Compiled by John Kelly

Friday October 21, 2016

Shoppers are Most Loyal to These Brands

Two online brands and an iconic American designer top a list of retail brands that command the most loyalty among

consumers.

Amazon, Zappos and Ralph Lauren were the top loyalty leaders in the retail segment in the 20th annual Brand Keys Loyalty

Leaders List. The ranking, which is 100% consumer-driven, examined 72 categories and 635 brands. Rounding out the top

five in retail: Sephora and Trader Joe’s.

Across all categories, Google took the #1 spot, followed by Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Facebook.

Of the top 100 brands that make up the ranking, 17 were retail companies, with a number of different sectors—from online to

wholesale club—represented. (See list at end of article.)

“The shifts in loyalty leadership in the retail have been monumental over the past couple of years," said Robert Passikoff,

founder and president, Brand Keys founder and president, "But the retail category is still well-represented this year when it

comes to leading loyalty."

This year, among retail brands the greatest loyalty gains among consumers was for Ralph Lauren. Macy’s, which had

appeared on the 2015 Loyalty Leaders List, failed to make the top 100 this year.

“Loyalty is a leading-indicator of positive consumer behavior toward brands,” Passikoff said. “But it is getting more difficult for

all brands to create the kind of emotional engagement that resonates with consumers’ desires for connection and distinction,

tailored to ever-increasing consumer expectations.”

Here are the 17 brands that make up the top loyalty leaders in retail in the 2016 Brankd Keys survey (the Numbers in

parentheses represent their ranking in the overall list):

1. Amazon (#2)

2. Zappos (#20)

3. Ralph Lauren (#24)

4. Sephora (#26)

5. Trader Joe’s (#37)

6. Sam’s Club (#47)

7. Old Navy (#53)

8. Victoria’s Secret (#58)

9. eBay (#64)

10. Whole Foods (#67)

11. T.J. Maxx (#69)

12. J. Crew (#70)

13. Costco (#77)

14. Forever 21 (#83)

15. Home Depot (#84)

16. GAP (#93)

17. Lowe’s (#99)

http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/shoppers-are-most-loyal-these-brands

Why Black Friday is Losing Prominence During the 2016 Holiday Shopping Season

For retailers, Black Friday has long been seen as the day to shine.

Black Friday has historically been the biggest retail sales day of the year — as the name suggests, it's the one day where

many retailers' financials go from the red into the black for the year. But over the last few years, the shopping holiday has

lost its luster a little bit — and retailers are having to adapt quickly.

For many shoppers, the excitement of standing in long lines before dawn and fighting off other shoppers hungry for

doorbuster deals is wearing off. Retailers are partially to blame for the problem: Each year, they’ve pushed deals earlier and

earlier and migrated their promotions online, which analysts say has eroded Black Friday’s dominance as the single best

day to get shopping deals.

This year, Black Friday will no longer be the biggest sales day of the year, according to a forecast from in-store analytics firm

RetailNext. In fact, Black Friday is expected to be only the third biggest shopping day in overall sales and the second biggest

traffic day for stores during the holiday season: Friday, Dec. 23, and Super Saturday, Dec. 17, are projected to beat Black

Friday for overall sales, while Super Saturday is expected to see more store traffic.

Instead of promotions culminating on Black Friday, “stores have started opening on Thanksgiving Day, which pilfers against

Black Friday because people go to the stores on Thursday,” Shelley Kohan, vice president of retail consulting at RetailNext,

told Retail Dive. Meanwhile, the convergence of digital and physical retail has driven retailers to develop more holistic

omnichannel strategies spanning the entire month of November.

All this adds up to an evolving holiday season, one where retailers might not be able to count on Black Friday as a saving

grace to drive the most sales and traffic. Instead, the 2016 holiday season will challenge retailers to meet the omnichannel

shopper's needs from now right up until the end of December.

Black Friday's promotional creep

Consumers are already in “buy now" mode for the holidays, which puts pressure on retailers to be nimble in turning around

holiday inventory and sustaining product levels over the next several months. With Black Friday promotions starting earlier

and earlier, shoppers have come to expect good deals much sooner.

