Over the past few months, the team at Instagram has put numerous initiatives into motion to make it an ideal place for marketers and advertisers. According to a new report, these initiatives are paying off in spades.
Business Insider reports that numbers reported by Socialfresh (in collaboration with Firebrand Group and Simple Measured) suggest that 30 percent of those polled advertise on Instagram at least once a month, running about the same level as advertising for Twitter. While it’s still at about half the level of Facebook advertising, it’s still a steady increase of effectiveness for the photo/video social platform.
The numbers show that Instagram’s growth is not only steady, but also looking to continue, as over one in four digital marketers have a plan to invest more money in Instagram over the next twelve months. It’s also worth noting that, as popular as it is with its millions of viewers, Snapchat is still on the lower end of the spectrum, with around 4.1 percent growth compared to Instagram’s 29.5 percent.
That’s a huge amount of progress in just under a year’s time, when Instagram announced its plans to open the doors for advertising on its site. It’s since gathered more than 200,000 monthly active advertisers, utilizing its video and dynamic ad formats in effective ways.
The report also notes that time spent watching videos has increased by more than 40 percent over the last six months, providing even bigger opportunities for investors to get their feet in the door with potential consumers. Socialfresh also noted that video is the second most popular content when it comes to ROI demonstration, behind the popular image posts in the number one spot.
There are several takeaways from the report, including the following:
Native-display ads, including social native and native ads in-feed on publisher websites, will make up the bulk of native ad revenue from 2016-2021. Native display ad revenue in the US will rise at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17 percent during this time period to eclipse $36 billion. The rise of native video ads, particularly on social platforms, will be one of the main drivers of this growth.
Social platforms generate most of their revenue from native ads and will continue to dominate overall native ad spending through 2021. The dominance of social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat on mobile devices, where the entire experience is within a feed, will help propel social’s contribution to overall native ad revenue through 2021.
Sponsored content, which is categorized separately from native-display due to the direct relationship between publishers and brands in creating the format, will be the fastest-growing native format over the next five years. However, the high cost to produce these ads and the limitation in inventory will limit the format.
Instagram’s numbers should certainly improve over the next few years, given its convenient ad format, millions of users, and, of course, potential for companies big and small to shine.
It seems like a lot of companies have taken the plunge into eSports as of late, such as Activision with the Call of Duty: World League; now 2K Sports is hitting the rim with its own initiative, with an eSports focus around its best-selling basketball game, NBA 2K16. The publisher recently announced a new streaming service that will enable owners of both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles to check out the latest in the 2K Pro-Am competition.
The service, called 2K StreamCast, will launch on May 21, the same day that the Road to the Finals kicks off. Fans will be able to tune in and watch teams participate in the Pro-Am, in the hopes of walking away with a $250,000 cash prize. Teams will compete across three tournament games and a console final on both PS4 and Xbox One, with the Grand Final pitting the winning teams against one another in a winner-take-all contest. The winning team will also go to game one of the NBA Finals. Contests will be available for live viewing and will also be kept on-demand if fans want to see specific players in action
This is a similar feature to watch Treyarch introduced with Call of Duty: Black Ops III, where players could tune in to World League match-ups by selecting an option on the main menu of the PlayStation 4 version. Its eSports factor is effective when it comes to drawing in viewers, especially with the convenience of watching through their console of choice instead of needing to boot up a secondary video viewer.
It’s an interesting first step for 2K Sports into the world of eSports, something that could be further established with the company’s future efforts, including WWE 2K17 and NBA 2K17. 2K has yet to announce plans to include StreamCast for other games, choosing to focus on its NBA 2K16 competition for now.
The livestreaming service Twitch has found a number of effective promotional partners over the last few years, including Coca-Cola, Old Spice and others. But its latest deal with AMP Energy will take its promoting to a whole new space: onto store shelves.
The two have partnered up for a new program which encourages fans to “level up” their gaming experience with a sweepstakes that will involve both consumers and broadcasters, the introduction of limited edition gear, and (for the first time ever) having the Twitch logo appear on a non-gaming retail product, cans of AMP Energy.
The promotion kicks off this week and runs through September 5. During that time, fans can purchase Twitch-branded AMP cans in both original and cherry flavors. In addition, they can also enter into a sweepstakes for a chance to win exclusive gear, including wearable items, Alienware gaming rigs and a chance to attend TwitchCon 2016, taking place in San Diego, CA this September.
