***  Editor’s Note:  Beginning this weekend the one and only employee at the Daily Gabe will be out of the country for the next two weeks.  So we’ll be taking a mid-summer hiatus from blogging starting today through the Fourth of July.  Expect the DG to return in all of its glory on Thursday, July 6^th. ***

WHAT’S YOUR GRIND?:  Instead of my normal format today I’d like to leave you with some inspiration from the one and only Mark Cuban.  If you’re a regular viewer of Shark Tank you’ve probably heard him ask the question “what’s your grind?”  If show participants don’t know what he’s asking, or even pause in their response, he immediately pulls out of the deal.  So do you know what the Grind is?  In Mark Cuban’s book it’s a person’s born-with determination to work harder than most other humans could to build something from the ground up.  In Mr. Cuban’s case the Grind was sitting in his college dorm for 20 hours a day writing source code for CompuServe, which would eventually be acquired by Yahoo and make Mark Cuban a billionaire.  His entire approach to business is an all-out battle to win, so he only does business with others who are hard wired to Grind with that same intensity.  That’s why he often asks “what’s your grind?”  If you need more background the interview with Mark Cuban in the attached ABC News link is a few years old but perfectly frames out his way of thinking.

After thinking about Mark Cuban’s philosophy for the last few years I’ve come to believe that in order to be successful in your work you need to have belief in, passion for, and a purposeful conviction in whatever you’re doing.  If you have these elements you effectively have your Grind.  One’s Grind could push them towards some positive goal, or even help avoid something negative.  Regardless of what it is, your Grind will get you out of bed before your alarm clock to chase that one thing.

On a personal note I also think I’ve figured out what my Grind is.  In order for this to make sense you need to know a little bit about my work background.  For the first 17 years of my career I worked in Broadcast Radio.  During most of that time I naively lived in my radio fishbowl, oblivious to what was occurring in the media universe just outside my door.  Then in 2011 I made the leap across the digital divide, and I literally could have been a poster child for the phrase “you don’t know what you don’t know”.  Once I started working for a digital publisher I quickly realized I hadn’t kept up with my industry.  So I had to catch up fast and then stay current.  That’s why I became obsessed with learning everything I could about digital media and be as well read as possible in my new industry.  In all honesty, this driving obsession to be digitally fluent eventually led me to create this blog.  I was reading so many trades every morning I thought why not teach myself WordPress and share what I’ve been learning?  So I think that’s my Grind – to be as much of an expert and thought leader as I can in digital media.  I believe this has helped me succeed in the current chapter of my career, and I hope it will keep me digitally sharp for years to come.

Do you agree with me?  Do you think everyone needs a Grind as their driving force to succeed?  If you do, have you figured out what your Grind is yet?

RADIO’S MOMENT OF REVENUE TRUTH:  Yesterday the research firm Magna released a mid-year update of its global media forecast.  No surprise that the headline is once again Digital, which now commands 40% of the aggregated global media spending.  But the picture doesn’t look as rosy for Radio.  If you go all the way down to paragraph 14 in the attached Inside Radio link you’ll see some fairly ominous numbers.  Magna is forecasting at 4.4% decrease in Radio’s broadcast revenue this year, and expects another 4% decline in 2018.  Those are big decreases!  Besides the overall shift from broadcast to digital, Radio is getting crushed by decreased spending in some of its bread and butter categories like Auto and Retail, and they don’t have last year’s Political money to cover those losses.  To me this feels sort of like that moment on a roller coaster when you’ve just crested the hill and are starting to gain momentum towards the steep drop ahead.  For Radio’s sake Magna better not be right.

