Live blog test 2

TikTok is reportedly developing a photo-sharing app as it looks to compete more directly with Meta’s Instagram. This week, TikTok users began receiving pop-up notifications alerting them about the app’s development. According to screenshots posted by users online, the new offering is being referred to as “TikTok Notes“. “Your photo posts will be shown on TikTok Notes,” the notification reads. “TikTok Notes, a new app for photo posts, is coming soon! Your existing and future public TikTok photo posts will be shown on TikTok Notes.” It then prompts users to opt out if they are not interested in photos being cross-posted on the new app. It is not yet clear when the app will launch and details on its features are currently scant. A spokesperson for TikTok did not immediately respond to The Media Leader‘s request for comment.

Analysis: Competition intensifies

TikTok’s foray into photo-sharing puts it toe to toe with Instagram, the most popular app in this area. By allowing users to easily opt in to populate the new app with still photos previously posted on TikTok, it can more immediately develop a user base. The potential roll-out of TikTok Notes is yet another example of social media companies cribbing features off one another. Instagram had itself sought to better compete with TikTok’s then-ascendant short-form video features by launching Reels in August 2020. Now, it appears, TikTok is looking to undercut Instagram’s core function by offering photo-sharing to users in a dedicated app. The news comes as Instagram reportedly overtook TikTok in terms of downloads in 2023. While Instagram’s total app downloads last year grew 20% to 768m, TikTok’s downloads grew only 4% to 733m, according to data from digital intelligence company Sensor Tower. Sensor Tower’s report estimated that Instagram has around 1.5bn monthly active users compared with TikTok’s 1.1bn, although time spent on TikTok is considerably higher. https://the-media-leader.com/social-media-companies-dont-want-to-be-social-media-any-more/

Increasing sameness

Social media companies have made a habit of undermining competitors’ unique selling points by copying features. Meta’s Instagram and Facebook released their own versions of Snapchat’s Stories; TikTok and Instagram both released BeReal clones (although the former discontinued it last summer); Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, Spotify and Facebook all developed Clubhouse copies when it was a hot thing amid Covid-19 lockdowns; Instagram launched Threads to directly compete with Twitter; and TikTok’s short-form video feature, itself an idea from Vine, has been copied by not just Instagram but also YouTube (Shorts) and Snapchat (Spotlight). The tactic of copycatting has led to a sameness that many social media companies are also faced with. Most major platforms have ways to share short-form (and increasingly long-form) video, photos and posts, as well as direct messaging. For some advertisers, such uniformity has shifted value judgements. Given Meta’s platforms have the biggest scale in terms of users, as well as some of the most mature advertising tools, they offer a benchmark by which to compare other social media against. As Jellyfish vice-president of paid social and strategic partnerships Eb Adeyeri recently told The Media Leader: “‘What’s the overlap with Meta’ is really what it comes down to” with regard to agencies’ desire to push for large spending on other platforms. In other words, if the user base or ad formats on offer are distinctive, then brands may be more interested in shuffling spend in that direction to complement spend with Meta. Reddit and Pinterest, for example, stood out to Adeyeri as alternatives that “offer a slightly different reach” compared with traditional forms of social media. For now, though, TikTok remains a core consideration for planners and buyers alongside Meta because of its continued popularity with younger audiences and the high degree of time they spend on the app.

X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, is reportedly hiring 100 people as part of a new effort to focus once more on content moderation — specifically to tackle child sexual exploitation (CSE) on the platform. In a blog post, X said the site has “strengthened its policies and enforcement to tackle CSE” and is actively taking action against users who distribute such content and the networks of users who engage with it. That includes building a “trust and safety centre of excellence” in Austin, Texas, where the new in-house content moderation “agents” will be based. But X is still attempting to distance itself from the severity of the issue on its platform, with the post noting “X is not the platform of choice for children and minors”, given that users aged 13-17 “account for less than 1% of our daily US users”.

Analysis: Advertisers to remain cautious

The move comes as US senators are set to grill social media company CEOs on Wednesday over CSE concerns. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, X’s Linda Yaccarino, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, Snap’s Evan Spiegel and Discord’s Jason Citron will testify as US Congress is currently debating a bill, dubbed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would establish guidelines for protecting minors on social media. Last week, Snap became the first social media company to publicly support KOSA, putting additional pressure on its competitors to act. US senators Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham, who are leading the panel, said in a joint statement in November that “Big Tech’s failure to police itself at the expense of our kids cannot go unanswered”. According to James Sigrist, paid social account director at the7stars, the trust and safety hires are likely to be viewed positively by advertisers. However, he told The Media Leader: “Due to the vague wording around when this will be implemented, as well as the timing of the announcement just ahead of the US Senate hearing on CSE, confidence may not be fully restored to advertisers just yet. “Until we learn the scale of this team’s role in removing additional harmful content, beyond the imperative removal of CSE content, advertisers will remain cautious about including X in future activations.” Charlotte Powers, head of digital at sibling agency Bountiful Cow, agreed: “How can a team of just 100 people monitor the millions and millions of tweets uploaded globally on to the platform on a daily basis?”

Difficulty in hiring top talent

While X is hiring trust and safety staffers to address CSE specifically, the site has been inundated with an even wider variety of moderation threats since Elon Musk bought Twitter in October 2022. The platform has seen a sharp rise in misinformation and disinformation, hateful speech including antisemitic posts (some of which have been reposted by Musk himself) and, most recently, the spread of AI-generated pornographic images of celebrities such as Taylor Swift. One ex-Twitter employee, speaking to The Media Leader on the condition of anonymity, said the company’s need to rehire trust and safety moderators was “inevitable”, given advertisers’ concerns over brand safety. However, the team would likely struggle to hire top talent, including rehiring anyone who was previously let go. “Trust and safety people are very cautious and methodical. Those people are not going to want to work for Musk,” the source said. “Nobody in their right mind that is serious about trust and safety would work in that space, especially after what Musk did to [former trust and safety head] Yoel [Roth].” In late 2022, Musk helped stoke a harassment campaign against Roth, falsely accusing him of supporting child exploitation. The firestorm forced Roth to move out of his home to avoid potential threats to his life. “[Musk] had no concept of the importance — from a regulatory perspective, from a safety perspective etc — of the work that some of the [trust and safety] teams did, particularly around misinformation,” the source added. “And I think now what’s happening is the elections are coming and he wants to get their shit in place before[hand].” Another potential reason for the latest move could be a renewed desire for X to begin monetising adult content on its platform. While doing so would likely cause a further exodus of advertisers, the new revenue stream could help make up the windfall. The company had previously considered developing the site into something of an OnlyFans competitor in 2022, but the lack of capacity to remove illegal content related to CSE stymied the effort.

BeReal is launching features aimed at attracting brands and celebrities to the platform. The social media company is rolling out official accounts for individuals and companies — dubbed RealPeople and RealBrands — globally on 6 February. Whereas RealBrands is a new announcement, RealPeople was first launched in beta in the UK in May 2023, but is now expanding to other markets.

Analysis: ‘They don’t have the numbers’

The move is significant for BeReal, which rose in popularity in 2022 as young people sought a more authentic social media experience away from the increasingly performative Instagram or entertainment-focused TikTok. The company says it currently has 23m daily active users, but growth has decelerated over time. According to data estimates from Apptopia, monthly usage of the app peaked in August 2022 with 73.5m users and has since fallen to 25m by November 2023. Such figures pale in comparison to dominant apps like TikTok, which can boast of 900m global daily actives. BeReal’s move to promote celebrities and brands can therefore be seen as a strategic move to keep people engaged and, perhaps, begin to monetise the business. Source: BeReal BeReal has previously been backed by two rounds of investor funding totalling $90m, but amid higher interest rates it is plausible that the company is being pushed to beef up its business case and prove it can generate revenue. Eb Adeyeri, vice-president of paid social at Jellyfish, told The Media Leader in May that he wouldn’t be surprised if BeReal dived into influencer advertising and partnerships “down the line”. Speaking about the latest news, Adeyeri offered scepticism. “From an advertiser perspective, they don’t have the numbers still,” he told The Media Leader, adding that the new features are not particularly innovative compared with what other social media companies offer. Helen Clow, growth director at Brainlabs Influencer, agreed that BeReal’s relatively small audience size dampens her excitement, but noted that RealPeople and RealBrands provide “a clearer avenue to commercialise the platform and reach audiences” than what was on offer before.

Clow suggested the new features could lead to interesting opportunities for certain brands or celebrities, such as a clothing brand like Nike teaming up with an athlete to wear its gear for the weeks leading up to the Olympics, or a beauty influencer sharing makeup tips, or quirkier brand personalities like Duolingo leaning in to community-building possibilities.

But, she noted, because of the way BeReal works as a brief way to check in with friends, “the longevity of the content is limited and to use it elsewhere would be inauthentic to the purpose of the platform”.

How ‘real’ can brands and celebrities be?

Inviting celebrities, influencers and brands on to the platform is anathema to users who go to BeReal for quick, honest snapshots of their friends. Yet, as Adeyeri said, BeReal’s real audience is now marketers and brands, given the company needs to drive revenue. To that end, it makes sense for BeReal to pivot its focus, even if doing so undermines its unique selling point. “The honest blunt truth is that the average person sharing their authentic self isn’t that interesting to other people,” said Adeyeri. Attracting big-name influencers could offer a boost to business and user engagement. BeReal appears to be aware that its positive brand association could be affected by welcoming more commercial interests. The company wrote in a blog post: “We know what you’re thinking… ‘How does something like this fit in with BeReal’s mission?’ “We believe that by showing that notable people and brands are actually people just like us — equally boring and interesting at different times — we help reset and improve some of the negativity that has come from modern social platforms. “People want to see more of the faces behind the filters, the people behind the brands and the chaotic moments that make life so human. Official account holders will have to post on time, just like everyone else… no filters… just spur of the moment authentic BeReal.” https://the-media-leader.com/bereal-says-it-doesnt-want-ads-but-should-it/ The post insisted that welcoming celebrities and brands will not change its focus and that BeReal “will always be about friends and close connections first”. Still, after years of similar messages from other social media companies that then took steps to harm the user experience in favour of appealing to advertiser interests, it would be hard to blame users for being wary. Because even if brands and celebrities go about posting in ostensibly “authentic” ways, there is still a sheen of fakery inherent in performing a message to a crowd.

Channel 5 has grown its combined share of its linear channels — 5Star, 5USA, 5Select and 5Action — by 5% in 2023, according to Barb figures. This represented its fifth year of share growth. In particular, All Creatures Great and Small attracted the channel’s largest audience of the year, with an average of 3.7m viewers and a 19% share. Channel 5’s main channel was the only commercial public service broadcaster (PSB) to increase its audience share in peak time (7-11pm) year on year and also grew its share of ABC1 viewers in peak time by 4%. Meanwhile, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 each experienced declines in total share of linear channels of 2-4%. Channel 5’s on-demand service, My5, broke its record for viewing hours and watch time per user for the fourth year in a row. This was attributed to new and returning drama, as well as factual and documentary commissions.

Analysis: Bucking the trend

Evidently, there is still an important place for linear on advertisers’ media plans and for consumers. The audience growth for Channel 5’s portfolio slightly bucks the trend as other broadcasters have experienced small declines in share. Ian Daly, head of AV investment at the7stars, told The Media Leader that he wasn’t surprised by the figures, given Channel 5’s recent “trajectory”. He added: “The channel has an excellent understanding of its audience as well as its competitors. It knows when to champion original vs licensed programming and when to deploy effective counter-scheduling (the Queen’s funeral is an extreme example). It manages to strike a balance between nimble UK broadcaster (C5) and global powerhouse (Paramount), in my view.” In addition, all of the UK’s broadcasters are making significant investments in their digital platforms, from ITVX to the rebranded digital-first Channel 4 (as opposed to 4OD). There are also strategic partnerships between Channel 4 and the likes of YouTube, tapping into audiences on social media. Editor-in-chief Omar Oakes predicts this will be the year of linear and suggested banning the word “digital” in the context of media, emphasising that trust and quality will become more important. No matter the platform, regulated PSBs are in prime position to reach an audience in need of expertise and creativity in 2024. https://the-media-leader.com/get-in-line-why-2024-will-be-the-year-of-linear/

Amazon Prime Video with ads will land in the UK next month. What does this mean for advertisers and how will it compare with other streaming platforms? In an email to Prime members last week, Amazon announced there would be ads against Prime Video films and TV shows from 5 February in the UK, adding it aimed to have “meaningfully fewer ads” than ad-supported TV channels and other streaming providers. Users can either keep their current membership, meaning there will now be ads, or choose an ad-free option for an additional £2.99 a month — although live events such as sports and content offered through Amazon Freevee will continue to include advertising. Current subscription fee for Prime in the UK sits at £8.99 a month (including other perks such as one-day delivery) or Prime Video on its own costs £5.99 a month. The move to launch an ad tier came in September 2023 when Amazon said it would be rolling out “limited advertisements” in early 2024 to “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time”.

Analysis: A key consideration for AV plans

Defaulting current subscribers to an ad-funded tier and offering a more expensive ad-free level, as opposed to introducing a cheaper ad-funded tier, has been hailed as a clever strategy by analysts and marketers. Max Noss, investment director at MNC, told The Media Leader: “At first glance, an automatically enrolled ‘standard’ ad-supported tier is much more appealing than existing options in the streaming/SVOD [subscription video-on-demand] market. The immediate reach advantage over ‘lower-cost’ ad tiers from Netflix and Disney+ will of course make it a key consideration for most AV plans.” He maintained that Prime’s ad tier success will depend on the details, explaining: “Given the prohibitive nature of high CPMs, limited targeting and low subscriber growth presented by rival streamers, Amazon have a great opportunity to make their advertising offering much more accessible.” Noss noted Amazon’s two years’ experience in managing free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel Freevee would “strengthen the proposition” on Prime Video as the company “should have resolved any major issues with the platform”. The UK market would “eagerly anticipate” adtech developments from Amazon, “hopefully mirroring” those launched for the first Black Friday NFL match shown by Amazon in the US, such as audience-based creatives and QR codes, Noss added. Meanwhile, streaming media analyst Dan Rayburn highlighted that there was “a lot” that is unknown about Prime Video, notably: how many subscribers Prime Video has, what percentage of Prime customers use the video service, the average length of time users spend each month watching content, the volume of ads Amazon plans to place, the ad formats it will use and what type of targeting it will employ. Nonetheless, there are some known quantities. Rayburn explained: “What we do know is that consumers will watch ads. We see it with Hulu, Max and other streaming services. Netflix said in countries where they have rolled out their AVOD [advertising video-on-demand] option, more than 25% of new users are selecting it. Hulu has said in the past that more than 75% of all their subscribers take the ad tier. “It’s smart of Amazon to insert ads as they will make more money. It’s that simple. Content creation and acquisition costs are so high that streamers need to monetise the content as best they can and advertising revenue goes a long way in helping them do that. Over time, Amazon will make billions per year on the advertising within Prime video content, but it is too early for anyone to speculate exactly how much revenue.” One streaming platform that has yet to carry an advertising tier is Apple TV+. When asked if it would be encouraged to follow the lead of Netflix, Disney and now Prime, Rayburn said: “Apple doesn’t make decisions on their video business based on what Amazon, Netflix or anyone else is doing. So one doesn’t impact the other and their video businesses overall are very different.”

