Shonduras shares branded content secrets at elevate conference

Shaun McBride, a popular creator on Snapchat and other digital platforms who is better known by his online handle Shonduras, had a message for marketers Tuesday at the Elevate Conference: trust influencers like himself to know how to move audiences. “As a creator, we know how to do the influencer marketing that you want us […]

Consumers want control of the brand experience

Marketers still need to learn how to release and relax, handing off the controls to consumers after optimizing campaigns from search to social in an effort to improve the experience. Survey findings released this week from the CMO Council, in partnership with SAP Hybris, almost seem like a mass of contradictions. Consumers say they don’t […]

Why WhatsApp should be part of your marketing strategy

WhatsApp boasts over 1.2 billion monthly active users: more than Twitter and Snapchat combined. And yet, most marketers leave WhatsApp out of their marketing strategy. Marketers, it’s time you start taking WhatsApp seriously as a marketing channel. The Growing Relevance of WhatsApp WhatsApp may not have the same following in the US as it has […]

An early warning sign to change your social media strategy

Fake. It’s a word that gets mentioned a lot these days when we talk about social media. Fake news. Fake followers. Real people sharing fake, filtered versions of their lives. It’s enough to make you stop and wonder: Is there something inherently wrong with social media? Is it bad for us? It it … evil? This isn’t a new […]

Rubicon makes a $38M buy to fix header bidding’s unspoken problem

Rubicon Project said Monday that it has acquired nToggle for $38.5 million in a move to bolster its header bidding tech and differentiate itself as consolidation in its sector looms. The 23-person team at nToggle will join Rubicon Project and the company itself will close. NToggle used machine learning to automatically filter out available impressions […]

The adolescent brain and the deadly side of social media 

The spread of harmful ideas is nothing new. Teenagers and young adults have always done silly and rather dangerous things because, let’s face it, sometimes it can be a lot of fun. But the advent of social media has brought a new social dynamic to those trying to navigate the challenge of adolescence. For instance, […]

Brands are relying on ‘influencer’ marketing more than ever

Before the internet took over the economy, “marketing” used to mean spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a creative team, communications staff, and messaging. And that’s before the billboards, print ads, and TV spots necessary to get a brand in front consumer eye-balls. “Now all that’s changed—there’s been a major disruption,” says Mike Heller, […]

AT&T planning organizational changes, including new role for CEO

Broadband provider AT&T Inc is planning a redefined role for Chief Executive Randall Stephenson amid major organizational changes following its $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc, Bloomberg reported on Friday. Stephenson will become executive chairman, overseeing a pair of chief executives who will independently manage the company’s telecommunications and media businesses, the report said, citing people […]

Beware! your digital device can be a source of fake news

Today’s digital devices and social networks deliver so much information that even the savviest consumer cannot evaluate all of it. We seem to be living in a version of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where truth is drowned in a sea of irrelevance. But the future need not be the dystopia that the present seems […]