Media | Page 116 of 1254

In A Flurry Of Network Rebrands, Freeform Sets Itself Apart For “Becomers”

October 7, 2015, 12:00AM

Many networks seem to be going through some form of rebranding these days. G4TV became The Esquire Network just over a year ago; Fox turned Speed Channel into Fox Sports 1; and NBC’s Versus channel became NBCSN just a few years ago, making it a primary source for sports entertainment.

Now it’s ABC Family’s turn. The channel, which has provided its fair share of original programming and popular Disney films, will become Freeform in early 2016. With the rebranding, the channel is hoping to reach out to an audience between the ages of 14-34 or, as the team calls them, “Becomers.”

According to a press release from ABC Family, the name Freeform was chosen because it “speaks to the mindset and attitude of what the channel has defined as Becomers. Traditionally, Becomers are in high school, college and the decade that follows and are navigating the wonderful, fun, exciting, and scary time in life when you experience the most firsts first car, first apartment, first job, first love, first heartbreak all the firsts that exists between who they are and who they want to become. Becomers represent a life stage rather than a generation.

“Eleven years ago, ABC Family was ahead of the curve when it began super-serving Millennials to become their entertainment staple. Today, nearly 70 percent of 12-34 year olds are millennials, but in five years, millennials will be less than half of the target. Becomers are 69 million strong in the U.S., with an estimated spending power in the trillions. There are two billion Becomers worldwide.

“Freeform personifies this fluidity and will deliver ideas, forms of content and ways of interacting with the brand. Freeform is inspired by the interconnection between content and audience, media and technology, interactive and linear, life stage and life style and the way Becomers interact with them all.”

“Freeform evokes the spirit and adventure of our audience,” says ABC Family president Tom Ascheim. “Freeform will deliver new, exciting original content as well as all the favorite shows our viewers already love on ABC Family.”

ABC Family hopes that the social media push it’s gotten from its many shows will stay intact with the new name. The press release indicates that it’s become the number one entertainment network on cable television, with shows like Pretty Little Liars dominating social media. It has over 144 million engagements and 3.7 million followers on Instagram, and also has the number one scripted show on Pinterest with over 172,000 followers.

The question is if the outreach to Becomers instead of millennials will work. With a number of the channel’s shows sticking around and new ones likely to be crafted around the Freeform message it’s still bound to be popular. We’ll see where the rebranding takes it when it happens in January 2016.

Twitter Set To Introduce Brand-Friendly Moments

BY Robert Workman

October 6, 2015, 12:00AM

Now that Jack Dorsey has returned to Twitter as its permanent CEO, his first initiative is to create “moments” that not only grab the eyes of the site’s millions of users, but also potential brands as well.

Ad Age has reported that Twitter has begun rolling out the feature, which will organize certain tweets around live events through special feeds labeled Moments. With it, users can look to see different live-event feeds that are collectively put into categories, including news, entertainment and sports. With one swipe, they can look through these “moments,” including text, photo, videos and Vine clips, that relate to said event.

“What we want to provide is a simplified way for users to get instant value from the platform and literally get the best of what’s happening on Twitter right now,” said Matt Derella, vice president of sales for Twitter. The section “should be a very easy way to catch up with what’s happening in your world with one tap.”

Advertisers will also be able to take advantage of the “Moments” tab through “Promoted” posts, but they will run over a 24 hour period through the various live events, so that they won’t wear out their welcome. Twitter already indicated that it has several brands (which they didn’t name) set to place these ads.

“What it’s actually going to be is a dedicated piece of real estate within the moments guide where a brand can curate a series of different tweets or Vines to actually tell their story,” said Derella. The brands can decide how they want to use these moments, such as tweets that relate to an upcoming film or music festival.

“This is going to be very different than a search text ad,” added Derella. “This is going to be videos, images, and should provide a canvas for brands to move people and shift their hearts and minds.”

Promoted moments can also be shared with other people on Twitter, as well as publishers’ sites outside the site. However, they won’t include the ability to use interactive cards or Periscope lifestreams — at least, not just yet, according to Derella.

The campaign, also named “ProMos”, will begin running at full strength soon.

There is, however, some slight concern that these “moments” will reflect similarities to the ones found on Snapchat. Re/Code recently ran a storythat compared the two, and, some slight text aside, they appear to be pretty much the same thing.

