is amazon looking to give ulta a run for the...
TRANSCRIPT
Compiled by John Kelly
Friday September 16, 2016
Is Amazon Looking to Give Ulta a Run for the Money?
Amazon on Thursday announced that its Prime Now ultra-fast delivery service has added its first beauty store.
Prime members in Chicago can now order beauty and personal care products from Merz Apothecary, a 100-years plus
Chicago retail institution, and have the items delivered to their door in as little as one hour.
"We have thrived in business for 141 years by focusing on our customer needs, and we believe Prime Now is a natural
extension of this customer-centric approach,” said Anthony Qaiyum, owner of Merz Apothecary. “As the owner of an
independent, family-run business, I am especially excited for us to be able to combine our unique products and our expertise
in our field with Amazon's unrivaled delivery operations. I think it is a recipe for customer satisfaction and business growth."
In Chicago, Prime Now currently offers tens of thousands of items from Amazon in addition to local restaurant and grocery
delivery. There are more than 180 local restaurants available through the service in Chicago. The service also offers delivery
from local grocery stores Eataly and Plum Market.
"Merz Apothecary is a family-owned, iconic destination in the Windy City and we think customers will love the convenience
of superfast delivery of thousands of beauty items,” said Simoina Vasen, director of Prime Now. “We are excited to launch
this new product offering in Chicago with such a beloved local brand.”
http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/amazon-looking-give-ulta-run-money
Get Ready for Hundreds of Small Target Stores, CEO Says
Target Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Cornell is thinking small when it comes to expanding the big-box retailer. Cornell envisions eventually opening hundreds of smaller “flex-format” stores that could be a major part of Target’s future growth, he told reporters Wednesday during the company’s fall national meeting at its Minneapolis headquarters. Target has opened 23 smaller stores in major cities like Chicago and Philadelphia and has plans to add nine more this year and at least 16 in 2017. Typically taking up less than 50,000 square feet, the smaller stores enable the company to expand into downtown areas where a big-box footprint isn’t possible. The shops also create pickup points for online orders, helping Target compete with Amazon.com Inc. The stores don’t have the same product selection as a typical Target and are more targeted at the demographics of a specific market. For example, the retailer’s store in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood, opening next month, will have a focus on baby and kids merchandise to meet the needs of the area’s plentiful family population, Cornell said. That’s “unlike our store at the University of Maryland, where there is very little baby, not a lot of toys, and a big focus on beauty and apparel,” he said. Rival Wal-Mart Stores Inc. abandoned a strategy of opening smaller stores earlier this year, opting instead to focus its attention on its supercenters and grocery-store-sized Neighborhood Markets. Unlike Target, many of Wal-Mart’s smaller stores were in rural areas. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-14/target-ceo-sees-hundreds-of-smaller-format-stores-driving-growth
Bloomingdale’s Gamifies In-Store Shopping Through Snapchat Filters Bloomingdale's is bridging the gap between digital and bricks-and-mortar with an in-store scavenger hunt that leans on
Snapchat and geofilters.
The department store chain is implementing a fun call-to-action sweepstakes campaign with Snapchat users to celebrate the
fall launch of its 100 percent campaign. Through a partnership with artist Greg Lamarche, Bloomingdale’s is bringing graffiti-
style flair to its window displays while also inviting users to explore its stores to find hidden filters.
“Hiding hundreds of Snapchat filters at local stores around the country felt like a fresh take on a scavenger hunt or
sweepstakes,” said Jonathan Paul, operating vice president of social media at Bloomingdale’s. “One of our insights came
from Pokemon Go and that mobile user behavior.
“We thought that if we could gamify Snapchat geoflters we could connect with shoppers in a playful and creative way,” he
said. “We cannot wait to receive snaps from shoppers entering our Swipestakes.
“It is intentionally a very collaborative and creative campaign concept — designed to capture the spirit of 100 percent
Bloomingdale’s, our fall merchandise program that's built on collaborations between Bloomingdale’s and over 100 top
designers.”
100 percent Bloomingdale’s
100 Percent is Bloomingdale’s continued campaign that is upping the exclusive factor for the department store, with
products that are only available at its chain. The latest fall campaign is partnering with graffiti-style artist Mr. Lamarche for a
series of window displays that incorporate his art pieces with its fall collection.
Snapchat users are being invited to their local Bloomingdale’s to explore the department store to uncover hidden geofilters
over the upcoming holiday weekend. Each filter adopts Mr. Lamarche’s iconic font style to weave a consistent campaign
theme.
The artist’s work will be arranged in a window display at Bloomingdale’s flagship store in New York City on 59th street and
can be seen on Lexington and Third Avenues.
