Mediaboss Marketing

RALEIGH, N.C.

Creative and Marketing Leaders Cite Stakeholder, Employee and Customer Experience as the Driving Forces and Used Data to Sketch out Restructuring Plans in their March to Evolve In-House Creative Teams into Strategic In-House Agencies

Nearly three in four (74%) of in-house creative and brand teams have restructured in the last 12 months or are currently being restructured. Another 16% say their organization is planning to reorganize sometime over the next year. Thats according to the results of a new survey by Lytho which polls creatives and marketers for its quarterly Creative Operations Report.

When asked Why? their team has restructured or is restructuring, the top reasons centered on the experience of their stakeholders, employees and customers. These included better internal collaboration (45%), ensuring a sustainable workload (39%) and improving customer experience (36%).

The report contains interviews that illustrate how some organizations restructured creative teams. For example, headcount pressure during the pandemic forced one creative team to modify its processes and approach to technology. In many ways, it shifted, out of necessity, from a highly structured and siloed project management style model to a more collaborative and centralized work environment thats become a hallmark of in-house agencies.

As the pandemic wound down and the creative team staffed up again, the company envisioned going back to its old operating model. However, the leadership team saw an opportunity to have the marketing leads function more like account managers in an agency. They found centralizing work, particularly at project intake, enabled the team to work more efficiently and ensured better brand and message consistency across channels and tactics.

Creative and marketing leaders have been on a journey to transform their creative and brand teams into high-performing in-house agencies that make a strategic contribution to the business, said Lytho CMO Russ Somers. We believe this research outlines a blueprint for creative leaders: have a clear vision for restructuring, focus on improving the experience of employees and customers, and finally, use data and technology to guide decision-making and support process improvement.

Some of the additional findings and detail from the report include the following:

The full study Creative Operations Report Q3 2022: Why In-House Brand and Creative Teams are Restructuring is freely available online without registration.

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About the Creative Operations Report

The Creative Operations Report is a quarterly survey of the brand and creative market fielded by Lytho. In Q3 2022, the company polled 123 US-based in-house creatives and marketers for this report. Most respondents are leaders in their organization 64% say they hold management roles. Respondents also tend to come from the creative side of the house: 56% hold creative positions; 29% hold marketing jobs and 15% are operations or project managers. Respondents come from a broad variety of markets including technology (25%), retail (14%), manufacturing (12%), and CPG (8%). Many respondents work for large employers and on sizable creative teams 78% work for companies with 500 employees or more and 80% are on a team with 11 or more people on staff.

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Lytho, a creative operations platform, is uniquely focused to address the needs of brand and creative teams. The platform combines the benefits of many disparate tools such as creative workflow and digital asset management (DAM) into a single software solution. Creatives no longer need to be limited by tools that are neither fully interoperable nor suited to their specific needs. Todays brand and creative teams need a solution that will help them fight the complexity that comes from managing the growing volume of requests, stakeholders, digital assets and brands. More than 600 enterprise customers worldwide use Lythos software.

Media Contact:Frank Strongfor Lytho202-352-5920[emailprotected]

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Three-Quarters of In-House Creative Teams Have Restructured, Survey Finds - Social Media Today

Will live-stream commerce ever become a thing in western markets?

It already has in China, and in some other Asian regions, while theres also evidence that Middle East-based users are becoming more open to live-stream buying.

But western audiences, not so much.

Yet, with so much potential (the Chinese live-stream commerce sector is now worth $180 billion), the big tech giants are not giving up on it yet, with Insider reporting today that YouTubes now looking to open up access to its live-stream commerce tools to a much wider pool of creators.

As per Insider:

By year's end, members of YouTubes Partner Program in the US, UK, Brazil, and India with at least 20,000 subscribers will be able to tag their videos, Shorts, and live streams with shoppable links.

