GET READY FOR LOCATION TARGETING 2.0:  These days location-based targeting is fairly common in digital media.  A user’s mobile device is sensed by either a cell tower or tracking device using GPS, then an ad gets served in real time for a neighboring retail location.  But assuming someone will see an ad and decide to make an impulse purchase is a fairly primitive way to approach the purchase journey.  So brands are starting to think about what “Location 2.0” could look like.  The emerging school of thought is to create profiles of individuals using their location tendencies.  For instance, if lat/long tracking determines that an individual visits QSR restaurants several times a month they’re probably an ideal target for a fast food ad.  But you don’t need to serve them an ad the next time they’re in a restaurant – at that moment the meal decision has already been made.  Instead what if you knew they were a heavy consumer of QSR based on their location profile, and used that info to serve a lunch ad at 10a just as their tummy was starting to grumble?  That would be a powerful use of location data.  AdAge explains location profiling in the attached link.  Good next gen stuff to be versed in!

IS ESPN THE CANARY IN THE COAL MINE FOR NETWORK TV?:  Earlier this week ESPN announced layoffs of 100 employees.  While RIF’s happen in our business it was a first for ESPN who has been on a non-stop growth trajectory since its launch in 1979.  Business is down at ESPN for two reasons.  First, they used to be the only place to get all sports, all the time.  But these days you can find scores and sports highlights on hundreds of different apps at your fingertips, so why bother turning on ESPN?  And second, as a la carte streaming subscriptions replace bundled cable packages, revenue from ESPN’s $6.10/household carriage fee it charges the cable operators is decreasing.  So what does this mean for Network TV?  Go to the bottom half of this attached Digiday article, where the idea of Network TV as a “dual revenue business” is deconstructed.  Dual revenue refers to the networks’ ability to charge cable operators for content and also sell much of the ad inventory that runs within the content.  Nice set up, eh?  The darkest fear in TV-land is that someday the dual source model will no longer be viable.  And if a powerhouse like ESPN isn’t able to make dual source work what does that say for just about every other network our there?  (BTW – if you don’t know what the term “canary in the coal mine” means, here’s the link.)

WORDS TO LIVE BY:  Finally, I’d like to send you off on your weekend with some simple inspiration.  We all know a person’s attitude is one of the great predictors for success/failure in life.  Positive people just seem to overcome obstacles around them while negative folks get bogged down.  That’s why this quote is so spot on.  It comes from an executive level life-coach named Josh Miller.  Full credit to Mr. Miller on the image below.  Important stuff!

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

IS INSTAGRAM GETTING COOL AGAIN?:  Over the last few years any conversation about cool social media platforms has started and ended with Snapchat.  But guess what . . . there’s a 6 year old social senior citizen who’s starting to get trendy again. The platform I’m referring to, of course, is Instagram. In the past year Instagram has famously copied some of Snap’s most popular features such as Stories and Direct functionality. And now it looks like they may be stealing some of Snap’s user base too.  Third party trackers are starting to see a massive deceleration in Snapchat’s user growth, and they’ll officially report usage metrics their first-ever earnings call next month. In the meantime Instagram’s user growth is accelerating again.  Should be very interesting to watch this old vs. new social battle unfold.

DIGITAL CONTINUES TO SURGE ON THE STRENGTH OF MOBILE:  Yesterday the IAB released its full year report on Digital Ad Revenue in the US.  The stats are strong – digital is up 22% YoY to $72.5M on the strength of mobile ad growth which now stands at $36.6M.  Think about those two numbers for a minute – mobile now accounts for over half of the digital ad revenue in the US!  One of the more interesting stats within the IAB’s report is the concentration of revenue within the Top 10 digital publishers.  As you can see in the graph below it now stands at 73%.  So while digital is growing overall, the rich at the very top are the ones getting richer.  Note that the IAB doesn’t name who’s in the Top 10, but it’s safe to assume the list includes Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, Snapchat, Pinterest, Oath (the new Yahoo/AOL combo),and perhaps Amazon and Spotify.  If you don’t have the time or energy to read the full report AdWeek does a nice job summarizing the highlights here.

