Churn Update: 70% Use Streaming Apps for Just Three Months

• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, 10 hours ago

On average, more than 70% of U.S. smart-TV viewers use streaming apps for three months or fewer — and apps showing the lowest time spent per month have the lowest retention periods. 

That’s according to the latest churn trends analysis from Samsung ads, based on data from the brand’s 70 million opted-in U.S. smart-TV user base over the 12 months of 2022. 

A test campaign included in the report demonstrated that advertising targeted to light monthly users can reduce churn significantly. 

The analysis looked at active streaming behavior by month across ad-free subscription-based (SVOD) apps, ad-supported (AVOD) apps, and apps offering both an ad-free and ad-supported subscription tier (HVOD). Months of active use did not need to be consecutive — for instance, if app users were active in January, March and November, they would be classified as showing three months of active use. 

The top 15 apps by number of monthly active users — dubbed Tier 1 apps — saw “stickier” behavior than average: Nearly half of their viewers were active more than three months out of the 12 analyzed. 

But even for the most successful streaming apps, retention is challenging: Just 30% of their users were active more than half the year (seven months or more). 

Outside of the top five most-used apps, loyalty is hard to come by. While one-quarter of viewers of the top five apps within the Samsung ecosystem were active for more than 10 months of the year, this dropped to just 11% for apps ranked six through 20. 

“This suggests that users of most apps either quickly lose interest in an app or binge a specific piece of content for a brief period and then churn out,” notes the report. “Time-spent data support this hypothesis.” 

Across all apps, regardless of number of monthly active users, monthly time spent and number of months active in an app were found to be directly correlated: More time spent on a monthly basis goes hand-in-hand with more months active. 

Across Tier 1, 2 and 3 apps, monthly time spent was more than double for users who were active in the app for seven or more months in a year versus those who were active for six months or fewer (chart top of page). 

The current analysis also updates Samsung’s tracking of its Churn Ratio — a summary metric representing the number of users who have used an app in the five to 12 month period prior to the current month, but not since, divided by the active user base of that app for the current month. 

In its last paper on streaming retention, it reported that the Churn Ratio across apps on Samsung TVs reached 7.0 in Q3 2022, meaning that seven times as many users had churned out of the average app as were currently using it. That represented a 46% increase in churn compared to Q3 2021’s 4.8 ratio. 

Over the most recent two quarters, the Churn Ratio was found to be lower than 7.0, but still significantly higher than Q3 2021’s 4.8. 

“Competition for user loyalty remains fierce and publishers must continue to make retaining their audience a priority,” notes the report, which includes results of a test that demonstrated that advertising to light users can be an effective way to maintain engagement and reduce churn.

In the test, targeted advertising succeeded in driving light users back to an app, increasing retention by a factor of eight times.

 

New Tool Lets Consumers Reject Ad Targeting Tied to Phone Numbers

• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, 11 hours ago

The advertising industry self-regulatory group Digital Advertising Alliance is launching a tool that aims to allow consumers to opt out of behavioral advertising techniques that rely on consumers' encrypted phone numbers.

The new mechanism builds on the organization's two-year-old “token-ID based tool,” which enables people to opt out of the use of their encrypted email addresses for behavioral advertising.

The phone number opt-out mechanism comes as ad-technology companies appear increasingly interested in drawing on identifiers such as email addresses or phone numbers for targeting.

Companies that deploy this strategy typically ask users for their email addresses or phone numbers, and use encryption techniques to convert those addresses or numbers into alphanumeric strings (or “tokens") that are used to track people and serve them with ads. 

The ad-technology companies participating in the initial Digital Advertising Alliance program include Adstra, Foursquare, IQM, Knorex, LiveRamp, Merkle, GroupM’s [m]Platform, and Tapad.

Consumers who go to the Digital Advertising Alliance's opt-out site can enter their phone number. Participating companies will then match the phone number to its encrypted identifier, and refrain from using that token for ad targeting.

The Digital Advertising Alliance plans to delete the phone number and encrypted identifier after 30 days.

