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We're hearing more people are WFH, if you've got time for a 30 minute coffee over screen share, Gustaf would still love to chat. He is looking for marketers to provide feedback on a new initiative. If you would like to be involved, in exchange for a treat on us, let me know. Much appreciated. ?
A lot of info is flying around about Covid, Noah put together a simple verified list about it in an always updated Google Doc. Perfect for sharing with friends and family.
One big thing
This week there isn’t really a one big thing, most of our readers have been bombarded with news, stories, updates and the evolving situation with the virus. Undoubtedly there is a sense of fatigue. With the exception of the intro, we’ve cut to the core stories and things to watch. I’m sure there’s enough virus + marketing content in every other feed you follow. If you are wanting more space in your digital lives, I can vouch for Freedom.to, an app for blocking sites (and giving you a break from your own habits) or Self Control.
We carry on.
Notable stories this week
- Why Mars is more interesting in measuring attention. “Mars has found that the difference between “great” and “bad” creative could be as much as 10 times to the return on investment.”
- Why CMOs are blind to 90% of their content experience. Most consumption is in the long tail but most research is not.
- How Morning Brew grew to $13m in turnover. This is a good read.
- How Brit + Co became profitable after seeing Facebook traffic plummet.
- Reddit launches ‘Trending Takeover’ to give brands placement at the top of the feed.
- Twitter fends off Elliott Management by bringing Silver Lake to the table and agreeing to growth metrics of at least 20% in the next 12 months.
- Is part of your audience in a media bubble? An astute (but maybe redundant) observation into how politics is playing a part on where people consume.
- Quibi ad strategy is only pre-roll, 6,10, 15 and non-skippable. Limited partners limits revenue to $150m in year one. And Quibi is in a legal battle of its “turnstyle technology”.
- Outbrain partners with Supermetrics to enable better exporting of data.
- Lionsgate launches an OTT play in India – Lionsgate Play.
- Huawei Ads gives a 90% cut to developers.
Deals/M&A
- The Recount raises $13m in Series A from USV. Showing promise in the digital media sector.
- Vox and Google partner on “Concert Local” as part of its local news initiative.
- Arweave the permanent data storage, to fight web censorship with a permanent record of web content, raises $8.3m.
- NBCU sold its $500m stake in Snapchat.
Smartest commentary
- “For us, what we can control is engagement.” […] “That is the best way to tell if a brand is working or not,” […] “Once a video view happens or someone lands on a page, will they stay with it and engage in the user experience? Consumption time, target clicking on features, liking and sharing—that all tells us we are doing our job keeping their attention.” –Sam Moulton, Content Marketing Director at Outside
- “Some of the solutions are just one Safari ITP update from getting blocked. Or they go against the spirit of disallowing cross-site tracking. Why integrate something that will get blocked soon – and could get the publisher caught in the crossfire of the browser cookie wars?” –Sarah Sluis, Ad Exchanger
- [On understanding email newsletter loyalty] “We also monitor how many people email in. We get hundreds of emails every day from readers, and we respond to all of them. It’s not a science, but we’d be concerned if we had 2 million readers and no one emailing us at all.” –Alex Lieberman, CEO, Morning Brew
Datapoints of note
- Quibi will run 2.5 minutes of advertising per hour. As compared to TV at 16 minutes per hour.
- Daily users of Brave’s blockchain web browser pass 4 million.
- Brave's Publishers operate on 268,600 YouTube accounts. A reminder that Brave monetizes your social content for you.
- 57% of marketers plan to increase their influencer budgets this year.
- 69% of site content not seen by customers and prospects. Oh no!
Events
- All cancelled or rescheduled at present.
Thanks,
Ben
Nudge is a dashboard for your content.
Nudge is built by marketers and aims to serve brands investing in content-based media, across any category, looking to illustrate ROI, generate deep performance insights, and save time.
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