Johnnie Walker Launches Digital, OOH Campaign Through Lens of India

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Johnnie Walker Whisky is launching an out-of-home (OOH) campaign featuring the work of India’s influential travel photographers. Accompanied by a digital series, “#TheTravellingBillboard” will travel to the uncharted corners of India. Photographers will capture the billboard’s final destination, with one of them becoming the lead creative for OOH ads placed in outdoor sites throughout the country. 

The campaign is a celebratory personification of the brand’s logo, the striding man, aimed at encouraging fans to get out and explore the world. Destinations highlighted via the billboards include India’s abandoned Kuldhara village and the underwater terrain of Andamas. 

Johnnie Walker is amplifying the campaign with the help of 150 social media influencers who will capture their own journeys through a mini version of a billboard of their own. An Instagram filter exclusive to users in India is available to engage people and encourage user-generated content (UGC) that captures the beauty of Indian destinations.

A campaign targeting India’s consumers is a strategic move on Johnnie Walker’s part as the drink is particularly popular within India. Whisky, in general, is favored by India as a study from Bank of America Merril Lynch found that in 2014, Indians consumed 1.5 billion liters of whisky while the US only managed to drink 462 million liters.

Johnnie Walker received another lift in India after launching a cocktail called Johnnie Ginger in 2017. Sales of the brand have increased more than twofold in outlets where Johnnie Walker introduced the cocktail. 

In 2018, Johnnie Walker launched a multi-million dollar campaign called “Keep Walking” to honor India’s successful Mars mission. The campaign included a 20-minute short film and was activated over multiple channels including television, digital, OOH, malls and airports.

Land Rover Lures Thrill Seekers With Experiential Outdoor Festival

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Land Rover is bringing together live music, art and wellness for an experiential lifestyle festival “4xFAR” where the public can test-drive the automaker’s 2020 Defender car for the first time. The two-day festival, set for January 18-19, 2020, will take place in Coachella Valley, California and feature an array of experiences curated by Outside Magazine.

Attendees can participate in onsite activations such as fly-fishing demos, wilderness survival and outdoor photography workshops as well as mountain biking, slacklining, yoga, climbing and spirit and wine tastings. Sports champions will also host a series of daily panels around wellness. Ongoing musical programming will feature a lineup of eclectic singers, producers and songwriters including Mark Ronson and Sofi Tukker. 

Virgin Galactic pilots will share firsthand accounts of space travel with guests, and muralist James Goldcrown will showcase signature pieces, with limited edition merchandise available for purchase to ticket holders. Additionally, Camel Trophy competition winners will sign autographs and share stories of their adventures. 

As part of the festival, Land Rover designated 15 acres of purpose-built, off-road courses for consumers to test-drive the 2020 Land Rover Defender alongside the company’s full range of vehicles. Guests will also have the chance to take new and vintage Land Rovers for a spin as the event will include special displays of heritage vehicles from the brand’s 71-year history.

Last Friday, Tata Motors, the Indian automaker that owns Land Rover, reported its latest quarterly earnings report which revealed strong growth of its Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) subsidiary, which accounts for about 75 percent of annual sales. Motley Fool reports that improved product mix and strong sales in China drove the car’s sale eight percent higher in Q1.

Yoann Pavy Explains How Depop Is Using Social Media To Reach Generation Z

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Yoann Pavy, head of Digital Marketing for Depop tells us how the all-conquering peer-to-peer fashion network is leveraging social media to engage with an increasingly fragmented Generation Z audience.

The return of direct-to-consumer (DTC) as a viable model and marketing buzzword has been hogging the column inches recently, but beneath the surface, peer-to-peer, another model as old as time has been quietly making its comeback. 

If there is one brand that symbolizes this, it’s Depop. Originally a readers’ network for fashion magazine PIG, since 2011, the London-based fashion app has conquered the world without anyone really noticing. With over 16 million users in 147 countries and plans to extend further into Europe and Asia, curiously Depop is largely unknown to those over 30. That’s because, alongside its position as being one of the largest fashion-led communities on the planet, the brand’s audience is also among the youngest. The bulk of the company’s users are between 15 and 24.

The community is at the heart of Depop’s success. The app is probably best described as a hybrid between Instagram and eBay, where sellers and customers alike can come together, share images, sell and buy items of clothing. Hailed as an antidote to wasteful fast-fashion, the company has revitalized the market for secondhand clothing, attracting a vibrant, socially conscious audience in the process. Showing the power of this remarkable blend of purpose and fan passion, many marketers predictions apps like Depop are on course to eclipse fast fashion brands within the next ten years.

