Publishings Digital Citizen

Today’s political candidates and issue campaigns are fully integrated into the growing Big Data marketing infrastructure, with more and more companies in this sphere accelerating the pace of research and innovation and promising to transform how political campaigns and elections are conducted. Data management platforms, marketing clouds, and other new data services enable information about one’s finances, health, race, ethnicity, shopping behavior, and geo-location to be combined with political interests, reading habits, and voting records. Social media and digital platforms are facilitating many of these techniques, monetizing and normalizing “fake news,” “dark posts”, and other practices, and challenging fundamental principles such as privacy, data protection, and individual autonomy. It has been widely reported that political Big Data digital micro-targeting played a role in the election of President Trump as well as the Brexit vote in the UK, and is now the subject to growing scrutiny by regulatory authorities. Is the use of such technologies likely to cause harm and undermine the democratic process? What is the link between these technologies and fake news? How do policy frameworks in western democracies compare, in terms of controlling political election campaigns practices? What is the role of data protection legislation in protecting the privacy of voters? And what are the challenges for data protection authorities in addressing how commercial data can be sold or shared with political groups? --- Chair: Paul-Olivier Dehaye, PersonalDataIO (CH) Moderator: Anna Fielder, Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (UK) Speakers: Michael McEvoy, Office for Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia (CA); Irina Vasiliu, DG Justice, European Commission (EU); Jeffrey Chester, Center for Digital Democracy (US); Juhi Kulshrestha, Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research (DE)

The phone and cable lobby will use its new power over the Internet to further erode the privacy rights of Americans. Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon will be entirely free to tap into the data flowing from our mobile devices, PCs, gaming and streaming platforms and set-top boxes. These ISP giants have already built up a formidable (link is external) commercial data gathering and Big Data analytics infrastructure. Now they will expand their gathering of our personal information, inc. financial, health, media use, and also force competitors to share the data they collect. If you want ISPs to give you preferential treatment, content providers will be forced to give up your data, so phone and cable can further expand their ad revenues. Independent and small content companies—including non-commercial and diversely-owned services—will be pressed to consent to terms that favor the digital gatekeepers that control our broadband highway. The FCC’s Net Neutrality decision will trigger a powerful wave of consolidation and deal making that further reduces the range of content and services we should expect in the 21st Century (including for children). We also believe that Google, Facebook and other providers will likely make their peace with the big ISPs, creating a powerful alliance that controls the U.S.’s digital destiny. CDD will be a part of the collaborative work to address this. We urge everyone to also “follow the data” as they examine the digital marketing plans of Verizon, Comcast and AT&T (link is external). There they will find plenty of opportunity to educate the public about our digital future has been placed at great risk.

Haystaq DNA brings predictive analytics to election races up and down the ballot everywhere from presidential to city council elections. Haystaq provides support to political campaigns in need of using voter file data along with custom turnout scors, candidate support, issue scores and fundraising scores to reach voters most efficiently using a myriad of marketing tactics. --- --- For more information, visit http://bit.ly/2yrKQ0u (link is external)

Mobile has fundamentally changed how we live our lives. With our devices never more than an arm’s length away, people can find, watch or buy anything at anytime. That’s why earlier this year we shared (link is external) that we’re developing a new, cloud-based measurement solution for YouTube, designed for a mobile world. Today, we’re announcing the beta for this solution, Ads Data Hub, to help advertisers get more detailed insights from their campaigns across screens while also protecting user privacy. We are also announcing that Ads Data Hub is a solution not just for YouTube, but a tool that offers access to more data and helps unlock actionable insights across Google ad platforms, including the Google Display Network and DoubleClick. And with Ads Data Hub now in beta, we’re expanding who can use it. Built on infrastructure from Google Cloud, including BigQuery (link is external), Ads Data Hub gives advertisers or their preferred measurement partners access to detailed, impression-level data about their media campaigns across devices in a secure, privacy-safe environment. Data from other sources, such as a CRM system or marketing database, can be incorporated as well. With this full view, advertisers or their partners can analyze the data and draw out insights specific to their business. For example, if an e-commerce retailer wants to understand what the path to conversion looks like, they can bring additional online data about their customers into BigQuery, and Ads Data Hub will enable them to combine that data with their ads data so they can see what a typical journey is from first encountering a user until conversion. Consistent with our commitment to privacy (link is external), no user-level data can be removed from the secure Cloud environment. Impression-level data is only accessible for the purposes of analysis and generating insights. In the future, advertisers will be able to act on the insights they get from Ads Data Hub and buy media with greater precision. As an early alpha partner, Omnicom Media Group helped to define the solution and has seen significant value from both the amount of data available through Ads Data Hub and the broad set of analyses and custom queries that are possible. --- For the full blog post, visit http://bit.ly/2yBWYv1 (link is external)

'One by AOL: Politics', a full-scale programmatic solution that inspires voters at the "right time", in the "right context" in an increasingly video and mobile-led world. Use of this platform allows political brands to create, execute and optimize on digital buys to reach voters. --- For more information, visit https://www.onebyaol.com/politics (link is external)

