Chasing Eyeballs and How The Turntables
Rabbbits Weeekly: the platforms users and marketers prefer and the Clone Wars. Plus, other marketing stuff and things about the æconomy, algorithms, ads, audiences, analytics and attack vectors.
Ed note: I maxed out the length today, so you’ll have to click over to the blog to get the rest of your usual headlines.
Where Should Brands Spend Those Dollars?
Kantar’s Media Reactions 2022 report – measuring consumer preferences around ad channels – is out, which means it’s recap time. First note to call out, there appears to be a mismatch between audience and marketer preferences.
Probably unsurprisingly, based on the number of breathless headlines around the sector lately (and the desirability as a career path), influencer marketing is the most favored digital channel by consumers. Followed by ecomm, podcast, social media story, and music streaming ads, in descending order. Consumers find influencer ads more fun and entertaining, relevant and useful, and slightly more trustworthy than average for ads. They also find them to be of worse quality (or less high on the “better quality” scale, if that wording changes the perception at all). This suggests there could be a quality-authenticity trade off for ads. The better it looks, the more it feels like an ad.
While increased spend is anticipated across all digital channels, expect the most competition in online video, video streaming, social media stories, and the (sigh) metaverse next year.
Where should you be advertising? (Took long enough to get here, I know.)
Globally, Amazon is #1 in the hearts of consumers. But their (current) ad solutions will only appeal to so many advertisers. Spotify could be the sweet spot “next platform” for most, while Snapchat is the dark horse (and I’m sure their recent earnings woes have them delighted to make the top 5). In the US, the top platform in terms of ad equity is… The Wall Street Journal. Which is maybe not the most helpful for most of us, but there you go.
To finish up with Kantar, here are a couple interesting images.
Google is officially the IBM of digital advertising (no one is fired for choosing it).
Trying to find the right tone for your next digital ad, try matching the platform’s personality.
Performance metrics looking rough? Maybe you can shift your focus to brand building and wave your hands a lot. Only 8.6% of brands responding to a Marketing Week survey said their main focus is on performance marketing. 42.5% either focus solely on brand marketing or a mix of the two with a focus on brand. This jumps to 64.6% when adding in brands that mix both equally.
I understand that not all brands can fully leverage performance marketing based on product type, regulations, purchase point, purchase cycle, etc. I also know that brand marketing is essential to brand success and believe it’s an important part of the marketing strategy. But this split seems backwards (of course, I could have a different definition of “performance marketing”).
The examples of brand marketing outcomes mentioned (“mental availability and being top-of-mind in buying situations”) seem, um, impossible to measure? Maybe I’m too much of a data nerd, but this feels like making a strategic decision based on murky defensibility with the bosses and decision makers.
All these words to say, balance your consumers and your objectives with the channels of your choice to advertise strategically.
This Weeek in Copy-Paste
The cloned becomes the cloner as TikTok tries to BeReal. Literally. It sounds like they practically copy-pasted.
Now that the TikTok train has left the station (not that that will stop them), Meta has to find a new platform to clone. Enter: Discord. I mean: Community Chats. Which is a weird Frankenstein’s monster of existing features assembled into a…thing…to be used for…something?
Ads
Google is working to turn Google Ads into a targeting marketplace, allowing publishers to share first-party data for advertisers to deliver against.
Big G is making it easier for advertisers to go vertical on YouTube via some cool new tech highlighted below, new templates to turn your images and text into videos, as well as creative tips to consider:
vertical ads in vertical content (duh)
Ricky Bobby it, you have up to 60 seconds, viewers aren't looking for plot
Add a dash of emotion, you know, like humans have
We’re experimenting with a new machine learning technology that reformats landscape video ads into square or vertical formats based on how someone is watching YouTube.
Search 4 Cash is also combining the ad creation and extension steps into one Ads & Assets stage of the workflow. Same goes for reporting and insights on these buckets.
And a bunch of RSA recs, if that’s your kind of thing.
Cory Dobbins of The Marketer’s Playbook (haven’t read it yet, but I’m going to) called out Facebook flagging ads for creative fatigue before even launching. Per the official documentation:
Before a campaign is active: If we predict creative fatigue may occur in the first 7 days of your campaign, we will warn you before you publish your ad.
I got to experience it “in the wild” around the same time he did.
Walmart is turning the ad dollars dial all the way to 11 by extending some placements to Marketplace sellers and automatically enrolling all new Marketplace sellers in Walmart Ad Center.
Out-of-home advertising is this year's comeback kid for ad mediums. On pace for a new record year (previously held by 2019), the growth has been driven by adapting for national advertisers and upgrading to digital.
Audiences
An interesting graph in an otherwise overly sales-pitchy post from Snapchat on Halloween and AR.
Hey, where’s the rest of my email? I used too many pictures so you’ll have to click a button to get the rest. Sorry.