NET NEUTRALITY OFFICIALLY ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK:  Yesterday FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced the widely anticipated plan to roll back Obama-era Net Neutrality regulations.  If this passes ISPs will be able to regulate data delivery speeds for different content providers, and essentially set up pay-for-use high speed data lanes on the internet.  This is a major win for the likes of Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Cox, etc., as they’ll now have a new premium product to monetize.  It will presumably hurt the smaller publishers who can’t pay to keep up with the big boys.  When you combine the NN rollback with last month’s decision to legalize the ISPs use of browser data to retarget ads, you’ve got a huge momentum swing in favor of the big Telcos.  Somebody must be on their lobbying game!

Have a great Thursday guys!

NIELSEN TAKES ANOTHER SWING AT DIGITAL AUDIO MEASUREMENT:  Any time you hear the word “recommit” you know that’s code for we haven’t gotten it right up to now.  That’s definitely the case with Nielsen’s efforts to measure digital audio.  At the NAB’s national convention in Las Vegas this week Nielsen announced a recommitment to measuring audio streaming through an SDK-based server side measurement system.  This is significant because it’s a departure from Nielsen’s PPM measurement platform.  Up until now broadcasters have bawked at Nielsen’s test ratings for digital audio because the numbers are too low.  You’d think broadcasters would be eager to get credit for their streaming audience since it will add to their total AQH ratings.  But there’s a real trepidation in the industry of publicly stating stream listening levels for individual stations because the numbers could be so miniscule.  So broadcasters have put up the excuse that Nielsen’s measurement isn’t collecting all of their audience listening, which has forced Nielsen back to the drawing board again and again.  As this merry-go-round continues the rest of the media universe has completely adopted digital measurement, thus relegating radio to dinosaur status.

IT’S A STREAMING PLANET, AND WE’RE JUST LIVING ON IT:  Last month I featured a summary of the 2016 US Music Industry’s revenue totals which were led by a surge in streaming royalties.  Now IFPI is out with the global numbers.  For 2016 worldwide music revenue increased 5.9% to $15.7B, and digital now makes half of that total at $7.8B.  Within digital there are two distinct trends occurring.  The biggest headline is that Streaming royalty revenue surged +60% YoY and now sits at $3.9B.  The total streaming audience subdivided, with 112M paid subscribers worldwide and 110M free ad-supported listeners.  On the other end of the spectrum Download revenue is plummeting – down over 20% YoY.  A full breakout of the numbers can be seen in the chart below.  So I guess it’s safe to say Streaming is taking over the entire planet and not just the United States.

THE BEST WORST VIDEO EVER MADE:  I don’t know what this says about me (maybe bad musical taste or perhaps my age?!?), but I was recently served this YouTube video after watching some Led Zeppelin content.  It’s a video from ‘80s one hit wonder Donnie Iris for his song “Ah! Leah!”.  The song itself is awesome.  If you owned a Camaro and had big hair in 1980 you definitely had this song blaring as you cruised around town.  But the video itself is horrifying.  I know this was during the really early days of MTV, so video technology wasn’t what it is today.  But who gave this guy permission to take his shirt off during the guitar solo?  And why couldn’t they have just given the woman co-star slightly lower heels so she’s not taller than Donnie?!?  And most importantly, why did YouTube’s selection algorithm decide this was a good video to auto play for me after my Zeppelin ended?  Oh well, at least it was a good laugh!

Have a great Wednesday guys!

COULD IMPRESSION TOKENS SOLVE AD FRAUD?:  Here’s an interesting idea.  What if the digital ad industry develops an impression ID system in which a unique number (aka tokens) are encoded on a pixel as the ad is delivered programmatically, and then publishers provide that list of tokens to clients/agencies who would then pay for only the impressions with matched numbers?  This process sounds kind of daunting (think about the billions of impressions a single publisher serves every day), but it could actually be pretty easy to automate.  The two advantages of a system like this would be a drop in ad fraud since you can’t get much more transparent than a 1-1 match of impressions delivered and paid for, and the elimination of 3^rd party tagging vendor middle men to determine whether the impression was delivered.  An idea like this would require universal adoption by the major agency holding companies and digital publishers to get it off the ground.  But it’s an important enough concept that just might be worth exploring.

