Doritos Backpedals Against Twitter’s ‘Lady Doritos’ Response

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Lady Doritos is the hot topic of the day—not for spicy flavor, but sick burns directed at the company on social media. In an interview with WNYC’s Freakonomics, CEO of Doritos parent company PepsiCo Indra Nooyi—a woman—said they are developing snacks for women that don’t crunch as loud, leaving the internet to wonder . . . why?

According to Nooyi, women—unlike their male snacking counterparts—do not like to crunch too loudly in public, lick their fingers or pour the broken pieces into their mouth. To meet this driving need that has come to the attention of PepsiCo, the company will soon launch a “bunch” of snacks designed and packaged for women.

Nooyi describes the female-focused snack line as low-crunch and full-flavored but less likely to stick to fingers. In addition, the snacks will be portable because “women love to carry a snack in their purse.”

It’s true that male and female preferences may vary by culture—in Japan, it’s often considered rude to show one’s teeth while smiling, for example—but the idea that women have special, more delicate snacking needs came as a total surprise to American consumers.

“Has anyone at Doritos ever met a lady?” wrote one Twitter user. “Instead of crunching noise the new Lady Doritos just say “sorry” quietly every time you bite down,” wrote another.

The official Twitter account for 30 Rock had a bit of fun with the trending topic with a shout out to the show’s main character Liz Lemon and her love for Doritos crumbs.

In fact, the only account seemingly in favor of the idea was Random House publishers, tweeting, “We don’t support Lady Doritos, but we do support the development of chips that leave less residue on your fingers. Think of the books!”

Doritos finally responded on Twitter in an attempt to smooth relations:

PepsiCo’s timing for a controversy is unfortunate, considering the praise it received for its Doritos Blaze vs. Mountain Dew Ice Super Bowl commercial. Fans were still playfully debating over who won an epic rap battle between Morgan Freeman and Peter Dinklage when “Lady Doritos” turned the conversation soggy.

The snacking giant also suffered a blow last spring when it aired a Pepsi commercial borrowing imagery from the Black Lives Matter movement. In the now infamous spot, Kendall Jenner seemingly ends strife between races by handing a police officer a can of Pepsi. The resulting backlash was so intense that even the daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr. mocked it. Pepsi pulled the ad and issued a formal apology.

Any brand can, even with the best intentions, miss the mark—but if we’ve learned anything from past mistakes, post those mistakes on the internet at your own risk.

Snapchat’s New Marketing Tools Are Designed To Attract App Developers

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Snapchat has traditionally prioritized user interactions over brand advertising and creator relations, but after a rough first IPO year and pressure from Instagram, the company is stepping up its marketing game, beginning with app developers.

Snapchat’s new Deeplink attachment allows app developers and marketers a way to direct users to a specific place in their app. This tool directs Snapchatters in one of two directions, depending on whether they have the app installed or not.

If a user sees an ad but already has the advertised app installed, swiping up will direct them to the app in a location determined by the advertiser, such as the store or a certain level. If the ad reaches someone who doesn’t have the app, they’ll automatically be sent to the app store to install it.

When a user downloads a marketer’s app through Snapchat, post-install events can now be tracked through Ads Manager. Events can be customized in a myriad of ways to track any event specific to the app from item purchases, completing a certain level, etc.

Attribution windows are also more flexible, allowing marketers to select windows ranging from one hour to 28 days for users who viewed the ad in the Top Snap position. These windows can also be used to track how many users viewed and then swiped up instead of proceeding to an app install. These changes are designed to more effectively measure how Snap Ads drive app downloads.

Snapchat experienced modest, but less-than-impressive growth in its first year as a public company, but the “ghost” has flooded its business pages with statistics about the consumer habits of its users in a bid to change all that.

Snapchat is also trying to make amends with its top creators who have long felt snubbed by the social network. Last spring, Snapchat began inviting select creators to private meetings at its headquarters in Venice Beach to discuss partnership opportunities.