What does the competition think?

Arguably, Amazon does not need to introduce ads to Prime Video given in its Q3 2023 earnings: it reported a 25% year-on-year increase in advertising services sales to $12.06bn. However, Bank of America analysis cited by Bloomberg forecast that Amazon could make a potential $5bn in ad revenue from an ad-supported Prime Video. At the Future of TV Advertising Global in December 2023, Netflix and Disney’s heads of advertising spoke about their ad offerings in an increasingly crowded streaming market. When asked about how he saw Netflix compared with newer players such as Prime and Paramount+, Peter Naylor, Netflix’s vice-president of advertising, told delegates: “It’s great to have worthy competitors. “I think we keep everything going in the right direction, especially when it comes to the viewer experience. I like our position because we’ve created so much of the streaming paradigm that so many people look at and, frankly, try to emulate.” Content was king for Netflix as Naylor predicted the streamer would “continue to win” on that front. Naylor concluded: “We have so much content movies, original IP. We create content in 50 countries around the world where we’re making more content in local markets than ever before. We’ve got the content, we will have the audience and, with that, we’ll have the opportunity. So I feel like we’re in a really wonderful position to compete.” https://the-media-leader.com/netflix-pledges-to-set-a-new-standard-for-year-two-of-advertising/ Meanwhile, Rita Ferro, global vice-president of advertising at Disney, said there was “an energy” in agencies that has never existed before because there are so many new platforms. She commented that “everyone is shaking the can for two cents” and, as a result, there would be consolidation “pretty aggressively” over the next 12-24 months because there is “no way” all of the streaming players could continue to exist without multiple revenue streams. Ferro also made the distinction between launching a FAST option and AVOD service. “There’s a lot of companies trying to get into the streaming game and they’re not in the AVOD business, they’re in the FAST business. And the FAST business is interesting, but it’s not a registered environment, so you don’t have data targeting the same way,” she said. “Long term, I’m not sure what that looks like. Ultimately from a solution, what you want is full funnel. You want to have the branding opportunity. You want to have the consideration and the conversion and the ability to do that.” Ferro stressed that launching an ad tier was complicated and “a slow ramp at the beginning”, because there are so many things including the product, workflow and sign-up processes “to get right”. “I wish you just had to press a button [to launch an ad tier] and it happens, but it doesn’t. We just launched biddable on Disney+ in the US a year into the business and that’s because it takes a while,” she explained. “You can’t sell biddable if you don’t have enough scale in order to do that. Yes, we had programmatic guaranteed, but we would like to get in there and do biddable. It wasn’t really a business that could thoughtfully launch until now.” These are some of the considerations that Amazon would be looking at with the Prime Video ad tier launch in February, alongside its reputation for adtech and first-party and retail data. https://the-media-leader.com/disney-global-ads-president-expect-streaming-consolidation/

It’s been a big week for Google as it began its long-awaited deprecation of cookies for 1% of Chrome users. Not only that, but the tech giant has announced it will overhaul its 30,000 strong ad sales team as it explores progress in artificial intelligence, automation and machine learning. On the deprecation front, the new Tracking Protection feature will affect around 30 million randomly selected users around the world who will be presented with an option to “browse with more privacy” on Chrome. A Google spokesperson told The Media Leader that this 1% deprecation was “enabling scaled testing in real-world conditions” and that “any results will be up to those who undertake testing”, so there would be no comment on potential timelines for the test or results.

Analysis: New solution required

Digital advertising industry leaders seem split between hailing this step as a pivotal moment in a move towards privacy or a solution that will not benefit the wider ecosystem as much as it could. Tim Elkington, chief digital officer at IAB UK, said of the latest move: “Google’s deprecation of third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users globally should be a wake-up call for anyone that has put off taking action. This is a taster of what’s to come later in 2024 and preparation is vital. Research alternative strategies for targeting and measuring your digital campaigns, start testing what works and feed back to vendors.” He added that “doing nothing isn’t an option” and the fact that Google has got the process under way “should galvanise the industry”. Even if time is short, Elkington said it was “not too late” to get businesses ready. Meanwhile, Phil Duffield, vice-president, UK, at The Trade Desk, told The Media Leader: “Third-party cookies are finally on their way out, but Google’s new alternative, the Chrome Privacy Sandbox, likely won’t help anyone other than Google navigate the new state of play. “The average consumer engages with ads across four to six devices everyday, so we need a solution that allows publishers and advertisers to deliver a cohesive and engaging advertising experience across these different devices and channels — not just on Google Chrome.” Duffield urged the marketing industry to build alternative solutions to “protect the future of digital advertising” and for advertisers to proactively test and innovate now, rather than respond to gradual changes from Google. “Making the most of the patchwork of identifiers that are optimised for the open internet as a whole, along with the powerful insights of their first-party data, offers advertisers the best chance to optimise their digital campaigns whilst also putting the user’s experience front and centre,” Duffield explained.

A critical starting point

From a European regulator’s ruling on consent pop-ups to IAB Europe being fined for GDPR breaches to Google’s Privacy Sandbox experiments and full cookie deprecation delays — the issue of cookies and consent has been a hot topic in recent years. At the same time, media owners have increasingly talked about their own first-party data efforts. Google’s latest move, even though it affects just 1% of users, will impact targeting, measurement and attribution in Chrome and these test results will be watched closely by the digital advertising industry. This 1% step is a critical starting point and, depending on how this test goes, Google’s aim is for full deprecation by the end of the year. However, there are still a lot of unknowns and this test would still need UK Competition & Markets Authority approval before a broader roll-out. Over that time, as tests on more users continue, more details will come to light in terms of changing consumer behaviour as well as media owner and adtech preparedness, potentially shifting auction dynamics in programmatic advertising and changing advertiser benchmarks.

Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount Global are in early talks about a potential merger. But why? An Axios report on 20 December 2023 revealed that Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) chief executive David Zaslav and Paramount chief executive Bob Bakish had met at Paramount’s New York headquarters to discuss a merger and Zaslav has also spoken to Shari Redstone, who owns Paramount’s parent company, National Amusements. Share prices in WBD and Paramount dropped as the news broke, with Wall Street and TV analysts citing concerns such as competition and both companies’ high debt burden. Any merger would “not be of equals” given WBD’s valuation of $29bn and Paramount’s at just over $10bn. So what would be the benefits of merging?

Intellectual property

WBD and Paramount both have a huge library of intellectual property in television and film. Not only that, but there are news and sports offerings to consider. CBS News could potentially be combined with CNN to create a more global news outlet, while CBS Sports’ footprint could be combined with that of WBD.

Distribution and audience

In the Axios report, it said WBD could use its international distribution to “boost” Paramount’s franchises and Paramount’s children programmes could be “essential” to WBD’s long-term streaming ambitions. However, some analysts were concerned about potential “cannibalisation” of audiences if the two players were to merge.

Streaming wars heating up

Both companies have streaming services. If Max and Paramount+ merged, it could better rival Netflix or Disney+. Furthermore, Amazon is entering the advertising-funded video-on-demand (AVOD) space this year, automatically opting in its 200 million Prime users globally to its new ad tier. Rita Ferro, president of global advertising at Disney, told delegates at the Future of TV Advertising Global 2023 to expect consolidation of streaming services “pretty aggressively” in the next 12-24 months. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PjuwQL8jio

Deleveraging

Both companies have significant debt; WBD has around $43bn and Paramount in the region of $16bn. Needham senior entertainment and internet analyst Laura Martin told Bloomberg Technology that both companies could “deleverage”, meaning reducing debts by selling “much faster together” than either could do alone. “We think these two companies are worth more than the sum of their parts,” she said.

Who else could buy Paramount?

Another factor to consider is regulation and scale. Martin explained that, due to competition concerns, Amazon and Apple would not be allowed to buy Paramount, while Disney and Comcast would not be permitted either since they both own a broadcaster (ABC and NBC respectively). “The number of people that are big enough and could buy Paramount including CBS are limited to Warner Bros,” Martin explained. “It’s sort of the only bidder.”

The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft. Last week, the publisher filed a lawsuit against the respective ChatGPT creator and investor, alleging the companies of copyright infringement for “copying and using” millions of NYT articles for their generative AI products. The lawsuit does not specify the amount in damages NYT claims it is entitled to, but estimated it to be “billions of dollars”. The company is also calling for the destruction of any chatbot models and training data that uses its material. It is the first time a major US publisher has sued the companies over copyright infringement. Individual authors and artists, like George RR Martin, Jonathan Franzen and Sarah Silverman, have previously sued the likes of OpenAI on similar grounds. NYT had previously sought an “amicable resolution” to its concerns with OpenAI and Microsoft, including a potential commercial agreement, but conversations stalled. A spokesperson for OpenAI publicly commented that it is “hopeful that we will find a mutually beneficial way to work together, as we are doing with many other publishers”.

Analysis: A cold war gets hot

It was only a matter of time before a major publisher took the leap to sue OpenAI. Apart from its alleged illegality, generative AI chatbots risk putting publishers out of business. Assuming the technology becomes more trustworthy and increasingly popular, audiences may regularly turn to chatbots to receive news in the near future, threatening to reduce publishers’ traffic and, in turn, advertising and subscription revenue – despite the publishers creating the content. Richard Reeves, managing director at the Association of Online Publishers, has previously raised such concerns to The Media Leader, arguing that publishers risk feeding their direct competition by allowing AI companies access to intellectual property (IP). https://the-media-leader.com/why-2023-showed-video-is-the-next-most-important-thing-in-publishing/ Such disquiet has not stopped publishers including The Associated Press and Axel Springer (which owns Politico, Insider and Bild) from cutting deals with AI companies, granting them access to news articles on which to train their algorithms for undisclosed sums. On the other hand, outlets such as NYT, CNN, Bloomberg and The Guardian have all taken steps to block ChatGPT’s web crawler from accessing their IP. Now, NYT is ratcheting up the pressure. But with companies like Apple reportedly also pursuing similar deals with publishers, with some worth in excess of $50m, many will find such offers too tempting to pass up – especially given ongoing challenges facing the digital and print news markets and the apparent inevitability of AI’s development for news use. Still, if news becomes even more commoditised through AI, publishers will need to develop new selling propositions, such as through pushing opinion pieces, analyses and features. NYT itself may be using the lawsuit as something of a bargaining chip in its own ongoing discussions with OpenAI and Microsoft, and could drop charges if the parties ultimately agree on more favourable terms for the publisher in exchange for allowing AI bots legal access to its material. https://the-media-leader.com/why-peter-field-sees-a-relentless-attempt-to-take-tv-down/  

Spotify founder Daniel Ek has announced job cuts equating to 17% of the audio company’s workforce. At the end of Q3, Spotify reported its headcount was 9,241 full-time employees globally, which would mean these cuts would affect around 1,571 staff. Despite a reporting positive earnings results earlier this year, Spotify’s founder and CEO warned the company’s cost base is “still too big” and needs to be cut substantially now rather than in stages over the next two years.

Spotify now in ‘a very different environment’

Ek said in a statement : “I realize that for many, a reduction of this size will feel surprisingly large given the recent positive earnings report and our performance. We debated making smaller reductions throughout 2024 and 2025. “Yet, considering the gap between our financial goal state and our current operational costs, I decided that a substantial action to rightsize our costs was the best option to accomplish our objectives. While I am convinced this is the right action for our company, I also understand it will be incredibly painful for our team.” In its latest Q3 2023 earnings, Spotify surpassed all of its key performance indicator guidance included monthly active users, revenue, gross margin, operating income and free cash flow. Ek cited factors including dramatically slowed economic growth making capital more expensive, and that in 2022 and 2023 much of the company’s output was linked to having more resources, so it had become more productive but less efficient, when it “needed to be both”. He explained: “To understand this decision, I think it is important to assess Spotify with a clear, objective lens. In 2020 and 2021, we took advantage of the opportunity presented by lower-cost capital and invested significantly in team expansion, content enhancement, marketing, and new verticals. These investments generally worked, contributing to Spotify’s increased output and the platform’s robust growth this past year. “However, we now find ourselves in a very different environment. And despite our efforts to reduce costs this past year, our cost structure for where we need to be is still too big.” https://the-media-leader.com/earnings-spotlight-spotify-ipg-and-netflix/

‘Year of efficiency’ has a ‘painful’ ending

This is the company’s third reorganisation this year. On 23 January 2023 it announced a 6% reduction of its employee base in an effort to “streamline our organizational structure and reduce our operating costs”. In the three months to 30 June 2023, it carried out “a strategic realignment” to focus on its podcast operations and “rationalize” its content portfolio. In its latest financial release, Spotify reported that in the nine months to 30 September, 2023, it recognised charges of €69m made up of employee severance of €60m and contract terminations and other related costs of €9m linked to these two reorganisations. In the last six months, Spotify has launched an ad analytics platform for podcasts and music on its platform, a programme for small and medium sized businesses to learn about digital audio advertising, an audiobook offering in for Premium users in the UK and Australia. Spotify was contacted for comment but did not respond in time for publication. https://the-media-leader.com/spotify-beats-user-growth-expectations-but-hikes-prices/

TikTok is bringing its ‘Pulse Premiere’ contextual advertising solution to the UK, France and Germany. The solution, which launched in the US market in May, allows brands “control and predictability” to place their ads directly after content shared by premium publishers shown in TikTok’s For You feed. It builds on an earlier ad solution, TikTok Pulse (released May 2022), which let advertisers place their brand next to the top content in the For You Feed. In the UK, Sky Media’s Sky Sports has been named the first approved publisher. Additional inaugural European partners include Brut, BuzzFeed, Condé Nast, DAZN, Hearst Magazines, and Reworld Media. Kris Boger, TikTok’s UK general manager for global business solutions, said, “With Pulse Premiere, advertisers will now have even greater control and the opportunity to tap into the cultural moments – be it sport or entertainment – that’s most relevant to their audience, supercharging their brand exposure.”

Analysis: More control is never a bad thing

Advertisers have in recent weeks struggled with their ad placements on social media apps. TikTok, X, and others have been accused of promoting hateful speech, which brands have in many cases had advertisements placed against. The resultant backlash has led to a number of advertisers pausing spend especially on Elon Musk-owned X, but analysis published this week in The Times suggested user-generated content on TikTok may be related to hate crimes amid a surge of anti-Israel videos posted on the platform. The release of TikTok’s Pulse Premiere solution in the UK and other European markets is thus timely. By offering advertisers more control over ad placements next to reputable outlets, TikTok is hoping to improve ad relevance and, ostensibly, brand safety. It also lends credence to the concept, researched by the likes of advertising effectiveness guru Peter Field, that placing ads against reputable and trustworthy sources of information is highly effective. Publishers are increasingly leaning into the value of trust in their brands. As The Guardian‘s James Fleetham said on a recent episode of The Media Leader Podcast, “If there’s less stuff you can trust out there, the places that you can trust become more important.”

