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5/15/2017 Small and Medium-Sized Businesses: If You're Not Using Instagram, You're Already Behind.Read Now By Krista Wiltbank.
Instagram is hot, as you may have heard, but not just among the millennials you might picture. The photo- and video-sharing social channel has more than 600 million monthly active users, and more than 200 million people use it every day. As its features become more advanced, these numbers will only continue to grow. With its explosive growth, brands are naturally turning to Instagram as an advertising platform. In fact, Facebook recently cited Instagram as one of the most important parts of its current advertising strategy. Last year, Instagram announced new business tools, including simplified analytics and profiles friendly to small and medium-sized businesses, to support its rapidly expanding base of advertisers. So why haven't small businesses jumped on the Instagram opportunity? According to Manta's poll last October of nearly 1,500 small and medium-sized business executives, only 20% actually pay to promote posts or place ads on Instagram. The remaining 80% should feel a sharp sense of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) -- because they are. Small and medium-sized businesses, in particular, risk being left in the dust by savvier competitors. No matter how you slice it, we're living in a visual age in which the average person is more likely to watch a video, or look at a picture, than read a written passage. Research finds that 65% of the population are visual learners. This is why web pages with visual content receive 94% more views than those without. Marketers know this and have adapted accordingly, with two-thirds saying visual assets are critical to communicating their brand. For small and medium businesses looking to engage customers and keep them apprised of products and services, Instagram's scale and capability for sharing the visual information that consumers crave is a huge asset. The numbers prove it. Rich media -- in the form of videos and images -- increase conversion rates by 64%. Instagram isn't just an ad platform for brand campaigns. Instead, it has proven itself a useful way to drive performance and generate immediate sales. According to Instagram, 60% of its users familiarize themselves with products and services on the platform. Then, 75% take direct action after being inspired by a branded post. (Instagram only launched direct response formats in 2015.) In November 2016, Instagram introduced shopping tags in posts, not ads, for select retailers, with the program expanding in March 2017. By using the network's expanding and varied direct-response formats, small and medium businesses can provide information about a product or service, then give the user a call-to-action button where they can purchase, sign up or download. Businesses want this form of advertising when they spend on social platforms, where investments are growing and need to be justified. And Instagram is seeing real success here. Ad firm Nanigans found that 54% of its clients bought Instagram's direct response ads last year, up from just 31% in 2015. According to Ooyala, 51% of all video plays occur on mobile devices, representing a 15% increase from 2015, and a giant 203% jump from 2014. Another study by AOL finds that 57% of consumers globally watch videos on a mobile device every day. Ad spend follows user behavior. Of money that's shifting from TV advertising to online video, 63% is going to mobile video, according to the same study. Instagram is on top of the mobile video explosion. To keep up and provide advertisers with more video options, it has dramatically expanded video capabilities over the past couple of years. First came longer video formats for advertisers (from 15 seconds to 1 minute). Most recently, Instagram copied Snapchat's functionality with "Stories." And the results have been impressive. Instagram Story links, according to recent data, get 15% to 25% "swipe-through" rates. Small and medium businesses need to take advantage of the demand for mobile video, and Instagram is a great way to do it. While Instagram advertising among small and medium businesses is relatively low, adoption will climb as the platform's capabilities grow more sophisticated and the value of those features become known. Facebook is investing in the service, providing a rich environment for smaller businesses -- now, they need to take advantage of the opportunity. For origin of article, click here.