That said, the author, Peter Kafka, explained, “So is it a bad thing that Twitter’s first big move in the New Jack Dorsey Era is a product that works like one of its competitors I don’t think so: Live Stories may be Snapchat’s most promising feature, and if Twitter can integrate its own version into the service, that seems like a plus.”

New Report Shows Marketers Are Already Benefitting From Big Data

BY Robert Workman

October 6, 2015, 12:00AM

Both technology and data play big parts when it comes to marketing these days, as companies can utilize these to get the most out of their business operations. eMarketer recently broke down just how important they are through a pair of reports.

First up, the reports discussed big data, with information coming from Forbes Insights that breaks down just what companies are doing with it. The report showed that 21% of those polled indicated that big data was the most important factor to them when it came to gaining an advantage, while 38% of companies polled said it was definitely in the top five.

As you can see from the chart, both costs and revenues play a part when it comes to the effect of big data, although most companies indicate that the effect isn’t too big, going somewhere between one and three percent. Only one in four noted changes that went above three percent.

As far as what types of data are embraced the most by companies, location based data leads the charge with 56 percent, while text (emails, fax and PDF) and social media follow closely behind with over 40 percent each. The full chart is below.

Out of what kind of data is most beneficial, VentureBeat noted that email address and name information for personalization purposes are the most vital, while Jivox added that, in a study taken back in July, ad agency executives were more likely to utilize demographic and location data to create specifically targeted ads. Yes, Lifecycle also added that first names and phone numbers played a part as well.

“Big data empowers marketers with a better understanding of target audiences from current customers to expanding into new markets,” said Ayzenberg’s Charles Vasquez, speaking with (a)list. “It moves beyond traditional demographics such as age, geography, income and into more precise characteristics such as behavior, consumer choices and preferences. The opportunity is a much more personalized communication delivered at the right time, to the right audience and in the right way.”

“For game marketers big data can be key for both product launches and deploying an effective always-on strategy. Big data can be used to target the right audience, shape your message and improve your offerings along the way. For service-based games this constant and direct interaction with core audiences is invaluable. All the while it helps to build a profile of new markets to tap into new markets,” he added.

That’s just one side of the picture, as technology also plays a huge part when it comes to finding effectiveness with companies. This report from eMarketer, based on numbers provided by a September 2015 study conducted by Spear Marketing Group, suggests that, while content marketing is still considered the most important marketing technology for the next couple of years, some will face a decline. This includes SEO, which is set to drop around nearly 30% over the same time period, and CRM, taking an even more drastic drop by almost 40%. The full chart is below.

As far as technologies that will grow over the next few years, predictive analytics are likely to see the biggest jump, doubling to almost 37%. Big data and analytics, lead lifecycle and attribution reporting, programmatic advertising and personalization are close behind when it comes to B2B marketing.

Emerging technology is definitely playing a part in this department, and there are a number that are expected to deliver ROI over the next couple of years. The chart below shows that marketing automation is number one with 58%, followed by content marketing (51%) and SEO (36%).

However, not every technology is benefitting on this chart, as CRM has somewhat low ROI expectations at 23 percent, indicating that it could easily be lapped over that time period.

More information on this report can be found here.

Everything We Learned From Microsoft’s Hardware Event

BY Robert Workman

October 6, 2015, 12:00AM

Not to be outdone by other companies this holiday season, Microsoft held a special event this morning that showed off a number of the company’s newest announcements, including a Surface Pro model that comes with an attached keyboard, as well as more information on its innovative HoloLens technology, which will soon be available to developers.

