Attractive, intelligent, and with a propensity to purchase…Vineyard Vines?

That’s at least how we’d describe some of Morning Brew’s readers, and according to a new—brace yourself—“technical specification” introduced by the IAB Tech Lab, that info could be worth something.

Details: Called “seller-defined audiences” (SDA), the IAB Tech Lab finalized a new standard in February that promises to give publishers greater control over how their audiences—and more crucially, their first-party data—are bought and sold. Yesterday, it was pitched to the industry during the IAB Tech Lab’s Addressability System Designs event.

“It’s a very positive indication that publishers are gaining more control in the open web. We were only seen as supply. Now, we’re seen as supply, identity partners, as well as data providers, and that’s an exciting shift,” said Michael Nuzzo, VP, head of Hearst data solutions at Hearst Magazines, speaking at the event.

Though publishers and industry folks say it could take time before it’s widely adopted, SDA could give advertisers another way to target audiences when tracking tools, like third-party cookies, die off.

How it’ll work

Publishers know a lot about their audiences—what they read or watch, and what they’re interested in. They can get this data in multiple ways, like by dropping first-party cookies or by asking them to log in.

Using this data, SDAs would, theoretically, let publishers place their audiences into groups—whether by behavior or interest—which would then be shared with advertisers to help them run targeted programmatic ads. So far, there are roughly 1,600 available labels for publishers to choose from.

• They range from an interest in children’s music to water polo, and our favorite, “potatoes/onions.”
• Publishers can also make and submit labels for the IAB to approve.
• These groups, or cohorts, are intended to be large enough so that individuals can’t be identified, though the IAB isn’t prescribing specific sizes.
• Unlike Google’s Topics, which is based on browsing history, SDA data will come from the publishers themselves.

An example: If USA Today knows Ryan likes to read about football, and he’s explicitly told USA Today he likes football (maybe he signed up for a newsletter about football, maybe he answered a survey about his favorite columns or articles), USA Today can lump Ryan into an audience of football fans, which could then be bought and sold programmatically.

Publishers are in a “privileged position with regard to what’s happening on their properties and their relationship with consumers,” Benjamin Dick, senior director of product at IAB Tech Lab, told Marketing Brew. “They should be in a position to make a determination as to who those audiences are.”

Click here to read the full story.—RB

Companies like Aerie and CVS have committed to showing “real,” unretouched photos of models in their ads as the body-positivity movement has grown. And, as with any social movement co-opted by brands, agency interest has been piqued.

Ogilvy UK, an ad agency with clients ranging from Dove to Bacardi, announced earlier this month that it will “no longer work with influencers who edit their bodies or faces for ads.”

It’s no surprise the shop wants to be seen championing untouched imagery, given that one of its “major, big global clients” is a brand with the tagline “real beauty,” according to Mark Lainas, who currently serves as president of Canvas United but previously worked at Ogilvy UK.

But it’s complicated: Although some marketers see the ban as an altruistic move by Ogilvy, that seems like a good first step in tackling a larger societal problem, others argue discouraging influencers from editing their photos could potentially do harm.

The no-edits mandate, Lainas said, is a “very small” drop in a “very big ocean of what needs to be done to solve the mental-health issues driven by social media.”

Genuine and real

Jake Bley, connections director, social media at VMLY&R, said “engagement is slowly declining across platforms for people who are providing an unattainable lifestyle,” while less polished content that is perceived as more real or authentic is now performing better. “While there are influencers out there that do heavily edit their photos, we are seeing a trend of authenticity.”

• But not everyone thinks the move is particularly authentic since the agency would essentially be asking influencers it wants to work with to not do something they might normally do.
• Paige Raiczyk, a social content strategist at Berlin Cameron, told us choosing not to use an influencer who has the reach, engagement, and followers that a brand is trying to reach because of some small retouches would be “a little inauthentic and counterproductive.”
• “If influencer marketing is supposed to be all about authenticity, I think that means a lot more than just visuals and how an individual looks,” Raiczyk told us, suggesting that a good place to start might be requesting that influencers disclose if an image is edited or not. She added that she’s not sure if brands will be “super keen to dive right into this approach.”

Keep reading here.—PB

Alarming stats: Only 8.2.% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, according to last year’s Women CEOs in America report. And only 14.2% of board members at privately owned companies are women, according to a recent Bolster study cited by Retail Brew’s Erin Cabrey. The Women on Boards (WOB) Project wants to change that, especially at consumer-facing companies.

