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Category: Commentary

Commentary; our thought leadership, newsletter notes and long form pieces.

Snap Spotlight

Edition #365 Did paying creators directly pay off? A new native ad network and FOS. One big thing Last year Snap spent $250m on its Spotlight Creator Programme. You may recall, they would feature content on their Spotlight channel and make cash rewards to the creators. It appeared to be a defensive position against TikTok. But how did it fare? ‘One year ago we launched Spotlight to lower the barrier to content creation and shine a light on the most entertaining Snaps created by the Snapchat community, no matter who created them,' -Snap Through 2021, 12,000 creators have collectively been paid over $250m!. That would be an average of $21k each. Creators have quit their jobs, to pursue this. Which didn’t always work out when they couldn’t reliably recreate their initial success. Melles started posting videos in March and Snap, the company that makes Snapchat, sent him a message in April offering him thousands of dollars after one of his videos racked up 300,000 views in 24 hours. Melles got a $19,600 payment from Snap for the video, and he quit his Wendy’s job a few days later. But bumpiness aside, that is 12,000 content creators who have received tangible motivation to keep creating. So how should we think about success of this programme? Strategically it was aimed to protect against TikTok and keeping the best creators onboard. On a user basis, Snap ended the year with 319m DAUs, 20% year over year growth. An increase of 54m. Against a climate where TikTok grew 500m users. Did Snap win out? Not on the growth side. But maybe if they didn’t do this execution, they could have lost more? Their average ARPU over the past 12 months was $13.64 globally, so those 54m users could have contributed about $736m In revenues. Their stock priced closed 2021 at $47.03, against a price of $50.07 at the end of 2020. However the end of 2021 marked a decline in tech stocks. I think the real asset is the relationship they’ve built with the 12,000 creators. What can they do there, to help them grow? And to continue to push the boundaries on Snap. How can they help be the best Snap it can be? Those are the questions I think Snap should be diving into. A concerted effort to promote the best of Snap spotlight outside Snap would help remind users and get them to come back too. That would be helpful. I can't recall any creators off the top of my head. What can others learn from this? I do think this is a good model to learn from. You are not just paying the best advocates of your platform directly. But you are paying for new content assets. And also all the other content that is produced. Notable stories this week Paved introduces the Paved Ad Network and Native Ad Editor, enabling newsletter publishers to monetize with premium native advertising. New creators should start with a newsletter in a Web3 world. How gated content and native advertising can work together. Radisson’s new hotel brand has a dedicated space for content creators. Google says it classifies AI-generated content as ‘spam’. Lightbeam.tv is coining branded video on demand as CTV ad spending grows. iHeartMedia is tripling its branded podcast content. All advertising looks the same these days. Blame the moodboard. Substack’s growth spurt brings growing pains. CNN+ launch may be off to a bumpy start. Google Search is falling behind. Is streaming just becoming cable again? Deals/M&A Validity acquires email campaign platform MailCharts. Congrats Tom! OpenWeb acquires AdYouLike for $100m. Congrats to both teams! Glip, a creator tool suite for gamers to create and monetize has raised $3m. Campaign of the Week Front Office Sports with Fidelity. Rex Champman interviews athletes about their second acts. Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 15, 2022

Branded newsletters

Edition #364 Food content creators, new Twitter ad types and misleading numbers. Have any readers worked on a virtual world branded experience? Or could you connect me with someone that has? Things like Nikeland on Roblox. Would love a connect. We’re also going to restart small events in NY. Will share more details as they come in. If anyone wants to cohost, let me know. One big thing I’ve had a few ask recently on trends in branded content. And one that’s a bit of an undercurrent, is going wide and deep with newsletters to build strong engagement as part of a plan. Not necessarily branded content but a great place to distribute and bring niche audiences in to branded content. Platforms like Hecto, Paved, SponsorGap & SwapStack are reducing friction to finding and buying them. In general there is still an over index of smaller creators. And the need for more I guess, middle sized newsletters. An easy win for any newsletter, is to have an advertise page. In many lists for top newsletters to follow. Anecdotally 1-2/10 of newsletters have such a page. Notable stories this week How one FoodToker is making a career as a content creator. Product content: the missing piece of product-led growth. Web3 enables content creators to gain this new superpower. Twitter tests new interactive ad types. Byron Allen warns ad market of Nielsen’s ‘Monopoly’ amid lawsuit. How big audience numbers mislead you. WTF is the Digital Markets Act. [Smart take] On product. Deals/M&A Kargo acquires Parsec. Campaign of the Week Kahlua Espresso Martini with Food52. Simple, instructional, can work across most platforms. Drives users into recipes on their website.   Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 8, 2022

