Technology for 2016, CES is the new auto show, guess how many CMOs use digital advertising for customer insights, why people share content, Yahoo is off to a rough start, Facebook is all about Messenger this year, Twitter goes big, ridesharing woes, competitive car communications at CES, why podcasting (and email) is on the rise, content marketing tips for 2016, two customer experience blunders, new FTC native advertising guidelines, a new feature — the Chart of the Week, a new book that gets inside the minds of con artists, plus our weekly trivia challenge, the podcast pick of the week and more, it's the first edition of The Full Monty.
A roundup of relevant links affecting our industry. If you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links — and additional ones — by subscribing to The Full Monty Magazine at smonty.co/fullmontymag.
As noted in the video above, this is the first edition of The Full Monty — the newsletter previously known as The Week in Digital. If you don't yet subscribe, please make sure you're regularly exposed to it with a subscription.
We're using Facebook Mentions each Sunday evening at 9:30 pm ET to bring you 15 minutes or so of commentary and previews of what to expect from the week's newsletter. If you follow on Facebook and tune in every Sunday night, you can get a preview and join in the commentary as well. We will be off next week, due to the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday (and a hockey tournament).
The first 2016 installment of #SundaysWithScott - live commentary and ranting before the Monday newsletter.
Posted by Scott Monty on Sunday, January 10, 2016
Industry
- Since this is our first edition for 2016, it's time for what lies ahead.
- The Wall Street Journal has a comprehensive listing of the technology that will change your life in 2016. From virtual reality to better messaging apps, wearables, voice-control, wireless charging, streaming and more, they're not exaggerating.
- Futurist Faith Popcorn thinks fear will be the watchword of the year, driving people to security through technology, systems and behavior — driving more people to binge watching and the need to escape reality. See the VR prediction from the WSJ for validation. The challenge is how marketers can think about being part of these escapes.
- Which is great — unless you're one of the 13 million PC owners who have the graphics capability to handle virtual reality.
- A comprehensive look at social media trends for 2016 from 27 noted pundits.
- With CES behind us and the North American International Auto Show upon us, it should be no surprise that automotive companies dominated at CES. But Tamara Warren argues that it's not Silicon Valley vs. Detroit; it's a complex story of collaboration and competition. CES tends to be idea- and feature-focused for auto company announcements, while NAIAS is traditionally product-focused. And see the Zignals Chart of the Week below for who came out on top.
- With all of the opportunities to engage customers in digital channels, one might think that CMOs are rolling in the plethora of available consumer insights. But no, according to a study by The CMO Club and SocialCode, only 37% of CMOs use digital advertising to better understand their audience. What year is this again? It doesn't matter. Advertising rolls on, using the old shout-and-broadcast model to do its bidding.
- Ad blocking gets its comeuppance with GQ, which is asking those using ad blocking technology to disable it or pay 50 cents to read an article.
- You see links, articles, photos and videos come your way every day via a variety of platforms. Did you wonder what motivates people to share content? It turns out that one of the most significant reasons is to make other people laugh. Other reasons, according to this Adobe study, include raising awareness of an issue, sharing something a friend will enjoy, sharing knowledge on a topic and connecting with people who feel similarly to them. Important psychological motivators for marketers to understand.
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*B2B Content Marketing 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends (Content Marketing Institute & Marketing Profs)
This week, the automotive-heavy announcements at CES caught our attention. We expected much from Ford, a long-time CES attendee, which was rumored to be making a Google-related announcement. Their Amazon news, as well as their overall mobility plan they shared in their keynote was enough to create a spike that just barely peaked over Faraday Future's electric concept vehicle - although Faraday Future got more sustained volume on January 5.
Then came Chevrolet's announcement about the all-electric and more affordable Bolt, which grabbed attention on January 6. We can see the major spike from Chevy here:
To put the two days in perspective, here's the comparison between the performance of the two major Detroit car brands against each other:
Chevy's spike is more pronounced, but Ford and Faraday Future each had some sustained conversation. Who do you think won?
Each Monday we publish this newsletter that includes a series of links about current events and trends in the worlds of technology, business, digital communications and marketing in order to keep leaders up to date on changes, newsworthy items and content that might be useful in your job. A new issue is available every Monday morning. Please subscribe to keep up to date on developments.
