Mediaboss Marketing

The Sell Sider is a column written for the sell side of the digital media community.

Today's column is written by Alessandro De Zanche, global product and strategy lead, audience activation at GfK.

In the last two or three years, its become increasingly common for publishers to unite to share audience data and extend the reach and quality of their audiences. By creating these alliances, they increase their appeal to brands and media agencies.

Alliances vary, with some focusing on inventory, others on data and some covering both. Examples include Nucleus Marketing Solutions in the US, Pangaea Alliance and Symmachia in the UK, Gravity, Skyline, La Place Media and Audience Square in France, emetriq and the newly launched Login Alliance in Germany and Digital Premium in Brazil.

They can face the triopoly of Facebook, Google and Amazon with more confidence but also platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat. Where individually publishers would struggle to demonstrate dominance online, together, they offer a more attractive digital proposition to brands and media agencies.

Its puzzling to me how marketers see publishers, the triopoly and platforms as mutually exclusive, particularly given that the context of each one and their users state of mind are often completely different and, in many cases, complementary.

I see many benefits of the aggregated offering that a publishers alliance can provide. And I can see why it appeals to some brands and media agencies. This joined-up approach can, for example, provide brands and agencies with quality audiences and context at scale to mitigate issues related to data quality, brand safety and fake news.

For individual publishers, this approach can help them overcome the likelihood of being rejected by a brand or agency because they lack the necessary audience reach.

While publishers alliances can be seen as a good start to overcoming these issues, I cant help feeling that they smack of damage control by the category. Whats more, they are definitely not without their challenges.

The Challenges To Consistency And Data Quality

While five publishers may each contribute a travel audience segment, this wont necessarily add up to a high-quality, representative travel audience. The reason for this is that each audience provided would be the result of the different data sources, tools and techniques implemented by the individual publishers at source.

For example, Publisher A might build its travel segment by collecting data on all site visitors who read travel articles. Publisher B, on the other hand, might base its travel segment on travel articles plus the keywords that people use to search its site. Then theres Publisher C, which not only publishes travel content but also sells travel packages and uses its conversion data to construct segments. So, here you have three travel segments built in distinctly different ways one using page views, one using page views plus search and one adding real conversions to the process.

All three travel segments might be combined under the existing publishers alliance regime, even though each has been built in a completely different way. Inconsistencies in the way the segments are produced can create unreliable targeting, personalization, recommendation, creative optimization or whatever the data is used for, which can impact the end results.

Added to this challenge are the potential issues that stem from the different privacy policies currently implemented by publishers and that are likely to arise from the introduction of Europes General Data Protection Regulation.

A Simple Solution?

I believe that publishers require a leap of faith if they will be able to really compete in the digital world. They must let go and give up some individual, siloed control of their audience data to be competitive and truly valuable as part of an alliance.

This solution appears deceptively simple but, as anyone who works in publishing will tell you, it is not. So, how might the category achieve it?

By suggesting that publishers give up their competitive fears, lets be clear that I am not advocating that they give up their competitiveness or any commercial advantage. Im also not proposing that publishers need to pool 100% of their data. Those publishers that have in place a paywall, for example, might have a lot of data from subscriptions and not want to share this information. Of course, they shouldnt have to. And yet, a significant quantity of data does need to be shared, and the actual amount to be shared needs to be agreed upon for the publishers alliances to be effective.

Once publishers have reached an agreement on how the data is handled and how much of it is shared, it should be handed over to an independent entity in the rawest possible form. From here, it can be processed in a consistent and streamlined way for data science, either based on traditional methods or artificial intelligence, to create the final product.

Creating such a shared yet separate entity will be vital for overcoming any competitive fears and data quality issues. All shared audience and content data should flow into it to be assessed by independent data scientists and product managers who are dedicated to the development of high-quality, common data solutions and the protection of users privacy.

I believe publishers should take ownership of this separate entity and not hand it over to a third party to manage. If publishers want to remain relevant and involved, they need to double their efforts and take their future into their own hands.

I also believe that for individual publishers to move beyond those competitive fears that hold their alliances back, they need to rethink their data revenue model, as it is not always easy to identify the most valuable data or quantify the impact of different data sources. Ultimately, if the publishers alliances are to overcome data quality issues, they need to collectively come up with a common data strategy.

Publishers alliances offer a real opportunity for publishers to extend their reach and share of brands and media agencies digital media budgets. However, to fully realize the potential, publishers must work more closely together to provide real value in a more sophisticated way, rather than through marketing stunts or cost-saving exercises. Only then can they overcome the challenges that threaten their survival and success.

