GOOGLE NAMES NAMES:  A few months ago Google announced it would begin screening and eventually blocking 3^rd party publisher ads on Chrome which they deem as unsuitable or annoying.  This raised some eyebrows since Google is effectively appointing itself judge and jury to determine the acceptability of ads.  Now Google is out with a preliminary evaluation of 10,000 sites which run ads through their Chrome browser.  Yesterday Digiday reported the first round of ratings from Google’s Ad Experience Report.  700 publishers were deemed as “failing”, including several big name newspaper websites.  Hundreds of other sites received warnings, meaning they weren’t total fails but needed to improve.  The most common reasons for getting on Google’s naughty list was full-page interstitials and pop-up ads – obviously these are the most intrusive ads and are most disruptive to visitors’ experiences.  This report is just an early warning of what’s the come.  Google has told publishers it will begin blocking failing ads in 2018, with the hope that the at-risk publishers will clean up their platforms before then.  Should be interesting to watch when this standard goes live in Q1.

THE MOUSE IS GOING IT ALONE:  In the media industry there’s been an age-old power struggle between the actual content and the distribution channels.  Using cable as an example, does Comcast have the power in the relationship or does ESPN?  We’re about to see another chapter in this debate unfold after yesterday’s announcement from Disney that it will be pulling content from Netflix in 2019, in order to start it’s own Disney-exclusive OTT service.  Disney is one of the few media conglomerates out there with enough content to go it alone.  But there are others too, including Viacom, NBCUniversal, etc..  Could you imagine what would happen if all these guys started to pull themselves off Netflix too?  Speaking of, Netflix will need to put its own production studio into overdrive to self-generate enough content to make up for losing The Mouse.  So maybe the content provider does have more power in the relationship after all?

“VOICE IS THE NEW TOUCH”, PERFECTLY SUMMARIZED:  Interest in audio advertising is starting to heat up as the purchases of voice-activated digital assistants begins to surge.  The logic trail is simple – as more connected devices become voice-enabled there will be less of a need for screens and keyboards, which means Voice will eventually supplant Touch as the primary way humans interact with technology.  And in this Age of Voice audio will become an even more important tool for marketers who can’t just rely on visual platforms like display and video to reach consumers.  This scenario is perfectly summarized in the attached Brand Channel link.  There’s a ton in here, so give it a good read. I especially like the three questions 360i President Jared Belsky poses to brands . . . “(1) What should I do to prepare for when Voice is the driver of ecommerce? (2) What content do I have to think about to increase my chances to be the preferred answer with these devices? (3) Will all my search budget one day migrate onto these devices?”  I agree that these are important questions for all marketers to answer as we drive towards the Age of Voice.

Have a great Thursday guys!

GUESS WHO RADIO’S TOP ADVERTISER IS?:  Yesterday you may have seen my rant about AM/FM Radio accusing Pandora of increasing its ad load, which is an unbelievable hypocrisy given Radio’s own bloated stop sets.  Then I came across the attached RadioInk article which perfectly summed up my argument and made me feel better.  During the past week iHeart Radio displaced Home Depot as the “top radio advertiser” by running 42,418 house ads in a seven day period.  Think about that for a minute – iHeart exposed it’s listeners to 2,545 hours of unnecessary commercials in one week to promote itself.  I just have two questions on this . . . Why is iHeart’s sales team leaving so much unsold inventory on the table?  And second, if the Radio industry is so concerned about ad clutter why wouldn’t they just stop running house ads and play more music?  I’m guessing iHeart’s audience would rather hear songs instead of ads for their streaming service, music fests, etc., but that’s just my humble opinion.

