by Jacqueline Koch | Mar 16, 2016 |
Christopher Ross brings broad leadership experience to advance novel new practice area
SEATTLE, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016 – Christopher Ross has joined Seattle-based boutique marketing consulting firm Boost! Collective as a partner. Ross brings well-honed marketing and operations skills, drawing from a background of over 25 years of experience in diverse roles, from growing the Starbucks brand to business and creative development as VP, COO, CEO and President. His background covers CPG, retail, education, arts and non-profits, for organizations large and small.
“Christopher is known for his enthusiastic ability to take client initiatives and ideas from the cocktail napkin to market and—more important—with consistent success,” said Boost! Collective co-founder, Janinne Brunyee. “He has a breadth of experience that is ideally suited to round out our team and lead a new core offering for our clients, Collective Storytelling.”
Collective Storytelling is a signature Boost! Collective practice area. It is the process for creating a rich, enduring Storyline, a “future memory” for an organization that is intended to energize, engage and drive business results.
‘What most successful companies have in common is a clear narrative,” said Christopher Ross. “When there are different interpretations of what a company stands for and what the future holds, there is confusion both inside and outside the organization which harms the bottom line.”
The Collective Storytelling process accelerates the otherwise daunting series of supporting exercises and steps required to derive and build a comprehensive, visionary and effective Storyline for the organization.
“Boost! Collective team is an ideal fit for me as we share a commitment to our clients’ ideas and working collaboratively to making them great,” Ross said. “Our work and our success is a testament to the maxim, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’”
About Boost! Collective
Is a Seattle-based marketing and business consulting firm dedicated to helping clients create and tell the stories of their brands. Boost! consultants have deep experience delivering results across the innovation cycle, helping clients create their business narrative, bring it life, plan, launch, sustain and optimize their businesses. The Boost! team works together – as a collective – on projects to produce meaningful and lasting impact for clients.
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by Jacqueline Koch | Mar 11, 2016 |
By Christopher Ross
Three apparently disconnected trends are colliding to create interesting opportunities for content providers. First, Americans spend an inordinate amount of time in their cars commuting to and from work. Next, the amount of time they spend online is ever-increasing and, finally, the autonomous self-driving car is fast approaching on the horizon. Woven together and considered with some care, these trends could create a huge liability and require new legislation to prevent perceived risks. However, it is also likely that they could simultaneously open up a tremendous opportunity for content creators to meet growing consumers’ needs.
Our daily commute
The average American spends 111 hours in their car commuting, this according to a recent report from INRIX, Inc., a leading provider of real-time traffic information. This does not take into account those who commute by other forms of transportation. The report goes on to share this high annual commitment of time in one’s car creates an ‘ominous forecast for the US if traffic continues to impede the flow of people and commerce’. One key solution that is recommended by the report, and supported by other transportation analysts, is the legislation and policies to support the construction of infrastructure necessary to enable autonomous vehicle technology on roads.
Our daily internet
And while the amount of hours spent commuting each day suggests the vast majority of working Americans have increasingly less time on their hands, there is another trend that seems to point to another activity on the rise. The amount of time Americans are spending online overall is undeniably growing. According to the Global Web (GWI) Index Q1 2015 report, daily usage has grown from 5.55 hours in 2012 to 6.15 in 2014. This fact might surprise some, and confirm for others what they are witnessing around them or are experiencing in their own habits every day, on their PC, laptop, smartphone, watch, tablet and any even with their hotspot enabled automobile. One of the big drivers of this trend is the still-increasing level of engagement people are having with social networks. The study found usage went from an average of 1.61 to 1.72 hours daily. Also a newer trend is the growing enthusiasm for micro-blogging, as that interaction is now 0.81 hours per day.
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by Jacqueline Koch | Mar 9, 2016 |
By David Darby
The word ‘programmatic’ can strike fear, excitement and bewilderment into the hearts of publishers. And while this automation trend is a tidal force in the digital ad space, it’s a wave that can be surfed by savvy media managers who cut through the jargon to get clear on how to automate more effectively.
This topic demands our attention because programmatic is a leviathan: automated buying will top US$15bn this year in the US, representing nearly 60 per cent of digital display ad sales. In the UK, programmatic will surpass £2bn in sales next year, and across Europe, programmatic video ad sales alone are on track to top €2bn by the end of this decade, according to eMarketer.
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The rise of programmatic is powered by a shared quest by sellers and buyers for speed and efficiency, resulting in higher yields for publishers and higher ROI for advertisers. Both sides remain tantalised by the promise of moving beyond the cumbersome direct-sold model where a sales team deciphers a Request For Proposal and negotiates its way to an agreed Insertion Order, then ad operations manually traffics the deal.
While the motivation remains the same, the definition of programmatic continues to evolve. At the highest level, programmatic is about using technology to automate the selling and/or delivery of digital ads. Up until recently, this mostly meant selling individual ad impressions on a real-time-bidded (RTB) basis in an auction conducted via an advertising exchange. From the beginning, programmatic took on a bargain basement image as RTB was used to clear out the tail of publishers’ remnant inventory at very low prices.