To enter, fans are encouraged to use social media to show their love of AMP, with pictures on Facebook or Instagram, where a winner will be chosen from the many submissions that are expected.
Broadcasters will also be getting in on the fun, as a separate deal will run for them from now through August 6, where they can win a homepage carousel placement takeover, hoodies and cash by using the hashtag #AMPSweepstakes during certain times of their sessions.
“Through this partnership with Twitch, we are excited to bring together two brands that have a deep sense of camaraderie and energy,” said Greg Lyons, senior vice president for marketing at AMP Energy. “AMP brings flavor to the energy category so that fans can enjoy the great taste of their energy drinks while they fuel up. Similarly, AMP wants to provide gamers a heightened level of enjoyment by teaming up with Twitch to provide unique experiences and help energize gamers for the challenges they face both in and out of the virtual world.”
“The Twitch community has never seen our brand on this type of consumer packaging or in retail stores in this fashion before,” said Anthony Danzi, senior vice president of client strategy for Twitch. “It’s a fun step for us to partner with a cool brand like AMP and we look forward to our fans taking part in the sweepstakes and hopefully winning some exclusive swag!”
MTV is taking a social approach to promoting the second season of the horror comedy series, Scream . . . and it’s making a killing.
Yesterday, the company took to Facebook Live to showcase a new teaser from the series and an exclusive clip, along with a quick Q&A with cast member Tom Maden, who is a favorite on the show. The event turned out to be a huge hit, with thousands tuning in to get a glimpse of what’s coming next and perhaps find out who was likely to die next.
But this was just the beginning of MTV’s promotion, as it also had a unique event the following week on social media, on Friday the 13th. With Scream LIVE!, fans not only got a peek at seven minutes of new footage from the premiere, but also took part in what was labeled a “15-minute murder spree,” with members of the audience vanishing and fake blood being spilled on-screen as fans interacted in real time across both Facebook and Periscope.
Of course, it was all in fun—no one died—but it matches the scary atmosphere of the show, and kept fans truly involved.
Speaking with Mashable, director of digital strategy and fan engagement, Matt McDonough, and supervising producer of video/digital production Kim Thai went into more detail regarding the social integration, and how fans enjoyed being involved with something happening in real time.
“Last season, our whole promo campaign was centered around killing all of the MTV celebrities, and the idea of killing MTV as you know it,” noted McDonough. “This campaign theme is more along the lines of ‘You can’t trust anybody, even our own marketing.’ We wanted the audience…we wanted to trick them everywhere they go. We want to be able to make them question who they can trust on air, when they see ads on the side of buses, and when they log into their Twitter and Facebook accounts.”
Thai added, “From a visual culture perspective, we’re always trying to look for that thing to engage with our audience. We wanted to play with them, we wanted to trick them a little bit, and it was all us leaning into knowing the user behavior and knowing the specifics that came from that actual fan base.”
Maden was thrilled with the promotion as well. “I love what they’re doing, they’re trying to be different,” he said. “They’re trying to have interaction with people, which is where I think the future of TV and movies is.”
On top of that, the interaction took a turn when the actors began taking cues based on the comments from users. “[The other actors] had some funny moments, and they wouldn’t have said those things if they hadn’t read what people were writing. A team of writers can sit down for three months and nail all those different moments eventually, but because there’s a live interaction, these are new ideas from totally different people.”
With the success of these livestream sessions, don’t be surprised if MTV continues to promote new series with similar methods, although they probably won’t be as bloody.
Two years ago, ESPN didn’t show much interest in eSports, with the company’s president John Skipper even noting that it wasn’t even a sport. However, as of late, the popular sports channel has changed its tune, and is embracing it as a whole.
According to the article, the move was made as a way to “engage new audiences against the backdrop of an ever-fragmenting sports landscape that has created business challenges for the network.” This also includes bumped-up coverage of popular activities like drone racing and World Wrestling Entertainment, which is outside of the usual non-scripted sports activities.
The author, Jim Brady, also made note of several reseach studies that show the growing popularity of eSports, including how Newzoo found that eSports revenues will hit $463 million this year (set to surpass a billion dollars by 2019) and a SuperData report explaining that 134 million participants take part in eSports every year.