That could see a lot more direct shopping options appearing in many places within the app, while YouTubes also running a live shopping broadcast on November 10th, which will feature products and presentations from Ulta Beauty, Tula Skincare, and many more.

YouTubes been looking to tap into live-stream shopping for some time, and the expansion of its presentation tools and options could be a big step up in this respect.

If, of course, western consumers warm to in-stream buying.

And there are some indicators that they are TalkShopLive, for example, which is focused on live shopping streams, reported last year that its broadcasts were increasing at a rate of around 85% month-over-month, largely led by celebrity influencers.

That got TikToks attention, with the platform now partnering with TalkShopLive to re-broadcast and re-share its live shopping offerings, while TikToks also working with various influencer agencies to get more top creators sharing shopping streams.

Live shopping is of even more value to TikTok than it is to YouTube, with TikTok seeing huge success with shopping streams in China. But its efforts in western regions, thus far, havent taken off.

TikToks initial live shopping push in Europe was eventually scaled back due to various teething problems. But itll be hoping that its new approach in the US, through TalkShopLive and top creators, will spark new enthusiasm for the option, and will eventually make it a more habitual, engaging element for its billion-plus users.

There are no guarantees though, and right now, it doesnt seem like live shopping is ever going to expand beyond a niche element.

But it might, and if it does catch on, as exemplified in China, it could become a major marketing consideration very quickly, providing big opportunities to many brands, influencers and creators in each app.

The money is simply too much to ignore for both platforms, while Meta is also still experimenting with the same on IG (though it has shelved live-stream shopping on Facebook).

Essentially, right now, live-stream shopping isnt a big deal, but it could become one very quickly, and its worth taking note of the latest live-stream commerce initiatives at each app, and tracking both how they work, and audience response to such, in order to ensure that youre tracking the potential.

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YouTube's Providing More Creators with Access to Shoppable Links - Social Media Today

After performing a deep dive into influencer growth and engagement on YouTube and Instagram, Emplifi found that finance influencers are publishing more content and gaining more traction

Emplifi, the leading customer experience platform, released social data highlighting a significant rise in growth and activity for finance influencers on Instagram and YouTube between January and August, 2022. According to Emplifis social insights, finance influencers published more than five times as many videos on YouTube and gained nearly double the number of subscribers compared to other influencers on the platform. Finance influencers on Instagram experienced similar growth, gaining more followers than all other influencers and publishing more than double the number of posts as other influencers.

The primary takeaway from our research is that finance influencers are experiencing a substantial rise in popularity. The amount of content they are producing is outpacing all other influencers, which is likely helping drive exponential audience growth, said Zarnaz Arlia, Chief Marketing Officer, Emplifi.

As part of its analysis, Emplifi looked at finance influencer subscriber growth on YouTube and follower growth on Instagram, breaking down median growth rate by the influencers account size. Emplifi also looked at the number of videos and posts published by finance influencers on YouTube and Instagram and engagement numbers so far this year, comparing finance influencer data to all other influencers on the respective platforms.

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The primary takeaway from our research is that finance influencers are experiencing a substantial rise in popularity. The amount of content they are producing is outpacing all other influencers, which is likely helping drive exponential audience growth

Finance influencers take the lead on YouTube

According to Emplifis data, finance influencers on YouTube experienced nearly an 8% median growth rate between January and August, 2022 while all other influencers had less than a 4% median growth rate. When looking at median growth by channel size, finance micro-influencers (XS = under 10,000 subscribers) had triple the growth rate of other micro-influencers.

The number of videos published by finance influencers on YouTube was vastly greater than the number of videos published by other influencers. This was true across the board, regardless of account size. Finance influencers with 10,000 or less subscribers posted more than double the number of videos compared to other influencers with the same subscriber numbers. Between January and August, 2022, the median number of videos published by finance influencers with a million or more subscribers quadrupled the number of videos published by other macro-influencers. More importantly, finance influencers received significantly more median video views compared to other influencers every quarter so far this year.