THE DEATH OF THE FAT FINGER:  Everyone who’s ever seen a digital ad knows the “fat finger” problem – you try to X out of an ad but inadvertently click into the site being advertised, and then have to quickly back track to return to where you wanted to be in the first place.  It’s annoying for users and even worse for brands who end up paying for fat finger clicks.  In an effort to clean up this problem publishers like Facebook are trying to tighten the guidelines on what’s counted as a click.  FB’s solution is to require users to stay on a site for two seconds after the click before it’s registered as valid.  Right now this new standard is only being applied to the Facebook Ad Network (FAN), which is currently home to many click bait ads served by 3^rd party networks.  It’ll be interesting to see if this new standard takes hold, and if other publishers follow FB’s lead.  Anything to reduce or even eliminate fat fingering would be a step in the right direction for all of us.

INTERESTING TECH, BUT CAN THEY PULL IT OFF?:  Here’s sort of a novel idea from NextRadio.  (For a refresher, NextRadio is the Radio industry’s app which aggregates all participating station streams into one platform.  It’s sort of a noble effort spearheaded by Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan to drag terrestrial radio kicking and screaming into the digital age.)  While NextRadio’s scale isn’t significant yet, they’re working on some connected car tech which is worth being aware of.  According to the attached MediaPost interview article, NextRadio’s engineering team is working on functionality which will allow listeners to press a button on their steering wheels to save an audio ad as they hear it for playback later when they’re not driving.  This could solve the age-old dilemma of Call To Actions (like “call this number” or “click this website”) during an active driving environment.  Realistically speaking, this seems like a very difficult hardware solution to implement.  Can you imagine getting 25ish OEMs to add steering wheel buttons to hundreds of car models any time soon?  But maybe it could be a touchscreen button on a in-dash app instead.  Regardless, it’s an interesting concept to ponder.

Have a great Wednesday guys!

THE IRONY OF RADIO’S CLUTTER ARGUMENT AGAINST PANDORA:  In this morning’s Inside Radio there’s an article bashing Pandora about a supposed 67% increase in ad load – from 3.3 units per hour to 5.3.  I have no idea if these stats are correct, but for the sake of argument let’s assume they are.  Does anyone else find it ironic that AM/FM Radio would be deriding Pandora for ad clutter?  5.3 ads per hour comes to about 2 minutes of commercials, since Pandora plays a blend of :15s and :30s.  By comparison typical FM stations play 12-13 minutes of commercials per hour, and AM stations are north of that at around 15-16 minutes.  And to make these mega-spot loads even worse, Radio stop sets are like a petting zoo of all different ad types – including :60s, :30, :15s, bookends, blinks, live reads, traffic sponsorships, and station promos.  If you think I’m exaggerating put on a commercial radio station now, sit through an entire commercial break, and actually concentrate on what you’re hearing.  It’s unlistenable!  While the rest of the article is actually pretty Pandora-positive, the headline about 5.3 units per hour being a bad thing is laughable.  What’s that saying about people living in glass houses and stone throwing?

IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, JOIN ‘EM:  Last week the Fox network announced to would run six-second TV ads for the first time during its Teen Choice Awards on August 13^th.  It’s an interesting copy-cat move for a traditional TV network which is trying to become more digital-ish.  On digital video platforms like Hulu and YouTube short form OLV ads were born out of necessity, because they had to keep ads brief in order to avoid losing eyeballs as viewers waited for content.  Over time these became an effective norm on the digital side.  So now, in order to compete in an increasingly digital video market (graph below), Fox is trying the same play as the digital publishers.  This is just an experiment initially, running during a teen show which presumably has viewers who are most used to short form video ads.  The units are very inexpensive by network standards, starting at just $75K.  It’ll be interesting to see how much market demand there is for the units, and if short-form video becomes more prevalent on the network side.