Participants are prompted to go to their nearby Bloomingdale’s with their mobile devices to take pictures and video in
Snapchat. Users walk around the store and swipe to discover the geofilters located at specific areas.
Individuals then share their content with the filter through a direct message to the department chain’s account.
Bloomingdale’s will notify the winner through a direct message in Snapchat.
Entrants have the chance to win a wide range of prizes such as concert tickets to Maddie & Tae, a meet and greet with
Rebecca Minkoff during her upcoming fashion show, gift cards to Bloomingdale’s and fall products. The contest will run from
September 3 to September 5.
As part of a previous 100 Percent campaign, the retailer partnered with Museum Hack to create #BloomiesHack scavenger
hunt shopping experiences at its flagship store on 59th Street in New York (see more).
Designing experiences
Pop up shops and Bloomingdale’s Web site will also be selling limited edition products made in collaboration with Mr.
Lamarche that boast his graffiti and font style. Merchandise including mugs, decorative pillows, toiletry bags, men’s apparel
and accessories will be available for purchase until October 31.
Customers purchasing the limited edition collection may receive a free Greg Lamarche letter pin while still in stock. On
September 17 women can go to Bloomingdale’s locations to receive a free patch with a purchase of jeans.
Mr. Lamarche has also designed the patches in his style. From 1pm to 6pm shoppers can have their patches sewn on in
stores.
The collaboration builds on 100 Percent Bloomingdale’s partnership with a wide range of designers.
“The omni-channel aspect of this campaign is precisely what makes it so strategically compelling. It is activating social, local
and mobile media to drive prospects to our brick-and-mortar stores,” Mr. Paul said. “The collaboration with designers has
been terrific not only from a product development point of view but in marketing, too.
“We have had amazing support from our vendors, and the prizes for our Swipestakes - Rebecca Minkoff fashion show
tickets, a bicycle from Wildfox, Maddie & Tae concert tickets - tons of our 100 percent exclusives like a tracksuit from Juicy
Couture, really speaks to that partnership.” https://www.luxurydaily.com/bloomingdales-gamifies-in-store-shopping-through-snapchat-filters/
How the L.A. Times Used a Serial Narrative and Smart Design to Bring in New Subscribers When the Los Angeles Times launched a six-part narrative earlier this month, they tried something a lot of news
organizations aren't doing anymore: Instead of running the entire story all at once, they published just the first chapter.
It was a gamble.
The story told in "Framed" first unfolded in California a few years earlier when a powerful attorney couple were arrested on
suspicion of framing a PTA mom in Irvine. People who hadn't followed the trials or headlines could easily search for news of
what happened next.
The Times ran that first chapter with a teaser at the bottom that flagged the next installment and gave readers a chance to
sign up for their "Essential California" newsletter. Subscribers would get the next chapter in the story sent to their inboxes as
soon as it published.
"It ended up being a really powerful tool to get readers to return back to the site," said Lily Mihalik, a senior web designer, in
a phone interview.
That strategy, along with the compelling story, thoughtful design and strategically placed subscription lures, all worked.
The series, which attracted more than 3 million unique pageviews, also generated more than 50,000 new subscribers to the
newsletter. And, in the series' first week, the Los Angeles Times saw hundreds of new print plus digital and digital-only
subscribers sign up, according to an internal memo sent to the newspaper's staff.
Both Christopher Goffard, the writer of the series, and Mihalik tried something different with "Framed." He moved beyond
salacious tabloid headlines everyone already knew. She tested both old and new ideas with the presentation. The story, and
the corresponding increase in subscribers, show that a strong focus on audiences can yield powerful results.
Goffard first covered the story of the scheming lawyers in 2012 when Kent and Jill Easter were arrested.
"It made the Dr. Phil show and a cable show called 'Momsters: When Moms Go Bad' and other shows," he said via email.
"But the tabloid aspects of the case had predominated and it would have been easy to dismiss it as salacious and
sensationalistic."
A lot of reporters did just that for years, said Goffard, part of the Times' 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning team for public service.
But the initial TV hubbub was just the start of the story, he said, "and we wanted to tell the deeper one."
Goffard didn't witness many of the early scenes in the series and had thousands of pages of documents to sift through. He
also spent months gaining the trust of Kent Easter, though never managed that with Jill Easter or their friends.
Despite those obstacles, Goffard's longread is hard to stop reading. "Framed" unfolds with several characters, bits of
documents and short audio and video clips that bring those people to life.
That feature was especially important since the art for "Framed" was mostly limited to shots of Irvine and portraits. Mihalik
worked with graphic artist Eben McCue on an audio and video solution.
