Table of contents for October 21, 2019 in Adweek

Twenty-seven years ago, broadcast TV was hemorrhaging audiences to cable. But another, more revolutionary technology was already on the horizon: Telecom companies US West and AT&T had launched the first pay-per-view channels, bringing us closer to dream of watching the movie we want, when we want. Even in 1992, E! Entertainment’s Lee Masters could see the potential for a Blockbuster Video not limited by location and stock: “What can you say about a business that generates $15 billion a year in revenue, and 82% of the customers can’t get their first choice? How big could it be if you could get what you wanted?” We finally know: Look at Netflix. While broadcast networks survived, cable subscriptions are tanking today—and consumers are left with having to subscribe to an ever-growing list…

The coveted checkmark debuted on social media profiles when Twitter introduced its verification process in 2009, but 10 years later, users are still trying to reach an understanding of how the process works for some platforms. The latest flare-up was in September when there was a veritable earthquake in the YouTube community after the platform announced planned changes to its verification process that would have removed checkmarks from a number of previously verified accounts. Following intense blowback, the Google-owned video site reversed course and said previously verified accounts would retain their status. Going forward, though, YouTube said it would rely on a more subjective verification process than simply greenlighting accounts that surpassed 100,000 followers. Instagram and Twitter also have their own approaches to verifying users, but the uncertainty about the…

Jessica Pels, Cosmopolitan’s editor in chief, is a Sagittarius Rising, a Virgo Sun and a Libra Moon. An astrology fan can tell you exactly what kind of leader that makes her: one that is adventurous, strives for perfection and is balanced. That same fan might also note that Pels has given them a lot more material to work with: She began devoting about 10% of the Cosmopolitan print magazine to astrology after she assumed her role exactly a year ago. A greater focus on astrology is just one example of how Pels—Adweek’s Editor of the Year—has revamped the brand after listening to what her readers want, using surveys and watching how they read the publication. Until then, Pels had been the brand’s digital director, following stints at Marie Claire, another…

With competition for viewers only growing, media companies know the only way to survive is to diversify with a spate of new projects and partnerships. Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment is investing in a TV/movie production company to supply original content for its streaming service Crackle. NBC News is doubling down on its already robust stable of 25 podcasts (in addition to its broadcast and online presence) through a partnership with Wondery. As TV revival shows begin to lose steam, networks are discovering a new way to continue beloved stories at the movies, thanks to the success of Downton Abbey at the box office and El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie on Netflix. Not to be left out, iHeartMedia has recruited Will Ferrell to launch a comedy podcast production…

Big tech is slowly pivoting to privacy, whether it wants to or not. Ever since the data manipulation scandals that embroiled the 2016 U.S. presidential election came to light, Silicon Valley’s use of personally identifiable information and its role in the success of household names such as Facebook and Google have become apparent. This has colored public perception, and over the last 18 months, CEOs of these giants have been hauled in front of Congress for public inquisition over how well they protect their audience’s personal data. Such scrutiny—as well as the looming California Consumer Privacy Act, which is set to be enforced on New Year’s Day—has prompted a shift from such players both in their public communications over privacy and—more crucially for advertisers—how they let third parties access swaths…

YouTube Public, active channels will be eligible to apply at the end of October. Channels must include a description and channel icon, and they must prove they represent the entity they claim to. YouTube will also take into consideration other factors, like if the entity is popular outside of YouTube or is well known. Instagram Users requesting verification must provide their full name, what they are known as and the category of their account, and also attach an image of their government-issued identification. Twitter The application process was suspended in March 2018 and has yet to be restored. Twitter is still verifying some accounts, like those that belong to reporters and emerging celebrities. The only unofficial way to pursue verification is to know someone at Twitter.…

Unable to find skin-care products free of problematic ingredients, Tiffany Masterson took matters into her own hands, creating cult-favorite Drunk Elephant. With ease of purchase in mind, the mom of four built an engagement-driven consumer base. Masterson said the brand has been expanding into Asia and will focus on immersive retail experiences. It has bigger backing now—Drunk Elephant was recently acquired by Japanese beauty giant Shiseido for a whopping $845 million. What are you looking forward to as part of this acquisition? I am excited about so many aspects of our partnership with Shiseido. For one, their deep knowledge in global markets and best-in-class organization will enable Drunk Elephant to scale globally and reach consumers that have been asking for the brand. As of September, we’ve expanded into Hong Kong and…

FOR NETFLIX’S CINDY HOLLAND, overseeing original programming at the biggest streaming service in the world wasn’t always part of the plan. Holland, who joined Netflix 17 years ago and is now vp of original content, has seen Netflix through several different phases, arriving when the company was a DVD-by-mail business and helping it evolve into a streaming-centric giant in its ongoing quest to build a massive customer base. “The only thing that wasn’t in our core initial strategy was that we would be in the business of producing original content ourselves,” says Holland. That all changed, of course, when the company began investing in original shows like Orange Is the New Black and House of Cards, both of which premiered in 2013. Six years later, the company is an entertainment…

Don’t call it a comeback. Call it a resurgence, a maturing of a company that’s somehow still defying the expectations of Wall Street, advertisers, marketers and its users. Since we last named Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel our Digital Executive of the Year in 2015, Spiegel and the company he co-founded have undergone vast changes. Among them, Snapchat went through a much-hated redesign, an IPO and a tumble in the market that made people wonder if the platform stood a chance against Facebook. It lost users to Instagram, after the app mimicked many of Snapchat’s most popular features. After the company’s IPO in 2017, Snap shares struggled, hitting a record low of $4.99 on Dec. 21, 2018. But that’s all behind Spiegel and Snap now. The platform’s incredible comeback—it’s once…

