Tag: Sponsored Content

Moët Champagne To Sponsor Vogue’s 360-Degree Livestream Of The Met Gala

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
The Met Gala, one of the biggest annual events in the fashion industry, is scheduled for next Monday, and Vogue magazine will be hosting a 360-degree livestream on Facebook this year to offer all fashion enthusiasts a front-row view of the red carpet. This will be the first 360-degree broadcast of the Met Gala, and it will be exclusively sponsored by champagne brand Moët & Chandon. During the broadcast, Moët-branded bubbles will appear periodically as interstitial ads between footage.

What Brands Need To Do
Live streaming has been quickly gaining momentum across social platforms, especially on Facebook. Earlier this month, Facebook reported that one in five videos shared on its network is now a Live video, with the daily watch time for Live broadcasting quadrupled in the past year. The rise of live streaming gives marketers a valuable channel to engage with viewers in real time, with brands such as Bud Light and Tiffany’s successfully leveraging live streaming to congregate an online fan base and spread their brand messages. More brands should start exploring live videos by finding the on-brand events to sponsor, as Moët did here, or simply hosting your own live events, as Popeyes has done recently.

 

Source: AdWeek

Siri Gains First Official Movie Tie-In, Sets Precedent For Paid Answers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Apple sets a precedent for sponsored Siri answers today as Siri gains its first official movie tie-in with answers for the Universal Pictures-produced The Secret Life of Pets. To promote the iTunes store release of the movie, Apple collaborated with Universal Pictures to added 15 programmed responses to Siri for the question, “What do my Pets do when I’m not at home?” According to Apple, this move marks the first time “Apple has collaborated on a home entertainment title and the first time Siri has been programmed to interact with an iTunes movie title.”

What Brands Should Do
As voice-activated personal assistant services like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant continue to gain momentum and infiltrate consumer’s daily lives, it is laying the groundwork for an emerging media channel that allows brands to talk to consumers directly, creating a new paradigm for human-computer interaction thanks to its efficiency and convenience. With consumers increasingly familiar with this type of interface, it is only natural that brand advertisers should follow suit. And Apple’s move to open up Siri for movie tie-ins seems to indicate more brand opportunities to come on iOS.

For more information on how brands can take advantage of the rise of conversational interfaces, please check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: 9to5Mac

Time Inc. Offers A Way For Brands To Sponsor Facebook Live Content

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Publishing powerhouse Time Inc. is offering brands a way to appear in their Facebook Live content via a Social Now ad product. As of now, Facebook has yet to officially roll out an ad product for Live video, although it has reportedly started testing mid-roll ads. Time is aiming to weave brands into the live broadcasts created by their publishers. For example, InStyle hosted a Facebook Live event where a beauty expert from La Mer conducted a skin consultation with an InStyle editor.

What Brands Should Do
With Facebook Live exploding in popularity, a number of brands and publishers are experimenting with Live video to reach and possibly monetize an online audience. Early-adopting brands such as Popeyes and McDonald’s have started organizing live events to launch new products and engage with fans. For smaller brands that don’t have the resources to produce their own Facebook Live content, the sort of sponsored Live video that Time offers should be a helpful way for brands to reach their target audience.

 

Source: AdExchange

Snapchat Launches Web Tool For Custom Geofilters

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Snapchat introduced on Tuesday a web-based tool that makes it easier for everyone to create custom Geofilters. The web tool comes with a set of templates for weddings, birthdays, and other special occasions, allowing Snapchat users to create their own Geofilters for as low as $5. Snapchat launched on-demand custom Geofilters in February as another way to generate revenues and several brands have since embraced this product. Brands such as McDonald’s and Starbucks are using them at concerts and sporting events to engage with Snapchat users.

What Brands Need To Do
Sponsored Geofilters is among Snapchat’s several unique ad products that blend the brand messages natively into the user experience.  By making it more accessible, Snapchat is also making it easier for brands with a smaller budget to try out Geofilters.  As Snapchat continues to grow its user base and improve its ad product, brands need to consider developing a Snapchat strategy and adding the popular messaging app in your social marketing mix.

 

Source: The Verge

Reddit To Allow Brands To Sponsor User Posts

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Reddit is taking a big leap in ramping up its ad business by launching a new ad product called Promoted User Posts. Set to launch on August 4, this ad product will allow brand marketers to sponsor user-generated posts on Reddit. For example, if someone posted something interesting or humorous about a brand’s products and got some traction on Reddit, the brand can ask Reddit to contact the user for permission to sponsor that post so as to propel its reach. The sponsored posts will be featured in different subreddits – topic-based forums on Reddit – so that brands can target specific segments of users.

What Brands Need To Do
Reddit currently has over 240 million monthly unique visitors, but brands have historically found the site difficult to market on due to its lack of viable ad products and a notoriously anti-ads user base. Still, some brands such as Toyota and Ford have found moderate success in their content marketing efforts on Reddit by playing to user interests and sensibilities. This new ad product should make it easier for brands to tap into viral content gaining momentum on Reddit and reach a significant part of the global online audience.

