Today in Digital Marketing - They Both Reached for the Gun

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Friday, September 20th. Today, major brands beside horrible content. This time, it's not on X. Gen Z will be spending more than you think this holiday. Roku and Reddit both release new ad tools. And how did Ikea convince people to place ads on their houses? We'll tell you. I'm Todd Maffin.

Starting point is 00:00:23 That's ahead today in Digital Marketing. Well, it looks like X isn't the only platform struggling with brand safety issues. The New York Times reported this week that ads for major brands have been appearing on YouTube videos that spread racist falsehoods about Haitian migrants. Quote in the Times, quote,

Starting point is 00:00:41 On YouTube, an ad for the car company Mazda appeared before a video that claimed, quote, Even an ad for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, was placed ahead of a video that spread the unsupported statement that migrants were, quote, going to parks, grabbing ducks,

Starting point is 00:01:14 cutting their heads off, and eating them, unquote. This is despite efforts by YouTube to provide brand safety tools designed to keep advertisers away from hate speech and misinformation. Researchers found that ads for over a dozen large organizations and consumer brands monetized xenophobic claims on YouTube. The videos got nearly 1.6 million views in a 72-hour period, earning the commentators a few thousand dollars collectively from the advertisements.

Starting point is 00:01:42 Check My Ads, a digital advertising watchdog, said that tech platforms are infested with conspiracy theories, false narratives, and misinformation. Quoting its co-founder Claire Atkin, quote, we are dealing with information disorder and advertisers can't trust it, unquote. Brands are trying to regain more control

Starting point is 00:02:00 by dictating specifically where their ads can be placed and demanding more manual audits. YouTube allows companies to block ads from appearing alongside certain creators or sensitive content, but clearly more needs to be done to protect brands. Again, quoting from the New York Times report, quote, Having an advertisement land next to misinformation can be financially damaging. The share of people who click on such ads is 46% lower than for ads that avoid being twinned with toxic content, according to Integral Ad Science, a company focusing on brand safety. Reddit this week launched a new ads inspiration library that shows the best performing ads

Starting point is 00:02:41 in different categories. This is a similar library to the ones offered by TikTok and Meta, though while Meta's library focuses on transparency, Reddit's is more like TikTok's, highlighting top ad examples for marketers to learn from. The library lets users filter search results by keyword, category, ad budget, format, placement, and objective. This can help you see how others in your sector

Starting point is 00:03:01 are using Reddit ads. One interesting twist is when you click on an ad example, Reddit will show you the top three creative best practices used in that campaign, as identified by its AI. Reddit also launched a beta version of its AI copywriter tool, which generates ad copy. It can also make headlines that you can refine using various toggles. Amazon has also updated its platform with some AI tools.

Starting point is 00:03:33 The site will now use customers' shopping habits to create personalized product recommendations on its homepage. Instead of suggesting similar items, this new feature will recommend larger categories based on what customers like to buy. For example, if a customer often shops for holiday decorations, Amazon will suggest more products in that category. The new feature will also make product descriptions more relevant to customers' interests. So if a customer often searches for, say, gluten-free products, terms like gluten-free will appear more prominently

Starting point is 00:03:59 in product descriptions. Amazon's also releasing new tools for third-party sellers, a free video generator that uses the product's images and features to create clips, and a live image feature that allows users to partially animate still images. Both those tools are available now in beta to select U.S. advertisers. And Amazon is also launching a chatbot called Project Amelia. This provides personalized recommendations and troubleshooting assistance to help sellers improve their business performance. Project Amelia is also currently available in beta to a small group of U.S. retailers. Amazon says it will expand to more

Starting point is 00:04:36 sellers later this year. Gen Z shoppers are planning to spend more money this holiday season. A report by Fiverr found that 43% of Gen Z shoppers will increase their holiday spending. Compare that to only 37% of millennials. Gen Z shoppers are turning to social media to find gifts. In the U.S., more than half of that generation will find gifts on TikTok shop. Compare that to a third of U.S. respondents who will shop for gifts seen on Facebook and Instagram ads. Influencer recommendations will drive purchases for 24% of U.S. Gen Zers. Retailers are investing more in digital marketing to attract that generation. In the U.S., 57% of retailers are using social media ads. And when you look at it

Starting point is 00:05:24 globally, 40% of retailers are investing in social ads. And when you look at it globally, 40% of retailers are investing in social media ads, followed by influencer marketing and email marketing. Nearly 70% of businesses plan to use AI in some form this holiday season to connect with younger shoppers. And with inflation still a concern, 80% of businesses are offering discounts. That's up from 55% in 2023. For holiday shoppers, good deals are the top priority,

Starting point is 00:05:51 followed by free shipping and high quality products. The streaming TV network Roku just launched a new self-service ad platform that lets brands of all sizes buy video ads directly. Roku says it offers better data and ad formats than other self-service solutions. One notable feature is its integration with Shopify, which lets merchants launch shoppable ads that let consumers check out on screen. It also introduced Action Ads, which let marketers create interactive video overlays that allow viewers to send a text message to themselves

Starting point is 00:06:25 while watching a video ad. The new platform is part of Roku's effort to simplify its ad process. The media has been growing its streaming hours and platform revenue. TikTok is losing its global head of marketing. Kate Javeri will exit the company at the end of September. Zinnia Mucha, who currently runs Global Brand and Communications, will take over the marketing role. The company spun this more as a restructuring than the loss of a key person. Mucha told employees that she and Javeri had been talking about how to make the marketing team work better. They decided to get rid of the head of global marketing job and put everyone under one leader. TikTok laid off many marketing employees this spring as part of a restructuring.

Starting point is 00:07:09 Javeri started at TikTok in November of 2022. Before that, she was CMO at the National Basketball Association. Mucha joined TikTok in June of 2023 after working at Disney for quite a while. She reorganized the communications team last fall and hired a former Disney colleague to run media relations. And finally, IKEA wants to help people sleep better. It also wants to sell more of its sleep products. To do both, IKEA came up with a clever idea. The retailer gave away free window roller blinds to people who applied for them. But these weren't just any blinds. They had ads for IKEA's sleep products on the outside. When people closed

Starting point is 00:07:52 their blinds at night, they were showing IKEA's ads to the world. IKEA's ad agency, which is a Swedish name that I'm not even going to try to pronounce, came up with the idea. They wanted to find a way to advertise IKEA's products in a way that was both creative and functional. The agency released a film to recruit people for the campaign and got a huge response. Then they chose the recipients of the free blinds at random. The campaign was only in Sweden, but IKEA says they're thinking about rolling it out globally.

Starting point is 00:08:32 On the show Monday, a California law passed this summer is now having dramatic effects on marketers. One is being sued just for having a TikTok pixel on their site. We will have all the details along with an interview with that brand on Monday's show. And that will do it for the week. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of this dynamic first nation on Vancouver Island. Our associate producer is the intrepid Steph Gunn. Our production coordinator is Sarah Guild. Ad coordination by Red Circle.

Starting point is 00:08:57 Mark Blevis is that last pixel on your 1998 monitor that refuses to go out. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend, friends. I will see you on Monday.

Today in Digital Marketing - They Both Reached for the Gun

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