Unsurprisingly for such a youth-focussed brand, social media has been the bedrock for Depop’s remarkable growth, and Yoann Pavy has been the person most responsible for pushing the brand’s digital marketing further. With a background in engineering and performance marketing, he has combined a data-led approach with an intuitive sense of creativity. Since taking over in 2018, Pavy has been busy navigating the fashion company through increasingly choppy waters as its audience fragments and migrates across an ever-widening galaxy of platforms. The solution, as he told a packed room at the Festival of Marketing a few weeks ago, is content focussed around a deceptively simple guiding principle. “We just repost cool shit from our community. That’s the core of our whole strategy.”

I quizzed Pavy on the ins and outs of Depop’s social strategy and found out the challenges and opportunities that face marketers looking to work with Generation Z. 

Can you start off by telling us how is Depop’s social team telling your brand’s story?

I see it as our job to always represent Depop’s community. We work on the principle that if they succeed, we succeed. Over time, we’ve learned to superimpose that idea onto our social media strategy, and I think we’ve now honed in on the best combination. People tend to trust other people, especially the younger generation, so we try and use our content to place our audience right up there, on the main stage.

How have you gone about bringing those principles to life? What’s the big-picture overview of Depop’s social strategy?

To start with, we’ve set up the team so that we can make sure all our disciplines work very closely together. It’s crucial that everyone here is in sync. It doesn’t matter if you’re on paid media or our organic team, everyone needs to have a clear idea of where engagement comes from and share what’s working and what’s not.

Another huge aspect of our strategy is freedom. We probably have the loosest brief in the company, and that means we can be very flexible when it comes to the type and the subject matter of the content we publish. These platforms can move very quickly, and it’s essential for everyone who works on social to be able to be on the pulse and be able to follow the zeitgeist as it happens. Having that level of internal freedom means that we can bold and opinionated enough to take advantage of the opportunities as they arise.

Many brands prefer to take a more planned approach to social content, whereas Depop tends to emphasize spontaneity and reactiveness. In your opinion, where does the balance lie?

I’m not sure if you can balance the two. Sure, we plan content, but you can’t plan to be reactive, I mean, how can you prepare a response to something that hasn’t even happened yet. It comes back to that idea of freedom; we don’t operate with rigid publishing schedules or anything like that. We have content pillars for our business as usual output, but we try not to be overly structured, as the best results come when you’ve allowed some space for movement.

“My personal rule of thumb is that if any decision has to pass by more than three people, then there are too many people involved in social marketing.”

In a way, it comes back to the setup. I’ve seen it many times; some companies are desperate to be able to tap into the zeitgeist but are utterly blocked by the way their teams are structured. It just takes too long for the social manager to get sign off, so that the moment is already gone when they try to post. For Depop, we’ve attempted to create an environment where our creators can make decisions very, very quickly. My personal rule of thumb is that if any decision has to pass by more than three people, then there are too many people involved in social marketing.

That’s true, but there’s a lot of old school brand managers and traditional marketers who aren’t willing to give social teams that much leeway. How should social marketers be fighting their corner?

Yeah, you see it all the time. A business might want to do social but doesn’t understand the input or the output and respond by putting structures and restrictions in place that limit what you can and can’t do. The problem with that is that it creates this vicious cycle. It kills any sense of adaptability and responsiveness that you might have, making the whole point of doing social pointless and reinforcing this idea that it isn’t that effective. 

I think it’s really important that brands trust their social teams, but also social marketers are good at communicating what they do. I’ll be honest, it’s something that we’re still working on, but in my opinion, being able to show engagement is the most vital thing. I mean, we also look at business KPIs, like app installs and sales, but I really feel that these are secondary metrics engagement is the thing that matters. It’s only here that social media can make a real difference to brands.

More and more brands are bringing their social marketing more in line with their other activities. Are you making the argument that CMOs should actually be putting a bit of a wall between social and their other teams?

I wouldn’t go as far as that. We take a very holistic view of digital at Depop, and we’re continually trying to find the balance between presenting collective message while giving each team the right amount of leeway to operate. That doesn’t mean that we’re all in our siloes either.  It’s just acknowledging that our team moves as fast as the content is moving on our platforms.

Depop does talk to a unique Generation Z audience, how is this holistic approach helping you to reach to this community?

The main thing is grabbing their attention where they spend their attention. You need to be looking for ways to build your engagement on Instagram, Snapchat and increasingly TikTok, as these are the platforms that are most active in terms of Gen Z. 