Microsoft’s major announcements:

First up, Microsoft discussed its Xbox One console. Microsoft has introduced a number of bundles over the past month set to arrive this holiday season (including those devoted to the Xbox One Elite controller, Halo 5: Guardians and the just-announced Fallout 4 bundle), and several games were featured, including the upcoming Rise of the Tomb Raider, a high-profile sequel that will be an Xbox One exclusive for at least the next year. A new trailer was also released, and is featured below. Expect plenty of hype for both Halo and Tomb Raider leading into the holiday season.
HoloLens, an impressive virtual technology that was introduced earlier this year during the company’s E3 press conference, is building up steam. A new demonstration showcased just how deep gaming can be with the device, particularly Project Xray, a game where users interact with a “mixed reality robot.” Although a release date and price weren’t given yet, development kits are set to make the rounds in early 2016, going for $3,000. (The consumer price and release date has not been announced, but hopefully the price is going to be less than this.)
Microsoft then re-introduced the Microsoft Band, a tool that will help those performing athletic feats to keep track of their body through a series of measurements. It looks custom built for those looking to get the most out of their workouts, but also comes with support from other companies like Uber, Twitter and Subway, opening up its capabilities outside of exercising. It will also coordinate with a Health app on Windows 10 that keeps track of progress and other activity. This device will release on October 30th for $249, and should get quite a bit of hype from Microsoft between online advertising and promotion within its Microsoft Stores.
Two new Lumia smartphones, the 950 and 950 XL, were introduced, with 5.2 and 5.7 inch displays, respectively. Each will have 32GB of storage, with USB Type-C connective technology. The models will sell for $549 and $649 and be available both online and in stores this November. They should get a moderate amount of hype, but not as much as, say, Apple with the iPhone 6S. The Lumia 550 will also see a price drop down to $139, starting this December. The key feature for these smartphones is their ability to connect to an external monitor and keyboard through a small adapter, making them functional as a full Windows 10 device (albeit ARM-processor based, so not compatible will all Intel-based Windows 10 applications).
The Surface line has produced $3.5 billion in business for Microsoft, so, of course, it wants to keep a good thing going especially since 98 percent of those that use a Surface Pro device recommend it. With that, it introduced the Surface Pro 4, with improved visual technology, faster processing (by 30 percent over the Surface Pro 3) and other features, as well as its own Microsoft Pen, which features “1,024 points of pressure.” The separately sold keyboard will also have improvements, including a bigger trackpad and larger space to type, as well as new colors. Pre-orders for the device will open up October 7th, ahead of its October 26th release, where it’ll sell for $899. Microsoft will hype this one heavily, including potential TV advertisements.
Finally, another Surface model was introduced, this time a devoted laptop called SurfaceBook, featuring an incredible display (6 million pixels and 267 PPI) at 13.5 inches, along with backlit keys and 12 hours of battery life, as well as a detachable screen. It’s set to release on the same day as the Surface Pro 4, October 26th, starting at $1499. It’ll probably get its fair share of advertising as well, probably coinciding with the Pro 4.

Overall, Microsoft looks like it’s serious about not only its gaming side of things (where it’s attempting to catch up with Sony’s PlayStation 4), but also computer technology, where it’s brushing elbows with the likes of Apple. If it can get the right advertising program in place, and spread word of mouth across social media in terms of how impressive it is, it could have a very good holiday season.

Reinventing Monetization for Mobile Games

BY Steve Peterson

October 6, 2015, 12:00AM

It’s often said that the great challenge for mobile games these days is discovery — standing out amidst a sea of other mobile titles, and somehow becoming the game that people download and play. Really, though, that’s not the entire problem — it does a company little good if a hundred million people download a game but the game doesn’t monetize. Ultimately, it’s monetization that pays the salaries of everyone in the game industry, not downloads. At the recent Gaming Insiders Summit, CEO Jon Walsh of Fuse Powered offered some insights into optimizing monetization — indeed, Reinventing Monetization for mobile games was the name of his talk.

“The industry is just scratching the surface of what a freemium business model means, how to implement it, and how to monetize in a way that encompasses the entire player lifecycle and gives players a great experience,” Walsh explained. “This is genuinely possible and is the next evolution of the freemium model: players pay to experience a game in the way they want to experience it.”

Walsh began by explaining what’s all too often wrong about how mobile game publishers approach monetization. “There’s too much data,” Walsh noted, “and you don’t know how to use it to make a better game experience.” Modern analytics make it possible to collect mountains of data about how people play a game,yet it’s in the proper analysis of that data you find better monetization. It’s not necessary to collect every possible scrap of data, and indeed that can make analysis more difficult. Asking the right questions is the most important task.

What’s happening in the industry is not just increasing sophistication on the part of the publishers when it comes to gathering data, Walsh argued, but it’s also increasing sophistication on the part of the audience — and increasing expectations.”Give players what they want and expect, and do it quickly,” Walsh said. That’s what they increasingly expect — and demand — from mobile games.