YOUTUBE LEAVING THE “SAFE HARBOR”?  Yesterday ASCAP announced it had reached an agreement with YouTube to pay its member songwriters publisher royalties on a per song basis.  Publisher royalties are relatively small compared to the performance royalties paid to the artists, but this is still an important development.  It’s the first time YouTube has agreed to pay music royalties outside of their “safe harbor” loophole.  As a quick reminder, publishers who distribute user uploaded music can do a rev share deal with those artists instead of paying per song royalties – that’s referred to as the “safe harbor” work around.  So by agreeing to a per song payment system with ASCAP is YouTube creating a precedent the artists/labels can use to negotiate a better performance rights deal?  I know the folks at Google (YouTube’s owner) aren’t dumb, so they’ve probably played this one a few moves down the chess board already.  It will be interesting to see how this develops.

TESTING THE THEORY THAT ANY PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY:  So how far is too far when it comes to attention getting promotions?  I think minor league baseball’s Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (yes, real team) are attempting to answer that question with their latest PR stunt.  Tonight the team will be running its first “You Might Be The Father” promotion by handing out pregnancy test kits as fans enter the game.  The tongue-and-cheek tie in is if the test comes back positive you should make your way back to the ballpark on Sunday for the team’s Father’s Day promotion.  I kid you not, this is a real thing happening tonight – see the attached link.  When pressed about the insensitivity of the promotion the Jumbo Shrimp’s Marketing spokesperson doubled down by saying “it will be an evening filled with suspense, intrigue and manila envelopes.”  Once you get past the poor taste of this event, there’s actually some marketing logic being applied here.  Minor league teams have to try really hard to get noticed and must go the extra mile to get fans in the seats.  And given the amount of free publicity generated by this stunt, the Jumbo Shrimp may have just found marketing gold along with a few extra paternity lawsuits.

Have a great Thursday guys!

BANKS ARE MAKING LEMONADE OUT OF RETAIL LEMONS:  The term “Retailpocalypse” is usually reserved B&M retailers who are experiencing an erosion of business within physical stores as sales shift to online ecommerce channels.  But we don’t often think of this with other location-intensive industries like banking.  As is the case with their retail cousins, banks are seeing the same decrease in foot traffic as more FS transactions occur online or at self-service kiosks.  The attached Tearsheet article, explains what’s occurring in the industry and provides a pretty handy interactive chart tracking the location counts of the largest national banks.  But this downsizing trend isn’t all bad news for the banks.  Some are seizing this inflection point to reinvent what it means to visit a bank.  Apple Store-style coffee bars are replacing marble floors and vaulted ceilings, and “side by side banking” is supplanting traditional teller lines.  All of this amounts to a fairly impressive counter punch by banks who could otherwise get lost in the vacant storefronts of yesteryear’s banking model.

ZELLE IS THE NEW GREEN:  Staying with banks for a minute, there’s another significant tech advancement about to happen in the FS industry.  For some background, alternate FinTech companies like Venmo and Paypal have started to encroach on traditional banking.  This has created a dilemma for the national banks who are trying to preserve their legacy business while staying nimble on new tech-enabled financial services.  In response to this threat a conglomerate of 30+ banks is about to launch a new app platform for inter-bank cash transfers called Zelle.  This will allow consumers to instantly move money across any participating bank from a mobile device. (As an aside, does this feel like a Christmas miracle for all the money launderers out there?!?)  Back to my point . . . the technology behind Zelle has actually been around for several years through a system called ClearXchange.  But now they’ve finally gotten all the big banks to commit into one unified platform, which will instantly create the industry standard.  TechCrunch has a comprehensive write up in the attached link.  Maybe I should start taking Zelle payments for subscriptions to the Daily Gabe?  Hmmm . . .