“Although the demographics and business opportunities for eSports are crucial, ESPN’s ability to televise eSports might be the most important element, as it looks to lock up as many live events as it can to maintain its position in an ever time-shifted world,” Brady writes.
So far, eSports coverage has paid off for the network, with April proving to be a big month for ESPN’s vertical web coverage, showing a 58 percent increase in traffic over the previous month. Almost 70 percent of that coverage, notes Brady, came in from social media outlets.
The author also used a quote from a recent VentureBeat article, which explains why ESPN didn’t mind taking the gamble, despite Skipper’s previous thoughts:
“Traditional sports are losing interest, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to turn around. Fewer high school-aged kids are participating in sports. Starting in 2008 and continuing through 2012, football saw a 5.4 percent drop in players from 3.26 million to 3.08 million. And they aren’t going to soccer, baseball, or basketball — those sports saw declines of 7.1 percent, 7.2 percent, and 8.3 percent, respectively. Only lacrosse is growing, but it isn’t making up the difference for what the other sports are losing.”
Brady writes, “Big media companies generally have lousy track records when it comes to looking around the bend, but the network is trying to do just that by investing here. ESports is already a huge business, and it’s getting larger by the day. With the decline in participation in traditional stick-and-ball sports, ESPN needs to place some chips elsewhere.” He concluded the piece by saying, “In a world in which ESPN’s business model is being significantly affected by the fragmentation of media, the network isn’t wasting time trying to change consumer behavior. Instead, it’s going where a new generation of consumers awaits.”
Ever since it made its debut in March, EA Sports UFC 2 has been scoring a winning knockout with gamers and fans of the league alike. But now it’s about to score another victory with a great new promotion: Live Event Competitions.
The UFC and EA Sports announced the add-on to the hit game this week, which will give fans the opportunity to compete in a promotion that could earn them a trip to the much-coveted UFC 200 event in July.
Kicking off May 14, fans will be able to play in a number of qualifiers in UFC 2 for a chance to earn Ultimate Team rewards. Grand prizes include a trip to Las Vegas to see UFC 200 and the coinciding UFC Fan Expo.
Competing is simply a matter of choosing one of four athletes on a card, customizing the fighter, and taking on the competition online through Xbox Live or PlayStation Network.
“Fans love EA Sports UFC 2 for the intense head-to-head competition, and we’re excited to raise the stakes for all our players,” said Todd Sitrin, senior vice president and general manager of EA’s Competitive Gaming Division. “Live Event Competition encourages players to experience the thrill of each bout by bringing fans even closer to the intensity of mixed martial arts.”
“We are thrilled to launch our first online competition to find the top EA Sports UFC 2 players,” UFC senior vice president of Global Consumer Products, Tracey Bleczinski, said. “UFC International Fight Week is the largest celebration of combat sports in the world and we couldn’t think of a better place than the UFC Fan Expo to crown the first-ever EA Sports UFC 2 champion!”
It won’t be an easy competition, as many devoted players have already proven their dominance in previous match-ups, but it’s certainly something that fans of UFC will want to give a try.
EA Sports UFC 2 is available now for Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
Rob Gronkowski is being immortalized in digital form, and bringing his world-class spike and dance moves to a remote controller near you.
Electronic Arts revealed that the game-changing New England Patriots tight end will be the cover athlete for Madden 17 during a special segment on ESPN’s SportsCenter on Thursday.
“My rookie year [in 2010], it was just an honor to be in the game, just using yourself as a player, throwing yourself the ball every single time you can at home, just playing the game,” Gronkowski told SportsCenter. “Now it’s a dream come true, going into my seventh season and being on the cover. … When I first found out, I was blessed. It was a surreal moment.”
EA also released the first trailer for the game, which will be available on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation4 and PlayStation3 pre-order.
The next order of business for EA—and one that stars and their egos are certainly peculiar about—is the release of the positional player ratings before the game hits store shelves on August 23. Last year Gronkowski started the season at a 99 overall rating, the best at his position.
Finding out exactly what new gameplay and features will be bestowed upon fervent football fansdoesn’t hurt either. Improvements to all three phases of the game in offense, defense and special teams were made for the forthcoming release, as detailed by EA.