For readers, that means bits of audio with the characters from the story, timed to highlight the words as they're spoken and a
small headphones icon as a cue for people with the audio off, too.
"I thought they were great, and Lily made it look spectacular," Goffard said. "These things weren't possible when I started
doing long stories in the 90s. You couldn't click on a button and hear the voices of the participants."
Mihalik has previously worked with compelling stories that don't have compelling visuals. She and her team found solutions
to that, including the audio and video bits. But with "Framed," she tried something she'd never attempted before: She applied
the golden ratio to the text itself.
"I knew that this would be one of the longest reads we’d publish all year, especially for readers binge-reading the entire
project," she said. "I wanted the reading experience to be as easy on their eyes as possible, so I looked to the golden ratio
for a little help."
While researching readability for the web, Mihalik was inspired by a post on "the mathematical symphony of typography."
She applied the golden ratio to the text's max width, font size and line height. She also boosted the text size on mobile up to
20px. It normally reads at 16px on L.A. Times' mobile site.
"I just think math is so powerful and we should use all the tools in our tool belts to make a seamless experience," she said.
'Support our narrative journalism'
Mihalik worked with developer Evan Wagstaff to optimize page load time on both desktop and mobile. But when she saw,
after the first day, that the page was still loading slowly, she went back in for triage, recompressed all the videos and added
lazyload scripting to lighten page weight. Essentially, that allows the page to load images just before users see them, cutting
down on perceived load time.
"I had lots of ideas on how to make the experience more polished, gifs loading and reloading each time they come into view,
videos autoplaying on desktop – but the truth is you really have nothing if your page won’t load, or it takes more than a
moment for the elements to gel," she said.
Working on "Framed" was also a good reminder of the importance of being flexible, Mihalik said. The lack of art put other
options on the table, including leading with some of the deposition. She dropped that idea for a simple image of Irvine that
serves as a magazine-like anchor for the series. McCue also created several different options for the animated text that
starts each chapter. At one point, they reflected the content of the chapter itself. In the end, they stuck with McCue's first
treatment and kept the look uniform and simple.
"We can do cool stuff," Mihalik said, "but should we?"
Mihalik added the subscription lures near interesting parts of the story with particularly compelling reporting. It said,
basically, like this? Look, you can have more for 99 cents, Mihalik said.
And it worked. The response to the subscription play attached to “Framed” was the best yet for the Los Angeles Times. The
Times tried the same thing with the Oxycontin series, but it was much less successful. Mihalik thinks that's because the box
was paired with a Labor Day sale.
"Framed" pushed against a few pieces of conventional thinking, both through the story itself and in how it was presented.
One is that people won't come back for more. They did. The other: Stories have to be chopped up and easily digestible
these days. Instead, the Times found that people will read a compelling story, even if it's long. One day, Mihalik checked into
the series and saw people were spending about 16 minutes there. Another day, they were spending 14 minutes and 50
seconds. The series has elicited some of the highest times on site she's seen.
"It's all about the story," Mihalik said. "That sounds sort of trite, but it's true here." http://www.poynter.org/2016/how-the-l-a-times-used-a-serial-narrative-and-smart-design-to-bring-in-new-
subscribers/429957/
Google Attacks EU Plans to Make It YouTube Copyright Cop
Google attacked a European Union overhaul designed to ensure copyright owners get a fairer share of income, saying the
measures would force it to vet text, video and images before they can be shared on its YouTube service.
"This would effectively turn the internet into a place where everything uploaded to the web must be cleared by lawyers
before it can find an audience," the search-engine giant said in a blog post after the European Commission unveiled draft
rules that would also allow newspapers to demand payment when services such as Google News run their articles.
Google, owned by Alphabet Inc., is already fighting three EU antitrust probes into search, phone software and advertising. If
Wednesday’s proposals become law, the company may have a weaker hand when dealing with copyright holders, boosted
by more powers to withdraw content or demand compensation.
EU regulators said they want to protect publishers and creators when their work is made available on the internet, of ten
without remuneration.
‘Fair Sharing’
“This proposal provides for a new right for press publishers aiming at facilitating online licensing of their publications, the
recoupment of their investment and the enforcement of their rights,” the European Commission said in a text of the proposal
published on its website. "Fair sharing of value is also necessary to ensure the sustainability of the press publications
sector."
European publishers have been battling Google for years as advertising and consumers increasingly move online. Music
and video copyright owners also complain that Google is free-riding by making profits from advertising shown next to most
content. Google News doesn’t show ads.