When Vine fell out of favor with marketers, its top users simply moved on to greener pastures like Snapchat and YouTube. When Facebook introduced Instagram Stories, creators made the move in favor of discovering features and a wide range of analytics. Considering the strong influencer marketing community on Instagram—Snap’s biggest competitor—the company is wise to keep its creators happy.

Facebook Ad CPMs Rose 40 Percent In Q4, Focusing On ‘Quality’ Engagement

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Stock prices for Facebook reached record heights on Thursday, after the company announced significant growth in company revenue and drastically increasing Facebook ad CPMs and declining user activity.

Speaking on a call with investment analysts, Mark Zuckerberg boasted that in Q4, Facebook ad prices rose by 43 percent over the same period in 2016. By comparison, the number of impressions served by these more expensive ads increased by only 4 percent.

This price-impression disparity can be explained by Facebook’s recent algorithm updates, which devalued and publisher content in an effort to drive “quality” over “quantity” interactions.

“When you care about something, you’re willing to see ads to experience it,” Zuckerberg said in the call. “But if you just come across a viral video, then you’re more likely to skip over it if you see an ad.”

As Facebook tries to reduce toxicity and promote authentic engagement, its audience is spending less time on the platform than before. According to the company’s estimates, its users spent 5 percent less time on its platforms, resulting in 50 million fewer hours on Facebook per day. Additionally, the number of daily active users in the United States and Canada dropped for the first time in the company’s history.

“I want to be clear, the most important driver of our business has never been time spent by itself,” Zuckerberg added. “It’s the quality of the conversations and connection. And that’s why I believe this focus on meaningful social interactions is the right one.”

Facebook’s premium video service, Watch, is growing in popularity in the US, allowing the company to pivot toward higher-CPM video ads over News Feed posts.

After the call ended, Facebook’s stock prices jumped 3 percent to $194.18 per share, the highest in the company’s history.

For Effective Instagram Marketing, Create A Closeness

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With 500 million daily users, the marketing appeal of Instagram is hard to ignore, but any organic reach is saturated. Discovery, engagement and conversion can feel hit or miss among a sea of photo filters, but it doesn’t have to be—and it all starts with mindset.

“Treating Instagram as if you’re communicating with somebody you understand,” Tania Yuki, founder and CEO of Shareablee, told AListDaily. “This is probably the most useful head space shift from a marketing perspective.”

Set The Tone

“The experience of Instagram is like having a friend show you something that they find fantastic,” said Yuki. “Instagram is really about show and tell. It’s about experiences and it’s about the things you won’t find on the storefront—and probably won’t even find on the website.”

Instagram is, first and foremost, a photo-sharing site—so marketers need to consider the visual elements of a campaign up front.

“It definitely starts with the image,” Yuki said. “We’ve observed really big differences on how advertisers communicate with text alongside the image and whether they’re using hashtags to make sure the content is discoverable when people search. From a discovery standpoint, [hashtags] are incredibly important.”

“As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, ” Robert Rose, chief content advisor for Content Marketing Institute told AListDaily. “A wonderful picture can simply tell an emotional story in a very intimate way.”

Yuki described an “always on” strategy in which brands combine both organic and paid posts across Instagram. The site offers many ways to engage, but she has noticed particular success for brands that experiment with Stories.

“Create that closeness with the consumer,” she said, “[Create] that level of intimacy so that even if it’s an ad, it sure doesn’t feel like it.”

Rose mirrored this sentiment, noting that successful brands on Instagram create emotional messages such as humor and delight or inspiration to achieve one’s goals.

“I think if there’s something that ties them all together it’s that they focus on the emotional connection, without trying to actually sell anything,” he said. “They’re not trying to illustrate why their product is so awesome—they’re just trying to be awesome.”