The opt-out mechanism only allows consumers to reject receiving targeted ads tied to their encrypted phone numbers (or email addresses), and doesn't prevent companies from using those identifiers for other purposes, including measurement.

Privacy advocate Justin Brookman, Director of Technology Policy for Consumer Reports, expressed skepticism about the new control.

“This incremental tweak will go unnoticed and will do absolutely nothing to stem consumers' privacy concerns or the continuing tide of new regulatory proposals,” Brookman said in an email to MediaPost.

He adds that regulators are “demanding simpler and more powerful controls” than the self-regulatory group's AdChoices icon -- which aims to notify consumers about online tracking and offer links to sites where people can opt out of receiving targeted ads.

Twelve states now have privacy laws that require companies to allow consumers to opt out of targeted advertising, and at least four of those states -- California, Colorado, Connecticut and Montana -- require companies to honor opt-out universal signals that consumers send with mechanisms like the Global Privacy Control. That tool, developed by privacy advocates, transmits an opt-out command to every website consumers visit.

If much of your conversations with your local-direct clients are by phone or email, rather than face-to-face...here's a little tip about how artificial intelligence...ala ChatGPT might be of assistance: Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

COMMENTARY

How AI Can Speed Up Your Search Marketing

• by Scott Walldren , July 28, 2023

The following was previously published in an earlier edition of Marketing Insider.

Because the new AI is conversational, you can train it to follow specific rules, styles, teThe flexibility of ChatGPT can speed up key elements of search marketing, from idea generation to metadata tagging, product descriptions, regional content, and more.

Because the new AI is conversational, you can train it to follow specific rules, styles, terms, and tones. And because ChatGPT retains information about product features, you can automatically apply feature descriptions to different sizes and versions of individual products.

That makes it simple to optimize product pages on your website and Amazon. Instead of writing descriptions, meta tags, page titles and more for each SKU, you can plug ChatGPT into Google Sheets. It will generate accurate tags for thousands of products in minutes.

If you’re stuck on what to write, ask the AI to create a draft you can work from (for example,  “Can you create a punchy 160-character or less meta-description that describes an all-natural foundation makeup product?”). Since ChatGPT can generate content tailored to reading level, you can ask it to create a simpler version (e.g., “seventh-grade level”) to evaluate.

ChatGPT can also streamline the research process. Say you’re researching a product or a SEO topic, and you need to ingest a lot of information at once. You can ask ChatGPT to read a set of articles and summarize what’s different about one vs. the other.

It all works as long as humans are monitoring, revising, and building from the AI output. Don’t let AI write your SEO posts entirely, because Google currently considers such posts to be spam. Content that is overtly keyword-optimized, and doesn’t sound particularly human, will trip the wire.

What’s more, if you use AI to help write a post, Google requires you to disclose it somewhere on the page. It remains to be seen how readers will feel about this—will they look down on a company that admits to using AI to write its content?

Similarly, for anything complex, like a nuanced product description, AI’s role is just to get a human started. Even rote copy and metadata tasks need human screening. AI can miscast facts and use confusing (or offending) turns of phrase. So, run the content through a text-to-speech generator and listen for errors.

ChatGPT is brand new, and right now, we’re all in the trial-and-error phase. One area of great potential is localized SEO content. It’s possible AI can tailor national and/or global messages to individual locations -- unaffordable to do so by hand -- so search draws high-potential clients even more reliably.

 INSIDERADIO

Study: For EV Marketing, AM/FM And Podcasts Should Be 'Centerpiece' Of Ad Campaigns.

• 12 hrs ago
 

Justin Sullivan

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• PSAn analysis of a MARU/Matchbox study of 600 car buyers in Dallas-Ft. Worth, conducted in March and April of this year, suggests that heavy listeners of AM/FM radio or podcasts show a far greater likelihood of buying or leasing an EV – 53% greater, for AM/FM – compared to heavy TV viewers or the sample as a whole. In a sample made up of those who either recently purchased or are in the market in the coming year, while 15% of auto buyers say they're very or somewhat likely to buy or lease one, that number moves up to 23% for AM/FM radio listeners and 27% for podcast listene

“If you want to build an EV brand, radio and podcasts should be at the centerpiece of any tier-one media plan,” Cumulus Media/Westwood One Audio Active Group Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard says, “since audio consumers are just so much more interested and in the market for [electric] vehicles.”