Guardian Media Group and Sony Pictures Entertainment have agreed an exclusive first look agreement. The three-year deal will allow Sony to have first rights to developing materials from The Guardian‘s 200-year archive of articles, blogs, columns, videos and podcasts, as well as current and developing news stories, into films, TVs and documentaries. This will be through its TV and film production divisions including companies like Left Bank Pictures, Bad Wolf, Eleven, The Whisper Group, 3000 Pictures, Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, and Screen Gems. The Guardian will launch this Sony partnership with three option deals, meaning they have exclusive options to buy the rights in a writers’ work. The deal was brokered by agency group Curtis Brown and will be handled by an executive team appointed by the two companies.

Analysis: diversifying content and revenue?

What does this partnership mean for other companies in the business of making content? James Fleetham, The Guardian’s director of clients, marketing, and research, told The Media Leader the deal shows how journalism can be adapted to other content and publishers are needing to diversify their revenues. Some other examples of this include newsletters, podcasts and social which can reach new audiences. The publisher has been signing deals with the BBC, Netflix and Sky with “a slate of other projects” in development in the UK and US.

Elizabeth Gabler, president at 3000 Pictures, said: “The scope for this collaboration across feature film as well as television really speaks to the huge breadth of potential and reach of this deal. The Guardian has an esteemed history of great journalism, and with Colette and Black Sheep they have garnered huge acclaim for their documentary feature output. We are proud they want to work with Sony Pictures as they continue to move into this space, and we can’t wait to start developing projects with them.”

At the moment this deal is just for film, TV and documentaries, but Sony Music Entertainment has also been making moves into the audio space in the form of podcasts, recently acquiring How To Fail with Elizabeth Day which will be joining its network in January 2024.

Warner Bros Discovery and Disney’s latest earnings calls both emphasised cost-cutting measures and moving to streaming profitability in 2024. Disney CEO Bob Iger said the entertainment giant was on track to achieve $7.5bn in cost reductions, approximately $2bn more than targeted earlier this year, as it continues to “aggressively” manage its cost base. This, he said, had helped Disney “improve operating results” of its combined streaming businesses, namely ESPN+, Hulu and Disney+, by approximately $1.4bn from 2022 to 2023. Disney said it expected its combined streaming businesses will “reach profitability” in Q4 2024 but remarked “progress may not look linear from quarter to quarter”. Specifically, Kevin Lansberry, Disney’s interim chief financial officer, said the company expects “a modest sequential decline” next quarter but “upward momentum” later in the fiscal year driven by the full impact of price increases, the launch of the ad tier internationally and subscriber growth. Meanwhile, Warner Bros Discovery announced its free cash flow was a positive $2.1bn for the quarter compared to negative $200m last year, which was the first full quarter for the company following its merger. The company also announced it had repaid $2.4bn in debt during Q3, leaving $45.3bn of gross debt. This is compared to $53bn in August 2022. Gunnar Wiedenfels, chief financial officer at Warner Bros Discovery, said the company’s plan is to continue to reduce debt as it generates cash in order to reduce net leverage — calculated by dividing net debt by the sum of the most recent four quarters of adjusted Ebitda (its measure of profit) — to “comfortably below 4.0x at year end as previously guided.” He added: “I am proud that WBD will exit this year with a fundamentally improved financial profile as compared to the beginning of this year regarding command and control, cost structure, profitability and cash flow generation and the balance sheet.” https://the-media-leader.com/how-much-money-have-streaming-services-lost/ On direct-to-consumer streaming, Wiedenfels said its team had done “a remarkable job improving the quality and financial profile” of its streaming business. He explained: “Only 19 months into the combined operation as Warner Bros Discovery and a few months after the launch of Max, we are now on track to at least break even or even profitable across the D2C segment to swing up approximately $2bn versus last year and very well ahead of our own plan. This is an incredibly valuable asset and provides a strong vantage point for our path to long-term sustainable growth.” The company did, however, experience a loss of 700,000 subscribers to its direct-to-consumer offerings, which include the recently rebranded Max.

Analysis: distinct strategies for more sustainable growth

Both companies had revenues and costs affected by the long-term writers’ and actors strikes, and on top of this both earnings called out an uncertain ad market and declining linear market. However, both companies have slightly different strategies going forward as to how to secure stable and sustainable growth for their company portfolios, and streaming services. For Disney, which attracted 7 million subscribers in the quarter to Disney+, half of which in the US were for the new ad tier, cost-cutting through “important restructuring and cost efficiency work” over the last year has allowed it to “move beyond fixing” and begin building again, its CEO Iger said. Going forward, four “key building opportunities” that will be “central” to Disney’s success, according to its leadership, are: significant and sustained profitability in its streaming businesses, building ESPN into “the preeminent digital sports platform”, improving output and economics of film studios and “turbocharging growth” in parks and experience businesses. Disney also mentioned the importance of “big title” or “pay window” films to compete with Netflix, which Iger called “the gold standard” on the call. Films like Elemental, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Little Mermaid were recent examples. Iger said: “[B]y leaning more into some of those films and while we improve the quality of them, gives us the ability to dial back a bit on some of the spending and investment in series. And that blend of spending between films and series, we believe, gives an opportunity to increase our margins and grow the business.” https://the-media-leader.com/netflix-is-now-two-companies-rolled-into-one/ On the other hand, for Warner Bros. Discovery, “maintaining cost discipline” was more of a prominent priority. While Wiedenfels wants to reduce net leverage “comfortably below 4.0x at year end,” TMT analyst and investor Alex DeGroote previously advised The Media Leader that “the ratio should not be more than 3x,” meaning Warner Bros Discovery still has a long ways to go to improve its debt situation. Wiedenfels said that by the end of 2023 it will have realised $4bn in “cost synergies” and will have already implemented initiatives to deliver more than $5bn through 2024 and beyond. On top of this cost-cutting, the priorities were strong cash generation, significantly reduced leverage, its games business, turning the streaming businesses profitable, and driving franchise returns. The company also sees increased opportunity through its gaming segment. President and CEO David Zaslav called gaming “a critical differentiator and a real growth opportunity”. Zaslav said he would focus on adapting current game development strategies away from the standard three-to-four-year development cycle for console and PC releases and toward always-on experiences with live services and free-to-play extensions that can be monetised through microtransactions.

Analysis

A surge in Amazon’s advertising business has confirmed one of media’s most important trends right now: retail and commerce media are growing in importance for advertisers. The company’s advertising revenues across sponsored ads, display, and video advertising grew 26% year-on-year to $12bn. Meanwhile, Amazon’s total revenues increased 13% year-on-year to $143.1bn. Its high-margin Amazon Web Services division saw 12% revenue growth to $23.1bn.

‘Expect to see more convergence’

It’s also notable how large advertisers are trying to offer more value. Agencies are intensely focused on providing new products for advertisers that address the burgeoning retail market, including with the likes of Amazon Ads. At The Media Leader’s invite-only The Year Ahead conference in January, GroupM revealed how commerce was set to be one of the media’s fastest growing sectors in 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoAKndhNY0Y Fast forward to this week, and the WPP media-buying division has released a new tool, the ‘Amazon Ads Excellence Monitor,’ to better help clients assess the quality of their ad executions across Amazon. Amazon has partnered with GroupM to develop the tool through the incorporation of additional data. Samantha Bukowski, GroupM’s global head of commerce, told The Media Leader: “Commerce, retail, retail media, retail operations — it’s such a huge focus point for us right now.” However, Amazon is more than a retail media behemoth and now offers ad inventory across Prime Video, Audible, and Amazon Music. Unfortunately Amazon does not split out its advertising revenue into different sub-sections, so it is not transparent what precisely is driving the bulk of the revenue growth.

Where’s the ad growth coming from?

In the company’s earnings call, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky commented that growth was “primarily driven by sponsored products as we lean into machine learning to improve the relevancy of the ads we show our customers and enhance our measurement capabilities on behalf of advertisers.” CEO Andy Jassy added a bit more context: “[M]ost advertising-heavy companies have struggled growth-wise as the economy has been difficult. And while we see companies being more cautious on the ad side and the top-of-funnel products, things like display and a little bit of video, we’re still seeing a lot of strength in the lower-funnel ad products like sponsored products.” The company is further poised to improve its ad offering across its services. “I think that we have barely scraped the surface with respect to figuring out how to intelligently integrate advertising into video, into audio and into grocery,” said Jassy. For one, Amazon is introducing ads into its Prime Video service by default. In a September statement, the company said that Prime Video shows and movies will include “limited advertisements” in the UK, which it specified as “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming providers.” An ad-free version will also be available at a thus far undisclosed price point. https://the-media-leader.com/why-ads-on-amazon-prime-video-are-a-game-changer/ The company has also recently launched a generative AI image generation tool that allows brands to upload a product photo and a description, and then allow the AI to develop “unique lifestyle images” featuring the product. “You can expect to see more convergence in this space,” Bukowski told The Media Leader. “Thinking about Amazon Ads, they’re in CTV, they’re in social, they’re in audio. It’s not like retail media sits over here and its this little niche speciality and the rest of digital and performance marketing sits over there. We’re really living at the intersection of all those things.” She adds: “We just want to make sure we don’t lose the depth of specialist knowledge that has to exist when working with platforms like Amazon, or anyone that has a retail component of their business.”

Threads, Instagram’s microblogging app, now has “just under” 100 million monthly active users (MAUs), Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced during the company’s third-quarter earnings call yesterday. “I’ve thought for a long time there should be a billion-person public conversations app that is a bit more positive,” said Zuckerberg. “I think that if we keep at this for a few more years, then I think we have a good chance of achieving our vision there.” Meta’s overall earnings were positive in a continued reversal of last year’s relative financial woes. The company reduced its costs 7% year-over-year thanks in part to significant layoffs made throughout 2023, and boosted revenues 23%.

Analysis: a two-platform race

In July, X owner Elon Musk declared users of his platform reached a “new high,” exceeding 540 million MAUs. Musk has a poor track record with accurate news, but even if we take him at his word, Meta has already built a userbase that is nearly one-fifth (18%) as large as X’s within just three months. The race to compete against what was Twitter is effectively over. Whereas Meta is approaching 100 million monthly actives, Mastodon (1.8 million) and the still invite-only Bluesky (1.1 million) pale in comparison. Keep in mind, Threads is still lacking some core features such as a better desktop experience and a direct-messaging option, and is yet unavailable in Europe. So there’s a lot of room for continued user growth. Meanwhile, MAUs are a relatively poor measure of success for social platforms, especially from an advertising perspective. While it encompasses total scale of reach, accessing a site monthly is a low bar for interaction with any form of media, and other metrics should be considered. Analysts have previously noted Threads’ sluggish user retention, reflected in reported daily active user (DAU) figures, following a boom in sign-ups upon release. DAUs dropped from a peak of 44 million to under 8 million in August. For comparison, though X CEO Linda Yaccarino claimed the platform has around 225 million DAUs, estimates from the likes of Apptopia suggest the figure is closer to 121 million; either number would amount to a significant decline in audience from the 254 million DAUs Twitter had before Musk bought the company last year. Following extreme amounts of disinformation and misinformation reported on X amid the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, a number of high-profile journalists and celebrities have joined and more regularly posted on Threads in recent weeks, which could provide a boost to daily and monthly actives by drawing in users seeking to use the app to keep up to date with breaking news.

‘There won’t be a party unless it’s cool’

Zuckerberg appears to see no reason to ease off the pedal of user accumulation by introducing advertising to Threads before it hits a critical mass of users. “We’re now getting to the point where we’re going to be focusing on growing the community further,” Zuckerberg said in Meta’s Q3 earnings call. Referring to Threads as “a compelling long-term opportunity,” it is not yet clear when he will look to push to monetise the platform with advertising. Recall Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue from David Fincher’s The Social Network: “There won’t be a party unless it’s cool.” Zuckerberg appears to be following the tried-and-true tactic of amassing user growth before cashing in with advertisers. This has been derided as an anti-consumer business tactic (famously coined as “enshittification” by Wired‘s Cory Doctorow), but it’s a likely business strategy for Threads. Per Sorkin’s dialogue, it’s unwise to “end the party at 11pm,” by formally introducing ads too early, even though they’re likely to come at some point. Brands have been toying around with posting on the platform, and Meta has tested placing Threads posts on its other apps like Facebook and Instagram. That has meant content on Threads has already been placed next to ads and promoted posts elsewhere. Still, it isn’t clear whether advertisers will see it as a must-buy opportunity once Meta inevitably opens its doors to formal advertising. To sign up for Threads, users must have an Instagram account, so advertising on the microblogger would effectively be double-dipping on an audience that can already be obtained on Instagram, which is likely to have superior inventory options due to the rising popularity of video posts. The likes of Twitter were never a major part of advertisers’ digital budgets, but by developing Threads into a successful competitor, Meta is effectively becoming an all-in-one social media provider: it owns traditional social media with a strong offer for small- and medium-sized businesses (Facebook), a photo-sharing monolith (Instagram), a popular short-form platform to compete with TikTok and YouTube (Reels), the largest global messaging services (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger), and now a popular alternative microblogging platform (Threads).

Netflix is moving into retail. The streaming giant is planning to launch a number of brick and mortar stores — dubbed ‘Netflix Houses’ — in 2025, beginning in the US market before expanding globally. The retail spaces are set to offer in-person experiences featuring Netflix’s most popular IP, as well as a place to sell merchandise and food.

Analysis: affirmation of the value of physicality

Netflix’s foray into retail comes after spending the better part of the past two years testing experiential productions and pop-up stores in the US and UK. The company has leant into the post-pandemic demand for in-person experiences, and by offering new stores, they can do so while also generating additional revenue off the back of its most popular intellectual property, such as Stranger Things and Squid Game. It is something of a page out of Disney’s playbook. Disney’s parks are a core and stable part of its business, and Netflix doubtlessly wants to recreate a miniature part of that magic, tapping into the flywheel effect that keeps the mouse chugging along. Netflix’s most popular IP can thus not only drive subscriptions, but also paid-for live experiences, merchandise sales, and food and drink sales through a retail experience. Whether Netflix is seeking to purchase their own properties or pay a lease is an open question at this point, but depending on where the company aims to set up shop, there could be an opportunity to create additional value by expanding the company’s real estate footprint. Many retail spaces, such as shopping centres, are still yet to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, and Netflix may be able to buy low on some properties. Still, it’s a risk for a company that makes most of its revenue online. Similar projects by the likes of Amazon have yet to pan out, though other Big Tech players like Apple use their storefronts as a marketing tool as well as a customer touchpoint.

In its third-quarter trading update, Reach, the UK’s largest publisher, has announced a continued year-on-year decline in total revenue of 7.8%. The drop was led by a 13.7% year-on-year decline in digital revenue. Total print revenue also fell 5.8% year-on-year, led by an 8.9% decline in print ad revenue. Reach announced its full-year profit expectations were, however, unchanged from earlier in the year. “The factors affecting Q3 digital revenue are unchanged from those outlined in our half year results,” the trading update said. “These include depressed open market yields and the well-publicised declining digital referral volumes, in particular from Facebook’s de-prioritisation of news.” Over the nine-month period from the beginning of the year, Reach’s page views have now fallen 21% compared to the year prior. However, Reach CEO Jim Mullen expressed confidence that the publisher’s “data driven strategy is working” and that the company has made progress on diversifying its audience. This year, a number of Reach titles, including the Express and Mirror, launched US editions to appeal to audiences across the pond. “Through this challenging period we have remained focused on the controllables,” reiterated Mullen, adding that Reach will “continue to review our cost base so that we can accelerate our digital transformation.” Shares of Reach rose over 3% today following the report.