In the meantime, EA Access members can play Madden 17 before the release as part of a Play First Trial, only on Xbox One. And if you already can’t wait to play with the franchise savior your favorite team drafted this year, the first-round picks of the 2016 NFL Draft—sorry Patriots—are available in Madden 16 Ultimate Team.
For the first time since Madden 2010, EA opted to choose the cover art internally rather than putting it in the hands of fans through a vote. In 2013, the vote for Madden 25 commenced with a 64-player bracket that would make March Madness jealous. It was later reduced to 16 players in 2014, and four in 2015 before being wiped away altogether this year.
Gronkowski takes the reins from Madden 16 cover man Odell Beckham Jr. Gronk was runner-up last year to the New York Giants wide receiver.
Earlier in the day, Gronkowski also scored the cover of GQ Magazine, where the affable, life-of-the-party bro can be seen hoisting model Hailey Clauson on his shoulders and signaling the start of summer in the buff. “It’s been a great day,” the tight end said.
The 27-year-old is a marketing machine. Last year, he signed a multi-year endorsement deal with Monster. His likeness is already featured in coolers across America. In February, the SS Gronk hit the seas for a three-day voyage as part of a promotion dubbed as “Gronk’s Party Ship.” Yes, all 6-feet, 6-inches of the 265-pound beast was present—and in full party spirit.
In his 2015 book “It’s Good to be Gronk,” the all-world tight end said he hasn’t spent a penny of his contract earnings and strictly lives off the endorsement money he’s made from the likes of Nike, Dunkin’ Donuts, SMS Audio, DraftKings and BodyArmor SuperDrink.
A late-season knee injury in 2015 didn’t stop Gronk from tallying 1,176 yards and 11 touchdowns en route to All-Pro honors for the third time in his career.
Gronkowski joins a revered list of luminaries like Brett Favre and Barry Sanders to grace the game’s cover. He’s the first tight end and Patriots player to do it, too.
John Madden, the Hall of Fame Raiders-coach-turned-broadcaster, was featured on the cover until San Francisco 49ers running back Garrison Hearst became the first player to grace the front flap with Madden 99. Shortly after, the Niners running back suffered a career-cutting injury that kicked off a string of stars who experienced shortcomings either on-or-off the field. The series of events gave birth to the “Madden curse,” a myth whose wrath has been mostly tamed in recent years.
Gronkowski commented on the curse during his SportsCenter appearance. “It’s definitely reversed itself from back in the day. You have to look at the players that were on it recently. You have Odell, who had an unbelievable year last year. You have Richard Sherman, who went to the Pro Bowl the year he was on it. Calvin Johnson, who broke the receiving record when he was on the cover. It’s the present now. It’s the future of the cover. I feel like I’ve already gone through all my injuries at that time, so I feel like I’m good. I’m blessed right now to be on it. I feel like everything is going to go smoothly.”
The long-running professional football series first launched on Apple II computers in 1988 and has since earned a cult following from die-hards to become one of the top-selling games of all time—most notably after 2004 when EA signed an exclusive NFL video game contract.
The game enjoyed mainstream success with Madden Nation, a reality TV show that debuted on ESPN in 2005 and dived into the lives of top gamers. Last year, NFL Media teamed up with EA and Twitch to introduce “Madden NFL Live,” a weekly digital series covering news, tips and tricks.
In recent years, EA has changed the landscape of digital games on console by monetizing Madden through virtual currencies for microtransactions that account for more than a quarter of the game’s revenue.
Madden 16 earned $76 million in revenue and Madden 15 pulled $73 million, respectively, according to SuperData Research. It was the ninth and tenth best-selling digital console games of 2015. EA had a net revenue of $4.5 billion in 2015.
The Redwood City, California-based publisher has also added value to licensed content on mobile through Madden NFL Mobile, a top-ten grossing app on Android and iOS. In an earnings report released earlier this week, EA indicated that Madden NFL Mobile’s monthly active players grew 30 percent in Q4 over the same quarter last year. In the same earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said their NFL, NHL and FIFA game franchises are each “taking a major leap forward in personalization, immersion and competition.”
Jesse Schell, CEO of game studio Schell Games and a VR expert, told [a]listdaily he thinks Madden’s next big move will be in virtual reality—and it could come as soon as 2020.
