Created by Zerotrillion and Moderated by Chantelle Brinkley.

In a new series, New York Festivals and Chantelle Brinkley, Managing Director of award-winning creative agency Zerotrillion, invite four exceptional women leaders to discuss hot button topics about leadership.

New York Festivals partners with their “Best New Agency of the Year'' winner, Zerotrillion, to create a new content series titled Carving Stairs into Stone, which will be moderated by Zerotrillion’s NYC Managing Director, Chantelle Brinkley. The Collaboration was inspired by a recent wave of interest in the New York Festivals’ other new content series’, including Black Madison Avenue and Immigrant Madison Avenue where various industry experts gather to discuss underrepresented groups and themes in the advertising world.

Carving Stairs into Stone delves into the career journeys of women in brand and marketing leadership positions. The executive interview series explores each leader's trajectory to the top, revealing how they defied unspoken rules and outdated traditions. Rather than clinging to the notion that "we all go through it," the series advocates for industry change and serves as a road map for newcomers to follow as they navigate the industry and seek to move it, and their own careers, forward.

The panel is composed of women from some of the world’s most exclusive brands. Tennille Kopiasz (Global CMO of Fresh at LVMH), Angelique Bellmer Krembs (author and former Global Head of Brand at BlackRock), joins Ashley Stallings (Chief Customer Officer at Salsify), and Marina Sukhova (AVP, Head of Search, Insight & Measurement, Luxe Division at L'Oréal USA) to share the valuable lessons that will benefit up and coming leaders in the industry.

When recruiting for the interview series, Brinkley was surprised by how many women in leadership positions felt there were not enough platforms for them to share their valuable stories of overcoming adversity in business. “I'm honored to help build a bridge between the industry's experienced leaders, and those charting a path, as well as helping to define a roadmap for bettering the industry through effective, empathetic leadership. Now more than ever, women’s voices and experiences need to be amplified so we can continue crafting a legacy of strong women carving out new paths to success in the global brand and marketing industry."

New York Festivals Executive Director, Scott Rose added, “Zerotrillion has been making waves and collecting towers in NYFA for the last few years and we're thrilled to be partnering with them. The goal with our content is to elevate the people behind the work and help them get important ideas out to the community. Chantelle and the ZT team have certainly delivered, organizing an inspiring group of top executives to share stories, lessons, and actionable takeaways. Carving Stairs from Stone is not to be missed.”

The first 45-minute Carving Stairs into Stone episode launches on August 18, 2022 and can be viewed on New York Festivals YouTube channel. The next interview series will include new leaders and fresh topics. Confirmed guests include Felita Harris (Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer & RAISEfashion Founding Board Member) Julien McCluney (GM VP Global Brands Hasbro Gaming at Hasbro), Rebecca Kovalcik (Senior Creative Director, Happy Family Organics - Danone), and Lee Piper (Global Creative Director, Yahoo!). Filming will begin in New York in September and a new episode is planned to be released in October.

Commerce media is revolutionizing how ads are bought and optimized. Companies need the right strategy to share in its potential trillion-dollar-plus value.

Key takeaways-

Advertising is being transformed by commerce media, a new form of advertising that closes the loop between media impressions and commerce transactions to improve targeting, provide new audience insights, and deliver more relevant and valuable experiences for consumers.

It has the potential to generate over $1.3 trillion of enterprise value in the United States and create a paradigm shift in digital advertising not seen since the rise of programmatic.

Retail media is the first domino to fall, and is a harbinger of the commerce media trend, with retailers creating high-margin, rapid growth media businesses.

For decades, advertisers have faced challenges connecting their ad spending to actual customer purchases. Figuring out whether they were delivering impressions for the right price in the correct channel was an imperfect science, with many assumptions, data extrapolations, and a cottage industry of measurement solutions. Commerce media changes this by directly connecting audience impressions with omnichannel transactions and business results. By linking content and commerce, brands can better serve their customers through more relevant offers and incentives, all in a privacy-protected way. While building brand relevance and favorability will always be an essential part of the marketing mix, today’s opportunity is to connect impressions to actual sales and feed these results back into true full-funnel marketing models.

Commerce media has its roots in affiliate advertising—partnerships in which publishers link their content to commerce opportunities to provide an enhanced experience for consumers. The category is now rapidly expanding to include retail media networks (RMNs), third-party ad platforms that retailers set up on their websites. It also includes “shoppable ads” that enable people to purchase products through online or mobile ads, and “live commerce” or “shoppable TV,” where viewers can interact with video content and buy products directly from their TV or device screens. In China, where shopping on the live streams of popular influencers has become mainstream, live-commerce media purchases reached $170 billion in 2020, driven by the apparel/fashion and beauty categories. In the future, new forms of this media could include contextual purchasing in the metaverse, which would enable consumers to purchase any product they see whenever and wherever they want.

How did the industry get here? The growth of e-commerce during the COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst that raised the bar on consumer expectations and produced new signals on customer behavior that advertisers could learn from. Next year, the planned removal of cookies from web browsers is expected to be another tailwind for commerce media. In an increasingly data-driven future, first-party data will become a powerful competitive differentiator.

Retail media networks: A $1.3 trillion domino effect

Over the past two years, retailers have taken significant steps to embrace the commerce-media trend by launching RMNs aided by their large and stable user bases, new real estate for ad placements, and the proliferation of privileged first-party data. What used to be considered a side business generating supplemental revenue from “sponsored products” is now a strategic way for retailers to drive consumer loyalty. In the United States, the growth of RMNs could represent as much as $100 billion in ad spending by 2026. With the overall operating margins of RMNs in the 50 to 70 percent range, companies across the retail spectrum are fully awake to the economic potential. For instance, Amazon has led the way in using its repository of e-commerce data to create an advertising and advertising technology business that now goes well beyond sponsored ads on its own shopping site. Retailers with single-digit margins and those newer to e-commerce may also consider selling off- and on-site sponsored ads a potential strategy.