(AUDIENCE x DATA)/QUALITY = DIGITAL MEDIA SALES THESE DAYS:  The meaning of this equation should be well known to anyone in digital media sales.  We’ve evolved beyond simply selling audience scale within XYZ content, and now must overlay data to efficiently deliver custom audiences segs and prove attribution.  But data in and of itself isn’t enough . . . it must be quality data.  So what’s quality data?  In the following AdWeek article the guest author puts forth seven litmus tests to help marketers filter the quality of data they’re utilizing.  The filters are useful but a little all over the board, so I’ll let you read for yourselves.  And then think about how the data you’re selling/buying stacks up to these tests.

YOUR INNER IKIGAI:  Finally today, I’d like to leave you with a little inspiration.  Have you ever heard the Japanese concept of Ikigai?  It’s basically one’s purpose in life, as defined by what a person does with their time.  Purpose, according to the Ikigai philosophy, can be broken into four quadrants – what you love, what you’re good at, what you can get paid to do, and what the world needs.  The graphic below shows how these quadrants intersect with one another.  The goal is to strive for that perfect balance in the middle of the circles where all four quadrants overlap.  That must be a pretty magical place, because you’re getting paid to do something you love and you’re good at, while also helping the world.  The likes of Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, and Steve Jobs (RIP) must have resided here at some point in their lives.  However the purpose of Ikigai isn’t to get rich and conquer the world – it can also be about more common but noble professions like teaching, farming, medicine or even media sales.  It can be any job which derives fulfillment through a combination of satisfying and meaningful work.  The following blog post does a better job of explaining Ikigai than I ever could.  So take a read and then try to determine where you reside today, and how to get closer to your own Ikigai.

Have a great Tuesday guys!

THE VULTURES ARE BEGINNING TO CIRCLE:  As I previewed in a post on April 13^th, we’re starting to see the beginning of the end for iHeart.  The first tangible sign came in the form of a disclosure within iHeart’s Q1 earnings report, in which they reported a -3% decline in revenue against at +3% increase in operating expenses (never a good combo).  In the disclosure iHeart stated “substantial doubt as to our ability to continue as a going concern for a period of 12 months following the date the first quarter 2017 financial statements are issued”.  This problem, of course, is debt their which stands at $20.5B.  A few weeks ago they made an unsuccessful attempt to convince creditors to restructure a chunk of their notes at 9% interest to more favorable terms.  Without that relief iHeart now faces the very real possibility of defaulting on some upcoming notes.  As you’ll see in the attached Marketwatch story, Wall Street insiders are anticipating Chapter 11.  I would say bankruptcy is starting to look more like a “when” and not an “if” for iHeart.

MERLIN FOLLOWS UMG IN NEW RELEASE “GATING” ON SPOTIFY:  Last month Universal Music Group became the first major label to reach a long-term licensing deal with Spotify by forcing a “gating” window on new releases which would only be available on the subscription tier.  Now Merlin, the entity which represents thousands of independent artists and smaller labels, has followed UMG by agreeing to similar licensing terms with Spotify.  I’m guessing the remaining two majors, Sony and Warner, will also ink similar deals setting up a system in which new music is held on the paid side of Spotify before eventually being released to the free ad-supported side.  This will give artists/labels guaranteed royalty payouts when a new release is listened to.  It will also water down Spotify’s free offering.  I’m wondering if this will incentivize more listeners to buy a subscription or flee the service altogether.

THE CHATBOTS ARE COMING:  Since 2014 Amazon has been pushing relentlessly into the forefront of voice-enablement technology.  The centerpiece of their platform is Echo and the embedded Alexa voice activated interface system.  Now Amazon is taking things one step further with the roll out of new in-app Chatbot technology which can run on any IoT device.  Think about what this would look like . . . an Alexa 2.0ish virtual assistant you can interact with by voice, on just about any smart device you own.  If you’ve seen the movie “Why Him?” think of the voice assistant Justine.  Here’s a funny (but racy) YouTube clip from the movie to better explain.  This advancement would accelerate Voice (Audio) supplanting Touch (Visual) as the primary input method of the connected world.

Have a great Monday guys!

THE CLOCK IS TICKING ON TCR:  Nielsen is racing against the clock to prove the efficacy of its Total Content Ratings (TCR) platform before the start of the TV Upfronts in May.  The attached AdExchanger Article provides a glimpse into the early results being reported by Nielsen.  On paper the numbers look promising – double digital increases in total C3 ratings across all devices vs. same day live TV ratings, and a drop in the median age of viewers by 5-10 years depending on the show.  Both of these are welcome stats for the networks who are scrambling to overcome set top ratings erosion, especially within the younger demos.  But the question every attendee of the Upfronts will be asking is whether or not the networks feel confident enough in the TCR numbers to guarantee those ratings, or stay with the traditional measurement model for this cycle.  The answer to that question will have a ripple effect across the entire marketing ecosystem for the next 12 months.

