The Month in Media: June
Snapchat still swinging?
We discussed last month in the MAG blog about how Snapchat’s latest accessory ‘Spectacles’ could have been their final attempt at fending off Instagram and staying relevant.
However, it appears they had a few more tricks up their sleeve, releasing a new self-serve ad manager; something we said would be integral to them clawing back that terrible and well documented first quarter.
Another announcement that has sparked excitement is Time Warner investing $100m in original Snapchat shows. In a move to target younger audiences, the media giants will produce shows across a range of genres that will last 3-5 minutes.
‘Snapmaps’ was another new feature that broke, all be it to less of a positive reception. The ability to see where fellow users are in real-time sparked obvious safety concerns, though the ability to watch stories from around the world was a big redeeming quality.
Facebook vs Snapchat…again
Just as quickly as Snapchat started to feel a bit more relaxed about their situation, in comes Facebook with the idea of, you guessed it, original TV shows for the platform.
In a further attempt to outdo Snapchat, the launch date of the first show is said to be aiming for late Summer, teaming up with the likes of ATTN, Vox Media, and Buzzfeed.
Sky & Virgin team up
It’s common knowledge that digital advertising is hugely dominated by behemoths Google and Facebook – it’s been the case for some years, and it’s going to take something big to match them.
However, that’s exactly what Sky and Virgin are aiming to do though as they join forces in a deal that covers both broadcast and VOD.
The rivals announced that they reached an agreement which will give them access to more than 30m “targetable” TV viewers across the UK and Ireland.
The deal allows Virgin Media, which is owned by the pan-European giant Liberty Global, to make use of Sky’s Adsmart targeted advertising network. It’s a move that they feel will level the playing field with Facebook and Google, who have both thrived due to their ability to target specific consumers.
Digital spend continues to rise
Despite concerns last year following our exit from the European Union, global ad spend is set to reach $563.4bn this year.
2018 is set to see a huge jump in spend also, with massive worldwide events including the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in South Korea, the FIFA World Cup in Russia and the US Congressional elections all expected to stimulate ad spend growth.
Digital, as predicted, is going from strength to strength, particularly mobile which is forecast to overtake desktop this year, reaching 56% of the share. Whilst in 2018 it will account for a total of $116.1bn in the US, as smartphone subscriptions are set to reach 4 billion by 2025.
A few more key digital statistics for 2017…
Online video set to grow by 32.4%
Social by 28.9%
Programmatic by 25.4%
Gmail advertising scrapped
The controversial practice of scanning email inboxes as a form of gathering information for targeted ads will no longer be used by Google.
G-suite, Google’s enterprise email service is already excluded from such targeting, now the free version will also follow suit.
The change will take place later this year, and they say it will better unify the experience their customers receive its enterprise and free email services.
Google’s misery continues
It keeps going from bad to worse, following a series of advertising boycotts from huge names after they found their content was appearing alongside extremist content, it surely couldn’t have got any worse.
That was the thinking before they were hit with a record fine from the European Commission somewhere in the region of £2.1bn.
The EU said Google had broken EU competition law by exploiting the power of its search engine to promote its online shopping service, at the expense of other price comparison sites.
June at MAG
How do you promote a brand new AMC series? Well you go and project clips from the show on some of the UK’s most famous landmarks that’s how! We took to the streets to promote the new series of ‘The Jury Rooms’ turning heads across the country with the exciting and unique campaign!
We coordinated a huge nationwide DOOH and OOH campaign with Liverpool John Moores, celebrating their status as The University Of The Year.
A few of us headed down to the ITV Showcase event for some interesting discussions followed by visiting Channel 4 HQ for some fascinating consumer insights.
We like to keep clued up with the latest tech on offer in the MAG offices, so we’ve been trying out Snpachat’s brand new accessory ‘Spectacles’ to see whether they can help re-shed some positivity on Snapchat again!
Finally, we take our IPA status very seriously, and know how big a deal it is, that’s why it was a pleasure to go along to their open house event and bid farewell to our good friend, and chairman for England & Wales, John Oldfield!