I also think companies need to change their approach when they’re talking to younger people. Appealing to Generation Z is more about baking value into your social media comms; you should be aspiring to give your audience a voice through your content rather than just selling, selling, selling. You need to have a point to exist on each platform. You should always be asking yourself; what’s the story I’m telling and what value are you bringing to the community.

You say this, but many marketers are still coming up with very robotic approaches to social media. Are too many marketers scared of social?

Absolutely. Right now, we’re living in an age of remarkable innovation in marketing, with a level of granularity you could only dream about a few years ago, but all these moving parts freak a lot of people out. Things are moving so fast that people have retreated into a bit of a bunker-type mentality—-they’re building whole social strategies based on what they’ve read or what they’ve been told by friends.

It’s funny, actually. A couple of weeks ago someone was saying how Instagram wouldn’t work for their brand as their message is mostly towards a B2B audience and everything that they were hearing was that B2B doesn’t work on Instagram. I was like, “Have you tried it?” In my experience, there’s an audience for pretty much everything on every type of social platform. I just don’t buy the argument that this platform works best for this or this platform works best for that?

The social media sector only ever seems to get more complicated. How should marketers get to grips with social?

Just concentrate on getting the basics right; a big part of that is by being hands-on. Look, we’re in between generations both in terms of technology and how digital marketing is evolving, so, for me, marketers must understand how these platforms work. You should be experiencing and experimenting with the platform for yourself and not just relying on what your daughter tells you.

I’d urge all marketers, whether they work on the digital side or not, to get into the habit of trying things out. Whether it works or not isn’t really the point; it’ll help you to understand the intricacies and complexities of social because truth be told, it really isn’t all that simple. A lot of people tend to forget that marketers are practitioners and that sometimes means having to practice every now and again.

Facebook Shows Strong Q3 Growth Amid Public Backlash

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This week, Facebook’s Q3 results come in strong, Twitter’s CEO takes a stand against political ads and Mixer matches Twitch’s subscription price.

Facebook Demonstrates Strong Growth In Q3

According to TechCrunch, Facebook users increased two percent to 2.45 billion.

Why it matters: Despite public backlash and increased competition from Snapchat, Facebook has managed to stay sticky.

The details: Facebook reached 2.45 billion monthly users in Q3 compared to 2.41 billion in the quarter prior. It now has 1.62 billion daily active users and $18 billion of revenue, up 29 percent year-over-year, with $2.12 earnings per share (EPS). The company gained 2 million users in each of its core US, Canada and Europe markets.

Twitter Stops All Political Advertising Globally

Twitter’s CEO tweeted that the company believes political message reach should be earned, not bought. 

Why it matters: Twitter’s decision to ban political ads is in stark contrast to the support Facebook has expressed for politicians’ free speech.

The details: Dorsey explained, “A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.”

Mixer Matches Twitch’s Subscription Price

The Microsoft-owned platform Mixer is going after Twitch by changing its subscription pricing from $5.99 to $4.99.

Why it matters: The change in price comes after Twitch’s top streamers, such as Ninja and KingGothalion, moved to Mixer. The lower rate makes it more appealing for other pro Twitch streamers to make the move to Mixer. 

The details: Mixer’s new price is the same amount as Twitch’s initial level pricing. Subscribers who auto renew will see the lower rate and those who subscribed within the last week can even request an adjustment. 

Facebook Launches Preventative Medicine Tool For Users 

According to a Facebook blog post, the social media giant’s latest feature will prompt users to get regular checkups and connect them to service providers.

Why it matters: The issue of privacy caused Facebook to scale back its efforts in health, but the tech giant is moving forward again even though consumers have doubts. A year ago, a consumer filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission accusing Facebook of improperly protecting information about users of a group that discussed personal medical conditions with the expectation of privacy. A recent study also shows that several mental health apps have been sending data to Facebook for analytics or advertising purposes. So it’s unclear what steps Facebook has taken to address privacy concerns.

The details: For the new health initiative, Facebook is teaming with organizations such as the American Cancer Society and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a series of digital prompts that encourage users to get a standard battery of tests. To start, the company’s focus will be the top two leading causes of death in the US—heart disease and cancer. Facebook’s partner organizations will recommend checkups to users based on age and gender via the mobile app or desktop version. Additional features of the tool include completed marks, reminders for future tests and an option to tell their friends about the tool. Facebook said it will not collect the results of any test. 

Gen Z Favor Snapchat, Twitch And Wish

An App Annie study revealed top app and web preferences of Gen Z.

