Table of contents for Oct-26-15 in Adweek

What do you get when you mix football fans and sci-fi nerds? Through-the-roof ratings, if last week’s world premiere of the latest Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer during ESPN’s Monday Night Football was any indication. The blowout game between the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants averaged 13.9 million viewers, according to Nielsen, which rose to nearly 16 million viewers during halftime when the trailer debuted. The clip made an equally big splash on social media, where it generated more than 17,000 tweets per minute, according to Twitter. Meanwhile, several major theater chains and ticket sellers—including Fandango—saw their websites crash on Monday night after releasing advance tickets for the movie, which hits theaters on Dec. 18.…

CNN is making a play for the urban millennial audience that online players like BuzzFeed, Vox and Vice have been successful at courting with its new online video initiative Great Big Story. GBS hopes to stand out in the crowded digital space with its focus on untold stories in four key verticals: frontiers, planet Earth, flavors and human condition. The videos will primarily be distributed across Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and GBS’ own iOS and Android apps, with over-the-top platforms scheduled for next year. —Tim Baysinger…

Having addressed marketers’ concerns about desktop viewability (ads that are actually seen by consumers) in 2014, the Media Rating Council is now in the hot seat to provide guidance on mobile advertising. In May, the MRC made its first statement on mobile viewability, saying that smartphone-size ads need to be measured differently than desktop ads. Five months later, however, marketers are still waiting for an industry standard for chargeable impressions to buy ads against, even with the MRC’s promise to address the issue by the end of the year. “Mobile viewability is huge—people want it done already, so there is a lot of pressure on all sides to move this forward,” said George Ivie, CEO and executive director of the MRC. “There’s also pressure to do it right. We don’t…

Programmatic advertisers are bullish on the holiday season, as retailers and packaged-goods companies look to hypertarget audiences more than ever. And while major brands have used big data for a while, the strategies are also beginning to benefit smaller retailers around the country, underscoring how automated marketing continues to gain traction. For instance, Hunt’s Photo & Video, an eight-store camera chain based in Massachusetts, has increased its holidays digital ads budget by 25 percent after getting 723,000 ad impressions for only $3,800 during a one-month test it ran with programmatic provider OwnerIQ. Targeting young moms, the merchant is looking to drive foot traffic into its shops by running promos on sites such as Gymboree, Toys “R” Us and Zulily. “It’s already clearly working very well,” said Rich Yagjian, evp at…

We are living in a social world, a reality not lost on marketers. Last week, eMarketer reported 88 percent of all U.S. firms have a presence on at least one social media platform—which explains why the forecaster predicts advertising on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and their social brethren will exceed $29 billion in 2016. As if on cue, Twitter just unveiled native video ads that can be targeted via its MoPub mobile apps network. Here’s what’s changed with social: its targeting abilities, which in recent months have become dramatically more sophisticated. “There are definitely two schools of thought when it comes to the targeting abilities of social networks,” says Tom Edwards, chief digital officer of agency business at Epsilon. “Those who are constantly refining their offerings and enhancing their targeting capabilities…

What’s the first thing you do in the morning? The first thing I do is very analog. I say this brief Jewish prayer, the Modeh Ani: “Thank God, my soul is back, I’m alive again.” Then I [corrupt] my psyche by plunging into social media. I’ll check my email, and then it’s on to the news, which usually involves stumbling to the end of my driveway to get The New York Times, excitedly tearing the bag open and going straight to the arts section. Did you use Twitter before Scandal? I have been a big Twitter guy since 2009. I’m happy to give ultimate credit to Kerry [Washington] and Shonda [Rhimes], but I was definitely part of the charge [to get the cast to live-tweet each episode]. Shonda dubbed me…

Back to the Future Day—Oct. 21, 2015—saw brands featured in the 1989 film take advantage of their 30-year-old product placement deals. Toyota, USA Today, Nike and Pepsi capitalized on nostalgic fans with campaigns showcasing their original integrations. In some cases, brands even produced real versions of their fake products showcased in the film—like Pepsi Perfect and self-lacing Nike sneakers. —Kristina Monllos “I think we’re showing the world we can build brands like a girl.”ALWAYS’ MICHèLE BAETEN AT ADWEEK’S BRAND GENIUS AWARDS, NOTING EIGHT OF THE 12 WINNERS WERE WOMEN.…

In a three-year deal, Google will help power an undisclosed percentage of Yahoo’s search results, search ads and image-search capabilities on desktop and mobile properties. The arrangement is designed to complement Yahoo’s search services that have been both self-facilitated and provided by Microsoft, which remains a partner. Yahoo’s search network only accounted for about 13 percent market share in U.S. desktop searches in August, per comScore, while Google had almost 64 percent. —Christopher Heine…

What’s the latest on crafting mobile viewability guidelines? We’ve been receiving data from mobile practitioners and analyzing it to try to inform the viewability parameters. We’ve received hundreds of millions of impressions from various providers on an anonymous basis. It’s a similar process to what we did with desktop viewability. It’s a very difficult, time-consuming analysis. You need a lot of impressions to do this, and you need fairly accurate record keeping. Will this standard be drastically different from how you’re currently advising marketers to measure mobile? We don’t think it’s going to be drastically different—if anything it might be shorter. What’s a key point of difference between desktop and mobile ad viewability? There’s been a concern—and this is bearing out in the data that we’re seeing—that it takes longer…

Cord cutting is happening; that much is not up for debate. Some 300,000 Americans dropped cable service last quarter, and analysts are calling it good news for providers because the number was just half the amount lost in the second quarter, according to Bloomberg estimates. While reports of the steady stream of households fleeing cable point to an industry in peril, some observers still believe linear TV is here to stay (at least for now). A recent study conducted by Leichtman Research Group found that the percentage of households that subscribe to a pay-TV service of some kind is actually higher in 2015 than it was in 2005. “The misdirection that people take with cord cutting is the idea that there’s been a significant acceleration,” noted Bruce Leichtman, president and…