The ripple effect from this growth is already significant. The ability to match unique customer IDs and ad impressions to stock-keeping-unit (SKU) sales in a privacy-protected way is compressing the marketing funnel and disrupting the entire advertising ecosystem. With $100 billion in ad spend expected to go to RMNs by 2026, the effects are likely to scale, creating potentially far-reaching implications for advertisers, ad agencies, traditional publishers, ad-technology providers, and retailers. Over time, a substantial number of impressions could be tied to SKU-level sales, ultimately changing the way advertising is optimized.

It’s not just retailers who can build “retail” media networks. The first-party data and customer touchpoints owned by hospitality brands, travel and hotel providers, telecommunications companies, banks, and automakers, for instance, may also lend themselves to contextual advertising that consumers opt into in return for more relevant, tailored experiences.

Our research indicates that over $1.3 trillion of enterprise value (EV) is at stake in the United States by 2026. This has potential revenue implications across the advertising value chain-

$820 billion for retailers who develop new, margin-rich media businesses

$280 billion for advertisers in the form of higher returns on ad spending (ROAS)

$50 billion for publishers from new ways of capturing additional ad dollars

$5 billion for ad agencies that deliver high-efficiency performance marketing for clients or help firms set up media planning and buying capabilities

$160 billion for ad-tech providers who offer martech solutions to firms that have no experience as media companies

Disruption and imperatives across the ecosystem

Based on engagements with over twenty retail media networks globally and our survey of more than 180 advertisers across various categories, including CPG, beauty, apparel, and consumer electronics, here is a deep dive into the commerce-media disruption and its impact across the value chain.

Retailers

Even though several retail and e-commerce giants have multibillion-dollar ad businesses, it’s not too late for newer entrants to get into the game by leveraging their first-party customer data. RMN campaigns can reach, for instance, personal-care-product users who haven’t made a purchase in the past six months or millennial moms who make purchases of both organic and keto products. Advertisers are then given feedback (with customer data anonymized) on who bought what in response to which ad. In our survey, nearly 70 percent of advertisers say their performance in retail media is significantly or somewhat better than in other channels

Our survey also indicates that 82 percent of advertisers will continue increasing their RMN spending over the next 12 months, and approximately 20 percent plan to increase it by more than 10 percent. This increased RMN spending will not cannibalize what advertisers already spend on marketing directly to in-store or co-op shoppers, as many retailers fear. More than 80 percent of advertisers say that their spending on RMNs will be funded from new budgetary sources (Exhibit 5). Thus any impact on retailers’ in-store shopper or co-op marketing revenue can be managed.

RMNs offers retailers—including those who feel they’ve missed the boat on shifting digital-ad spending—a significant opportunity to differentiate themselves as media partners. Our survey indicates key pain points still exist for advertisers working with RMNs. Advertisers value several key factors, among them, transparent reporting of an ad campaign’s performance, unique shopper insights, reasonable media costs, and ease of use. Retailers today don’t always fulfill these expectations. Additionally, 71 percent of consumers expect companies to deliver interactions personalized to their needs and interests, yet only 23 percent think retailers are doing a good job at it.

Building an RMN with a compelling value proposition can help retailers to better meet the expectations of both ad buyers and customers. Any of the following actions could be a good place to start:

Relentlessly protect the customer experience. For some consumers, seeing advertising or sponsored product recommendations on a retailer’s website will be a new experience. Retailers will need to regularly assess the impact of the advertising on the customer experience. RMN and e-commerce teams could collaboratively employ test-and-learn processes (such as A/B testing) and fine-tune ad load, format, and content.

Clearly demonstrate campaign performance. Advertiser expectations for RMNs are higher than for other media channels. They want to see that shoppers have interacted with their ads and made actual purchases. Showing a high level of steady growth in return on ad spend (ROAS) is key for building advertiser confidence in a retailer as a trusted media partner. This applies to placements on a retailers’ own sites and also those on platforms owned by their media partners or other marketplaces.

Deliver unique brand and shopper insights. RMNs aren’t just about providing inventory. Advertisers want to work hand-in-hand with retailers to find consumer insights that can inspire product innovation or new market positioning or messaging. Retailers may benefit from investing in the capabilities and martech infrastructure that will upgrade their ability to identify these audience insights—for example, a customer-data platform that builds a single, complete view of each customer.

Strategically segment with different service models. Not all advertisers are created equal. A relatively small number of high-value ad buyers will require elevated levels of service and thought leadership. To form a true partnership with these advertisers, retailers will need to provide rigorous performance reporting; unique shopper insights; distinctive creative services; sales and operational support; access to privileged ad inventories; and highly customized or curated audiences. At the same time, retailers will want to build easy-to-use, self-service capabilities for most advertisers, who will form the backbone of the RMN’s financial performance.

Build a curated partner ecosystem. Building a media business is an entirely new skill for retailers. Advertisers may expect managed-service capabilities, and retailers will likely benefit from partners that help deliver them, such as technology partners, content partners, sales partners, campaign-planning/buying partners, and reporting and measurement partners. To adhere to consumer-privacy laws, some RMNs are exploring partnerships with media companies that use cleanroom solutions. In addition, retailers may want help with accounting, billing, and the assessment of any related legal or privacy ramifications. Having a clear plan for what to in-source versus what should be provided by a partner may help deliver a seamless experience for advertisers.

Advertisers

Given the pace of growth of RMNs and other forms of commerce media, advertisers may need to move quickly to develop a strategy that keeps them ahead of peers. More than 80 percent of advertisers expect to increase their spending on RMNs significantly in the next twelve months. A similar number of advertisers rate retail media as a key strategic priority.

