CHANNELS

Out of home ads + hand sanitizer = magic

While picking up my dry cleaning recently, I noticed something attached to the wall: a hand sanitizer station. But what made me do a double take was a command, in huge font, telling me: “ADVERTISE HERE.” There was an email address. So naturally, I reached out. 

To my surprise, Terraboost Media’s CEO messaged me back. 

What’s a Terraboost, you ask? It’s an out of home (OOH) ad space provider that said it had a kick-ass 2020. 

How did an OOH company make money in a year when people stayed home? By selling ads on hand sanitizer and wipe stations. 

Diving deeper 

Terraboost’s five-and-a-half-foot sanitizer kiosks typically involve two areas for brands to display colorful product images with relevant copy: one on the bottom of the kiosk’s stand, and one at the top above the wipes. For example, a company like Lysol can put its logo on the base while running its message at the top. 

It turns out that the empty kiosk at my dry cleaner was a novelty—the original Terraboost units aren’t being maintained anymore, according to Brian Morrison, Terraboost’s CEO.

• “When we started the business, we actually started in Manhattan, putting these things up in bodegas and smaller type businesses,” Morrison told Marketing Brew. 
• “And then the business grew and grew. Now we're in CVS, Walgreens, and all the big chains.”

Over the past year, Terraboost increased its ad revenue from the kiosks 3x, with revenue from the sanitizing products themselves (yep, it makes and sells those too—talk about vertical integration) up a whopping 11x. 

Morrison declined to share actual revenue numbers, but said since no one was taking the train, bus, or subway for a while, the kiosks were the perfect homes for lonely OOH budgets.

Big picture: Meanwhile, the broader out of home industry didn’t exactly have a great year: In the US, OOH ad spending decreased by 29.7% between 2019 and 2020, from $8.65 billion to $6.08 billion, per eMarketer. And sure, it’s forecasted to rebound back up to $6.96 billion in 2021, but that’s still a major drop. 

Click here to read more about Terraboost’s business model + its successful 2020.—PB

NEWSLETTERS

A newsletter for bake sales

Newsletters are hot these days—although we might be a little biased.

6AM City, which started in 2016, is riding a national wave of disruption, as newsletters, whether published by an individual or an entire newsroom, offer advertisers a direct connection to readers with content they actually care about (again, we’re biased). Now, 6AM City, which wants to be the Thrillist of the Southeast, hopes to disrupt at the local level.

The newsletter highlights features like “Scenic drives in Charleston, SC” or a racing simulator in Asheville, NC, before listing local happenings like free concerts, bake sales, and museum exhibits.

• Started in Greenville, SC, 6AM City has quickly expanded to 11 cities like Nashville and Kansas City, and has more than 425,000 subscribers. At least three more cities as far away as Texas are planned for this year. 
• In 2020, 6AM City posted revenue of $2.4 million and spent $3.5 million. It expects to clear $5 million in revenue in 2021.
• Pricing hovers around $11–$12 CPM for national advertisers.

Businesses as varied as ButcherBox, Bombas, and Winc, plus the YMCA and local hospitals, are among its 600 contracted advertisers (full disclosure: Morning Brew advertises with 6AM City), but it’s a balancing act between national brand budgets and local dollars.

“If we put too much national content in the local product, [we’ll] get complaints every day from a lot of people because it's not resonating with them,” Ryan Johnston, 6AM City’s CEO and cofounder, told Marketing Brew. It’s become a bit of an uphill battle to earn credibility in the eyes of local advertisers as a newsletter, he said. 

Local advertisers also pay a bit of a premium, spending $1,500 for one newsletter aimed at one market vs. about $2,400 for a national buy across all markets based on CPMs. 

To start in a city, 6AM City needs about $250,000, 60 days, and two reporters. Profitability comes in 18 months, Johnston said. Part of his revenue plan involves nontraditional streams, like a membership program that’ll give paying subscribers access to editors for “coffee” meet and greets, among other perks like discounts on local retailers.

But 6AM City isn’t a replacement for local media. For instance, the newsletter has a policy against covering local politics or crime. That’s not the ambition, said Johnston. “We have no crime and punishment, no politics. We are the marketing engine and the PR platform for the city.”—RB

SPONSORED BY STACKADAPT

Get with the program(matic)

First, a question for those agencies that are not evolving and exploring new forms of media buying: Why not?