It will not be easy, but publishers must give up some short-term competitive advantage to win a brighter future as a category.

Follow Alessandro De Zanche (@fastbreakdgtl), GfK (@GfK) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

Continued here:
Publishers' Alliances: Damage Control Or Potential For A Brighter Future? - AdExchanger

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. Photograph: Wong Maye-E, Pablo Martinez Mons/AP

An accidental spark could ignite a catastrophic conflagration in north-east Asia, Chinese state media has warned, after Donald Trump threatened to unleash fire and fury on North Korea.

In an English-language commentary, Chinas official news agency, Xinhua, said tit-for-tat confrontations between Washington and Pyongyang would lead nowhere and argued dialogue was the only way to defuse the North Korean nuclear crisis.

South Korea, whose capital is just 35 miles from the North Korean border, needed to be particularly wary of how a war of words might spiral out of control.

For Seoul, an uncontrolled situation and even perhaps any accidental spark could trigger a conflict and prove to be a disaster it cannot afford, Xinhua warned.

Other Communist party-run media outlets weighed in on the latest slanging match between the US and North Korean leaders on Thursday, with one newspaper likening the situation to a train racing down an increasingly dark tunnel.

Hu Xijin, the outspoken editor of the Global Times, a nationalist Communist party-controlled tabloid, claimed the US would come off worse from any military clash with North Korea since it had far more to lose.

The US is more powerful than North Korea but in a real showdown I dont think they would beat North Korea. There is a Chinese saying: A man with nothing to lose, doesnt fear a man with something to lose, he said in an online opinion video.

The Chinese language edition of Hus newspaper made the same point, in more poetic terms. The barefoot man does not fear he who wears shoes, it said.

Continuing to punish North Korea with sanctions and threats of military action was like wringing an almost completely dry towel to expel the last couple of drops of water, the Global Times added.

Experts say Trumps incendiary declaration will have displeased the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, who is currently gearing up for a key political congress this autumn marking the end of his first term as Chinas top leader. Trumps comments came less than 72 hours after China had thrown its weight behind a UN security council resolution bringing tougher sanctions against Pyongyang in what it saw as a big concession to the US.

However, Liu Ming, a North Korea expert from the Shanghai academy of social sciences, said Beijing would not read too much into the US presidents ultimatum to Kim Jong-un.

He has made boorish remarks before and we all know what kind of person he is. Trumps a boorish person ... If we took all of his comments as hard policy then China-US relations would deteriorate immediately.

Shen Dingli, an international relations expert from Shanghais Fudan university, said Trump had used tough talk to force concessions from China on trade and now hoped to do the same with North Korea and its weapons programs. But if [Pyongyang] uses its own fury to deal with Trumps fury then it could lead to a very dangerous scenario.

Trump is not stable, Shen said. But luckily his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is.

Additional reporting by Wang Zhen

See the original post:
Chinese media warn Trump's war of words with North Korea could spiral out of control - The Guardian

The Polish government, with whom Donald Trumpenjoysclose relations, is planning new laws restricting foreign ownership of media that would disproportionately harm U.S. companies.

The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) [party] will likely submit a bill setting limits to foreign ownership of media outlets in Poland at the autumn session of parliament, a research note from political analysts Teneo Intelligence said.

Ownership limitations would adversely impact German and U.S. media groups that currently dominate Polish media market, thus increasing the risk of a sharply negative international response, it continued. Otilia Dhand, senior vice president at Teneo, says Viacom and E.W. Scripps are both particularly active in Poland.

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Dhandtells Newsweek that the type and level of restrictions the government imposes will likely depend on the amount of outcry generated over its proposals.

According to Teneos note, the bill could set a limit as low as 15 percent on foreign ownership of media corporations. But other recent proposals have been scuppered or rowed back after international criticism.

For example, a recent attempt to pass three laws that would have cemented government control over the judiciary ended with the countrys presidenta usually submissive former member of PiSvetoing two of them. Dhand says U.S. pressure may have been partly behind the move.

Dhand says the push to take more control over the private media sector follows the governments early move to consolidate control over public media. At the start of 2016, the government passed legislation that allowed it to appoint the heads of state TV and radio outlets.

They do want to gain control, leverage, over the private media to avoid criticisms. So thats the sort of basic aim. It is a big question ofwhat form does this leverage [take], Dhand said.

Dhand cited the example of the Polish banking sector, where the state insurance company has been instructed to buy up stakes in banks as they come onto the market, as a model the government could follow in the media sector.

Polands government took office in late 2015 and has proved controversial on the world stage ever since. It is engaged in two rows with the European Commission in Brussels:one over its plans for the judiciaryand another over logging rights in a primeval forest.