You need not look far to find an example: Just this week, Overstock.com launched its Black Friday Sneak Peek event, which

began offering doorbuster deals on Tuesday for up to 70% off home goods and other products, and will run through Oct. 27.

In a press release announcing the event, Overstock.com President Saum Noursalehi said he wants to give shoppers the

option "to realize savings sooner and spread out the costs associated with the holidays."

The e-tailer's bargains may be a little ahead of the curve — even overlapping with Halloween promotions — but analysts say

it won't be long before other retailers roll out pre-Black Friday deals.

Many shoppers will take advantage of early promotions. Nearly half (49%) of consumers will cross off their holiday shopping

lists before the end of their Thanksgiving meal, with 27% projected to be done even before Nov. 1, according to a new

survey of 1,000 shoppers conducted by retail and marketing analytics firm Market Track.

The trend toward earlier shopping means retailers need to rethink Black Friday. It's become more than just an individual

sales day — and more of a weekend-long or even month-long event, according to Kohan.

“We’ve seen it with back to school, we’ve see it with Thanksgiving, we’ve see it with Fall and Spring merchandise where

consumers are in this ‘buy now mode,’ and that kind of takes away from consumers feeling the need to rush out all on Black

Friday,” she said. “Of course, they want good deals and good savings, but they are savvy enough today and they are armed

with so much information that they know they don't have to go to the store on Black Friday to reap the best sales of the

month.”

Excluding Black Friday, the next highest sales and traffic day in 2015 was Saturday, Nov. 21, or the Saturday before

Thanksgiving, according to data from RetailNext. While Black Friday may still have some of the best bargains, impatient

shoppers no longer feel the need to wait.

Other holidays are also pushing up promotions, Deborah Weinswig, managing director of Fung Global Retail & Technology,

told Retail Dive. Alibaba's Singles Day, which occurs on Nov. 11, has become an increasingly popular promotional day for

U.S. retailers with an e-commerce presence in China, she said.

Black Friday isn't the end of the holiday deal season

Traditionally, Black Friday has been about brick-and-mortar stores, while Cyber Monday has been reserved for online deals.

But as shoppers exhibit increasingly omnichannel behavior, retailers are blending the two channels in their promotions —

and shoppers are finding they can find great bargains from their homes on any day between Thanksgiving and the Monday

afterward.

“If I’m sitting with my family [on Thanksgiving], I can ask them what they want, so I do think there is a change in the cadence

of the season, the actual relationship of the consumer and how they are consuming,” Weinswig said. “[Shoppers] may want

multiple devices — phone and laptop to check prices, physical ad in another hand. Prices are changing in real time, so you

may get a better deal if you sit at your kitchen table.”

But that’s not to say that the allure of Black Friday is gone — there are still plenty of shoppers who crave the “feel, touch and

taste of the merchandise” and the craze of special deals at early hours. If retailers want to capture more sales on Black

Friday weekend, there’s a huge opportunity to create memorable in-store experiences that can help differentiate a retailer

from simply ordering products online, Weinswig says.

Some analysts aren’t so quick to downplay Black Friday’s importance. Joel Alden, a partner in the Consumer Products &

Retail Practice at consulting firm A.T. Kearney, is confident that the five-day shopping holiday around Black Friday will

continue to be the most important time of the year for retailers.

“Are there other competing days? Absolutely. I still think Black Friday will be among the biggest events of the year, it will be

in the top three,” he said. “Retail needs those events and consumers need them to start the season.”

But looking at individual days, Alden believes weekends in December generally have a better chance at capturing traffic and

sales because of last-minute shoppers. In 2014, 36% of shoppers saved their purchases until the week before Christmas —

and procrastination is a hard habit to break.

“The other thing that is helpful to the December dates is that Christmas is on a Sunday, so they get an extra boost from that

timing,” Alden said.

While the two weekends before Christmas may account for the single biggest sales days for retailers in 2016, Kohan

cautioned that retailers should wait to breathe a sigh of relief because the sales won't be over yet. If retailers can keep up

their momentum, the day after Christmas becomes a “tremendous opportunity” to bring in last-minute sales.