However, the growing trend of Programmatic Guaranteed – where the buyer and seller agree on a certain volume of impressions sold at a specified price, transacted using Deal IDs or in private exchanges – blurs the distinction between direct and programmatic sales. This form, and the rise of programmatic video, show that programmatic is going up-market in both image and reality.
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by Jacqueline Koch | Mar 2, 2016 |
By Janinne Brunyee
Video is increasingly becoming a must-have for publishers as consumer demand continues to grow. At the same time, there is a growing opportunity for ad revenues that is proving to be irresistible for some publishers.
According to the 2015 Magazine Media 360 Brand Audience Report, the magazine audience for video grew by five million additional viewers last year – an increase of 13.8 per cent. “What’s astounding is the sheer volume of consumers engaging with magazine media brands across platforms and formats, and how readers continue to diversify the ways in which they trust and enjoy our content,” said Linda Thomas Brooks, CEO of MPA, which publishes this report.
According to BI Intelligence, digital video ad revenue will reach almost US$5bn in 2016, up from $2.8bn in 2013. While there remains hesitation amongst many towards investing in video, the most innovative publishers have shown that concerns over cost are offset by improvements in CPM, audience data and readership.
Publishers who are embracing video
Cosmopolitan/Hearst Corporation
In addition to publishing video on their own site, which is intended to serve as a companion guide for readers, Cosmopolitan magazine posts videos to their YouTube channel, including a recent video of men asking a group of little girls for texting advice, which has been seen more than half a million times. The magazine’s YouTube channel is an expression of Hearst’s strategy of building large audiences on the free web and then monetising the traffic.
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by Jacqueline Koch | Feb 26, 2016 |
By Jacqueline Koch
What is shifting the calculus in journalism today? Judging by a recent Pew Research Center report, it’s Kickstarter and a few other startups in the crowdfunding space. Anyone who believes that numbers tell the most compelling story will find this one very convincing.
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In the first nine months of 2015, supporters shelled out US$1.74m to support 173 journalism projects, on Kickstarter alone. This is a significant increase from the $49,256 raised for 17 projects in 2009, just six years prior. All told, from April 2009 to Sept. 2015, journalism projects launched on Kickstarter have received funding amounting to $6.3m.
Lined up against the $20bn in revenue generated by newspaper ads, Kickstarter’s sums may seem anaemic. Yet the funds and influence that Kickstarter —alongside a growing number of publicly funded journalism projects—represent is no small change, literally and figuratively.
New, niche and nontraditional
Kickstarter is just one of a growing number of crowdfunding platforms, and one among several that are specifically focused on journalism. The Pew report notes: ‘In today’s evolving digital era, [crowdfunding] represents a new, niche segment of nontraditional journalism driven in large part by public interest and motivation.’
In short, it’s a new chapter for journalism that offers a win-win-win. Win 1: Hungry, enterprising journalists, who are seeking the means to report on important and untold stories and push the envelope, are tapping into the financial resources to do so. Win 2: The public gets a seat in the editor’s chair to support the journalism, stories and topics they find meaningful. Win 3: Media organisations are dialing into quality and diverse content without the burden on their budget.
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by Jacqueline Koch | Feb 15, 2016 |
By Jaqueline Koch
The end of 2015 offered many a prediction for the New Year and in the ever-evolving world of digital media, there is angst and excitement. But for some, there is unbridled exhilaration. Take celebrity digital strategist Rex Sorgatz, who was nothing short of exuberant in his forecast for podcasting which was published in the Harvard-based Neiman Journalism Lab.
“Media companies will continue adapting their franchises to podcasts,” he announced with a note of triumph, “podcasting networks will devise new aural experiments, and even more independents will pop up from unexpected places.” The result: “The podcasting scene will explode,” which is the unapologetic title of his article.
These are heady predictions. Is the hype justified?
As a starting point, consider the breakaway hit Serial: One million downloads in its first four weeks, 90 million as of October 2015, less than a year since its debut. More recently, The Message, an eight-part sci-fi podcast series, hit number one on the iTunes charts last November. More broadly, trend watchers have noted distinct reverberations in dinner party and happy hour conversations. The question is no longer, “What are you watching?” Instead, it’s “What are you listening to?” And behind this question lies a tantalising demographic: podcast listeners are young—67 per cent are between 18-34 years old—socially engaged, educated and tech savvy. Moreover, they tend to be a loyal bunch.
Matching content supply with demand has become an increasingly lucrative prospect for marketing outfits, networks and advertisers. Research conducted by podcast marketing company Midroll revealed that 63 per cent of listeners stated they bought a product or service after hearing it advertised on a podcast. Meanwhile, on average, a podcast can now command a US$20-$45 CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) for a 60-second spot, whereas on average radio claims less than $2-$10 CPM. The take away for advertisers is becoming clear: Used in tandem with other media formats, podcasts offer an additional—and cost-effective—platform to reach more customers.
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