Last month, in its second round of layoffs in as many years, comedy hub Funny or Die reportedly eliminated its entire editorial team following a trend of comedy websites scaling back, shutting down, or restructuring their business model away from original online content.
Hours after CEO Mike Farah delivered the news via an internal memo, Matt Klinman took to Twitter, writing, “Mark Zuckerberg just walked into Funny or Die and laid off all my friends.” It was a strong sentiment for the longtime comedy creator, who started out at UCB and The Onion before launching Pitch, the Funny or Die-incubated joke-writing app, in 2017.
Last year’s brand safety controversies stirred fears that advertisers would back away from platforms like Facebook and YouTube, but spending has continued to surge. Here are some ways that marketers are stepping up efforts to ensure their placements are brand safe.
Justin Timberlake’s performance at the Super Bowl halftime show got very mixed reviews, but his streams surged 214% on Spotify in the US during the hour that followed Philadelphia Eagles’ win over New England Patriots.
With Apple’s mind boggling cash pile hitting a new record, you have to wonder why they aren’t investing more aggressive with larger acquisitions or at least more aggressively in their new video content service so that it could better compete for new shows with current leaders Hulu, Netflix and Amazon’s Prime.
There are many accusations against Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon and others for their addictive effects on our brains and culture. Most of the discourse is about how evil tech companies are (covertly) peddling addictive products/services that are destroying our minds, our society and our relationships. I’ve been frequently quoted in this dialogue as an example of someone who used to focus on increasing addiction (through gamification) to a “changed man” who now believes things have gone too far — with a startup to prove it.
Companies are now tracking how consumers react on social media to Super Bowl ads. They’re also studying how the brain responds to them. Could personalized Super Bowl ads be on the horizon?
New data from Kantar Consulting shows that an impressive 45% of households are more than willing to pay Prime membership fees, in exchange for free two-day shipping, along with ancillary benefits like access to Amazon’s streamable content.
Microsoft’s Xbox One platform is making ambitious moves but remains in second place behind Sony’s massively successful PlayStation 4. A comparatively poor lineup of major exclusive games is a key factor in the Xbox One’s weaker position. A new report from the gaming site Polygon says Microsoft is looking at a major acquisition to help the Xbox group.Valve, EA, and PUBG Corp. are all cited as potential purchases.
In the latest episode of eMarketer’s “Behind the Numbers” podcast, analyst Paul Verna discusses trends in music consumption and how the Grammys fit—and don’t fit—with consumers’ evolving habits.
Unsurprisingly, the Google/Facebook duopoly also reigns when it comes to video ads, finds new research. But Snapchat has barely made a dent in the space.
A recent survey of internet users worldwide by Salesforce showed 81% of respondents watched broadcast TV at least monthly, more than any other format. But there are stark generational differences in the way they consume media, especially video.
Clips is basically a GoPro with a clip on the back that can also serve as a stand. The unique part is how Google embedded its machine learning skills directly into the camera, so you don’t actually take pictures with it. Instead, you just put Clips somewhere, then go about your day, and the AI will sit back like a voyeur until it sees the perfect shot, which it will then capture as a brief Motion Photo with ideal composition and a sort-of candid feel that you couldn’t get anywhere else.
YouTube Gaming, Google’s rival to game-streaming site Twitch, is starting to pick up traction. According to a new report from Streamlabs, Twitch continues to dominate the live streaming space, but YouTube grew its monthly active streamer base by 343 percent over the course of 2017. Twitch, by comparison, grew 197 percent.
It is the age of brands — or rather, #woke brands, those hyper-aware corporate behemoths with gargantuan marketing departments that see in every social and political cause du jour an opportunity for 15 minutes of web infamy. Net neutrality may seem like a wonky telecom battle with little relevance to a fast-food giant. But it has attracted millions of Americans’ comments and seemingly touched a nerve, particularly among millennials — a fickle crowd that Burger King seeks now to court with its ads.
China is not here for hip hop culture, or at least, that’s what their government made clear recently. According to Time and a Chinese news outlet called Sina, the country’s top media regulator — the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China (SAPPRFT) — is cutting TV’s ties to hip hop. They require that “programs should not feature actors with tattoos [or depict] hip hop culture, sub-culture (non-mainstream culture) and dispirited culture (decadent culture).”
