Ben Young
Ben Young
May 22, 2020

A couple of friends need a hand, How can I help, a social cause is looking for a volunteer to help with SEO. Another colleague is looking for a paid content role for a sports brand. Ping me for details.

One big thing
Spotify pulls the Howard Stern play of podcasts signing Joe Rogan. The move added $1b to their market cap, in what is a multi-year deal worth over $100m. Joe retains all ownership of content, he must just distribute via Spotify. This is big.

Spotify is using podcasts to grow its advertising revenue amongst premium subscribers who do not receive ads normally. Starting in 2021 Spotify will be the exclusive publisher of the podcast. Joe pointed out he is not an employee and that this is a commercial relationship.

Was it worth it? I daresay it will be. If you’re cutting content deals for the next 10 years, you’re not doing them on the platforms of the past.

Notable stories this week

  • Via Nativo (native for native) Native articles are full-funnel executions, creating significant lift across five brand metrics throughout consumers' entire journey.
  • Instagram is investigating a group of influencers who are hosting a car giveaway.
  • Advertisers looking for new solutions surpasses pre-pandemic interest, according to Bombora.
  • The mid-market content deals are evaporating from the market.
  • Is it time for newspapers to be publicly owned?
  • NYTimes is phasing out all 3rd party advertising data.
  • Boston Globe is selling sponsored slack communities.
  • Alfresco dining inspiration and virtual cooking classes: Travel publishers look to the other side.
  • Samsung's Smart TV inventory now available programmatically.
  • Facebook Shops present both opportunity and questions to DTC brands.
  • [Long read] From listicles to Pulitzers: Buzzfeed became a UK news powerhouse, but was brought down by Google and Facebook.
  • The Atlantic is laying off nearly 20% of staff and is the latest media company forced to take drastic measures to survive the economic fallout.
  • Zeus partners with the Local Media Association to bring its toolkit to local publishers.
  • [From me] I pulled together some of my fav creative executions from the past six weeks. Do share and love to hear any I’ve missed.

Deals/M&A

  • Facebook acquires GIPHY for $400m, in an acknowledgement that Instagram is no longer just about pretty pictures but mass sharing of memes.

Campaign of the week

branded content by Just Eat UK on LADbible

Datapoints of note

See all our Covid-19 data here.

  • Visibility in local search continues to increase. Branded search grew 136% while unbranded rose 75% during the time of the research. Consumers discover global brands more often — 58% of the time — through unbranded queries, which Uberall says can be highly competitive, versus branded searches at 42%.

Thanks,

Ben


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