What were some of the top stories from the world of marketing and video? Each week with Render Perfect Productions, your video marketing experts in Baltimore and beyond, we’ll take a look at marketing news this week. In this edition, we are covering some of the top stories from the week of January 31st to February 4th 2022.
Amazon Ad Revenue at $9.7 Billion
- Amazon’s advertising services generated $9.7 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, a 32% year-on-year gain, according to an earnings release. This is the first time the company has broken out the specific financials of advertising sales, which used to be folded under its “other” segment, where they made up the lion’s share.
- For the full year, Amazon saw about $31.15 billion in ad revenue. Much of that activity is directed at sponsored ad placements, where brands pay to have their products appear in desirable spots around Amazon’s e-commerce platform, including search results. But executives emphasized opportunities in video advertising on Fire TV, IMDb TV and Twitch, which are starting to add more premium programming for advertisers.
- Longer-term, the e-commerce giant is trying to round out its tech stack and usability through offerings like its demand-side platform, Amazon DSP. Building out a robust and accessible advertising infrastructure will be important as traditional retail rivals ramp up their efforts to create similar networks.
Twitter Tests New Direct DM Feature from Tweets
Twitter’s looking to facilitate more private message interactions in its app by adding a new DM icon to tweets for some users.
That could be interesting for brands looking to make direct contact with customers in the app, with a more focused option to get them to make contact with your tweets. It could also, as Twitter likely hopes, be a quick way to double-check your friends and their opinions, by sending them a quick, private note on tweets that could be deemed offensive. I mean, you can do that anyway, but this is designed for quicker messaging engagement, which could help to facilitate more private chats.
Facebook User Growth Stagnates
- Meta Platforms’ revenue derived from advertising grew 20% year-on-year in the fourth quarter to hit $36.2 billion, per an earnings release. Profits missed analyst expectations, and the Facebook owner’s stock cratered on a weak forecast for the first quarter of 2022.
- User stats also disappointed. Facebook’s daily active users (DAUs) averaged 1.93 billion in December, a 5% YoY gain. The DAUs for the big blue app were the same as in Q3, meaning the platform didn’t grow in the close of 2021.
- At the same time, Meta continues to feel the impact of Apple privacy changes that have hampered advertising performance and thrown cold water on new formats. Looking forward, executives pinned their optimism on the strength of Reels, a TikTok clone, and a broader vision of building out the metaverse, an initiative that motivated a rebrand to Meta in October.
Snapchat Working on Selfie Drones?
Could we be close to seeing a Snapchat drone on sale in retail stores?
Back in 2017, reports surfaced that Snapchat had sought to acquire Zero Zero Robotics, which makes a range of camera-equipped drone devices, including a compact, foldable selfie-taking drone, designed to take your social media content to another level.
Already, Snap has its own Spectacles camera-enabled glasses which provide an alternative way to capture your experience for uploading to Snap, with these compact drones potentially expanding your expression options, and providing a range of new visual expression tools for Snap users.
Of course, the grander vision for Snap’s camera tools is the integration of full AR functionality for Spectacles, enabling users to overlay their real-world view with the app’s digital effects Lenses. Snap’s still developing that option as well, but selfie drones could be another valuable, interesting Snap feature, and with the company already establishing production and distribution processes for Lenses, it’s not hard to imagine that these could be expanded to include a branded drone hardware offering.
Folgers has a New Jingle?
- Folgers, the coffee brand from J.M. Smucker Co., is out with a new campaign that ditches its iconic “The Best Part of Wakin’ Up” jingle used since the 1980s and replaces it with “Bad Reputation,” a 1980 song by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, according to details shared with Marketing Dive.
- The campaign acknowledges the brand has a reputation as grandma’s coffee and attempts to reposition it for a younger generation interested in premium home-brew coffee. The effort will be deployed across TV, online video, digital display, and streaming audio. A social media extension includes the #DamnRightItsFolgers hashtag.
- In addition to replacing a jingle that has become a widely recognizable piece of advertising, the 170-year-old brand is also playing up a connection to New Orleans, where it claims to be one of the leading employers. Experiential activations are on the horizon as the campaign unfolds in 2022.
About Render Perfect Productions:
Render Perfect has been built from the ground up to service growing businesses and help them realize their full visual storytelling and digital marketing potential. We’ve created a service offering and skill-set that spans video production, post-production, motion graphic design, 3D animation, web development, and video marketing strategy. Our insight and experience allow us to help clients make better planning decisions and get more out of their video production effort.
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