“Retailers have to nail the 26th and the 27th,” she said. “Those are the days of the 'after Christmas' sale.”

http://www.retaildive.com/news/black-friday-losing-prominence-during-2016-holiday-shopping-season/428540/

Cashless Society not Happening Anytime Soon The use of cash remains strong among in-store shoppers. That’s according to a new survey by Cardtronics, in which 89% of consumers report using cash in the past six months to pay for merchandise in a physical store. Cash was followed by debit cards, used by 74% of consumers in the last six months, and credit cards, used by 66% of consumers. Eighteen percent of consumers reported using store mobile apps to pay for something in the last six months, and 17% used a mobile wallet. The “Health of Cash Study” found that consumers are using a variety of payment options in what has become a fragmented payment landscape. It also found that 56% of consumers use cash as frequently as they did one year ago, and 23% are using it even more frequently. Headlines about data breaches may be driving the use of cash. Eighty-three percent of consumers surveyed have concerns about data security and privacy, and 93% believe cash can keep them safe from hackers. In contrast, only 44% think credit cards or debit cards are safe, while 49% think a mobile wallet is safe. When respondents were asked to identify which single form of payment method is "safe to use,” 59% said cash is safe while credit cards, debit cards and digital payments such as a mobile wallet drew 16%, 14%, and 11%, respectively. With 79% of respondents claiming that they can't imagine a world without cash and 83% saying they would miss cash if it went a, the ‘new norm' is not a cashless society, but rather one in which consumers will continue to demand a wide variety of payment options, according to Cardtronics. In other findings: • Millennials are using all the major payment methods more frequently than they did a year ago, except checks. And despite the continued increase in the number of payment options, 67% of millennial digital payment users also still use cash regularly. • In general, 80% of people agree that they use cash for smaller items and other forms of payment for larger, more expensive items. • Convenience store shoppers are almost twice as likely to have used cash in comparison to credit in the past six months, and 33% are more likely to use cash than a debit card. "One of the trend lines that reinforces the important role of cash in the everyday life of consumers is the healthy market share of cash usage at pharmacies, grocery stores and mass merchandisers such as Target and Wal-Mart," said Jonathan Simpson-Dent, chief commercial officer for Cardtronics. "Debit is preferred in these three locations, but cash is neck-and-neck with credit and remains the most commonly used form of payment in brick-and-mortar stores overall." http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/cashless-society-not-happening-anytime-soon

Third Presidential TV Debate Lures 71M Viewers The latest presidential debate shows a slight uptick from the second debate -- but still much lower than the initial contest.

The third debate posted a Nielsen 71.6 million TV viewers across 12 TV networks -- up slightly from 66.5 million in the

second debate and down from 84.0 million in the first debate.

Fox News Channel scored the highest results with 11.26 million viewers. ABC was next with 10.96 million, followed by NBC

at 10.39 million, CBS with 10.12 million, CNN at 8.68 million, and MSNBC with 5.5 million.

The next four networks were Univision with 2.38 million, Telemundo with 1.48 million, Fox Business Network with 714,000

and CNBC with 559,000.

Among key 25-54 TV news viewers, NBC ranked first with 4.47 million viewers, followed by ABC at 4.37 million, CBS with

3.70 million, Fox News at 3.47 million, CNN with 3.45 million, ABC at 3.31 million, CBS with 2.69 million and MSNBC at 1.79

million.

Top networks for younger viewers 18-34 were NBC with 1.69 million; CNN with 1.64 million; ABC with 1.5 million; CBS with

1.3 million; Fox News Channel with 1.12 million; and Fox with 1.06 million.

Nielsen also says there were 53.2 million social media interactions across Facebook and Twitter from 16.9 million people in

the U.S.

Samba TV estimates that 22% of TV viewers did not watch the first two debates, and that 41% of those who watched the

third debate watched both previous debates.