• WOB has helped 35 women get into boardrooms since it rolled out in February 2020. More than half of them are first-time board members.
• “There’s not a supply problem—there’s more than an ample number of amazing women,” co-founder and executive director Cassie Burr told Retail Brew.

Boss up: Clif CEO Sheryl O’Loughlin, Siddhi Capital General Partner/co-founder Melissa Facchina, and other women helped co-found the org.

Big picture: WOB Project isn’t alone in addressing boardroom gender inequality. For instance, a 2018 California law established quotas for woman board members at the state’s publicly held companies. Last year, Goldman Sachs said that “it wouldn’t take a company public if it didn’t have two diverse board members, with at least one woman,” Erin writes.

Bottom line: “Women are driving 80% of purchasing decisions yet are rarely represented on boards. And this group of women, we really have an opportunity to change that,” Burr said.

Read Retail Brew’s full story here.—PB

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Linktree released its 2022 Creator Report, highlighting key creator-economy trends by leveraging its own data and input from more than 9,500 creators around the world.

You’ve heard of nano, micro, macro, and mega influencers, but Linktree came up with some new categories of its own:

• There are 23 million “recreational” influencers out there, who all have 0–1,000 followers.
• 139 million “semi-pro” influencers who have 1,000–10,000 followers.
• 41 million “pro” influencers, classified as having 10,000–100,000 followers.
• 2 million “expert” influencers with 100,000–1 million followers.
• And another 2 million “expert+” influencers have more than 1 million followers.

What brands? According to the Linktree report, 67% of creators said they’ve never collaborated with a brand on their social channels.

There seem to be opportunities for brands to work with “beginner creators,” in particular, a group Linktree defines as having less than 12 months of experience. Close to 60% of that cohort have yet to monetize their content.

With Elon Musk swooping in to gobble up Twitter, it got me thinking about the early days of social media when marketers were trying to figure out how to best use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., to connect with their customers.

The bad running joke among brands and agencies thinking about dipping their toes into the social waters was that the “intern runs social.” But that changed once companies understood that each social platform is different and that they do, in fact, need expertise to run them. (Especially after monumental brand snafus on Twitter, like the one involving Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day or the little incident with a model airplane.)

And over the years, a cottage industry of social media tools to help marketers navigate each platform has popped up. I talked with a few social media marketers, and here’s what they said were their favorite tools. If you have your own favorites, hit Reply, and let us know!

Sprout Social:

Lots of folks, like Michael Beltran, CEO and co-founder of Flash Marketing Agency, said that Sprout Social was the .

Why? He tweeted: “The features for collaboration between the team are awesome. Makes our communication seamless, which is helpful because we all work from home. Also the social media analytics are really detailed!”

Zapier:

Lane Bernes Genee, VP of marketing at Alium, a buyer intel platform for marketers, told me, “Zapier is my swiss army knife.” The workflow automation company helps marketers “take calculated risks with cutting-edge martech,” Bernes Genee said. “If I want to try a new piece of tech but it doesn’t one-click integrate with my existing stack, Zapier likely can spin up a webhook or might have an existing integration.”

Instapage:

Bernes Genee also pointed to Instapage, a drag-and-drop landing-page solution that doesn’t require a designer or developer. “So many other landing-page builders require a little bit of HTML—or worse, it’s just tables inside of tables. Instapage’s ease of use allows anyone from any part of the marketing org to create a page.”

Finally, Morning Brew’s own social media marketer, Casey Mutchler, said she and her team use Canva for everything from creating Insta Stories to making mocks for clients. She also has used Sprinklr and Sprout, calling them “time-savers.”

“It’s great to just get into the nitty-gritty on each platform’s analytics page,” she said. “[It’s] time-consuming, but reading through comments and organizing engagements in Excel sheets always gives you the authentic results.”

She added one big piece of advice: “Listen to your peers! Social platforms update constantly. Talking things out with other social media experts to know what works is key.”

Amen!

–Josh Sternberg, Executive Editor, Morning Brew

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Influencer-led podcasts are proving popular for advertisers
• Magnolia Bakery unveils its first rebrand since before the iPhone
• Mood Board: The not-so-subtle references in Culprit’s ad for ‘LadyBoxers’