Video-upload sites that rely on users to post content will now have to take "appropriate and proportionate measures to
ensure protection" of copyrighted works, the EU said, citing content-recognition technologies. Online sites should inform
copyright holders how well such tools are working and provide ways for them to complain and seek compensation, the
commission said.
YouTube
Google uses software known as ContentID to verify whether videos on YouTube infringe copyright and says it has paid out
$2 billion to rights holders since 2007.
Wider use of software targeting of unauthorized content may affect consumers who share a video clip using part of a song
on YouTube or Facebook, according to BEUC, a European consumer advocate group.
Google said it was "disappointed" by the new right for press publishers, saying it "looks similar to failed laws in Germany and
Spain" and "would hurt anyone who writes, reads or shares the news."
Google shut its news portal in Spain in 2014 after copyright legislation allowed publishers charge for content used by other
websites. Paying to display snippets of news "is not a viable option for anyone," the company said in the Wednesday blog
post.
News publishers said readers would "only benefit from further investment in quality journalism" which they’ll continue to find
on many platforms. They will encourage readers to link and share stories, said the European Publishers Council, which
represents Axel Springer SE and Hubert Burda Media Holding.
Musicians’ Rights
The EU is also aiming to give musicians more strength in negotiations with publishers, which might allow composers to get
extra payments from an unexpected bestseller. Authors and performers often transfer their rights against an up-front
payment. The EU is suggesting they should be able to see how much their work generates and should be able to
renegotiate if they think the deal was unfair.
The EU wants to enable content to be sold more widely across Europe with provisions that would ease negotiations for
broadcast or on-demand video rights. The proposal also creates an exception to copyright for researchers who want to mine
large amounts of data and teachers who want to use more digital content in classes.
While the draft needs the approval of governments and the EU parliament to take effect, judges at the EU’s top court have
already weighed in to boost the rights of publishers versus websites.
Playboy’s Dutch publisher can stop a news and entertainment website from posting links to its images without permission,
according to a far-reaching ruling last week.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-14/publishers-may-get-paid-for-online-news-as-eu-swipes-at-google
Report: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Digital Christmas
Uncertainty among the upcoming presidential election is not dampening holiday sales outlooks.
Indeed, retailers need to be ready to present their holiday best as U.S.-based retail performance over the November through
December holiday period is expected to see a 3.2% year-over-year (YoY) lift in sales. This jump is driven partly by a 14.9%
increase in YoY sales through digital channels, according to new data from RetailNext.
Based on current retail trends and broader macro-economic data, the retail analytics provider predicted that overall, digital
sales will climb to 16% of total retail sales, up from 14.4% last year. This will also impact an 11% decline in brick-and-mortar
store traffic in November, and 5% in December, as compared to 2015, RetailNext reported.
Meanwhile, strong selling metrics will minimize the impact of lower store traffic, with conversion increasing 0.5% in
December. These factors will also contribute to a 6.5% lift in sales-per-shopper (SpS), the firm predicted.
"There will be slight degrees of variability in early November due to the uncertainty of the upcoming presidential election, but
any residual angst from Election 2016 will likely be well over by Thanksgiving,” added Shelley Kohan, VP of retail consult ing
at RetailNext.
The appeal of digital touch points among shoppers should also be a wake-up call for retailers to "seamlessly present
branded experiences across all shopping touch-points, both online and in-store," she added. “While Black Friday, Super
Saturday and Cyber-Monday will continue their starring roles, retailers that reimagine Thanksgiving as a month-long event
culminating with the holiday weekend will start the season strong. And those retailers nimble and agile enough to act in
December on lessons learned in November will win the season.”
http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/report-its-beginning-look-lot-digital-christmas
Mall Owners to Department Stores: See Ya!
America's second-largest mall operator has a message for department stores leaving its malls: See ya, wouldn't want to be
ya.
News that Macy's plans to close 100 stores, or 14 percent of its fleet, sparked fear of other big chains such as Sears and
J.C. Penney following suit. That could create a glut of vacant mall space, which might be bad news for malls that house such
anchor chains.
General Growth Properties, however, implied at a real-estate conference on Tuesday it would be just fine with Macy's
leaving some of its malls. In fact, it's in discussions with Macy's and other anchor tenants about which malls it wants the
chains to leave. Sounds like a strange thing for a mall operator with Macy's in about 70 percent of its malls to do, no?
In the traditional mall model, department-store anchors are the major drivers of traffic. That model is becoming obsolete,
GGP explained. In fact, GGP said it can fare better when an anchor store like Macy's leaves.