Marketing organizations could consider four actions to develop impact with commerce media, especially RMNs:

Create partners internally and externally. Working with RMNs is a marketing-led effort for most of our surveyed companies. But because retail media has direct implications for both product inventory and innovation, the participation of sales teams is key. In our survey, only 30 percent of respondents said they make sure to have joint visibility and accountability between marketing and sales.

It is also essential to bring retailers along as partners. The first step in achieving strategic goals—whether boosting sales among a particular segment, re-engaging with lapsed customers, or meeting sales targets for a new product—is to articulate the goals clearly. Demonstrating a willingness to pilot new product offerings with retail media networks could be a valuable way for advertisers to elevate their importance within an RMN.

Don’t lose sight of the big picture. Although RMNs present opportunities to drive growth, it’s essential to evaluate ad spending holistically. Marketing should be assessed and optimized across brand, trade, shopper marketing, and traditional media. Benchmarking tools could help identify how an advertiser’s marketing spend allocation compares with its peers’.

When engaging with RMNs, advertisers may want to broaden their aperture beyond a retailer’s owned and operated sites and mobile apps. Our surveyed companies allocate 30 percent of their spend with retailers to onsite ads, 45 percent to offsite, third-party sites and apps, and the remaining 25 percent to direct marketing and in-store marketing.

Set clear expectations. With 70 percent of advertisers reporting enhanced returns from their RMN ad spend compared with returns from other channels, advertisers should hold their retail media partners to a high standard. A pet-food company, for instance, achieved a 437 percent ROAS during a three-month keyword search campaign. If an advertiser doesn’t see significant results, it may be a sign to re-evaluate expectations and approaches.

Gain new business insights. Insights derived from retail-media data could be a source of new inspiration for advertisers. After several rounds of testing on different creative iterations, for example, a beauty company discovered a customer segment it didn’t realize it had: consumers interested in Korean skincare routines. Using this information, the company launched a new line of products to match this audience’s interests.

Robust reporting and measurement capabilities, therefore, are assets for retailers seeking to deliver higher performance and new insights. Before committing or increasing their investment with retailers, advertisers will want to know these capabilities are in place. This will allow them to audit their spending and do real-time reporting on how campaigns perform. Such a test-and-learn approach could result in midstream improvements and potentially help inform future campaigns and investments.

Publishers

Traditional media companies face a double dose of disruption. The planned disappearance of cookies will make it harder for them to track the performance of campaigns, potentially weakening their value proposition to advertisers. They also risk losing ad dollars to RMNs, which are better able to measure ROAS.

However, media properties can reach consumers at the point of purchase and compete with RMNs. Just as retailers or other companies that facilitate transactions are becoming more like media companies, publishers and media providers can move toward commerce. To do so, they may want to innovate in several ways:

Become more like a retailer. Build e-commerce capabilities or create a marketplace to understand consumers’ shopping behavior, and optimize it as a platform for targeted advertising opportunities.

Engage with audiences in the lower funnel. Incorporate live-commerce elements, such as hosted livestream shopping, to create innovative engagement experiences and bring audiences with specific purchase intent onto publisher properties.

Partner with RMNs on data sharing and cocreation of content. Instead of reinventing the wheel, publishers can partner with RMNs to utilize their ad inventory. They can also supply RMNs with innovative marketing content to boost engagement and drive purchases. For instance, several publishing companies have partnered with e-commerce providers to create “shoppable” recipes and meal-planning tools.

The era of commerce media is just beginning. Retailers are blazing the trail with high-quality, high-visibility, and highly matchable audiences that can benefit from more targeted and relevant advertising. Many leading companies have meaningful data on unique, hard-to-reach audiences, which could be used to create such advertising. Although the buying landscape is shifting quickly, there is still ample room to build a high-margin business of significant size. Retailers could assess their customer base and find ways to help advertisers enhance their consumers’ experience.

As companies approach the commerce-media opportunity, they must keep the customer as their North Star. Consumers already want personalized experiences and advertising that’s truly useful. Very soon, they will also expect to be able to complete purchases within the context of a TV show, online content, or virtual reality. Companies that find suitable customer use cases and forge strategic partnerships to deliver these experiences could reap substantial rewards. They will also help shift advertising’s mission from audience delivery to the acceleration of business growth.

Source:McKinsey

The function was inaugurated by Harivansh, Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha

Mathrubhumi paid tribute to the great architects who helped to bring together one of the greatest publishing houses in Kerala. The commemoration of the first meeting of the Board of Directors of Mathrubhumi and remembrance of M P Veerendra Kumar was held at Uday Palace Convention Centre, Kowdiar in Thiruvananthapuram.

The first-ever meeting of the directors was held exactly 100 years back, on May 28. It was in this meeting that was presided over by K P Kesava Menon that the first Managing Director K Madhavan Nair was appointed and the first shares of the company were transferred to publisher Kuroor Neelakandan Namboothiripaad. 

M P Veerendra Kumar, who was the chairman and managing director of Mathrubhumi, passed away on May 28, 2020.

The function was inaugurated by Harivansh, Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Harivansh, who was a friend of M P Veerendra Kumar,said that Mathrubhumi is the ray of hope for true journalism as it paces forward, imbibing the values of Gandhi’s words. Malayalam poet V Madhusoodanan Nair who delivered the commemorative speech on M P Veerendra Kumar recalled his greatness as an individual. He referred to him as a complete human who loved other people, living beings and nature selflessly.

The presidential address was delivered by the Chairman and Managing Editor of Mathrubhumi P V Chandran. He said that it is deeply saddening that M P Veerendra Kumar is no more. He said that Mathrubhumi, a company that has always upheld its values and preserved democracy, will continue to move forward paving a path for the society to follow.