RADIO BASHES OTHERS BY IGNORING IT’S OWN FLAWS (AGAIN):  And finally, I know I’ve been pushing back on the radio propaganda machine a lot lately, so please indulge me as I call out another junk piece.  In this one the author describes radio, and it’s PPM collection method, as the only medium which lives up to its promise of tracking people who are hearing ads.  What?  Is this the same PPM system which can’t get MRC accreditation in a majority of MSAs because it’s sample size is too small?  Is this the same PPM system which can’t measure cell phone only listeners (aka millennials)?  Is the same PPM system that be gamed by a hardware device called Voltair, which allows broadcasters to artificially improve their stations’ signal pickup?  And finally is this the same PPM system which gave four measurement devices to the same household in Tampa and skewed the ratings on an HD side channel station so much that it became the top station in market for W18-34?  I could go on with the problems but I think you get my point.  Radio has now resorted to the sad business of trying to tear down others while acting like their platform is as pure as the new fallen snow.  This latest blog post, covered by both Radio Ink and Inside Radio, is another example.  Ick . . . I’m going to take a shower now!

Have a great Wednesday guys!

RADIO’S “LOOK AT THE BIRDIE” SELL:  In full disclosure, nobody likes a good radio fight more than me.  So when I see an eyebrow raising article like the attached Radio Ink link, I just can’t help myself.  While I’ll always respect honest competitive sales pitches, the author’s rationale in this situation is just wrong.  Pureplay streamers are winning an ever-increasing share of audio dollars because of specific product advantages.  Lower ad clutter allows each clients’ commercials to stand out relative to radio, individual listeners’ registration data allows for precision targeting you can’t get in a broadcast format, and ad delivery is guaranteed by server-side reporting instead of after-the-fact Nielsen ratings estimates.  I wonder if any of these points were discussed during the sales call the author describes?  And the idea that you can cover 90%+ of the streaming audience with a Broadcast campaign is pure fiction.  In order to achieve this reach you’d have to buy a commercial on every AM/FM station in a given market and run an ad on all stations every 15 minutes.  Does that sound efficient or realistic to you?  Bottom line . . . radio broadcasters should use their time/energy to improve their own product and stop peddling the fallacy of aggregate reach, or expect to see radio’s ad revenue and relevance in the media landscape continue to erode.

CORD-CUTTING INTO TV’s FUTURE:  comScore just released an in-depth analysis of OTT TV viewership from households who have cut the cord (no cable subscription), compared to the same OTT consumption from households which still have cable.  As a reminder OTT stands for Over-The-Top (Top referring to set top), and is the umbrella term for any digital video delivered via internet.  In the Captain Obvious department, the headline of this research study is that cord-cutters watch 60% more OTT than cable households.  Viewing hours on the top streaming services are noted in the chart below.  But the real and more worrisome headline should be about total TV consumption by cord-cutters.  Average monthly linear TV consumption in US households still stands at 225 hours.  By comparison cord-cutters are only watching 79 hours of TV per month – so just 35% of the traditional total.  TV executives will argue that cord-cutters are more likely to be light TV watchers anyways, which makes them less likely to pay for full-bundle cable services.  Regardless, it’s a scary prospect for the TV sector to think that once the cord is cut overall consumption plummets.

GETTING SHORT ON SNAP:  Finally today, I usually don’t spend too much time on Wall Street speculation, but there’s an eye-popping development brewing with Snap, Inc.’s stock which is worth noting.  The Street is now reporting that investors have bought over $1B is “Shorts” against Snap’s stock.  For those who aren’t fluent in Street-speak, a Short is a time-based bet that the stock will go lower than its current market price.  So the more Shorts being bought the greater the anticipation that the stock price will go down.  Considering that Snap is already down 22% since its IPO just a few months ago it’s pretty amazing to think the stock could fall that much further.  The reasons for the pessimism are the usual suspects – worries over continued user growth, a deceleration of ad growth, competitive threats from other Social publishers, etc..  Of course only time will tell if the prognosis is true.  But it’s hard to believe the entire investment community could be making a billion dollar miscalculation on this one.

Have a great Tuesday guys!