Brands want to be professional, but having a bit of fun makes audiences feel that a real person is behind a post. When Shareablee ran an analysis a few months ago, it found that the effective use of three emoji increased engagement by an average of nearly 30 percent. Rose added that if emoji are appropriate so long as they are brand-appropriate and part of the messaging architecture.

“They are certainly popular and can quickly convey a message and save characters,” Rose said.

Spread The Love

With Facebook shaking up its News Feed algorithm—again—some marketers may look for organic reach elsewhere, like Facebook-owned Instagram. Yuki believes that despite these changes, both platforms remain important for marketers.

“Any brand wanting to make sure that they have a really viable paid and organic conversational strategy with their consumers should be focusing in on Instagram, but Facebook remains a really important way to build the brand and communicate stories,” she said. “Think about the two as part of a multi-platform strategy and know that maybe you’re not going to be able to count on Facebook purely for organic reach. [Facebook] really isn’t designed to create that sense of community from a content perspective.”

Rose doesn’t believe Instagram will offer anything in terms of organic reach that Facebook no longer provides, calling it “rented land.”

“Great, remarkable content, will certainly get its fair share of vitality, and organic reach,” said Rose, “but the days of building a big “community” on any social media channel are gone. All social networks are now simply broadcast media—where you must employ a thoroughly integrated paid and organic strategy to consistently reach your audience.”

Influencers: Risky But Worth It

Partnering with social media creators—aka influencers—has proven to be an effective way of reaching wider niche audiences for decades. One scandal can send audiences into an uproar, but Yuki says brands would “be mad” not to seriously consider the strategy.

“Influencer marketing requires some steady constitution,” Yuki admitted. “There are no guarantees. As we’ve seen in the media very recently, you’re partnering with a person that you don’t own. That’s always going to come down to how much uncertainty as a brand you are willing to tolerate. One thing I will say with certainty is, influencers generate something like four to five times more total consumer engagement than every single advertiser, publisher, TV network and sports league combined.”

This doesn’t mean brands should enter into an influencer marketing campaign unprepared. Yuki recommends having a playbook just in case a partner goes off the rails—or at the very least, off-brand.

“It’s really about having good controls in place and paying really close attention, particularly with the bigger influencers,” she said. “If something were to go south, you’d have to have to react and decide how to respond very quickly.”

Data: Plan, Analyze, Repeat

Planning a campaign can be as simple or as complicated as a brand wants to make it—but knowing your audience should come first.

“Even before you even launch the campaign, use the data that is available to you to truly understand the sorts of images, messages and communication that is already resonating with the people you want to speak to,” Yuki recommends. “Make sure you’re crafting the right creatives for your audience.”

Data is certainly helpful, but social media comes with results built in.

“The really great thing about social media is that you don’t have to guess whether something is working or not or whether something appeals to consumers—there’s either a deafening silence or an astounding roar of feedback both positive and negative,” Yuki explained. “Monitor the results that you’re getting and make sure that you are doubling down on messages that are meaningful to the consumers.

“Your audiences are willing to help you understand what does and doesn’t appeal to them if you’re prepared to listen and adjust your approach based on the data that you get back,” she said.

With Sponsored Moments, Twitter Continues Publisher Focus

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As Facebook chooses to distance itself from content publishers, Twitter is doubling down on its media partnerships with a new ad product: Sponsored Moments.

The social network has been experimenting with the feature with partners for some time, but now any Moment created by one of Twitter’s 200-something In-Stream Sponsorship publishers can be sponsored by interested advertisers.

As the first such Sponsored Moment appears, the ad product allows an advertiser to, in essence, turn any piece of journalism on Twitter into content marketing, with banner image selection and the ability to insert interstitial tweets.

As an extension of Twitter’s In-Stream Sponsorships program, Sponsored Moments offer monetization options for the company’s partner publishers in addition to Twitter itself.

“The goal with Sponsored Moments, as with all In-Stream Sponsorships, is tight alignment between advertiser messaging and partner content,” said Mike Park, Twitter’s vice president of emerging content products, in the announcement.