K N Balagopal spoke on ‘Developmental issues of Kerala and Environment’, Dr Vandana Shiva on ‘Development and Environment’and M V Shreyams Kumar on ‘Mathrubhumi and Environment’.

The welcome speech was delivered by Mayura M S, Director of Digital Business and Devika M S delivered the Vote of Thanks.

Estee Lauder has announced intentions to acquire luxury fashion house Tom Ford for $3bn, in its largest reported acquisition deal to date.

The proposed acquisition makes sense for Estee Lauder given it already works closely with Tom Ford via its brand license for the Tom Ford Beauty line. Our latest study suggests that the Brand Value of Tom Ford Beauty alone is approximately $1bn, driven by growth outlook and brand awareness. In its third-quarter earnings call three months ago, Estee Lauder said that Tom Ford Beauty was one of a few brands with double-digit sales growth. Tom Ford is a well-established brand, achieving 62% awareness among US consumers in our latest global survey. The brand value of Tom Ford as a whole is not known, but could be worth in the region of $2bn.

Historically, Estee Lauder has focused on cosmetics and wellness brand acquisitions. During the pandemic, home-working and reduced socialisation led to a dip in colour cosmetics, and an upsurge in wellness products. Continuing supply chain disruptions and rising material costs are posing a threat to cosmetics players like Estee Lauder. Analysts claim that this move to acquire Tom Ford signals a potential wider venture to become a diversified luxury house like LVMH. Unlike LVMH, which has a well-known record of acquiring and transforming various small and large luxury players from all over the world, Estee Lauder’s record is more conservative and focused on the US. 2/3 of Estee Lauder acquisitions in the past 30 years were purchases of US companies, versus 1/5 for LVMH.

A notable past US acquisition by Estee Lauder was its acquisition of Jo Malone in 1999. Similarly to Tom Ford, the brand is eponymous. Jo Malone remained as Creative Director of the brand under Estee Lauder’s ownership until 2006 when she left. Her exit deal meant that she lost control of her brand, her own name. Her regret over this decision is well-documented and in 2011, she launched a new perfume brand, Jo Loves. Although details are not yet confirmed, it is likely Estee Lauder will adopt a similar strategy for the integration of Tom Ford and therefore the ex-Gucci designer is likely to remain onboard for the foreseeable future.

Director Andrew Dominik’s Blonde explores the starlet’s complicated relationships. 

Inside the booth of a New York restaurant, Marilyn Monroe sits opposite a revered playwright — they’re sharing a meal after her audition for his latest work. He feels he’s humoring her. How could this vacuous screen siren possibly have anything substantive to offer to his production? Then, with one stunningly insightful observation, she reorients his perception of her entirely. Before long, they’ve fallen in love.

It’s an intimate scene that leaps off the screen in Andrew Dominik’s new film Blonde, which offers a searing and singular portrait of the interior life of screen icon Marilyn Monroe, played by Ana de Armas (Knives Out). “He’s got to turn on a dime once he realizes that this person he’s having dinner with is not the bubble-headed actress he thought she was,” explains filmmaker Dominik. “She actually knows more about what happened in an event in his life than he does. He’s got to put down this self-absorbed writer guy who’s really sensitive to criticism and on the attack. He’s got to drop that and plug into 30 years of grief and then look at her like, Where have you been? Where has this person who understands me better than anyone I’ve ever met come from?”

The exchange dazzles not only because of the electrifying performances from star de Armas and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody, who portrays The Playwright, but also because it’s one of the few fleeting moments of uplift and connection in Dominik’s haunting, elliptical tragedy. Based on author Joyce Carol Oates’s best-selling fictional novel Blonde, the film unflinchingly depicts the violence that was visited on Monroe, from her earliest days in Los Angeles as Norma Jeane Baker to the final hours of her life. “She’s deeply traumatized, and the trauma necessitates a split between a public self and a private self, which is the story of every person, but in a famous person, it’s more exaggerated,” Dominik says. “The film’s very much concerned with her relationship with herself and with this other [persona], Marilyn, which is both her armor and the thing that is threatening to consume her.”

As Blonde charts a lifetime of experience through its subjective lens, Marilyn’s relationships take center stage and she moves through a string of romantic entanglements and failed marriages. “The movie’s very much seen from the point of view of how the men affect her, the compromises she has to make in order to be with them,” Dominik says. “We never see their side of it.”

Her clandestine love affair with Charlie Chaplin Jr. (Xavier Samuel) and Edward G. Robinson Jr. (Evan Williams) stands out as one of the less virulent romances of her life as the two sons of world-famous actors are able to see past the Marilyn persona and gain an understanding of Norma Jeane — Oates invented the relationship for her novel to help illustrate that not all of her interactions with men were wholly negative. “You very rarely see her in a state of desire,” explains the director. “With Cass and Eddy, you do. Of the relationships that you see in the movie, that’s actually the best one. I feel like they see her and she’s kind of herself [with them].”

When Marilyn marries The Ex-Athlete, she enters one of the darkest of her consensual relationships. Desperately seeking out the love of a father figure, Marilyn turns to the strong Ex-Athlete to find protection from the continuous glare of the Hollywood spotlight — deep down, she’s desperate for some sort of normal family life. But rather than offering her safe harbor, he proves to be possessive and jealous, unable to control his violent temper. The role went to Bobby Cannavale, whose Emmy-winning work on the drama Boardwalk Empire had long impressed Dominik. “That character had to have a kind of brute masculinity that Bobby’s got in spades,” says the director. “He’s a passionate guy who can’t really find a way to express himself properly. It’s not the most flattering role for an actor necessarily, but Bobby was great.”