PUBLISHERS SINGING THE FACEBOOK BLUES:  So this is interesting.  Since the beginning of 2017 third party publishers (think any entity producing content) have seen a precipitous drop in reach on Facebook.  It seems to be affecting everyone from large news publishers like the Boston Globe, to lifestyle blogs like LittleThings, and even endemic aggregators like RNS (that’s the Religious News Service, in case you didn’t know).  Regardless of what’s being posted or who’s posting it, the reach numbers seem to be dropping across the board.  The one common denominator is that the affected posts are written articles.  So conspiracy theorists are wondering if FB has quietly changed their algorithm to prioritize video (and more profitable video ads) above articles in its news feed.  You could also envision the issue of fewer people visiting FB to get their news as social content proliferates across the internet.  Either way, it’s not a good sign for publishers who rely on FB for distribution.

IS THE SECOND SCREEN MAKING AUDIO MORE ESSENTIAL THAN EVER?:  Picture a family relaxing in their living room watching television. 20 years ago the TV screen would have been the center of focus in the room. But today’s living room also includes a myriad of other connected devices being used while the TV is watched. This phenomenon is called “second screening” and it’s becoming an ad effectiveness menace for TV advertisers. The problem is this – even if a TV show has strong audience ratings how can you be sure viewers are actually watching the show (and the ads), instead of staring at their mobile devices while sitting in front of the TV? Nielsen has recently completed a neuroscience study which proves “co-viewing” the second screen is becoming a major drag on TV’s ROAS. One of their most interesting findings is that “advertisers and agencies should probably spend more energy thinking about the audio content of their television ads, because the research shows that second screens keep viewers tuned to a channel during advertising”. Think about that for a minute. Audio’s attention getting power is becoming a more important element in video creative since viewers no longer have eyes on the commercials. Makes you wonder if brands should just start buying more audio and less video advertising in the first place?

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

THE STATE OF PUBLISHER-SIDE TRANSPARENCY:  Over the past six months there’s been a ton of heat around the issue of transparency within digital publishers’ ad delivery, and the market’s demand to pierce the “walled gardens” where publishers provide their own ad metrics (which is tantamount to grading ones own test).  The two most salient events  that have created this pressure were the series of self-disclosed measurement miscalculations by Facebook in Q4’16, and P&G CMO Marc Pritchard’s “call to arms” ANA speech in January.  Since then the major publishers have made considerable strides towards transparency.  The following AdExchanger article does a nice job of summarizing how the top six publishers are approaching the challenge.  To keep some perspective on this, FB and Google are really the only two walled gardens who got away with self-measurement for years.  The others in this list, including Pandora, Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest get lumped in to this discussion because of their logged in user bases.  Good update on the state of things, nonetheless.

IT’S A PROGRAMMATIC DISPLAY WORLD, AND WE’RE JUST LIVING IN IT:  With all the hype around programmatic video and the potential of programmatic audio, good old display, like the weird uncle at the family reunion, can sometimes get lost in the back row of the picture.  But display, with its simplicity of creative execution, is proving to be a reliable forbearer of emerging digital trends.  Based on a recent research piece by eMarketer we can conclude programmatic is here to stay.  According to eMarketer, an astounding 80% of display ad spending in the US is now transacted programmatically.  What’s even more remarkable is that 74% of total spending will be transacting by PMP instead of open exchanges.  Think about that for a minute – three quarters of all the display media sold in the US is transacted by a publishers directly with an advertiser or agency trading desk.  That isn’t just a trend in our industry . . . that IS the industry.  Makes you wonder what the video and audio marketplaces could look like in the next 5-10 years as the pace of programmatic adoption accelerates.