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Instagram sees surge in posts published by finance influencers

Same as YouTube, finance influencers on Instagram are experiencing tremendous growth compared to other influencers on the platform, with median growth rates considerably higher for finance influencers compared to influencers outside of the financial space. This is true across all influencer account sizes from influencers with less than 10,000 followers to those with a million or more followers.

Instagram finance influencers are also publishing more than double the number of posts other influencers are publishing on the platform. Finance influencers with a million or more followers are publishing as much as three to four-times the number of posts as other influencers with the same number of followers.

While finance influencers are posting considerably more content than other influencers on Instagram, non-finance influencers garnered more median post interactions than finance influencers every quarter so far this year.

According to eMarketer, 75% of U.S. marketers will leverage influencers in their marketing campaigns this year, up five percentage points over 2021. And its not just influencers with a million or more followers entering brand relationships. Gartner reports marketers are paying more attention to micro and nano influencers (influencers with 10,000 or fewer followers).

For brands in the financial space, our findings underscore the impact the right influencer can have in terms of building deeper connections with consumers and growing the brands exposure, said Arlia.

Marketers are expected to spend $4.14 billion on influencer marketing this year, a small portion of the $240 billion eMarketer expects to be spent on digital advertising overall in 2022.

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Finance Influencers Footprint Growing: Posting 2x More on Instagram and 5x More on YouTube vs All Other Influencers - MarTech Series

MLS to become TOCA shareholder and establish presence in all 28 TOCASoccer Centers and new TOCA Social Centers across the U.S. and Canada

NEW YORK, Oct. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --TOCA Football (TOCA), the world's leading tech-enabled soccer experience company and largest operator of indoor training centers in North America, today announced a historic 10-year partnership with Major League Soccer (MLS) aimed at growing the sport and developing future players in North America. As part of this groundbreaking deal, MLS will become a TOCA shareholder. TOCA currently has 28 centers in North America and will grow significantly over the next ten years.

Kicking off in 2023, TOCA, as an official training and entertainment facility partner of MLS, will integrate MLS content in all of its soccer training centers and host various activities in TOCA Soccer venues and at MLS team stadium events in the U.S. and Canada. Additionally, TOCA and MLS will jointly develop training curricula that leverages TOCA's proprietary technologies including its data-capture and analytics. TOCA and MLS will also develop branded games for TOCA Social, the world's first interactive soccer entertainment and dining venue.

The long-term agreement with TOCA is the latest initiative of MLS Emerging Ventures, which creates strategic partnerships to deliver the next generation of fan experiences, player development and technology adoption for MLS, NEXT PRO, Leagues Cup and Soccer United Marketing. MLS Emerging Ventures also has investments in Sorare, Fanatics and SeatGeek.

"Major League Soccer is excited to partner with TOCA to accelerate the growth of soccer in North America ahead of the 2026 World Cup," said MLS Commissioner Don Garber. "This progressive partnership with TOCA is another important step for our league and sport, and we look forward to collaborating with them for many years to come."

"TOCA is thrilled to welcome MLS as its shareholder and strategic partner. We look forward to being in every MLS market with our growing footprint of TOCA Soccer training centers and TOCA Social entertainment venues that offer fun, authentic soccer experiences regardless of skill level," TOCA Co-Chairman Erik Anderson said.

Added TOCA CEO Yoshi Maruyama, "This historic partnership will serve as a foundation for the long-term growth and continued development of soccer in North America, and is a reflection of MLS and TOCA's commitment to investing in the sport's expansion leading up to the 2026 World Cup in the United States. TOCA's mission is to inspire everyone to play the beautiful game and we are delighted to be an integral and indispensable part of global soccer."