Why it matters: Gen Z collectively spend $44 billion a year and influence another $600 billion in household purchases. Marketers have more incentive to shift ad dollars to these platforms. 

The details: The top-ranking apps among Gen Z are Snapchat, Twitch and Wish. Wish, the ecommerce platform that connects buyers directly with sellers is a favorite of the group because its discounted products appeal to Gen Z’s budget-savvy habits. Given social media has made them more guarded, Gen Z are more likely to use Snapchat because it deletes messages and stories after 24 hours. 

Snapchat Introduces 3D Paint Feature For Augmented Reality Snaps

According to Venture Beat, the feature enables users to create new augmented reality (AR) snaps directly from their camera.

Why it matters: The 3D paint feature is part of Snapchat’s growing AR investment. In the last few months alone, the company raised $1 billion in short-term debt as part of its AR strategy and launched dual-camera spectacles capable of creating 3D AR content. 

The details: 3D Paint is available on iOS devices initially and users can access it via the “AR Bar,” the app’s dedicated space for creating and browsing AR filters. Users can manually draw visuals over their faces through the selfie camera. 

FTC Rules That Selling Likes And Followers Is Illegal

According to Social Media Today, the case involves a Florida businessman who sold social engagement to celebrities.

Why it matters: The case sets new guidelines for potential legal action against sellers of fake social media engagement. Facebook has already moved ahead with legal action against several fake engagement providers, even extending the push to those selling fake likes in China. 

The details: The FTC recently fined Florida businessman German Calas, Jr. $2.5 million for selling likes and followers to celebrities, under a business Calas led called Devumi. A New York Times investigation found that Devumi drew on an estimated stock of at least 3.5 million automated accounts, each sold many times over, helping the company generate $15 million in revenue. Earlier this year, Devumi agreed to a $50,000 settlement. The FTC says the additional $2.5 million will be suspended when Calas has paid $250,000. In a second case, the FTC issued a warning to skincare brand Sunday Riley whose founder allegedly wrote fake reviews about the company’s products via Sephora’s site and ordered employees to do the same.  

Editor’s Note: Our weekly social media news post is updated daily. This installment will be updated until Friday, November 1. Have a news tip? We’re looking for changes to and news surrounding social media platforms as they relate to marketing. Let us know at editorial@alistdaily.com.

Ad Fraud Myths And Misconceptions With Augustine Fou

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During this episode of “Marketing Today,” I interview Dr. Augustine Fou, who is an industry-recognized thought leader in digital strategy and integrated marketing, an ad fraud researcher and auditor for several companies and publishers around the world. He has 20 years of management consulting experience creating and optimizing marketing strategies across traditional and digital channels.

Fou shares the many myths and misconceptions that marketers have about ad fraud. We tackle some questions, such as, “If you have ad fraud detection, are you safe?” Or, “Shouldn’t I be immune if I’m only paying for performance?” We also discuss why don’t we hear more from industry trade groups.

Fou helps to define and categorize ad fraud. He walks us through the various ways that fraud occurs. He shares the limited capability of bot detection companies, which are just looking for invalid traffic (IVT), and how the algorithms are not tuned for anything else. Marketers need to know that whatever you are paying for (click, conversion, etc.) is the specific thing the “bad guys” are going to fake. Fou gives us some fantastic tips on how to combat the pervasive fraud throughout the industry. 

  • How we define ad fraud. (02:41)  
  • Categorization of fraud. (05:11) 
  • Limitations of bot-detection companies and quick ways to detect other types of fraud. (08:43)   
  • Dr. Fou’s thoughts on estimates of fraud occurring in the industry. (10:38) 
  • A discussion on “asymmetric warfare.” (13:21)  
  • Question 1: I’ve got fraud detection in place, am I not safe? (17:33) 
  • Question 2: I only pay for performance, so I must be immune to ad fraud. (21:39) 
  • An interesting study looking across 800 mobile exchanges. (22:46) 
  • An example: the Uber lawsuit. (23:49)  
  • The key lesson for marketers to know and examples of loopholes. (24:39)  
  • The importance of looking at your data and not relying on industry trades alone. (29:03) 
  • A discussion on certifications and accreditations. (30:37)  
  • The importance of auditing. (31:54) 
  • What are the multi-million dollar detection companies not seeing, and why? (35:05) 
  • What should marketers be doing to combat fraud? (40:54) 
  • What does the world look like without ad fraud? (44:39) 

Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on opportunities around brand, customer experience, innovation and growth. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies, but he is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine startups.