TOP DIGITAL STATS:  This week’s Top Digital Stats article from AdWeek is loaded with interesting data.  In particular check out; (#1) the amount Facebook is spending on marketing in the US, (#8) AppleMusic’s worldwide subscription growth to an estimated 27M (compared to 13M a year ago), and (#11) the specs on Google’s updated Header Bidding platform.  But the best is definitely saved for last.  Check out (#13) BrandZ’s annual rankings of the world’s most valuable brands.  This ranker isn’t done on straight market valuation, but a combination of stock value, revenues, and “financial value generated by the brand’s ability to increase purchase volume and charge a premium”.  Based on those metrics Google has now surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable brand, and Amazon has surged to #4.  It’s also interesting to note that Marlborough is still hanging in there at #12, and Tesla isn’t even on the list (yet).  Great stuff to start off the week.

BILLBOARDS BRANDING POWER PLAYERS:  The attached Billboard link provides an insightful look at the top executives shaping music from various sides of the business.  Billboard has compiled the top 57 influencers into a Branding Power Players list.  It’s one of the very few times you’ll see clients who utilize music as a pillar for their brands, alongside the labels, broadcasters and streamers who deliver the music and experiential touchpoints.  If you work in this sector of the business it’s a great reference point list to keep handy.  And for my Pandora peeps out there, check out our very own John Trimble who made the list under the Media section.  Congrats JT!

COULD THE “BROWSER ACT” UPEND DIGITAL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT?:  On Friday Congresswoman Martha Blackburn (R-TN), introduced a bill in the House called the BROWSER Act, which is an acronym for “Balancing the Rights of Web Surfers Equally and Responsibly”.  If passed the bill would require all digital publishers to get opt-in permission from users to track behavioral and location information.  This data is currently used to serve the vast majority of online advertising.  So based on the assumption that most users would not give their consent, this type of law could have a crippling effect on the digital industry.  Since most free publishers rely on ads to runs their businesses and make money, a severe reduction in ad revenue would mean a rise in subscription fees to make up for this loss.  End result . . . get ready to pay for Facebook and other sites, says opponents of the bill.  There’s quite a bit of nuanced political back and forth on either side of this argument which Business Insider deconstructs in the attached link.  My gut says this bill won’t go anywhere, but it’s an eye opener to know that this kind of possibility is out there.

Have a great Monday guys!

TRITON WEBCAST METRICS RATINGS:  Yesterday Triton released its March’17 Webcast Metrics Ratings.  Overall streaming consumption increased 3% from Feb’17, and an impressive 13% YoY.  The biggest story inside the numbers was Pandora’s sharp upturn.  Since Triton doesn’t differentiate between free ad-supported and subscription based streaming listening, the Pandora bump is most likely due to the full rollout of its Premium service on March 14^th.  Keep in mind as you digest these numbers that this is a March reporting period, so it only accounts for Premium in half the month.  So expect Pandora’s 2,137,000 Average Active Session #, which is already its second highest month ever, to grow over the next few months.

FB GOING AFTER TV BUDGETS IN A FRIENDLIER WAY:  Up until now Facebook has generally taken a competitive stance against TV by touting its reach over the individual networks.  But in a change of strategy this week Kantar released a FB-funded study showing the marketing benefits of combining traditional TV and FB on a single media plan.  So why the pivot?  Since FB is beginning to ramp up its TV-like video content offering they’re trying to position themselves as an enhancer to any TV buy.  If successful this will earn FB a seat at the TV budget table, just like any other network.  Positioning TV as more of a frienemy than an adversary is a savvy move given that traditional TV still commands the second largest budget pool in media (just behind digital).  So why not dip a toe in that water too?

WEEKEND INSPIRATION:  It’s relatively easy for managers to look like great leaders when things are going well.  But true leadership is usually revealed when times get tough.  For this Friday’s Weekend Inspiration I’d like to share an article I came across in Inc.com.  The piece includes three examples of leadership under duress from the CEOs of Microsoft, Starbucks, and Amazon.  The common denominator of all three examples is a willingness of these leaders to own the problem (whether it be internal or external), be completely transparent (no sugar coating), and focus on finding a solution (instead of just dwelling on the problem).  It’s also remarkable that all three examples came from org-wide emails directly to their staffs, and not just prettied up press releases.  Together these examples provide a road map for what it takes to be a truly great leader even on the rainy days.  Keep this in mind the next time the clouds start to gather.