Walsh pointed out that there are two main sources of monetization in free-to-play mobile games: in-app purchases (IAP) and ads. Both are important, though all too often publishers neglect the potential for advertising in mobile games. Many times publishers seem to be cautious about advertising because they fear it might harm the game experience for a large part of the audience. “You have to take ads seriously, because in most games than can be a material source of revenue,” Walsh said. “Players want rewarded video,” he added, because many players are restricted in what they can spend. For that sizable segment of the audience, mobile ads are a benefit that they appreciate, not something they skip past.

While publishers worry about retention of players, there’s more to the concern than just keeping players around longer to have more chances to get their money. “Engagement drives monetization,” noted Walsh. “The reverse is also true — without a great monetization strategy you will lose players. In fact, it’s a cycle.” This is most clearly seen when players have opportunities to move forward in a game, and there’s something they can buy that will help them achieve something important in the game. Yes, they won’t get to that point if the game is not engaging — but they may not keep playing if they don’t see a way to get what they want. If you don’t make the right offer at the right time, you could be harming retention.

The way to maximize monetization, in Walsh’s view, is to customize it to the needs of the individual player. “We are in an era of personalization. People want to be unique,” Walsh said. “Players are diverse — they want different things at different times. It’s not just minnows and dolphins and whales, but lots of variations and we have to be able to react to that.”

The answer lies in the tools that are available. “Technology cam help create a playbook to drive more revenue,” Walsh pointed out. You have to understand your players, create segments around those players, and deliver the right offers at the right moments to the right players . “You have to measure the right things — a few will give you a lot of control.”

The options for your playbook depend on the game, as the illustration shows. For instance, a simple puzzle game that has a huge volume but no IAP should focus on advertising. A game like Candy Crush Saga, that has high engagement and massive volume but a low conversion rate should be looking at special offers as well as advertising that allows players to help earn power-ups. Something like Hearthstone, which has high engagement, high conversion, and a high average spend, should be looking to larger offers that have a strong value to the players.

Walsh summed it up this way: “Define the player path, present specific offers, adapt to your players, and give them what they each want.” Good advice for marketers looking to make the most from their games.

YouNow Raises Interaction With $15 Million Funding

BY Robert Workman

October 5, 2015, 12:00AM

YouNow’s network shouldn’t be confused with what Facebook and YouTube are doing with their video services. Instead, it concentrates more on a simple live-streaming service, and encourages its users to interact with their audiences as a result. And now, it’s got a financial boost that will certainly help it along.

Re/Code recently reported that the New York-based YouNow service has managed to raise an additional $15 million in its latest funding round, led by Venrock, Oren Zeev, Comcast Ventures and long-time investor Union Square Ventures.

As a result, according to YouNow CEO Adi Sideman, the company has now managed to raise $30 million since 2011. While an exact total of fundraising hasn’t been given, it’s estimated to be around $150 million.

Sideman also didn’t discuss how many users the service had, but he did note that it generates “significant more than” 100 million user sessions per month, a rise from the previously reported 90 million in September 2014.

The company follows a different business strategy for revenue. Instead of relying on advertisers or asking its users to pay for a subscription, it instead offers virtual gifts, which users can provide to the performers at hand. As a result, some performers also get some of this money as well which is prompting a few YouTube users to give it a try, to see how they’ll fare.

Venrock’s David Pakman believes this is a sound business development, as it doesn’t have to really change its format based on advertising plans from big companies. “You effectively have a native business model,” he stated. “It doesn’t ruin the experience, it’s part of the experience.”

It also means that the company can maintain a stable audience without having to gun for a first place lead which takes a lot of pressure of trying to keep up with the competition. “This can be very economically successful at relatively low user numbers,” Pakman added.

We’ll see just how well they fare as their numbers continue to rise in 2016. Maybe it’ll attract even more YouTube and other streaming stars as well, just to see how far their interaction with fans and their fanbase in general can expand.

Snapchat Ready To Make Money With Selfie Features

BY Robert Workman

October 5, 2015, 12:00AM

The selfie. We all take them, whether we’re on vacation, attending a sporting event, or just want to show the world whatever we’re doing at the time, to capture us “in the moment.” And now, in its latest move in advertising, Snapchat wants to take selfies to another level.