GOING “LESS IS MORE” WITH BRAND NAMES:  Here’s a fun thought to leave you with today.  As you may have heard Dunkin’ Donuts is considering shortening its name to just “Dunkin”.  The change would allow Dunkin to offer more diverse menu items because they’re not landlocked into a breakfast/donut-based brand.  The move also hearkens to the “less is more” school of branding where a single word, logo, or even sound can stand for an entire image which is much more than the literal definition of the word(s) themselves.  It’s why “The Facebook” became “Facebook, because at some point it was no longer just a book of the faces of fellow coeds at Harvard.  For a funny take on what this trend could mean for the rest of the QSR industry, check out the AdFreak article (and logo artwork) in the attached AdWeek link.  Would you eat a burger from a place just called “Guys”, or does it need to have the “Five” in there too?  And if Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. do eventually merge into one brand do you think it’s a good idea to go with “Hard Carl”, or god forbid “Carl’s Hard”?  (sorry, that was terrible)

Have a great Tuesday guys!

NEXT TECH IS COMING:  To get the week started I’d like to introduce the concept of Next Tech to you.  This emerging field is focused on how technology will transform all aspects of our lives, and not just applications confined to today’s smart phones and laptops.  Over the next month AdWeek will be highlighting various Next Tech innovations.  To kick things off check out the attached link, which features some of the most interesting emerging Next Tech ideas.  You’ve heard of some of these products already – like Facebook’s Occulus AR headset, Google’s Glass Enterprise wearables, and Amazon’s Echo voice-enabled assistant.  But that’s not the fun stuff.  Instead consider Microsoft’s HoloLens which will deliver a “mixed reality” platform by overlaying VR holograms on to what you see in the real world.  Or how about Alphabet’s (aka Google’s) Waymo autonomous driving tech which can retrofitted on to normal cars we all drive.  This is heavy stuff to be sure.  And it’s also an early sign of how transformative the practical applications of Next Tech will be on our lives over the next 10-20 years.

RETAILERS SHOULD WORRY LOSS ABOUT RENT AND MORE ABOUT PAYROLL COSTS:  If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know I often touch on eCommerce trends which are disrupting traditional Retail, and about how automation is impacting the US workforce.  Over the weekend I came across the following image in a WSJ research piece which perfectly encapsulates both trends into one example.  The image compares the P&L of selling a single pair of jeans in a B&M store vs. online.  The biggest variance between the two cost models is the labor needed to run the stores.  In this example labor costs $27 for every $150 pair of jeans sold.  By comparison eCommerce warehouse fulfillment only costs $5 per pair – so that’s a $22 difference.  That amount is almost exactly the $21 delta in profit between the two models.  Bottom line . . . labor cost is the single biggest reason why eCommerce is more profitable than B&M.  So is it any wonder that traditional retailers are racing to automate their in-store operations in order to better compete with their online brethren?

“IT’S A BOLD STRATEGY, COTTON”:  Yes, the day is finally here.  At the stroke of midnight tonight on 8/8 . . . wait for it . . . ESPN will flip the format of its ESPNU station to ESPN8 “The Ocho”.  If you’ve ever watched the movie Dodeball you’ve probably dreamed of the day Cotton McKnight and Pepper Brooks would actually be calling play-by-play for “seldom-seen sports from around the globe”.  Yes, this is actually a real thing.  Maybe it’s also a PR-stunt for a ratings challenged network, but it’s a creative way to get some attention.  Starting at midnight ESPN8 will air the following slate of programming.  I’m not sure what Kabaddi is, but since it’s the World Cup Final I’ll be sure to tune in.  And don’t miss the Moxie Games which ESPN describes as “an uncanny, new and amazing event which combines a variety of sports into one, such as dodgeball and juggling, martial arts and volleyball, and table tennis and soccer”.  Enjoy tomorrow, Ocho-nation!

Happy Monday guys!

