Going (Creatively) Digital
Williams Sonoma, Visa Checkout Partner On TrueView Shoppable Videos
One of the first brands to get into the kitchen of TouTube’s nascent commerce-enabled video service TrueView is Williams Sonoma, in partnership with Visa Checkout. The National Retail Federation reports that consumers can peruse a series of videos created by global food lifestyle network Tastemade and purchased items like glasses, cocktail pates and platters directly from the video. Via Checkout compresses 44 fields of information into just a few clicks—delivering the latest digital iteration of instant gratification.
Facebook Hopes Consumers Will Like Brands In Their News Feed
The latest from Mark Zuckerberg and Co. is a program that allows consumers to pin Brands to the top of Facebook users’ news feeds. The company hopes it will assuage the concerns among marketers whose messages got buried in the feeds and make them top-billing stars again. According to BloombergBusiness, FB users can select a group of preferred friends, whose updates will always appear at the top of the home page. Then users can decide which retail and consumer brands, news organizations or interest groups they Liked and those will appear at the top as well.
Buyers Look The Other Way With Regard To Attention-Based Ad Metrics
Amid the continuing evolution of—and search for—better digital advertising engagement metrics, it would appear that attention-based measurement isn’t catching fire, beyond a handful of online publishers. Digiday quotes buyers from shops like Media Kitchen and Mediacom North America saying they’re still focused on purchasing clicks, impressions and audience. One publisher in the forefront of attention-based performance is The Financial Times, which gets kudos for trying advance the industry’s quest for 100% ad viewability. Chief among the concerns about attention-based performance is a divergence between branding and click-through rates as KPI’s.
Twitter Testing Direct Response Ad Products
Twitter’s top management flux isn’t stopping the company from rolling out new products for direct response advertising. One such offering enables marketers to showcase apps within a video ad, giving potential downloaders a chance to understand how the app or product works. Previously, brands could showcase apps solely through pictures. Reuters reports that tests involving a select group of advertisers will lead to the new ad products being widely available later this year.
C-Suite Moves
Nancy Richardson to Clearly as Chief Marketing Officer, from lululemon athletica, where she had been VP, Digital and Brand Strategy.
Jen Grant to Looker as Chief Marketing Officer, from Elasticsearch, where he was Chief Marketing Officer.
Freddy Mangum to AirTight Networks, from Lastline, where he was Chief Marketing Officer.
Steve Guberman to Chief Merchandising Officer at US Foods, where he has been SVP, Merchandising and Marketing Operations.
Barbara Cooperman to Kroll as Chief Marketing Officer, from The College Board, where she was Chief Marketing Officer.