Sanjay Nazerali, Chief Strategist of Carat, a global media market leader in digital media, writes about how YouTube influencers are rewriting the marketing rulebook. Working in strategy at one of the world’s largest media agencies, I’ve witnessed countless pitches about influencer marketing and the growing power of creators. With engaged audiences in the millions and passionate fans hungry for content, YouTube creators are already an established channel for brands looking to run ads. In fact, Carat’s latest analysis suggests online video investment (including YouTube) can be increased by 3X compared to planned level. But increasingly, these influencers are also becoming attractive partners for deeper collaborations. Clients are initially enthusiastic, assuming this is the digital age’s answer to celebrity marketing and endorsement. Then the thorny business questions arise, such as: So what’s it actually doing for my brand? Do I do an endorsement or product placement—or what? Isn’t it just for millennials, beauty brands, and makeup tutorials? These have always been tough questions to answer. Even though almost everyone has been jumping on the influencer bandwagon, few understand what “influence” really is or how it works. Until now. Celebrity marketing and influencer marketing offer fundamentally different benefits for brands. Together with YouTube and Nielsen, my team analyzed the results of hundreds of brand and creator videos in the U.S. and the U.K to understand the impact of influencers for brands. It’s a critical first step in establishing a business-led rulebook for this new world—and it’s already changing how I approach my own plans. 1. Influencers are not the same as celebrities Influencers, however vast their reach, are absolutely not “today’s celebrities,” and celebrity marketing and influencer marketing offer fundamentally different benefits for brands. For instance, we found that celebrities are more effective at driving recall than creators (84% versus 73%). Given that a celebrity’s job is to be famous and memorable, that makes sense. Where YouTube creators really start to gain the upper hand is in deeper brand involvement. Brand familiarity is a good example. If we want to get an audience to really understand us, our work, our values, or our products, then collaborations with YouTube creators are 4X more effective at driving lift in brand familiarity than those with celebrities. When it comes to purchase intent, it’s an even match: our research found that influencers were just as likely as celebrities to drive buying decisions. Influencer marketing appears to play a fundamentally more pragmatic role. Why? My hunch is that it’s because fans feel very connected to the YouTubers they love. The best creators have formed authentic bonds with their fans, which means fans trust what they have to say, and turn to them for brand and product recommendations. 2. It’s not just a ‘beauty’ thing Beauty brands were one of the first to team up with influencers, and creators have established a huge presence among the YouTube beauty community. About 86% of the top 200 beauty videos on YouTube were made by creators rather than professionals or brands. But what’s interesting about our findings is just how far influencers stretch beyond the beauty category. We tested nine additional categories, including auto, alcohol, snacks, and toys. Across all nine categories, working with influencers leads to lifts in brand metrics, from familiarity to affinity to recommendation. In some categories, such as snacks and alcohol, they can have even more impact, driving significantly higher than average purchase intent. So the idea that influencer marketing is purely for young people who are looking at fashion and beauty brands simply isn’t true. 3. The ‘how’ matters as much as the ‘who’ Celebrity marketing has historically focused on endorsement, sponsorship, and product placement. Influencer marketing has developed far more options, and it’s important to understand which of these work best—and for which marketing goals. Deep thematic integrations with creators stand out as driving the highest results for brands. These are more involved integrations where the influencer plays a role in creating a piece of content – such as a demo – with the brand. It’s far deeper than product placement and it works more effectively. While there were many consistencies across categories, we also saw some nuances, which are important for clients to understand. We found that simpler brand integrations, like a product endorsement or just featuring a creator in an ad, also showed positive results for brand affinity in all categories tested. Of course, deep collaborations can be more than some brands are ready for. For some objectives and categories, simply running their own ads on YouTube creator content will still be the easiest and most effective way to tap into the power of these influencers. 4. Don’t lose sight of why people love YouTubers We often assume that the right influencer is either an aspirational version of our target audience or that they’re just like celebrities. Neither of these assumptions is correct, and it’s perhaps here that celebrity and influencer marketing differ the most. Whereas celebrities need to be trendy and stylish, consumers expect creators to be friendly, funny, and, yes, sometimes irreverent. Irreverence is interesting, because it drives credibility. Irreverence strongly suggests independence, and it’s this that builds trust. It can also be incredibly valuable for brands. If a creator usually ridicules things they don’t like, you can be sure that when they praise something, they mean it. Humour is also interesting, because it reflects a sense of community. YouTube helps forge a special relationship between followers and influencers, one that reflects a sense of co-ownership. This familiarity creates a degree of intimacy that makes the use of humour seem much more natural than it would do with celebrities. This is probably also why we see celebrities, such as Dwayne Johnson, increase their influencer scores when they get really active on YouTube. Prioritization and strength of attributes by gen X and gen Y associated with celebrities are different to creators. --- For the full article, visit http://bit.ly/2z6MHng (link is external) Is it Hype? Or is it Real? Decoding the Influence of YouTube Influencers Read more at http://newyork.advertisingweek.com/CALENDAR/-google-seminar-2017-09-26-1... (link is external)