ADVERTISING WITHOUT NAMING NAMES:  Finally today, McDonald’s has come up with a very intriguing counterpunch to Burger King’s Whopper voice activation stunt from last week.  In a new ad campaign McD’s is running a TV spot featuring Mindy Kaling, but never once mentions their brand or products.  Instead Mindy asks viewers to go to YouTube and search for “that place where Coke tastes so good”.  That’s it.  No reference to McDs, or Coke in McDs, or any kind of paid social campaign on YouTube.  What McDs is betting on is that viewers will organically find the answer to that question on any social platform . . . which is of course McDonalds.  For those scratching your heads on this one here’s an important detail.  Since 1955 fountain-served Coke actually does taste differently at McDs than any other place thanks to a unique way the Coke syrup is delivered to the restaurants.  Over the years a cult-like following has developed around this phenomenon, which has created the proverbial social lay up for McDs.  That’s why McDs was able to run such an obscure campaign without mentioning their brand and still derive marketing value.  It’s another original example of using traditional media to cross into a powerful social campaign.

Have a great Thursday guys!

STREAMING’S TRANSFORMATIONAL MOMENT:  By far yesterday’s biggest news was the launch of Pandora Premium (the new on-demand tier) for general availability in the US.  The launch was punctuated by Pandora’s new “Sounds Like You” marketing campaign aimed at driving subscription growth.  As usual, RAIN has the most comprehensive and balanced coverage of the move.  In addition to an interview with Pandora CRO John Trimble, RAIN gives a review of its own 30-day test drive of the Premium beta, and stack ranks the competitive offerings amongst all streamers.  After you read this article you’ll get the sense that we’ve just heard the starter’s pistol on a new era of streaming, where a full spectrum offering across listeners’ demand curve has become the norm in audio streaming.  Let the games begin!

GEN Z HEARTS RADIO . . . SAY WHAT?!?:  I’ll give the author of the attached Inside Radio article about Gen Z credit for doing her job.  Radha Subramanyam is the head of Research at iHeart and she’s promoting a sales piece on a publication owned by iHeart.  So I’d expect her to be very pro-radio.  But to say Gen Z is the “next great radio demo” is taking things a bit too far.  Gen Zers, who are in the 12-22 age range right now, are listening to less broadcast radio than any other age cell.  They’ve replaced terrestrial radio with streaming.  According to Edison’s April’17 Infinite Dial Study, 83% of 12-24 yo’s listen to some form of audio streaming at least one per week.  So to say Gen Z’s consumption of radio is “good news” for broadcaster, or that “radio DJs fill the desire of Gen Zers for authentic heroes” is laughable.  I have four Gen Zers in my household, and they don’t even know the FM stations in our market, much less hold those stations’ DJs up to hero status.  Beyond just knowing this based on personal experience I decided to check the tape for actual Gen Z listening stats.  Below is a chart produced by Nielsen in June’16 showing minutes of radio consumption per week across the age cells.  The 12-17 yo cell is the closest approximation to Gen Z that they measure.  I’ll leave it to you to decide if Gen Z is truly then next great demo for radio.

ALL THINGS MARTECH, ADTECH AND AI EXPLAINED:  Ever find yourself in a digital conversation where you don’t really know what the people around you are talking about, so you just nod along as if you did?  As a firm believer in the “fake it till you make it” theory, I live in this world.  If this is you too, chances are one of the topics you’re nodding along on these days might have to do with some combination of MarTech, AdTech or AI.  (And if you’re pretending to know that “AI” stands for Artificial Intelligence, you’re doing the nod thing right now.)  In these situations it helps to have a simple explanation of the subject matter in a judgment free zone.  That’s the beauty of the following AdAge article.  It breaks down the mystery of MarTech (it’s actually much easier than is sounds), compares it to the roll of AdTech, and how the two disciplines are merging into the forefront of AI.  It’s an easy to understand primer which will make you one of the cool kids who knows what they’re talking about during the next tech convo you find yourself in.

Have a great Wednesday guys!

EDITOR’S NOTE:  We’re going to break from the typical format today and focus exclusively on Television.  The traditional broadcast TV model faces both challenges and opportunities as it transitions into a digital age.  Here are a few aspects to think about . . .

DIGITAL SINKING IT’S “FANG”s INTO BROADCAST TV:  Despite the recent brand safety controversies with OLV, video advertising continues its steady transformation from broadcast to digital.  Now a top media consultant has put forth the theory that “FANG” (cute abbreviation for Facebook/Amazon/Netflix/Google) will eventually displace ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox as the “Big Four” video networks.  The author argues this transition is not an if but a when, based on the one important differentiator the digital publishers have over the broadcasters – the ability to overlay data on TV ad buys.  While the simple idea of data and smart targeting aren’t original here, the different ways data itself is segmented (attention/consumption/passion/intention) is an original way to look at this issue.  Provocative read!