How To Build Consumer Trust And Encourage Data Sharing

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Originally published at AW360 by Jake Pryszlak.

A well-oiled brand should do three things:

  1. Ask consumers for feedback on the products they purchase, and the experience given to them.
  2. Spread the name of your business so it’s easily recognizable to the average consumer
  3. Make your brand name one that consumers associate with trustworthiness

Failing to inspire faith in your brand with consumers can sink your entire operation. The trust between a company and its customer base isn’t built overnight. Consumers need proof of dependability before they commit to brand loyalty. As innovations in technology make private information increasingly public, the struggle to gain consumer trust has found a new battleground: Personal data use. While customers seek out personalized commerce experiences and are willing to share their data to that end, there are growing concerns regarding how brands are using it.

Customers who share data with brands are seeking something in return. However, for the brands themselves they are asking… Do we have too much data and not enough understanding?

This was a recent article I wrote about InfoObesity and how brands are gorging on so much data and information that we don’t know what to do with it all. On the other side, more data means more risk in terms of GDPR and data privacy.

You only have to think about recent breaches including Marriot being fined over 100 million pounds. So this is now a big and real deal for brands.

Once broken, trust is a trial to rebuild. It only takes one bad experience for a consumer to drop your brand forever.

So, the question: in a market where they seek both personalized shopping experience, as well as a real measure of privacy, how do you get customers to trust your data use?

Be Transparent—And Flexible

Given the growing concerns about personal data use, just having a privacy policy page statement is no longer enough. It should be the first thing they see when they go to your website. From the moment they land on any of the webpages owned by your brand, customers should have a clear idea of exactly what data you’re collecting through their use of your site, as well as the ability to consent (or not) to it.

Consumers should also have an option to adjust their privacy settings. If your website has an option for ecommerce—and therefore an option to create an account—there’s no excuse to not have these options accessible under account settings. The good news is that, with the exception of social media sites, most consumers aren’t going to go out of their way to change those settings, and you should be free to collect all the data you need.  Still, having the option available shows your commitment to protecting consumers’ data and being worthy of their trust.

Drive The Message Home

User-friendly privacy policies and terms and conditions are great places to start building trust with your consumers, but you need to take it a step further. If having a data use policy that protects your consumers is a priority for you, they should know the measures you’re taking to ensure they have a positive shopping experience with your brand.

Make a transparent privacy policy a cornerstone of every online communication you have with your customers. Sending a newsletter?  Include the policy statement.  Sharing a special deal on social media? You know what to do. The more you emphasize how important it is to you that you use consumer data in an ethical way, the less reluctant your customers will be in sharing that information with you.

Focus On The Pros

The comments surrounding the collection and use of consumer data is mostly focused on the negative outcomes of when that data is misused, however, I actually think that many of your customers may not be aware of how sharing their information can enhance their shopping experience.  When you collect their data, let them know that it’s being used to make their time on your website better.

Whether it’s to send them deals targeting their specific interests, or rewards based on their personal data such as special birthday gifts, offers on Mothers and Father’s Day, focusing on the benefits of sharing more of their personal data will incentivize your consumers to do so. If you ever have the chance to frame the narrative about how you use data into something positive, you can use those opportunities to build your brand’s reputation and the trust your customer base has in it.

Always Ask For Feedback

Just as it takes time to build trust, maintaining that trust requires work and energy. Keeping that positive relationship between brand and customer alive is a continuous and never-ending process. Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback. No one knows better what consumers want from a brand than the consumers themselves—and, hey, seeking that feedback offers you yet another way of collecting consumer data in a way that is not only ethical but also makes the customer feel good and heard.

You can never be 100 percent sure that your customers trust you but asking for their input is a pretty reliable way to get a good idea of how they view your brand.  In the meantime, getting customers to trust your data use should be a known priority in every element of your business, from the CEO down to the customer clicking “proceed to check out.”

Why Twitch Is No Longer A Niche Platform

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Originally published on ION.

(Editor’s note: AList is published by a.network. To get up to speed on the rapid changes affecting the influencer marketing landscape, click here.)

The gaming industry is set to make $152 billion in universal earnings this year, providing marketers newfound opportunities to reach one of the most untapped audiences—streamers. Twitch streamers are becoming notable influencers in their own right and the popularity of Twitch has attracted influencer activations sponsored by gaming and non-gaming brands including Wendy’s, Gillette and KFC. The live streaming video platform, which Amazon acquired in 2018 for nearly a billion dollars, has more than 15 million daily active users who watch an average of 95 minutes daily. 