Donald Trump visited Poland in July, and at a press conference where he faced difficult questions from U.S. reporters he jokingly asked President Andrzej Duda whether he struggled with a hostile media too.

See more here:
Freedom Of Speech: Poland Plots Restrictions On Foreign Media And US Companies Could Be Hit - Newsweek

Last year, Cirque du Soleil simultaneously produced 20 different shows that were staged around the world, seen by more than 10 million people. To ensure these productions are profitable, the company started using logistics software from SAP, centralizing business management from their headquarters in Montreal.

Today, TV media companies are also grappling with how to manage the logistics of their business. TV content is beginning to be distributed across OTT, VOD, mobile, and social. Advertisers want a piece of each of these channels, and are interested in targeted audiences and addressable content placements that break down standard GRP pricing. Many media companies are creating new channels and subdivisions and are partnering with new vendors in order to keep up. These actions, while they have good intentions, can backfire if they are not coordinated across process, technology and strategy. Media companies must follow several broad strategic principles to ensure their long-term success across new channels.

Centralize Control Over Your Assets

Media companies should start with a centralized audience and product strategy. Earlier this year, NBCU announced Audience Symphony, to stitch together the different flavors of audience targeted advertising that they have created across their various advanced TV content distribution channels. This is the right move. Media companies who are not as far ahead as NBCU should do what they can to start out with a centralized approach. Without centralization, new channels are not as scalable, and it is harder to gain cross-channel insights.

Centralizing an audience and the products sold against it gives media companies control over ad sales, an understanding of frequency and better insights for the entire business (such as which channels deliver the most value or have the highest engagement.) This starts with buy-in of a single strategy, and a champion that can rein in rogue experiments that dont add scalable value. This is why many companies, Comcast and Charter included, have installed veterans of targeted TV at the helm of their ad revenue businesses.

A centralized strategy also requires technology that can knit together disparate forms of data. Some DMPs like Lotame are starting to manage TV data as well as digital data. However, media companies must also be on the lookout for new forms of data management that might fit better with advanced TV advertising, which includes audiences, channels, formats, metrics, pricing and other important elements. Recently, for example, retail companies have started to use something called a CDP or consumer data platform, which focuses on building rich profiles of individuals with first party data, rather than cookies.

Be Easy to Work With

Consumers are not the only ones that have gotten used to convenience through technology. While linear TV media companies have a relatively opaque negotiation process with advertisers that can last for days between rounds, digital alternatives like Google and Facebook offer automated audience targeting. Advertisers are not going to wait around for even longer just to get a proposal from a TV company that also includes a small addition of programmatic TV or OTT delivery when they can get audience reach with the press of a button from companies like Google and Facebook.

Turner, Fox and Viacom address another issuecomplexityin their letter about the Open AP initiative where they stress the need for consistently defined audience targets and standard measurement and reporting.This is one area where media companies will do well to work together and push back against advertisers who inadvertently make it harder for everyone to do business by layering on a variety of new metrics and performance targets. Digital medias issue with too many metrics is an example of the problems caused when media companies allow complexity to overshadow their offerings.

Maintain Control of the Ship

Digital publishers did not focus enough on maintaining control in the market. Programmatic prices are low even though they are more targeted than direct sold. Advertisers bring their own audience data, leaving publisher data to languish. Buyers require a variety of metrics and quality standards that are governed by expensive and arbitrary vendor relationships. Even reporting standards favor advertisers, allowing discrepancies in the buyers favor up to 10%, with their own ad server as the source of record.

TV media companies must have a loud voice as advanced TV standards are hammered out in order to avoid industry norms that hurt them. Media companies should start talking now about what they want in a future targeted TV equivalent of the IAB standard digital advertising Terms and Conditions.

Media companies must also start protecting internal assets and revenue controls. Centralized product information in a single catalogue gives sellers control over the proposal process and gives delivery teams control over campaign execution. Yield optimization teams ensure that prices and campaign delivery is maximized. New vendors should be scrutinized for transparency and fair payment practices.

With Facebook and Google dominating the publishers whose businesses have already transitioned to a digital realm, it is clear that TV media companies will be faced with new threats. Channel management is a philosophy and a discipline that ensures media companies stay in control across new channels as their advertisers, viewers and even their content changes dramatically.

Lorne Brown is president of SintecMedia, which offersmedia business management solutions.

Go here to see the original:
How TV Media Companies Can Get Ahead of Channel Management - Broadcasting & Cable (blog)

One of Ubers biggest shareholders, Benchmark Capital, has sued co-founder and ousted CEO Travis Kalanick, claiming he has not honored the terms of his resignation and has been trying to change the makeup of the board to advantage himself.

