Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
That’s A Wrapped
This week once again saw social timelines taken over by Spotify Wrapped, the audio service’s year-end user roundup of the most-played music and podcasts.
In addition to highlighting Spotify’s first-party data, Wrapped has become the company’s most effective marketing tool, Digiday reports.
The organic marketing play is obvious – people widely share their Wrapped updates – but Spotify also spends on out-of-home activations, live events and digital media to amplify its organic edge. This year, Spotify also integrated Wrapped into Roblox in an attempt to reach younger audiences.
And the efforts seem to be paying off.
“We don’t just see an increased user base day on day,” says Alex Bodman, Spotify’s global VP of creative. “We also see a lot of people coming back to the platform.”
The success of the annual Wrapped launch has predictably led to eager copycats. Apple Music and YouTube Music have each jumped on the bandwagon, partly also to flex how well they know their audiences. And news publishers are climbing onboard, too. This year, The Washington Post launched Newsprint, a feature that compiles a person’s most-read articles. Even food delivery apps like GrubHub are getting in on the action.
Making A De-List, Checking It Twice
Elon Musk went through a Christmas Carol-esque transformation this holiday season, but only when it comes to showering cash on end-of-year advertisers.
For brands willing to spend in December, Marketing Brew reports that Twitter is offering beaucoup benefits. US advertisers that spend $200,00 will get a 25% value add, while those that spend more than $350,000 will get a 50% value add. Advertisers that shell out $500,000 or more will see a 100% value add (capped at $1 million).
Talk about a Christmas ham.
“I’d never expect to see even a 20% value add from anyone unless I was spending millions in an upfront deal,” one ad buyer tells the Brew.
Guess that’s one benefit of being a private company again … as long as Musk and Twitter shareholders are willing to eat the losses. From Musk’s perspective, buying proof that Twitter is able to outperform ad revenue expectations after his takeover (and those expectations were quite low) could be worth the giveaways. Twitter also wants recognizable brands on the platform right now, considering a lot of biggies have hit pause.
Stable Q4 ad revenue numbers might calm ad buyers and woo them back at a time when most are in the midst of setting their media plans for the year to come.
Oh, and here’s another benefit of being a private company: If the ad totals are bad, you don’t have to share them.
Adding In The Links
LinkedIn just introduced a bevy of new advertising and analytics products.
One is a way for business accounts on the platform to target potential new newsletter readers. Another, called “Product Pages,” which lists actual goods and services a company has on offer, will now be indexed to show up in general LinkedIn searches.
On top of that, LinkedIn rolled out a new “Group Identity” feature for ad targeting, which allocates users based on things like job title, industry and company. That’s a handy one because it allows targeting by key user descriptions but without having to target any known individual, reports Social Media Today.
And, lastly, LinkedIn made an analytics update that puts competitive analytics directly in account dashboards. That data shows how, on average, a company’s direct competitors are faring in recent follower growth, how their posts are performing and their engagement rates. It’s an old trick that companies like Google, Meta and Amazon have used aggressively. Providing companies with access to their competitor benchmarks gives them the FOMO to start spending on the platform if they don’t already.
But Wait, There’s More!
GoPro lets creators do their own thing, and it’s paid off (says a creator). [Marketing Brew]
Ali Weiss, the new CEO of baby rental startup Loop and former CMO of Glossier, is the latest in a small group of marketers to become a chief exec. [WSJ]
WFA: CMOs aren’t convinced their agency KPIs stack up. [Adweek]
Google Android’s appeal of a $4.5 billion antitrust fine heads to the EU’s top court. [Bloomberg]
You’re Hired!
NBCUniversal hires Mihiri Bonney from Meta as VP of international communications. [release]
