The Price To Pay
A class-action lawsuit was filed against Office Depot in California this week for allegedly deceptive pricing and advertising practices. (h/t to Rob Freund for the spot.)
The suit claims Office Depot sets fictitious reference prices to falsely advertise a product as if it were on sale. The complaint refers to this as a “phantom discount.”
By California law, the reference price for an advertised sale must have been the “prevailing market price” at some point in the past 90 days.
Using the Wayback Machine, according to the complaint, it’s possible to see that, three months prior, Office Depot had offered the same product (Bounty paper towels, in this case) at an even lower price.
Price discrimination and tactical promotional pricing is set to become a bigger problem over time, especially now that almost all retailers – not just grocers with longstanding shopper marketing programs – have embraced retail media and data sales.
In other words, expect more pricing-related lawsuits – and not just class-action suits, either. The FTC has been gathering information and trying to set new rules for what it calls “surveillance pricing.”
YouTube Takes TV
YouTube’s share of time spent watching TV grew from 6% in 2021 to 10% this year.
That’s impressive growth in a market typically characterized by the inertia of the status quo, writes Mike Shields in his Next In Media newsletter. YouTube now eclipses Netflix’s 8% share of time spent.
Still, YouTube “is not typically considered television by most large advertisers,” according to Madison and Wall’s Brian Wieser.
But are marketers finally accepting YouTube’s ascendence?
“We can’t sit in our ivory towers and decide what TV is,” Shelby Saville, chief investment officer at Publicis Media US, tells Shields. “If it’s content that they love, it’s TV.”
YouTube also has advertising benefits beyond what the big broadcaster-owned ad platforms offer. “The cost of entry is typically less [on YouTube], not to mention the scale [and] data,” says Danny Weisman of marketing agency Noble People.
But there are hurdles facing YouTube. For example, brands can’t decide which metric to use to quantify YouTube engagement, which makes it a tough fit for media mix modeling. And there are also lingering brand safety concerns about YouTube’s reliance on user-generated content.
Tired & Wired Trends
Marketing is all about hype. And marketers have thoughts on which industry trends are overblown and which are flying under the radar, Marketing Brew reports.
Brands are growing weary of celebrity endorsements. And they’re over outdated influencer marketing strategies that prioritize big names over spokespeople who have an authentic affinity for a product or community. Half-hearted brand activism is also cooked.
The bloom is also wearing off of performance marketing. “There’s a reason ROAS is a four-letter word,” quips Andy Judd, CMO at prebiotic soda brand Poppi.
Meanwhile, the curation trend and the industry’s fixation on identity are simply byproducts of the ad tech “echo chamber,” says U of Digital’s Shiv Gupta.
And naturally, marketers are sick of AI-generated ad creative that isn’t ready for prime time being positioned as the future of advertising.
On the other hand, live shopping and interactive ads are two tech-driven trends that haven’t yet worn out their welcome.
Brands also say in-person connections and experiential marketing are underrated. And they’re bullish on multicultural messaging and long-form storytelling for breaking through the noise.
Marketers also want more emphasis on community feedback and data analytics. “There is so much information you can glean from customer insights with modern technology,” says Wanda Gierhart Fearing, chief content and marketing officer at Cinemark.
But Wait! There’s More!
How Gannett is adapting to a new era in digital publishing. [The Rebooting]
The Bezos-owned Washington Post has had two candidates for executive editor withdraw from consideration over the paper’s strategy. [Axios]
Meta’s Irish arm was fined $263 million over a data breach. [Bloomberg]
As gaming publications shut down and lay off staff, Walmart is partnering with marketing firm Moonrock to launch its own gaming news site. [The Verge]
LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong reportedly mandates that editorials critical of Donald Trump only be published alongside an opposing view. [Status]
How generative AI search platform Perplexity calculates a publisher’s share of ad revenue. [Digiday]
To reenter the India market, Chinese fast-fashion brand Shein must cede control of Indian citizens’ data to its local partner, Reliance Retail. [TechCrunch]
Brands hop on the Advent calendar trend. [Marketing Brew]