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 by Garett Sloane Instagram Stories is this year's "little black dress" of advertising--the hot-yet-versatile new look all brands need to have in the lineup. "It's so relevant and brings forward this real-time moment for brands to really wrap themselves in," said Kyra Ulmer, evp of partnerships at Brand Networks. Snapchat may have invented the vertical story format, but the Instagram clone has outpaced it with 200 million daily users, giving advertisers yet another reason to create commercials in portrait mode. For brands and publishers trying to figure out which app is most appropriate for their content, audiences and ads, here's a breakdown. Users Instagram's Stories have 200 million viewers a day, known as daily active users -- half of all of Instagram's has 400 million daily active users. Still, Instagram does not say how much time is spent viewing stories, which can be created by everyday users, brands and publishers. "The social landscape today is becoming about entrapment, because in the battle of media budgets, 'time spent' is a selling tool that most non-TV platforms look to," said Chanelle Flavell, group communications strategy director at Droga5, in an e-mail. "So because stories use up valuable time and engagements on social platforms, it's not surprising that Instagram and Facebook are following in Snapchat's footsteps." Snapchat has said it has 158 million daily active users, spending 25 to 30 minutes with the app on average. Winner: Instagram has scale that is almost impossible to challenge seriously, and it's owned by Facebook with 1.86 billion users. Size isn't everything, but it counts in a measuring contest. Ad prices Instagram Story ads can cost half the price of Snapchat ads, according to an agency executive, who shared the results of a campaign on condition of anonymity. The Instagram ads cost $4 CPMs (price per 1,000 impressions) versus $8.50 for Snapchat. Of course, that's just one campaign, and Snapchat ads can be bought for less through the company's ad partners, but those are considered less premium with no guarantees over the placement. In this particular campaign the advertisers was able to get between 400,000 and 450,000 impressions on each platform. On Instagram 4.5% of people who saw the ad watched it to the end, compared to 3.5% on Snapchat. Winner: Instagram again, because it does have Facebook in its corner, which gives it that instant scale and ad technology to sell highly targeted ads in a cost effective way. Ad types "Every brand advertiser is digging into Instagram Stories," said Justin Rezvani, founder of theAmplify, a data and technology influencer platform. "The sheer scale of it, the views you get, especially when influencers post for brands. It's now a part of every one of our campaigns." Facebook has stuffed all its platforms with a stories section, because the format opened a whole new ad style that its properties needed—full screen, full sound, full attention. Snapchat had cracked that with its app but Facebook wasn't about to miss out. Instagram was the first of Facebook's apps to put ads in between stories, which run when people tap from one story to the next, while Snapchat ads run after a story or inside stories and channels run by top publishers like BuzzFeed, The New York Times, Vice, ESPN and others. The ads on Instagram look similar to standard video Snap Ads, but it does not have a direct-response ad unit, yet. On Snapchat ads can lead to app downloads, retail opportunities, even games right in the experience. Instagram has plenty of direct response in the rest of the app, but stories is more of a brand awareness play.00 million daily viewers of Stories. Credit: Instagram Winner: Snapchat wins here. It invented this style of ad, and Instagram adopting it just means more brands will create this way. Publishers Snapchat has an exclusive publisher and media section with Vice and BuzzFeed, and recently brought on more Condé Nast properties like GQ and Wired. These channels offer a unique proposition in all of mobile, where the media companies are curating daily editions of articles, video stories, animations and games, and they share ad revenue. However, if a publisher is not an official partner, they don't have the same motivation to create private channels for the platform. Instagram Stories is another, well, story. A number of publishers are making it a key piece of their social strategy. "They're our biggest source of traffic behind Google and Facebook," said Ashley Lutz, a deputy editor at Business Insider. "So, meaningful traffic comes from Instagram Stories." Everyone on BI's editorial team now thinks about adding Instagram Story components to almost every story, Ms. Lutz said. Publishers do not share in revenue on Instagram, but they can link out of the videos to their sites where they do receive the ad revenue. There's also more data for publishers on Instagram to examine their performance, especially compared to posting on Snapchat from an everyday account. Winner: This is a tie. If you're an official partner, Snapchat offers a new way of creating content and actually making money from it. If you're not a partner, you're kind of out of luck on Snapchat, and Instagram is the place to invest time and resources. For origin of story, click here.  by Kristina Knight
