SoulCycle is much in the news this past week as it struggles to address a growing viral consumer boycott of itself, along with Related Companies-related brand Equinox, by customers angry about the decision by brand owner Stephen Ross to host a $100,000-per-plate fundraising event for Donald Trump in the Hamptons.
Consumer boycotts such as this -- whether you agree with...
Got an interesting press hit today as a result of my prior interest in Gawker. (As it happens, that NY Post story is apparently "brand unsafe," perhaps not for every advertiser and reader but, possibly because the title includes the word "stalker," the text may have triggered the ad-replacing clouds (see my recent article on brand safety).
The Post story...
The digital advertising ecosystem spends a fair amount of time and energy discussing and addressing the issue of "brand safety; several studies have been conducted and are summarized in this eMarketer article.
The concept of brand safety is fairly simple: brands don't want to have their ads shown in places where consumers might have a lesser opinion of the brand...
Advertising Age reported that Amazon has rolled out audio advertising. While the test advertisers and their agencies weren't blown away, the key to understand is that, compared to Spotify, Pandora and IHeartRadio, the targeting that Amazon can bring to audio advertising will DRAMATICALLY increase what brands and manufacturers are willing to pay for it.
Sure, some brands want the reach...
Econsultancy.com – a UK-based marketing consultancy firm – recently published a report enumerating the many beneficial effects of personalizing paid search campaigns. The report’s data, gleaned from a survey of some 600 respondents active in paid search in the UK, shows that 48 percent of respondents reported a “major lift” in conversion rates thanks to personalization, with another 43...
Voice search query volume is rising. This form of search has been waiting in the wings for many years (arguably, it’s been waiting to make its entrance since the 1960s, when Star Trek’s voice-responsive computer serviced the information needs of the Enterprise’s crew).
Now that smart, microphone- and speaker-equipped mobile devices are practically ubiquitous, voice search is finally having its...
The average tenure of a corporate CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) is now just 43 months – less than half of that of a typical CEO. This statistic doesn’t indicate that the CMO class is any less competent than their brethren elsewhere in the organization; in fact, it reflects more on management’s unrealistic expectations that CMOs can miraculously effect turnarounds...
Ahrefs.com recently published an interesting study on Featured Snippets, a type of organic listing that Google may display for selected queries that meet certain criteria. Featured Snippets, Google explains, are “extracted programmatically from what a visitor sees on your web page,” and may be displayed “when we recognize that a query asks a question.”
The study validates the general notion that...
A recently released white paper from Forrester Research – in concert with Catalyst and Microsoft – characterizes paid search as “a synergistic amplifier” of other media channels which does not often “receive investment levels commensurate with its potential value.” The study – based on surveys conducted with 300 US-based Business-to-Consumer (B2C) advertisers – acknowledged that search is now the primary...
Acceptance of content marketing among B2B marketers has grown in recent years. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 88 percent of B2Bs now use some kind of content marketing to acquire new business. But content marketing isn’t just a tactic that can bring B2Bs new business. When used intelligently, it can also help them manage, enhance, and deepen relationships with existing...