Marilyn then finds herself in love with the cerebral Playwright, a character that Brody embodied with soulfulness and charm — making it easy to see how the world’s most well-known sex symbol might fall for him. But even he fails her — he, too, is ultimately blinded by her celebrity persona and cannot begin to understand the depths of her trauma or help her through her pain. “Adrien is a guy who’s really happy when he is working, and he’s just a joy to be around,” Dominik says. “I was really blown away by how quickly he would get into an emotional state when he had to. He was very much an advocate for The Playwright. You can see that he loves her. He might not see her. He might not understand her completely, but he’s trying.”

“In all the relationships, you see the compromise under which the relationship is going to continue,” Dominik adds. “You can see what she wants, what they expect of her — she’s already betraying herself or making some kind of trade-off between what she wants and what she has to do to feel loved, which I think is the case in most relationships. I actually think that most relationships are negotiated immediately, probably in the very first meeting. The whole dynamic is there.”

Source:Netflix Queue

Will Spotify and Apple Music meet their match?

TikTok continues its world domination after its parent company (ByteDance) filed a trademark application for the service, called “TikTok Music” in the US, back in May of this year.

Of course, this seems as no surprise as TikTok is the platform to discover new music. But did you know that ByteDance has already launched a music service in India, Brazil and Indonesia called Resso? It even managed to amass 40M monthly users across the 3 countries in November 2021. In India alone, its active users grew 304% from Jan 2021–2022, in comparison to just a 38% increase for Spotify.

ByteDance has described its music service to enable users to “purchase, play, share and download music”, letting users on the app “live stream audio and video interactive media programming in the field of entertainment, fashion, sports, and current events.”

What could this mean?

This is purely all speculative as it’s still early days, but we at Osaka think that the music app will coincide with TikTok (naturally), featuring all the major sounds and songs created on the app. Could this streamline the music marketing process for up-and-coming artists? Allowing them to share their work between the apps?

But could this take off? Spotify has reportedly acquired 422M unique users in Q1 of 2022, with 182M of them being premium members. Apple Music, the other relatively-new kid on the block, acquired 98M in 2021. It’s also worth mentioning that YouTube Music and Youtube Premium together have more than 50M subscribers globally.

But who knows? This could all be the start — what about something like TikTok Maps? After all, the platform’s already become the place to discover new places to go.

Last week Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta was expanding their testing for the sale of NTFs to an additional 100 countries on Instagram and launching new integrations with Coinbase and Dapper. 

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens are one-of-a-kind items which are owned digitally by the creator, until sold to a buyer. There are no copies for sale, just a single, original piece that is ‘non fungible’.  

This means that Instagram users across Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas will be able to sell their NFTs on Instagram using the Ethereum, Polygon, and Flow blockchains by connecting their digital wallets to the app.

Sam Gormley from Osaka Labs, one of London’s leading digital marketing and activation studios says this move is set to revolutionise the way we engage with the world.

He says, “We’ve already seen social media change the way we interact with news and online content – In quite a relatively short period of time we’ve shifted from a broadcast model to a conversational one. 

This announcement by instagram heralds the beginning of a brand-new way of digesting online content, and one that is going to revolutionise the space and help clarify the grey area pertaining to ownership of online content.”

Recently, we saw news that Spain's equality ministry and the Institute of Women, released a campaign aimed at encouraging women worried about their appearance to go to the beach. In this ad, the ministry used images they sourced from Instagram, without gaining permission from the account holders.

The artist responsible for the images, ArteMapache, eventually apologised, whilst one of the models whose images were used by ArteMapache expressed the sentiment, “People would never take an image without permission from a photographer because they know they have to pay, but [this has] a bit of a loophole.”

Gormley believes the introduction of the NFT model will help combat situations like this. He explains, “I think the growth of the NFT format on platforms like Instagram will be a further evolution of the conversational digestion of content, one which will enable clearer ownership.”

He believes that rather than focusing on their ad sales going forward, Instagram will begin to shift to a commission focus. He says, “The Instagram model will move from selling ads to make money and diversify by taking commission on NFT sales similar to how Twitch, Youtube, Patreon and Onlyfans operate.”

KOLs and live-streaming now integral to social commerce in China: Ebiquity report

Ebiquity launches a new report to guide marketers on maximizing return on influencer marketing

The report covers 7 steps that can help advertisers successfully leverage the power of KOLs
 
Ebiquity plc, the world leader in media investment analysis, announced today the release of its latest report, “How to maximise your return on Influencer Marketing in China”. Advertisers who want their brands to succeed in China should consider key opinion leaders (KOLs) as a key plank of their country-wide marketing strategy. 

As the largest social media market in the world, China has a penetration rate of 66%, representing 28% of the global social media population. China’s social media market has evolved quickly over the past few years, propelled in part by the stratospheric rise of key opinion leaders (KOLs) and live streaming, which has permanently altered the social landscape. 

Today, social commerce is heavily reliant on live-streaming sales, and that means advertisers who want their brands to succeed in China should consider KOL live-streaming as a key plank of their country-wide marketing strategy. This report looks into the evolution of KOLs and livestreaming in China’s social media market and its growing relevance in the country’s advertising market today. As with most campaigns, planning is crucial, but marketers need to follow best practices in navigating a fragmented market of over 10 million KOL accounts across more than a dozen different major social media platforms. Setting the right KPIs for these KOLs is also key since the market is relatively new and cost transparency is still uncommon.

Advertisers will therefore need to understand the finer points of KOL monitoring and selection. This report covers 7 steps that can help advertisers successfully leverage the power of KOLs. These include developing a KPI framework; deploying 3rd party tracking and fraud verification; breaking down KOL quotations; setting guidelines; agreeing to a systematic evolution and agency remuneration model; and finally, ensuring that the right contract is in place.

