Tag: content marketing

GoPro Gears Up For Original Content

Posted on by Lab Team

Leading action camera maker GoPro has been distributing crowd-sourced videos shot with its products across social platforms, building a sizable following on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Now, the company is ready to dive deeper into content marketing by producing original content. GoPro recently hired Charlotte Koh, who used to lead Hulu’s original content initiatives, as head of features and series. Early efforts will reportedly focus on unscripted and documentary content, although partnerships with Hollywood studios and networks to develop and co-produce new content are also in the works.

 

Source: Variety

 

How To Be As Good At Targeted Recommendation As Amazon

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Wired

Last week, Amazon quietly launched a new service aimed at opening its own AI technology, which its mighty recommendation engine is built on, to all businesses to use. The new service, known as the Amazon Machine Learning Service, is designed to help developers easily integrate targeted recommendation engines based on data and machine learning into their own websites and apps. As part its ever-growing suite of AWS cloud computing services, Amazon continues to claim Internet infrastructures, one piece at a time.

McDonald’s Plans For SXSW

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: AdAge

The 2015 South by Southwest festival is coming up this weekend, and McDonald’s has been announced as the big sponsor of the Austin-based media festival this year. Besides the usual business as an event sponsor, the company will also be hosting pitch sessions in three categories in which it hopes to innovate: restaurant experience, content creation and transportation and delivery.  Some industry insiders are not so optimistic on McDonald’s first official SXSW debut given the brand’s previous attempts to reach the millennial audience, but McDonald might just find the innovative ideas that it needs to stop its profit declines.

Why Tumblr And Snapchat Have Turned To Original Content

Posted on by Lab Team

Read the original on: The Verge

This week, both Snapchat and Tumblr unveiled plans to move into content marketing. Snapchat will start pushing original content created by its newly hired media team through its new Discovery feature.  Meanwhile, Tumblr announced the launch of the Creatrs Network, which essentially acts as a creative agency for Tumblr users that will help connect them with brands and other organizations that want to utilize their original content. Despite such different areas of focus, both companies are exploring new ways to engage with their audience via quality content.

BuzzFeed Ventures Into Ecommerce-enabled Content

Posted on by Lab Team

After some successes with native content advertising, BuzzFeed is moving into new territory. Earlier this week, the viral content site debuted its first foray into ecommerce-enabled content with a L’Oreal sponsored post that features a click-to-buy link for readers to purchase products that are relevant to the post. Such integration could help BuzzFeed and the sponsors better quantify the impact of branded content, but whether it can successfully drive up digital sales remains to be seen.

Event Recap: AdWeek — Future. Video 3.0

Posted on by Richard Yao

As part of our continuing Advertising Week coverage, this morning we attended a discussion on breakthroughs in audience targeting in cross-platform video advertising. Moderated by Scott Donaton, Global Chief Content Officer & Head of UM Studios, the panelists consisted of Bryan Gernert, CEO of Resonate; Jamie King, CPO of Keek; Andrew Snyder, Video Sales VP of Yahoo; and Matt Van Houten, Ad Sales Director of AT&T Adworks.

Video 3.0 and the Content Business

“Everybody knows mobile is the future, and mobile video is the key to that future”, declared Snyder at the start of the session. This mobile video content has been dubbed “Video 3.0” and is promising for advertisers partly because the viewers of Video 3.0 are measurable and can be targeted. Furthermore, “there is hope for a single content marketplace,” as Gernert noted.

More Helpful & Less Disruptive

The panel also discussed one persistent issue in video advertising—its disruptiveness. “Pre-roll video ads can sometimes be disruptive to viewer experience, and that depends largely on the content,” King noted, as the discussion turned to using behavior data generated by Video 3.0 to determine to the right context for video content.

The bottom line here, as Gernet and Donaton concluded, is that “advertising is the ‘necessary evil’ that fuels the content business”, which, with the improved targeting and measuring capacity of Video 3.0, will hopefully become more helpful and less disruptive.

 

Accessing The ROI Of Content Marketing

Posted on by Lab Team

Brands as publishers is the latest marketing movement as we see more and more brands creating original content on owned channels. Much like the beginnings of social, clients are grappling with measurement. Should success be accessed from a marketing perspective or a publisher? The answer lies somewhere in between.

Take a look at content marketing network, Contently’s latest findings above. The thoughtful piece outlines 4 keys to calculating the ROI like considering engaged time and repeat visitors which is something our friends over at Chartbeat have put into action.

Coke Rewards Workers With Care Packages Sent From Drones

Posted on by Lab Team

As part show of goodwill and part marketing stunt, Coca Cola has dropped care packages to migrant workers building skyscrapers in Singapore. Some 2,500 workers, often overlooked and underpaid, were given encouraging photos from Singapore residents as well as cans of Coke, of course. Coca Cola has been exploring all sorts of stunts as part of their “Where Will Happiness Strike Next” campaign and drones certainly fit the bill. The buzzworthy tech is capable of delivering all sorts of goods and capturing stunning aerial shots.

Upworthy Announces Plans For ‘Sponsored Curation’

Posted on by Lab Team

Branded content and native ads are nothing new, but Upworthy’s announcement of sponsored curation presents an interesting opportunity for cause marketing and social responsibility initiatives. The viral content network is planning Upworthy Collaborations which let brands deliver promoted posts, sponsored content curation around key themes and content consultation.  Their first collaboration has been Unilever’s Project Sunlight which has curated a section of articles around sustainability efforts. There will certainly be plenty of eager brands looking for these custom opportunities but how will Upworthy revenue compare with a traditional display model?

TheBlaze Tests Live Commercials

Posted on by Lab Team

TV advertisers are constantly battling for consumer attention so it’s no surprise networks have begun offering differentiated ad products to drive engagement. Take for instance, Glen Beck’s cable network, TheBlaze, which is testing four live 90 seconds commercials which look more like content than ad spots. Native ads and real-time creative have proven effective in the online space, so expect similar results for TV but will the improved metrics justify the ad spend?