The platform’s real-time content offers a community experience that helps deepen the connection between streamer and user, making it a strategic platform for product placement and campaigns. While it’s uncharted marketing territory, Twitch currently has 220,000 affiliates and 27,000 partners. Ahead we take a closer look at the current Twitch influencer landscape, how early adopters of Twitch influencer marketing are targeting audiences spanning a variety of categories on the platform and why it should no longer be considered a niche platform.

Twitch considers itself the world’s leading social video service and community for gamers. Historically, the platform has given gamers and gaming fans an avenue to share their enthusiasm. Eighty-one percent of Twitch users are male and 55 percent are between the ages of 18-34. Twitch runs ads just like other social media platforms, but its main differentiator is that influencer promotions appear in a live video format rather than a static image or video. Much like Instagram or YouTube, Twitch influencer marketing activations include shoutouts, giveaways and videos of streamers unboxing products. 

What gives brands who utilize Twitch influencer marketing an added advantage is the fact that users are actively watching a streamer’s video with little to no interruption. Brands looking to try influencer marketing on Twitch should consider a streamer’s concurrent viewership (CCV) rather than follower count to determine the extent of their pull. Think of CCV as Twitch’s version of reach and impressions as the CCV shows exactly how many people a streamer is actively reaching on a daily basis.

The lengthy, unfiltered live streams that dominate Twitch generate engaging content and in turn, deeper connections. This gives brands an incentive to invest in Twitch influencer marketing, and the number of influencer partnerships appears to be rising. The number of revenue-earning American Twitch streamers grew 59 percent from 2016 to 2017.

“I think there’s a LOT of opportunity to drive ROI here, but I also believe it requires a thoughtful, nuanced and sensitive approach to these relationships that not every brand is able to manage. Blundering in and expecting to flash some cash to get a streamer to do exactly what you want (just as with other kinds of influencers), really won’t work well with the kinds of influencers a brand really wants to work with,” David Bloom, a writer and consultant on influencer marketing and related issues for Forbes and Tubefilter, tells AList.

The bulk of Twitch influencer marketing happens between brand and gamer. One notable influencer activation includes Guy Beahm’s partnership with Daybreak Games to market the brand’s H1Z1 Auto Royale game. During his three-hour live stream, Beahm was able to connect with his fans while answering their questions and providing a comprehensive demonstration of the game. To date, the video has garnered 39,346 views.

Gaming may have catapulted Twitch to where it stands on the influencer marketing totem pole today, but that’s slowly evolving. What started out as a platform that let people flaunt their gaming skills has turned into a place for non-gamers to also share their talents and interests with the world. Last year, Twitch introduced 10 new stream categories including art, hobbies and crafts, food and drink, music and performing arts, beauty and body art, science and technology, just chatting, travel and outdoor, sports and fitness special events, talk shows and podcasts, ASMR and tabletop role-playing (RPG) games. 

Recently, a bevy of brands tested out Twitch influencer marketing. In March, Gillette announced the “Gillette Gaming Alliance,” a team of 11 Twitch streamers from 11 countries to represent the brand and support its Twitch campaign, “Bits for Blades.” The Gillette Gaming Alliance streamers gave fans the opportunity to earn Twitch Bits—virtual goods users can send in chat to support streamers financially—by buying select Gillette products displayed and talked about by Alliance team members. By clicking on a Gillette-branded banner, viewers could then purchase Gillette products through Amazon or a third-party vendor and earn at least 250 Twitch Bits in return. Streamers in the alliance included CourageJD from the US, Dendi from Russia and Yapyap30 from Korea, to name a few.

Last year, KFC also turned to a Twitch influencer to promote its chicken wings. The quick-service restaurant teamed up streamer Ben Lupo, who goes by DrLupo—a professional Destiny player and sponsored Fortnite streamer with 518,000 followers—for a two-day giveaway. Lupo and another Twitch influencer, Anthony Kongphan, played a game during which they ran an interactive livestream contest. Users were encouraged to comment “winner winner” every time the duo won a round of the game, which would produce a unique KFC emoji. They gave away free $5 gift cards along the way, marking a clever move on KFC’s part to organically tie its brand to the gaming community.

Recent data shows that Twitch outperforms live game streaming competitors including YouTube Gaming Live and Facebook Gaming in terms of viewership. According toStreamElements, Twitch viewers watched 2.7 billion hours, YouTube streaming viewers tuned in for 736 million and Facebook Gaming saw 198 million hours viewed.