TOCA was founded in 2016 by two-time U.S. World Cup and former MLS and English Premier League midfielder, Eddie Lewis. TOCA is led by a world-class management team and its Board of Directors is comprised of transformative leaders from the sports industry including Erik Anderson, former Executive Chairman and CEO of Topgolf Entertainment Group; Abby Wambach, US Women's National Champion; Celeste Burgoyne, lululemon President Americas; and Julie Haddon, NWSL Chief Marketing Officer.

ABOUT MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER

Headquartered in New York City, Major League Soccer -- celebrating its 27thseason in 2022 -- features 29 clubs throughout the United States and Canada, including 2022 expansion team Charlotte FC and St. Louis CITY SC, which debuts in 2023. Starting in 2023, the Apple TV app will be the exclusive destination to watch every single live MLS match. For more information about MLS, visitwww.MLSsoccer.com.

ABOUT TOCA FOOTBALL, INC

TOCA Football, Inc. is the world's leading technology-enabled soccer experience company, transforming the soccer experience and building communities that inspire everybody to play. The company operates two distinct businesses: TOCA Soccer, a growing network of innovative soccer training centers for players of all skill levels, and TOCA Social, the world's first soccer-themed entertainment and dining venue. For more information please visit TOCAfootball.com or follow @tocafootball on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. For more information on TOCA Social, please visit toca.social or follow @tocasocial on Instagram.

Media Contacts Angela Alfano / [emailprotected] Jack Buttacavoli / [emailprotected]

SOURCE Major League Soccer

Link:
TOCA Football and MLS Announce Groundbreaking Partnership to Accelerate the Growth of Soccer Interest in North America - PR Newswire

Oct 18, 2022

Greg WyshynskiESPN

NEW YORK -- The NHL released its first-ever comprehensive diversity and inclusion report at its board of governors meeting on Tuesday, highlighting efforts to promote social change while offering a snapshot of its demographic challenges.

The 24-page report, titled "Accelerating Diversity & Inclusion," details the last two years of work by the NHL's Executive Inclusion Council and three subcommittees, which were created to examine and take action on diversity issues facing players, fans and hockey at all levels.

"We are working to better understand and accelerate our engagement across all layers of diversity -- including nationality, race, gender identify, sexual orientation, disability and religion," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman wrote in the report. "Each day, we are committed to ensuring inclusion becomes more of 'who we are' than 'what we do.'"

Much of the report focuses on hiring practices around the NHL that were evaluated through a focused workplace demographic study.

There have been positive steps, according to the report. The league partnered with Jopwell, a diversity hiring startup, to expand its talent pool and hired a full-time director of recruiting in late 2021 with a focus on attracting more diverse talent. The NHL coaches association created mentoring programs for women and BIPOC candidates, while the AHL's 2021-22 roster of on-ice officials includes 10 women. Five women are now assistant general managers in the NHL, and San Jose's Mike Grier became the first Black GM in league history.

"This is a good start, but nobody is taking a victory lap," said Kim Davis, the NHL's executive vice president of social impact, growth and legislative affairs. "We did this because we wanted to put a stake in the ground. Being transparent and being held accountable isn't as scary as it may have felt three years ago. I hope that [the governors] see that their leadership matters. Going back to talk to their C-suite executives about this has made a difference."

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But there are still large demographic inequities in the NHL. According to the report, 83.6% of employees across the NHL and its teams are white, 4.17% Asian, 3.74% Black, 3.71% Hispanic/Latino and 0.5% Indigenous, while 2.48% of employees opted not to answer. The report also found that 65.44% of interns and fellowships in the NHL are white, while 69.6% of human resources departments are white.

The report found that 61.86% of workers around the NHL identify as men, with 36.81% identifying as women. Those numbers change dramatically when it comes to employees in marketing, branding and content, as 52.72% identify as male and 46.2% identify as female.

Four in 10 NHL fans in the U.S. are female, according to research cited in the report.

According to the report, 93.14% of the NHL's workforce identifies as straight or heterosexual, 1.52% as bisexual, 1.12% as gay and 0.81% as lesbian.

