MARKETING
Exploring the Impact of the Strikes in Hollywood on the Future of TV: Insights from Tinuiti’s Experts
As you have likely noticed from news reports and social media, or perhaps because your favorite TV show is on hiatus, members of SAG-AFTRA, the prominent union for performers and media professionals in Hollywood, have joined the Writers Guild of America (WGA) in a historic joint strike.
This marks the first time since 1960 that both unions have initiated a collective walkout against the studios. The strike is a result of both unions not being able to reach an agreement with the AMPTP over their working conditions, compensation structure, and threats to their jobs including AI.
How will the Hollywood strike affect streaming platforms and advertisers in the short and long term? We asked our experts at Tinuiti to give us their insights.
Immediate Impact of the Strikes on TV and Streaming Projects
As a result of the strike, numerous Hollywood productions are currently on hold, directly impacting both traditional linear TV and streaming services. Furthermore, other channels such as podcasting are experiencing downstream effects from the situation in the form of increased demand on audio inventory.
Unscripted content, including news, sports, reality, and documentary shows that were already in production, as well as projects involving casts and crews not affiliated with these unions, are proceeding as scheduled. However, movies and original television content in the early stages of production, along with shows requiring ongoing writing (e.g., late-night comedy shows), are currently on pause.
As it relates to advertiser demand, Upfront deals faced a slow start as brands and agencies dealt with uncertainties regarding programming availability. However, as networks have finalized their Q4 schedules and contingency plans spanning into 2024, the Upfront marketplace is now gaining momentum and negotiations are moving more swiftly.
The impact on viewership has been less pronounced; streaming demand is largely unaffected at this point, and audiences may be even more apt to lean into their favorite services to catch up on the backlog of shows they’ve been wanting to watch.
Viewership isn’t the only element where streaming has an edge; Netflix has been vocal about their strong positioning due to their domestic and international content pipelines, not to mention that their future plans set them up to handily recover the cost of any union settlement (among these being new sign up growth in the wake of password sharing crackdown).
What Are the Potential Future Implications of the Strike for TV Advertisers?
These are profound issues being discussed in Hollywood and we believe this has the potential to alter the television ecosystem yet again, but won’t necessarily slow it down. It’s reminiscent of what we saw early on in the pandemic when production screeched to a halt and networks had to pivot their content strategy…only this time, they have a playbook for doing so.
In general, linear TV will heavily rely on unscripted programming along with news and the juggernaut that is Q4 sports. Additionally, we expect a surge in streaming adoption since most platforms boast an extensive catalog of shows and vast content vaults that viewers can explore.
What if the Strike Continues?
The marketplace appears stable through the heart of Q4, but should the strike continue beyond October, video inventory will tighten up considerably in Sports and News as original scripted content begins to run dry.
Here are a few areas where change is the most noteworthy:
Media partners are restructuring their Upfront approach.
Some networks are pivoting to structure Upfront deals based on volume and share as opposed to a CPM-based rate of change, indicating that they may be willing to forego traditional CPM increases for advertisers who are willing to buy larger swaths of inventory. They are also touting the value of locking in audience guarantees now to ensure priority placement and audience delivery, so the remaining Scatter inventory is expected to be more scarce compared to previous years.
Programming allocations are already robust in reality and unscripted content as a whole, so efforts to keep audience deficiency units (ADUs) within the same vertical will largely be doable. Networks are open to cross-vertical shifts into content like news and sports if needed, which is a less conventional approach, though they haven’t seen much demand for this yet.
Should the strike continue into Q4, opportunistic firesales are less likely across existing content as inventory will be more heavily utilized for advertisers who are owed ADUs, if viewership does start to fall short.
The Impact extends into audio via Podcasting.
Podcasting is a non-video channel that has experienced a material change here; given its high volume of episodic entertainment content, the space is seeing an increase in demand from brands who are looking to shift budgets to other formats with similar genres to television.
Advice for Brands During the Hollywood Strikes
It’s a careful balance between ensuring brand’s marketing goals don’t lose steam while navigating around an important dialogue that it seems may endure for months to come. Ultimately, we’re seeing that there’s a large stockpile of content to keep audiences engaged while the unions take the time to advocate for what they need.
Here are six tips on how brands can prepare for what lies ahead:
1. Lock in Q4 news and sports early to avoid inflated pricing and limited availability.
2. Consider securing Q1 inventory shortly after Q4 starts, based on the strike’s duration. Act even more quickly for Super Bowl LVIII, as interest is exceptionally high (70%+ sold).
3. Test or increase investment in unaffected programming like news and reality to assess performance and be prepared to lean into these areas for clearance if needed.
4. Monitor for new programming and specials with shorter lead times, as opportunistic pricing may be available with last minute changes.
5. Plan and book popular podcasts with several months’ lead time, as they are experiencing increased demand crossover.
6. Continue or expand investment in streaming platforms with expected high viewership; expect faster growth in FAST (Free Ad-supported Streaming TV) platforms as broadcast viewers seek alternative options to avoid taking on subscription fees.
For more information, check out Tinuiti’s Streaming+ Services or contact our experts today.
MARKETING
YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]
Introduction
With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.
Types of YouTube Ads
Video Ads
- Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
- Types:
- In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
- Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.
Display Ads
- Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
- Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).
Companion Banners
- Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
- Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.
In-feed Ads
- Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.
Masthead Ads
- Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.
YouTube Ad Specs by Type
Skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Action: 15-20 seconds
Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
- Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
Bumper Ads
- Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
- File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 640 x 360px
- Vertical: 480 x 360px
In-feed Ads
- Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Headline/Description:
- Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
- Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line
Display Ads
- Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
- Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
- File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
- File Size: Max 150KB.
- Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
- Logo Specs:
- Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
- File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
- Max Size: 200KB.
Masthead Ads
- Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
- Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
- File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).
Conclusion
YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!
MARKETING
Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists
Amazon pillows.
MARKETING
A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots
Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.
To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.
Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots
Salesforce’s evolving architecture
It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?
“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”
Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”
That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.
“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.
Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”
Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot
“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.
For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”
Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”
It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”
What’s new about Einstein Personalization
Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?
“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”
Finally, trust
One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.
“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”