Hours viewed aside, YouTube may be more profitable. “Though Twitch commands some big live audiences, relatively speaking, I’m told that Twitch influencers are monetizing better on YouTube. They typically take highlights (or someone else pulls them for them) and turn those into shorter, on-demand videos of “greatest hits” that may involve more than one streamer. Twitch dominates the live-streaming space for games, though Facebook Watch, IGTV, YouTube Live and Twitter’s Periscope all do quite well in live streaming other kinds of content,” Bloom notes. 

A streamer named Nightblue3 has built a loyal fan base around playing League of Legends on both YouTube and Twitch. He averages more than four YouTube videos weekly and about 23 hours of streaming on Twitch. Though his Twitch live streams garner an average of 12,500 viewers, Nightblue3’s earned media value (EMV) on a YouTube video is more than 30 times higher.

For brands considering Twitch as an influencer marketing strategy, Bloom says there are first some important questions to ask: “Are the audiences connecting to a specific streamer a good overlap with your brand? What innovative or unique ways can you connect and leverage a relationship with that influencer that also brings value to your brand? You’re effectively renting their audience, which they’ve laboriously built for months or years. You should expect they’ll be intensely attentive to that audience, and messaging that is appropriate for their sense of their audience, and of who they are.”

What’s The Impact Of Proposed CCPA Regulations On Digital Advertising?

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Data collection and management have fed digital advertising for a quarter-century, but the industry is facing major changes, as this month, California Attorney General announced a notice of proposed rulemaking and draft regulations for California’s new consumer privacy law–the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The act is slated to take effect on January 1, 2020, and is expected to significantly restrict how companies collect and manage consumer data. 

The Law 

In a nutshell, the proposed act means that California citizens and California state itself will be able to sue any company that violates their personal data sharing rights under the law. In a press release issued on October 10, Attorney General Xavier Becerra said: “Knowledge is power, and on the internet, age knowledge is derived from data. Our personal data is what powers today’s data-driven economy and the wealth it generates. It’s time we had control over the use of our personal data. That includes keeping it private. We take a historic step forward today to protect Californians’ inalienable right to privacy. Once again, California leads the way putting people first in the Age of the Internet.”

The CCPA includes the following key requirements:

  • Businesses must disclose data collection and sharing practices to consumers
  • Consumers have a right to request that their data be deleted
  • Consumers have a right to opt-out of the sale or sharing of their personal information
  • Businesses are prohibited from selling personal information of consumers under the age of 16 without explicit consent

Also, for-profit organizations that do their business in California and collect consumers’ personal information will be responsible for complying with the CCPA if they have an annual gross revenue that totals $25 million or higher; purchase, receive, sell or share consumer data from 50,000 or more consumers, households or devices and finally, make the majority of their annual revenue from selling personal data. 

Adding to the anxiety is the fact that, at the moment, businesses don’t have a clear understanding of how to interpret some aspects of the law and don’t have a finalized bill to review.

Daniel L. Jaffe, group executive vice president, Government Relations for the Association of National Advertisers explained: “The California Consumer Privacy Act is going to go into effect in less than three months, on January 1, 2020. Before it goes into effect, possibly, the rulemaking by the attorney general will be completed. He has come out of his rulemaking proposal on October 10 and [how these] proposals usually work is that you get a 45-day comment period. And then, if there are major changes that could be made to the rule, you get another 45 days. So, it’s either 60 or 90-days of time for comments. That at the very least will push the final rules to the limit of the legislation going into effect.” He added: “This, I can see from talking to [ANA] members, created a great deal of anxiety, confusion and general problems because companies don’t have a finalized bill to prepare for. When you are shooting at a moving target, that’s very difficult and there is at least a possibility that the rules may not be finalized until after the effective date of January 1, 2020.”

The Impact  

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) estimates, the act will cost businesses tens of billions of dollars. Dave Grimaldi, executive vice president of Public Policy at IAB said in a press release shared with AList: “[…] A recent CCPA economic impact assessment, prepared for the Office of the Attorney General, asserts that CCPA could cost companies in California up to $55 billion in initial compliance costs alone. Considering these high costs, it is imperative that implementing regulations provide strong protections while avoiding unnecessary costs to innovation, content development and general services that could be devastating to small and mid-size California businesses, including potential job losses.”

And of course, it is quite possible that the act will affect not only businesses but customers as well.  “Eventually, consumers are going to pay for this through a hidden tax because it’s going to [cost companies billions of dollars]. Somehow, [the state] is going to have to handle that massive [losses which will result] in higher costs for services and products,” Jaffe said. 

