1. In 2021, Disney Animation's Thanksgiving offerings provided a hearty feast. Even amid the ongoing pandemic, Encanto opened to $40.1 million over the five-day corridor in 2021. And in 2019, Frozen II earned a $125 million, a Thanksgiving record. But this year's original sci-fi adventure tale Strange World flopped
hard, opening to no more than $30 million over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday corridor—a miserable start. From there, things only got worse. Word-of-mouth was so bad that the movie’s five-day domestic opening came in at $18.9 million, meaning the film could ultimately lose $100 million or more for the studio.
2. If you’re a retailer, it may be tempting to reduce your marketing spend as shoppers spend less due to the cost-of-living
crisis. But this is short-sighted. Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show a 0.5% drop in spending last month, with a 1.6% decrease in food sales. But cutting marketing budgets, as suggested by the new cost-of-living tsar David Buttress, is short-sighted. If you have on and offline sales channels, don’t rely on digital metrics alone. This is one of the most common pitfalls I see when businesses are trying to judge how well their advertising is working. Some audience
behaviors are easy to measure, and they tend to be online behaviors. Whereas offline behavior is always much harder to measure, so it’s tempting to skew your marketing toward what’s easy to execute and justify. But if you lean toward an easy-to-measure customer journey, you can fall into a trap; using only digital metrics often leads to ‘preaching to the converted’ media activation.
3. The Washington Post has debuted a new personalized
feature, Newsprint, that will present a subscriber's most-read news topics, journalists and stories from the past year. The new offering is part of The Post's experimentation with tailoring experiences based on a subscriber's identified interests and engagement. The goal is to "strengthen the relationship" between The Post and its subscribers by showcasing the value that The Post provides and reminding them what they've loved about it most so they remain loyal readers. At the start,
some subscribers will receive an email linking to their personalized "Newsprint," including a summary of their "year in news."
4.Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder of now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and former CEO of Alameda Research, was grilled by an audience at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday. Bankman-Fried said he didn’t “knowingly commingle” customer cryptocurrency assets between FTX, his now-bankrupt crypto exchange, and
Alameda Research, the embattled crypto trading firm he mostly owned. “I didn’t ever try to commit fraud on anyone,” said the FTX co-founder and former CEO at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday. Bankman-Fried, who appeared in front of the New York audience via video, said he believed that FTX US, the U.S. sister company of exchange FTX International “is fully solvent” and that he believes withdrawals could open immediately. “Everyone could be made whole.” FTX US filed for
bankruptcy along with FTX and Alameda Research. As for how his empire collapsed, Bankman-Fried claimed that FTX’s fall was in part due to accounting issues, suggesting that the company’s audited financials presented fake info?
5. Elon Musk is a man who is not afraid to speak his mind.
And on Wednesday, he did just that—by changing his mind.
In a tweet posted
on Wednesday, Musk said that Apple had "never considered" removing Twitter from the App Store, two days after he alleged in a tweet that the iPhone maker was considering such removal. Musk at the time also made other complaints about Apple's fees on in-app purchases and accused Apple of slowing its advertising spending on the social network. "Tim [Cook] was clear that Apple never considered doing so," Musk wrote about Twitter losing its standing in the App Store, characterizing his
reversal as a "misunderstanding." On Wednesday, Musk met with Cook at Apple headquarters, according to Musk's tweets. Online, Musk seemed to strike a conciliatory tone, saying that he had a "good conversation" with Cook.
On Tuesday, Twitter also delayed the relaunch of its Twitter Blue Verified product—which had been scheduled to launch on Friday as an update to its iOS app and needed App
6.In an interview with the New York Times, Mark
Zuckerberg said he still spends the "vast majority" of his time focused on Meta's social media businesses of Facebook and Instagram rather than metaverse investments, disputing the widespread perception that he is mostly focused on building the immersive world of the future. Zuckerberg was speaking in an interview at the New York Times DealBook Summit. In the same vein, the Meta Platforms CEO said roughly 80% of the company's investment spending is devoted to the company's core "family
of apps" business, and a little less than 20% goes towards Reality Labs, which is where spending on AR/VR and the metaverse is focused. Zuckerberg has repeatedly talked about how the metaverse could be the next big computing platform, freeing Meta from its reliance on mobile platforms now controlled by other companies. Meta's investment in AR and VR, aimed at building the metaverse, have come as its social media business has been hurt by competition with ByteDance's TikTok. Meta has responded by
introducing a TikTok-like service in Instagram’s Reels.
In
7.Black Friday, Cyber Monday—whatever they are, they're gone.
And while this year's sales were record-breaking, there are other metrics to consider. According to Tinuiti, Google Search Ads rose in sales and orders 16% year-on-year on Thanksgiving, 19% on Black Friday and then 18% on Cyber Monday. But while orders went up,
the average order value (AOV) saw 5% slower growth than last year, proving shoppers were careful with their spending. Brick and mortar’s back in style: The same report suggests brick-and-mortar search demand is up, with Modern Retail confirming the trend in their own report. 86% of shoppers expect more deals this holiday season, meaning deep discounts could extend towards the end of the year. 59% of Cyber Monday shoppers used mobile to make purchases. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) increased during
Cyber Week as well, with payments through Klarna, Afterpay and similar BNPL providers jumping 85% compared to the week prior. According to experts US shoppers are using BNPL “as a lifeline”
8.Ringless voicemails have always been a thorn in our sides, but now they're also a thorn in the FCC's side. The Federal Communications Commission has determined that these silent voicemails are covered by the same Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)
rules that forbid robocalls without consent. Companies need your permission to leave these junk messages as they're still considered calls, the FCC says. The ruling takes effect today. The finding comes five years after marketers first asked for exemptions to the regulations surrounding ringless voicemails, the FCC says. The requests, from All About the Message and two other petitioners, reportedly drew "overwhelming" negative feedback from public commenters. The Commission added that
it receives "dozens" of complaints about these voicemails each year. FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel proposed extending the TCPA to this spam in February. As with other robocall crackdowns, there's no guarantee the voicemails will stop. Spammers may find alternate avenues to deliver these messages, and the FCC can only do so much to limit spam originating outside. READ FULL POST
9.The CMA is redoubling its efforts to litigate the two based on its 356-page report focusing on anticompetitive findings for mobile operating systems and apps. The report concluded that Google and Apple have an effective duopoly and played a “gatekeeper role” on their respective platforms. Google Chrome and Apple Safari reportedly
dominate the mobile browser market and can be used as a means of controlling content. “Many UK businesses and web developers tell us they feel that they are being held back by restrictions set by Apple and Google,” Sarah Cardell, the CMA’s interim chief executive officer, said in a statement on Tuesday. Apple and Google respond: Both companies were quick to comment on the allegations and the results of the report.
Apple said it will “continue to engage constructively” with
the CMA “to explain how our approach promotes competition and choice while ensuring consumers’ privacy and security are always protected.”
Google’s response was that Android OS “gives people a greater choice of apps and app stores than any other mobile platform"
10. The House of Mouse is taking over, y'all.
Disney has acquired full ownership of video streaming tech company BAMTech,
purchasing a remaining 15% stake from Major League Baseball earlier this month. Disney already held 85% and acquired the rest of BAMTech from MLB in November for $900 million, the company said in an SEC filing. The media company started its acquisition of BAMTech back in 2016 when it purchased a 33% stake. In 2017 Disney shelled out around $1.5 billion for an additional 42% stake. So why is this important? Because BAMTech's technology is what powers Disney's streaming service, which
includes ESPN and ABC content as well as original programming like "Frozen 2" and the upcoming series "The Mandalorian."