While Facebook has responded to the fake news accusations of the past few years by dropping out of the editorial game, Twitter is hoping to strengthen its ties with publishers and protecting brands on its platform with additional oversight. Last month, Twitter announced it would be enforcing its rules on hate speech and abusive behavior much more strictly.

“By working with premium publishers as part of an In-Stream Sponsorship, brands know exactly which partner they are working with, and can develop deep brand integrations within that partner’s content,” added Park.

Brands can only sponsor Moments posted by official Twitter publishing partners, allowing Twitter to protect brand safety by keeping a much smaller playing field. YouTube has been making the same efforts, though the wild west environment of user-generated content was much less receptive.

Twitter first announced they were testing an ad offering in this vein, called “Promoted Moments,” just two weeks after Moments first launched in 2015, but the difference between it and the final version are stark, further emphasizing Twitter’s commitment to editorial credibility.

“For publishers, Sponsored Moments is an end-to-end contextual solution for publishing and monetizing all forms of content on Twitter,” Park wrote. “It allows publishers to easily do what they do best: produce and tell stories about events.”

Top 4 Marketing Trends For 2018 According To The Shorty Awards

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The Shorty Awards is an international awards competition that honors the best people, brands and organizations on social and digital media. Celebrating its 10th anniversary this season, the Shorty Awards have become the leading resource for discovering the most popular platforms, content, strategies and industry trends that are changing the way consumers interact with their favorite brands in the new age of marketing. In this inside look, their team shares insights and top content that are influencing overall trends in social media and digital marketing in 2018.

Diversify Platforms

Based on the trends of the 2017 Shorty Awards, brands are seeing the most amount of success when not doubling down on a single platform but engaging consumers in each of their preferred platforms with a cohesive and farther reaching strategy. Here’s an award-winning case study that explains how Google used analytics to support a multi-platform news campaign during the 2016 Olympics.

Combine Old & New Media

As much as social media continues to grow, marketers are still seeing a lot of success when it is coupled with more traditional marketing strategies. Brands who can successfully bring these different worlds together can use the power of social media to bring their campaigns to the next level. Last year’s winner, HBO’s Westworld Campaign, shows how they broke past traditional campaign limits to bring a digital campaign to life.

All Content Is Branded

Brands need to think creatively about the way their content is consumed to decide if their branding can be overt or more subtle. Brands are finding that the more natural incorporation of branded content is an effective strategy, as seen from this winner, Royal Caribbean, who produced a highly rated branded series starring well-known social media influencers.

Video, Video, Video…

Video is one of the fastest-growing forms of content that marketers are using on social media. Brands that are able to master the perfect recipe of length, content and creativity will stand out, much like this winning campaign by Dollar Shave Club that successfully used long-form video to produce mind-numbing ads that their audience just couldn’t stop watching.

Think you have what it takes to win a Shorty Award? Enter your work into the 10th Annual Shorty Awards! There is a wide variety of categories, grouped by industry, strategy, content, campaigns and more. See a full list here.

ENTER THE SHORTY AWARDS

Entries are open now! The regular entry deadline is on February 8th. Start your entry here.

LEARN MORE

 

Nielsen Social Content Rankings Now Include Instagram

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Nielsen has added Instagram to its Social Content Ratings (SCR), allowing it to measure TV engagement across all three top social networks.

Launched in 2016, Nielsen SCR is a standardized third-party measurement of TV program-related social media activity on Facebook, Twitter and now Instagram. To put it simply, TV audiences talk about shows on social media and Nielsen tracks it so networks and advertisers better understand reception and ROI. This measurement includes organic audience activity as well as social content through official talent, network and program accounts.

Adding Instagram to SCR makes sense—with over 500 million daily active users, the Facebook-owned social network creates a conduit between TV networks and cord-cutting millennials. According to a recent study by the Consumer Technology Association, 55 percent of millennial respondents expressed a preference for self-recorded and on-demand TV, compared to 45 percent who prefer live broadcasts.