Analysis: Anti-social behaviour

Reach has laid much of this year’s business struggles at the foot of Meta, which has decided to “deprecate” news on its platforms Facebook and Instagram in the UK, Canada, and Australia this year. In Reach’s half-year financial update, the company said that page views would only have been expected to decline 2% if Facebook had not changed its algorithm to de-prioritise news. Mullen, who also chairs news media trade body the News Media Association (NMA), has strongly criticised Meta for the decision, arguing that the social media giant is “choking trusted news” by harming publishers’ ability to attract and monetise traffic. “With Ofcom reporting Facebook as the third most prevalent source of news for UK consumers, this decision is both financially damaging and deeply concerning for democracy and society,” Mullen and NMA CEO Owen Meredith wrote to former Deputy Prime Minister and Meta president for global affairs Sir Nick Clegg last month. “If genuine editorially controlled news is not available on the platforms where users are looking for it, society suffers.” X (née Twitter) has also taken steps in recent months to drop support for publishers. Most recently, the site stripped news headlines from story links to “improve the esthetics [sic],” according to owner Elon Musk. Social media sites’ changes have had a significant negative effect on all publishers relying on digital advertising revenue. As such, many have taken to brand-building practices to regularly lure readers to homepages. Other revenue models, such as micropayments, are also being explored by some, especially smaller publishers. https://the-media-leader.com/british-invasion-why-2023-is-the-right-time-for-reachs-us-launch/

Total UK box office for the month of September exceeded £65m, a 13% increase compared to last September, according to the latest figures from Comscore. Year-to-date, 2023 is currently running 10% ahead of the same period in 2022. The top performer in September was Sony Pictures’ The Equalizer 3, which debuted at the start of the month and earned just over £8m. It was followed by Poirot mystery A Haunting in Venice (£7.3m) and horror film The Nun 2 (£6m). Barbie and Oppenheimer meanwhile continued their big, multi-month run through September. The two films still ranked in the top five (four and five, respectively) for box office last month despite their debuts in July. Barbie has now grossed £95.4m in the UK and Ireland alone as the top box office title of the year. Oppenheimer is second with £58.3m total UK&I gross.

Analysis: a ‘Barbenheimer’ knock-on effect?

2023 was looking rather dire for cinema this year until July, with box office totals running -9% compared to the prior year. That is, until Barbie and Oppenheimer drove audiences back to the cinema in droves. The success of the two blockbuster films over the summer has seemed to have something of a knock-on effect through the normally sleepy month of September. Not only are audiences still turning out for the pair of films, but they are also going to the theatre for action (The Equalizer 3) and mystery (A Haunting in Venice). Cinemagoing was also likely boosted by the return of National Cinema Day, which occurred in September again after a popular debut in 2022. For lovers of new IP, however, 2023 has thus far been something of a disappointment. Of the top 10 box office titles so far this year, Oppenheimer is the only wholly original project (though it was still based on a biography). Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie were both created from existing IP, while the rest of the top 10 are either sequels or remakes. Looking ahead to the rest of October, however, sees the return of Martin Scorsese to the big screen with Killers of the Flower Moon. Concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and video game horror adaptation Five Nights at Freddy’s are also poised to net big returns when they debut later this month, offering audiences of all tastes something to go out and see as the weather turns this autumn.

Jimmy Wales is testing a new microblogging platform that would rival X, which is “unravelling” according to the Wikipedia co-founder. The site can be accessed at trustcafe.io. Wales referred to it as a “small pilot project” during an interview on LBC’s Tonight with Andrew Marr. “The idea is to replace social networks that really feed on attention, and likes and shares and all that and instead, the votes of trustworthiness based by trustworthy members of our community,” said Wales, noting the site is “completely independent” from Wikipedia. “What’s happened with Twitter/X is a shame because, as you know as a journalist, it’s been a real part of the public conversation for a long time,” he continued. “And it seems to be becoming unravelled. I’m not sure what can replace it. I mean, I think something will replace it if [Musk] keeps it up.”

Analysis: Add it to the pile

Since Elon Musk decided to steer Twitter in the direction of self-immolation in the name of (his concept of) “free speech,” a slew of competitors have cropped up: Mastodon, Post, Substack, and Threads. Yet none have yet to cause Twitter, now called X, to really sweat. This is, in part, because major figures and news outlets are still yet to leave the platform. LBC being one of them — the global talk radio brand posted a clip of Marr and Wales’ discussion on the site. https://the-media-leader.com/was-twitter-good-for-journalism/ Trust Café looks a bit too early-noughties Internet and appears to be lacking in both users and features, not to mention the  name might be too close to Donald Trump’s Truth Social for some. It’s little surprise, then, that Wales wasn’t keen on discussing the project in too much detail. “We’re not really trying to publicise it; you’re the first journalist I’ve actually mentioned it to, but there we are,” he told Marr. “I hope my team doesn’t get mad at me.” Threads, which is still the most likely X challenger because it’s powered by the Meta/Instagram juggernaut, has seen user interest decline sharply since its early days in July. The platform has also come under scrutiny in recent days for its censoring of accurate Covid-related news and information as a side-effect of an overzealous effort to moderate the site from misinformation. X, meanwhile, appears to be getting desperate. Having lost over 60% of its ad revenue in the past year, Musk has taken to scapegoating the Anti-Defamation League and cosying up with antisemitic rhetoric. Meanwhile, the company, clearly unable to sell enough ads themselves, has reportedly taken to Google Ads Manager to try and scrape back lost revenue on the open programmatic web.

TikTok is taking steps to refine its search experience. Most recently, the company quietly partnered with Wikipedia on an integration to include Wikipedia search results into TikTok search results as a way to provide users with more relevant information directly in-app. Earlier this year, TikTok launched a similar feature in partnership with Amazon-owned IMDb to also include IMDb search results in TikTok search results. The partnership also includes a feature that allows users to link up to five movie and TV titles within videos that direct users to an in-app page that showcases other videos and data about the referenced movie or TV show. The moves come as the company last month added ads to its search, giving advertisers a new way to reach TikTok audiences using the platform for that purpose.

Analysis: Keeping users in-app and eating Google’s lunch

Young users have increasingly begun turning to the short-form video platform as a Google alternative, and so it’s no surprise TikTok has looked to take advantage by improving its search function. Google has previously admitted TikTok, as well as Instagram, poses a threat to their search dominance for young users. This comes as Google, like many other internet and social media companies, has been criticised in recent years for a declining user experience filled with too many ads and SEO-riddled results. Ironically, the increased competition from TikTok over search could be helpful to Google as it faces a major antitrust case in the US this fall. For TikTok, improving search is not just about selling additional ad inventory (though that’s a likely bonus); it also appears to be about keeping young users on the app rather than exiting to go elsewhere, such as when they have a query. By incorporating Wikipedia and IMDb into the app (two of the most popular sites for searches), users would be less likely, in some instances, to feel the need to open a web browser when they have a question. The focus on retaining in-app engagement appears to be partially behind the strategy to partner with such sites. Alongside recently reported news that the company is hiring more developers to work on improving private messaging features, TikTok is looking to situate itself, if not as an ‘everything app,’ certainly as a ‘as-many-things-as-possible app.’

Pandemic-era social media darling Clubhouse is “evolving”. The company, which culled half of its staff in April amid a major business strategy overhaul, is looking to reinvent itself as a “social messaging” app. The latest product update is centred around a new chat feature, which it is marketing as a love child between group texts and Instagram Stories. Users will be able to create group texts and DMs featuring exclusively voice messaging as the form of communication. Live chatrooms, Clubhouse’s original unique selling point (at least, before the feature was copied by other social media companies, such as with Twitter Spaces), will still be available. While the Clubhouse team is describing its new feature as making the app “more social than other messaging apps,” other popular apps do offer users the ability to send voice messages. However, Clubhouse says it is looking to offer features that provide “depth over reach” and popularise the messaging format in a group setting. https://the-media-leader.com/is-there-still-a-place-for-clubhouse/

Analysis: messaging key to retaining user engagement

Clubhouse’s big bet comes as a variety of bigger players in social media are turning their focus towards direct messaging as a key way to retain user engagement. Earlier this week, Axios reported short-form video platform TikTok is seeking to add more social networking and private messaging features as the company is concerned users are externally sharing TikTok videos elsewhere to discuss them with friends. TikTok does offer messaging in-app, but the experience is self-admittedly in “its infancy,” according to a job posting for TikTok’s messaging team. As social media has become dominated by professionalising creators, average users, while still engaging with content, have taken to sharing images and videos through direct messages and in group chats with friends and family rather than posting publicly as frequently. “Social media is dead. Group chats and messaging apps killed it,” reads a recent Business Insider headline, noting the trend away from using social media to actually socialise with friends. Wanting to retain in-app engagement, social media companies are therefore looking to improve their chat offerings; hence Clubhouse seeing a potential gap in the market, TikTok looking to improve its DMs, and X (formerly Twitter) seeking to become an “everything app.” X owner Elon Musk announced last month the app is developing video and voice calling features in a foray to expand its personal communications capacity. Meta, which owns popular messaging apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, has an advantage in this space, and has proven direct messaging can also be independently monetisable beyond simply keeping users within an app. WhatsApp, for example, generates revenue through businesses paying to communicate directly with users. Meta can also sell personal and behavioural user data it collects via its messaging apps. According to Business of Apps, WhatsApp generated $906m in annual revenue last year.

More than two-thirds of retail media buyers (70%) surveyed by IAB Europe cited a lack of retail media standardisation as “a key barrier” to further investment. That is according to IAB Europe’s Retail Media Standards survey of 110 respondents, split between retail media buyers (28%), sellers (24%) and enablers (39%) across European markets. Other common reasons cited for perceived inefficiencies in retail media included the amount of manual work required, fragmentation in the market, different platforms having different reporting and APIs, inefficient pricing structures and multiple buying methods. Most buyers (90%) and sellers (84%) particularly called out media and attribution measurement needing standardisation in future, and these were a standardisation priority for nearly three-quarters (73%) of respondents.

  In answer to these concerns, IAB Europe’s Retail Media Working Group has created a 101 Guide to Retail Media, including definitions of on-site, online and off-site digital retail media, examples of buying mechanisms, measurement and targeting, and best practices. There will also be a new dedicated Retailer Council meeting in Q4 2023 to develop standards and promote retail media growth in Europe. Retailers who operate in at least one European market are eligible to become members of both IAB Europe and its Retail Media Working Group. IAB Europe forecast that adspend on retail media will reach €25bn by 2026, exceeding traditional linear TV advertising.

UKTV has launched its first free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels on Samsung TV Plus and Pluto TV. The four new channels are branded with its broadcast video-on-demand service UKTV Play and include curated content from its free-to-air channels Dave, Drama, W and Yesterday. UKTV Play Heroes will focus on shows about frontline paramedics, doctors, nurses and police, like Emma Willis: Delivering Babies, Inside the Ambulance, and 999: Rescue Squad. UKTV Play Laughs will air comedy like Hypothetical, Mel Giedroyc: Unforgivable, and Judge Romesh. UKTV Play Full Throttle will offer programmes with planes, trains, and cars such as including Bangers & Cash, Architecture the Railways Built, and Warbird Workshop. UKTV Play Uncovered centre on history and engineering content like Abandoned Engineering, Forbidden History, and World War 2 From Above. The commercial broadcaster has plans to enhance its FAST offering by launching them on UKTV Play. The four UKTV FAST channels will be available in the UK on Samsung TV Plus on 23 August and Pluto TV on 24 August.

Netflix has launched more games titles and as it looks to expand beyond TV and movie streaming. The global streaming giant is launching spin-off games on its Netflix Stories app next month. Netflix Stories: Love is Blind, will launch on 19 September, just before season five of the reality dating show series debuts on 22 September. “In the game, you’ll be able to (virtually) step into the pods as the newest singles on the series and embark on your own journey of true love and self-discovery,” Amir Rahimi, VP of Netflix Game Studios, said. All of these stories will live in the Netflix Stories app, included with all Netflix memberships, without any ads or in-app purchases.  Users can also “preview” two chapters of Netflix Stories: Money Heist, ahead of the December release of the new Money Heist spin-off series Berlin, and Netflix Stories: Virgin River. https://the-media-leader.com/netflix-launches-game-streaming-trial-but-how-does-it-avoid-a-stadia-repeat/

Analysis: First came the flix, here comes the net

The Netflix Stories app is being touted as a collection of interactive narrative games that will immerse players in “an ever-growing catalogue of stories from fan-favourite Netflix series and films”.  As Rahimi said in today’s announcement, the company sees one of its biggest opportunities as delivering more joy to members by “expand[ing] the worlds of our beloved films and series”. In other words, Netflix is doing a reverse Barbie. Whereas Mattel has recently revived a time-honoured marketing strategy of turning a toy franchise into merchandisable movie “content,” Netflix is turning content into gaming. It has already experimented with turning hit Shonda Rimes drama Bridgerton into a live experience and launched an official store for Stranger Things. Now the fruits of acquiring game developer Boss Fight Entertainment last year are now being harvested. Expect a lot more games based on Netflix originals and licensed content to find their way into Netflix’s gaming app. The question is, will these games actually be any good, or are they primarily a marketing tactic more than an emergent revenue stream? The graphics, storytelling and gameplay offered by modern AAA console games is nothing short of impressive and prices have risen considerably to pay for the hike in developer costs. Meanwhile, more primitive smartphone games that people play for a few minutes on the commute are free and usually ad-supported. As Netflix develops deeper into gaming and live experiences with its growing vault of IP, it will have to decide whether it really wants to expand existing worlds or take even braver leaps into new ones.

Sky has chosen Grub Club, Milliways, Ocean Bottle, OceanSaver and UpCircle to each receive £250,000 in advertising value to help create TV campaigns to drive sustainable behaviours. These airtime prizes, which come from the third annual £2m Sky Zero Footprint Fund, mean these brands will now move into ad production. To reach a decision, a panel of experts from across advertising, creativity, and sustainability assessed live pitches from the shortlisted brands last week. There will be another stage of judging in December wherein the best creative will win an additional £750,000 in media value to total £1m in total. https://the-media-leader.com/sky-footprint-fund-winner-airtime-prize-means-we-get-taken-more-seriously/

In brief

ITV’s airtime for equity fund, ITV AdVentures Invest, has agreed to provide up to £5m in ad inventory across ITV’s channels in return for a minority equity stake in pain relief brand Flarin. This follows similar investments in architectural design company Resi and pet health and wellness brand PitPat agreed earlier this year. Sheena Amin, director of ITV AdVentures since September 2022, said of the deal: “Flarin is already one of the fastest growing analgesics in the market and I am confident that we will see the company grow to new heights following a brand building campaign across ITV.” https://the-media-leader.com/why-tv-remains-bullish-about-airtime-for-equity-deals/

Netflix is rolling out a limited beta test to make streaming video games playable on TVs and PCs. A “small number” of users in the UK and Canada are now able to stream games on select TVs beginning today, and will be able to access games on PCs and Macs through Netflix.com on supported browsers sometime in the next few weeks. TVs with initial access to Netflix games include Amazon Fire TV, Google’s Chromecast, LG TVs, Nvidia Shield TV, Roku devices and TVs, Samsung Smart TVs, and Walmart ONN. Two games will be available as part of the beta, Oxenfree (developed by Night School Studio, which Netflix acquired in 2021), and Molehew’s Mining Adventure, a gem-mining arcade game. PC users will be able to play using a mouse and keyboard, while TV users can use their phone as a controller. https://the-media-leader.com/how-should-brands-target-gamers-be-consistent-and-authentic/

Analysis: Learning from Google’s past mistakes?