The Financial Times recently reported that the company has begun offering sponsored “lenses” on its service, which enables users to add graphics, such as big eyes or vomiting rainbows, to their photos and videos that are shared with other users.

The ad format rolled out a couple of weeks ago, and Snapchat is asking companies to pay $750,000 for a one-day use of the program with their particular products. This is during “big name” holidays like Halloween and Christmas. The rest of the year, the charge will only be $450,000 a day.

That’s pretty steep, but Snapchat is no stranger to charging big bucks for advertising on its service which some companies showed hesitation over. Regardless, it’s proven to be a worthy investment, as we’ve noted in the past, thanks to Snapchat’s millions of users. Even if the message is only temporary, it’s still sounded loud and clear for them to see.

A recent campaign for iHeartRadio, for instance, managed to nail 340 million impressions over two days, while other popular creators, such as Gary Rojas and ScottySire, manage to wrangle an average of 300,000 to 400,000 views per Snapchat Story.

The introduction of such a program introduces a personal touch to the service, similar to other ones that have been rolled out in the past, in the hopes of optimizing the user’s service so that they can add something personal to it. Companies can easily add items from their products that would find use in videos and photos, such as a biking helmet for a popular motorcycle chain, or characters from a popular video game. (These are merely examples, but you can see how easily they would work.)

We’ll see just how effective this program is and more importantly, who buys in over the next few months.

The State of Indie Gaming

BY Steve Peterson

October 5, 2015, 12:00AM

One of the most impressive advances in the game industry over the past few years has been the tremendous expansion of independent (“indie”) game developers. This is a return to the roots of electronic gaming, when games we constructed in their entirety by a single person. It wasn’t until graphics became more detailed, and hardware became more complicated, that more than one person was needed to create games. This evolved into a world where the top, AAA games could have teams in the hundreds, with budgets surpassing $100 million.

Throughout this evolution, though, the desire to create games on a smaller, more personal level remained. Indie developers were scarce until Flash-based games were put on the Internet, and sites like Kongregate (now owned by GameStop) provided a way to bring lots of people to the games. Now, with far better tools for building games that are free to small developers (like Unity and Unreal Engine), hundreds of university programs offering degrees in game design and creation, and mulitple fully developed digital distribution systems like Steam, the App Store, and Google Play, the number of indie developers has exploded. Now we have over 4 million Unity developers, to cite just one game creation engine. Every day, according to the company, over 600 million gamers play a game created with Unity.

Indie games have now become a common part of every major game platform. The vast majority of games you’ll find on mobile devices come from indie developers, for example. Sure, most of them don’t have much of an audience or create much revenue, but we still regularly see an indie game like Crossy Road become a huge hit. A number of indie developers are now creating successful games for the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 and even the Wii U, as all the console manufacturers have realized that having more games (and interesting variety of them) is beneficial to the platform.

What benefits do indie games have for the industry One of the most important is providing a level of innovation that’s hard to find with major game publishers. As game budgets increase, there’s a very natural tendency to become more conservative in game design choices. Would you risk $50 million on a completely new game design that’s very different from anything else, or a sequel to a known hit with some minor changes and advances The choice is an easy one for large game publishers.

For indie game developers, though, the logic works the other way. Building a game that’s very much like an existing blockbuster game from a major publisher is a losing strategy the big publisher’s already got a huge audience and a vast marketing budget and a known brand. Why would more than a handful of contrarians try your little game They wouldn’t, at least not in enough numbers to make you a living. So indies typically take more creative risks in an effort to stand out from the crowd and attract an audience. Yes, that usually fails, but occasionally it’s a moderate success and sometimes it’s a mega-hit.

Perhaps the best example of how indie games can affect the entire industry is the incredible success of Minecraft. This was a game created by a lone programmer, which gradually found an audience in its early days of alpha builds. The game spread virally and has become an enormous hit, with somewhere in the region of 50 million copies sold. Microsoft bought the company that created Minecraft for $2.5 billion, and most observers feel the company got a bargain. The game has, among other things, shown that a $6.99 mobile game can sell tens of millions of copies. Also, that clearly not every game needs terrific graphics to be an incredible success, and that user-generated content that’s readily shareable is a valuable marketing tool (as the billions of Minecraft YouTube video views can attest).

