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Bridging commentary on the art & science of content; content marketing, branded content, native advertising and the analytics, attribution and intelligence that powers it.

QR Codes

Edition #358 QR codes, how Fortune got to $100m and attention. One big thing The sheer bravery of Coinbase to run that ad in the Super Bowl is to be applauded. Yes it performed well, 20 million visits in one minute. Crashed their site. One quip I saw was that marketing beat engineering! But it might not have. For those that haven’t seen it here it is. A QR code bouncing around a screen, just like the… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
February 18, 2022

Plant Based

Edition #357 The earnings merry go-round, content arbitrage & plant-based diets. One big thing I really enjoyed Ben Thompson’s summation of the digital ad eco-system as of 2022. And how the various pieces have come together in the past year or so. In particular you see Apples changes with ATT, moving spend away from Facebook, and in turn enhancing Amazon’s ad product. Because Amazons data all stays on platform. His macro takes are usually pretty good. We’ve had… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
February 11, 2022

How to verify branded content

Are you looking to verify the performance of your branded content? Then you’ve come to the right place. What makes branded content verification different to other advertising, is the art and science. Content requires consumption to be effective. And then, often you need to verify the traffic sources to the content. Often also there are technical challenges that need to be overcome. The other challenge can be the scale, often branded content has less impressions than say a display campaign. Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
January 31, 2022

New celebrity

Edition #356 Cameo, Microsofts $10b business and carbon emissions. One big thing Microsoft brought in $10 billion in ad revenue in the last 12 months. For a combined business that is bigger than Snap & Twitter combined. NEW: @Microsoft brought in $10 billion+ in ad revenue in last 12 months (ex TAC), which includes LinkedIn— Comes amid a renewed ad push from the tech firm— Microsoft acquired ATT’s addressable… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
January 28, 2022

Merger Mania

Edition #355 MOAR acquisitions, meme creators turned VC and tools for content creators. One big thing Banker to adtech/martech Terry Kawaja shared this tweet about tech M&A in the roaring 20’s. And it is most of the new news each week, acquisitions all round. And it is exactly like this image, bigger fish picking up a smaller fish, who had already scooped up several smaller fish. Digiday this week dug in to how say the likes of… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
January 21, 2022

2022 Begins

Edition #354 Microcosms, acquisition’s and PGA does content marketing. One big thing Welcome to 2022, a year already started with omicron confusion & disruption. Each of us in our microcosms. Microcosm is a great word to sum up operating this year. How can each brand operate in their safe zone. And as each of their competitors pushes that safe zone out, will they follow or not. We had an influx of subscribers at year end, so a warm welcome… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
January 14, 2022

2021 Fin.

Edition #353 Deal mania continues and we have a NFT :O. One big thing For a bit of fun and to say thank you, we minted some Nudge Punk NFTS.  If you’re a regular reader (we’ll check) send over your Solana wallet address and we’ll send you one. Thank you all for subscribing and sharing feedback through the year. If you need to get a wallet, I recommend creating a wallet with Phantom.app which works… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
December 23, 2021

Scale for Scale

Edition #352 Could Vox be the next great content company? One big thing Could Vox be the next great content company? This week they announced the Group Nine acquisition, making for a combined revenue of $700m turnover in 2022. Scale and quality. CEO Jim Bankoff shared: “Scale for scale’s sake is not what’s important but quality combined with scale, which is what this story is about, is going to be an advantage in the marketplace.” But that… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
December 17, 2021

Roblox

Edition #351 Roblox virtual experiences are it right now. One big thing Ralph Lauren launched their new fashion line in Roblox this week with digital only fashion items. As part of their virtual world ‘Winter Escape’.  Universes like Roblox are attractive to companies because they introduce younger users to their brands and give them a chance to see their marketing vision before graduating to real-world products. And traffic has been booming: VF Corp.’s Vans… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
December 10, 2021

End of 2021

Edition #350 14 business days left in the year, what the new year holds. One big thing If you take off between Christmas & New Years, there’s only 14 days left in 2021! What sort of things are you thinking about for the new year? If anything, I’m planning ahead on a few breaks, to keep me fresh. Sorting through the stories the last few months, it’s clear Web3 is going to continue to dominate conversations, with regulatory risk… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
December 3, 2021