And most importantly, work with the right local partners. While we look into some of the most effective third-party KOL agencies and analytics firms in the market today, marketers are also encouraged to do their own research. It’s clear that KOL marketing and live-streaming is set to become a dominant platform and ecosystem in China going forward, and marketers will need to hone their craft in this new integrated channel to boost sales and future-proof their brand’s relevance with the next generation of consumers.

“KOL marketing and live-streaming is set to become a dominant platform and ecosystem in China going forward,” said Stewart Li, Managing Director, Ebiquity China. “Marketers need to hone their craft in this new integrated channel to boost sales and future-proof their brand’s relevance with the next generation of consumers.”

Today, social commerce is heavily reliant on live-streaming sales, which means advertisers who want their brands to succeed in China should consider KOL live-streaming. Having conducted dozens of KOL performance audits and benchmarking projects over the years, Ebiquity’s China team has identified best practices, risks, and attention areas that advertisers should look out for when considering KOL live-streaming. 

This report covers 7 steps that can help advertisers successfully leverage the power of KOLs. These include developing a KPI framework; deploying 3rd party tracking and fraud verification; breaking down KOL quotations; setting guidelines; agreeing to a systematic evolution and agency remuneration model; and finally, ensuring that the right contract is in place. And most importantly, work with the right local partners.

Influencer marketing in China is extra-ordinary. Our research finds top 15% of all KOLs in China generate return on investment six times more than the average ROI”, said James Gong, Vice-President of Datastory. “We suggest advertisers take a closer look at the effectiveness of their campaigns. And seek ROI maximization opportunities from KOL selection and content optimization.”

Navigating China’s KOL market is fraught with obstacles and pitfalls. From a KOL placement and measurement perspective, marketers face a number of significant challenges. The first is the nature of the market itself. With over 10 million KOL accounts across up to nine different major social media platforms, the market is incredibly fragmented and decentralised. Note as well that media buyers are not negotiating with media channels—they are dealing with individual persons, which can be a very different experience from traditional media and channel selection and comes with its own challenges.

The second challenge is tracking and measurement. With traditional online media, invalid traffic (IVT)—that is, activity that may represent either accidental or outright fraudulent clicks or impressions—can eat into marketing costs and siphon advertising budgets. However, KOL tracking layers on an additional risk of invalid engagements (IVE), which often involves fake followers spamming artificial bot engagements. And every second, there are over 3,000 posts on Sina Weibo alone, which makes tracking and measurement incredibly complex.

Finally, advertisers often run into the perennial problem of transparency. With over 100,000 multi-channel network (MCN) agencies in China, marketing professionals have to negotiate with complicated and opaque KOL buying chains, with little visibility or detailed breakdown over what exactly the client is purchasing. Rate cards and standardised cost quotations are not common practice, and the cost of a KOL placement can often be bundled in with other below-the-line activities without the knowledge of the buyer.

Having conducted dozens of KOL performance audits and benchmarking projects over the years, we’ve identified a series of best practices, risks and attention areas that advertisers should look out for. We’ve combined these insights into seven key aspects that will hopefully offer marketers a more comprehensive model to get started, covering the entire end-to-end process of KOL buying and management.

Conclusion

KOLs and Livestreaming are a relatively new marketing ecosystem and can be quite challenging to negotiate. The insights outlined in this report should offer a solid primer for advertising
professionals ranging from veteran marketers looking to emulate best practices to new entrants looking for some guidance on how to get started.

But this is only a start. Ultimately, there’s no substitute to proper due diligence in choosing the right local partners and platforms that fit your business strategy. A good partner can make or break a KOL campaign, helping you eliminate fraud, set the right KPIs, find suitable KOLs, minimise your fees and ensure you hit your targets.

New York Festivals AME Awards announced the shortlist for the 2022 competition.

Creative and effective work submitted from 23 countries worldwide were judged online by the 2022 AME Grand Jury.The five-region jury panels included global industry innovators and branding experts who selected entries advancing to the trophy round. View the 2022 shortlist HERE.

Shortlisted entries include top-scoring ground-breaking campaigns that elevated brand positioning, created engagement, and increased market share while delivering results that surpassed benchmarks.

Prominent brands and sponsors advanced. The UAE Government Media Office took the top slot worldwide with a record-breaking 34 entries shortlisted. Global brands and foundations advancing include Guinness, adidas, Allianz - Women's Aid, Pepsi, Flutwein, McDonald's, BURGER KING® Deutschland, Extra Gum, Sheba, Harry Rosen, Black Business & Professional Association, Fundaparkca Foundation, Kellogg's Eggo, Intuit QuickBooks, Lexus, Maltesers, Pfaff Harley-Davidson, Dove/Mars Wrigley, Indeed, Wendy's Canada, Heinz Ketchup, Mall of the Emirates, Tourism New Zealand, Campbell's Co. of Canada, Hondao Senior Citizen's Welfare Foundation, and Zalando.

Branded Content/Entertainment increased brand affinity and boosted engagement. Campaigns advancing include "The Warm Winter Livestream" the UAE Government Media Office partnered with gaming influencer and YouTube star Hassan Suleiman "AboFlah", who lived in a glass box, opposite the Burj Khalifa to raise $10 million in aid for refugees. Energy BBDO's humorous campaign "For When It's Time: Extra Gum's Pandemic Comeback" for Extra Gum dramatized just how epic our return to the world could be post Covid, and Starcom's "The Show Next Door" for client Maker's Mark created a six episode talk show running on the Roku Channel reminding viewers to take some time for themselves.