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

PANDORA BEATING AMAZON AT ITS OWN STREAMING GAME:  As music consumption continues to grow on IoT connected devices such as voice activated home speakers, there’s more and more data come out on which streaming music services are being listened to.  The early clear winner on this new frontier is Pandora.  According to MusicWatch the streamer commands 43% of total listening time on Amazon Echo/Dot, with all other competitors sharing the other half of the listening.  This stat was punctuated by Pandora’s Tim Westergren in a keynote address during a Music Label conference this week, as covered in the attached CNET link.  Pandora’s lead on Amazon devices underscores the power of music portability, where listeners decide for themselves what to listen to on any particular device.  Despite the fact that Amazon makes it very easy for listeners to use their music service on the Echo/Dot speakers, people are still choosing the Pandora workaround in overwhelming numbers.  This will be a great segment to keep an eye on as listening via connected CE devices continues to surge.

MORE SIGNS OF MOBILE DOMINATION:  PwC is out with its annual business forecast of the Entertainment and Media industries.  This report it a technical monster, so I’ll give you some highlights around digital advertising.  In 2016 there was $72B in digital media spending in the US, and that number is expected to surge to $116B over the next five years  – that’s an impressive 10% CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) for an already-established industry.  Mobile is the chief driver of this growth, accounting for just over 50% of the digital spending in 2016.  By 2021 PwC estimates mobile ad spending will comprise a staggering 75% of digital spending.  Put those two data points together and you have a forecast of $87B in US mobile ad spending by 2021.  Based on those numbers I’d say the days of brands needing a “mobile marketing strategy” are over, because mobile will be the only viable marketing strategy in the very near future!

THE BREWING BROWSER BATTLE:  There are some interesting developments occurring behind the scenes with Apple’s and Google’s browser platforms.  This is complicated but important stuff, so stay with me.  In coincidental moves both companies have announced new restrictions in the type of third party publisher ads they’ll run.  In Apple’s case they’ll now block autoplay video ads and behavioral tracking on its Safari browser.  Google is going one step further by self-policing and blocking what it determines are intrusive ads on its Chrome browser.  By doing this both companies are setting up de facto ad blockers on their platforms.  Why do this?  The public fluff rationale is to improve their UXs with fewer intrusive ads which annoy users and slow page load times.  But the more nuanced explanation is a combination of savvy business moves.  Apple’s play is pretty straightforward – they want to control a limited set of ad formats on its platform and prevent third parties from scraping their users’ behavioral data.  Google’s modus operandi goes one step further – they’re trying to incentivize publishers to use their ad tech specs by downgrading non-compliant ads they deem annoying, and simultaneously make a preemptive strike against third party ad blockers (because why would you need an ad blocker for Chrome if Google polices it for you, right?)  I’ve dug up two articles which explain these moves.  The attached Digiday link explains the basics on both situations, while attached Vox link goes way deep on Google’s plan.  Welcome to the deep end of the digital pool!

Have a great Thursday guys!

MORE THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ON THE SUBJECT OF AUDIO:  I often write about the power of audio as an advertising medium and the transformative moment we’re living in right now when Voice is supplanting Touch as the primary input method in an IoT connected world.  I can now happily say another industry expert, Gary Vaynerchuk, agrees with me.  Mr. Vaynerchuk is the CEO of Vayner Media and is also an accomplished blogger, podcaster and a NYT Bestselling Author.  In the attached Medium link he echoes the argument about the rise of Digital Audio, even beyond what the industry is currently seeing with Digital Video.  Beyond just the music side of streaming, Mr. Vaynerchuk makes the point that original audio content, like podcasts, will become the primary way listeners consume on-demand audio in the very near future.  I especially enjoyed that last paragraph about Voice being the most natural human interface of all, and his call to arms for fellow podcasters to start producing more original audio content.  Inspiring stuff!