March Madness, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, is underway, and millions of fans are streaming video, tuned to television sets, and reading about their favorite teams. Here are three tips to better engage fans during March Madness. Start early. "Many NCAA fans gear up for the tournament before the actual games begin. In fact, during the week prior to the tournament, the top related search on Yahoo was "March Madness 2016 Bracket." That means advertisers have an opportunity to use high-impact display advertising, such as homepage takeovers that align with NCAA content, early on to reach fans as they get ready to fill out their brackets. Then focus on extending your campaign with ads that are integrated within the game experience," said Kathy Kayse, VP of Sales Strategy & Solutions, Yahoo. Lean in to search ads. "Tournament fans are gearing up for the game by searching for snack ideas, food delivery options and new sports apparel. These search trends are great indicators that CPG, QSR and retail brands can win big during the games. Marketers can drive awareness and purchases by retargeting passionate fans with effective search ads," said Kayse. Multi-screen campaigns win. "Sports fans are extremely dedicated and follow the action across multiple devices. When fans consume tournament content via their mobile devices, they're also highly engaged. In fact, tournament dates represented the highest volume of app sessions for both Yahoo Fantasy Sports and Yahoo Sports during the first half of the year. Marketers have a chance to extend their campaign messaging across mobile apps using targeted native and native video ads to maximize this engagement and ensure they are reaching sports fans across screens," said Kayse. For origin of article, click here. 1/30/2017 ESPN and Wieden & Kennedy: A Look Back at One of the Most Storied Creative Partnerships in MarketingRead NowBy Ann-Christine Diaz
It's the end of an era. Wieden & Kennedy New York on Thursday announced that its 25-year relationship with ESPN had ended, and that the agency had taken on Fox Sports as a new client. That closes the book on one of the most storied creative partnerships in the industry. It gave birth to iconic work including the beloved, consistently funny "This Is SportsCenter" campaign, which turned the broadcaster's beige Bristol, Conn., offices into a bizarre funland where team mascots, star athletes and ESPN personalities consorted in hilariously mundane ways. The original campaign debuted in 1995, created by then-W&K creatives Larry Frey, Stacy Wall, Hank Perlman and Rick McQuiston, directed by Bryan Buckley and Frank Todaro out of Radical Media and led by ESPN director of advertising Allan Broce. "This Is Sportscenter" became a cultural phenomenon, with media outlets such as Time and Bleacher Report compiling lists of their all-time favorite spots. It also made Creativity's list of top campaigns of the previous two decades during the magazine's 20th Anniversary. "It all started, basically, with 'SportsCenter' itself," the campaign's Art Director Mr. McQuiston recalled then. "Hank Perlman and I thought the idea of sportscasters on 'SportsCenter' having fun with the news on the air-while at the same time serious about sports itself-was an interesting premise for a show. So the logical extension for us was, if it's this goofy and funny on the air, imagine how crazy it could be around 'SportsCenter' when they're off the air. So we set about creating this alternate world, much as they did for 'Spinal Tap.' From there, we could do almost anything. It was wide open, which is perfect for a creative." That wide open playing field remained fertile until today. For the last 15 years, the spots had been directed by David Shane of O Positive and continued to hilariously riff off current sports events, including the Chicago Cubs' curse-ending World Series win. "To me this was always a writer's campaign," said Mr. Shane. "It worked -- or didn't -- on the strength of the simplicity and strength of the idea. And there were so many great ideas. I don't think people realize how tricky these things were to write, because, hopefully, they have a kind of tossed off, effortless feel to them. But between the clients killing ideas, agents deciding they're the arbiters of what's funny, and athletes getting hurt or traded just as we were about to shoot, the creatives were in a constant state of rewriting. I'm a little in awe of how much great stuff they could generate." "I started doing these around the time Ted Royer [now chief creative officer at Droga5 N.Y.] and Jeff Bitsack [now a director at Caviar] took over the campaign as the main creatives," Mr. Shane continued. "Ted once joked that it was liked taking over on the 7th season of 'Mash.' Little did we know there'd be over fifteen more years." As for his favorites, Mr. Shane said, "I was a fan of the ones that were what I guess I'd call smartly stupid -- kind of absurdist but done dryly. My personal favorites may have more to do with my own sentimentality. I'm super fond of the one where the crocodile hunter wrestles the Florida Gator to the ground outside an elevator bank. He was exactly the same guy off screen as on -- a big kid." Mr. Shane, who's known for his skills in working with talent, had plenty to juggle on the "SportsCenter" set. "One of the weird things about doing them is you never really know if the athlete can pull off the acting requirements of the script," he said. "Sometimes but not often it's all you can do to kind of puppeteer them and breathe any life into the performance. And sometimes they're actually really strong natural actors. I remember being so impressed with Lance Armstrong and thinking, damn, this guy's a good actor. And it turns out he was even better than I thought." He added that the sportscasters themselves were expert thespians. "Scott Van Pelt is an amazing actor," he said. "Dude just understands the rhythms of comedy, the shape of a scene. We were once shooting him and a Ukranian soccer player and it was a scene with lots of back and forth dialogue and it turned out the player could barely speak English, so we kept having to throw his lines to Scott until the only thing he had left to say was, 'I'll suggest it.' Scott basically performed two sides of a conversation by himself and it somehow worked because he's that good." Mr. Van Pelt's former colleague, the late great Stuart Scott, was a true talent as well, as seen in this collection of ads. Wieden & Kennedy also took the brand beyond funny business, with the "It's Not Crazy, It's Sports" campaign that highlighted the extreme lengths to which athletes and fans go for their sports. That included a short documentary from Errol Morris that featured the tombstone carvers, funeral directors and families of deceased sports fans. The agency and Mr. Morris went on to create an ESPN series based on the campaign theme, which looked at the lives of obsessed sports memorabilia collectors, a British streaker and A.J. Mass, a man who donned the Mr. Met costume for four years. For origin of article, please click here.