Rebirth

Edition #363 The rebirth of native, spon-con standards and what $7m could get you. I’m looking for a writer to help with a regular piece each month. Sharing here in case any readers know someone who fits the bill. One big thing This week we see Brian Morrissey call the rebirth of native advertising or primary engagement media as he calls it. In tandem The Cut dealing with journalists also doing their own branded content deals on their social channels. Both pieces are a must read. What they point to is the coalescing around direct commercial models and direct consumer engagement. Limiting of cookies is also forcing limitations on commercial models. And as The Cut shows, maybe you can’t work direct with the publisher, maybe you work direct with the journalists, ala talent, who has built their own brand. With the help of the distribution from the publisher. Of course, with more fragmented buys and relationships, it makes all the more reason to use measurement, that consolidates your performance in one place ;) But seriously, that is an emergent problem of more engagements like this. Standardizing performance. And ensuring that you are getting value. And finding pockets of opportunity. And that works both ways, for the buyer and the seller. Notable stories this week The rebirth of native advertising. The Cut confronts its spon-con standards. Outbrain secures Axel Springers business. Morning Brew tops 4 million newsletter subscribers as it looks to expand with M&A. LinkedIn Pages can now publish Newsletters. How Web3 changes the content model and Examples of ‘emoji’ marketing. Twitter’s working on collaborative tweets to facilitate new opportunities for creators. Freakonomics Radio gets its own SiriusXM channel. Meta shares new view of the ‘Wendyverse’ and branded content spaces in VR. What’s the alternative to spending $7 million on a super bowl ad. The FT launches FT Edit, 8 selected stories each day for 99p/month. Russian tech giants Yandex’s data harvesting raises security concerns. [Long read] You don’t know much about Jay Penske. And he’s fine with that. Deals/M&A MGID acquires Italian native advertising company Metup. Nielsen agrees to sell to consortium for $10b. Netflix acquires video game developer Boss Fight Entertainment. Campaign of the Week AdWeek + Millions. The future is bright for brands that master sports advertising. Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 1, 2022
Cartier Women's Initiative with Forbes
Cartier Women's Initiative with Forbes

Found money

Edition #362 Found money, a creator tries to get fired by his brand partner and Buzzfeeds content biz continues to grow. I’m looking for a writer to help with a regular piece each month. Sharing here in case any readers know someone who fits the bill. One big thing Continuing last weeks thread on Owned stacks, Benedict Evans had a timely piece on unbundling advertising. Much of it we’ve discussed prior, but a nugget was that for… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 25, 2022

Models

Edition #361 Data models, Windows 11 ads and no more IPs. One big thing Measurement is a hot topic at the moment, so I thought I’d share a snippet from an older post, on what leads to success. “McKinsey recently published new research findings, stating that organizations that deploy the most technology appear to be the most successful. At first glance, this might seem somewhat illogical (as adding more technology into current infrastructures lead to more complexities and… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 18, 2022

Owned stacks

Edition #360 Native awards, Microsofts new ad religion and elephant growth. Congratulations to all the winners of the native advertising awards! Nice to see a few familiar names. One big thing Kevel (formerly AdZerk) has built a nice business, with a build your own ad stack type solution. And it seems, that Google is now gingerly testing this space with retailers. With the view of, in a privacy-centric world, centralized ad technology has less room to… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 11, 2022

Measurement redux

Edition #359 A measurement redux, opportunities in branded content & TikTok. One big thing A trend you may not have seen in the tea leaves is that a lot of measurement companies are being acquired right now. Oribi, Tunity, TVSquared, Playground XYZ & Shareables. And that’s just since December. What’s driving that? The instigator was Apples tracking changes. Forcing many firms to either throw our their existing technology or seek to add deep capabilities. The other area is connected… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 4, 2022
Plant Based Diet with Oatly & The Guardian
Plant Based Diet with Oatly & The Guardian

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

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
Tech M&A in the roaring 20s
Tech M&A in the roaring 20s

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