One big thing This week I got to guest edit Why is this interesting? A daily newsletter by Colin Nagy and Noah Brier. Using Amazon Prime Video as an example I dig in to, data-driven vs data assisted decision making. And how subjectivity plays a big role even though the data itself is objective. Check it out. I’ll be in LA in the coming weeks, if you want to come talk… Continue reading
One big thing The untold story in the duopoly discussion is how brands feed them data, from their owned channels. How does this happen? Via the Facebook pixel, or any Google pixel, on brands owned sites/content. Interest, retargeting, lookalike audiences are informed up and shared with other advertisers. Why is this important now? With Google Chrome’s changes this week to privacy controls (mimicking Apple) and the ecosystem shifting more towards privacy. These signals provide EVEN… Continue reading
It’s NewFronts this week, with all sorts of announcements. What sticks? We’ll see as we go through the year. The thing that really stood out to me was Conde Nast announcing 175 pilots. That’s putting the idea of throwing ideas on the wall to see what sticks to the extreme. Are there really 175 concepts that can be reasonably tested this year? Why not 40, why not 10? It just seems terribly wasteful. Notable… Continue reading
It’s Jess taking over for Ben while he’s away in New Zealand! I’m the Brand and Sales Associate here at Nudge. You’ve probably heard from me in your inbox once (or a couple of times) before. When I’m not trying to tell you about the benefits of implementing Nudge, I’m thinking about my relationship with technology … read my latest thought piece here. Here are the stories that caught my attention this… Continue reading
Colin Nagy of creative shop FF here covering for Ben while he is down in NZ. A quick insight to lead off the newsletter this week: it has been fascinating to watch how much migration there has been in recent months to small, niche private networks. Just at the beginning of the web when interest groups self-organized around topics and passions on message boards and forums, the same seems to be happening… Continue reading
Spotify recently doubled down on audio with the acquisition of Anchor, the WordPress for audio, as well as Gimlet Media which has positioned itself as premium, narrative storytelling delivered via podcast. And they’ve earmarked $500 million for future acquisitions which is undoubtedly a catalyst for the entire audio ecosystem to invest and build new models. To date, we’ve seen the hardware and ecosystem side of voice heating up with the rise of Alexa, HomePod, Google Home, etc. We’ve seen… Continue reading
There will be a little bit of a hiatus for two weeks as I travel down under. One big thing I admire the cheekiness and creativity of Juan, remixing vines on YouTube, to continue making money from the content. Permissions here are a problem. But for an enterprising mind, there are lots of ways to pursue your passion, on your own terms. Most of us in this newsletter are in the industry weeds but it is pretty neat that… Continue reading
One big thing Google is in a difficult place with Chrome, Safari has ITP (privacy protection), as does Firefox and if they don’t level set, they risk losing market share. Such a change would threaten a lot of ad tech, especially anything that relies on third party cookies. AdWeek has a piece on how they’re between a rock and hard place, and AdExchanger digs in to what it could look like. Continue reading
Digital Content NewFronts is coming up, if readers have invites, would love to join a couple more sessions. 🙂 One big thing There were a lot of smirks this week about Apple News+. But Apple is smart, especially at research and consumer segmentation. There will be more than enough people who don’t presently subscribe to anything, that bat away subscription notifications, who will be interested. Like HBO you just need three or four titles to… Continue reading
Each week, we look through the stories, and it is a balance of programmatic vs native vs content vs media. But since we started the newsletter, these have all become intertwined (which is a good thing). I just wanted to call that out, for those that might have been wondering if we were covering less of one or another. The market is maturing and evolving. As evidenced by some of the stats below. Berlin readers, our own… Continue reading