Jia Jiang adventures boldly into a territory so many of us fear: rejection. By seeking out rejection for 100 days — from asking a stranger to borrow $100 to requesting a "burger refill" at a restaurant — Jiang desensitized himself to the pain and shame that rejection often brings and, in the process, discovered that simply asking for what you want can open up possibilities where you expect to find dead ends.
12/22/2016 5 True, Old-Fashioned Christmas Miracles That Will Restore Your Hope for The HolidaysRead NowThese true stories from readers like you prove that a well-timed letter, a handful of pennies, or a single gust of wind can make an ordinary Christmas a cherished memory. BY BRANDON SPECKTOR  The Mail Train’s Gift: A Life-Changing Message My mother told me this story from World War I many years ago. Christmas 1917 was coming, but because her brother Archie Clikeman was missing in action and presumed dead, the family was not going to celebrate. The townspeople of Parker, South Dakota, always joked that the small-town postmaster read all the postcards whenever the mail train came into town. On that Christmas Eve, he lived up to his reputation. The family was always grateful that the postmaster, instead of waiting for the rural mail to go out the day after Christmas, called my grandmother and told her that Archie was being held as a prisoner of war. Archie even wrote on the postcard that he was well. Of course, my mother said, that turned out to be the best Christmas ever. Archie came home after the war and lived to a ripe old age. --Kay Johnson, Parker, South Dakota  Our Pennies Made All the Difference Many years ago, when I was making 75 cents an hour, my three children asked for bicycles for Christmas, but I couldn’t afford them. So that January, I put three bikes on layaway. I paid all through the year, but a week before Christmas, I still owed $14.50. The Saturday before Christmas, my son Ricky asked how much I needed. When I told him, he asked if he could pour the pennies out of the penny jug we kept. I said, “Son, I don’t care, but I know there’s not $14.50 worth of pennies in there.” Ricky poured them out, counted them, and said, “Mom, there’s $15.50 worth of pennies.” Ecstatic, I told him to count out $1 for gas so I could go get the bikes. I’ve always thought of this as our little miracle. It was as blessed a Christmas as anyone could ever have. --Dot Williams, Canton, Georgia  Santa Found Us on the Road At Christmastime, in 1961, our family was on the way from Seattle to a new assignment on the East Coast, and we checked into a motel in Watertown, South Dakota. It was not the best time to travel with young children, who were concerned about Santa finding us on the road. We headed into town to find a store, and as our car approached an intersection, there was a Santa right in the crosswalk! He held up his hand for us to stop, and we rolled down our windows. Santa poked his head through a window and said to our kids, “Oh, there you are! I was wondering where I’d find you tonight.” Naturally, the kids were thrilled to pieces. They made sure we told Santa which motel we were staying at so he could find them. My wife and I had tucked away gifts for the trip, as we knew we wouldn’t have time to shop along the way. The cartop carrier and out-of-state license plate might have been a giveaway, but whatever it was, that Santa really made Christmas 1961 a memorable one for our kids. --Dave Grinstead, Bellingham, Washington  Fate Threw a Tree at Us During the hustle and bustle of Christmastime 1958, we told our children, ages 3 and 4, about the beautiful Christmas tree we would have in a few days. On Christmas Eve, at the bakery we had recently purchased, we counted the receipts, cleaned the shop and headed for home with our two sleepy children. Suddenly, we remembered we had not gotten a tree. We looked for a vendor who might have a tree left, to no avail. About a mile from home, we stopped for a red light. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew, and something hit the front of our truck. My husband went out to investigate. The next thing I knew, my husband was throwing a good-sized evergreen into the back of the truck. He went into the mom-and-pop store at the corner where we were and asked the proprietor how much he wanted for the tree. He said he wasn’t selling Christmas trees that year. We never did find out how the tree got in the middle of the road, but somehow we feel we know. Incidentally, it was the most beautiful tree we have ever had. --Gertrude Albert, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania  Our Carols Hit the Right Ears
