Today in Digital Marketing - Paging Dr. Cringe... Emergency!

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Thursday, August 22nd. Today, paging Dr. Cringe, emergency! Is your brand making the right decision when it comes to passing TikTok trends? Also, why is Meta getting triple the ad share than it gets for eyeballs? How the American election will push up ad prices? And Google is having a bad week with bugs. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. If you've seen weird phrases like brat summer or very mindful, very demure on billboards or in your email box, you're not alone. Ad agencies and brands are taking social

Starting point is 00:00:41 media trends and using them in mainstream marketing. After all, jumping on board is the best approach, right? Some experts say no. A great think piece today in Digiday suggests that using super online trends in mainstream ads can be confusing for people who don't spend all day on TikTok. It's like speaking a different language. One brand expert quoted in the piece says it's a thin line between being cool and being confusing. Even so, other experts in the space say it's worth the risk. Yes, definitely. Brianna Hampton is a social media content strategist in Atlanta. I spoke with her this afternoon. If you're a brand, especially if you're a small business, I would suggest jumping on trends because trends show how relevant you are to social media.

Starting point is 00:01:29 The only issue comes is when it takes too long for a brand to hop onto a trend and the trend's on its way out. Then it seems a little bit cringy and you want to avoid that cringiness because the whole purpose of your brand is to remain relevant. Is there an expiry date or expiry time? I'm thinking of a trend like like take Paging Dr. Beat. I feel like that dance and I don't know if you call it a meme was sort of at its apex about three weeks ago. I still see brands using it is three weeks too long, too late. I don't think three weeks is too long. I think personally, it all depends on

Starting point is 00:02:09 how many, how far this message is spreading. Like the Demure thing went so viral in such a short amount of time versus like the Page and Dr. Beats was kind of like, it took a little while for people to ramp up to it. And so now that it's ramped up, it's kind of coasting.

Starting point is 00:02:25 But this very Demure thing's been happening for like the last two weeks and it's still going up and up and up. See how I do my makeup for work? Very demure, very mindful. I don't come to work with a green cut crease. I don't look like a clown when I go to work. I don't do too much. I'm very mindful while I'm at work. Like the creator who started this was on Jimmy

Starting point is 00:02:45 Kimmel just last night. So it's probably going to be a while before that dies down versus like a dancing trend like the paging Dr. Beats. Are there some brands or categories where it's just a bad idea to do this regardless? You know, I'm thinking a company that sells industrial lubricant, for instance, you know, is it just so far off brand for them to take advantage of this meme that it would be cringy? Or is the opposite true? Is it the fact that they wouldn't, no one would think that they would do this, make it stand out and become a benefit? I think that it, I think that what you were saying, the complete opposite, the fact that you would find a very unlikely brand to do something trendy, it makes it even funnier.

Starting point is 00:03:25 And that in itself can go viral because it's like, wait, why are you like a dentist's office doing like, talking about being demure? Like, why are you, I don't know, a grocery store doing a Paging Dr. Beach trend? It's kind of like, wait, those two things don't even make any sense. But that's what makes it even funnier. And that can increase that exposure. So I think that if anything, it can only work the more odd or the more opposite the trend is from the brand. Brianna Hampton is a social media content strategist in Atlanta. You can find her on TikTok at I am Briham. That's I-A-M-B-R-E-H-A-M. A new forecast from eMarketer says Meta will get a far bigger share of U.S. digital ad spend

Starting point is 00:04:12 than YouTube or Netflix this year, despite those latter platforms getting just as much share of U.S. time spent with digital. Meta is expected to get more than 21% share of ad dollars this year, whereas YouTube isn't even expected to crack 6%. Netflix, in case you're curious, will get less than one-third of 1%.

Starting point is 00:04:33 Quoting from eMarketer's forecast, quote, Despite gripes from users about the increasing number of ads on its platforms like Instagram, Meta reported that Q2 usage was on the upswing. The number of users across Meta's apps grew 7%, while impressions and price per ad each grew 10%. In contrast, connected TV spend on platforms like Netflix and YouTube, where consumers also spend a considerable amount of digital time, isn't keeping up with the consumer shift from linear to digital. Meta has built an outsized ad spend share by facilitating trackable ROI and easy ad placements. Meanwhile, on connected TV, the ad industry has been slow to meet consumer time spent, unquote. We have a link to the full eMarketer forecast in today's email newsletter, which you can sign up to for free by tapping the link at the top of the show notes or going to todayindigital.com slash newsletter.