WTF WAS ERIC SCHMIDT THINKING?!?:  Need to be honest here . . . I just about crapped my M&A pants after reading the attached TechCrunch article.  Rumors surfaced yesterday that Snap, Inc. has repeatedly rejected offers from Google for a $30B buyout (yes, that’s B for billion).  I don’t know what’s crazier to believe – that Google would offer a price which is twice Snap’s current market valuation, or that Snap would decline it?  There are so many sides to this story it’s hard to know what’s fact and what’s fiction.  On one hand, I get the interest in Snap’s technology side – imagine what Google’s nerd herd could do with that tech.  And I know Google would love to outflank Facebook in Social with a first mover like Snapchat.  But in the “hindsight is 20/20” department, the fact that FB has effectively cloned/killed Snapchat with Instagram Stories, this may go down as the best purchase Google never made. 

iHEART’S Q2 EARNINGS SHENNANIGANS:  During yesterday’s Q2 Earnings Call iHeart hailed another quarter of topline revenue growth – going +1.9% YoY.  For me most entertaining aspect of that number is Trade/Barter is now included in the revenue calculation – so they’re trading unsold inventory for trade credits which are counted as “revenue”.  It’s also worth noting the small matter of iHeart’s debt, which is still standing tall at $20.3B.  In the first six months of 2017 iHeart has paid $876M in interest payments alone – none of this went to paying down the principle.  A stat they didn’t highlight is that just over half of iHeart’s topline rev has gone to paying interest this year – so they’re basically in business to feed their creditors, instead of investing in their business or providing returns to their shareholders.  So if this is a good quarter for iHeart, what does a bad one look like?

WEEKEND INSPIRATION:  Finally this week, I’d like to leave you with an uplifting thought for the weekend.  If you know me professionally you’ve probably heard me espouse the virtue of Servant Leadership.  It’s the philosophy that true leaders flip the traditional org pyramid upside down.  So instead of managing down on their employees from above, leaders support their whole team from the bottom up.  I’ve believed this philosophy for my entire management career, and as it turns out someone else shares my beliefs.  Check out this quote from a person you may have heard of.  I couldn’t have said it any better, Abe!  (Editor’s Note:  I HATE when the words “man” or “men’s” is used in a generic form to represent all people, because I feel like it excludes women from the point being made.  Since Abraham Lincoln’s quote was from the mid-1800s I’ll give him a pass for not including women in his leadership reference.  If he were here to deliver this line today I believe he’d be a little more gender-inclusive.)

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

TOUGH DAY FOR SNAPCHAT:  On the anniversary of arch-rival Instagram’s Stories launch, Snapchat received a 1-2 punch of bad headlines.  First, Snapchat is officially getting trounced by Instagram in the usage department.  As noted in the attached TechCrunch link, Instagram now has 250M average daily users compared to Snapchat’s 166M.  If that wasn’t enough Standard & Poors also gave Snapchat some unwelcome news yesterday, by rejecting its application to be included in the S&P 500.  Apparently the way Snapchat’s stock is organized by classes doesn’t comply with S&P’s standards.  This news sent Snapchat’s stock to an all-time low yesterday, because the S&P denial will lock Snapchat out of index-based stock buying from institutional investors.  Industry experts are calling for even more bad news later in the month as Snapchat ends it lockup period for employees – so they can sell vested equity for the first time since the IPO.  All of these issues paint an ever-darkening picture for the once-promising tech darling.

WHEN QUALITY KILLS:  So answer me this . . . the big three economic indicators which predicate auto purchases (gas prices/unemployment rate/interest rate) look pretty good right now, and the US is adding 2M new licensed drivers every year, why are automobile sales declining?  The answer can be summed up in one word – Quality.  According to Bloomberg the average car on the roads is 12 years old right now, with some lasting even 20 years or more.  That’s because they’re made better than ever, so the cost of repairs/upkeep is lower relative to purchasing a new car.  The graph below explains it well.  The bigger the delta between the black bars (new cars purchased) and red bars (old cars scrapped), the more total cars are on the road.  And if that old car is still in your driveway you’re less likely to go buy a new one.