Along with claiming he wanted to entrench himself for his own selfish ends, the high-profile Silicon Valley venture firm has alleged that the pugnacious entrepreneurs overarching objective is to pack Uber's Board with loyal allies in an effort to insulate his prior conduct from scrutiny and clear the path for his eventual return as CEO.

Non-legal translation: Steve Jobs-ing it, except meaner. Really mean.

A Kalanick spokesman decried the lawsuit: The lawsuit is completely without merit and riddled with lies and false allegations. This is continued evidence of Benchmark acting in its own best interests contrary to the interests of Uber, its employees and its other shareholders. Benchmarks lawsuit is a transparent attempt to deprive Travis Kalanick of his rights as a founder and shareholder and to silence his voice regarding the management of the company he helped create. Travis will continue to act in the interests of Uber and all of its stakeholders and is confident that these entirely baseless claims will be rejected.

Sources said Kalanick only found out about the lawsuit earlier today, which is just the way you knew this fantastically awful corporate drama about Silicon Valleys most famous and infamous startup would go.

In addition, the rest of the Uber board not suing each other, which includes Arianna Huffington andDavid Trujillo from TPG, also only found out about the lawsuit after it was filed in Delaware.

(Update: The six board members who are not part of the lawsuit met tonight to discuss what to do about this mess, including how to best proceed with its CEO search despite this tension. They will likely release a statement tomorrow, said sources.)

According to sources, what prompted the lawsuit was Kalanick not yet signing an agreement he made with investors including Benchmark, which owns about 10 percent of Uber when he was forced out by them 52 days ago. (Yes, 52 days!)

He agreed then to give up his ability to appoint an additional three seats to the board, a power he held both directly or indirectly via ownership in common and preferred shares. Kalanick promised this in his resignation letter, said the sources.

Benchmark wants a preliminary injuction to remove Kalanick from the board. Which it apparently left him on after the ousting, since he was talking to candidates to replace him.

In fact, he definitely appeared to have occupied one of those seats, after giving up the ex officio seat he had held as CEO, which Benchmark is claiming it did not agree to, either. There are then two remaining seats and Kalanick has apparently not signed the document that would then return those seats to the boards control.

Got it? Me either, but it is completely safe to say a very big mess just got messier (if possible).

A spokesperson for Uber which is nominally named in the lawsuit for legal reasons I have no interest in explaining declined to comment. (Excellent move!)

As to the current search for a CEO to replace Kalanick, as Recode previously reported, there are still three candidates to take over top leadership at the car-hailing company. Before this, the board had hoped to make a decision within two weeks.

But now, those directors are in full-scale war, so who knows if that will happen? Attention Jeff Immelt, the outgoing General Electric CEO who is still in the running for the job: You might want to duck.

Such a legal attack is, I think it is safe to say, unprecedented for any tech venture firm, as well as for Benchmark, especially since it concerns one of its most high-profile and lucrative investments.

By the way okay, I will explain: The reason Benchmark also had to add the company to the suit is due to Delaware law, but it is not seeking any relief from Uber itself.

Just from Travis, whom the firm appears to want to decimate. Also dismember. Also smash into the ground. But just legally, so bygones!

Nonetheless, the lawsuit is potentially damaging to Uber, because it contains an awful lot of information about internal woes at the company, confirming a cornucopia of reporting done on Kalanicks dysfunctional management. So, while it aims at him, Uber is obviously going to get strafed too, one source close to the board pointed out.

This is only going to hurt Uber, said the source. Its incomprehensible why Benchmark did this, although Travis should have signed the document.

But which comes as a surprise to absolutely no one who knows him even passably well Kalanick did not. And here we are!

Oh yeah, lest we forget, Uber employees still at the company have to run its complex business operations in a deeply competitive market as if nothing were wrong.

Now, all we need in this legal wrangling is the Holder report which chronicled a lot of this corporate disaster and more to be part of the discovery in this case and it will provide an entire season of drama for the media.

Indeed. Already, five claims that Benchmark makes in the 38-page lawsuit to substantiate what they call Kalanicks gross mismanagement are pretty gnarly and sometimes based on reporting done by Recode and others.

Largely, this allegation centers on failure by Kalanick to disclose much of anything to the in-the-dark board. Such as:

In closing, your honor, all I and my friends in the media (as well as Lyft) can say to Benchmark for dropping this nasty legal bomb on a Thursday in August: Thank you so very much.

Read more:
Benchmark is suing Travis Kalanick (and Uber) over board control, claiming a 'selfish' power grab - Recode