SNAP GETTING INTO LOCATION TRACKING:  Late Monday news broke that Snap, Inc. (Snapchat’s parent co) had agreed to acquire the location tracking firm Placed for $200M.  A few years ago Placed was the clear leader in cell-based panels which could loosely tie in-store visits to attribution using lat/long tracking.  Recently the sector has gotten fairly crowded, with even more powerful location platforms like Foursquare starting to lead in the space.  For Snap the acquisition gives them a proprietary AdTech solution for lat/long targeting and measurement.  It fits pretty much in line with their “gingerbread man strategy” of running as fast, fast, fast as they can in several directions at once.  It will be interesting to see if they can successfully weave Placed into their overall strategy and see some ROI on this $200M investment.

“ONE BIG EGG” SYNDROME:  Last month P&G announced it was ending its data management deal with AudienceScience after a seven year relationship, in favor of new deal with DSP competitor Neustar.  For me the Why behind P&G’s decision to end the contract is less important than the lesson it teaches about the value of client diversification.  For the first 10 years of its existence AudienceScience had a relatively diverse base of CPG clients on their roster.  But as the P&G relationship grew they started to shed more and more of their other work, which made them completely dependent on one master client.  The risk associated with this type of setup literally became AudienceScience’s downfall, as explained in the attached AdExchanger link.  Because once P&G pulled their biz it was too late for AudienceScience to pivot into other account pitches to fill the gap.  This left no billable work to do, and therefore no income or value in the company.  Unfortunately the move resulted in the shuttering of the entire company which put over 200 AdTech professionals out of their jobs.  The demise of AudienceScience is a cautionary tale for any company (or even individual sales rep) about always making sure to have several clients of all sizes in your nest, and not put yourself in a feast or famine position with just that one big egg.

Have a great Wednesday guys!

ALL AUDIO IS NOT CREATED EQUAL:  To kick things off today I’d like to share one of the  best articulations of the advantages of Digital Audio over AM/FM Radio I’ve ever read.  It comes from Pandora’s SVP of Agency Partnerships Alan Schanzer, and it’s featured in the attached Diverge link.  For most of the last decade radio broadcasters have screamed about digital audio pureplays like Pandora, Spotify, Apple, etc. not being the same as “Radio” because they were trying to protect their legacy ad revenue.  Well they may have been right all along!  The streamers’ ability to serve audio ads in a one-to-one environment, using first party data to target individual listeners, and guarantee ad delivery makes streaming The Jetson’s compared to Fred Flintstone radio.  Listeners already know digital streaming provides a more personalized experience across a multitude of connected devices, which is why broadcast radio TSL keeps declining as Digital Audio usage increases.  So it’s more important than ever for clients and agencies to understand the differences too, and continue migrating their audio dollars from broadcast to streaming in order to achieve a better ROAS on their audio investment.

APPLE GETS INTO THE HOME SPEAKER GAME:  During yesterday’s kickoff of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference Tim Cook debuted their long-awaited voice enabled home speaker called HomePod.  The system, which looks similar to an Amazon Echo, will interface with Siri and also a generic “musicologist” who can help navigate song selections.  Households which have Apple’s HomeKit installed can also use the HomePod as the input portal for other non-Apple IoT connected devices.  On the down side HomePods won’t be available until November and are pricy at $349.  By comparison Echos are priced in the $150-200 range and feature Dot extenders for only $49.  Apple is trying to position this device as more of a premium speaker (think of a smart version of Sonos), and less of a voice-enablement platform for your home.  But this position requires listeners to want a better speaker experience then they currently hear from Echo.  Given Amazon’s considerable lead in the space and price advantage you wonder if Apple can be competitive in this sector.  There was a ton of press on this yesterday.  To give you a full spectrum of coverage here’s the TechCrunch link with a general overview, and a more in-depth coverage in this RAIN link.

