Welcome to Tuesday. Netflix will announce its earnings later today, and we’ll be listening extra closely for any updates about its ad-supported tier…as well as if our parents will be asked to pay extra for all the times we’ve shared their password with our friends.
In today’s edition:
—Ryan Barwick, Phoebe Bain
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Illustration: Dianna “Mick” McDougall, Photos: Getty Images, Reddit
R/mileycyrus. R/mensrights. R/daftpunk. R/floridaman. These are the subreddits where, for one reason or another, Reddit doesn’t appear to allow advertising, according to a third-party tool.
The results, pulled from the 2,500 most popular subreddits and run through an API called Pushshift, show that despite spending the last decade courting advertisers and trying to address brand-safety concerns, Reddit’s actual brand-safety approach appears to be cautious, making it seem somewhat unpredictable and inconsistent.
Rewind: Reddit has long addressed questions about the “safety” of its platform, as advertisers can fear content moderation that’s often left to, well, (unpaid) moderators.
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Since the spring of 2021, the platform has announced partnerships with the likes of Omnicom, WPP, and IPG in an attempt to build and legitimize its ad business.
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It has also partnered with Oracle and DoubleVerify, companies that specialize in brand-safety tech.
It’s more obvious why subreddits like r/mensrights and r/mdma apparently can’t run ads; it’s not as clear why Reddit appears to block ads on other communities, like r/islam, r/israel, and r/redhotchilipeppers. Meanwhile, according to the tool, r/christianity and r/drunk are able to host some ads.
Big picture: The existence of labels that seem to signify how Reddit monetizes its communities isn’t surprising, considering Reddit offers different “inventory types” to advertisers. But the research may pull back the curtain on the otherwise often opaque practice of moderation and brand safety, aka how platforms decide where ads can show up. You know, the thing that makes them money.
“There doesn’t seem to be a clear rhyme or reason,” Chris Vargo, an associate professor of advertising at the University of Colorado and the co-founder of Socialcontext.AI, a contextual advertising company, told us.
Continue reading here to see the full list of subreddits.—RB
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Francis Scialabba
Unless you’ve been stuck under a virtual rock somewhere in the metaverse, you probably know that the crypto market is a bit of a mess right now, to put it gently. In November 2021, it was valued at $3 trillion. Last month, it fell to a $900 billion valuation—a whopping 70% drop from its record high.
Crypto ad spend has come down, too: The four companies that made up 93% of the 2022 ad spend in the category through May of this year—FTX, eToro, Crypto.com, and Coinbase—have all drastically tightened their belts since their Super Bowl appearances in February, according to MediaRadar.
- Coinbase, for instance, reduced its March marketing dollars by 98% month over month and by another 68% in April.
Looking ahead: In recent months, companies like TikTok and Twitter have taken steps to make it easier for crypto brands to advertise on their platforms. But between the crash and a potential recession, those platforms are seeing some of those coveted marketing dollars disappear.
Reevaluating
“We’ve always seen paid social as a major opportunity for us, largely because at eToro, our value proposition is that we’re a social investing platform,” Brad Michelson, eToro’s head of US marketing, told us.
Paid social is “still a big driver” in eToro’s marketing mix—Michaelson called it a “primary channel”—but he noted that the team has “scaled back a bit, as everyone has, on these channels.”
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For eToro, Michaelson said, that means reducing spend on more experimental platforms for the brand, such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Reddit.
Read the full story here.—PB
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Billy Thompson
Each Tuesday, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.
Billy Thompson is CEO of Lumegent, a consulting agency that helps clients with marketing, advertising, content strategy, sales, leadership, rebranding, and restructuring.
Favorite project you’ve worked on? Anything rebranding, especially rebranding the organization StoneMor. Tough product with hard-working and amazing people. I never thought I’d enjoy touring every cemetery/funeral home in the country, but what a great experience!
What’s your favorite ad campaign? The Coinbase QR Code ad for the Super Bowl. At my Super Bowl party, it was quite amusing watching [everyone] follow the bouncing QR code and then actually grab their phones to scan it. Absolutely brilliant yet simple marketing.
One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile? I am a huge anime fan. Old and new stuff, everything from One Piece to Yu Yu Hakusho or My Hero Academia to Haikyuu!! Not something that typically comes up in my professional career, but it’s exciting to see how much Japanese anime has influenced the [younger] generations of Z and Alpha. I love that I am able to keep this part of my childhood alive and a part of who I am.
Continue reading here.
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TOGETHER WITH CUSTOMER LINK FROM PWC
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Francis Scialabba
There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.
Talk, shop: Twitter and Publicis took a look at how brand conversations and mentions on social can affect shopping decisions.
Perfect timing: Here are the best days and times to stream on Twitch, according to Hootsuite.
Big screen: Snapchat is rolling out a web-based offering that allows users to send messages and call friends on desktop devices.
Ahoy marketers: Get early bird pricing until August 5 for Activate Summit, hosted by Iterable. Get hyped for three jam-packed, IRL days featuring speakers from DoorDash, Coach, and Cinemark, all while networking with like-minded marketers. Register today.* *This is sponsored advertising content.
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Ahhhh, work travel, we’ve missed you. We love a conference, don’t you? Free food, smart people with inspiring ideas...aspirational breakfast meetings. Well, marketers...we have news.
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Are you looking to land your first marketing job? Check out these Entry Level positions on the Marketing Brew Job Board!
Today’s featured openings:
See more jobs or post your job opportunities here.
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Disney completed its upfront negotiations with $9 billion in advertiser commitments, 40% of which are for streaming platforms like Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu.
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H&M is the latest retailer to exit the Russian market due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
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TikTok is laying off workers as part of a global restructuring.
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HBO and HBO Max Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys signed a five-year contract to remain at Warner Bros. Discovery.
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Amazon has updated the interface of its streaming platform, Prime Video.
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Fun’s over: The US ad market actually shrank in June, according to data from the Standard Media Index. By how much did it shrink?
- 1%
- 3%
- 5%
- 7%
Keep scrolling for the answer.
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Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.
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2. Most of the contraction was due to reductions from some of the nation’s largest categories, and traditional media was hit hardest, per an analysis from MediaPost.
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