One reason: Close to zero new malls are being built these days, constricting the supply of real estate. That leaves growing,
healthy retailers hungry for good space.Smaller stores in groups often drive just as much traffic to malls as old anchor
chains do. And these stores often pay more rent than the old anchors, which typically pay below-market rents, based partly
on the outdated premise they're the main traffic draw.
Smart mall owners are carving up the cavernous spaces that once housed massive anchor chains, filling them with two to
five smaller, more productive retailers, such as Dick's Sporting Goods, H&M, and Container Store. They're also giving more
space to non-traditional tenants -- upscale restaurants, fitness centers such as LA Fitness and Soulcycle and entertainment
venues, including movie theaters and Dave & Buster's.
Off-price retailers such as T.J. Maxx and Nordstrom Rack, once relegated to strip centers, are now invited into malls. So are
grocery stores, whose mall locations seem to be drawing steady traffic.
GGP has redeveloped more than 80 vacant department stores since 2011. At Oakbrook Center in the Chicago area, for
example, GGP is putting in restaurants where a Sears once stood. It replaced a Bloomingdale's with Pirch, Aritzia, Boss,
Lululemon, and Tommy Bahama. And it took a floor of unproductive space from Neiman Marcus and put in a steakhouse
and a bar.
The mall's sales per square foot -- one measure of productivity-- rose 36 percent between 2010 and 2015 in 2015. Its
anchor-store productivity rose 17 percent in the same stretch.
Of course, such redevelopment isn't cheap, and mall owners often have to forgo up to nine months of rent in the process.
GGP has spent $1.4 billion on redeveloping those 80 anchor stores. And an anchor store's exit can trigger lease clauses
that let other tenants break their leases.
But GGP said having a plan for replacing anchor stores helps convince other tenants to stay put. It said its investments in
anchor redevelopment have generated an 11 percent annual return. And non-anchor sales have been stronger than anchor
sales; as of March 2016, on a rolling 12-month basis, non-anchor sales were up 4 percent, compared to a 1.9 percent
decline in anchor-store sales, GGP said.
The downfall of department stores leaves little choice for mall owners. To keep shoppers coming amid an ongoing plunge in
retail traffic, mall operators have to think creatively about how to stay relevant. Sometimes that means thinking outside the
department-store box.
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-09-14/department-stores-leaving-malls-is-fine-by-mall-owners
What Makes Smartphone Owners Download an App?
Getting smartphone owners to download an app is still somewhat of a challenge for a number of marketers. According to
research, there are a variety of reasons why smartphone owners install a mobile app, and one of the main motivations is
simple: They had a specific task, and they thought the app would help.
Tune, which provides software for mobile marketing management and measurement, surveyed 3,005 US smartphone
owners during early summer 2016. Overall, the reasons why smartphone owners install a mobile app are pretty
straightforward. For example, 31.0% of respondents said they downloaded an app because a friend recommended it, and
nearly a quarter saw an ad for an app and found it to be interesting.
Search was another key driver of app downloads. Some 13.5% of smartphone owners said they Googled something and the
app looked like a good answer. Furthermore, 13.0% saw an app featured by Apple or Google and assumed that it must be
good.
App retention is an ongoing challenge for mobile app marketers. A survey from Appboy found that less than a quarter of
mobile app users worldwide will return to an app the day after they first use it. The data, which represents activity on
Appboy’s platform, looked at average app retention rates over the first 90 days of use. As the 90 days progressed, fewer
and fewer mobile app users returned to a given app.
Smartphone owners will delete an app if they seldom interact with it. In fact, a study from Millward Brown Digital indicated
that roughly three-quarters of smartphone owners deleted an app because they rarely used it. That same study also found
that 43% of respondents used four to six apps on an average day. Compared to the number of apps they have installed—
about 40 to 70—active app usage is fairly small.
https://www.emarketer.com/Article/What-Makes-Smartphone-Owners-Download-App/1014482
Best Day For Email Sending Is Neither Black Nor White
According to a new study from Yesmail, with data from almost 7 billion emails deployed in Q2 2016 to identify the best day
for email sends, marketers need to consider a number of factors including industry, conversion rates, engagement metrics
and more. But, says the report, determining THE day of the week for major email deployments is not as black-and-white as
many marketers think.
There are numerous theories on which day of the week generates the highest email performance for marketers, says the
report. In recent years, answering this question has become the Holy Grail for many brands who are constantly looking to
tweak their strategies and deliver optimal results.