Why did you leave the agency world for Videology? There were two decisions in that chain for me. About seven years ago I went from being a creative agency CEO to working in a media agency. All of the excitement and innovation in the larger advertising ecosystem was happening in the media agencies. Cut to a year ago, and I made another similar decision. The power of platforms and technology in shaping the future of our media business has been, and will continue to be, really profound. In Videology I found a company that was most aligned with my worldview. Over the next few years there’s going to be a lot of shaking out and consolidation in the world of advertising technology. There are too many players offering narrow solutions…

THE SHAPE The corn kernel shape is a leftover from the early 1900s when candy corn was sold under the name Chicken Feed. THE STRIPES The three-step starch molding process fills the mold with one color at a time, resulting in candy corn’s distinctive striped profile. THE BITE Forty-three percent of candy corn fans bite the white tip off first, 10 percent go for the yellow, and the rest just pop the whole thing in their mouths. THE COLORS Candy corn now comes in a rainbow of colors, but the original fall palette of yellow, orange and white is what pegs the treat to Halloween. WHAT’S INSIDE? Ingredients vary by brand, but most candy corn is sugar and corn syrup, along with confectioner’s glaze, yellow coloring and—no kidding—wax. Corny idea…

#Halloween Wondering which Halloween costumes will be arriving at your front door this year? After analyzing more than 32,000 Instagram posts tagged with #Halloween and breaking down the results by state, retail chain Halloween Express determined that E.T. is the most popular costume so far this year, garnering the most likes in seven states from New Jersey to Alaska. Spider-Man reigned supreme in his home state of New York, while Californians were all about Captain America.…

YouTube has unveiled its long-awaited subscription service, dubbed YouTube Red. The advertising-free option will go live Oct. 28 across mobile phones, tablets, desktops and connected TVs. The service is meant to be an addition to YouTube’s ad-supported free option, and puts the company in competition with SVOD players like Netflix and Amazon. Subscribers will get access to exclusive content featuring some of YouTube’s biggest stars and access to a new version of YouTube Music. —Tim Baysinger…

It’s been nine years since networks and advertisers agreed on the eligibility criteria for C3 and C7 TV ratings, but given the seismic shifts in the industry since then, it feels more like 90 years. In 2006, iPhones, tablets, OTT and connected TV devices like Roku didn’t even exist; networks had just begun to experiment with streaming full episodes online (Hulu and Netflix streaming were still a year away); DVRs resided in less than 10 percent of homes; and YouTube, not yet owned by Google, was in its infancy. But in our modern world of streaming, timeshifting and cord cutting, “more and more, those ratings are not resembling what is actually going on in terms of consumer exposure to those assets,” said Megan Clarken, evp, global watch product leadership for…

Ad blocking has been the dominant topic of conversation across digital media for the last couple of months, and we still don’t seem to have tired talking about it. Is the emergence of ad blockers the introduction of an invasive species or the catalyst for innovation? The truth, it turns out, might not be so binary. In the early days of the Web, the rule for advertising was, “if it moves, it’s interesting.” Flashy banner ads made hard-coded pages more interesting, and getting the “click” became the new standard for measuring ad effectiveness and valuable content. However, soon there were too many flashy spinning boxes on the pages, and consumer interest waned. Then came the pop-up ad. It didn’t live long. See the pattern here? Every good advertising idea that’s…

Apple’s recent flipping of the switch to allow for ad-blocking apps has sent the digital publishing world into a full-blown crisis, as the number of consumers fed up with ads that clutter and slow down websites—and doing something about it—has reached critical mass. While ad blocking has been around for years, it is now top of mind for marketers and publishers as ad blockers experience massive growth. The percentage of those using ad blockers in the U.S. reached 48 percent in the last year, according to a report commissioned by Adobe and conducted by PageFair, which estimates that ad blockers will cost publishers $22 billion this year. (UBS Securities puts the damage at $1 billion.) And with ad-blocking apps routinely among the most popular downloads for Apple’s iPhone, what is…

Gramovox Floating Record Player $399 While CDs are clearly a relic of a bygone era (otherwise known as the 2000s), vinyl is still going strong. According to Nielsen Music, vinyl sales rose 38 percent year over year in the first half of 2015. Record collectors looking to show off their favorite LPs will fall for Gramovox’s new “floating” turntable, which spins 33 or 45 rpm records vertically. Listen through the turntable’s built-in dynamic, full-range stereo speakers, or connect your own speakers for a custom audio setup. Buy it: gramovox.com PHOTO Point and Shoot Polaroid Snap Camera $99 Remember how exciting it was to actually hold a just-printed photograph in your hands? Polaroid’s brand-new Snap camera lets you recapture that nostalgic feeling using decidedly modern technology. The retro-looking camera combines a…

A radio broadcasting and out-of-home advertising company, iHeartMedia is thriving in an era of streaming services and banner ads. The cheekily named company—formerly Clear Channel Communications—knows that the devil is in the details, taking great care to ensure it’s seen as a forward-thinking startup within a 30-year-old company. With that in mind, iHeartMedia chairman and CEO Bob Pittman enlisted his Burning Man buddy, designer Michael Beneville, and A+I architects to design his New York digs that would cater to a 21st century media company. Beneville was eager to deliver. “I wanted to create a design that we could export to hundreds of other iHeartMedia offices across the country,” he said. “The concept should work in a traditional office space, a strip mall, a warehouse—effectively, we bring the cool to any…