Today in Digital Marketing - Invisible Impressions and the CTV Problem

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, the ad format that is causing marketers to lose a billion dollars in ad spend every year. TikTok's parent company is ramping up its VR division. Spotify invests in AI, voice technology, and how the creator economy is redefining advertising and what it means for your brand. It's Monday, June 13th. I'm Todd Maffin. Here is what you missed today in digital marketing. Ghost viewers might have you reconsidering your media budget. A study released today by media buyer Group M found that between 8 and 10 percent of connected TV ad impressions are being counted as delivered when the TV is off. Analysts estimate the overcount wastes about a billion dollars in CTV advertising every year for brands. But that stat rises to almost 20% when examining only impressions delivered

Starting point is 00:00:53 through CTV streaming services like dongles, sticks, and gaming consoles. While smart TV apps, which account for about half of all CTV viewing, had almost no incidence of overcounts across streaming ad delivery. As a result, GroupM has created new standards for streaming viewability and CTV measurement. In addition, measurement company iSpot has created a product called iSpot CTV Verification to measure continuous play at the campaign level. GroupM says companies like Disney, Fox, LG Ad Solutions, NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery have committed to working with agencies and advertisers on the new standards, which would be designed to ensure ads are only counted when delivered to screens that are turned on

Starting point is 00:01:41 and have people in front of them. What a novel approach. More businesses are choosing to adopt a subscription-based model. New research projects that three out of four direct-to-consumer brands will have a subscription-based offering by next year. In case you missed that, three out of four DTC brands. However, while the majority of DTC brands may have a subscription model, there are risks that call their sustainability into question, including the cost of acquiring customers, cancellation and churn, and, of course, subscription fatigue. So what is driving the growth of DTC subscription services? Gen Z and millennial shoppers are responsible for the rise, according to the research.

Starting point is 00:02:37 The study found the majority of DTC subscribers are urban women aged 25 to 44 with a salary of between 50k and 100k. Subscribers also frequently shop on Amazon and rely on its product reviews. The study also indicates that platforms like Shopify, Recharge, and Rodeo have made it easier for brands to establish their DTC subscription business. Is it time for your brand to join the bandwagon? Another study found that a quarter of UK consumers plan to sign up for more subscription services. The report also revealed that the majority of subscribers are more loyal and 45% tend to spend more money with brands and businesses that they subscribe to. Those two studies have been provided, the first one by Pipe Candy, the second by Recurly, the latter of which I should note is a subscription platform provider, so maybe take their numbers with a tiny grain of salt.

Starting point is 00:03:33 Lookout Zuck, TikTok VR has entered the chat. The owner of the popular platform, ByteDance, is allegedly preparing to enter the virtual reality space, this according to a report from Protocol today. Sources say the company plans on investing tons of money to develop VR games and experiences. Currently, ByteDance appears to be investing in a great deal of hiring. More than 40 job listings have emerged for Pico. That's the Chinese VR headset developer that TikTok's parent company acquired last year. Positions range from a head of VR game strategy to a game operation manager. In light of Meta's recent decision to delay the release of its upcoming headset, some stiff competition may be headed to the Metaverse. Is VR part of your media budget?

Starting point is 00:04:16 With more companies investing in the space, you may want to start considering it. While TikTok invests in VR, Spotify is investing in AI. Today, the streaming giant announced its acquisition of Sonantic, an AI voice platform that creates realistic human voices from text. Spotify says its integration will allow it to engage with its users in a more personalized way, noting that there are several potential opportunities for text-to-speech capabilities across its platform. So what are those capabilities? The company indicated it could use the technology

Starting point is 00:04:54 to provide audio-based recommendations and descriptions to users who aren't looking at their screens. For example, when people are driving or doing other activities where they can't look at their device. According to TechCrunch, Spotify could also use its technology to diversify its own business with B2B products since Sonatic's core business currently focuses on B2B partners. A new study confirms what most of us already know from experience. Today's consumer has little tolerance for traditional advertising. The report found that nearly half of Gen Z participants spent zero hours watching ad-supported TV

Starting point is 00:05:37 and that the majority always try to skip or block ads when online. However, one in two trusts the online content of the creators they follow, once again revealing the need for your brand to consider influencer marketing. Nearly two-thirds, quote, really enjoy and feel loyal to creators and influencers, unquote, while seven out of 10 said

