MARKETING

From scratch

As the New York Times’s in-house creative studio, T Brand is known for helping clients tailor campaigns to the newspaper. But the studio recently debuted a project that, in contrast, is its own creative project. 

Soul of Us is a branded, “multi-part storytelling journey” about the Black experience in America. T Brand started the initiative as part of its own commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion, or “DEI,” Vida Cornelious, VP of creative at NYT Advertising, told Marketing Brew. “Soul of Us really is a manifestation of T Brand’s commitment to DEI and representation,” Cornelious said. “It’s an ongoing dialogue for us and not an opportunistic endeavor.”

So far, Soul of Us has worked with Starz to publish a series of stories about Black leadership. The stories are uplifting vignettes about Black life, with illustrations and some audio integrations contributed by Black storytellers. 

• For example, one story profiles Jasmyn Wright, an elementary school teacher in Philadelphia who used her knowledge of spoken-word poetry to teach students about daily affirmations in a classroom exercise that went viral.
• Although these are paid posts (and are marked as such), the project puts the stories first. After reading original stories produced by T Brand, readers reach an article about Starz’s #TakeTheLead initiative, which seeks to highlight “narratives by, about and for women and underrepresented audiences.”

While T Brand has a full in-house creative team, work on Soul of Us has largely come from outside creators, who are featured on the project’s online hub.

“For something like Soul of Us, where we had to get some different expertise and points of view, we wanted to make sure that we had authentic voices,” Cornelious said.

The right fit

T Brand set out to build the first package around the theme of leadership before partnering with Starz, Cornelious explained. As the studio was scouting for partners, Starz emerged as an obvious choice because of #TakeTheLead. “In telling those stories of leadership, it became an opportunity for us to really explore how Black leaders are born, made, and then fully realized,” Cornelious said.

• The studio will approach future Soul of Us partnerships similarly, according to Cornelious: T Brand will pick a theme, then seek out a client whose brand aligns with it. For example, the studio has talked to a health and wellness brand about a series on family, and with financial brands about progress and empowerment, although Cornelious declined to share specifics. She hopes it will be an ongoing project with no set end date.

There’s no “hard-core KPI” for Soul of Us, Cornelious said. Although T Brand can look at metrics like scroll-through rates, the studio’s main measure of success for this project is awareness, she added.

“If these stories are not told, then basically the portrayal of Black people becomes very myopic,” Cornelious said. “Black life is a very rich tapestry of many things: love, success, family, commitment, beauty, community. These are stories that can go on and on.”—ZS

AD TECH

Connecting dots

Ever wonder how an ad ends up on a site? Ever wonder how many ad-tech firms are working with the same publisher? You must be fun at parties! 

We kid, but if these are serious inquiries, there’s a new tool advertisers, activists, and researchers can lean on to learn more about the murky depths of ad tech.

Created in February of 2021 by software engineer Braedon Vickers, Well-Known is an online database that scrapes nearly 2 million websites every two weeks, indexes the information, and details the relationship between publishers and the ad tech companies they work with. 

• If your brand ends up advertising on a site you don’t want it to be on, you could do some sleuthing on Well-Known to find out how the ad might’ve gotten there.
• So, if a marketer were sent screenshots of its brand appearing on a site like The Daily Wire, they could turn to Well-Known and find which of its ad-tech partners is allowing ad placements there.

Well-Known is free to use, and Vickers told Marketing Brew that it’s more of a side project than a commercial endeavor. “Ultimately, I think a lot of people looking into this stuff are looking for transparency as to what is going on and how ads are ending up in certain places,” said Vickers. “It’s better for everybody to see where their money is actually going.”

Read the full story here.—RB

SPONSORED BY MORNING CONSULT

Survey Says: Uh-Oh

With the dastardly Delta variant on the rise, consumer sentiment fell sharply in August.

But as always, there’s more to the story than just that. For a full picture of what’s going on in the mind of the consumer, you need to get your hands on Morning Consult’s September US Economic Outlook report.

Their FREE report is released monthly, and draws on Morning Consult Economic Intelligence, a global economic dataset that consists of more than 11,000 daily surveys across the 15 largest economies.

AKA, there’s a lot of data in this thing.

That’s why businesses and investors rely on Morning Consult for an integrated assessment of U.S. workers, households, and consumers. So yeah, consumer sentiment fell, but with all this sweet, sweet data from Morning Consult, you can be prepared to take the challenge head on.