TV networks already use Instagram to reach audiences prior to and during a show’s run. While onboard analytics provide engagement results for promoted posts, measuring organic conversations are another matter.

Nielsen SCR has observed increased social media engagement while a show is on the air, driving 68 percent of weekly program-related Tweets. For the 2016-2017 TV season, fans of The Walking Dead generated an average of two million social interactions about the program across Facebook and Twitter. Empire also created a lot of social buzz to the tune of 860,000 social interactions per episode.

Social interactions inspired by TV shows aren’t limited to the subject matter alone, Nielsen found.

“Through our Twitter TV and Twitter brand data, we found that the people who Tweet about TV are more likely to Tweet about brands,” Erika Faust, SVP client service at Nielsen Social told AListDaily. “Therefore, marketers who are looking to generate more earned media around their brand should use the social TV signal to identify shows with high social ratings as well as those that have a high alignment to their brand Tweeting audience.”

According to a 2016 study by Simply Measured, over half of the marketers surveyed named “measuring ROI” as the number one challenge they face. In fact, only 9.4 percent of marketers said they were able to quantify the revenue driven by social media.

Nielsen hopes that by adding Instagram to its SCR, marketers will gain better insights into how their shows impact audiences across different social networks.

Study Finds Facebook Watch Gaining Traction With US Consumers

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Facebook Watch is gaining traction among American users, according to a survey by Morgan Stanley.

As reported by Variety, 40 percent of US Facebook users tune into Watch every week, according to Morgan Stanley. Nearly a quarter—24 percent—use Watch daily. Viewers skew young, the analyst found. Forty percent of people using Watch on a daily basis are between the ages of 16-34.

Unsurprisingly, those who spend more time on Facebook check out the Watch tab more frequently as well. Sixty percent of respondents who spend at least three hours a day on Facebook’s platform use Watch on a weekly basis, the report said.

Short-form videos under 20 minutes are the most popular with Watch users, with roughly 75 percent viewing them weekly. That doesn’t mean shorter is the only way to go—the study found nearly half of the respondents view long-form content, noting a similar breakdown to viewing behavior on YouTube.

Morgan Stanley AlphaWise conducted the online survey of 1,400 U.S. consumers aged 16 and older in December.

Launched in August, Watch is Facebook’s answer to YouTube and Twitch, combining video with social interaction. Unlike its competitors, Facebook Watch focuses entirely on live or pre-recorded shows as opposed to vlogs. Facebook invested $200 million in hundreds of shows for its new video platform, which can be accessed through a separate tab from the News Feed.

That investment appears to be paying off. Facebook monetizes the videos through mid-roll ads, taking a 45 percent cut of revenue. In December, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak estimated that Facebook would make $565 million in revenue from its Watch video platform in 2018.

“We are encouraged (and admittedly surprised) by this early Watch traction as it speaks to [Facebook’s] ability to drive adoption of new products,” Morgan Stanley wrote. The analyst firm predicts that Watch (and video) will be “the next key long-term driver of [Facebook] engagement and monetization.”

Facebook’s New Algorithm Requires A Hands-On Marketing Approach

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Facebook’s big News Feed algorithm update rolls out this week, forcing many businesses to re-think their marketing strategies. While some marketers may panic, rising to the challenge offers advantages to those who nurture audiences on the social network.

In response to user complaints, Facebook is changing the algorithm for its News Feed—the sprawling list of updates seen by 1.37 billion users each day. Posts by friends and family are prioritized above those by brands, and further prioritized by the number of interactions. According to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the change is intended to foster more meaningful interactions between its users.

