brands
Latest
Alexa to provide branded answers to your pressing questions
Amazon has found yet another way to commoditize your interactions with its platforms.
Amazon's search could push customers toward in-house products
Amazon reportedly tweaked its product-search algorithm to favor products that are more profitable to the company. People who worked on the algorithm say the change could give Amazon's own brands a boost, The Wall Street Journal reports. If Amazon is intentionally using search to promote its own goods, it will likely draw more criticism from antitrust regulators.
Toys 'R' Us returns with 'STEAM' workshops and smaller stores
In time for the holidays, Toys "R" Us parent company Tru Kids is planning to open two permanent stores. This time around, the stores will include things like theaters for movies and video games, STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Art and Math) workshops and a treehouse where kids can play. To pull it off, Tru Kids is partnering with tech retailer b8ta.
Facebook gives creators more ways to make money
As VidCon gets ready to take place between July 10th and 13th in Anaheim, California, Facebook has news to share with its creator community. The company has announced that it is introducing more ways for them to earn money on its site, starting by giving them the ability to choose better placement for ads in their videos. Facebook says that, in order to better support videos that may not have "a natural break for ads," creators will now have the choice to include non-interruptive advertising formats, such as pre-roll or image-based ads. This could come in handy on videos that are particularly short, for instance.
Unsecured database exposed thousands of Instagram influencers (updated)
A database containing contact information for what was originally thought to be millions of Instagram influencers was reportedly found online, exposing info like phone numbers and email addresses for celebrities, influencers and brand accounts. According to TechCrunch, the database was hosted on Amazon Web Services and left without a password. Original reports claimed it contained as many as 49 million records, but Instagram has since confirmed that the database contained records for about 350,000 accounts.
Spotify is giving brands more control over ads in Discover Weekly
It's no secret that Discover Weekly is a popular personalized playlist for Spotify users. The custom playlist the streaming service builds based on your listening habits each week quickly amassed tens of millions of users after its introduction in 2015. Ads have been included on the playlist for a while if you have a free account, but now Spotify is giving brands the ability to completely customize the sponsored messages that appear in its most popular playlist.
Snapchat is opening up your shared Stories to media partners
Snapchat is opening up public, user-submitted videos to the "Our Stories" feature to its media partners. Soon, the likes of CNN and NBC News will pull from public videos to supplement their own stories. Deadline writes that media companies using Snapchat will likely overlay graphics and text to the videos for context. For example, folks attending a late-season baseball game and adding it to the Our Stories for the game could see their footage in a post from ESPN.
Recommended Reading: Brands are not your friend
Why Comcast Sent Me Pizza Ian Bogost, The Atlantic Brands -- well, #brands may be the more accurate term here -- do all sorts of things that seem like they're rewarding you, dear customer, for some action or loyalty. The Atlantic dives into how these acts of kindness and mountains (literally) of freebies almost always stem from an ulterior motive, especially when social media is part of the equation. Just because Comcast sends you a stack of pizzas, doesn't mean you're best pals.
YouTube still has an ad problem
YouTube's problem with automated ads appearing on extremist channels isn't getting any better. A recent CNN investigation revealed that companies including Adidas, Amazon, Hershey, Netflix and Under Armour -- and even the US government -- had their ads placed on unsavory channels.
After Math: Calls for alarm
While the survivors of the Stoneman Douglas shooting provided the nation with a master class in how to effectively articulate policy reform demands and ruthlessly drag talking heads of the political class, the tech industry had some communication issues of its own. Like the 1,600 911 calls a set of iPhones at a California repair center made, or the Tinder security flaw that enabled account access with only a phone number, or how the FCC is getting sued (again) for trying to roll back Net Neutrality rules. Numbers, because how else are you going to see how savagely the NRA is getting ratioed?
Ads in Instagram Stories are about to get worse
More ads are coming to Instagram. This time, the photo-minded social network is upping the amount brands can put into Stories. Now, instead of one photo or video in an advertiser's Story, there can be up to three. Coca-Cola, movie studio Paramount and Gap clothing are working with the new tools, but the social network says more brands will have the functionality soon enough. If you're trying to get through your friends' Stories quickly, this will probably prove annoying. But, you can always back out to the main feed and tap on each friend to see their evaporating photos and video instead of letting everything auto-play.