In case you hadn't noticed, this took a lot of time to assemble. Do you get any value out of it on a regular basis? If so, please consider becoming a patron to help support this newsletter by going to Patreon. Yes, you can pledge a dollar a month, but that's a paltry amount, don't you think?
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*B2B Content Marketing 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends (Content Marketing Institute & Marketing Profs)
Platforms
- Yahoo
- It's not such a great start to the year for Yahoo. First they announced they're shutting down Yahoo Screen, the much-hyped video hub first launched two years ago.
- And then came news that Yahoo is planning to lay off at least 10% of its workforce. And no, at this time, Marissa Mayer is not part of that number.
- Google / Alphabet
- For a comprehensive look at everything that Google's parent company Alphabet is working on, read, bookmark and reread this 2016 Google Tracker from Ars Technica.
- The Facebook News Feed. It's constant, pervasive and has a mysterious algorithm. And it's controlled by a small group of engineers, some power users and increasingly, you.
- Facebook messenger now has over 800 million users and 2016 will be a banner year, from potentially replacing the phone number as a primary means of contact, become more whimsical, and gain artificial intelligence. Messenger is critical for the future of Facebook, large as it is, because it can act as the portal to the retention and engagement of a younger audience.
- On Android devices, Facebook forced errors to test how loyal users would be. Facebook engaging in some psychological experiment? Couldn't be.
- Twitter is getting serious about dealing with Internet trolls, giving more control to users who wish to block harassers. But what about the trolls at Twitter HQ?
- The service that is synonymous with brevity may be trading it that brand: Twitter is considering extending its 140-character limit to 10,000 characters. And as expected, some 10,000 social media characters got out pitchforks and torches over the rumored change, without having seen how it might be implemented.
Trivia question: When was the first in-car audio system implemented? *
Collaborative Economy
- The collaborative economy is moving steadily into corporate spheres, as predicted and counseled by Vision Critical and Crowd Companies in their report from last quarter. And it is very much in evidence by Indiegogo's launch of Enterprise Crowdfunding that gives companies access to the same services and audience that individual Indiegogo users have had.
- While the hotel industry continues to thrive, Airbnb is becoming more of a threat to hotels in large cities.
- Yellow Cab in San Francisco was slow on the uptake and resisted change when Uber, Lyft and others came along. Which is why Yellow Cab is now filing for bankruptcy protection. Can't say we didn't see that coming.
- Perhaps as they're reorganizing, they can take advantage of Flywheel's technology that allows any cab company to become more like Uber. Let's hope it's not too little, too late.
- Traditional businesses aren't the only victim to the success of the disruptors; ride-sharing company Sidecar has ceased operations as of December 31.
- Even though it's an investor, Google is still taking aim at Uber in 2016 with its autonomous cars.
- Audi invested $28 million in Silvercar, the rental car startup that only carries Audi A4s. We're hoping they'll expand the fleet to A6s for our next rental opportunity.
- At CES, Ford announced its partnership with Amazon to make connected cars that connect with your home and everything in it, as well as its view on the future of mobility. Lots of applications here.
- Not to be outdone, GM announced its all-electric and completely affordable Chevy Bolt, and a $500 million investment in Lyft, which if anything, was a lifeline for Lyft in its quest to keep up with Uber.
- Yes, in case you missed all of the above, it's an autonomous and connected vehicle arms race, and it involves Detroit and Silicon Valley. Of interest might be this graphic that shows the spectrum of autonomous driving according to the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) — it's not all about so-called "driverless cars." — it goes from no automation (Level 0) to driver assistance (Level 1), partial automation (Level 2), conditional automation (Level 3), high automation (Level 4) and full automation (Level 5).
Audio
- If you've been here before, you know that podcasting is growing. Three reasons: better technology, more professionals are getting involved, and businesses are figuring out how to make money on them.
- Let's just hope there are more than Squarespace, Stamps.com, MailChimp and Audible that get involved, though.
- Nielsen says that while digital sales fell, music streams doubled in 2015.
- Audio wasn't the only thing that began to make a comeback in 2015; email is back too. Insert pithy I-told-you-so phrase here.
- Here are 50 of the best podcast episodes of 2015, courtesy of The Atlantic.