The streaming leader has sought to quickly expand its gaming footprint to add value to its current subscription offer and capitalise on growing consumer and commercial interest in gaming. The company first added mobile games to its offering in 2021, and in 2022 it launched its first internal game development studio, acquired a number of other formerly independent studios, and partnered with AAA developer Ubisoft to create three Netflix-exclusive mobile games. “Our goal has always been to have a game for everyone, and we are working hard to meet members where they are with an accessible, smooth, and ubiquitous service,” said Netflix VP of games Mike Verdu in a blog post. “While we’re still very early in our games journey, we’re excited to bring joy to members with games.” While AAA games are reportedly in development for Netflix, the streamer has thus far been content to target more casual mobile gamers, rather than hardcore console and PC gamers. By making a foray into non-mobile media, Netflix is signalling a desire to increase its appeal to a wider audience. The risk Netflix faces is that it could follow Google in wasting capital on a failed cloud gaming service. Launched with significant hype in 2019, Google Stadia was officially shut down in January following poor user acquisition. However, Netflix is taking a different approach. For one, Netflix is investing heavily in internal game development and has acquired a larger suite of studios that have already produced a number of games. This is somewhat distinct from Google, which though it initially sought to develop games in-house and acquired Canadian developer Typhoon Studios, insufficiently invested in and ultimately abandoned its plan to support game development less than a year-and-a-half later. While hosting third-party games is an option Netflix is likely to continue pursuing, developing exclusive properties is important to draw market share, as gamers could otherwise play non-exclusive titles on more established consoles with superior controller settings and more reliable performance. Notably, unlike Stadia, Netflix has also thus far not charged extra for access to its full suite of games. Instead, the strategy  appears to use games as a value-add for current and potential subscribers, a more popular approach that could allow the streamer additional pricing flexibility assuming it continues to raise subscription prices in the future. Games could also someday be a significant driver of advertising revenue for Netflix, as in-game advertising technology has matured in recent years to the point that brands are feeling increasingly comfortable buying in-game ad inventory. There are no guarantees in gaming, and streaming games has proven to be a tough nut to crack compared to more established console and PC gaming. But with 3 billion gamers out there the market is too big an opportunity to pass up, especially for a company needing to diversify its content offering as it faces continued competition from an oversupply of alternative TV and movie streaming services. https://the-media-leader.com/how-wpp-and-nbcu-backed-anzu-wants-to-bridge-gamings-gap-with-marketing/

Mail Sport is launching a new football podcast called It’s All Kicking Off. Co-presented by former Premier League winner Chris Sutton and Mail Sport football editor Ian Ladyman, the podcast “promises a different take on Premier League football,” according to the publisher. The show launches on Monday. It is being released alongside a new 16-page sports pull-out in partnership with Sky Bet, called Match Day, that will be placed in the Daily Mail every Saturday. https://the-media-leader.com/gambling-ads-ban-has-almost-no-impact-on-premier-league-shirt-sponsorships/

Analysis: look for more podcasts from the Mail in the near future

The release of It’s All Kicking Off is likely to be just the beginning of the Mail‘s planned expansion of its audio footprint. Last month, the company hired Guy Edmunds, a respected ad sales careerist who had previously spent 20 years at The Guardian, to lead in a newly-created role as media director of video & podcast. Mail Metro Media chief revenue officer Dom Williams told The Media Leader in an interview he wants the Mail “to be known for podcasts,” revealing the company had lost business to podcast companies in recent weeks. He added that podcasts should no longer be considered a commercial add-on to a broader sales package, but something to lead a pitch on. https://the-media-leader.com/mail-metro-sales-chief-brexit-definitely-having-an-effect-on-adspend/

BuzzFeed’s revenues declined 27% year-on-year to $77.9m, the online publisher announced in its second quarter earnings release yesterday. That includes a 33% decline in advertising revenue to $35.4m. The company’s net loss totalled $27.8m and its adjusted Ebitda (a measure of profit) was a loss of $0.1m, compared to $2.1m in Q2 2022. https://the-media-leader.com/why-pinknews-sees-a-big-future-as-vice-and-buzzfeed-news-falter/

Analysis: Where is the competitive advantage in AI?

The increasingly dire financial straits at BuzzFeed come as users’ time spent on the site declined 9% year-on-year. It has been a difficult past year for BuzzFeed, which has been negatively affected by social sites like Facebook shifting away from news recommendation and toward short form video. The company laid off 12% of its staff in December before shutting down the Pulitzer Prize-winning outlet BuzzFeed News altogether in April. Shares of BuzzFeed are down 94% since its initial public offering in December 2021. In the company’s earnings release, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti attributed the decline in readership to “consolidation and share gains across the major platforms that continue to impact audience traffic” and said that the publisher is therefore “laser focused” on weaning itself off its reliance on social media networks for traffic. To do so, Peretti reiterated how BuzzFeed will seek to leverage AI for content creation. “We have introduced new AI-assisted content formats to increase engagement and offer innovative advertising opportunities to our clients,” he said. BuzzFeed is also expanding its creator network “to participate in the rise of vertical video” and seeking to grow its HuffPost homepage audience through prioritizing “destination news content.” Other publishers, such as the UK’s largest publisher Reach, have previously announced they are exploring using AI for content creation. Larger entertainment conglomerates like Disney have also created task forces to study how AI can be applied across its properties. But BuzzFeed has thus far been among the most outspoken in describing how it will develop an AI-supported content strategy. “Over the next few years, generative AI will replace the majority of static content, and audiences will begin to expect all content to be curated and dynamic with embedded intelligence,” Peretti told investors in April. Yet it is entirely unclear whether AI-created content can be so good as to drive more traffic to BuzzFeed’s properties, especially when BuzzFeed’s content production doesn’t really have a moat. That is, any content you could find on BuzzFeed, you could probably find it elsewhere by competitors, including on social platforms or other more reputable news outlets. AI seems unlikely to solve this problem; rather, it could make it worse. For example, The Media Leader asked ChatGPT to “create a BuzzFeed-style quiz and article asking: which Succession character are you?” and within seconds it spit out an article just as good as the content historically on offer on BuzzFeed. It drew up five generic questions like “How do you handle conflict?” and “What’s your ideal weekend activity” and supplied answer options A through D, and depending on which answers the user selected, they could either be Logan, Siobhan, Roman, or Kendall Roy. “Whether you’re a fierce leader like Logan, a smooth operator like Shiv, a quick-witted jester like Roman, or a conflicted soul like Kendall, remember that every character brings a unique flavour to the Succession saga,” it wrote. “Embrace your inner Roy and enjoy the journey!” The obvious issue this brings for BuzzFeed, especially if it is to further leverage AI for creating content, is that anyone can make this cookie-cutter content through using AI tools. In other words, unless the employees at BuzzFeed are significantly better at using AI than the average person, there’s no competitive advantage to be had here. After all, when anyone can create a BuzzFeed-quality quiz or article, why would anyone still go to BuzzFeed? The implication is just the same for any major publisher considering the use of AI for direct content creation. Sure, you can create more content using fewer resources, but any such content is necessarily not unique. With BuzzFeed’s financial failures as proof that an exclusively ad-funded business model for online publishers is no longer sufficient to grow revenues, some form of a subscription-based model is likely a necessity. But if users are paying good money for content, they will likely expect more than whatever ChatGPT can spit out.

Industry wellbeing charity Nabs has invited everyone in the advertising, media and marketing industry to take part in its inaugural All Ears consultation on mental wellness. Nabs will use the answers to the confidential survey to identify and prioritise actions needed to advance the industry’s mental wellness. Last quarter, demand for Nabs’ core services were found to have doubled year-on-year, with the number one reason for calls being emotional support, and two-thirds of these calls related to mental health challenges. This year’s All In census also found a third of respondents reporting being affected by stress and anxiety. There is one week left to respond to the survey which closes on 10 August.

In brief

Global has retained the exclusive ad sales contract again to represent ITV’s podcast portfolio via its Digital Ad Exchange (DAX). Global will host and distribute all ITV podcasts on Global Player, including Love Island: The Morning After and I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! and has added the broadcaster’s news podcasts, like ITV News’ What You Need To Know, to its slate. Global and ITV initially agreed a two-year partnership in 2019. DAX connects advertisers to 130 million listeners by inserting targeted advertising into radio, music and podcasts.

A senior group of MPs has concluded it is “vital” for the Government to protect radio’s availability on voice-activated devices and modernise commercial radio regulation in its upcoming Media Bill. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny inquiry report said there are serious potential risks posed by tech platforms to radio’s future if they abuse their market power, for instance by pushing listeners to their own radio-like services. The Committee’s report recommended new obligations for main voice assistant platforms, such as Google and Amazon, and called for the Government to issue clearer guidance to Ofcom on enforcing local radio content guidelines.

Matt Payton, CEO of Radiocentre, said: “This report is a ringing endorsement of the proposals in the Draft Media Bill to help secure the future of radio. Its recommendations are a welcome contribution to the debate and demonstrate the strong case for action to support radio’s place on smart speakers.”

Analysis: win for commercial radio

This is potentially a big win for commercial radio’s incumbent players, namely Global and Bauer, as the UK’s laws around commercial radio aim to keep up as listening has rapidly migrated online in recent years. The existing provisions for commercial radio advertising, in the Communications Act that was two decades ago, aren’t fit for purpose, the industry has argued. Live radio is the most widely accessed form of audio on smart speakers, accounting for 70% of listeners’ time. Facing this, ongoing risks facing the radio industry are that voice-activated smart speakers, such as those made by Amazon and Google, would push listeners towards their own radio-like services, and therefore limit free access to UK radio or (perhaps worse) insert their own ads around radio content.

The Select Committee report urges the Government to ensure that “radio is protected and accessible going forward” on these devices.

However, and importantly, it will be up to the DCMS, led by Culture Secretary, Lucy Frazer, to decide how this happens in practice under the terms of the Bill.    

DMG Media has appointed Jamie East to a new position as head of podcasts. A veteran podcaster, East has helped produce podcasts for clients including Bauer, Samsung, Netflix and Sky, as well as daily news podcast The Smart 7. East will begin his role on 8 August and report directly to Mail editor Ted Verity and director of publishing strategy Vere Harmsworth.

Analysis: The Mail is coming for the world of audio

The hiring of East for the new role in podcast production at the Mail follows Mail Metro Media, the commercial arm of the publisher, making hiring moves of its own. Earlier this month, the outfit hired former Guardian sales director Guy Edmunds for a newly created role as media director of video & podcast. The publisher is seeking to aggressively expand into podcasting and short- and long-form video. Dominic Williams, Mail Metro Media’s chief revenue officer, detailed in a recent interview with The Media Leader how he’s pushing his team to “up our game” in audio-visual content and sales. “I want to be known for video,” said Williams. “I want to be known for podcasts.” With Edmunds in place on the commercial end, it was only a matter of time before the Mail expanded its editorial footprint in podcasting. https://the-media-leader.com/mail-metro-sales-chief-brexit-definitely-having-an-effect-on-adspend/

Brand Advance Group is on track to exceed $10m+ revenue in 2023, and double this within 2024. This means the global diversity media-planning network will surpass its total 2022 revenue within the first six months of 2023. Founder Chris Kenna said this was down to an increase in brands and agencies “seeing good” on commitments to responsible media. After launching in the US last year, the BA Group is looking to expand in the UK, Europe, and APAC, having appointed an EMEA CEO Deborah Gbadamosi earlier this year, new offices in Manchester and Madrid set to open this year and an APAC leadership team to be announced.

Analysis

The BA Group was founded five years ago by Chris Kenna, now Brand Advance US & LATAM CEO and global chairman, and now includes ad tech platform Brand Advance SSP, insights platform Cultural Insights & Strategy platform and a Creative Shop amongst others. With a commitment to connecting brands and agencies to underrepresented consumers and encouraging more adspend and creative budgets to reach minority owned and operated media owners and diverse creators, Kenna has spoken often about how brands and agencies need to “put their money where their mouth is” on diversity and inclusion in media. These revenue figures would seem to indicate a shift in the brand intention and action gap on including diverse media on plans and targeting underrepresented consumers. Perhaps part of this to do with partnerships with tech platform Teads and sustainability platform Good-Loop.

In brief

Acast executives Georgina Holt and Christiana Brenton have left the podcast publisher to start a new venture. Holt, the former UK Hearst and Stylist Group publishing lead who joined the podcast publisher three years ago, announced her exit alongside Brenton today. Brenton joined Acast four years ago and was most recently US head of sales and brand partnerships. Holt was most recently MD for the Americas, having previously served as MD for UK and Ireland. Ricardo Neto, Acast’s vice-president of sales in the US, will replace Brenton, she added in a LinkedIn post.

In brief

Guy Edmunds, the former sales director of the The Guardian, has joined Mail Metro Media as media director of video & podcast, a newly-created role. Edmunds departed The Guardian in early May after 20 years at the publisher. He had been sales director since January 2022, and previously was trading director and head of investment, having joined as a trainee executive in 2001. A spokesperson for Mail Metro Media told The Media Leader that the Daily Mail publisher has created role of media director of video & podcast and its commercial team is continuing to invest in “even more innovative and engaging multi-platform solutions”. Last year MMM relaunched its paid digital-edition service Mail+ with access to podcasts and videos as part of additional content for subscribers. It is understood that the publisher’s commercial team has begun active conversations with advertisers and agencies about being more innovative and collaborative as it pivots to being a “data-led” business. MailOnline is the world’s fifth-biggest news website according to SimilarWeb data, with nearly 400 million site visits recorded in May.

The Mail brands’ commercial team is also developing new app ad formats and has launched a vertical video player to serve a growing demand for smartphone-ready content in the style of TikTok and Instagram Reels-style.

The spokesperson added: “Guy brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience which will undoubtedly drive forward our commitment to delivering best-in-market media opportunities for our advertising partners and ultimately, content for our valuable audiences.” Last month, MailOnline surpassed The Sun and The Mirror to become the largest monthly online newsbrand in the UK (excluding the BBC).