Starting point is 00:05:59 they're more likely to trust a review from a person who seems like them. The study also found that more than a third of Gen Z's online time is spent consuming creator content and that over 60% purchase products they've seen demonstrated or discussed by content creators. The data provided by Whaler's research of more than 2,000 participants. 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 major financial losses, data breaches,

Starting point is 00:06:40 and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. While Elon Musk's vow to restore free speech to Twitter looms, the platform recently shared new research into the effectiveness of its prompt asking users to reconsider negative tweets. The study found that warning prompts influence positive short-term and long-term effects on the platform. You may have seen this prompt out in the wild if you are given to tweeting particularly nasty things. Essentially, it pops up a little box suggesting that you may want to rephrase or reconsider posting what you tried to tweet. Twitter's research found in instances where users were prompted to reconsider, over a fifth did indeed revise their tweet.

Starting point is 00:07:27 Almost 10% just cancelled the tweet entirely, although nearly 70% were sent without revision. The report also indicates the effect of being presented with a prompt extended beyond just the moment of posting. After just one exposure to a prompt, users were almost 5% less likely to compose a second offensive reply, while prompted users were also 20% less likely to compose five or more prompt-eligible tweets. It's a bird, it's a plane, actually, it's Amazon and their new Prime Air service. You may have

Starting point is 00:08:04 heard this. These are drones that will soon be used to ship products sold through Amazon's marketplace. Until now, it's just really been in testing. However, today, the e-commerce giant announced that it will begin delivering packages using Prime Air drones in California later this year. This is not a test. This will be part of their regular service offering. Rest assured that if your brand sells through Amazon and you're worried about your products arriving damaged, the company says that its algorithms will use a range of tech for object detection.

Starting point is 00:08:36 Quoting Amazon, Our drone can identify a static object in its path, like a chimney. It can also detect moving objects on the horizon, like other aircraft, even when it's hard for people to see them. If obstacles are identified, our drone will automatically change course to safely avoid them, unquote. Thousands of items will soon be available for delivery by drone for select users in the area. For these deliveries, Amazon said the drone will fly to the designated delivery location, descend to the customer's backyard, and hover at a safe height. It will then release the package

Starting point is 00:09:12 and rise back up to altitude. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? At least we got that on video. Finally, in what sounds like the start of a Spielberg film, Google has placed one of its engineers on paid leave for claiming that Google's AI is sentient. The Washington Post reporting that the engineer was testing whether its LaMDA model generates discriminatory language or hate speech. The engineer's concerns reportedly grew out of convincing responses he saw the AI generate about its rights, that is to say the AI's rights, and the ethics of robotics, which

Starting point is 00:09:57 they posted publicly on their Medium account. According to Google, the employee's actions regarding the project allegedly violated confidentiality policies. In a statement given to the Washington Post, a spokesperson from Google said there is no evidence that LAMDA is sentient and that its team reviewed concerns and the evidence does not support any claims that the AI has consciousness. The spokesperson added. By the way, no, I have not developed a lisp. Listening back just before I mastered this episode, it does sound like I've got a bit of a lisp. But the issue is I've kind of ramped up my D-Verb plug-in. I'm in a very echoey room that is almost impossible to isolate the echoes. I've got, I mean, you wouldn't believe how many acoustic tiles I have. It really doesn't do much. So I rely on this plugin called

Starting point is 00:10:49 a D-Verb, which is supposed to take the echo out. And I kind of gave it a little bit more juice today and it kind of makes it sound like I have a list. Also, I remembered that I did not update you on the power washer experiment because Steph was taking over for a few days there. The power washer, as it turns out, is just as much fun as you think it is, but it takes a lot longer, actually, a lot longer than I was expecting. I kind of thought I'd just have to take one pass at it. It would look great.

Starting point is 00:11:13 It actually takes quite a bit of time to get it nice and clean. Also, it's really heavy, and I don't know what I thought kind of machine did this, but it turns out it's operated by gas. I had no idea. I guess I thought it was electrically plug-in or something. I don't know what I was thinking.

Starting point is 00:11:26 So it had a choke and a throttle and air valves and gas fuel mixtures and all sorts of stuff. I didn't know what I was doing. I almost drowned the thing in gas, apparently, and finally got it to work. It was very, very satisfying. The obligatory power washing tweets or photos are up on my Twitter account. Talk to you tomorrow. It's the season for new styles and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten.

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Today in Digital Marketing - Invisible Impressions and the CTV Problem

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