Purpose Driven marketing aligned like-minded consumers with causes that championed social and environmental issues. Shortlisted entries include AMVBBDO's "Hope Reef" for client Sheba, the campaign launched the world's largest coral restoration program - a 10-year commitment starting with Hope Reef off Indonesia. "#flutwein - Our Worst Vintage" by Seven.One AdFactory / Creative House / White Rabbit Budapest / WallDecaux for Flutwein was Germany's most successful crowdfunding campaign created to raise funds for locals affected by the Arh Valley's catastrophic flood, that destroyed more than 50 wineries. Additional campaigns advancing include "The World's Strongest Women" created by In the Company of Huskies for Allianz - Women's Aid, Leo Burnett Manila's "McDonald's Classroom" for McDonald's, UAE Government Media Office's campaign "The Donation Plate" for 100 Million Meals Initiative, and "Parkinson´s Scale Films" by WINGS The Agency for Fundaparkca Foundation.

Outdoor/Out-of-Home effectively sparked engagement across a wide spectrum of environments. Shortlisted campaigns include "Liquid Billboard" by Havas Middle East for adidas Middle East. The agency transformed a traditional billboard into a 5-meter-high swimming pool for women to dive in and become the heroes of the campaign and adidas' new inclusive swimwear line. "Better with Pepsi" by ALMA DDB for client Pepsi utilized paper artwork that uncovered Pepsi's logo in the wrappers of the top burger chains. "Empty Plates" created by Saatchi & Saatchi MENA for the UAE Government Media Office orchestrated a stunt that targeted Dubai's elite to use empty number auto plates and a VIP auction to fight world hunger. "Christmas Wildfire" created by MullenLowe MENA for Mall of the Emirates used a special-build digital carbon-neutral Christmas Tree which lit beautifully and burst into flames to raise awareness about climate change.

Social Equality campaigns shined a spotlight on inequality and helped brands be a catalyst for culture change while promoting DE&I. Shortlisted entries include Zulu Alpha Kilo's "The Micropedia of Microaggressions" for clients Black Business & Professional Association, Canadian Congress on Inclusive Diversity & Workplace Equity, Pride at Work, and the Diversity Institute launched the Micropedia, a judgement-free online tool that provides easy-to-digest information where people can unlearn their unconscious bias and make immediate changes in their daily interactions. Also advancing Wunderman Thompson's "Vicious Circle (No Fixed Address)" for HSBC UK, Zulu Alpha Kilo's "Tough Turban for Pfaff Harley-Davidson, and Anomaly GmbH's "Zalando - Here to Stay" for Zalando. Multi-cultural campaigns advanced including ALMA DDB's "Adios Cuadernito" for Inuit Quickbooks, and Marca Miami's "Iconos" for client DishLATINO.

Agencies employed technology to build stronger brand connections, entertain, and create a personalized brand experience. Entries advancing include "David's Unusables" created by Special Group for Motor Neurone Disease New Zealand, the campaign used Trade Me's auction functionality in an innovative way to chart the 'real-life' digital decline of David Seymour. BBDO China's "Dove Chocolate - Oddly Pleasurable" for Dove/Mars Wrigley used real-time neuroscience methodology to gather data to create a brand experience that triggers pleasurable feelings by generating dopamine. Zulu Alpha Kilo's "Notes IPA" for SingleCut Beersmiths used augmented reality to craft a beer-drinking experience that could elevate your musical abilities.

Activation & Engagement increased brand awareness and inspired emotional connection. Entries advancing include Inspire Activation's "Lonesome Hotel" for Hondao Senior Citizen's Welfare Foundation, the campaign addressed public awareness and increased donations by modifying neglected seniors' homes into "Lonesome Hotel" and turned seniors' life dilemma stories into special services. MullenLowe MENA's "An Invitation to the Future" for UAE Government Media Office used the real-life 'Iron Man,' jet-suit inventor Richard Browning, to fly across Dubai in his jet suit to gain attention for Dubai's Museum of the Future.

Products and Services campaigns launched new products, engaged target audiences, and generated brand awareness. Shortlisted entries include Grabarz & Partner's "The plant-based revolution by Burger King in Germany" for BURGER KING® Deutschland gave a glimpse into the future of Plant-based fast food at world's first Burger King Plant-based pop-up restaurant. Entries also advancing include Havas New York's "Keurig Makes Any Occasion the Perfect Coffee Occasion" for Keurig, Barbarian's campaign "Fenty Eau De Parfum Ghost Stores Launch" for client Fenty Beauty, AMVBBDO's "Black Shines Brightest" for client Guinness, McCann Canada's "Wendy's Phone" for Wendy's Canada, "Ingrid makes Indeed the No. 1 job search brand in Germany" created by Grabarz & Partner for Indeed, and "Lexus IS: All-In On Obsession" created by Team One for Lexus.

Health & Wellness entries informed and engaged while delivering results. Shortlisted campaigns include "The Return Visit" created by Deloitte Digital Us for NYU Langone Health, AMVBBDO 's "The Invisible Opponent" for Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), Starcom's "Winning the Switch Window" for client Novartis Kesimpta, ALMA DDB's "CRM" for Tobacco Free Florida, and "Grown-up Problems" created by McCann Canada for client Kids Help Phone. View the 2022 shortlist: HERE.<https://www.ameawards.com/winners/shortlists/2d890773-1aaa-4945-99b8-79206cb69b76>

All entries submitted into the 2022 AME Awards were evaluated based on 4 criteria and weighted according to importance: results/effectiveness, idea, execution, and challenge/strategy/objective.

The advertising industry is demanding more attention for their ads. How does this change media planning and creative development?

Every year Cannes Lions surfaces the big themes that matter in advertising, and there is a lot to learn from the award winning campaigns. But the event isn’t just a celebration of creativity. While creativity was debated and celebrated in the Palais award shows, all the major media platforms and agencies were vying for attention outside.

Meta, Google, Twitter, Snap, Spotify and others were lined up on the beachfront, along with many media agencies. 2022 also saw the arrival of the Amazon Port at Cannes - not surprising when you consider their ad revenues now equal the entire global newspaper industry.

