priority for their company this year, and agree they have to rethink their acquisition
strategy.
Next, as Elon Musk's takeover drama continues, Twitter has lost three more senior executives.
This time, though, they weren't asked to leave.
According to Bloomberg, the three executives all chose to exit on their own.
And finally, 10 years ago today, Facebook went public.
As investors feared its pivot to mobile would not work, they were wrong.
Now the company is in a similar situation, but this time it's betting it all on the metaverse.
Metaverse's foggy future is only one of many reasons why the company's stock has dropped almost 50% since its high in September.
Ten years later, the company has a new name, same man behind the curtain, and a familiar problem.
Will meta be able to stay relevant this time?
And this is the last day for this classified ad.
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It is windy. We are in the middle of a huge windstorm right now. So much so that I moved our car because it was close to trees. The grocery store has no power. The recycling
place wasn't even taking in recyclables because their system couldn't count it. It was just nasty out there.
Anyway, if
there's no podcast tomorrow, it means I've
been bonked on the head by a tree.
I'm taking a few days off.
All right, talk to you tomorrow.
You hold my hand
cause I touch like a
girl.
You watch my lips
cause I kiss like a girl
This is crack.
Rock cocaine.
It isn't glamorous or cool or kid stuff.
It's the most addictive kind of cocaine
and it can kill you.
What's really bad is nobody knows how much it takes.
So every time you use it, you risk dying.