Weekly Digital Breakdown – 10.31.19
Weekly Digital Breakdown
Oct 31
Twitter Votes Against Political Ads
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, announced Wednesday that the platform will refrain from politics moving forward. A new policy will restrict political advertising on Twitter globally. Dorsey went on to say political reach should be earned not bought with granular targeting capabilities via digital advertising. Twitter will continue to evaluate political ad regulations on the platform and plans to share an official policy by November 5th. The ban on political ads will go into effect on November 22nd as to give current advertisers an opportunity to prepare.
We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵
— jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) October 30, 2019
The announcement comes in the wake of scrutiny of Facebook’s handling of fake political ads with misinformation. Some candidates have been intentionally running inaccurate ads to prove the potential danger in allowing misinformation to be distributed. The company has put additional policies in place in an effort to monitor political ads but will not commit to removing those that are deemed inaccurate.
As the electoral season gets closer, the impact of these policies for candidates will no doubt be closely monitored. With political ad spend projected to exceed $2.8 billion, double that of 2016, the ongoing battle between profit and accuracy is sure to continue.
https://www.adweek.com/digital/twitter-will-no-longer-accept-political-ads-says-ceo/?
NBC Makes Shopping Easier
NBCUniversal is making shopping and watching TV even easier with the introduction of Shoppable TV. During unscripted programming, such as live events, ads will appear on the big screen with related products accompanied by a scannable QR code. Smartphone users can scan the code to be directed to a site for purchase. The shopping opportunities are intended to create a less disruptive ad experience for viewers.
The ability to have a complimentary second screen is projected to create a better user experience by eliminating the need to search. Ads will also be limited to one brand per program as to not overwhelm and annoy audiences. When tested, the scannable ads saw a 30% increase in conversions over e-commerce industry benchmarks and 10% higher conversion rates than those on social media.
Many advertisers running on linear television are certainly aware of the power of the second screen. Viewers are simultaneously watching tv while also on their smartphones reading social media posts related to the programming, shopping for products advertisers on commercial breaks, or even searching for a song they heard during the show. For marketers, embracing the extended experience can lead to heightened engagement.
https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/nbcuniversal-rolls-out-shoppable-ad-unit/566011/
Google Expands Search With AI
Google is refining its search capabilities with technology that could significantly improve the process. The search engine would interpret queries more like natural language or sentence format rather than processing requests based on keywords . While many users are accustomed to searching based on short snippets of detail, Google is aiming to create more predictive search results to make usage more conversational.
During testing, AI (artificial intelligence) was utilized to not only process more complex sentence structures, but also use the additional detail to produce more accurate and refined results. The improvements are projected to increase user engagement due to accuracy and comprehension and improve voice search while driving more web traffic.
The new capabilities are still very much a work in progress. However, Google has dedicated experts to the initiative with the hopes of expanding the technology across other products such as Gmail. The use of AI to improve every day activities could further position Google as a global leader in technology.