WHAT PIZZA CAN TEACH US ABOUT aaS:  Over the past decade you’ve probably heard the term SaaS (Software as a Service) numerous times – it’s how Oracle built its business services empire.  More recently we’re starting to see many other aaS applications – like TaaS (Transportation), DaaS (Data), etc..  But what does this all mean, and how can the aaS trend by actualized for specific industries?  The simplest and best example I’ve come across is the image below.  It compares an industry we all know very well (pizza), breaks down the components of manufacturing and serving/delivering a piping hot pie to the hungry consumer, and shows how each element can be farmed out to 3^rd parties in a hypothetical PaaS (Pizza) industry.  If you take this example to the extreme imagine Pizza Hut as just a brand you order from, while some anonymous pizza making factory creates the pie and then Uber Eats delivers it to you.  So much for two slices and a Coke from your favorite corner pizza joint.

Have a great Thursday guys!

IS GOOGLE TAKING ATTRIBUTION DATA TOO FAR?:  In the world of location-based attribution tracking the hardest thing to do is measure that last 10 feet from stores’ aisles to the register.  Using cell-based Lat/Long data it’s pretty easy to determine if someone visits a store after seeing an ad.  But how can you tell if that person actually purchased the advertised item?  In May Google attempted to answer that question by introducing a new Store Sales Measurement tool, which matches a users’ Search and Location data (which Google already has) to 3^rd party credit card transaction data.  But this Frankensteined approach to attribution via mixed-source data is catching some blow back in the form of an FCC complaint by a consumer watchdog group called EPIC.  EPIC’s contention is that Google is invading consumers’ privacy by tracking purchases without consent.  Google has responded by saying it anonymizes the data in a way that protects individuals’ privacy.  So is this a creative and legal way for Google to tie existing data points together, or have they crossed the line into Big Brother territory?  Give the attached NPR link a read and decide for yourself.

MISERY . . . SOUNDCLOUD BE THY NAME:  Over the past month I’ve highlighted some major problems at SoundCloud which culminated in the laying off of 40% of their workforce in June.  So what happened to this once-promising albeit semi-legal music file sharing service?  The attached Buzzfeed article chronicles each agonizing mistake in marathon of missteps.  Beyond the obvious errors in personal conduct and a vacancy of leadership, I’d say SoundCloud’s primary mistake is that they lost focus on the original vision of being a file-sharing community where artists and music lovers could share their passion, and instead tried to become a me-too streamer.  It would be like Firestone waking up one day and deciding it should start producing and selling cars – it’s just a leap too far.  Granted the dirt hasn’t being shoveled on SoundCloud’s grave just yet, but it feels like the funeral home has been called.  (Editor’s warning on this article – it’s long, like NSFW long.  Save it for your personal time and stay focused on your day job!)

AUTOMATION RISK ACROSS THE PROFESSIONS:  Finally today, here’s a chart which will get you thinking.  Jed Kolko, Chief Economist at the job site Indeed, has painstakingly graphed hundreds of common jobs along the continuums of Service vs. Manufacturing work, and Communication/Critical Thinking vs. Manual Labor.  Then he color coded each job by likelihood of it being automated.  The results are fascinating.  I think it’s safe to start calling the upper right quadrant “robot corner”, with many human jobs already succumbing to automation. It’s also easy to understand why surgeons and airline pilots will still be humans for the foreseeable future.  But what about all those maybe-automated jobs in the middle?  What about all those dots with no labels?  And most importantly, will the job of Digital Media Blogger be automated any time soon?!?  Talk to me Jed!

Have a great Wednesday guys!

TOP DIGITAL STATS AND THE LAW OF GRAVITY:  AdWeek was a little late on the past week’s Top Digital Stats, so it missed yesterday’s DG print deadline.  But under the category of better late than never, it’s worth sharing today.  While most of the news, like FB’s and Google’s earnings, have already been combed through, it’s worth noting the first point about P&G.  The headline that P&G reduced digital ad spending in Q2 by over $100M makes good on CMO Marc Pritchard’s challenge for digital publishers to either clean up their acts or get cut from the buy.  So no big shock there.  But there was an interesting footnote making the rounds yesterday about P&G’s sales being flat, despite the 9-figure drop in digital ad spending.  The assertion is that P&G was able to improve its bottom line by cutting digital marketing while still maintaining existing sales levels.  But this stat is a mistake to believe in.  Unless you’re doing eCommerce most digital advertising is upper to mid-funnel, since consumers view the ad and then make a purchase in-store days later.  So by reducing its Share of Voice, P&G’s brands will eventually suffer market share erosion.  This cause and effect may not occur immediately, which is why Q2 held up for P&G.  But brand-building advertising is like the law of gravity – if it goes down you’ll eventually go down too.