In brief

The next World Out of Home Organisation (WOO) Global Congress, one of the globe’s largest events for outdoor media, will take place in Hong Kong next June. This follows regional events held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Dubai,  in 2022 and this year’s Global Congress in Lisbon, which attracted a record 525 delegates. Outgoing WOO president Tom Goddard (pictured, above), who will be stepping down next year, said: “Markets including China, Korea and Japan are seeing some of the most dramatic and positive transformations in global Out of Home.” https://the-media-leader.com/how-ooh-can-overcome-its-5-syndrome/

In brief

Will Luttrell, the chief technology officer of The Brandtech Group, has joined ad platform Good-Loop as non-executive director. Luttrell will serve on the board of the company as it seeks to “expand its product roadmap and further establish itself as a sustainability-focused leader” in digital advertising. Before joining The Brandtech Group, Luttrell co-founded digital ad verification company Integral Ad Science and was also the founder and CEO of Amino Payments. The move comes as Good-Loop expands into the US after a Series A funding round of $6.1m. https://the-media-leader.com/yes-you-can-reduce-carbon-in-ads-without-affecting-cost-or-performance/

In brief

Guardian Media Group has announced Trei Brundrett will join its board as a non-executive director in July. Brundrett has held a range of leadership roles at Vox Media over the past 15 years, most recently as chief operating officer before stepping down from day-to-day responsibilities in 2022. He currently provides mentoring, consultancy and advice to non-profits and invests in and advises early stage media and tech companies and local journalism projects. Brundrett joins as The Guardian is seeking to grow its global footprint with a series of investments in Guardian US. https://the-media-leader.com/betsy-reed-wants-investigative-journalism-to-build-the-guardians-us-brand/

In brief

ITV has confirmed that it is “actively exploring” an acquisition for production company All3Media, the maker of popular shows Fleabag and The Traitors.

In a letter to shareholders this morning, ITV said: “There can be no certainty as to whether any transaction will take place, nor as to the terms of any such transaction.”

Reuters reported yesterday that ITV is looking to combine All3Media with ITV Studios, its own in-house production and distribution business.

ITV CEO Carolyn McCall insisted earlier this year that ITV Studios operation “is not for sale.”

In brief

NABS has raised £120,000 to advance the mental wellness of everyone working in advertising, marketing and media. Demand for NABS’ services, which are entirely dependent on donations and support from the industry, doubled between first three months of 2022 and the same period this year. Another fundraising initiative, NABS’ annual prize draw, is open until 7 December. More than 800 people attended the charity’s fundraising event, the Stranger than Summer Ball, in London last week.

In brief

Debbie Klein will join Guardian Media Group’s board as a non-executive director in September. The announcement comes after Klein announced in January she would be stepping down from her executive role as Sky’s chief marketing, corporate affairs and people officer. Before joining Sky in 2018, Klein worked in a variety of executive positions at marketing services agency Engine Group for nearly 20 years, most recently as CEO for Europe and Asia Pacific. Klein is also a non-executive director of Nationwide Building Society.

In brief

PMX, Publicis Media’s trading and investment arm, has promoted Charlotte Taylor to lead all print, audio, digital and social trading. This includes trading across Publicis Media UK including agencies Zenith, Starcom, and Spark Foundry. Most recently Taylor was head of publishing and audio at Spark Foundry UK and previously she has held roles at OMD UK, Mindshare and Carat. She will start in the role in the summer after returning from maternity leave, working alongside Yatin Patel, head of AV trading, and reporting into John Heather, chief trading officer.

In brief Love Island returns to ITV today and among the latest product-placement deals secured are coffee brand Emmi Caffé Latte, which is taking its investment in the show “to a new level”. Emmi Caffé Latte was a partner last year and or series 10 the brand will be stocked in the villa’s fridges for islanders to drink throughout the show, which airs on ITV2 and ITVX. Indie media agency Electric Glue brokered the deal and CEO Pippa Glucklich said last year’s partnership resulted in a 10% increase in new households buying the product. “The show delivers high saliency and engagement for its commercial partners — and onscreen product placement will take this to a new level,” she added.

In brief

JCDecaux, the largest global outdoor company, has entered into separate agreements to acquire Clear Channel’s businesses in Italy and Spain. On a cash debt-free basis the deal represents €15.1m for Clear Channel Italy and €60m for Clear Channel Spain. The transaction for the Italy business will complete tomorrow, and the Spain agreement should close in 2024 subject to approvals by regulators. These businesses are alongside JCDecaux’s current presence in Italy and Spain.

In brief

Channel 4 and Lloyds Bank have have pledged to award free TV airtime to businesses owned by Black people. The Black in Business initiative will give up to five Black-owned businesses airtime worth £100,000 and a free bespoke ad, as well as marketing and business support in partnership with the social enterprise Does.

Research commissioned by Channel 4’s commercial arm 4Sales revealed in February that Black entrepreneurs face more obstacles setting up and running their businesses than their white counterparts.

A further five shortlisted businesses will receive a £3,000 Rising Star grant from Lloyds and Jamii, an online discovery platform for Black creators.

In brief

The World Out of Home Organisation (WOO) has put sustainability at the top of its agenda for its global congress this year. Katrin Robertson, leader of WOO’s Sustainability Taskforce and CEO of BlowUp Media, will sit on a panel to dive into the subject along with five other experts from agencies and media owners. WOO president Tom Goddard noted that big companies are “grappling with sustainability in manufacturing and the supply chain, so the task of reducing advertising emissions falls increasingly on media owners and customers, including tech suppliers and agencies.” The Congress takes place in Lisbon 7-9 June. https://the-media-leader.com/woo-president-calls-for-boost-to-classic-ooh/

In brief

The Guardian has appointed Liz Wynn as chief supporter officer, in charge of leading the global digital reader revenue strategy. The publisher has a unique multi-pronged revenue strategy, which includes asking for donations from readers. The Guardian claims it receives more than 1 million regular acts of financial support from readers. As chief supporter officer, Wynn will look to further extend The Guardian’s supporter base. Wynn joins from Sky, where she most recently worked as managing director of Sky TV. Wynn will report directly to chief executive officer, Anna Bateson.

In brief

Indie media agency Bountiful Cow has appointed Alex Sayliss as planning partner in a newly created role for the agency.

Sayliss has joined from WPP’s EssenceMediacom where she was senior associate director for over five years.

Reporting to CEO Adam Foley and working with chief strategy officer Chetan Murthy, Sayliss is responsible for ensuring that Bountiful Cow produces best-in-class work that delivers a “Relative Advantage” to all clients’ businesses and is aligned with their core challenger mentality.

She has also worked at agencies Havas Media, Goodstuff, and Somethin’ Else and worked on accounts for Coca-Cola, Camelot, Centrica and eBay.

In brief

Paramount Pictures has used Ocean Outdoor’s DeepScreen 3D technique to promote new action film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. This is the first time this creative technique using anamorphic 3D and LED lighting has been used at such a scale (a 1,734sqm wrap) and on the BFI IMAX canvas. Characters Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Optimus Prime appear to “break through” the walls of IMAX building exterior, revealing a 30mx14m “hole” showing the cinema inside. The campaign, planned by WPP agencies Kinetic and Wavemaker, went live on Monday and will run for two weeks. https://the-media-leader.com/pearl-dean-takes-over-ad-contract-for-bfi-imax/

In brief Channel 4 has turned its brand logo green to promote the rebrand of streaming service All 4. The blocks-based logo, created by design agency Lambie-Nairn for the broadcaster’s founding 41 years go, has been given a refresh as all digital, social and linear channels will be known singularly as Channel 4.

Channel 4 commissioned design consultancy Pentagram to work with its in-house creative agency 4creative to develop a new brand identity.

The broadcaster will soon unveil a series of brand-new idents later this summer. Using an infinite loop, they are designed as an “inclusive system that welcomes diversity of expression”.

In brief

Sue Unerman has become chief transformation officer on EssenceMediacomX’s senior leadership team after six years as chief transformation officer at MediaCom. She will continue to hold a dual role as global head of relevance, creative futures at EssenceMediacom. Unerman has held several senior leadership positions at MediaCom in the past, having previously worked for six years as head of media and then 11 years as chief strategy officer. GroupM merged Essence and MediaCom earlier this year, its largest agency, and created EssenceMediacom X to avoid client conflicts like BT and Sky. https://the-media-leader.com/groupm-launches-essencemediacom-in-uk/

In brief

ITV has added pet health and wellness company PitPat to its media-for-equity portfolio in its second investment of 2023.

As part of ITV AdVentures Invest, the broadcaster has agreed to invest up to £4m of advertising inventory across ITV’s channels and ITVX in return for a minority equity stake. It also invested in architectural design company Resi earlier this year.

PitPat provides a GPS tracking device for dogs so their owners can monitor their location, activity and nutrition.

Since launching in 2021, ITV AdVentures Invest has backed location app What3words, online menswear brand Spoke, wellness brand Feel, and car-buying marketplace Carwow.

https://the-media-leader.com/itv-appoints-new-director-of-media-for-equity-fund/ https://the-media-leader.com/why-tv-remains-bullish-about-airtime-for-equity-deals/

In brief

Boots will be the headline sponsor of the biggest commercial radio show in the UK until 2025. The brand will sponsor Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden and Heart Breakfast with Des Clarke & Jennifer Reoch, the first brand to do so since it launched in Scotland last month. Boots will also have access to Global’s outdoor estate, podcasts and digital audio through its Digital Ad Exchange (DAX), and feature on Heart’s website and social media, including Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook, and the on-demand audio app Global Player. The deal was brokered by WPP agency EssenceMediacom. https://the-media-leader.com/q4-2022-breakfast-heart-and-capital-bounce-back/

In brief

VCCP Media has been appointed as doughnut and coffee chain company Krispy Kreme’s media planning and buying agency after a three-way competitive pitch.

The agency will play a key role in supporting Krispy Kreme to deliver on a five year plan that includes increasing awareness of its online offering, ecommerce business, app and customer loyalty programme.

The media strategy will focus on key moments in the calendar year associated with buying treats and gifting including Halloween and Christmas.

The win comes after VCCP Media’s sister PR and social agency Good Relations won the consumer brief last year. VCCP Media had supported a campaign in January led by Good Relations for Krispy Kreme, “the world’s first ‘SADvert’, where Open Outdoor and Clear Channel created a special-build billboard in Salford to highlight Seasonal Affective Disorder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yclf1YQFvXs

In brief

Bauer Media Audio UK has appointed Simon Myciunka as its new CEO. Myciunka will start in the role from 1 July and replace Dee Ford who is leaving the business to “step into a new chapter of her life” spending more time with family. He joins from Bauer Media Audio Ireland where he led the business as CEO for two years after Bauer acquired Communicorp Ireland. Chris Doyle will take over day-to-day responsibilities for Bauer Media Audio Ireland until a permanent successor is found.

In brief

Warner Bros Discovery UK & Ireland and Sky are expanding their ad sales partnership by adding kids’ channels Cartoon Network, Boomerang and Cartoonito to the Sky Media portfolio.

From 1 July, Sky Media will be the exclusive sales house for spot and on-demand advertising across Sky platforms and will sell sponsorship alongside Warner Bros. Discovery for Brands, the ad sales arm for WBD.

Sky Media will also launch a new Kids Upfronts event during the third quarter of this year. It already sells ads for Milkshake, Nickelodeon and POP brands from Narrative Entertainment and Paramount.

In brief

Business-focussed social media platform LinkedIn announced its user base is nearing 1 billion as it celebrated its 20th anniversary today. The site is currently home to over 930 million users, with more than 80% of its membership existing outside the US, it said today. Co-founded by ex-PayPal leaders Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly in 2003, the service quickly expanded. It reached 1 million users in 2004 and achieved its first month of profitability in March 2006. By 2007, its userbase had already expanded to 10 million. The company went public in 2011 and was acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for $26.2bn. Over time, its marketing solutions offering has become a B2B powerhouse and its digital advertising business generates $5bn in annual revenue.

In brief

Independent agency the7stars has hired Barty Mee as head of partnerships. He will oversee a six planners and project managers, and the7stars’ partnerships with brands, media partners and creators. Mee replaces Rachel Lorenzon, who left the agency last year to return to her native country New Zealand, and will report into managing partner Anuschka Clarke. Most recently Mee was business director for more than six years at Drum, Omnicom Media Group’s branded content, partnerships and entertainment agency. He has also held commercial roles at Whalar and Mindshare, and started his career as a digital planner and buyer at PHD.

In brief

BFI IMAX has awarded Pearl & Dean its advertising sales contract after the UK’s biggest cinema screen ended its agreement with Odeon last year. Pearl & Dean has added the deal to its current one with BFI Southbank and plans to align the on-screen advertising models. DCM is the ad sales house for Odeon. Both cinemas will have an exclusive long-term spot where one advertiser will run its campaign ahead of all screenings. This spot for the IMAX has already been secured by a “luxury advertiser” until the end of 2023. This comes as Pearl & Dean regained the advertising contract with Curzon from DCM last year.

In brief

Reach’s total revenue declined 5.9% year-on-year, the company revealed in a trading update. Digital revenue dropped 14.5% while print revenue fell 3.0%, led by a 19.2% decline in print advertising revenue. The publisher highlighted that “macroeconomic conditions mean the overall market for digital advertising is challenging” but that data-driven revenue continues to “outperform.” Reach also revealed that a page view slowdown, originally referenced in its full-year 2022 results, has continued. The publisher attributed the continued decline to “recent changes to the way Facebook presents news content, causing a reduction in referred traffic across the sector.”

In brief

Industry-backed online ad sales house Ozone has partnered with specialist publisher Our Media. The publisher will become a partner for Ozone’s audience-led media offering, as well as its biddable management service. Our Media is home to publishing brands in craft, cycling, science and nature, homes, and music, such as BBC Music Magazine, BBC Science Focus, YourHomeStyle, Gardens Illustrated, and Cycling Plus, among others. The publisher said its titles reach 2.3 million readers monthly. The new partnership is the latest in a line of recent publisher signings with Ozone, including Mail Metro Media (on a trial basis) and PinkNews.

In brief

GroupM has appointed Samantha Bukowski to lead Nexus Commerce, GroupM’s newly unified commerce capability within GroupM Nexus. Bukowski has spent the last year leading the strategic development and operationalisation of GroupM’s connected commerce capabilities across the group. She first joined GroupM in 2019 to lead Wavemaker’s U.S. commerce strategy and capability. The unit will bring together the specialist retail, direct-to-consumer, and social commerce functions that exist across GroupM. In her role, Bukowski will oversee the embedding of such capabilities into GroupM agencies Mindshare, Wavemaker, and EssenceMediacom to deliver measurable business growth for clients.

In brief

The Guardian‘s sales director Guy Edmunds has left the publisher after 20 years. Edmunds joined The Guardian in 2001, and has worked as sales director since January 2022. Announcing the move on LinkedIn, he described his journey working with the publisher as “incredible”. “The Guardian has been a massive part of my life (it’s where I met my wonderful wife) so leaving was never going to be an easy decision but the time is right to start thinking about the second half of my career in the big wild world outside of Guardian towers.” Edmunds’ next direction is still “to be determined”.