Marketers are all too familiar with Facebook algorithm changes that have whittled away at brands’ organic reach over the years. One solution has been to purchase more Facebook ads to stand out from the crowd, but Zuckerberg warned that users may spend less time scrolling the News Feed altogether. Competing for smaller groups of eyeballs may drive up the price of advertising, industry insiders told The Wall Street Journal.

The good news is Facebook’s new algorithm will favor marketers who build meaningful relationships with their audience. Historically, driving conversations have better long-term effects than bombarding users with sales pitches. Brands that only promote their products will suffer from this update the most, as will those who rely on third-parties or bots to interact with posts.

Perhaps in an effort to help, Facebook announced efforts to help businesses use the platform right after releasing news of its algorithm change: “Look for investment in rich messaging experiences not only from global brands, but small businesses who need to be creative and nimble to stay competitive,” Facebook head of Messenger David Marcus said in a blog post.

What will actually be effective for brands? Watch—Facebook’s new video platform—and Messenger may be alternative outlets for them to reach audiences. But mass posting and attempting to trick the algorithm through engagement bait will come up short on results. Facebook updated its News Feed algorithm last month to demote posts soliciting engagements and penalize brands that produce them.

Ultimately, building a funnel through engaging content may be the key to reaching Facebook’s users. “I think we’re going to see a move toward how businesses can get their arms around audiences and the creation of owned media experiences,” Robert Rose, chief content advisor for Content Marketing Institute, said in a recent AListDaily interview. “Whether they be blogs or television networks or shows or publishing magazines, [businesses need] to be able to reach those audiences that they’re struggling to reach through traditional advertising.”

Facebook News Feed Update Creates More Challenges For Brands

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Facebook has announced more News Feed algorithm changes that will prioritize posts from friends and family over brands. These updates, rolling out over the next few months, attempt to solve growing trust issues, mental health concerns and user complaints regarding the platform.

Last year, the social network announced that it would rank posts from personal connections over those by publishers or businesses, forcing marketers to re-think their engagement strategies. This latest update will rank personal connection posts by interactions—so it’s not enough for Mom to share your brand’s latest video.

According to a blog post on Thursday, Facebook will continue to rank personal posts and show even less “public” posts from brands. Facebook warns that brand pages may see their reach, watch time and referral traffic decrease, especially for posts without a lot of comments and likes.

For marketers, creating content worth sharing and building an audience may help Facebook News Feed ranking efforts. Influencer marketing may help as well due to higher engagement, although official pages, in general, will be ranked lower on the News Feed. Facebook encourages the use of Facebook Live video, citing six times as many interactions as regular videos.

The platform already prioritizes content based on how much users engage with a post, which can be exploited using what Facebook calls “engagement bait.” Beginning in December, the company began demoting posts that elicit a response such as “Like if you love puppies” or “tag a friend for a chance to win.”

“Recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content—posts from businesses, brands and media—is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted on Thursday.

Zuckerberg likely refers to posts like this one about how important messages such as a friend’s death are often buried by Facebook’s algorithms. He may also be eluding to the site’s ongoing battle with fake news that may have swayed the 2016 US Presidential Election. Representatives from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been called to a Congressional hearing next week to explain how they will combat the spread of extremist propaganda.

A number of studies have shown that frequent Facebook use can increase depression and social comparison. Zuckerberg didn’t acknowledge any particular studies in his update, but cites passive activities on Facebook as “not so good” for a user’s wellbeing. That, he claimed, is why the company’s goal is to help Facebook users have more meaningful interactions.

In the long term, happier Facebook users could mean more time spent on the platform and more chances to create meaningful interactions with brands. An October Verge survey found that Facebook had the lowest percentage of people who liked its products and services compared to Amazon, Google, Apple or Microsoft.

In the short term, this update means marketers may find less organic interaction with the Facebook News Feed and turn to ads or other social networks to reach audiences. EMarketer expects Facebook to dominate US social network ad spend, generating $21.57 billion in US ad revenues this year, accounting for almost 83 percent of total social media ad spending in the country.

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