RADIO CAT FIGHT:  You may remember the Op-Ed article I posted a few weeks ago from RadioInk’s Publisher Eric Rhodes about the demise of the Radio industry.  It was a sobering yet honest assessment about what’s happening to a once great legacy media.  Well now there’s a rebuttal piece (also published in RadioInk) from Thom Callahan, the Chairman of the Southern Cal Broadcasters Association.  While I can’t blame Mr. Callahan for doing his duty to stick up for his industry, the stats sited about Radio’s purported health don’t tell the full story.  To selectively pull out YoY growth stats for a single market, off of some horrible comp years, is the statistical equivalent to polishing a turd.  To get to the bottom of this disagreement on the health of Radio compared to Digital, the DG research team has team dug up the eMarketer chart below.  From 2013 to 2017 Radio’s share of US Ad Revenue dropped -19% from 9.3% to 7.5%.  During that same period Digital revenue grew by 58%, and Mobile grew by 769%.  So to me it’s pretty clear that Mr. Rhodes is correct with his assertion that Radio is on a sad steady decline, and Mr. Callahan is swimming in a fishbowl that’s glass is so thick he can’t see outside of it.  (Quick note on the date of the eMarketer chart below – it’s from 2014.  Since the Radio industry stopped reporting annual revenue in 2015 there are no actuals, so eMarketer’s estimates are the best we can do.)

WORKING YOUR PASSION = BEING PASSIONATE ABOUT YOUR WORK:  To end the day I’d like to give a fun little shout out.  Every good salesperson knows it’s helpful to be passionate about what they’re selling.  Pandora’s Taylor Harris takes this theory to the extreme by not only selling ads on the music streamer, but also by creating music herself.  You see, Taylor’s day job is that of a mild mannered digital sales rep.  But at night her alter ego comes out as the Lady in the alternative group Lady Lark.  Taylor and her band mates have committed to 100% original music live shows – so no filler covers here.  It’s pretty easy to see the passion Taylor/Ms. Lark brings to her music, which also carries over to her day job.  So here’s the chicken-and-egg question – did working at Pandora unlock the inner singer in Taylor, or did she gravitate to Pandora because of an existing passion for music?  Either way, it’s a hell of a synergy between profession and passion!

Have a great Tuesday guys!

COULD AD TAX REFORM BE LURKING?:  While the threat of a Net Neutrality rollback is getting most of the digital media headlines in DC these days, there’s a second and potentially more insidious threat on the horizon.  The issue is Ad Tax Reform, which would change the way companies can write off the cost of advertising.  Right now any money spent on advertising is treated like a business expense (like buying a truck or  office rent), and can be written off against the current year’s earnings.  But some members of Congress are privately discussing a plan to force businesses to amortize the deduction over a 5-10 year span, which would significantly water down advertising’s tax benefit, and most likely lead to a reduction in marketing budgets.  Ad Tax Reform’s proponents’ rationale for this plan is a little obscure, but InsideRadio does a decent job of explaining their motives in the attached Link.  The ANA is estimating this could cost marketers over $200B in increased tax payments if it goes into effect, so it’s a pretty big deal.  Not sure if this will come to fruition of not, but the topic of Ad Tax Reform is worth being versed in.