In brief

YouTube is introducing new AI-powered music ad solutions geared toward helping brands get in front of trending music and reaching Gen Z audiences. A solution dubbed “Gen Z Music” will initially be offered for YouTube’s long-form and audio formats. The tech leverages AI-powered signals across YouTube to identify songs trending with users aged 18-24, to allow advertisers to “reach them with the music they know and love.” At a later date, YouTube will offer a similar solution for its short-form format and TikTok rival YouTube Shorts. Parent company Google reported YouTube’s ad revenue declined year-over-year in its Q1 results this week.

In brief

The Advertising Association’s Media Business Course (MBC) will return in summer 2023 to the Grand Hotel Brighton. Participants will work on, and get guidance from industry experts on, a blue-chip client brief and create a full media strategy to pitch in front of a panel of judges. Last year 123 people took the course, which was opened up to include talent with four to five years’ industry experience, which will apply again this year. The Media Business Course will be taking place between 11 and 14 July and has 125 spaces. Earlybird tickets to the course are available until Friday 28 April.

In brief

The UK Government will reportedly legislate to create a new regulator overseeing tech giants like Google and Meta. Per the Financial Times, the draft Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill will establish a new unit under the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) which will have the power to fine tech companies up to 10% of their global turnover, and company executives could also face fines if companies do not comply with the unit’s requests for information. The regulator will look to monitor companies generating either £25bn in global turnover, or £1bn in the UK.

In brief

WPP has acquired global sonic branding agency Amp. Amp, founded in 2009 by Michele Arnese its global CEO, will join WPP brand and design consultancy Landor & Fitch. The business has 60 employees across US, Europe and Asia, and has created sonic identities for Mastercard, Mercedes-Benz, Kraft Heinz, Deloitte, Shell, and General Motors. Arnese spoke at our Future of Audio Europe event last year about the power of how sonic brand can help consumers recall, engage and feel strong emotions, alongside Dr Diana Omigie, a cognitive neuroscientist & lecturer at Goldsmiths University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gux4pvuOALw

In-brief

Google has published research on how its interest-based audience (IBA) solution performs when used in combination with privacy-preserving signals. The online advertising behemoth found that Google Ads advertiser spending on IBA — as a proxy for scale reached — decreased by 2%-7% compared to third-party cookie-based results. For conversions per dollar the decrease was 1%-3%, and click-through rates remained within 90%. The company called the results encouraging but said they “should not be considered as an unequivocal indicator of Google’s IBA performance after the third-party cookie deprecation.” The privacy-preserving signals used includes contextual information, the Topics API from its Privacy Sandbox and first-party identifiers such as Publisher Provided IDs.

In brief

Mark Halliday, director of Global’s Digital Ad Exchange (DAX), has left the company after little more than a year. Halliday started in the role heading up the digital audio and programmatic outdoor advertising platform at Global in December 2021, and prior to that had been chief digital and data officer at Omnicom media agency Manning Gottlieb OMD. Previously he had held other agency positions including CEO of Omnicom Media Group Performance, APAC. Global declined to comment other than confirming Halliday was no longer at the company.

In brief

ITVX, the streaming service launched by ITV last December to replace ITV Hub, has recorded over one billion streams, the broadcaster has revealed. The service, which has a free ad-funded tier and an ad-free subscription tier, passed the milestone on Easter Sunday (9 April), four months after the official launch date on 8 December. 2022 was ITV’s previous most successful year for streaming, when it took nearly seven months to hit the one billion streams mark, the broadcaster added. March 2023 was also its “best ever month” for streaming, with 282 million streams (up by more than a million on March 2022). The most popular UK drama series from the archive is so far Footballers Wives, while Love Island has been a strong driver as the most watched programme on ITVX this year based on streams.

In brief

S4 Capital CEO Sir Martin Sorrell revealed he has been treated for cancer and is in the process of recovery. In a statement to investors on the London Stock Exchange, Sorrell described having a successful keyhole surgery to remove a tumour in February. “I have made an excellent recovery,” Sorrell wrote. “My conclusion is that I should have preventative treatment over the coming months.” The ex-WPP CEO and founder said he would be able to work “as normal” most of the time, but will reduce his travel schedule for a few weeks.

In brief

Sky Mobile will sponsor the 16th series of ITV’s talent show Britain’s Got Talent, slated to return tomorrow (15 April). The sponsorship was agreed between ITV, Fremantle, Sky Mobile and Sky’s media agency EssenceMediacom. It is a “360 package” with traditional idents alongside a variety of licensing rights, social media, and digital inventory. Sky Mobile will also  offer tickets to the show’s semi-final and final available for customers to win through its loyalty programme Sky VIP.

In brief

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has launched a dedicated task force to discuss policymaking and issues related to OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot ChatGPT. Earlier this month, Italy became the first Western country to ban ChatGPT after The Garante, Italy’s data protection authority, expressed data privacy concerns about the chatbot. This week, Italy gave OpenAI until 30 April to comply with specific privacy requirements; doing so would lift the ban. Discussing Italy’s recent enforcement measures on Thursday, EDPB members launched a task force to “foster cooperation and to exchange information on possible enforcement actions conducted by data protection authorities”.

In brief

Steve Hatch, former VP for Europe at Meta, will join YouGov as CEO in August. He will take over from chairman designate Stephan Shakespeare at the international online research data and analytics company on 1 August 2023. As part of the move, Hatch will also step down from his role as non-executive director at national and regional publisher Reach. In a statement provided by YouGov, he said: “YouGov is a business I have closely followed and admired for some time. The company is in a strong position with a clear strategic direction and significant investment in technology and international reach driving robust client demand and consistent top line growth performance in recent years. I look forward to working closely with Stephan, the wider Board and the full YouGov team on the great opportunities ahead in the third strategic growth plan as we look to create further value for customers, partners, shareholders, and colleagues.”

In brief

Starbucks has taken over the full tunnel between Kings Cross St Pancras underground and international stations with iced coffee sights, smells and sounds. The “Iced Coffee Zone” will run for two weeks until 23 April 2023 on posters and digital screens with sound effects of ice shaking and scent dispensers releasing coffee smells throughout the tunnel. Starbucks’ media agency Havas Media UK designed the out-of-home special build in partnership with Talon Outdoor, JCDecaux and Linney. It is expected to reach 1.3 million people and forms part of the Starbucks spring campaign which will also be supported by radio and social.

In brief

Spotify will offer Megaphone publishers broadcast-to-podcast technology, allowing them to turn existing audio content into on-demand podcasts. This comes from podcast technology platform Whooshka which Spotify acquired in 2021, and offers publishers a way to redistribute their content to new audiences and remonetise it. The technology automatically identifies ad marker locations, which users can replace or remove, or dynamically reinsert new ads or replace old ad locations with other content. Spotify said this launch will enable broadcast publishers to reach previously hard-to-reach audiences like Gen Z who prefer to get news through digital channels like podcasts. https://the-media-leader.com/podcast-what-next-for-spotify/

Opinion

Simultaneous cinema and OTT releases, progressive product placement and the metaverse — Omnicom’s futurist Phil Rowley predicts what we can expect from the new James Bond.

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With the news that either Aaron Taylor-Johnson or Henry Cavill is set to be announced as the new James Bond, you can almost hear the media cracking their knuckles in anticipation: ready to hit their keyboards to hammer out internet-melting exclusives, reveal early images from set and maybe post the odd salacious clickbait article. But there’s a bigger story here, beyond who will play the titular character. I think ‘James Bond 26’, or whatever its final moniker, will be emblematic of the future of media; an unofficial ‘state of the union’ showcasing how the technology and entertainment industries have finally fully amalgamated as we move towards the 2030s. Here’s how we might see a franchise like James Bond become redolent of its time and representative of the media technologies and techniques available in the mid-to-late 2020s.

Franchises are content engines

In 2025, Bond 26 will be the first of the franchise to be conceived, filmed and released under Amazon’s auspices and will be wired into their entire cross-platform mega-ecosystem. We should expect to see a simultaneous cinematic release and home release for Prime customers only, though it’s unlikely to be free. We might see the first-night premiere streamed live on Prime with interviews on the red carpet, together with standalone Amazon programming, like behind-the-scenes documentaries and interviews, ramping up the excitement in the lead up to the premiere. I’m not even sure traditional terrestrial channels will get a look in. Following the template of other mega franchises, it’s also likely we’ll see a spin-off series to run on Prime, not featuring Bond, but based around some peripheral character or plot element to extend the mythos and build a ‘Bondverse’ like the Star Wars Universe or most relevant, The Continental, a spin-off featuring the hotel from the John Wick series. We may also see Bond content extensions across Twitch and Audible. Ultimately, when you preside over a cross-platform media ecosystem like Amazon, becoming custodian of a mega-franchise grants you access to a content engine. And more content means more subscriptions, so expect them to crank that handle hard.

Merging with the Metaverse

That ecosystem will stretch into gaming too. Those old enough to remember Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 — one of the greatest games ever created on any system — may recall how the game’s opening level offered a perfect recreation of the pre-credit film sequence, where Pierce Brosnan enters a Russian base through a toilet cubicle. Gamers could ‘play’ the scene from the film with terrifying accuracy. Whilst game tie-ins started in the early 80s with E.T. for the Atari, recently we have witnessed the advent of 3-D volumetric scanning. Now scenes from film sets and their geography can be instantly and perfectly transposed into gaming environments.   Hence why we’ve seen tools like Unreal Engine put to work to engineer film scenes and levels in their gaming spin-off at the same time, such is the disciplinary crossover. More and more, films will exist inside a computer. With increasing concern over the carbon footprint of location shoots, and let’s face it, Bond films are famous for their luscious globe-trotting scenes, more filming will take place on ‘LED sets’ — giant video walls displaying programmable ultra-HD backgrounds that appear ‘as real’ in camera. (See this excellent video on how The Mandolorian was filmed quickly and inexpensively using LED sets and Unreal Engine in tandem. Also note the Bond reference, and about how far we’ve come since Dr No). As part of future filming processes, it’s likely locations and actors too will be digitised on set to capture likenesses for their metaverse-ready digital twins and avatars.  Consequently, Bond’s intellectual property – the cars, the martinis, the gadgets, the characters – may also turn up in other digital and virtual environments, whether in ‘open universe’ games like Fornite or Roblox, or predictably as NFTs for cross-platform use. In time, those transferable digitised assets — people, places, faces — will make the original Goldeneye recreation seem like Pong’s relationship to real-world tennis by comparison. But the cultural exchange between film and gaming goes both ways. We may also see Bond 26’s real-world action sequences adopt the visual grammar of gaming. In John Wick, extended sequences of Keanu’s ‘Gun-Fu’, flowing and evolving like some ultra-violent ballet, owe as much to ‘first person shooters’ like Call of Duty and Star Wars Battlefront as they do to martial arts films. The latest instalment, Chapter 4, features one long unbroken shot of bloody carnage which, according to director Chad Stahelski, is directly inspired by a game called Hong Kong Massacre. No surprise his next project is reported to be a big screen adaptation of epic game The Ghost Of Tsushima. When he’s done with that, if I were the producers of Bond, I would be snapping up Chad to deliver a PG-13 Bond version of those hallmark gaming-inspired action sequences to tap into modern audience’s expectations.

Shifting demographics

On the subject of audiences, a Disney executive once told me every studio dreams of a ‘four quadrant film’, a property appealing to men and women, young and old, and every combination thereof. Traditionally, 15- to 34-year-olds make up the bulk of cinema tickets sales, and the biggest quadrant, whilst older generations prefer to watch at home. But two things may start to erode that balance. First, while cinema is experiencing a post-pandemic rebound, streaming exclusives, home premieres and binging ‘boxed sets’ are now a regular staple in our media diet, particularly among the younger generation. Second, many Western nations have ageing populations, with birth rates plummeting and life expectancy soaring; a world with more grandparents than grandchildren. With an ageing audience and more home viewing, does the ‘four quadrant film’ model still work? And does it matter? After all, a cinema ticket sale looks the same on the spreadsheet, wherever it comes from. Well, yes, it does matter. Modern films are machine-tooled to align with the values and interests of the target audience. In that vein, in recent years the character of Bond has been seen to move with the times. Daniel Craig’s incarnation has dropped the smoking, fallen in love and [spoiler alert] fathered a child. The supporting cast too reflect modern mores, with Ben Whishaw’s character Q being openly gay and Moneypenny being a person of colour; a long way from the casual misogyny, subtle homophobia and lazy racism of the Connery era. The next boundary to be crossed could be a Bond film with a female director. Though there will be continual resistance to Bond’s modern upgrading, natural ‘audience churn’, shall we call it, means there will be fewer and fewer people who will recall the anachronistic 60s and 70s Bond. However, beyond the four quadrants there is now a more potent cultural force exerting its power: the international box office. Whilst Bond has always been a global phenomenon, certain markets have been tough to crack. Understanding this, in 2014 director Michael Bay targeted the lucrative China box office specifically by baking in Chinese filming locations and Chinese actors into Transformers: Age Of Extinction at script stage. The film bagged the number one spot in China, raking in nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in its first two weeks. These new paradigms could dictate future Bond film storylines too, with the nature of Bond’s antagonist particularly revealing. For a while, it was always the Russians, but post-1989 it has variously been the North Koreans, drug cartels, media moguls and, latterly, lone madmen. In future, producers will need to be careful about who they designate the ‘bad guy’. As Foreign Policy magazine states, to maximise return in as many markets as possible, geopolitical spy thrillers now may be off limits. The era of globalised media means a ‘four quadrant film’ may need to become a ‘five-quintant film’, with that fifth piece accounting for a worldwide audience with a myriad of differing cultural perspectives to satisfy. Also, annoyingly, a ‘five-quintant film’ is nowhere near as snappy a phrase.

Progressive product placement

Bond films have become synonymous with product placement from the Brosnan-era onwards — from Nokia to Heineken to Omega watches. The product deals of the future need to reflect the multiplicity of entry points into the franchise, finding opportunities not only in-shot or on-screen, but also in streaming and gaming. Recent leaps forward in the aforementioned ‘virtual film sets’ or ‘volumes’ will allow a switching out of placements according to the market or audience — or when Connected TVs become more advanced — maybe tailoring placements to the individual user; a kind of televisual creative optimisation that a few media-tech companies like Ryff already offer.

Theme tune

Maybe an AI could write it. Just joking.

Brand Integration in 2025

The opportunity key media and entertainment properties present to a mid-2020s brand is one of supreme multichannel integration. Nothing new there, admittedly: multi-channel exploitation has been happening for decades.

But the sprawling network of cross-pollinated entry points — from streaming to gaming to progressive partnerships to new markets — requires brands to understand the importance of preparing for an exceedingly complex media future.

When Lady Macbeth is urging Macbeth “To beguile the time, / Look like the time” she is advising him to adopt the behaviour of others to not draw suspicion. But reframed and recontextualised, we could read this quote another way: to be successful in your era, be contemporary and embody the essence of ‘now’.

The new Bond film could be the essence of ‘now’ — where that ‘now’ is a collision of 21st Century values and mid-decade media technologies.

Brands can be a part of that too. But they need to be ready.

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Phil Rowley is head of futures at Omnicom Media Group UK and the author of Hit the Switch: the Future of Sustainable Business. He writes a monthly column for The Media Leader about the future of media.

