Sunnier Side of the Office

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Date November 12, 2018

Sunnier Side of the Office

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"I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic-book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realize: entertainment is one of the most important things in people's lives. Without it they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you're able to entertain people, you're doing a good thing."

-Stan Lee

Girl Power in the Midterm Elections
By: Wells Wallace

Two uplifting takeaways from last Tuesday to chew on:

1. It was the highest turnout for a midterm election in 50 years and the first time turnout topped 100 million (NYT). In Texas, more people voted early in this election than voted — total — in 2014.

2. Women really showed up. For both the midterms this year and the 2016 presidential election, the majority of women have voted for the Democratic candidate. The outlier amongst the female cohort? White women. 55% of white women voted Republican in 2016. But as data continues to surface from last Tuesday, we’re seeing a shift in white women--particularly college-educated-- swing left. “White women with a college degree voted Democratic by 20 points (59% to 39%) — a stunning 34-point gap” (FiveThirtyEight).

A recent poll shows that Trump’s approval ratings amongst this group have dropped from 40% to 27% in the last 7 months. There are a number of instances and [gendered] issues that you could point to for reasons why this shift has occurred, but from a marketing perspective, it’s interesting to note the changing values and the degree to which they value them.

The Rise of the Nanoinfluencer
By: Jessica Gaylord

By now, the use of influencers in digital, social and even traditional campaigns by brands has become almost ubiquitous. From celebrities with millions of followers to microinfluencers with more “modest” followings in the tens to low hundreds of thousands, influencers have become an effective tool for brands looking to create high-impact conversations with a more targeted set of potential customers.

Enter the nanoinfluencer: social media users with followings between 1,000 to 5,000 but are willing to advertise products on their accounts. Brands love nanoinfluencers for their approachability—a nanoinfluencer’s recommendations can feel as genuine as advice from a good friend. They also tend to say whatever a brand wants them to in exchange for free product or a small commission.

The rising popularity of famous influencers was two-fold: it meant their commissions were growing costlier, forcing brands to find other cost-efficient methods, and that the market was quickly growing saturated. While the cost and ease of using microinfluencers is more palatable to clients, the effectiveness of individuals with such relatively small followings is being questioned by more traditional influencer agencies.

With their homegrown feel and natural social media prowess, nanoinfluencers are on the rise. So don’t be surprised if that one Instagram friend you’ve always followed begins using #ad #promoted in her own feeds.

Safari Anti-Tracking Feature Takes Toll On Digital Advertising
By: Ben Shapiro

Safari’s latest anti-tracking tool update represents a challenge for digital advertisers. The feature, also known as “Intelligent Tracking Prevention,” was first debuted last year and recently has been updated to completely prevent tracking cookies on the browser.

Cookies allow advertisers to better understand a user’s online behavior by monitoring their journey across websites. Once attached to a user, they give advertisers insight into the subsequent websites visited. This makes them vital for two important practices in digital advertising––remarketing and calculating return on ad spend.

Though this change is only on Safari, it represents a major challenge for advertisers. Safari is the dominant browser in the US, capturing more than 50% of mobile usage. When asked to rate the severity of ITP’s impact digital advertising, Simon Harris, head of programmatic activation at Dentsu Aegis Network, pegged it as “a seven or eight” out of ten.

Remarketing and conversion tracking represent a valuable piece of third party ad servers’ business, meaning they likely won’t take this update lying down. Upon the first release last year, Google quickly responded with a workaround that kept tracking intact. A similar response can be expected this time, as well.

Originally, Stan Lee intended the Hulk to be gray. But the printing press kept having trouble with the Hulk's color and he kept coming out green. Lee had to switch the Hulk from grey to green to avoid any more ink issues.