11/29/17: Phone sales break records on Cyber Monday

Good morning. It’s Wednesday November 29, 2017 and this is your your first early morning Digital briefing.

TODAY’S CODEBREAKER

Abandonment: When a user leaves a shopping cart with something in it before completing a transaction, it’s called abandonment.

JUST IN…

After a search engine result glitch was detected that had YouTube autofilling search results with pedophiliac terms, YouTube owner Google worked quickly to remove what it called the “profoundly disturbing” autocomplete result. This comes as YouTube is working to create a more wholesome environment for brands like Mars, Adidas and Deutsche Bank, who suspended advertising over concerns about brand safety, by yanking offensive and inappropriate content. YouTube says it has so far removed 150,000 videos targeted by child predators, as well as ads from nearly 2 million videos and 50,000 channels that were masquerading as family-friendly fare.

Cyber Monday sales on phones hit a single-day record of $1.59 billion, up 39% from last year, according to Adobe Analytics. Overall, sales on Monday reached a record $6.59 billion, up 16.8%. While Cyber Monday shopping during the day used to mean scouring for deals on your work computer, that behavior “is almost completely reversed,” said Taylor Schreiner, director of Adobe Insights, with an increasing number of consumers shopping from their phones while they’re supposed to be working and using their desktops when they get home.

Google’s cheeseburger emoji last month might have been a recipe for disaster – what with the cheese slice on bottom of the burger, not the top – but the situation was rectified with the release of Android 8.1 Developer Beta 2. Social media erupted over the flawed patty last month, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai tweeted that he would “drop everything else we are doing” if people could “agree on the correct way to do this.” Apparently the people like their cheese on the top. Also fixed were the beer emoji (glass not filled to the froth) and cheesy-looking Swiss cheese holes.

Single sign-on technology is helping drive use of TV Everywhere, according to Adobe, with the amount of times pay TV subscribers “start” an authenticated video rising 46% year over year in September, hitting 500 million starts on a mobile or OTT device. Adobe is among the vendors who have developed SSO solutions that let users access content without constantly having to remember those pesky login credentials.

Mobile game The X-Files: Deep State will arrive in February 2018, celebrating the 25^th anniversary of the Fox sci-fi drama. Players will assume the role of an FBI special agent and search for clues, collect evidence and interrogate witnesses to solve the case. Season 11 of the series premieres January 3.

A major flaw was detected in Apple MacOS High Sierra yesterday that allowed a person to log in to a locked device by using the username “root,” no password required. The bug worked even after the computer was restarted. Just hours earlier, Apple’s biggest headache was an iOS 11 bug that autocorrected “it” to “I.T.”

LET’S MAKE A DEAL

Group Nine Media announced it’s raised a $40 million follow-on round in new funding with investments from Discovery Communications, Axel Springer SE and Lerer Hippeau, with the goal of expanding video content across its brands as well as for selected acquisitions. “Group Nine has quickly become a Big Three digital-first media company and, with 5 billion monthly streams, an integral part of Discovery’s strategy to nourish audiences across all screens and services,” said David Zaslav, President and CEO, Discovery Communications. “The company is completely on track, led by a terrific management team, with superfan brands, strong tech and data and a strategic growth plan.”

SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook announced new “proactive detection” artificial intelligence aimed at identifying people at risk of suicide. AI would be used to flag posts to moderators, rather than waiting for reports from users, and when necessary, local first-responders would be contacted. “This is about shaving minutes off at every single step of the process, especially in Facebook Live,” said Guy Rosen, VP of product management.

Instagram introduced a feature called “remixing,” allowing users to add stickers, text and drawings to photos sent via Instagram Direct. “You can remix photos back and forth for a fun visual of your conversation,” said the video sharing network in a blog post. Users can opt to either allow friends to see the messages only once, or replay multiple times.

WhatsApp rolled out an update to its iOS app that lets users play YouTube videos within the app, reports the HindustanTimes. Users can also keep watching video while navigating to another chat.

ADVERTISING

Most marketers aren’t particularly pleased with their use of online video, according to a new survey, “Where Are Brand Marketers Taking Their Video Strategy in 2018?”. Innovid along with Brand Innovators surveyed 140 marketers, and found only 6% described themselves as “innovators” in online video. Reasons for lack of leadership in the space included lack of budget, in-house expertise and prioritization across the organization. Still, 79% of companies said they planned to increase video advertising in 2018. “The results show the lack of widespread understanding of the current state of video, budgetary barriers and the unmet potential that video advertising has to connect with consumers on a one-to-one basis,” said Marc Sternberg, founder of Brand Innovators. “The results also demonstrate the optimism of marketers and the huge potential that video marketing has to really explode in the next couple of years.”

TECH

Samsung is giving people who suffer from color-blindness the chance to see television in a whole new light. The company is making its SeeColors app, which identifies what type of Color Vision Deficiency a person has and adjusts the color dispay, compatible with its QLED TVs. Viewers can download SeeColors on Google Play and the Smart TV App store to take a test to determine their level of CVD.

Sales of VR headsets started off more slowly than some expected, but they’re picking up steam, according to estimates from Canalys. The market researcher said over 1 million units of virtual reality gear from Sony (490,000), Oculus (210,000), HTC (160,000) and others were shipped during 3Q17, the first time that milestone has been topped. “VR adoption in the consumer segment is highly dependent on price, and Oculus’ strategy of lowering price has definitely helped adoption,” said Canalys research analyst Vincent Thielke. After good results of for a summer sale, Oculus permanently dropped its price for the Rift to $399 this month.