In brief

ITV has launched a campaign to tackle online trolling in which social media users come face-to-face with the people at the receiving end of their abusive comments.

The “Would you say it?” campaign, which launches during an ad break during the England v Brazil Women’s Football match on ITV1 tonight, will be broadcast across ITV’s linear channels.

It has been developed in partnership with The Cybersmile Foundation, a nonprofit specialising in tackling all forms of bullying and abuse online.

The ads were created by the broadcaster’s in-house creative agency ITV Creative and is part of a wider initiative by ITV to tackle online abuse, with new training materials for people participating in shows produced or commissioned by ITV being launched today.

Fake it as you make it? Leading figures at ad industry trade body the IPA have starred in ‘deepfake’ videos to illustrate the opportunities and dangers in AI tech on the industry, Videos played at a recent IPA Council debate about whether AI is a threat to the advertising business, showed a deepfake version of the former IPA President Julian Douglas and a deepfake Paul Bainsfair – the IPA’s current Director General – taking opposing sides of the argument. The videos were created by Morten Legarth, creative director at ad agency VCCP, who used AI to produce various aspects of the films. Scripts for the debate speeches were written by GPT 3.5, while Douglas’ and Bainsfair’s voices were generated using Eleven Labs. Face animations for the film were done by D-ID. Arguing for the motion that AI poses a threat to the advertising business, Deepfake Douglas said: “We must adapt to the changing landscape of our profession or risk becoming irrelevant. I urge all of you to take a closer look at how AI can transform your advertising campaigns and start experimenting with this technology today.” Deepfake Bainsfair replied that “while AI technology certainly has its benefits, it is not a threat to the future of advertising agencies. Human beings are the ones that build the relationships, develop strategies, and create content that resonates with the intended audience.” After other (real) Council members made their contributions to the discussion, the side against the motion won the day by a small margin. Commenting on the outcome of the unusual debate, IPA said: “It appears that until AI can understand nuance, ethics, and the appropriateness of moment – and it no longer requires a talented human being to create these things, even with all the AI tools – then humans still have the advantage. But only just.”

In brief

More than 12 FMCG advertisers, including Unilever and PepsiCo, are now part of the trial for ITV Adlabs’ retail-media solution Matchmaker.

Matchmaker, launched last November, enables FMCG companies who supply Boots and Tesco to enhance video-on-demand targeting by activating category shopper audiences on ITVX using loyalty card data. It boasts precise sales uplift measurement for viewers who have seen an ad.

The brand owners taking part in a trial for the Tesco solution are PepsiCo’s Walkers, Heineken, and Unilever’s Magnum.

Unilever brands Sure, John Frieda, and Estrid Razor are among the brands trialling the Matchmaker Boots solution.

ITV plans to fully roll out Matchmaker from July.

https://the-media-leader.com/itv-launches-share-of-voice-and-retail-media-matching-at-palooza-upfronts/

In brief

Audience intelligence platform NumberEight and in-game audio ad solution provider Odeeo are launching a platform dedicated to lifting women in tech. The website will host interviews, resources and tools to promote gender equity and diversity across the tech, advertising and gaming industries. The platform launches this week featuring interviews with Saadi Muslu, head of product marketing & content, Singular, and Deborah Gbadamosi, CEO of Brand Advance UK/Europe. According to the company, women make up only 28% of the tech industry workforce and only 15% of engineering jobs, despite holding 44% of STEM-related bachelor degrees as of 2022. https://the-media-leader.com/podcast-why-are-women-being-edited-out-of-media/

In brief

Adludio – an AI-powered mobile advertising platform – has secured a £2m investment from investment company Mercia following a £4m investment in 2021.

The company says the funding will allow it to launch a fully automated version of its attention-led platform, offering marketers an SaaS product to design and deliver campaigns that “guarantee engagement.” Last year, the company achieved 50% growth in the US and has produced mobile creative for major brands, including Ford, Land Rover Jaguar, Estée Lauder, Nike and Microsoft. Founded in 2015, it has a presence in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and Detroit and also delivers services via resellers in Hong Kong and Singapore.

In brief

Mindshare UK has appointed Alexis Faulkner to the new role of chief transformation officer. The role will focus on ensuring the WPP media agency’s operating model is “fit for the future” while supporting clients in the way they are transforming their businesses. Faulkner will lead Mindshare’s Insights, Technology and Analytics and Digital Planning teams. Richard Kelly has also become Mindshare UK’s chief solutions officer.

In brief

Homebase has inked a nine-month-deal with Global’s Heart to sponsor its weekend programmes hosted by JK & Kelly Brook and Zoe Hardman.

The sponsorship, secured by Homebase’s media agency Havas Media UK, will reach over 14 million adults and exclusivity across five bank holidays this year, one of which is for the coronation of King Charles III.

The on-air sponsorship includes live reads from presenters, who will also feature in social videos about home decorating with Homebase products.

Amanda Conner, managing partner at Havas Media UK, said the campaign would create reach and awareness for Homebase across a broad audience at key moments throughout the year.

In brief

News reliability ratings company NewsGuard is offering a new service using trained analysts to audit generative AI companies. The audit will see NewsGuard analysts test chatbots’ performance in promoting or rejecting misinformation, with prompts drawn from a proprietary catalogue of more than 1,200 false narratives. Publishers and watchdogs have expressed broad anxieties about various chatbots’ ability to produce fake or misleading information at pace and scale. NewsGuard’s own analysis of ChatGPT-3.5, the chatbot model before the updated GPT4, found that the AI complied with a request to propagate a false narrative four out of five times. https://the-media-leader.com/chatgpt-does-threaten-journalism-but-not-in-the-way-you-might-think/

Odeon Cinemas Group, Europe’s largest cinema operator, wants to convey the “pleasure of immersive cinematic viewing experiences and the emotional benefits of coming to an Odeon Cinema” in a new pan-European brand campaign. The campaign, created by ad agency Elvis, will feature a 40-second hero film (comprised of 10-second vignettes) that portrays one viewer’s journey through an Odeon cinema. As the cinemagoer navigates various touch-points that evoke a cinematic feeling, the film will shift between two distinct styles: ‘normal mode’ and ‘cinematic mode’. ‘Normal mode’ will reflect the “true, classic experience of an Odeon cinema” while the latter pulls the viewer into Hollywood-style shots with an orchestral score. The company says that cinema brands face the challenge of rekindling people’s love of cinema after the pandemic and the accompanying growth of streaming services. The campaign will target new and lapsed cinema-goers aged between 18-54, with a focus on families, films fans and sociable adults. Other campaign activity includes digital, social, radio and audio streaming, cinema foyer screens and kiosks and paid social, with media planning and buying by Omnicom media agency MG OMD. The campaign is running across the UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Finland and Norway. Nicole Burdett, group head of marketing and campaigns at Odeon Cinemas Group, said: “With this new campaign, we wanted to emphasise what makes an Odeon visit so special to both new and existing customers, built on the foundations of their emotional connection to our unique big screen experience. The UK’s cinema admissions in July 2022 totalled 13.3 million,76% of pre-pandemic levels when averaged across July 2017 to 2019.

In brief Google has started rolling out its Ads Transparency Center which will allow users to learn more about ads they see, including on YouTube, Search and Display. All ads from verified advertisers are searchable on the hub. Users will have access to information about which ads a brand has run, the last date an ad ran and the ad format, as well as which ads were shown in a certain region. The company says the Ads Transparency Center is geared towards helping users make more informed decisions. Last year, Google launched My Ad Center which allows users to control which ads they see, giving them the power to like, block or report ads.

In brief

EssenceMediacom, the recently-merged GroupM’s media agency, has appointed three people to its EMEA executive leadership team with a focus on data, technology, analytics and media solutions. Barbara Blanzat Henao will become head of analytics and insight for EMEA, while Sherif Guindy takes on the position of chief data and technology officer for the same area. Michelle Patrick assumes the role of chief media solutions officer for the region. They will all report into Tim Irwin, EssenceMediacom’s CEO in EMEA, and held previous roles at the separate agencies before the merger.

In brief

Microsoft is looking to place ads into its Bing chatbot. In a blog post, corporate VP and consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi said the company is “exploring placing ads in the chat experience to share the ad revenue with partners whose content contributed to the chat response.” Mehdi stated it is Microsoft’s goal to “drive more traffic to publishers in this new world of search” such as through links and citations within the body of chatbot answers. Bing now has 100 million daily active users. Digital publishers have expressed concern that AI chatbots could impact their business model.

In brief

BBC Studios has launched a bespoke in-house global advertising sales function to drive revenue across its branded social media platforms.

BBC Studios Social is offering advertisers a “global reach of 4.7bn social views across all social platforms”, and partnership opportunities around shows like Doctor Who and Top Gear (pictured).

The team promotes its “finger on the pulse of the ever-evolving social media landscape” and access to data intelligence and audience insight teams.

The sales team is led by ex-WarnerMedia executives Gary Webber, group head of digital advertising, and Jasmin Islam, digital account director. Jasmine Dawson, SVP of digital consumer engagement, is responsible for the social growth strategy.

In brief 

Dentsu agencies Carat, iProspect and Dentsu X will be able to access OOH Capital’s consultancy services through its own OOH service platform. These services are available effective immediately and include asset evaluation, commercialisation and application of data and technology across OOH. The aim of the partnership is to provide “greater opportunity” for Dentsu clients to maximise the impact of OOH media in their channel mix, and offer “mutually beneficial solutions” for brands, retailers and municipal authorities with “untapped physical footprint”.

In brief

PinkNews has hired Alice Beverton-Palmer in the newly-created role of head of creative strategy and platform partnerships and Nic Keaney as managing editor. Both Beverton-Palmer and Keaney join PinkNews from Twitter, where the former most recently held the role of senior manager, entertainment partnerships and the latter held the role of EMEA curation & trends lead. With the additions, the PinkNews senior leadership team is now majority female. The online newsbrand is targeted to a worldwide audience of LGBTQ+ readers. Keaney and Benjamin Cohen, CEO of PinkNews, will appear at our The Future of Brands conference on 25 April, alongside Ozone.

In brief

The World Out of Home Organization (WOO) has chosen 12 international out-of-home professionals to make out-of-home (OOH) more “green”. The WOO Sustainability Task Force, led by Katrin Robertson, CEO at BlowUP, aims to share “innovative” ways to maximise OOH’s positive impact and minimise its carbon footprint to help its members, from media owners, national associations, tech companies and agencies, achieve global greenhouse gas reduction targets. Other WOO Sustainability Task Force members include:

• Adam Green, SVP strategy at Broadsign Reach in Canada
• Ben Milne, global head of OOH media at Dentsu
• Jeff Jan, head of industry initiatives at the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA)
• Jorja Wilkins, marketing executive at Primedia Outdoor in South Africa
• Judd Guthmiller, vice president international of Daktronics
• Kai-Marcus Thäsler, FAW e.V. OOH trade association in Germany
• Lénaïc Pineau, JCDecaux chief sustainability & quality officer
• Martin Corke, Clear Channel UK’s CMO
• Annina B. Bleek, senior vice president solutions studio at Ströer Media Solutions
• Danielle Austin, managing director at Evolve OOH
• Stephanie Helen Scheller, head of sustainable solutions at Omnicom Media Group

In brief

Talon, the global out-of-home media agency, has acquired Evolve, an international out-of-home (OOH) specialist. Evolve has offices in London, Singapore and New York and is headed up by its founder and CEO, Robin Hall, and managing director, Danielle Austin. There are “no immediate plans to integrate” so Evolve’s clients will now be able to access Talon’s additional data and tech solutions which will be “enhanced” through the scale of the combined businesses. The acquisition aligns with Talon’s “overseas ambitions” and Talon International.

In brief By his own admission, Elon Musk has driven the value down of Twitter to less than half of what he paid to acquire it last year. In a memo sent to staff, seen by tech site Platformer, Musk reportedly told staff they would receive stock grant based on a $20bn valuation for Twitter. Musk was forced to acquire $44bn last year, having first made a formal bid for the company at $54.20 a share and then spectacularly trying to back out of the acquisition when shares in the company fell significantly.

In brief

SPOTiCAR, the used car dealer, has announced its first-ever TV sponsorship deal with ITV2 Family Movies. The year-long partnership was brokered by Publicis Groupe media agency Starcom and will showcase SPOTiCAR idents during the pre-9pm movies on ITV2. The idents, produced by creative agency Recipe, will feature SPOTiCAR’s immersive showroom experience, highlighting the face-to-face interaction customers can have with dealership representatives. The partnership will provide SPOTiCAR with a year-round presence.

In brief 

WPP has acquired Goat, the international influencer marketing agency.

Goat will join GroupM, WPP’s media-buying group, and merge with its existing agency INCA to create a global influencer marketing agency with more than 300 employees in 30 markets around the world.

The combined entity will be known as Goat and operate as part of GroupM Nexus, the division created last year to bring together specialist agencies such as Finecast and Xaxis.

In brief

Havas has announced a new global network that will consolidate existing agency brands and expertise in music, sports, gaming, and other areas of “fan activation”. Havas Play will scale across all of Havas’ major markets and replace Havas Sports and Havas Sports & Entertainment brands following a successful trial in France in 2021. The network will offer strategy, ideation, creative, production, project management, and distribution across partnerships, influencer marketing, experiential & live events, sponsorships, social media activation and amplification, and branded entertainment. Electronics company Harman International becomes Havas Play’s first global client, having expanded its remit with Havas to make the network its global gaming agency of record.

Dentsu UK&I has announced an update to its Effective Attention offer, which will now include dentsu’s proprietary media carbon calculator data. Effective Attention, which launched in April 2022, enables brands to target audience attention. The new feature will now offer clients insights into the carbon effect of digital advertising campaigns. Dentsu describes Effective Attention as an essential offering for Carat, iProspect, and dentsu X clients; the new integration of carbon measurement will aid media decarbonisation efforts. This is believed to be is the first time an agency group has announced a methodology for planning to optimise for attention and lower carbon at the same time. The Media Leader understands similar work is also being undertaken by other media-buying agency groups. “Marrying our Effective Attention innovation with dentsu’s media carbon calculator data marks an important next step in our journey to help brands meet their sustainability and carbon targets through sustainable routes to media activation,” Hamish Nicklin, CEO, Media, dentsu UK&I, said.

“Expending energy on something that won’t be seen is an obvious waste, but we’ve gone a step further than simply calculating the carbon cost of attention to understand the carbon contribution associated with the actual effect of that attention. This is based on our knowledge that not all attention is equal, and to maximise positive outcomes for brands and society.”

The calculator has been added to the Effective Attention live dashboard, which is powered by attention measurement company Lumen Research. Mike Follett, managing director of Lumen and columnist for The Media Leader, applauded the addition. “Lumen is really pleased to partner with dentsu to expose this important new view into the carbon cost of cognition for brands,” he said. “It’s broader in scope and deeper in value than any else out there, leveraging everything that dentsu has learned about the connection between attention and outcomes from five years of the Attention Economy programme.” This integration of carbon measurement is part of Phase III of dentsu’s journey toward media decarbonisation. Dentsu states it is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2040 and reducing the emissions associated with its media supply chain by 46% by 2030.