IT’S OK TO SWIM WITH THE ORCAS, AS LONG AS YOU DON’T FORGET THE PLANKTON:  Finally today, here’s a life lesson in management which was gleaned during an elevator ride the author of this LinkedIn article took many years ago.  We’ve all been in the situation described at some point in our careers.  As young guns at our respective companies we had to work harder and longer than others to get ahead.  The motivation for making this sacrifice was present in our offices – the senior level Orca we would someday like to become.  In staying with the author’s marine life analogy, there’s nothing wrong with being the bottom-rung-on-the-ladder plankton, just like it can be a worthy career goal to become the mighty orca.  But orcahood (yes, that’s a made up word), comes with one responsibility . . . that you never forget where you came from.  Almost all successful executives started off as plankton and swam the same journey as today’s junior employees.  By staying connected to that past, and showing true empathy and appreciation for the bust ass work today’s plankton are doing, leaders will inspire those around them to keep pushing upward.  But the same works in reverse – forget where you came from and risk becoming the loner sea creature everyone is scared of and nobody wants to be.

Have a great Tuesday guys!

TOP DIGITAL STATS:    It’s Monday, so it must be time for another round of AdWeek’s Top Digital Stats from the past week.  While gamification doesn’t always come to mind when thinking about ad revenue, check out the combination of stats #2 and #3.  Pokemon Go is successfully monetizing itself by charging retailers who are featured in the game 15-50 cents per customer visit.  Considering PoGo still commands 20M daily users worldwide, there’s some decent scale to tap into for this rev play.  Also check out Zenith’s stat in #4 about mobile media growth.  The idea that mobile is estimated to make up 26% of all global media spending in 2019 (aka just two years from now), is a pretty startling idea for anyone in the biz.  Good stuff to chomp on first thing this AM!

GOING TO SCHOOL ON AMAZON:  Last week I featured a stat about Amazon’s budding media business, which now makes up 18% of their overall revenue.  Since then I’ve received a few questions about how they’re accomplishing this.  The attached Business Insider link does a solid job of explaining how Amazon sells ads, and then breaks down its competitive strengths along with some unique challenges.  It’s strongest play by far is search (lookout Google), since it gets real time data from customers who are looking to make a purchase.  Challenges include trying to overcome swimlaning, as most clients’ procurement teams (and not marketing teams) are in charge of the Amazon relationship, as well as fears about Amazon’s ability to create another walled garden of self-owned and managed data.  Regardless of the challenges, I’d put my money on Jeff Bezos and team to maximize this new revenue play.

IN ORDER TO STAY RELEVANT YOU NEED TO APPEAR RELEVANT:  This AdExchanger comic is pretty telling about the state of agency-driven programmatic.  With enough effort and resources clients can set up their own programmatic direct operations complete with propriety DMPs.  This is a threat to agencies – because why would you need a middle man if you can handle the transaction yourself?  To counter this trend and stay relevant agencies have set up increasingly-advanced trading desks complete with data integration, measurement, audience verification, and attribution bells and whistles.  The real play here is to create the impression that agencies have mastered a new programmatic wonderland and are living the dream within their next gen buying platform.  This leaves clients with a jarring case of FOMO, and self-perpetuates clients’ dependencies on the agency community.  Not saying some agencies don’t have a legit programmatic offering, because many do.  Regardless, it’s a savvy way for agencies to stay relevant as the buy side of media becomes more automated.

BILLBOARD BONUS COVERAGE:  Finally today, a little bonus coverage.  Did you know the current #1 song on the Billboard Top 100 chart isn’t even in English?  “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi/Daddy Yankee is a Spanish language song and it’s burning up the charts.  I have to admit, when I first heard it on an general market station I did a double take to see what I was listening to.  Just goes to show you the power of Hispanic acculturation across all music genres.

Have a great Monday guys!