PROGRAMMING

Netflix ordered Sex Education from UK’s Eleven Film. The coming of age dramedy, exec produced by Eleven’s Jamie Campbell and Joel Wilson and directed by Ben Taylor (Catastrophe), centers on a social awkward high school virgin who lives with his sex therapist mother.

Season 1 of Trust Me starts streaming exclusively on Hulu Friday, December 1. Doctor Who’s Jodie Whittaker stars in the psychological thriller. Also on deck: season 2 of The Wine Show, season 1 of high-concept thriller Midnight Sun, and season 1 of Denmark’s terrorist drama Below the Surface.

Amazon announced the guest stars on season 2 of The Grand Tour. Keep an eye out for Luke Evans, Kiefer Sutherland, Hugh Bonneville, Kevin Pietersen, Dominic Cooper, Dynamo, Rory McIlroy, Michael Ball, and Alfie Boe.

INFLUENCERS

Julius’ The Influential Top 10: Influencers’ Average Engagement in the past 60 days on Instagram

Food & Drink Influencers, ranked by Instagram engagement:

Influencer/Instagram Engagement

Rosanna Pansino/63.3K
Rosanna hosts a baking show on her Youtube channel called “Nerdy Nummies.”

Tipsy Bartender/63K
Tipsy Bartender shares thorough recipes and tutorials to make a variety of drinks, including cocktails and shots for different seasons.

Hannah Hart/31K
Hannah Hart hosts My Drunk Kitchen on her Youtube channel. She’s known for her comedic take on cooking and passion for food, and now hosts I Hart Food on Food Network.

Rawvana/23.6
Rovana Mendoza (Rawvana) is a health and wellness Youtuber and shares her recipes, fitness routines, vlogs, and healthy lifestyle tips in Spanish and English.

Mamrie Hart/21/6K
Mamrie Hart rose to fame on Youtube with “You Deserve a Drink,” creating original cocktails based on pop culture, holidays, and current events.

Deliciously Ella/20k
Food blogger Deliciously Ella focuses on making it easy to get your “5 a day” and make vegetables cool.

FullyRawKristina/20K
Youtuber FullyRawKristina is known for her raw diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.

How to Cake It/13K
Yolanda Gampp (How to Cake it) creates Youtube videos showing how to bake gigantic, creative cakes.

Binging with Babish/7.8K
Andrew Rhea (Binging with Babish) is a chef and Youtube personality who takes food mentioned onscreen (Rachel’s trifle from Friends, a room service lunch from Mad Men) and creates those recipes.

First We Feast/2.4K
The Youtube channel known for featuring celebrities giving interviews while eating hot wings won the 2014 James Beard Award

Based on Average Engagement (the daily sum of engagements over the past 60 days) on an individual social platform or overall social presence. Julius is a data driven influencer marketing platform.

MEASURING UP

The ListenFirst Television Interest (TVI) Rating (TM) is a standardized measurement of the most buzzed-about TV programs on linear TV and streaming services. A complement to ListenFirst’s other syndicated data products (such as the ListenFirst Digital Audience Rating – TV), the metrics included in the rating capture organic actions that are largely unaffected by paid media. Programs that surface on the TVI leaderboards are the most hashtagged on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, as well as most searched for on Wikipedia (used as a proxy for organic search volume).

Streaming Series (11/20/17 – 11/26/17)

Source: ListenFirst. The TVI Rating aggregates metrics that measure organically generated activity by fans of the TV show. The metric includes total volume of official hashtag mentions on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, along with Wikipedia page views (as a proxy for organic search volume) for a show as a percentage of the total volume of the same activities for all shows.

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Video creation platform VidMob expanded its team with the hires of Stephanie Bohn as Chief Marketing Officer, Joline McGoldrick as Senior Vice President of Data Insights and Research, Greg Lieber as Vice President of Strategy and Partnerships, and Eric McCasline as Director of Creative Operations.

David Kang is leaving as director of Apple News monetization and strategy after just one year. Kang, who joined Apple in 2014, is reportedly moving to a different role in the company.

TRIVIA

On which streaming series does Kathy Baker recur as a Cracker Barrel waitress? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and state.)

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question: This controversial columnist who rose to prominence on The Apprentice just made her exit from the MailOnline website. Who is it? Katie Hopkins. Kudos to: Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station, TX, Susan Nessenbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/NYC, Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA, David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/Burbank

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

With over 30 categories to choose from, we’ve got your covered!

They Cynopsis Social Good Awards

We recognize awareness campaigns in every sector from children’s to sports to disaster-relief and exceptional content in the areas of social good (episodes, PSA’s, Use of VR, etc.) as well as partnerships that have fueled positive change in the communities they serve. View our full list of categories here and reach out to Cathy Pearson at 203.899.8470 with any questions.

VIEW CATEGORIES ENTER BY 12.20

SHORT FORM SPOTLIGHT

Apple just launched a YouTube channel featuring short videos that teach people…how to use their Apple devices. There must be a market for tutorials like “How to take and share a screenshot” – at press time the channel had almost 15,000 subscribers. Check it out here.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Is your team neglecting this rapidly developing marketing tool?

Artificial Intelligence offers a solution to two of the biggest challenges programmers face: getting your content discovered and keeping viewers engaged. Register for Cynopsis’ latest webinar: Using Artificial Intelligence to Capture & Captivate Audiences, and gain the skills you need to reach consumers through A.I.-driven platforms. On December 6 ^th, hear from product marketing experts at IBM Watson Advertising, Scripps Networks Interactive and Mindshare.

David Teich
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