Fix/LinkedIn - March 7
Games
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The much anticipated move by?Netflix into games continued this week with their acquisition of Next Games, who are behind mobile games for Stranger Things and Walking Dead. Its not a big deal and suggests modest ambitions, limited to better monetising their existing IP.
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Others in Hollywood see a much bigger picture around gaming and movies.?The man behind the Avengers Movies has launched an entertainment firm called Agbo?- with significant investment from a number of games studios. This interview is really good, covering their thoughts on how gaming can drive new IP and become even more compelling, as the metaverse develops;
I see the future coming from gaming. The things I want to do and the technology I want to use to tell stories, the kind of stories I want to tell, they’re more aligned with gaming companies, the way that they think, than studios. I keep trying to bring innovation to more traditional studios, and I find that I keep running into resistance. It’s a waste of energy.
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And in Asia the game market in South Korea is quite volatile. Domestic studios have suffered as fans resist higher prices and as Chinese games firms focus on this market as they are now more restricted in their home market. There is a lot of experimentation with web3 business models;
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newTV
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A significant move from ITV this week as they released their latest results.?They announced the launch (later this year) of ITVX?a new AVOD service that will be their lead product. New shows will premiere on ITVX before going on their linear channels. There will be an ad free subscription model as well - it is billed as?the UK’s first integrated advertising and subscription funded (AVOD/SVOD)?platform.?Britbox content will be part of this, but its unclear what the future of Britbox is - at least in the UK.?
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This feels like a significant move and helps the UK market move forward, but the requirements for more content worries shareholders and the stock price dropped because of the increased content budget. As we get more details on the service we will have a better idea of how it will change the market, but change the market it will.
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I do worry when advertising led businesses create products that position ads as undesirable, though.
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Another sign of the momentum behind AVOD was the news that?Samsung TV will carry the American Idol talent show. Coming soon after the launch of ITVs AVOD channels for Samsung we are starting to see decent availability of AVOD inventory
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One element of detail needed on ITV is around how it's going to be measured. We have seen?Disney partner with Samba?this week and our friends at?Simulmedia have added more measurement partners with iSpot, TVSquared and TransUnion. There is a view that going forward AVOD services will work with a broad spread of measurement partners, so brands and agencies can use the data they prefer, rather than having to deal with whatever the broadcaster mandates?
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We have seen how attractive sports rights are for the big streaming players with GAFA writing bigger and bigger cheques. In the US.?Sinclair have controlled local sports markets on cable but are now trying to introduce streaming?whilst not burning bridges with the cable stations who carry them now. It's a complicated market and the clubs themselves exercise a lot of power. If Sinclair can make streaming work, it removes one of the few crutches linear TV still has.?They undoubtedly overpaid for the rights but in their favour is research showing that over a third of US adults would be interested in subscribing to local sports streaming?irrespective of price.?They forecast they can grow from the current?<1 million to almost 10 million households by 2027. That sounds bullish but?other research forecasts that pay TV households will dwindle to just 73 million by 2024
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A Wall Street journal piece looks at the impact of inflation on SVOD subscriptions and it's not pretty. As one exec puts it;?We've hit subscription fatigue. He goes on to describe the tactics we also see; people taking advantage of free trials, signing up for just the time a top show is running, then switching to some rival for another marquee show. Just don't forget to cancel
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Merchant
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Amazon and High Street stores is a long running saga. Every so often there is a press release promising a rapid rollout of this format or that. Then the odd store opens. Now we see they are to?close their book shops and the four star shops?- which isn't a surprise because that's not how shops work.
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But they are?very bullish about Amazon Go and they also suggest the Amazon Style shops will roll out in big numbers.?I wonder if the Amazon staff free, till free model really has legs? If you wander around the Holborn corner with Amazon, Tesco and Sainsbury's all experimenting with this technology, you don't see much evidence of consumer adoption. But Amazon need to get grocery right. And physical stores is as much a part of that as is home delivery.
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Just Eat saw revenue jump by a third last year?- but they still losing money - and intend to pull out of Portugal and Norway
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How Ikea tricks you into buying more stuff?- Dark patterns in stores
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web3
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Brands keen to explore the metaverse are buying (or renting) land and building experiences in the Sandbox and Decentralland.
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领英推荐
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A million years ago in my WPP days I was asked by Unilever to build a presence for Ben & Jerrys in Second Life. We found some super talented developers and?built something really nice?- but when asked why, we never got a straight answer - it was just something they wanted to do. But experimentation is the way you learn about new opportunities.
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adtech
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This time last year Australia was battling with Facebook and Google to get them to pay newspapers for stories. The newspaper companies won and the model - flawed as it is - is now being picked up around the world.?Wired tell the back story well
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I mentioned the UK enthusiasm in a recent newTV deep dive as I think it is more evidence supporting my theory on the likely next owner of C4;
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The Australian style deal where Google and Facebook pay publishers is coming to the UK. According to the Daily Mail, Dorres has told her officials;
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There is something a little odd in this in that?Google agreed a global deal with News Corp to resolve the issue in Australia, so they are already getting paid.
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Wired have another good story - this time on the extent of fingerprinting and its use as a way of tracking;
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But fraud expert Augustine Fou?helpfully shared this live analysis of the tracking on that article; 642 Adserver Requests: 417 Tracking Requests: 127 Other Requests.
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The browser firms say?they plan to act on fingerprinting?but we have yet to see a timeline.?
And we see that UID2 is wobbling –?The ad industry's most promising replacement for ad-targeting cookies just suffered a big setback?with the IAB declining to take on the tech operations. With the CCPA privacy legislation imminent, no one wants to be?a target for voracious US lawyers.
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The news last week about the UK initiative on?Cross Industry Programmatic Taskforce?reminded us of the lack of transparency and a new post from Adalytics looks again at??How much in fees are ad tech companies charging publishers & advertisers?
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Reading that helps you see the logic behind initiatives like the new GroupM Premium Marketplace,?
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social
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As expected?TikTok have upped the maximum video length to 10 minutes. Will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think to really compete with YouTube the search on TikTok will need to improve
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If you read?Harvard Business Review on how How ByteDance Became the World’s Most Valuable Startup, that doesn't seem like that big a challenge.
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Tiktok Ecommerce GMV reported to be ~$1Bn in 2021?- with 30% coming from the UK. Its a fraction of what sister app Douyin - but they want to double it this year.
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We looked at?Bentley in this weeks Good TikTok Creative. And judging on the awards is going well - watch this space.?
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Plus +
?Target made $1bn+ from their media business Roundel?- and expect to soon double that?