Davis said there's work to be done to make the NHL more appealing to applicants from underrepresented groups.

"When you're talking about employment of underrepresented audiences, [people are] like 'OK, we're woke and we're going to go and hire folks.' The question is how those markets see you? How do they experience your brand?" said Davis. "There's marketing work to do with these under-indexed populations. It's like, 'I know I can get there, but can I survive and thrive?'"

Part of that marketing is a new "Fan Code of Conduct" that was developed with Sports Innovation Lab, a sports marketing firm cofounded by Hockey Hall of Famer Angela Ruggiero. Its aim is to create a welcoming environment for all fans, covering such aspects as security and fostering a better experience for people with health conditions or impairments.

"If people heard about a poor reception inside the stadium, they probably aren't going to want to work for us, right?" Davis said. "Everything relates to everything else."

The code of conduct was one of two major recommendations developed by the NHL's Fan Inclusion Committee. The other was a "pod" structure that will bring together the NHL, its teams and underrepresented audiences and experts to learn the best way to build authentic relationships with those communities. The first Club Marketing Pod, centered on the South Asian community, began meeting in June.

The report focuses on seven "dimensions" that tie the NHL's diversity efforts together: leadership, education, employment, marketing, partnerships, participation and community engagement.

Davis said education has been the NHL's strongest area of growth. The league launched a significant portion of its third-party education work during the COVID-19 pandemic, when revenues were down and staff were remote. But Davis said the NHL spent over $500,000 to facilitate Zoom-based "intensive learning" for all league employees.

"There's an old saying that 'if you know better, you do better.' When you give that kind of focus to this kind of work, it helps people get comfortable with what's often uncomfortable. And it's uncomfortable because it's not something that they've experienced," said Davis. "Some people are embarrassed to say that. I think the last two years, in the wake of George Floyd's murder, have allowed all of us to become more open and vulnerable about the things that we don't know, and that's certainly accelerated our work."

The death of Floyd, a Black man, while in Minneapolis police custody in May 2020 became a catalyst for a racial and social justice movement that swept through the sports world. NHL teams and players made public statements addressing racial injustice and issued calls for action following Floyd's murder.

Since then, the league as a whole has faced criticism for not being as vocal or active on racial issues in the public sphere. Davis believes the momentum from that moment continues behind the scenes. She points to the NHL's player inclusion committee as one example.

"They've made some specific recommendations that go beyond the locker room training about how they want to engage as players," she said. "When you have a movement of this kind, not everything is going to be public. It shouldn't be. There's a lot of work that has to happen behind the scenes."

For example, Davis said there's been communication with teams regarding how they approach law enforcement appreciation nights, with respect to how some of their fans might view them.

"I think this is, for so many of us, a blind spot around how one part of the community can admire the group and another can fear the group, and the two can both be true according to their vantage point," said Davis. "As we've talked to clubs about this, they have listened and many of them have learned to do better. It's a complicated [issue], but people are open to hearing and understanding how perceptions can be reality for those who we're trying to make comfortable and feel welcome in our sport."

There's more work to be done behind the scenes. The report states that 27 NHL teams have established, or are about to establish, D&I councils or working groups, up by four teams since Davis's group was formed. Davis said some teams that haven't established them are working through pandemic-related staffing challenges. Only 14 teams have employed a professional whose job function is dedicated to D&I. Davis said that some team owners have those professionals in other facets of their corporate structure, while other teams are still learning what kind of individual to seek out to fill that role.

The report noted some future initiatives, including a relaunch of the "Hockey Is For Everyone" campaign by the NHL and NHLPA into a broader coalition of partners "who use the sport as a force for empowerment and inclusion." There will be further expansion of the NHL Street ball hockey program. The league also plans to administer another workforce demographic study to evaluate progress made in diversity hiring practices.

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NHL's first diversity and inclusion report finds workforce 84% white - ESPN