Some key Yesmail findings from Q2 2016 spanning day of the week, overall email engagement, mobile performance and
purchase behavior:
In Q2 2016, emails sent on Thursdays generated the highest email engagement; their open rates were 14% higher than the
Q2 average, their unique click rates were 41% higher, and their CTO rates were 24% above average
In terms of conversion (the percentage of email clicks that led to purchase), Saturdays performed best, generating 60%
higher than average conversion rates
While overall open rates have remained fairly consistent over the last year, unique click rates have fallen by 18% and CTO
rates – by 16% year-over-year (YoY)
Despite the overall drop in clicks and CTO, active subscribers (those who opened/clicked within 90 days) continued to be
engaged: the number of opens per opener increased by 9% YoY as the number of emails sent to active subscribers grew by
11%
While mobile CTO has dropped YoY, the proportion of mobile clicks to desktop clicks has grown by 15% since 2015
Similarly, email-driven revenue from mobile has jumped by 32% YoY and email-driven orders from mobile have grown by
26%
Identifying the best-performing day of the week for email deployments has been a long-standing item on many marketers’ ‘to
do’ lists. And while it might be easier to say that, according to the study, Thursdays are the best day for email deployment,
the reality is that the answer is a little less straight-forward.
In Q2 2016 Thursday was, indeed, the day of the week that generated highest email engagement across all standard
metrics – opens, unique clicks and click-to-opens (CTO). In addition, Thursday was also the most popular day for marketers
to deploy campaigns – 20% of all emails in Q2 were sent on a Thursday. An important note though, says the report, is that
day of the week performance varies based on a brand’s industry.
At first glance, it seems that brands got the day of the week right; Thursdays generated a 14% higher open rate than the Q2
average, 41% higher unique click rate, and 24% higher click-to-open rate; a great performance across the board, notes the
report.
At the same time, if marketers took a look at a different set of metrics, specifically conversion rate defined as the proportion
of unique clicks that resulted in a purchase, the picture looks quite different.
According to this data, Thursdays had the lowest conversion rate in Q2, about 23% lower than the average, and tied for last
place with Mondays. Alternatively, the data shows that consumers were most likely to purchase on Saturdays and Sundays,
despite the low click and CTO rates on those days. Saturdays generated a 60% higher than average conversion rate and
Sundays drove 40% higher-than-average conversions. Yet, the weekend was least popular for email deployments, with
Saturdays accounting for only 11% of Q2 email volume and Sundays making up just 10%.
According to the report, Thursdays had the lowest conversion rate in Q2, about 23% lower than the average, and tied for last
place with Mondays. Alternatively, the data shows that consumers were most likely to purchase on Saturdays and Sundays,
despite the low click and CTO rates on those days. Saturdays generated a 60% higher than average conversion rate and
Sundays drove 40% higher than average conversions. Yet, the weekend was least popular for email deployments, with
Saturdays accounting for only 11% of Q2 email volume and Sundays making up just 10%. One important thing to note here
is that day of the week performance varies based on a brand’s industry.
A key finding to note, says the report, is that there isn’t a consistent day of the week winner when it comes to the best day to
send emails. A quarter-by-quarter review of email performance over the past two years shows that the “best day” for
deployment varied, though weekends seemed to consistently deliver the highest conversion rates.
The study suggests there are seasonal factors affecting the best day of the week for email deployment, especially for the
holidays, says the report. In Q4 2015, Thursday was the most popular email deployment day because three major holidays
fell on Thursdays – Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. The year before, in Q4 2014, Wednesday happened
to be the most popular deployment day as the first day of Chanukah, Christmas Eve, and New Year’s Eve happened to be
on Wednesdays. Similarly, the second most popular deployment day in Q4 for both years was Monday, likely because on
Cyber Monday many marketers opt out of targeting specific customers and instead send promotions to their entire email
audience.
The major takeaway here is that the best day of the week for email deployment is often influenced by external factors such
as shifts in consumers’ lifestyle or habits, seasonal events, weather, or simply the fact that a study comes out declaring a
“winning” day of week. Identifying the optimal emailing day is a continuous process which depends not only on brand-
specific factors like business goals and purchase cycles, but also on external factors like unique seasonal events, concludes
the report.
Another factor to consider when testing email deployment days is a brand’s industry.
As an industry, retailers have the most consistent mailing calendars, as email volume is spread fairly evenly throughout the
week. In line with the overall Q2 trend, email engagement in terms of opens, clicks, and CTO, spiked on Thursdays while
conversion rates were highest on Sundays, when consumers had plenty of time to respond to marketing messages. In this
sense, retailers could benefit from our earlier recommendation to send a ‘preview’ email on Thursday and follow it up over
the weekend with a CTA-focused campaign that emphasizes purchasing, says the report.
CPG is a great example of the way a brand’s industry affects the context of its campaigns and the best days for them to be
deployed. For example, while Thursday email engagement rates are highest, Sundays and Mondays have particularly high
conversion rates; in fact, those conversion rates are higher than those of any other industry.