Starting point is 00:05:35 A perfect storm is brewing in the advertising world, and it's not a good one. With the U.S. presidential election just around the corner, political ad spending is expected to skyrocket. Projections call for this election cycle to be record-breaking in terms of political ad spend. That could spell trouble for brands looking to get their messages out during the holiday season. Martech has a great piece this morning about this. It says brands may find themselves priced out of the ad market as election campaigns use up ad space. The ad spending surge could also lead to a shortage of ad inventory on popular platforms like Facebook and Google. This means brands may struggle to get their ads seen by their target audiences. To avoid getting squeezed out, brands may need to look for alternate ways to try to reach their consumers or try to book ad space

Starting point is 00:06:23 earlier than they normally would. As for whether brands should try to tackle some of the social and political issues at play during this American election, quoting from that Martech piece, quote, consumers are as divided about this as they are about picking presidents. A survey from business review site SiteJabber and research firm MarketSite found 41% of consumers prefer companies keep their political positions private. Only 32% of consumers said political affiliations don't influence their purchasing decisions, which means two-thirds of consumers could be put off by the wrong politically tinged message from a brand, unquote. For the first time, a streaming platform has reached a major TV viewing milestone. A new Nielsen report says YouTube is the first streaming service to account

Starting point is 00:07:15 for 10% of total TV viewing time in the US. Streaming as a category, quoting from the report, quote, made TV history for a second consecutive month in July as it notched the most dominant performance by a single viewing category ever in Nielsen's The Gauge report, accounting for 41 percent of TV viewing. Streaming levels were more than 5 percent higher in July compared to June, leading streaming to grow its share of TV by more than a point and shatter the previous record it set just last month, unquote. One outlier, of course, is that the Olympics began at the end of the month, so that certainly changed the numbers. As YouTube's share of TV viewing time grows, so does its appeal to advertisers. With more eyeballs on the platform, advertisers are likely to follow.

Starting point is 00:08:06 This is already leading to a shift in ad spending, with more brands allocating their budgets to streaming services like YouTube, though, as we mentioned in the previous story, maybe not as much as their viewership numbers would suggest they deserve. 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. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first.

Starting point is 00:08:45 Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N.C-A. 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, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Yesterday, we reported on how Roblox and YouTube were the top media for children. Advertising on YouTube is obvious, but how do brands advertise on Roblox?

Starting point is 00:09:32 If you're not familiar, Roblox is more of a video game platform than any single game. The software offers easy-to-use building tools, and thousands of people and brands have created their own minigame. It's these minigames that the kids are playing a lot of. With nearly 400 million monthly users, Roblox has become a major player for curious brands. It's led the platform to introduce new tools to Woo advertisers, including a partner program and an ad network. As for what brands are doing there, a great piece of Digiday today

Starting point is 00:10:05 details some of the tactics. Some are using custom-branded in-game experiences that integrate into popular existing games. Others are testing real-life commerce, letting users buy physical products without leaving the platform. And there's a creator economy within it as well. Some brands are partnering

Starting point is 00:10:23 with dedicated Roblox creators to promote their virtual worlds. Walmart and L'Oreal have successfully used this tactic to reach users. And finally, Google is having a bad week. Another bug with its ads platform has been found. This one apparently attributing traffic to a match type that should not even exist anymore. That type? Smart matching. A Google spokesperson confirming the bug today, saying that advertisers would not be charged for those clicks. They say they've already fixed the bug, which apparently came from a small traffic test last week. Except this bug is sort of a sequel to one discovered back in 2021. Quoting SE Roundtable,

Starting point is 00:11:05 quote, Back then, Google said, this filter option was the result of a bug that is now being fixed, but no traffic was affected. This experiment is one of many small tests that select advertisers have opted into. We don't have anything more to share at this time, unquote. So, this is not the first time Google Ads has had a bug like this. Nothing to say here. Thanks for listening. I'm Todd Maffin. See you tomorrow. Well, you're in luck. This summer, Unnery has started offering retail shopper dashboards for clients in the U.S. and Canada. Great for brands, retailers, and consumer brand preferences from customers'

Starting point is 00:12:05 foot traffic. Contact the Unnery team by clicking or tapping the link in this episode's show notes.

Today in Digital Marketing - Paging Dr. Cringe... Emergency!

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