 

Source: AdAge

Facebook Is Making A Brand-Friendly Live Morning Show

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook is venturing into producing live programming as it teams up with London-based marketing agency DigitasLBi to create Rise and Shine, a daily morning show that will be live-streamed to users via the News Feed. The show will include common morning show segments such as local weather reports or recipe recommendations, but it will also offer many branding opportunities. Each episode will be sponsored by a brand and appear on that brand’s Facebook Page, and DigitasLBi promises to work with sponsors to customize content. Besides the News Feed, users can also follow the show by subscribing to a chatbot on Messenger.

What Brands Need To Do
Facebook’s live videos do not currently carry ads, but some brands, such as GE, are already using it to broadcast sponsored events and branded content. This live morning show offers brands an opportunity to reach the massive audience on Facebook. As livestreaming continues to take off, brands should consider similar sponsorships or broadcasting their own events to reach a live audience.

 

Source: AdWeek

Shazam Ramps Up Ad Efforts With More Data And Branded Content

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Shazam aims to grow its advertising revenue by offering brands more data on music consumption and new sponsorship opportunities. Brands will be able to use the “Shazam Brand Connect” program to identify up-and-coming artists and musical genres they can align themselves with. Until now, Shazam has mostly sold their data to record labels to help them gauge market interests and trends. Moreover, the company also plans to launch its first event highlighting emerging artists later this year, which will provide brands with sponsorship opportunities.

What Brands Need To Do
Previously, Shazam mostly limited their ad efforts to selling in-app banner ads and occasional pop-ups while users wait for search results. Now as it looks to boost ad revenue, it is offering brands more data and new opportunities to connect brands with the music industry. At a time when consumers start to turn away from traditional ads (see more on this in the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016), it is important for brands to take advantage of Shazam’s diversified ad products and try engaging their audience with branded music content and events.

 

Source: AdAge

New Ad-Free OTT Video Service Fullscreen Welcomes Sponsored Content

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Fullscreen, a digital video network co-owned by AT&T and The Chernin Group, is set to officially launch its own subscription-based streaming service on April 26 as it tries to reduce its reliance on YouTube. Although the $4.99-per-month service won’t carry any ads, Fullscreen is very much open to hosting brand-sponsored content. AT&T, for example, is co-producing programs that will debut on the service at launch. Fullscreen has previously worked with brands to create branded or sponsored video content for distribution on various social channels like YouTube and Snapchat.

What Brands Need To Do
With 70% of U.S. internet users now watching TV via OTT streaming services, it is getting harder and harder for brands to reach their audiences with traditional TV ads. The fact that a lot of those subscription-based services are ad-free doesn’t mean that they are brand-free. On the contrary, they offer brands new opportunities to reach consumers with branded content, which can live alongside traditional media content and is equally discoverable on advanced TV interfaces. Therefore, brands should consider working with those brand-friendly OTT platforms to make their branded or sponsored content more accessible.  

To read more on how brands can reach viewers on OTT platforms, please check out the Appified TV section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Header image courtesy of Fullscreen

Viceland Replaces Ads With Samsung-Sponsored Content

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
At launch, Viceland, the new cable channel from Vice Media in partnership with A+E Networks, promised to substitute about half of its ads with sponsored content designed to look like Vice’s editorial. Now, it is taking the first step in realizing that promise by airing clips from a five-part documentary series on virtual reality that Vice co-produced with Samsung in place of ad breaks in some of its primetime programming. With this sponsored content, Samsung aims to drive conversation around the innovative developments of VR technology and familiarize the audience with this emerging medium and related Samsung VR products.

What Brands Need To Do
At a time when ad blockers and subscription-based streaming services are helping millions of viewers actively avoid ads, it is important for brands and media owners to address consumers’ growing aversion to ads. This new sponsored content created by Vice and Samsung provides a good example in how brands may experiment with new types of ads, such as sponsored content and native ads, to engage with their audience instead. For example, sponsored content now reportedly drive more than 60% of ad revenue for The Atlantic.

For more information on how brands should leverage interesting branded content to earn consumer eyeballs, check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: AdAge

Header image courtesy of Viceland

Native Ads Are Coming To Apple News

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Apple is dipping a toe into native advertising with a new format for sponsored posts in the next update for its Apple News app. With the new format, sponsored posts will “display directly in the content feed, in line with News articles” from a publisher’s feed and can link to an article in the News app. The new ad format will clearly label branded content in the app with a small “sponsored” tag, and Apple will keep 30% of the revenue. The Apple News app will be updated as part of the upcoming version of iOS, expected to be released next week as Apple announces new devices.

What Brands Need To Do
In January, Apple reported that 40 million people had used the Apple News app. Now, Apple is opening a way for brands to get in front of an audience that is increasingly shunning mobile ads and turning to the likes of Facebook’s Instant Articles or Apple News for a faster, leaner reading experience. Native ads remain a good way for brands to cope with this behavioral shift and reach their target audience.

To learn more about tailoring your ad content and format to the platform of choice, check out the Ad Avoidance section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: Engadget