Download their report for free here.

INFLUENCER MARKETING

Rally Sooney, influencers

One of these things (that influencers promote) is not like the others: flat-tummy tea, hair-growth vitamins, and a book by self-described Marxist author Sally Rooney. That’s right, influencers have officially entered the literati’s chat. 

Ahead of Rooney’s new novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux doled out yellow bucket hats, totes, and more merch featuring the book’s title and cover illustrations to celebrities like Lena Dunham and others deemed influential in the literary sphere, per the NYT. 

​​It’s not that surprising: Books are having a moment on TikTok—the hashtag #booktok, for example, has 20.4 billion views (for comparison, the hashtag #beautyhacks has 9.3 billion). 

• “New industries are tapping influencer marketing thanks to TikTok and its niche virality, in topics such as finance, real estate, and literature,” Julianne Fraser, founder and CEO of brand marketing consultancy Dialogue New York, told Marketing Brew. “While publishers are just starting to dabble in this form of promotion, I wouldn’t be surprised if more budget is allocated down the road.”
• For instance, Eye on Design magazine recently noted that for Jessica Goodman’s They’ll Never Catch Us, publisher Penguin Random House sent custom Nike sneakers to “litfluencers” like “celebrities, Bookstagrammers, and BookTokers.” 

Natalie Todoroff, assistant scout at Jane Starr Literary Scouts, thinks influencer marketing has existed in her industry for a long time—publishers just didn’t call it that until recently. “Before BookTok there was Book Tumblr, and whenever BookTok burns down, something else will rise from its ashes.… I think at their core, publishers recognize that readers purchase not only on personal interest but on brand recognition,” she elaborated.

Zoom out: Insider Intelligence forecasts influencer marketing spend in the US to grow 33.6%, to $3.69 billion in 2021, up from $2.76 billion in 2020; so it’s no wonder the strategy is spreading into more unexpected lifestyle corners.—PB  

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Apple’s got new phones that look a bit like its old phones.
• App Annie, a mobile analytics firm, settled an SEC fraud investigation for $10 million.
• Facebook knows Instagram is harmful for teenage girls, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Robinhood is debuting a campaign aimed at college students.
• Jake from State Farm is a (branded) character in NBA 2K22.

SPONSORED BY IMPACT

Influencer marketing > traditional advertising. We don’t use the “greater than” symbol lightly; influencer marketing has emerged as the superior, reliable way for marketers to maintain authenticity, drive brand awareness, and rake in revenue. Whether you’re new to it or a seasoned pro, Impact’s ultimate guide can help you get the most return on your influencer marketing initiatives. Download the e-book right here.

FRENCH PRESS

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

Stress: Is the four-day work week really the solution to modern burnout? (Why don’t we try and find out!)

Clock it: When’s the best time to post a TikTok? Tuesday at 7am, according to Hootsuite. More where that came from here.

Future proof: Sick of Zoom meetings? Meet your team in the metaverse.

Become an inbox oracle: We’ve got the scoop on how today’s media companies (like us) are harnessing the power newsletter to increase brand loyalty, form connections with subscribers, and drive revenue. Read the full article right here.*

METRICS AND MEDIA

Stat: OOH spending fell 28% last year to $29.1 billion, per Zenith figures cited by the Financial Times.

Read: The Walgreens Covid-19 registration system exposed sensitive patient data, according to an investigation by Recode. Or a lighter note, read GQ’s look at how Dunkin’ is capitalizing on its normcore roots to become a lifestyle brand.

Quote: “If their future is to be an electric one, then their mission is to convince people that electric Fords are basically the Fords they already love, only newer,” writes Peter C. Baker in the New York Times, on how Ford is marketing its electric future.

EVENTS

Next Wednesday, learn how Empower is helping clients navigate everything from shrinking budgets to burgeoning platforms as we chat with the agency’s chief investment officer, Cathy Shaffer. 

On Tuesday, September 21, at 11:30 am EST, join us for a conversation with Shaffer, who has more than 25 years of experience as a media planner and client advisor.

Click here to RSVP and share your questions for us.

ICYMI

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

• Is A/B testing on steroids the future of digital marketing?
• Visa is shutting down its personal data business for advertisers
• Celebrity Cruises says it’s time to get back in the water

*Also, here are the rules for the Amazon gift-card giveaway mentioned at the top.