In addition, 54% of those who watched third debate watched the second, and 24% of those who watched the latest debate

watched the first -- but not the second. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/287332/presidential-tv-debate-viewers-lures-71m-viewers.html

Whether Mobile Shoppers Are Fickle or Smart, Holiday Retailers Need to Deal With Their Elusive Ways Holiday shoppers can be pretty fickle, according to Google's retail-based study being released today. Fickle to the point that

76 percent of shoppers change their mind about which brand to purchase thanks to a Google mobile search.

Picture the average consumer, walking into one shop in a mall before staring down at his or her phone for three minutes and

walking out and into another store. Well, maybe that is not fickle at all—just smart. Either way, retailers have to be ready to

convert prospects into customers in real time.

"It's anyone's game today, especially online," said Julie Krueger, retail managing director at Google. "Because shoppers are

choosing the brands that are there and useful in the moment, established brands can't take for granted that their loyal

shoppers will automatically default to shopping with them this year."

Indeed, Krueger and her team last year found that only 50 percent of holiday shoppers were willing to change their minds.

She added, "[Retailers] need to look at the complete omni-channel view of the data."

Here are a few other data points from Google's report, which entails a series of summertime surveys that ranged from 800 to

1,500 participants:

About 25 percent of U.S. mobile video viewers utilized YouTube before purchasing while they were at a store or visiting a

store's website.

In July, mobile searches related to "unique gifts" increased more than 65 percent while mobile searches related to "cool

gifts" jumped 80 percent.

Seventy-six percent of mobile consumers who searched for something nearby visited a related business within a day, and

28 percent of those searches result in them buying an item. http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/whether-mobile-shoppers-are-fickle-or-smart-holiday-retailers-need-deal-their-

elusive-ways-

174130?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=AWK_TodayTech&utm_campaign=Adweek_Newslett

Millennials Upend Traditional Madison Avenue Advertising Practices

According to a new Report from Magisto, traditional marketing leadership teams, infrastructures, budgets and “best

practices” are anchored in a non-digital history where marketers control a singular message through top-down broadcast

advertising. That approach to marketing is teetering on the edge of dangerous precipice, says the report.

The marketing and advertising industry is acutely aware of the challenges of a digital first world, but they are struggling to

adjust, says the report. Millennial business leaders in small to medium sized businesses are redefining the advertising

industry with a streamlined digital-first paradigm for marketing, but there are billions in advertising budgets for legacy

businesses that have become unwieldy and increasingly difficult to deploy. Though, there is a way forward, says the report.

Reid Genauer, Chief Marketing Officer for Magisto, says “… the first step is to acknowledge that large brands and agencies

can no longer depend on the high cost of creative and media as barriers to entry and growth… marketers need to dissect

and adopt the strategies and tactics that are working for small and medium sized business… who approach marketing

through a digitally native lens…”

In order to better understand SMBs current marketing strategies, Magisto surveyed 500 U.S. based small and medium sized

businesses about their digital/mobile marketing strategies and tactics. Key findings in the report continue.

Millennials spend 58% of their marketing budget on digital media; Baby boomers spend only 14% of their marketing budget

on digital media, making millennials 3X more likely than baby boomers to spend the majority of their media budget on digital

advertising

Nearly half 41% of millennials spend the bulk of their marketing budget on mobile media. Less than 10% of baby boomers

rely on the same media

In order to successfully cross the digital divide, says the report, businesses of any size need to put digital and mobile media

at the core of their strategy rather than treating it as an extension. Small and medium sized businesses led by millennials do

just that and are finding scalable and sustainable ways to deploy growing digital media marketing budgets

Millennials at small and medium sized businesses look at the entire customer journey through a unified lens or one

integrated discipline. Unlike more traditional predecessors, millennials drive the entire marketing funnel from awareness,

lead generation, revenue, creation and engagement via digital channels, with a focus on social media, says the report.

Millennials use social media to drive “top of the funnel” marketing objectives, including brand awareness.

68% of millennials depend on social media ads for generating brand awareness; vs. 27% of baby boomers

44% of ALL small and medium sized businesses depend on social media ads for generating brand awareness; vs.

5% of small and medium sized businesses depend on television ads

2% of small and medium sized businesses depend on radio ads

13% of small and medium sized businesses depend on print ads

Millennials use social media to support the entire marketing funnel including conversions and revenue:

60% of millennials depend on social media ads to drive revenue; only 27% of baby boomers do this

41% of ALL small and medium sized businesses depend on social media ads for generating revenue; vs.