Time will tell how the game will mature. But for now let’s live in the moment and enjoy the summer of Gronk.
It’s no secret that Snapchat has become a major platform for brands, despite its increased asking price. Partners like Coca-Cola and Sony have already seen their fair share of success, and now you can add Taco Bell to the mix.
The fast food chain recently put together a promotion where Snapchat users could turn themselves into “taco people,” replacing their faces with crunchy tacos complete with eyes and mouth, and getting the chain’s traditional “BONG” effect right after. Despite it being a silly idea, it has paid off tremendously, as the Cinco de Mayo-themed promotion has brought in 224 million views in one day. That’s a new record for a Snapchat promotion.
The taco-based lens only took about six weeks to create, and cost around $750,000 to put together, similar to what Snapchat charged for holidays and special event advertising, including the Super Bowl. But considering the views that went into the video, and its popularity on social media, it’s a big payoff for Taco Bell’s marketing team.
Even though the campaign only lasted for one day, it was more than enough to top the previous Snapchat record, which was Gatorade’s Super Bowl-themed promotion that garnered 165 million views.
The general playing time for the ad was around 24 seconds, resulting in a “Snap” being sent soon after. As a result, it managed to generate 12.5 years’ worth of play in a single day.
Considering that Taco Bell has been on Snapchat for three years prior to the promotion, and promoted its new Quesalupa item on it through various Snapchats, this new comical approach could prove to be an effective advertising tool for the chain in the future. Who’s ready for a Quesalupa face?
Social media users can expect to add more dimension to their vacation photos by simply taking panoramic shots using their smartphones. Facebook has announced that it will soon introduce a “360 Photos” feature to its News Feed, which will use images created from panoramas taken from mobile devices and 360-degree enabled cameras, and are best appreciated using the Samsung Gear VR. Although any device will allow viewers to pan around a photo by tilting a device or dragging the image, Samsung smartphone users will have a “View in VR button,” which lets them see the photo in virtual reality using a Gear VR.
This opens a whole new creation angle for Facebook, as users can capture these photos without necessarily needing special equipment or applications to bring them to life. The feature follows the company’s announced 360-video support for its News Feed last September, but this expansion may be more accessible to users.
This feature was announced today on Oculus’ blog page, as part of the news that the Gear VR has expanded to a much bigger audience. The blog notes that the device has managed to reach over one million people in the past month alone, an impressive feat for a device that’s only been on the market for about six months. The company also touted its diverse line-up of over 250 apps, including popular games like Minecraft and Bait!, as well as special events like the Kentucky Derby and March Madness.
For the Facebook, Oculus is setting up a specific app, titled Oculus 360 Photos, where users can upload their photos and then see them using the device. It’ll definitely recreate that feel of being at a popular vacation event like the Rio Carnival.
Don’t be surprised if this starts a boom in panoramic photos. Having a full 360-degree view of a tropical resort or lavish vacation site is always welcome.
Digital video has come a long way, particularly with original content, and its popularity is growing to overtake broadcast television this year. The IAB has published a new report that compares digital video with broadcast television, and details how consumers feel about them.
The main objective of the report, titled IAB Original Digital Video Consumer Study, is to take a better look at the market for online video content, what the audience gets from it, and how it differs from the general television viewing experience.
The report is quite lengthy, but here are a few general takeaways from it:
Monthly ODV (Original Digital Video) viewership has been increasing, with approximately 66 percent of viewers saying that, by watching ODV programming on a connected TV, regular TV viewing has been reduced.
26 million viewers are watching ODV on a monthly basis, compared to 19 million back in 2013.
62 percent of viewers prefer ODV over general television programming because of the ability to watch it at their own leisure, or engage in “binge” watching, if they prefer.
The largest audience group that prefers to watch ODV is made up of 18- 34-year-olds that are in the “cord cutters” group, at 55 percent. Following close behind are 18+ cord cutters/nevers, and 26 percent are general population folks aged 18 and up.
Ads that appear through ODV are most memorable with those in the 18-34 cord cutters/nevers group, by 48 percent, followed by 18+ cord cutters (45 percent) and general population over 18 (38 percent).
This chart shows the video format that’s most likely to be watched, as well as standings between ODV and regular television. ODV continues to be the popular choice, even eclipsing broadcast or prime time TV by a small margin.