EU lets luxury brands block goods from Amazon
Luxury brands in Europe have won the right to block sales of their products online if they feel it damages their image. An EU court ruled that Coty, the owner of brands like Calvin Klein, Covergirl and Chloe, can block its German distributor from using Amazon and other internet retailers. "Such a prohibition is appropriate and does not, in principle, go beyond what is necessary to preserve the luxury image of the goods," the European Court of Justice ruled.
Twitter is the latest to fill your feed with auto-playing video ads
Your Twitter feed is going to get even busier thanks to the microblogging service unlocking auto-playing video ads for advertisers. Starting today Video Website Cards are available to every ad-buyer. In limited beta tests (like the one embedded below; videos don't seem to work with embeds), Twitter has found them pretty successful, with a 200 percent higher clickthrough rate compared to the leading standard. So yeah, expect to see an awful lot more of these coming soon. Just wait until #brands start combining these with 280-character tweets. Suddenly, paying for Tweetbot doesn't seem like a horrible idea.
No one uses Facebook Stories, so now they're available for #brands
Imagine working at Facebook and being the person/people who added Stories to the social network after seeing the way they took off on Snapchat and Instagram. Then think about the fact that hardly anyone is using the feature. That probably explains the reasoning behind opening the section up to Pages. Yep, #brands are getting access to the evaporating, 24-hour shelf-life videos now, too. Maybe Facebook found a group that will actually use them?
Twitter DM buttons let brands help (or sell to) users
If you open a Messaging window with Focus Features' account on Twitter, you'll get greeted by a menu with a few choices to pick from. Those are the platform's new Direct Messaging Buttons, which you can click to perform tasks outside the DM window. A company could bundle a button with a coupon it sends you via DM to give you an easy way to tweet it out to your followers. Some could include buttons that take you to their profiles or to their websites in an effort to lure you into following their accounts or trying out their products. Others can program a button to open a chat conversation with another account more suited to answer your questions for a better customer service experience.
Twitter’s new interactive cards help you slide into brands’ DMs
Twitter has been working hard to find new ways for brands and advertisers to connect with its users, especially since becoming a public company in 2013. Hey, shareholders need to make that money. But while customer service experiences are clearly a major focus for the social network, its latest business feature is more about brands luring you into their DMs with "fun and engaging" promoted tweets. With the new Direct Message Card, advertisers can create up to four customizable actions and pair them with images or videos to, hopefully, get you to click and see their pitch.
Customer service on Twitter now includes location sharing
Twitter is one way to easily get some customer service. A simple tweet can often get a faster response than finding a customer support number or using email. The social network has a new feature to make support even more personal: Brands can now request and share location data with users via direct messages.
Google vows to pull ads from extreme videos and sites
Google has detailed new safeguards to ensure brands don't have their adverts served against extremist content. The measures follow a wave of complaints and advertising withdrawals by the UK government, Audi and L'Oreal, among others, triggered by a Times investigation which revealed a number of adverts being shown alongside harmful and inappropriate videos on YouTube. In a blog post, Google said it would be taking "a tougher stance" and "removing ads more effectively" from content that is attacking people based on their race, religion or gender. It also promised to hire "significant numbers" of new staff to review "questionable content."
Foursquare can log your shopping trip in increasingly scary detail
Foursquare may have fallen off your radar, but it's far from dead -- rather, it has morphed into a business analytics juggernaut, selling its location data and API to businesses like Capital One, Twitter and Microsoft. Now, it's pulling those services into one place with Foursquare Analytics, a Google Analytics-style dashboard that measures foot traffic instead of browsing data. It has launched the service with beta partners Taco Bell, TGI Fridays, H&M, Lowe's and Equinox Fitness.
Uber wants you to give its app a 'Rogue One' makeover
Rogue One is almost upon us, so what better way to scoot around town then in the back of an X-Wing? Okay, so Uber hasn't made a road-worthy starfighter replica. Instead, it's teamed up with Disney for a -- wait for it, and try not to shudder -- brand "activation." In non-advertiser lingo, that means you'll see a new Star Wars card inside the Uber app. Tap "activate" and the cars on the map will turn into Rebellion spaceships. (The hope being, presumably, that you'll pretend you're rolling with Jyn Erso and the gang.) You'll also get the option to watch "never-before-seen curated video content," which probably means a slightly re-cut trailer or featurette.