Sitting neatly at the intersection of media magic and creative success is the debate around attention, which was a topic du jour from day one. Advertisers are increasingly keen to create ads that capture and retain attention. Publishers want to show they have the environments that deliver high-quality attention. And Agencies want to place ads where they can generate the most attention for their clients’ money.

The Attention Economy means brands need to cut through the noise, but they can’t do this by shouting louder, or by over-investing and simply adding to the clutter. Inflation and fears of recession put even greater emphasis on campaign ROI, so advertisers need to get smarter about improving attention via media planning and creative development processes.

Why is attention such a hot topic?

One reason is the demise of the cookie. Restrictions on targeting capabilities are leading to a resurgence of interest in contextual and format-based targeting.

Another driver is that audience measurement is evolving beyond viewability, beyond what the machine delivers, and incorporating a greater understanding of what the human sees. Or as Karen Nelson-Field puts it, moving away from “inward” insight about how an ad is served, to using more “outward” data concerning whether it was really viewed.

Get more attention for your media money

I spoke on a panel at Cannes hosted by Teads (the global media platform), Attention, the new metric you can’t miss, with L'Oréal, OMD Worldwide, Havas Media Group and Lumen Research. We debated whether attention metrics can be the foundation for improving the online ad experience and enhancing effectiveness. It seems the jury is still out on whether attention will become a new media buying currency, but it is certainly impacting media planning decisions and driving a useful debate around consumer attention being limited and valuable. The search for more attention makes sense because there is already decent evidence that more attention is likely to generate stronger brand lift.

Based on a large-scale study conducted in partnership with GroupM, we saw that greater attention measured by eye gaze results in stronger brand endorsement. However, for the skippable format shown below, the relationship was no stronger than the relationship we saw with behavioural time viewed.

Both eye gaze and time on screen have relationships with brand endorsement

How to measure attention

A lot of the attention measurement debate is focussed on eye tracking and predictive eye tracking tools which are being built into media planning systems. Attention can be measured in many ways. Machines, eyes and faces all provide legitimate signals, and what is ‘best’ depends heavily on the application. For one-off landscaping studies, you ideally want comprehensive measurement across multiple methods. This is what we deployed for the GroupM study which assessed four mobile video formats for three advertisers in three countries using ad completion, eye gaze, facial expressions and attitudinal responses. For industrial, ongoing measurement, you probably need to pick the most relevant metric. AI-based predictions of attention will likely play more of a role in the future, but we need to learn more about the strengths and limitations of machine learning vs human measurement.

In their media plans, marketers should not be aiming for attention at any cost. We know from our Media Reactions media evaluation research that ads are 7x more effective among receptive audiences. So, in the rush to generate more attention, advertisers and platforms should be careful not to inadvertently promote formats that are overly intrusive and likely to create consumer backlash.

Advertisers should also consider how much attention they really need. There is no point paying for a premium, high-attention environment if your ad doesn’t need long to achieve its objectives. While more complex stories and messaging need more time, some saliency campaigns need only a few seconds to remind consumers about their favourite brands.

Great ads demand attention

Once the platforms and ad formats have been selected, the question becomes whether your ads can make the most of those opportunities. Your ad quality determines how much attention you receive, especially within skippable environments.

Ryan Reynolds was the must-see speech at Cannes, with huge lines queueing to hear him talk about “telling stories that consumers want to hear”. But even he can’t get everyone to watch his ads to completion. Using Kantar’s automated Context Lab solution on Kantar Marketplace we tested his 36- second “Different Mintality” ad for Mint Mobile across four digital formats. The ad worked well across all formats, but audience retention was stronger on TikTok and YouTube, resulting in greater brand impact. However, even for this successful creative many consumers skipped before seeing half of the ad.

Even Ryan Reynolds can’t get everyone to watch his ads to completion

I recently compiled Kantar’s learning on the role of attention in the creative development process, sharing the findings at an Attention Council webinar and in this Human-centric AI podcast with Affectiva.

Attention measurement is baked into Kantar’s ad testing and development. We have assessed around 50,000 video ads using facial coding and tested over 10,000 digital ads in context where we capture attitudinal and behavioural responses. For print or outdoor ads, we also use behavioural techniques to understand areas of focus within those ads.

We’ve learned there are different ways to capture attention. Our brain is programmed to pay attention to things that are very different, personally relevant and make us feel something, so ads should be entertaining, engaging and emotive.

These three traits are highlighted by Kantar’s 2022 Creative Effectiveness award winners.

The Chupa Chups “XXL Flavour Playlist” TV ad from Spain entertained in a unique way using an animoji-type graphics and editing à la TikTok.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G digital billboard with Google engaged with a simple, sleek and effective product demonstration.

And the Mitre 10 “With You All The Way” TV ad successfully wove an emotive storyline into the home improvements shopping experience.

Conclusions

So, what’s the best way to measure attention in the creative development process? For videos we’ve found our facial coding measure of ’Expressiveness’ is more useful than the basic ’Attention’ measure of time looking at the screen. Expressiveness (which we could consider to be engaged attention) is more diagnostic since it is based on lots of different reactions at different times during an ad, and it validates better to sales effectiveness.

Yet neither attention nor expressiveness are sufficient to assess the overall quality of an ad. Other key attitudinal measures such as enjoyment, branding and persuasiveness are required to make a strong validation of sales effectiveness. This means attention is necessary but not sufficient for creative effectiveness.

The renewed focus on attention measurement should be welcomed. Attention matters and it is an especially precious commodity in skippable digital environments. Optimising your attention per dollar spent is likely to increase campaign performance. The best ads can earn more attention, so make sure you test them to understand both behavioural and attitudinal responses. Keep in mind that attention is not a new destination, rather a stepping-stone on the road to successfully building brands and driving sales.

Written by Duncan Southgate, Senior Director, Creative & Media Solutions, Kantar