3% of small and medium sized businesses depend on television ads

3% of small and medium sized businesses depend on Radio ads

12% of small and medium sized businesses depend on print ads

According to eMarketer, 2017 will be the first year in history that digital media ad spending surpasses television ad

spending. Beyond ad spending, digital marketing and social media have gone from an extension of traditional marketing

strategy to the underpinning of all marketing efforts including, earned, owned and paid media, concludes the report. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/286922/millennials-upend-traditional-madison-avenue-adver.html

IAB Outlines Standard For Dynamic Content Ads – Which Could Spur Programmatic

Creative

The IAB unveiled a dynamic content ad standard that will move forward programmatic creative, which is open for public

comment for the next month.

Instead of churning out ads with dozens of different messages for different channels, advertisers simply define all the

creative components and variations.

Once served, the ads will dynamically assemble to adapt to the user and the page environment. Advertisers can encode ads

for ski and beach vacations, for example, and those ads in turn would assemble differently to mesh with the publisher’s ad

style.

“Having a standard [will] allow us to plumb the programmatic creative side of the business and deliver fully on the promise of

programmatic,” said GroupM Chief Innovation Officer Cary Tilds.

Because the standard will make it easier to customize ads based on the environment and the audience, it should unleash

more creativity in ad delivery.

“You are going to see more creative ads, and more of an appetite to run them because they will be easier to deploy,” said

Alanna Gombert, GM of the IAB Tech Lab.

The standard will also benefit publishers who want to create more native ad experiences.

“There is a rise of nonstandard formats, and an explosion of screens,” Tilds said. “Emerging platforms can have their cake

and eat it too. They can be super creative and have a differentiated product, while still using a standard.”

The standard will fix advertising’s “manufacturing problem,” Tilds said, automating what’s now a manual, labor-intensive

process.

“Deploying complicated creative across multiple sites and multiple platforms is difficult,” Gombert said. The standard makes

that process “repeatable and scalable.”

Personalized, responsive ads also could improve the advertising experience and boost performance. And they will provide

another data feed agencies can use for optimization.

“Our intention [at GroupM] is to ensure we are providing more outcomes [and] deliver strong performance for clients,” Tilds

said. “The only way you do that is with really strong data, which will require a structured system of metadata for creative

components and asset variation.”

While the standard defines ad components, Tilds said it doesn’t limit creativity: “The standard is by no means prescriptive o f

creative approach. We simply want to mark the [ad] components.”

Once implemented, the standard will save time – and headaches. “We are trying to recoup ad ops people’s time and sanity,”

Gombert said.

The dynamic ad standard project came out of another recent IAB standards shift that will help solve for cross-screen

advertising and ad blocking. Both address how to create better internet advertising in an evolving ecosystem, Tilds said. http://adexchanger.com/online-advertising/iab-outlines-standard-dynamic-content-ads-spur-programmatic-

creative/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTVRBd1ltSmxPRFpoWVRNMyIsInQiOiJxSm9MNERaVVZmblhLcTRjZDYwRll2RXdjWHpD

Uber Is Putting Ads on Drones and Having Them Taunt Drivers Stuck in Traffic

Uber is doing huge business in Mexico City, to the point where they feel comfortable using drones to taunt people who aren't

using their service yet.

A recent ad stunt for UberPOOL saw the company fly drones over gridlocked traffic. The drones carried signs saying things

like "Driving by yourself?" and "This is why you can never see the volcanoes." That last one only makes sense if you know

how polluted Mexico City is.

The point is to guilt the reader into carpooling with the UberPOOL. (That won't get you anywhere faster, of course. In fact,

you might wait just a little longer for your ride.)

I'd hesitate to call Uber's global expansion strategy "world domination," but it's not too far from that. After all, their valuation

is based on the promise that they will be the premiere ridesharing app on Earth, and they just gave up on China for now, so

they're courting Latin America—where they've already had some success in Mexico and Brazil—with gusto.

