A number of opportunities and challenges lie ahead for those looking to stay on top of social media marketing trends in 2024.

Change is in store for social media in 2024. One of the bigger impacts is likely to come from artificial intelligence, which is poised to further transform the biggest social media platforms and the marketing space more broadly. At a tactical level, generative AI will be an important consideration for marketers because of its impact on how systems operate.

Privacy demands are likely to become an even bigger industry issue in the months ahead, which will be partially driven by AI, tech that is already amplifying ongoing concerns in this area. The death of the cookie could see marketers taking a closer look at Facebook, TikTok and other platforms to bolster their media strategies, helping drive revenue gains for social apps.

As platforms continue to evolve and multiply, establishing a core message that can be used across channels will be key. With new platforms like Threads making waves and more platforms integrating short-form videos, there are a lot of social media marketing trends to keep up with. Knowing how to reach consumers on each platform is an imperative.

Staying ahead of innovation, and knowing when and how to jump on the latest social media marketing trends will be another skill to master in 2024. With all these changes in mind, we have compiled this playbook to help marketers plan their social media strategies going forward.

The post What Social Media Marketers Can Expect in 2024 first appeared on Media Group Online.

The NFL’s house ad was the most effective commercial of all the spots running in Super Bowl LVIII by at least one measure: creative effectiveness, according to an analysis released this morning by advertising creative effectiveness analysis platform Daivid.

Popeye’s “The Wait Is Over” ranked closed behind based on the AI-powered platform’s proprietary creative effectiveness methodology, which tested all of the Super Bowl spots on a panel of nearly 200 Americans.

See the top 10 ranked below based on a score of “10” being most effective.

NFL “Born To Play” Score: 7.45

Popeye’s “The Wait Is Over” Score: 7.29

Uber Eats’ “Don’t Forget” Score: 7.23

CaraVe’s “CeraVe with Michael Cera…Ve” Score: 7.11

Paramount+ “Hail Patrick” Score: 7.10

T-Mobile’s “Audition” Score: 7.07

Mountain Dew’s “Aubrey Plaza Having a Blast” Score: 7.07

T-Mobile’s “That T-Mobile Home Internet Feeling” Score: 7.04

Bud Light’s “Easy Night Out” Score: 7.03

Pringle’s “Mr. P” Score: 7.01

State Farm’s “Like A Good Neighbaaa” Score: 6.93

The post Most Effective Super Bowl Spots, Creatively Speaking first appeared on Media Group Online.

But with CBS controlling the game production this year, virtually every streamer lagged worse than it did in 2023, according to Phenix’s annual study

Paramount Plus delivered the least lag time between the what was happening on the field Sunday in Las Vegas during Super Bowl LVIII and what streamers actually saw on their screen, with latency averaging 42.73 seconds, according to research company Phenix, which annually tracks streaming performance for the big game.

Fubo TV, which was working off CBS’ exclusive live feed of the game, registered the worst score, averaging 86.75 seconds.

Notably, every streamer that also presented the game last year saw an increase in lag time. Here’s how last year’s performances stacked up.

“This is the fifth year we’ve conducted our Super Bowl latency study, and unfortunately nothing has changed — the industry has yet to catch up with consumer demand to provide a real-time experience,” said Roy Reichbach, CEO of Phenix, in a statement.

Phenix didn’t go into specifics as to why scores deteriorated this year. The company did say that broadcast delays were worse Sunday relative to other recent Super Bowls.

“For today’s consumers, live sporting events are riddled with spoilers, especially as we continue to see this new ‘scroll and watch’ habit, getting notifications straight to our phones via apps and social media,” Reichbach added. “For one of the most highly anticipated sporting and cultural moments, and in a world where artificial intelligence is taking reign, there should be no excuse as to why broadcasters aren’t able to stream the game as it is happening on the field in real-time. A solution exists, and the people want it.” –

Daniel Frankel

The post Paramount Plus Wins the ‘Latency Bowl,’ Experiences Only a 42.73-Second Lag Behind the Big Game first appeared on Media Group Online.

