Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
I Don’t Speak TikTok
TikTok introduced search ad campaigns last year. But it’s a tough sell, especially considering TikTok’s organic traction.
TikTok has a strong consumer pitch, which happens to be the focus of its new ad campaign, but advertisers are wary, Marketing Brew reports.
A potential government ban on TikTok is in the air, and it may loom through the 2024 election.
But TikTok is also a risky place to buy keywords.
The app is a hotbed of terminology packed with sinister, unforeseeable meaning. The actress Julia Fox caught a PR storm a week ago when she misinterpreted a seemingly innocuous comment from someone who said they’d “given a girl mascara and she had lent it to a friend without consent.”
“Idk why but I don’t feel bad for u,” Fox replied. Turns out the comment was a coded way for talking about rape.
Aside from the keyword minefield, TikTok doesn’t have Facebook’s and Instagram’s guardrails for pausing or rejecting emotion-based campaigns. There’s a lack of nuance. Moments of happiness and pride have been blocked along with depression or vulnerability.
Still, TikTok overindexes on ads for supplements, vitamins, facial creams, collagen, menstrual products (pretty much anything that might be marketed with a cheeky joke about nether regions). Fact is, those things sell well on TikTok, and those brands are disadvantaged on Instagram.
Stream, Baby, Stream
TV marketing has changed a lot now that people spend so much time watching streaming content. It’s not all about premieres and seasons anymore, John Landgraf, the chairman of FX content and productions, tells Adweek.
Back in the day, roughly 90% of FX’s media budget went to promoting a premiere, he says. In linear TV land, showrunners knew they had a hit when a show had high ratings early on and generated buzz from critics.
But now that viewers can stream all of FX’s original content on Hulu and might wait to binge an entire “season” until after the last episode has dropped, a premiere typically gets half of the media spend it used to – if that. And this trend has only accelerated now that streaming platforms are upping their production of exclusive content.
The streaming epoch requires more hustle from marketers, too. Acquiring and, just as importantly, retaining customers must be top marketing priorities. Customers can churn and switch streaming platforms far more easily than they can jettison a cable or satellite linear TV package.
Feeding From The Bowl
This year’s Super Bowl is almost certain to shatter the record for most online gambling tied to a sporting event and become the highest betting day in US sports history, Bloomberg reports.
Reaching this milestone isn’t overly surprising, considering the steady spread of legal sports gambling, which is now available in 33 states, plus Washington, DC. But it’s also a consequence of some very sharp-edged marketing campaigns.
DraftKings and FanDuel are both NFL sponsors and pushing ad campaigns that are also prop bets. For example, Rob Gronkowski, a FanDuel endorser, is kicking a field goal at halftime, and anyone who places a $5 bet on the game wins a bonus if he makes it.
Here’s the playbook: Sports betting services hit the market with crazy-high promotional offers and performance marketing payouts for installs. But they’re also keen attribution hounds when it comes to customer lifetime value. (LTV can be quite lucrative when we’re talking about a new user who might end up spending years or decades pumping money into a betting app.)
FanDuel and DraftKings, in particular, have been all over innovative sports sponsorships and ad opportunities. They can see conversion results more clearly than other advertisers because user activity feeds directly into the app.
But Wait, There’s More!
The Arena Group turns to generative AI, starting with Men’s Journal pieces. [WSJ]
Pinterest missed its quarterly revenue estimates based on lower ad spend in a slowing economy. [Reuters]
WTF is the global privacy control? [Digiday]
Disney’s Iger returns to a familiar stage, but with different challenges. [NYT]
You’re Hired!
UM names Sasha Savic as global CEO. [Ad Age]
Razorfish promotes Dani Mariano to president. [release]