None of that really justifies heckling people with drones, but it's irksome in the same way that an unlicensed cab company

hailing itself as some kind of revolutionary act is irksome, so it's totally on-brand for Uber.

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/uber-putting-ads-drones-and-having-them-taunt-drivers-stuck-traffic-

174136?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=AWK_NewDaily&utm_campaign=Adweek_Newsletter

Report: Nearly a Quarter of News Articles Include Social Media Embeds

Some 23 per cent of news articles contain a social media embed, and 10 per cent of these embeds have either been

modified or removed by their author since the article's publication, shows a report released today by SAM.

Social media curation platform SAM analysed one million web pages using its Report Card tool, focusing on North American

news sites such as New York Daily News, Fox News, Vox, CNN or Forbes, to find out more about the role social media

plays in newsgathering today.

The Report Card is available for free and enables publishers to find out how many social media embeds are currently on

their websites and whether they have broken or they have been edited since publication.

"Social and senior management or mid-level management can't just say that this is not an important part of newsgathering

and that social has no impact on their newsgathering," James Neufeld, founder of SAM, told Journalism.co.uk. "Whether

they're aware of it or not, it's already there, it's been happening."

The report only counted "raw embeds", posts sourced directly from social networks as opposed to using curation tools such

as SAM or Storify.

Twitter is by far the most popular social network to generate embeds for news outlets, representing 59 per cent of all

embeds identified by the report, followed by YouTube with 26 per cent and Instagram with 14 per cent.

"Instagram has a real shot at overcoming YouTube in the next year for total number of embeds. Offering diversity and

briefness with its content, Instagram has set a standard for short, high value media," the SAM team wrote in the report.

Facebook embeds only made up 1 per cent of the total in the pages analysed, and the report noted the social network has

not been proactive in encouraging news organisations to embed Facebook posts, preferring to keep its audience on the

platform instead.

The study also highlighted that 5 per cent of all embeds were broken and another 5 per cent had been edited since

publication.

Journalists and editors who are aware of the possibility of "embed decay" tend to resort to screenshots as an alternative, but

Neufeld pointed out there are multiple ethical grey areas and potential legal issues when doing so.

"You're cutting out the terms of service of social networks and perhaps most damagingly, you're not taking the end users'

privacy into consideration. When you're taking screenshots of their photos or their tweets, you're removing all control from

them."

Neufeld explained that dealing with broken embeds is a complicated task, as publishers are "caught in the cross-fires"

between the social networks' terms of service, the privacy rights of the person who posted the content, and their

considerations for their readers' experience when accessing the stories online.

To monitor the "health" of the social media posts featured on the SAM platform, the team has to keep the interests of all

three parties in mind: the terms of service of social networks, the privacy of the user who posted the content, and the

interests of the publishers.

https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/report-almost-one-in-four-news-articles-include-social-media-embeds/s2/a684313/

Rieder: Developing Models for Digital Local News

The last time I talked to Jim Brady, he was very proud of the way he was adapting to Philadelphia, where he launched the

local digital news operation Billy Penn two years ago.

"I find myself explaining what a jawn is," the New York native and Northern Virginia resident told me, referring to the

Phillyism for "thing."

Now Brady is mastering a whole new lexicon as he starts up The Incline, Billy Penn's new cross-state cousin in Pittsburgh.

Four-and-a-half weeks in, Brady & Co. are searching for the right tone and flavor to reflect the spirit of the former Steel City.

The key: Trial and error.

Sure, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are in the same state. But they are three hundred miles apart. And Pennsylvania, unlike,

say, Texas or Wisconsin, is not a place with much of a sense of state identity.

And for local digital news operations, that distinct sense of place is critically important. That's one of the things that has

made Billy Penn a successful startup.

Make no mistake, The Incline will have plenty of Billy Penn DNA. It will rely on a mix of original reporting and curation of

other news outlets' local content. It will be aimed at Millennials on mobile devices. It will use events both as part of its

revenue strategy and to build strong connections with readers.

But, Brady points out, "The cities are very different. It's not just cut and paste. Don't look like Billy Penn in Pittsburgh."