The strike really did a number on broadcast and cable TV

Having seen firsthand how the research sausage gets made, Next TV has a lot of respect for Samba TV and the data it pulls from “tens of millions” of smart TV users who have voluntarily, it claims, “opted in” to its data collection panel.

And having been decidedly underwhelmed by the myriad “research” reports that tell us which programming genres are hot in streaming right now, we approached Samba TV’s second-half of 2023 “The State of Viewership” report with a bit of shock and awe. (You can access the whole 43-page kitchen sink here, which we encourage.)

In the interest of brevity — and our own cerebral processing limitation — here are five pages from the report that stood out for us:

The Hollywood Strikes Really Did a Number on Broadcast and Cable TV Usage

It’s interesting that Netflix can acquire the umteenth SVOD window for a 10-year-old Brad Pitt war movie, Fury, from Sony Pictures Entertainment and merchandise the film to deliver 7.3 million streaming hours last week.

Netflix’s top executives were a pivotal negotiators amid the paralyzing, summer-long Hollywood talent guild strikes. But as Fury showed, Netflix can make its tank go, regardless of the supply chain adversity.

The linear broadcast and cable networks? Not so much.

As this Samba TV graphic shows, broadcasters and “cablers” typically get a nice reach bump in the second half of the year, with viewers not only tuning in for football, but the new fall shows.

In the second half of 2023, not only was part of football streaming on Amazon Prime Video on Thursday nights, as well as on YouTube on Sunday, but there were no “fall season” to check out.

Data from Nielsen seems to corroborate Samba TV’s findings. Linear market share didn’t expand like it normally would in the second half of the year.

Also notable to us: Less than 60% Baby Boomers, linear TV’s biggest audience, have a cable or satellite TV subscription right now.

Roku Channel is the No. FAST

Based on Insider Intelligence data, Samba TV ranks Roku Channel as the most popular FAST platform, ahead of Tubi, Pluto TV, Amazon Freevee and Crackle.

Disney Plus Is Now Mostly an Ad-Supported Service

As of October, 53% of signups for Disney Plus were for the service’s ad-supported plan. That figure compares to 39% for Netflix and 22% for Max.

Hulu and Max Experienced the Highest YoY Churn Increase

Amid a competitive market or U.S. subscription streaming, in which every provider raised prices in 2023, Hulu and Max experienced the largest increases in churn.

“Audiences continue to limit the number of services they will subscribe to in order to keep costs down,” Samba TV said in its report. “In fact, about half (46%) of U.S. households watched tow or less services throughout the second half of 2023. Subscription cycling is a way of live, as every platform saw churn increase year-over-year and about half of Gen Z indicating that they plan to cycle through subcriptions with the next six months.”

Political Ads Aren’t Reaching Their Targets

While political ads are reaching 77% of the “Silent Generation,” younger folks, who consumer more connected TV and less linear, aren’t getting the same exposure, Samba TV notes.

Advertising 101 suggests that younger demographic groups are targeted because, well, they are more impressionable and haven’t made their minds up as much.

Understanding these consumption dynamics might be key in an election year, no?

The post How Linear TV Lost Its ‘Bump’ in the Second Half of 2023 … and Other Delights From Samba TV’s ‘State of Viewership’ Report first appeared on Media Group Online.

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Google on Thursday moved into the “Gemini Era” — rebranding its Bard technology to Gemini, a reflection of the company’s advancements in generative artificial intelligence (GAI).

The GAI technology becomes available on the web, in a new Gemini app for Android, and in the Google app on Apple iOS in English in the U.S. There was no mention of whether the technology would become available on TV, smart displays, and speakers.

Sissie Hsiao, vice president and general manager of Gemini experiences and Google Assistant, said the company believes in making AI helpful for everyone, and “this will be one of the most profound ways we will advance our company’s mission.”