- Podcast Recommendation of the Week. This week, check out Social Geek Radio with Deb Evans and Jack Monson. Listen in each week as they discuss the use of social technologies on today’s Web for business. And I had the honor of being their most recent guest. Do you have a podcast recommendation for us? Add yours to our Google Sheet: smonty.co/yourpodcasts
Content / Customer Experience
- You have the whole year ahead of you to make the content that matters to your audience. So start by looking at this complete guide to 2016 content marketing trends. Note the "less is more" recommendation.
- Get ahead of your editorial duties with this ultimate guide to planning your year's editorial calendar.
- While you're chewing on all of that, Mark Schaefer brings us back down to earth with five practical tips to keep you in touch with what you need to know now to succeed with content marketing.
- Bottom line: if you don't have decent influencers, it doesn't matter what your content platform looks like. Take another look at Faith Popcorn's observations in the link in the first section; she mentions micro-clans, where spheres of influence and connection are getting smaller. And that's okay. Scale isn't everything.
- Even in this content-soaked world, there's a dearth of really good content. To the extent that if you make good content, people will pay for it.
- In fact, some people even pay for what you're reading right now. Why not join them?
- Two instances of customer experiences that led customers to feel like they were getting screwed:
- StubHub reneged on a ticket they sold to a Lakers fan, 3 weeks after he bought them, when they learned that his tickets would be to Kobe Bryant's last game (announced after the ticket purchase). The market price for the tickets rose in the interim, and StubHub canceled the order and refused to reissue the tickets at the same price, citing
greedno similarly priced tickets were available. StubHub: the Pharma Bro of ticket sales. - When an Amazon customer complained about poor customer service, he later found a 10-inch dildo in his shopping cart, allegedly placed there by a vindictive Amazon rep. We know some companies can be hard to deal with, but talk about having to bend over and take it...
Privacy / Security / Legal
- Microsoft has committed to letting users know if their accounts have been targeted by an individual or group working on behalf of a nation state.
- Spotify may be on the hook for $150 million of unpaid royalties to musicians and songwriters.
- Over the holidays the Federal Trade Commission weighed in in native advertising, decreeing that advertisers and publishers alike must be responsible for ensuring that consumers know it's advertising before they arrive at the content.
Measurement / Metrics / Data
- Check out This Week in Realtime from Zignal Labs (client). This week, their coverage of CES caught my eye. Which brings us to a new feature...
Chart of the Week
Brought to you by Zignal Labs, a realtime, cross media analytics platform.
This week, the automotive-heavy announcements at CES caught our attention. We expected much from Ford, a long-time CES attendee, which was rumored to be making a Google-related announcement. Their Amazon news, as well as their overall mobility plan they shared in their keynote was enough to create a spike that just barely peaked over Faraday Future's electric concept vehicle - although Faraday Future got more sustained volume on January 5.
Then came Chevrolet's announcement about the all-electric and more affordable Bolt, which grabbed attention on January 6. We can see the major spike from Chevy here:
To put the two days in perspective, here's the comparison between the performance of the two major Detroit car brands against each other:
Chevy's spike is more pronounced, but Ford and Faraday Future each had some sustained conversation. Who do you think won?
* Answer to the trivia question above:
- Joseph and Paul Galvin, along with William Lear, developed the first audio automobile dashboard in 1930 and called it the — wait for it — Motorola, for "motorized Victrola." My, how times have changed. And Lenovo has decreed that Motorola Mobility (all that's left of the storied brand) will henceforth simply be known as Moto.
When You Have the Time: Essential Watching / Listening / Reading
- You already knew this, but now we have proof: creative people's brains work differently.
- When you're putting together a presentation, make sure it falls into one of three categories: Why? — they're unaware of the problem; What Now? — they're open and interested to learn; and How? — they're aware and ready.
- The bots are here and they're already learning from us. Here's what the future of the killer bot may look like.
- Maria Konnikova impressed us with her first book Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
(naturally). Her second book, Confidence Game: Why We Fall for it...Every Time
is another winner. While advertisers aren't quite con me, the psychology behind the behaviors is familiar.
In case you hadn't noticed, this took a lot of time to assemble. Do you get any value out of it on a regular basis? If so, please consider becoming a patron to help support this newsletter by going to Patreon. Yes, you can pledge a dollar a month, but that's a paltry amount, don't you think?
I advise brands and agencies to help them improve their communications and digital acumen. Please get in touch if you'd like to put my experience and digital smarts to work on a project, to consult with your group, or to address an audience at your next corporate or industry event.
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