I was with a small group of young guys and gals caroling on Christmas Eve, in 1942 San Diego, California. We wandered downtown to Broadway, the main street, and stopped at a block of green grass with a fountain on the plaza. The streets were streaming with aimless servicemen, all missing the joy and solace of being home for Christmas. We began singing familiar Christmas songs, and in a short time, the volume increased markedly. I climbed up onto the rim of the fountain to an astonishing sight—a sea of servicemen on the plaza singing with all their hearts. When a song ended, I started another, just beginning the words, and it was immediately picked up. We sang every traditional song I could think of and didn’t leave the servicemen until near midnight, carrying a beautiful memory with us. --Winnie Phillips Stark, Modesto, California For more heartwarming memories and incredible true stories from the past, check out our sister publication, Reminisce magazine. For origin of article, click here.  By Brad Dickerson and Amy Lipman
MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) – Christmas came early for a group of Grand Strand area children. On Tuesday night, the Ninth Annual Substitutes for Santa community service event brightened the holidays for 150 underprivileged Horry County children. Sponsored by the MBACC’s gsSCENE for Young Professionals, the event pairs one child with a volunteer. It began with dinner and arcade games at the Ultimate California Pizza Game Zone. “It makes you feel warm," said Michael Tomko, of Ultimate Calfornia Pizza. "It makes you feel good because there are going to be 150 kids that are going to leave here very happy and that’s what it’s all about.” Then, it continued with a shopping spree at an area Walmart, where every child had a $100 gift card to spend. "I was so excited all day to do it, so this has just been great," said Kristen Toben, a Subs for Santa volunteer. Several Bucksport community children that attend South Conway Elementary School and were impacted by Hurricane Matthew participated. "This will be an awesome evening for them," said Kema Faulk, membership programs manager for the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and gsSCENE liaison. "The principal and guidance counselors at South Conway Elementary were very excited to learn that their school were chosen to participate in the Subs for Santa program this year." Austin and Willow Jones experienced the devastation of the hurricane. "Our real house was on the Waccamaw River and that got flooded then my mom, she has a house in Socastee in a trailer park and a tree fell on that and it was bad, but it’s already fixed and stuff," Austin said. "That trailer, there’s mold in it, so it’s getting torn down right now.” Austin was excited as he shopped for a Nerf gun, a remote-control airplane, clothes, school supplies as well as other toys Tuesday. “It means a lot really," he said. Willow picked out various toys, a cotton candy maker, a dress and shoes for Christmas and other clothes. “It’s wonderful that we can help provide to maybe help give back some of those things they lost through the tough times and hopefully they’ll have a very special Christmas," Toben said. Divine Dining raised $13 thousand for Subs for Santa by selling $1 menu items. Fundraisers and donations collected by gsSCENE and SOS Health Care also contributed to the event. Children went home with necessities, such as toiletries, that had been donated as well. 50 children from South Conway Elementary, 50 children from Daisy Elementary and 50 children from Loris Elementary participated. Copyright 2016 WMBF News. All rights reserved. Origin of article can be found here. 11/23/2016 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade will be live-streamed on YouTube in 360-degree videoRead Now By Natt Garun Watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in person on the streets of New York is a pretty majestic experience, but it also comes with a side of crowds, icy wind, and a whole lot of waiting around. This year, Macy’s is partnering with NBCUniversal and Verizon to add 360-degree cameras along the route of the parade so you can live stream and watch it from any angle you’d like without leaving your home. The live stream will be hosted on YouTube and you can watch it from any compatible web browser or handheld device. Verizon will place cameras in five locations along the parade route so you can follow your favorite balloon or float as they come down. In the run-up to the actual event, which kicks off on November 24th at 9AM ET, Macy’s is also posting 360-degree videos of behind-the-scenes studio tours where you can check out how they set up the floats, balloons, and put the whole show together. It’s not as cool as seeing the balloons being blown up in real life, but it beats waiting in the cold. For origin of article, click here. 11/9/2016 The World Series and NFL Fuel a Fall Advertising Windfall for Fox Sports. Next up: the Super BowlRead Now By Jason Lynch; Image copyright Fox Sports Saying "be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it" is usually a warning, but it was more like a mantra for the Fox Sports ad sales team this year, after a Chicago Cubs-Cleveland Indians World Series that offered everything they could ever have dreamed