One reason for this, opines the report, might be that Sunday happens to be an errand day for many consumers, a time to do
grocery shopping, buy household items, do laundry, etc. Since many CPG brands fall in those ‘home shopping’ categories, it
might make sense that they are purchased at considerably higher rates on Sundays. Alternatively, Mondays might generate
high conversion rates for exactly the opposite reason – a segment of consumers may consider weekends a time exclusively
for relaxing and avoid focusing on household tasks during those days. For those consumers, Mondays might be the time to
take care of business and purchase necessities, concludes the report.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/284429/best-day-for-email-sending-is-neither-black-nor-wh.html
Why Facebook Embraced the Ad Network Model
The growth of programmatic advertising was supposed to mean the death of the ad network. Facebook is proving that
wrong, building an ad network that is a $1 billion business with 3 million advertisers and an undisclosed number of
publishers, and it’s growing by rejecting many of the beliefs held sacred by the ad tech world.
For one, Facebook Audience Network doesn’t use real-time bidding. In fact, Facebook hesitates to even accept that FAN is
“programmatic” advertising since that term is often seen by marketers as synonymous with RTB. What’s more, FAN doesn’t
rely on cookies, using Facebook’s own data for targeting. And unlike most of ad tech, FAN doesn’t run desktop display ads
— instead, it’s pushing native on mobile.
“We had talked about an ad network internally for years, but we didn’t figure out how to do it r ight until we saw the shift to
mobile,” said Brian Boland, vp of ad tech for Facebook.
The first phase of FAN was to let ads – layered with Facebook’s targeting data – blend in with content on mobile apps
outside of Facebook. In January of this year, FAN further expanded from serving ads on third-party apps to mobile web.
“Google’s ad network business started in the desktop era while FAN started on the mobile app stack. Not carrying legacy
tech and legacy mindset is a big advantage for Facebook,” said an ad tech veteran who asked for anonymity. “FAN is an
easy sell for publishers because many already have the Facebook software development kit — they just need to flip a switch
to add their inventory to FAN.”
Facebook also exposed a dirty secret of mobile: many ad interactions were by accident. “We saw that lots of clicking
happened just above the home button on iPhone,” said Boland. “For some publishers, it was challenging at the very
beginning because they were not generating much value as they thought they were.”
“Facebook took a clever approach to solve accidental clicks by narrowing the clickable area on its ads,” said Ivonne Kinser,
director of digital strategy and innovation for Avocados from Mexico. “Meanwhile, we have almost got rid of traditional
banners. Given that about 83 percent of all FAN inventory is now going to be native, it perfectly fits our approach.”
As fast growing as it is, one negative is that once an advertiser signs up for FAN, they don’t know where their ads will show
up and thus they don’t understand the context where their ads are served, according to David Gaines, chief planning officer
for agency Maxus’ American operations.
“Facebook has done a great job in understanding individuals and limiting wastage. But when advertisers rely on Facebook’s
data and let it tell you where your ad budget will be, that is not a good place to be,” said Gaines.
George Crichlow, associate strategy director for agency Isobar, echoes the same sentiment. “Facebook determines where
your ads are shown. While you can collect performance data, you don’t know where those ads were actually placed,” he
said.
And for marketers who emphasize search, Facebook is like “a frustrating black hole,” said Ray Elias, CMO for hotel booking
app Hotel Tonight. “Inherently, marketers need to be on Facebook and Google because they are so big. While interest is a
powerful targeting lever on Facebook, it still doesn’t match up to intent on Google,” he explained.
Facebook has had an ambivalent relationship with ad tech. It shut down its ad exchange, FBX, in May of this year. And it
abandoned LiveRail too, saying that open exchanges had too much fraud. The ad network model was more appealing
because of the control Facebook can assert over use of its valuable audience data.
“We are evolving differently from the ad tech world that looks at things like cookies and ad identities,” he said. “We shut
down LiveRail to get rid of lots of supply that doesn’t create outcomes.”
Boland’s team started running a test of header bidding on FAN last month. This is a tactic in Facebook’s fight with Google
over who can best monetize third-party publishers’ inventory, because it lets FAN view all of a publisher’s inventory, rather
than the subset that makes it down the Google-controlled waterfall, according to people interviewed for this article.
For publishers, Facebook is simply too big to ignore. They might not know what their cut is on the ads running through FAN,
but Facebook’s enormous scale might make it the best deal on offer.