Research from Nielsen Scarborough cited by the blog shows AM/FM listeners in Dallas-Ft. Worth index higher for car buying overall, with 25% planning to buy or lease in the next 12 months vs. 20% of heavy TV viewers, and 23% of the market's population. “[With] 1,000 impressions on TV and 1,000 impressions on radio, the radio impressions are worth 25% more because radio way over indexes on people being in market for a new vehicle,” Bouvard says.

Likewise, Nielsen Scarborough's data shows that AM/FM radio reaches nine in ten auto intenders in Dallas-Ft. Worth (89%), vs. 79% of past-week TV viewers, giving AM/FM a 13% edge over TV. “Not only are radio listeners more likely to be in market for a new vehicle, but you're going to reach a lot more of them on AM/FM radio,” Bouvard says.

The high level of interest in and intent to purchase electric vehicles among radio listeners couldn't be happening at a more perfect time. According to Cox Automotive, not only are more consumers considering a new or used EV – up from 38% in 2021 to 51% in 2022 – they're also more likely to accept EVs as the wave of the future, with more than half (53%) feeling they'll eventually replace gas engines, vs. 31% of auto dealers feeling that way.

From the manufacturer and dealer side, things are also looking up for EVs, with more than 30 new brands set to launch this year, and more than 50 in 2024. As their share of total vehicle sales has increased from 5.2% last year to 6.5% in 2023, Cox projects that U.S. EV sales will pass one million units for the first time this year. Contributing to that lift is a surge in dealer EV supply, with new EV inventory during second-quarter 2022 up 4.7 times what it was in Q2 2022.

With artificial intelligence coming of age rather quickly, how is it affecting businesses and management and what's the real word? Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

 

COMMENTARY

Jury's Still Out on ChatGPT

• by Judith Ingleton - Beer , Yesterday

The following was previously published in an earlier edition of Marketing Insider.

In 2022, Microsoft invested $1 billion in GPT to save the reputation of its beleaguered search engine Bing. It caught Google napping, but then came the creation of Bard as the war for AI-driven search begun.

This battleground provides an interesting backdrop. Critical questions are being raised about the use of AI in PR, and while some B2B professionals are yet to adapt to AI, others are already using ChatGPT.

To avoid giving the robots too much autonomy, and to learn important communication lessons, there are a number of issues to consider.

The ChatGPT wake-up call for PR and marketing pros: Despite the rise of the machine, B2B PR and marketing professionals should place their attention on human generated copy and marketing speak. Machines aren’t just beginning to write like humans, humans are beginning to write like machines. Marketers should stop speaking in overcomplicated cliches and start crafting pieces that convey real ideas and thoughts.

What ChatGPT can’t and won’t do. Quality writing is fueled by intention, and ChatGPT can’t replace the unique perspectives and relationships of B2B professionals, including their creativity, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence.

Critical thinking is the most fundamental of these skills – to understand causes from correlations, remove biases, and distinguish fact from fiction. Selling new and original developments and solutions require targeting copy at different audiences with different needs. AI chatbots can’t read into a situation the same way as humans do.

The legal and ethical lens is on ChatGPT. Users need to believe that generated text is factually correct – but with tens of millions of new web pages created daily, could ChatGPT cause copyright troubles? And where should B2B PR and marketers stand?

The issue is that ChatGPT doesn’t reveal its primary sources, which could lead to Google banning AI-generated content for SEO purposes, and the U.S. Copyright Office launching an examination of copyright law surrounding AI.

For now, communicators should apply caution to any external-facing use of output from ChatGPT, and wait for official guidance on the use of AI in PR and marketing.

Working collaboratively with AI – should B2B communicators ride the AI wave? B2B communications can reap many benefits from ChatGPT, such as using data-driven insights in research or streamlining repetitive tasks. But overuse AI, and issues could arise.