As the world of media and marketing changes completely what feels like every 20 seconds, it’s time to develop a business case for programmatic.

Which, whoa, is exactly what this e-book from StackAdapt is called. “Developing a Business Case for Programmatic” will give you the tools you need to understand the power of programmatic, expand your offering, and demonstrate to clients why you need more $$$ in your budgets. 

You want to learn more? We and StackAdapt got you:

• Find opportunities for programmatic advertising
• Leverage programmatic to increase KPIs
• Integrate different approaches to advertising

Oh, and how about we give this its own line: You’ll learn how programmatic will reduce media dollar waste with sophisticated targeting.

Time to get with the program and download StackAdapt’s e-book on all things programmatic.

EVENTS

The three best quotes from Marketing Brew’s Pinterest workshop

ICYMI, Marketing Brew held a workshop about Pinterest last week—and TBH, it was a really good time. 

• Vistaprint Senior Manager of Global Content Marketing Robin Vancura and Global Social Media Lead Femke Lenstra (virtually) stopped by to share their experiences with marketing on Pinterest.
• Together, the pair explained how marketing on Pinterest can work for your brand, giving tips on how to get started and optimize your pins for success. 

If you’re pinterested in listening, click here for a full recording of the event—it’s “background noise” that just might change your brand’s social strategy. 

If you aren’t sure, read on for a few of our favorite sound bites. 

• “Don’t blast your brand.”—Vancura on the dangers of overly branded content on Pinterest 
• “Pinterest is a search engine just like Google, so really make sure your copy on your pins—but also the copy on your boards—is optimized for search.”—Lenstra on Pinterest being a search engine-social media hybrid
• “Your external agencies bring some very different ideas and help you to think outside of the box. I think we get very set in our ways in organizations, and sometimes working with external groups brings new thought.”—Vancura on the benefits of using an agency for social media strategy

—PB

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• P&G’s Gillette Venus released a spot featuring a singing, talking pubic hair in a campaign aimed at normalizing “the hair down there.”
• Twitch created a “hot tubs” category so advertisers can avoid sexy streams. 
• Whole Foods, Target, and other retailers are starting to take their private labels seriously.
• Verizon will offer customers free access to Google Play Pass or Apple Arcade for up to a year.
• Apple and Epic will end their court drama with a “debate-style format” to conclude a three week antitrust trial.

SPONSORED BY LINKEDIN MARKETING SOLUTIONS

Your brand’s social skills are just as important as yours. Moms may claim that being unique is enough, but the same is not true for your marketing efforts. Make your ads the cool kid on the marketing block by dropping them where the engaged business professionals are. Read our guide on the Four Tips to Better Your Brand's B2B Ads—and your ads will never eat lunch alone. 

FRENCH PRESS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren't those.

Hear it: You want to hear from your customers, but you don’t want to give them homework. Here are the five big mistakes companies make with customer surveys.

Talk back: Slide into the DMs. Five reasons why messaging should be a part of your social media strategy.

Stay positive: According to a Harris Poll/Sprout Social survey, 78% of consumers are more willing to buy from a brand after a positive interaction on social media. That’s a lot! This guide can help you understand how people engage with brands on social.

Read up: The marketing master of Mastercard has spoken. Raja Rajamannar—the CMO of Mastercard—wrote a book on how your business should rethink its entire marketing landscape to remain relevant, be successful, and embrace innovative technologies. Get your copy of Quantum Marketing today. 

JOBS

Bigwig gigs don’t grow on trees. If you’re an exec, looking for job opportunities in the usual places probably won’t cut it. That’s why we partnered with ExecThread, the platform with confidential jobs for people who’ve graduated beyond job boards. Today’s featured postings: 

• VP of Marketing at a Fortune 500 company 
• CMO at a pro sports team 
• Director of Growth Marketing at a company that grows e-commerce brands

Check out all the super cool jobs here. 

AD ANTIQUES

Vintage Ad Browser

When this Ivory soap ad ran in 1942, people were VERY concerned about how their hands looked, and not at all concerned about touching things in a grocery store during a pandemic.

ICYMI

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

• How do creative agencies feel about deepfakes?
• Netflix failed the Bechdel test
• Why the Washington Football Team hired a CCO