Major publishers are supportive of indie developers, even in some cases allowing in-house projects to create “indie” games. Ubisoft did this with Child of Light, a critically acclaimed game that was built in-house. Both Microsoft and Sony have been increasing their support for indie developers, now regularly featuring those developers and their games on-stage at major press events. Apple has been bringing on indie developers during its last few major hardware introductions to show off the power of the new hardware.

In fact, the huge number of indie developers and indie games has sparked concerns that we me heading towards an “indiepocalypse,” where too many developers creating too many games may drive many of these small developers out of business. “Everyone’s looking back at this golden age of indie games, when you released a game and it got coverage and you made a ton of money,” said tinyBuild’s Alex Nichiporchik. “Times change. Everyone’s making games now. All of the engines are competing on which one makes it easiest to make a game. It’s great for the industry and for creativity, but it does mean that unless you take that extra step or do something special it’s going to be really, really difficult for you.”

Nichiporchik’s answer has been to develop games across a wide variety of platforms.In targeting multiple platforms, Nichiporchik says, tinyBuild has noticed a surprising amount of crossover between communities, with sales and activity on one platform generally leading to more sales and more activity on another. “We released Divide By Sheep on Steam and on mobile, and there was a cumulative effect,” he says. “People playing it, streaming it and making user videos on Steam, and that translating directly into sales for mobile.”

The IndieCade Festival 2015 is coming up in Los Angeles later this month it’s the biggest event dedicated to celebrating independent games, and this year it looks to be bigger than ever. Attendees will get the chance to play over 150 indie games, and check out the latest innovations in game design. It’s a perfect opportunity to gauge for yourself the impact that indie games continue to have on the game industry in general.

Organic Retention Is Strongest For Apps

BY Robert Workman

October 2, 2015, 12:00AM

While the effectiveness of certain mobile app advertisements may be in question — especially with so many ad-blocker services available — it appears that organic ads still click with certain audiences.

A report from AppsFlyer (as reported by Adweek) {link no longer active} indicates that, according to their study, organic installs actually have a higher retention rate than ad-based installs. This was based upon more than 450 million installs from clients across both iOS and Android platforms, from May to July. However, only applications with more than 5,000 installs were considered.

The chart above, tracking Android devices, indicates that organic retention actually has a higher effective rate than paid apps, with 46 percent on the first day, rocketing up to 156 percent by Day 30.

Meanwhile, over on IOS, the day one lead was a little smaller at 20 percent, but it showed similar results, as by Day 30, it reached a whopping 133 percent advantage over paid apps.

Facebook and Twitter also do quite well on both platforms when it comes to achieving application retention. In fact, apps advertised on Twitter managed to have a higher retention rate on Android, while Facebook did moderately well on both platforms.

Ran Avrahamy, head of marketing for AppsFlyer, had a lot to say when it came to the power of social networks in apps. “Just like in our Performance Index for the gaming industry, Facebook still reigns supreme in our power rankings, coming in at the top spot on both iOS and Android because of its rare combination of strong retention and unrivaled scale. Meanwhile, Twitter made the most significant leap in the power rankings, in large part due to its exceptional retention rates.”

The measurements continued with this third chart, showcasing the top 25 non-gaming apps for Apple devices. Facebook’s dominance is easy to see, with Twitter not far behind, and Google AdWords, AppLovin and DataLead rounding out the top five.

Meanwhile, over on Android, it’s a different story, as Twitter didn’t even crack the top five. Facebook is on top, followed by Mobvista, Cheetah Mobile, Google AdWords and AppFlood.

Speaking with (a)list daily, Avrahamy added, “We put this list together to help app marketers identify the best performing sources of high quality installs. Our research doesn’t say that mobile app ads don’t lead to high user retention, because they certainly do, especially in the cases of Twitter, Google AdWords, Cheetah Mobile, Facebook, AppLovin and the other networks in our Top 25. As everyone knows, organic installs that come through word-of-mouth or from browsing the app store are always going to have higher retention, but app ads can absolutely drive highly engaged, long-time users as well.”

The full report can be found here.

Image source