Ava DuVernay, who topped Adweek’s Creative 100 List in 2018, has had another breakout year. The acclaimed writer, director and producer in May released When They See Us, a four-part miniseries centered on the case of five black and Latino teenage boys who were wrongfully accused and convicted of rape in 1989. DuVernay’s goal with the project, as she previously told Adweek, was “to give those boys and their families a voice,” and her narrative focuses on the families of the boys over the course of several decades to track the effect of the wrongful convictions on their lives. “This story is so much about humanity against systems, little black and brown boys against the halls of power and how they lost 25 years,” said DuVernay, Adweek’s Game Changer of…

HOTTEST IN SOCIAL MEDIA The Washington Post The Washington Post’s TikTok is a great example of how a media organization can have some fun online without losing its voice or sincerity, or deviate too far from the heart of the hard news that drives a publication—all while potentially reaching a much younger demographic. WaPo’s TikTok account has also grown in response, a 35% increase in followers over the summer. Its videos have seen record views, with up to 1.8 million within 24 hours. —S.J. HOTTEST IN NEWS ProPublica ProPublica’s transformative journalism has been rewarded by record-breaking readership this year. The nonprofit news site saw a 49% increase in monthly visitors to its website and added more than 50,000 newsletter subscribers. What drove this magnificent growth was the site’s deep reporting…

Ghosts and goblins don’t scare the leaders of the Smarties Candy Co. In fact, the trio of execs who run the family-owned business embrace all things Halloween—a holiday they spend at least nine months prepping for and during which they sell millions of the iconic pill-sized, fruit-flavored candies. “It’s our Super Bowl,” said Liz Dee, co-president alongside her sister, Jessica Dee Sawyer, and cousin, Sarah Dee. “It’s by far our biggest sales season.” But what chills them to the bone is the thought of tinkering with the beloved brand their grandfather launched 70 years ago. At 95, founder Edward Dee still shows up at the office nearly every day. And yet the candy honchos started engineering a brand makeover when they took the reins together in 2017, updating the widely…

When George Eastman sold his first Kodak camera in 1888, photography started down the path of becoming accessible to the masses. To promote its products, the Eastman Kodak Co. introduced the Kodak Girl in 1893, a bohemian traveler in a striped dress who embodied the increasing independence women were beginning to enjoy, eventually accompanied by the tagline “Take a Kodak With You.” These days, nobody needs to be reminded to bring along their camera—only it’s not a Kodak anymore, as the company declared bankruptcy in 2012. Ironically, it was a Kodak engineer who invented the digital camera in 1975, the precursor to what’s become arguably the most important feature on smartphones. However, with that lens increasingly being used for video, could the photograph’s days be numbered, too?…

Google’s announcements at this year’s Developer I/O were confirmation that the days of using third-party cookies to target and track ads online are numbered. One of the primary challenges advertisers cited as a result of these changes was the complex issue of frequency capping. However, Google recently unveiled a feature in its programmatic buying toolkit Display and Video 360 that will use AI to better aid frequency capping, using software to analyze aggregate-level data in environments where third-party cookies are available. From here, Google then creates models to predict traffic patterns where they are not. Google will use this model to solve other quandaries such as Chrome users’ demand that their privacy is better respected.…

Online marketing has gone through three distinct phases so far, where innovation and economic upheaval have more or less systematically brought about the end of one era and a shift toward the next. Some think that the age of having everything move entirely online in marketing is already upon us, but I actually beg to differ. I don’t think that the skills required to buy offline and online are yet quite the same, and this will continue to be the case for the next few years to come. One thing is for sure, though. As we look toward the future, there’s a lot we can learn from the (short) history of digital marketing. Where it all began The first era of digital marketing is the period that led up to…

SHOW UP WITH PRESENCE I am officially our chief marketing and communications officer, and in the last year or so, I’ve also taken on learning and development, which is a very big deal at GE. And very recently I became president of our foundation. Those things sound a little eclectic but they actually do knit together really beautifully because they all bring together our reputation, our brand, both internally and externally, and how we show up to our different stakeholders. So it makes all the sense in the world to me. It makes for some busy times, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. EMBRACE THE GOLDEN AGE OF STORYTELLING As we think about opportunities in marketing, it is the golden age of storytelling. Peter Dinklage was right at…

Over the last several months, we asked you, our reader, to weigh in on which ad-tech and mar-tech companies you deemed to be the best of the best across a variety of categories. Last month, we announced the finalists, and now—after three rounds of voting and roughly 50,000 votes—we are happy to reveal the winners in each category. Congratulations to all the honorees, and to all of you, the Adweek community, for participating in our first annual Readers’ Choice: Best of Tech Awards. Thank you to our clients for honoring Moat with Adweek’s Best-of-Tech award as we continue to push beyond brand safety and ad verification. It’s a privilege to be recognized for our commitment to make the internet a safer, more equitable place for advertisers, publishers, agencies, and consumers.…

‘Nothing good ever happens from giving up.’ As a 14-year-old, Jason Snyder created his first commercial software—a system he described as a “party line for computer nerds in the ‘80s.” “I was lucky enough to be born at the right time for the web to happen and at a place to help shape how it would evolve,” he added. Snyder spends most of his free time focused on machine learning and AI “and then kind of the next click out for me is brain-to-computer interfaces (BCI).” He has always been interested in technology. In 1996, Snyder was working as the CTO of an online services guide when a recruiter asked if he’d like to work in advertising. Marketing agency Deutsch had won Ikea on a pitch to build the furniture…