The post Google Bard Becomes Gemini With Paid, Free Services first appeared on Media Group Online.

The 100% digital future of TV is on its way. In fact, in many ways, it’s already here.

As a viewer, you enjoy the advantages of connected TV with Disney+, Netflix, Paramount+, and other streaming services.

As an advertiser, you know in your bones that the audience and performance data delivered by CTV will transform advertising — ultimately making your campaigns more targeted and effective than ever before.

At a recent briefing of analysts and investors, Innovid executives and customers explored the rise of digital TV. As you can see in the video clips below, they discussed how the viewership of CTV is expanding, why advertisers are boosting CTV spending, and how the format can help strengthen advertising performance.

Read (and view) on to better understand how CTV is transforming TV and advertising.

CTV Is Changing How Viewers Watch TV

The numbers tell a clear picture of how viewers are flocking to CTV. Between 2019 and 2024, CTV viewership is projected to more than double. Currently, the average adult spends 2 hours and 14 minutes per day viewing subscription OTT. By 2025, 87 percent of U.S. households will have streaming devices, according to a Parks Associates report.

Streaming is also changing how fans watch sports; they are taking in games on platforms such as Paramount+, Peacock, and ESPN+. The day is fast approaching when more streaming platforms will bid for (and win) major sports leagues’ TV rights. As a result, many of the games you want to watch will not be available on linear TV.

Ad Spending on CTV Is Booming

As more viewers move to streaming, advertisers shift budget there, too. Advertisers follow eyeballs. It’s an ironclad phenomenon called the Meeker Gap. Analysts project CTV spending will continue its rapid growth, reaching $40.9 billion in 2027, according to eMarketer.

Additionally, formerly subscription-only services are adding advertising options. Netflix and Prime are just two examples of streamers moving from purely subscription video on demand (SVOD) to also offering advertising video on demand (AVOD).

More than 50% of all U.S. internet users will watch AVOD in 2023. Free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) is also growing. Three streaming services—Local Now, Plex, and Roku—each offer more than 400 channels, according to Variety.

CTV Is Poised to Make Advertising More Effective

CTV and the interactive advertising it enables promise to make campaigns more effective. As TV becomes more digital, it becomes more like the internet, and so advertising on TV now presents more opportunities throughout the marketing funnel and shifts advertising from purely an awareness play to one that generates measurable outcomes.

These advanced creative executions, which can include usage of QR codes, are extremely effective, and Innovid has the data to prove it. For instance, one recent advanced creative effort delivered a 600% lift in consumer engagement.

CTV generates streams of data. With this information, advertisers can assess campaign performance in real-time and optimize just as fast (especially if they’re using Innovid’s new feature, Instant Optimization). Ultimately, CTV enables advertisers to actually put into practice the age-old advertising maxim of the right message to the right audience at the right time.

The Next Generation Isn’t Watching Linear TV — Don’t Get Left Behind

Linear TV has dominated how the world’s leading brands and the globe’s top agencies view advertising. This legacy may be slowing the shift to CTV. So as digital natives like Millennials and Gen Z gain more control of advertising budgets, expect that the momentum toward CTV advertising will only accelerate.

Learn more about how Innovid can prepare you for the future of TV — today. 

The post 100% Digital TV Is Coming. Are You Ready? first appeared on Media Group Online.

With the use of generative AI on the rise, Meta’s working to establish new rules around AI disclosure in its apps, which will not only put more onus on users to declare the use of AI in their content, but also, ideally, implement new systems to detect AI usage, via technical means.

Which is not always going to be possible, as most digital watermarking options are easily subverted. But ideally, Meta’s hoping to enact new industry standards around AI detection, by working in partnership with other providers to improve AI transparency, and establish new working rules to highlight such in-stream.

