Facebook's Appeal To Product Startups; Twitter In Video Ad Deal With Time Inc.

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In The Feed

Facebook’s ability to put a short product video in front of hundreds or thousands of potential buyers has made it indispensable to CPG and ecommerce startups. For those advertisers, Facebook and Instagram “are the stuff of fantasy – grand bazaars on a scale never seen before,” writes Burt Helms at The New York Times. Contacts, toothbrushes, razors, water filters, shoes, mattresses, fitted clothes and more have “spawned a wild proliferation of specialty digital sellers that depend on the social network’s algorithm to find their early customers.” More. But managing complicated Facebook campaigns can be a bit overwhelming. One startup manufacturer decided to reduce Facebook advertising “for the sake of their business and their own sanity,” instead testing a 15-second TV spot. Returns were harder to prove without the data feedback, says one executive, but at least “[y]ou can push the button and get on with your life.”

Lean On Me

In its latest pitch for TV ad dollars, Twitter inked a deal with Time Inc. to stream content from its online video network, PeopleTV. Advertisers will be able to buy across Twitter and the network’s OTT channel, with Twitter taking a cut of the revenue. The partnership will include a “significant amount” of live celebrity news, The Wall Street Journal reports. “PeopleTV on Twitter will give us greater audience scale,” says Ian Orefice, head of programmatic at Time Inc. Twitter already has similar streaming content deals in place with Bloomberg, BuzzFeed, Vox Media, Live Nation and the WNBA. More.

Mar’ked Up

Marketing tech vendor budgets will grow by double digits next year as marketing departments take on more responsibility for driving business growth, according to a Forrester CMO report. Scott Hagedorn, CEO of the Omnicom media agency Hearts & Science, “suggested that traditional, consumer-facing companies have yet to create a successful, large-scale innovation effort for mobile-first consumers,” notes Adweek. Forrester forecasts that reaching and understanding these “large, lucrative segments of shoppers” will drive a wave of brand budgets to mar tech companies in the next year. More at Adweek.

Power In Numbers

By 2019, Asia-Pacific advertising is expected to surpass North America in total dollars spent, according to analysts at eMarketer and Zenith. China will remain the second-largest national ad market behind the United States, but hundreds of millions of new smartphone owners across Thailand, Indonesia, India and Singapore are powering ridiculous growth for ecommerce and social media advertising. “Because the ad market in Asia-Pacific is growing, there is more incentive for large technology companies that rely on data-based advertising revenue to invest in products and services that will increase their margins in those regions,” writes Sara Fischer at Axios. More.

But Wait, There’s More!