“Publishers also realize that Facebook has a huge amount of demand from advertisers and they are tapping into that
demand and paying a price to Facebook for bringing it to them,” said one industry source.
http://digiday.com/platforms/facebook-audience-network/
Tribune Media, IRS Agree to $200M Settlement Over Newsday Sale
Tribune Media has agreed to pay about $200 million to settle a tax dispute over the 2008 sale of Newsday under Sam Zell.
The settlement, reached Wednesday, covers capital gains taxes on the $650 million sale of the New York newspaper to
Cablevision, which Zell hoped to avoid by structuring the deal as a leveraged partnership. The Internal Revenue Service
challenged that strategy, as well as Tribune Media's sale of the Cubs, seeking about $500 million in assessments, penalties
and interest on the two transactions.
Tribune Media took a $193 million second-quarter tax charge connected to the Newsday sale, and said in a Securities and
Exchange Commission filing Wednesday the settlement was "substantially consistent" with that amount. In 2013, Tribune
disclosed it could owe an additional $273 million on the Newsday sale, and $225 million on the Cubs sale.
The Chicago-based company said Thursday it expects to make payments of about $102 million to federal and state tax
authorities during the fourth quarter of 2016. The settlement reflected credit for tax payments made by Tribune Media
through December 2015.
Next up to bat for Tribune Media is the disputed tax bill on the $845 million sale of the Cubs to the Ricketts family in 2009,
which also was structured as a leveraged partnership. The company plans to challenge the IRS in tax court over any
potential liabilities.
"That position hasn't changed with regard to litigation," Tribune Media spokesman Gary Weitman said Thursday.
A billionaire real estate investor, Zell took Tribune private in a heavily leveraged $8.2 billion deal in 2007. The company f iled
for bankruptcy protection the following year.
After emerging from bankruptcy, Tribune Media spun off its publishing division — including the Chicago Tribune, Los
Angeles Times and other daily newspapers — in August 2014, keeping the broadcasting business and real estate portfolio.
Tribune Media owns 42 TV stations, WGN-AM radio and national cable channel WGN America. The company also retains a
5 percent stake in the Cubs.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-tribune-newsday-tax-settlement-0916-biz-20160915-story.html
SNPA Members Elect New Officers/Directors for 2016-17
Christopher P. Reen, president and publisher of The Oklahoman in Oklahoma City, Okla., has been elected as the next
president of SNPA.
SNPA members elected officers for 2016-17 Thursday morning during the News Industry Summit in Sarasota, Fla.
In addition to Reen, the following officers were elected:
Chairman: David Dunn-Rankin, president, Sun Coast Media Group, Port Charlotte, Fla.
President-Elect: Les Simpson, publisher of the Amarillo Globe-News in Amarillo, Texas.
Treasurer: Pamela J. (PJ) Browning, president and publisher, The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C.
Six directors were elected to three-year terms:
Eliza Hussman Gaines, vice president of audience development, WEHCO Media Inc., Little Rock, as the director from
Arkansas.
Tim Burke, publisher and editor of The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, the director from Florida.
Rufus Friday, president and publisher of the Lexington Herald-Leader, the director from Kentucky.
Thomas Claybaugh, publisher, The Greenville News, Greenville, S.C., the director from South Carolina.
Patrick Dorsey, president and publisher, Herald-Tribune Media Group, Sarasota, Fla., an at-large director.
Jason Taylor, president, GateHouse Media Western U.S. Publishing Operations, and president, GateHouse Live! Events,
Las Vegas, Nev., an at-large director.
The other members of the SNPA Board of Directors are:
Paul Barbetta, chief operating officer of the Houston Chronicle, as the director from Texas.
Patrick Birmingham, president and publisher of the Knoxville News Sentinel, the director from Tennessee.
Clay Foster, president, publisher and CEO of Journal Inc., in Tupelo, the director from Mississippi.
Matthew Gray, senior vice president and general counsel of CNHI, the director from Oklahoma.
Terry H. Jamerson, publisher of The Roanoke Times, the director from Virginia.
Ricky R. Mathews, president of Advance Media Southeast, the director from Louisiana.
Derek J. May, executive vice president, Morris Publishing Group, Augusta, the director from Georgia.
Grant Moise, senior vice president, business development and niche products, The Dallas Morning News, an at-large
director.
Pat Richardson, president and publisher of The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., an at-large director.
Susan Chilton Shumate, publisher of the Charleston Gazette-Mail, the director from West Virginia.
Pam Siddall, president of Advance Central Services, the director from Alabama.
David Woronoff, publisher of The Pilot in Southern Pines, the director from North Carolina.
http://snpa.org/stories/SNPA-members-elect-new-officersdirectors-for-2016-17,2602055