The Strategy 

Unfortunately, it’s estimated that smaller businesses will face the biggest obstacles as they don’t have access to all the resources of their larger competitors. “A lot of small and mid-size companies may not be as well prepared to respond to [the proposed regulations] because they don’t have armies of lawyers, IT experts and other [specialists] to depend on,” Jaffe said. 

So, what can brands do to get ahead now? Jaffe says that most importantly, companies must be able to track the data they are collecting and from whom and put it together ASAP in a presentable format to be able to provide if and when requested.

Also, according to Matthew Baier, COO and CMO at Contentstack, to get compliant with CCPA, brands need to: 

  • start a campaign for CCPA compliance with CMS
  • understand automated consent management and validation
  • organize easily-accessed and adjustable consumer profiles and consent records
  • set up thorough permissions settings
  • build adaptable and extensible site architecture

It is also important to develop “right to be forgotten” workflow, as according to the act, a customer will be able to request his or her personal data from the system at any time. “Because of this, you’ll want your CMS to be constantly tracking where all the pertinent data associated with a single user lives so that you can find and remove it during the allotted time frame,” Baier writes.

TAZO And RZA To Host Sleepaway Camp, Help Guests Balance Creative Pursuits With Commercial Potential

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TAZO is hosting an overnight experience called “Camp TAZO” for its second year. Led by rapper and record producer RZA, the camp will lead aspiring creators through inspirational workshops with guided creative prompts, and plenty of tea. The camp will take place in RZA’s home town of Staten Island, New York in February 2020.

TAZO’s inspiration for the sleepaway camp came from the tea brand’s commissioned study that found 75 percent of Americans wish they could get out of their comfort zones but don’t know, how. The study also found that 72 percent regret not trying something new versus trying and failing.  

During the immersive two-day camp, RZA will guide campers through a series of activities meant to unlock mental and creative enlightenment. For a chance to participate, participants must submit a three-minute video application about the barriers they face when exploring new creative ideas and what they hope to get out of Camp TAZO. Additional requirements include submitting links to recent works and telling TAZO which tea blend you’d be and why.

Bringing back its camp activation for a second year marks TAZO’s move to strengthen ties to its younger audience and differentiate itself from other tea brands in an industry where interactive experiences are scarce. 
Last year, as part of its “Brew the Unexpected” campaign, TAZO brought on former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Alyssa Edwards to be the brand’s inaugural camp counselor for the first camp activation, which took place in Austin. TAZO’s partnership with Edwards and its “Brew the Unexpected” campaign marked its first big marketing push since being acquired by Unilever in 2017 for $384 million.

Paid Search Becomes Mobile-First Experience

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More than 70 percent of all paid search impressions and clicks were on mobile devices in Q3, according to a study from Kenshoo. The report found that paid search overall has grown over the last five quarters, with a seven percent year-over-year spend increase in Q3. 

The signs have been pointing to a future where mobile is the most popular channel for paid search, and it’s finally reached a threshold. Q2 marked the first quarter where mobile search reached 50 percent paid search spending. In Q3, over half (54 percent) of paid search ad spending was on mobile devices–up four percent from the prior quarter.

The rise demonstrates continued long-term growth for the last five quarters. Paid search remains the most consistent channel in digital marketing as brands have realized that keeping this channel “always-on” is a necessity, not just a best practice. Paid search impressions were up 29 percent YOY and paid search clicks rose 15 percent YOY, both growing faster than total spend. These findings reflect the fact that marketers were able to generate higher impressions and clicks without the need to increase spending. 

Meanwhile, paid search quarter-over-quarter (QOQ) gains only saw a two percent increase in spend, three percent in clicks and five percent more impressions than Q2. While click-through-rate (CTR) was down 10 percent YOY, the drop in ad engagement was offset by marketers paying less for their clicks as the average cost-per-click (CPC) in Q3 decreased seven percent from the year before.

Social advertising spend grew 32 percent YOY, driven by Instagram, video and product ads. Impressions grew roughly the same rate as spend while clicks on social were up 26 percent over the previous quarter. Dynamic product ads made up 37 percent of the Q3 total for social advertising. 

Social’s average cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) saw a four percent decline QOQ and three percent decline YOY. This suggests that the channel’s pricing remains stable, allowing marketers to increase spending while maintaining efficiency for their investment.

Findings are based on data taken from over 3,000 advertiser and agency accounts across 40 industry verticals and over 150 countries.