As explained by Meta:

“We’re building industry-leading tools that can identify invisible markers at scale – specifically, the “AI generated” information in the C2PA and IPTC technical standards – so we can label images from Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Adobe, Midjourney, and Shutterstock as they implement their plans for adding metadata to images created by their tools.”

These technical detection measures will ideally enable Meta, and other platforms, to label content created with generative AI wherever it appears, so that all users are better informed about synthetic content.

That’ll help to reduce the spread of misinformation as a result of AI, though there are limitations on this capacity within the current AI landscape.

“While companies are starting to include signals in their image generators, they haven’t started including them in AI tools that generate audio and video at the same scale, so we can’t yet detect those signals and label this content from other companies. While the industry works towards this capability, we’re adding a feature for people to disclose when they share AI-generated video or audio so we can add a label to it. We’ll require people to use this disclosure and label tool when they post organic content with a photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so.”

Which is a key concern within AI development more broadly, and something that Google, in particular, has repeatedly sounded the alarm about.

While the development of new generative AI tools like ChatGPT are a major leap for the technology, Google’s view is that we should be taking a more cautious approach in releasing such to the public, due to the risk of harm associated with misuse.

Already, we’ve seen generative AI images cause confusion, from more innocent examples like The Pope in a puffer jacket, to more serious, like the aftermath of a fake explosion outside The Pentagon. Unlabeled and unconfirmed, it’s very hard to tell what’s true and what’s not, and while the broader internet has debunked these examples fairly rapidly, you can see how, in certain contexts, like, say, elections, the incentives of both sides could make this more problematic.

Image labeling will improve this, and again, Meta says that it is developing digital watermarking options that will be harder to side-step. But as it also notes, audio and video AI is not detectable as yet.

And we’ve already seen this in use by political campaigns:

Which is why some AI experts have repeatedly raised concerns, and it does seem somewhat problematic that we’re implementing safeguards for such in retrospect, after they’ve been put in the hands of the public.

Surely, as Google suggests, we should be developing these tools and systems first, then looking at deployment.

But as with all technological shifts, most regulation will come in retrospect. Indeed, the U.S. Government has started convening working groups on AI regulation, which has set the wheels in motion on an eventual framework for improved management.

Which will take years, and with a range of important elections being held around the world in 2024, it does seem like the chicken and egg of this situation has been confused.

But we can’t stop progress, because if the U.S. slows down, China won’t, and Western nations could end up falling behind. So we need to push ahead, which will open up all kinds of security loopholes in the coming election period.

And you can bet that AI is going to play a part in the U.S. Presidential race.

Maybe, in future, Meta’s efforts, combined with other tech giants and lawmakers, will facilitate more safeguards, and it is good that critical work is now being done on this front.

But it’s also concerning that we’re trying to re-cork a genie that’s already long been unleashed.

The post Meta Outlines New Approaches to Generative AI Transparency first appeared on Media Group Online.

Pricing for national TV 30-second commercials for this year’s Super Bowl is up 11% from a year ago to $6.47 million, according to Guideline, the ad spend and pricing data measurement company.

Guideline says the $6.47 million price tag (versus $5.83 million in 2023) is the collective perspective across all “currently” booked spots.

The company’s “forward bookings” result reflects media buys across all six major U.S. agency holding companies and leading independent agencies, which has a focus on major national brand advertisers.

It cautions that specific pricing for some thirty-second units may be above or below this level, including “those leveraging legacy rates.”

Guideline also says Super Bowl deal negotiations may also include sponsorship integrations and/or bonus commercial inventory in other programming.

The biggest category in this year’s Super Bowl is food brands. Entertainment marketers held the top position a year ago. Guideline did not go into financial specifics. New growing categories in the big NFL game include prescription drugs, personal care, toys/games, and media.

Looking more broadly, Guideline said national linear TV ad spend for 2023 is down 7% year over year due to the writers and actors strikes that ran several months during the year.