AMAZON TAKING DISTRIBUTION A STEP TOO FAR?:  Believe it or not there are some products you can’t buy on Amazon.  These are typically higher end or niche products whose manufacturers like to tightly control their distribution.  Last week Amazon launched a new program to create a back channel distribution system in which they’ll buy these items from 3^rd party retailers (who are approved to sell the items from the manufacturer), and then resell them on Amazon.  By doing this Amazon gets to “sell” products it’s been prohibited from carrying by the original manufacturer.  To say some brand are pissed about this move is an understatement.  To quote Birkenstock CEO Dave Kahan in the attached CNBC link, “Amazon’s pathetic attempt to create a back channel means to sell products not offered on the site is an assault on decency”.  Not exactly the words you want to hear from a manufacturer whose goods you’re trying to sell.  My guess is with enough brand pushback this program could be short lived, as any incremental 3^rd party sales might not be worth the overall headache.

SALES LESSONS FROM A CADDIE:  Finally today, I know Jordan’s Spieth’s British Open win happened a week ago, but I came across this New Sales Coach post in LinkedIn over the weekend, and I thought it was worth sharing.  It’s not about Jordan Spieth though, it’s about his caddie Michael Greller who arguably made the biggest impact in Spieth’s eventual British Open win. The author dissects two moments in the final round which both seemed negative for the golfer.  But Greller’s contrasting approaches to each situation – one using tough love and the other building confidence – are perfectly relatable to sales management.  I especially love how the article dissects the learnings from each situation for both Sales Managers and Salespeople.  It’s a business lesson we can all use, from of all people a caddie on a golf course.

Have a great Monday guys!

THE DUOPOLOY’S Q2 EARNINGS:  Over the past few days both Google and Facebook have reported Q2 earnings.  Both saw astounding revenue growth (again), but there are some important differences emerging between each companies’ financial performances.  Let’s start with Google’s earnings results.  On the surface top line revenue looked strong at +21% YoY growth, with $26B earned in just one quarter (let that sink in for a minute).  But there’s also trouble brewing for Google, which Wall Street pounced on.  Besides the small matter of a $2.74B antitrust fine from the EU, which Google paid in Q2, their biggest problem was a -23% drop in the average cost per click Google charges.  As the ROAS value of a click goes down businesses are bidding less for them.  Right now the CPC decrease is being offset by more total searches, but you have to wonder if Google’s Search cash cow can keep being milked.  On the other hand check out Facebook’s Q2 earnings.  While FB’s top line rev is a distant second at $9B in Q2, the gap between the two companies is shrinking.  Beyond just growing rev +43% YoY, FB’s other metrics look healthy.  Mobile now comprises 87% of FB’s total ad rev, and monthly active uniques grew by +17% to 1.32B users – that’s about a quarter of the world’s population!  In all fairness, Google’s bad day would be a dream for any other company, but you have to wonder if the playing field between these two giants is starting to level.

IF OLV HAS A SICKNESS, THEN VE IS THE CURE:  Yesterday I featured an article about the OLV environment getting murkier as more brands blindly throw money into the network side of the sector.  As a contrast check out was is working for digital video in the following eMarketer article and graph below.  Value Exchange-based video is white hot right now, with 90%+ completion rates for :15s and :30s.  The reason completion rates are so high is obvious – reward listeners with content they want and they’ll be willing to watch and even engage with a video.  One of the leading examples of this is Pandora’s Sponsored Listening product.  For listeners the bargain of watching a full video from a sponsoring brand in order to unlock an hour of commercial free listening is a no-brainer.  It’s just one more piece of evidence that proves the adage that what’s good for the consumer is good for the brand. eMarketer Article

SIRIUS ON PANDORA:  Finally today, over the past month there’s been much speculation about SiriusXM’s motives around the minority ownership stake it purchased in Pandora.  During yesterday’s Q2 earnings call SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer gave some very honest responses to those questions.  InsideRadio (who you know I “love”) actually gave a fair summary of Mr. Meyer’s comments in the attached link.  It feels like SiriusXM views the Pandora relationship as a true partnership with several opportunity paths to go down.  It also seems like there are many TBDs as the two dance partners get to know one other.  Only time will tell where this thing goes.  In the meantime, the article provides a fascinating look into the mind of SiriusXM.

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!