of, and more. "It really is all about the Cubs, and it's all about creating history with television, something that's never been done for them," said Neil Mulcahy, evp of sports sales for Fox. "So you had just a dream matchup. And then you're always hoping for seven games, because the more games, the more commercials we can sell. You're also hoping for extra innings, so I think what you got this year was the perfect storm of everything happening." That perfect storm resulted in the most-watched World Series game in 25 years on Wednesday, as 40 million people tuned in to see the Cubs win the World Series for the first time in 108 years. Game 7 was also the most-watched telecast since Super Bowl 50, beating the Oscars and every night of NBC's Rio Olympics coverage and propelling Fox into first place among broadcast networks in the 18-49 demo (at least for the moment). The seven-game World Series averaged 23.4 million viewers, the highest since 2004's matchup between the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals, which averaged 25.4 million viewers over four games. As the series stretched to Game 6 and then Game 7 this week, "everybody on the media side wanted to be in there, because it was being part of history," said Mulcahy. "It's an experience you wait for." "There was something special about this matchup—both of these teams not having won a World Series championship in so long," said Mark Evans, svp of sports sales. "But the Cubs really did drive the casual sports fan to the television for this, and this is what you need for the rating we achieved and having interest outside of your endemic, tried-and-true baseball advertisers. You had people that were interested in an event because it was that seminal moment." Those brands included certified financial planners, Target and Mars candy. "It was exciting to see the broader community get so excited about it," Evans said. "And in general right now, it's not a gangbuster marketplace. So to see so much new money show up for Game 6 and 7, it really spoke to the size and the power of the event." Meanwhile, the traditional sports clients stepped up their game. Nike and Anheuser-Busch each created two different versions of commercials ready to go after Game 7, depending on which team won. Nike aired a salute to the Cubs in the first ad slot after the final out, while Budweiser reaired a classic commercial from the 1980s featuring legendary Cubs announcer Harry Caray(Anheuser-Busch's alternate ad was Cleveland-centric and did not involve Caray). Thanks to the brand and audience interest, Fox Sports took in more than $500,000 per spot for Game 7, according to sources. And with the series going the full seven games, not to mention an extra inning in Game 7, additional inventory caused by multiple pitching changes (which required commercial breaks), and a lack of makegoods given that the game overdelivered on all guarantees, Fox will significantly top the ad revenue for last year's World Series, which went just five games and took in $240 million, according to Kantar Media. "Certainly coming out of baseball, we're pretty happy with where our budget sits," said Mulcahy. While Fox won't have the prospect of another team that breaks its 108-year World Series drought next season, Mulcahy says there is still plenty to look forward to next season. "When you look at the construct of the Cubs, they're built for a long run here," said Evans. Added Mulcahy, "You get the Yankees or Red Sox in there against the Cubs, you're certainly going to have some incredible numbers and attention." Football is looking Super In addition to its World Series windfall, Fox Sports is also raking in more money than ever for its NFL package. While the Sunday, Monday and Thursday prime-time packages have seen double-digit ratings declines this season, Fox's package of NFC Sunday afternoon games "is probably only down 2 percent," said Mulcahy. "The way our package is laid out, you're never going to have the falloff that the prime-time games do, because we have nine of the top 10 markets in the U.S. That's the NFC markets. We have eight games a week; in those games, you have 16 home markets that are watching and rooting for their favorite team. This is why we always wanted the NFC package." And advertisers are as eager to be on board as ever. According to Standard Media Index data, the average 30-second spot for Fox NFL games in September was up 11 percent over last September. "Year to year, and you have to take $35 million to $40 million of DraftKings that we did not write this year, but including that, our dollars are over where we were last year," said Mulcahy. "People are spending money in the NFL. And starting this week, we're going to totally turn our attention there. November last year was the biggest month we've ever had in football sales, so we're expecting that." And Super Bowl LI, which will air on Fox, is just three months away. "We know everybody who's going to be there. The