Lab Weekly - 08/11/2023
New Floor 9 episode on the persuasive power of podcasters; plus, the latest news about Disney’s streaming price hikes, 3D content formats, and Lyft ads, along with some must-know stats
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In lieu of our usual weekly write-up, this week we leave the top spot to a brand new episode of our Floor 9 podcast!
Ep. 149: Podcasters: More Persuasive than Influencers
Welcome back to Floor 9. In this episode, we had the honor of having Kara Manatt, EVP of Intelligence Solutions at MAGNA, and Edwin Wong, SVP for Insights & Innovation at Vox Media, to chat about their recent blockbuster research on the persuasive power of podcasters and podcasting’s growing influence. When asked which media figures’ influence matters most, their study found that 75% of listeners say podcast hosts compared to 15% who say social media influencers.
Kara and Edwin shared which podcasts they love most, then dived into the most revelatory findings from their joint study, “Podcasts: A New Era of Influence,” which you can learn more about here.. Some highlights include:
Why podcasters are now more influential than other types of influencers
Why IPG choose to partner with Vox to learn more about podcasts
How podcasters can help listeners with mental health and self-actualization
How brands can harness the persuasive power of podcasters and drive results
In case you missed it…
Decoding The Barbenheimer Phenomenon
The viral Barbenheimer trend revived mass passion for going to the movies, but whether or not this is a one-off depends on whether Hollywood will learn the right lessons from its success.
Threads Is An Overnight Success — Now What?
Some quick follow-up notes on the prospects of Meta’s “Twitter Killer” and Twitter’s responses so fa
Meta Enters The AI Race With An “Open” Approach
What Is LLaMA 2 and what does Meta’s open-source approach mean for the competitive landscape of generative AI
Disney+ Hikes Prices As Sales Sink Across The Company [CNN Business]
The streaming pivot continues as Disney joins the growing list of Hollywood studios raising the prices of their streaming services. Facing a quarterly loss of Disney+ subscribers to the tune of 300,000 customers in the U.S. and Canada, the house of mouse announced plans to raise the prices of its three streaming services, Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, in the U.S.
Most notably, there will be a $3 increase on the monthly subscription for the ad-free tier of both Disney+ and Hulu. Contrast that with the $1 increase on Hulu's ad-supported tier, along with reports on Disney’s plans to crackdown on password sharing (following Netflix’s recent success with that), the push towards higher ARPU (average revenue per user) is clearly the goal here. And Disney is looking to do so on both fronts: raising the price on the premium tiers while nudging price-sensitive subscribers to switch to the ad-supported tier. Since launching the ad-supported version of Disney+ in the U.S. in December 2022, the company has signed up 3.3 million customers for the plan, Disney shared.
Related: Analysts won’t stop suggesting that Apple is buying Disney [9to5Mac]; Disney is ‘actively exploring’ ways to crack down on password sharing [The Verge]
Apple Leads Alliance With Adobe & NVIDIA To Develop Pixar's 3D Standard [The Verge]
Apple is leading a new alliance to promote a standard format for interoperable 3D tools and data. The alliance, named Alliance for OpenUSD, includes top tech companies like Nvidia, Adobe, and Autodesk, and it will focus on driving the “standardization, development, evolution, and growth” of the Universal Scene Description (USD) technology developed by Pixar. Essentially, USD enables interoperability of assets among the applications commonly used in 3D content creation, such as Maya, Houdini, and Autodesk 3ds Max.
Apple’s motivations behind trying to standardize this 3D content format is pretty clear — the company revealed its long-rumored Vision Pro headset in June, which includes the capability to show immersive 3D content. Now it just needs compelling 3D content that would make the $3,499 device worth buying. Standardizing USD would make it a lot easier for developers to create 3D assets and move them across applications to build immersive experiences for everything from VFX and animation to gaming, VR, and the metaverse. The better the 3D creative tools are, the more 3D content that Apple could leverage to sell its new “spatial computing” device.
Other major players in the mixed reality industry, including Unity and Epic Games, have voiced their support for USD. Meanwhile, a battle line is being drawn, as Samsung, Google, and Qualcomm have reportedly teamed up to build a new Mixed-Reality platform, and presumably these competitors won’t be joining the USD alliance any time soon. And It will be interesting to see which side of the battle line that Meta, the maker of Oculus headsets, falls down eventually.
Related: Snapchat is launching a new rewards program for AR Lens creators [TechCrunch]; New AR app turns objects at the Metropolitan Museum into digital gaming accessories [The Arts Newspaper]
Lyft Debuts In-App Ads To Help Brands Reach Riders In Transit [Lyft Media]
Next time when you call a Lyft, expect to see some contextually targeted ads. Just as streaming services are pushing users into ad-supported tiers, so are the ride-sharing apps attempting to monetize the attention their apps garner through ads. Lyft says contextually targeted ads will be served to riders in North America as they match with a driver and throughout their journey, with Audible and Universal Pictures among early brand partners. Lyft has also teamed with Kantar Brand Lift Insights to help advertisers measure metrics like brand awareness and association and purchase intent.
As cars become more connected, the opportunities for auto brands and mobility services to generate additional revenue from targeted ads and subscription services also grow significantly. Both Uber and Luft are facing increasing competition for location-based in-car ads. Uber, which entered the ad business in 2019 via its UberEats app before rolling out ads across its app, said its advertising business could reach $1 billion in revenue by 2024. Lyft is certainly playing catch-up here, but the competitive landscape is bigger than just the two ride-sharing services. Everyone from the auto makers to the big tech companies all wants a piece of the growing in-car media pie.
Related: Uber to start putting ads in its ride-hailing app [The Verge]; Lyft starts charging wait time fees to late passengers [Engadget]; Uber Eats now delivers cannabis in Canada [Engadget]
Research confirms prevailing notions that older Millennials favor streaming TV while Gen Z tends to favor user-generated content. A new survey from InMobi, cited by Fast Company, shows that 61% of the younger generations prefers UGC (i.e. social media content from other users) to other kinds of content, and after that prefers music / podcasts, gaming, then television. Younger Millennials (25-34-years-old) also favored UGC, but television and gaming trailed more closely behind, while 67% of older Millennials (35-44 years-old) favored television out of any other media form.
In its Q2 earning report, Roblox reported 65.5 million average daily active users (DAU), up 25% from a year earlier. Despite the impressive growth in DAU, shares of Roblox fell Wednesday after the company shared results that missed analysts’ expectations — a net loss of $282.8 million for the quarter, reportedly resulting from the company’s aggressive spending to court older users.
Amazon saw its advertising sales up 22% year-over-year in the second quarter to $10.7 billion, a rate of growth that outstripped digital rivals, according to the company’s Q2 earnings statement. Amazon partially attributed the double-digit gain to the implementation of new machine-learning models that it says help brands engage previously unaddressable audiences.
If you find our insights valuable and would like to have a deeper conversation on technology and media innovations, or need to sound smarter in a client meeting or a pitch, please feel free to reach out to our Group Director Josh Mallalieu!
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