Ad spend against entertainment programming decreased 12%; drama, a 13% decline; reality, down 12%; and comedy, 14% lower.

By contrast, sports TV ad spend for programming/content was up 4%. Looking more granularly: NFL programming ad spend grew 15%; NBA was 17% higher.

In 2022, Guideline was formed through a private equity-backed merger of the two then leaders in advertising spend/pricing data, SQAD and Standard Media Index.

The post Super Bowl Price Soars 11% to $6.47M Per :30 first appeared on Media Group Online.

Does advertising make everything worse? One of the mini-blinds in my living room is starting to show age.

I Googled something, or maybe Amazon heard me mention blinds.

But now there’s an endless stream of ads for blinds. They are all the same. They show me pretty pictures and ask for my email address so a salesperson can reach out to me. Literally the same — no prices, no advice, no unique selling proposition. Just pictures of blinds.

Spending a few days in Washington this week, I couldn’t help but think about how painfully dangerous the impact of social media on children has become. For social media platforms, children — in some cases, very young ones — are little more than the product.

Attending the hearing were two dozen 19- to 23-year-olds wearing shirts reading, “I’m worth more than $270.” The statistic comes from a lawsuit against Meta filed by representatives of 33 states in November, citing a 2018 email from a Facebook employee that put that number on the future profits the company could expect from a young user: “The lifetime value of a 13 y/o teen is roughly $270 per teen.” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) brought up the statistic and the T-shirts while she chastised Zuckerberg during the hearing.

The advocates were from Design it for Us and Young People’s Alliance. “We put the number on the shirts so that he could see that valuing one person’s life at 270 dollars,” YPA’s Ava Smithing told SFGATE.

“Facebook’s products routinely garnered higher growth rates at the expense of content quality and user safety. Features that produced marginal usage increases were disproportionately responsible for spam on WhatsApp, the explosive growth of hate groups, and the spread of false news stories via reshares,” wrote Jeff Horwitz in his new book “Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets.”

“Despite launching a Child Safety Task Force in June, the company hasn’t fixed the problems underlying the issues we identified, such as the pedophilic ‘accounts you should follow’ recommendations to autocomplete suggestions that users look for ‘child pornography links’ in search,” Horwitz continued.

One of Horwitz’s most passionate subjects profiled is Arturo Bejar, who worked for Facebook on two different occasions.

When I talked with Bejar in Washington before the Senate hearing, he was already expecting Mark Zuckerberg to lie on the stand.

After the hearing, I found Bejar standing on the lawn of the Capitol as part of a rally organized by Accountable Tech and Design It For Us.

Said Bejar,  “First and foremost, these deaths are preventable. They have the technology to do it. They have the means to do it. They have the infrastructure. They just don’t have the will.”

When his teenage daughter was sexually harassed on Instagram, Bejar brought his deeply researched concerns to Zuckerberg. Bejar led the Compassion Project inside Facebook, which looked at ways that technology could help support teens in emotional distress and alleviate suicide and bullying.

“It is very straightforward and not difficult for them to reduce the amount of harmful content that teens get exposed to. It is not difficult for them to provide tools to say, ‘hey, I just got something that harassed me, made me uncomfortable,’” Bejar explained.  Zuckerberg “dares to stand today and say, our job is to make the best tools that we can. That was a lie. We don’t allow under-13-year-olds on Instagram. That is a lie.”

Zamaan Qureshi, co-founder of the Design it For Us coalition said, with the Capitol Dome in the background:  “We know that [$270] is what Meta thinks of you and me, as young products out to be exploited — as young products to be squeezed out of every dollar we have to offer. There is a growing, powerful movement of young people demanding a better online future.”

Back on Facebook, I’m watching a steady flow of window blinds fill my newsfeed and thinking of Qureshi and Bejar. Facebook is literally blinding me with ads and selling the privacy and innocence of its young users to people dedicated to doing them harm. Once you see what the company is willing to do, it’s hard to look away.

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