biggest problem this year we're having is deciding how long they want their commercials to be," said Mulcahy. Explained Evans, "The format really becomes the game within the game. It's the only broadcast where people are buying so position specific. Literally every single spot is planned out so specifically, so when somebody does buy a 60[-second spot] a month ago, and they get their creative and they love it so much that they want to make it a 90, it's not always that easy to accommodate, because the positions before or after it might have been sold." Between the NFL and World Series success, the Fox Sports ad sales team hasn't lost a step, despite the sudden departure in September of Fox Networks Group ad sales chief Toby Byrne, whose position still hasn't been filled. The sports group, which came together a year and a half before the rest of the portfolio merged in 2014, is "like a machine," said Mulcahy, who called Byrne "like a brother to me. It was terrible when he left, and when things change like that, it affects us emotionally, but it doesn't really affect the job we do." While Mulcahy and his team will focus on the rest of the NFL season and the Super Bowl, he's already looking ahead, and not just to the prospect of another Cubs World Series. Fox signed a deal earlier this year for rights to Big Ten football and basketball games next season and has the Men's World Cup on tap in 2018. "So we have some great days ahead of us," said Mulcahy. For origin of article, please click here. 11/2/2016 Twitter Puts Visual Hashtags on a Sweeping Series of Issue-Themed Outdoor Ads for the ElectionRead Now By Tim Nudd A week out from Election Day, Twitter is launching a big out-of-home ad campaign that uses visual hashtags—i.e., the hashtag symbol paired with images—to position the site as the place where conversations are happening about the real issues at stake on Nov. 8. The first ad in the series actually launched a few weeks back near the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey, targeting commuters driving into New York City. That ad showed hashtags along with Big Brother-like shots of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's eyes, along with the Twitter logo. Now, almost two dozen more ads are rolling out. But in stark contrast to the first ad, the new ones show photos relating to the issues in the election, not just the people running for president. Those issues range from the Black Lives Matter movement to the Syrian crisis to guns, marijuana, the environment, gay rights, gender issues and more. Adweek spoke to Jayanta Jenkins, Twitter's new (and first-ever) global group creative director, on Monday about the campaign. He said the minimalist approach, including the visual hashtag, is meant to "humanize and give depth to the conversations" happening on Twitter. "The less you say, the more you convey," he said. "We started with the candidates. It was a really nice way to kick off this work, which is now about the issues. If you think about the news cycle that's been happening around the election, it's all been about the personalities. It's been Clinton this, or Trump that. A little bit of what's been taken from us is just the conversation around the issues that we're actually voting for." This election is a key moment for Twitter in its attempts to position itself as the world's premiere live news service—and a preferred destination for commentary about that news. After all, the Clinton-Trump battle has been perhaps unmatched in political history in terms of generating big news and conversation around both the candidates and the issues. "It's a huge cycle for us," Jenkins said. Out-of-home, he added, was the perfect medium to engage with people this way. "Just think of all the brands that have used out-of-home in a really powerful way at big moments for those brands," Jenkins said. "Think about Apple when they did the 'Think Different' work. I think the out-of-home medium is a really beautiful and powerful way to humanize tech brands. Out-of-home, for us, is a great way to get people to look up, off their devices, and remind them of the conversation that's happening on Twitter. You can use less to say more." In a blog post, Jenkins adds: "The election is playing out live on Twitter, where people can hear directly from the candidates, their supporters, the media and everyone in between. Because Twitter is open, it's the place for people to see and discuss the issues from every perspective. This campaign highlights the top issues being discussed on Twitter—it reflects different sides and doesn't take sides. As they always do on Twitter, people will bring their own point of view to the images that can be seen today around NYC." The billboards are going up in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. See much more of the creative below. For origin of article, click here. Also, additional executions are below:  |
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