SOCIAL MEDIA

Chatting About Snap’s New Offering

Last week, when Morning Brew CEO Alex Lieberman chatted with Laundry Service CMO Mike Mikho on Marketing Brew’s CMO Series, Mikho said his favorite ad unit is a Snapchat Lens.

But as of late October, Snapchat Lenses will have some competition from within. On Tuesday during Advertising Week, Snap announced that its “First Commercial” ad offering will officially roll out to all U.S. advertisers later this month.   

First who?

True to its name, First Commercial is...the first commercial any user sees when they watch Snap's premium shows in Discover. It's an unskippable six-second spot. 

• Marketers can access the ad unit via Snap's Ads Manager.
• First Commercial is tailored to mobile videos, and they will run exclusively within curated, brand-safe programming. 

+1: Top digital video marketers worked on the product, including David Roter in 2019, who previously directed video and agency sales for Twitter, and Peter Naylor, who used to lead ad sales for Hulu.

Testing, testing… 

Major advertisers including NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Tinder tested First Commercial in beta starting in April. Here’s what they found: 

• Brand awareness lift is more than 2x higher for brands whose first ad on the platform was a Commercial rather than a regular, non-prioritized Snap Ad.
• Tinder’s cost per completed view on its First Commercial in beta was $0.04.
• The daily average number of Snapchatters watching shows increased by over 45% year over year in Q2 2020. And as of Q1 2020, Snap reached a monthly audience of 10 million across 60 shows. 

Zoom out: 2020 has made marketers increasingly concerned about brand safety on their social media marketing platforms—so an offering on a smaller platform that prioritizes brand safety could be ideal for marketers seeking refuge.

ANTITRUST

Trust Busting, But Make it 2020

Yesterday, the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust released its Big Tech monopoly investigation findings after a long 16 months. The committee's recommendations represent the most dramatic proposed changes to competition law since the time you beat your whole family at Monopoly. 

Here's what the report had to say about the digital ad duopoly, beyond the general idea that Facebook, Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple have monopoly power. 

Facebook: The investigation cited Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram as potentially anti-competitive. The report also concluded that Facebook enjoys monopoly power in the online advertising and social networking markets—to which marketers say “It took you 16 months to figure that out?” 

Google: As one might have expected, Google was found to have monopoly power in online search and search advertising markets. What does that mean? I don’t know, Google it.

• Just kidding. The report specifically noted that Google functions as an “ecosystem of interlocking monopolies” that it reinforces by linking together user data across platforms to increase its power. 
• The report brought up concerns with Google’s ad tech stack, but it didn’t cite it as a point of monopoly power.

Bottom line: If approved, the House Judiciary subcommittee’s recommendations could lead Congress to break up parts of both Google and Facebook—but GOP lawmakers will likely push back on certain recommendations. 

SPONSORED BY CRITEO

The Retail Media Results Are In

To all brands and people better with data than we are...rejoice!

Criteo—the masters of retail media strategy—commissioned a new study with Forrester Consulting to determine just how important retail media advertising is when it comes to reaching shoppers and growing your business.

The high-level results? It’s really important.

The nitty gritty? Seventy-six percent of brands say their growth depends on retail media advertising, while at the same time, 62% say they have no clear owner of the strategy. 

Look at us talking about data like we’re pros. 

Tune in to Criteo’s webinar on October 14th at 11:00 ET so you can hear from the real experts at Forrester and Criteo as they dig into the study findings and answer questions. 

Take control of your retail media advertising with Criteo.

Sign up for the free webinar here.

CAMPAIGNS

Peloton Wife, Here’s The Door

The Peloton wives of the world clearly already have Pelotons, so the disruptive fitness bike brand is targeting a new market with its latest video spots: normal people. 

The omnichannel campaign, titled “We All Have Our Reasons,” features real Peloton riders rather than the widely criticized wealthy, thin, white Peloton wife character of the brand’s 2019 holiday ad. 

• Peloton’s head of global marketing Dara Treseder told Business Insider that it’s “absolutely” trying to broaden beyond young, rich consumers.
• It’s probably not a coincidence that the video spots’ “real people” are diverse in terms of race, nationality, age, and gender—diversity in advertising is proven to help bottom lines.

“Reasons” is the company’s first campaign since it paused marketing in May due to massive word-of-mouth marketing benefits at the start of the pandemic. Peloton is spending more on this campaign than any of its previous brand campaigns. 

My takeaway: Peloton’s significant investment in “Reasons” could represent Treseder’s team’s confidence in the power of diversity and authenticity in marketing. 

As Apple moves into the fitness space, Peloton is betting on these tried-and-tested marketing plays to expand beyond its niche audience and stay on top of the fitness world.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• McDonald’s partnered with reggaeton artist J Balvin for its latest collab. 
• Instagram brought shopping features to Reels and IGTV. 
• Eskimo Pie rebranded to Edy’s Pie, making it the latest brand to do away with racist branding. 
• Holiday surveys found that shoppers will spend more online, earlier, this year.

SPONSORED BY OUTFIT

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ADWEEK OR ADWEAK?

Which headlines are real marketing news, and which one is from marketing satire Twitter account ADWEAK?

1. Bing Is Rebranding As Microsoft Bing
2. Scream Remake Doubles as a Get-Out-the-Vote Ad
3. Nation's Consumers Hope Brands Will Remind Them To Vote For Next Few Weeks
4. An AI Created This Trailer for Fox’s Show About An Evil AI

Keep scrolling for the answer.

AD ANTIQUES

vintageadsandstuff.com

This VW Bus ad from 1967 clearly came out before the band Simple Plan of “I’m Just a Kid” fame was founded.

ADWEAK OR ADWEEK? ANSWER

The nation’s consumers are probably okay without more “vote” reminders—but can you believe Bing rebranded?

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Marketing Brew stories from the last few editions.

• Ross Simmonds gave Marketing Brew a content marketing masterclass
• The NFL ratings aren’t as through the roof as expected—here’s what that means for marketers
• Girls Who Code went hard on the promo for its event with Apple