ADDRESSABLE TV A PATH TO DATA INTEGRATION?:  One of the ways TV is trying to fill the data void is by matching 3^rd party data sources to viewers of linear TV in order to create custom audience segs and prove attribution.  Companies like Oracle are moving aggressively into this space by connecting CRM data to TV viewership.  The key to enabling this match is the concept of Addressable TV, which requires broadcasters and cable operators to have household level data on who’s actually in the living room watching their set top TV.  Right now in the US there is Addressable TV data on about 50 million households, so still only about a quarter of the population.  The devil’s advocate would say the relatively low penetration rate of Addressable TV matched to niche segments (like luxury SUV intenders in this article’s example) will yield very small scale, which will require Oracle to create look-alike models instead deterministic targeting.  So it’s not the perfect solution for broadcasters today, but it’s least it’s a way for TV to dip a toe into the data pool.

THE DE-BUNDLING OF TELEVISION:  Finally today, as the TV landscape becomes more fragmented and the line between broadcast and digital TV starts to blur, the networks are looking for ways to stay relevant.  One tactic is to de-bundle or sub-bundle networks from the traditional all-channels-for-one-price cable model.  Right now, with the exception of premium movie channels, viewers are forced to pay a base fee for about 100 standard networks.  But each of those networks charge a “carriage fee” to the cable networks, which shows up in viewers’ bills.  EPSN had the largest carriage fee in 2016 at $6.10/mo.  So what if networks broke from the bundled model and sold themselves a la carte directly to viewers through a streaming subscription, or created sub-bundles like the sports-less example described in the attached Business Insider article for just $15-20/mo?  Strategic pivots like this could help individual networks and also have the potential to upend the entire TV packaging/pricing model.

Hope you enjoyed this deep dive.  Have a great Tuesday guys!

COPYCATS WINNING THE DAY:  First up is a summary of AdWeek’s top digital stats from this past week.  Lots of successful me too-ing happening in the digital space right now, with Instagram’s Stories feature set to surpass Snapchat in daily usage, Facebook’s Messenger service crossing 1.2B monthly users, and a message board newcomer called Nextdoor stealing a page from Craigslist’s playbook.  Goes to show you don’t necessarily need to have an original idea in tech.  Sometimes you just need to connect existing dots better than those who went before you.

NET NEUTRALITY PUSHBACK:  A conglomerate of the leading tech publishers in the US is starting to organize a fight against the FCC’s proposed rollback of net neutrality rules.  NN is the government regulation prohibiting certain content from being prioritized over others, because it would create a pay-for-play high speed data lane on the internet.  New FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is on record saying he wants to dismantle the regulation.  The cable providers are cheering this move, since it will allow them to tack on premium service charges for publishers who want to use the high speed lane.  The publishers have taken the position that all data delivery should happen at the same speed, creating a level playing for all content across the internet.  My guess is that NN will eventually be killed, but it will be interesting to see how big of a stink the largest tech companies in the world make over this issue.

WILL AMAZON BREAK UP THE DUOPOLY?:  Finally today, some food for thought on what the competitive landscape in digital media could look like in a few years.  We currently live in an age of duopoly where two players (Google and Facebook), have a stranglehold on 60% of the global digital ad revenue.  With Snapchat on the rise over the past 18 months industry experts have pondered the development of a three-horse race.  But the real potential for industry disruption won’t come from Snapchat . . . instead it will be created by Amazon.  The dominant eCommerce player has been quietly but persistently creating a site-served media platform where it sells and runs its own ads.  Obviously Amazon has scale, as do many other tech titans.  But they also have one thing Google and FB can’t touch – purchase level data.  Knowing who their users are and what they’re buying down to specific SKUs could make Amazon a data juggernaut the likes of which we’ve never seen.  Think this is far-fetched?  Take a look at this Mashable article where investment firms admit to downgrading the stock outlook for Alphabet (Google’s parent co) because of the looming threat of Amazon.  Something tells me Facebook and Google better make some room in their sandbox for a new kid!

Have a great Monday guys!