Simply put, B2B pros should treat AI as a complementary tool to achieve a higher level of consumer engagement and use their own creativity and critical thinking to keep content cutting-edge and ensure their content strategies stay ahead of the competition.

 

Horizon Media: Viewers Back Hollywood Strikers, Plan to Watch Alternative Programming

• by Wayne Friedman , 3 hours ago

Streaming viewers are largely backing the efforts of striking writers and actors and plan to seek out alternative programming such as reruns, streaming TV originals not yet consumed and other content if their favorite shows become unavailable, according to new research from Horizon Media.

The data shows that viewers are “on the side” of writers (45%) and actors (39%) versus the studios (9%), networks (8%) or streaming services (9%).

Although there are concerns about ever-increasing monthly consumer streaming fees, when asked whether they would pay more for streaming/TV services to help those writers/actors who are demanding better pay, 28% said “yes.” 

For those who support the strikers, that number climbs to 38%. Younger viewers -- ages 18-25 and 26-34 -- are even more supportive when it comes to paying more, at 46% and 41% respectively.  

Overall, more than half of viewers surveyed are aware of the strikes from Writers Guild of America (52%) and Screen Actors Guild-AFTRA (58%). Horizon says this is 11 percentage points higher than other labor disputes.

In other results, viewers plan to re-watch old shows at 47%, find original shows/movies on streaming platforms not yet seen at 35%, partake in other non-entertainment activities at 28%, and look to new genres of entertainment at 25%. 

Social-media activity has spiked in response to the strikes, Horizon says.  In the 72 hours following the announcement of the writers strike, there were nearly 800,00o posts. Following the actors' strike start,  there were 1.1 million posts.

Horizon’s July 18-19, 2023 survey came from 600 U.S. respondents age 18 years and older, and was weighted to be representative of age, ethnicity, region, and income.    

 

COMMENTARY

Live Music and Recording Brands: Are TV Ads Still a Thing?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Live music concerts continue to rocket up in terms of revenue and audience numbers, according to live events/music promoter and venue operator Live Nation.

But does TV have anything to do with that success?

Live Nation reported more than 117 million tickets sold so far this year -- up 20% year-over-year.

Live Nation, which also owns Ticketmaster, posted 27% higher revenue of $5.6 billion for the second quarter. Operating income grew to $386.4 million, Stadium attendance grew 28% to 8 million; arena attendance rose 19% to 10.7 million.

All that sounds good. But don't expect that paid TV advertising or marketing had anything to do with it for any areas of the music business.

For example, to attract the live events/music crowd -- Live Nation spent a very modest $3.7 million over the past 12 months on TV -- down 40% from the year before.

Social media, earned media and other paid or unpaid marketing paid a much greater role.

The specific “music recording” TV advertising category was down 35% to $6.8 million for the last 12 months.

The biggest spender was the kids-oriented group -- Kidz Bop -- coming in at $4.3 million, according to EDO Ad EnGage estimates. The group has been on tour from June until mid-September.

No surprise here that the biggest TV network when it comes to music marketing this group over the last 12 months was children's TV network Nickelodeon at $3.2 million, with its sister network Nick Jr. at $1.2 million.

What about MTV, the former giant music cable TV network? Unless you have been living under a rock, programming has shifted dramatically to target 18-24 and 18- to-24-year-olds with "lifestyle" TV content. 

MTV pulled in $841.1 million in national TV advertising over the last 12 months -- slipping 0.2% versus the previous period.

Top categories include Quick-service restaurants at $55.1 million, with candy marketers next at $50.3 million. Way down the list are tickets and live events at $65,480.

When looking at all live events -- music and otherwise -- $69.9 million was spent in TV advertising over the last 12 months. 

These advertising/marketing numbers may not be music to anyone's ears -- especially if one would like to believe music is a still a growing TV marketing category.

Live Nation results might tell another story. That out of home entertainment is still strong in certain areas. Should TV advertising sellers find new ways of seeking business that is -- for the lack of other words --  music to their ears?