In building Billy Penn, Brady spent a lot of time in Philadelphia, soaking up the atmosphere, staying in different parts of the

city to learn the terrain. He is taking the same approach in Pittsburgh. And as in Philly, he is relying on local staffers to help

plot the course. The Incline's editor, Lexi Belculfine, came from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and is from the area,

But having staffers from other places is important, too. They sometimes see things that the natives overlook. Of the first four

editorial staffers, two are from the area and two are from elsewhere. One of those outsiders, MJ Slaby, formerly of the

Knoxville News Sentinel, recently wrote a piece exploring the mystery of why this particular Pittsburgh, unlike others across

the country, has an "h": at the end of its name. The mission, Brady says, is stories that "educate and entertain."

So what are the differences between the two Keystone State cities? While Brady says he has learned not to say that

Pittsburgh is in the Midwest, he allows that it has more of a "Rust Belt" vibe and is "less Northeastern" than Philly, meaning

that it's "less direct and blunt." So the voice should be less edgy and more conservative — nicer — than in Philly.

That said, the Pennsylvania cities are not "wildly different," Brady says, nor are the issues, although, he adds, "the

Philadelphia political machine throws out an awful lot of stories." Both sites will focus, for example, on education and

gentrification. Public transportation is less of an emphasis for Pittsburgh, Brady says, while The Incline will do more with tech

since Pittsburgh, unlike Philly, doesn't have a well-established tech site.

He also has learned that Pittsburgh is "a tough city to eat healthy in," noting that the beloved Primanti Bros. caloriefest

comes with French fries on the sandwich.

Local digital journalism has proven quite a challenge, and successful business strategies have proven elusive. There have

been any number of high-profile flameouts. And many sites survive through the herculean, round-the-clock labors of one or

two people, which is not necessarily sustainable. Brady is a veteran of a number of high-profile digital journalism gigs; he

initially financed Billy Penn with his and his wife's money because he was tired of the frustrations that come with working for

other people. (Gannett, which owns USA TODAY, has since invested in Billy Penn and The Incline parent company Spirited

Media.)

Brady, who jokes that his business model is "low overhead," has relied on a mix of advertising, events and fundraising to

finance his operations. He says he made a mistake in Philly by not hiring an ad salesperson at the outset, opting to build an

audience first. In Pittsburgh, he made sure a salesperson was in harness from the get-go.

The digital entrepreneur says Billy Penn is now tantalizingly close to being in the black, and probably would be if he had had

that salesperson in place from the start. Last year, events accounted for 86% of Billy Penn's revenue. This year that figure is

likely to be 65% as traffic and ad revenue have increased. The operation proved its news chops with its coverage of a major

Amtrak crash in Philadelphia in 2015, earning the fledgling news outlet a finalist nod from the Online News Association.

Brady has experienced firsthand the pitfalls of absorbing the mores and learning the lingo of new venues. In Philly, he made

the "rookie mistake" of referring to "14th Street." Unfortunately, the thoroughfare between and parallel to 15th and 13th is

called "Broad Street." In Pittsburgh, he has been called out for incorrectly using "yinz," Pittsburghese for "youse": or "y'all."

Hopefully the hard-core Jets fan is mastering the pronunciation of "Stillers."

Regardless, Brady is undaunted — once The Incline is on track, he wants to take on another city, with Baltimore and

Chicago looming as possibilities.

"I'm having a blast," he says. "I can't imagine doing anything else but this."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/rieder/2016/10/19/rieder-developing-models-digital-local-

news/92407306/?mc_cid=bbfda4ce42&mc_eid=43c6a6c187Mcclatchy

Jeff Bezos Isn't Convinced That the Washington Post Can Survive on Payment Services

Jeff Bezos, Amazon chief and owner of the Washington Post, isn't sure that services like paywalls and tiered subscriptions

can work for publishers.

During a wide-ranging panel at Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit, Bezos talked about how he works with the

Washington Post staff, as well as the tech giant's recent move into artificial intelligence and his thoughts on the president ial

election. One of the most interesting nuggets in the conversation came out when Bezos talked about how the Washington

Post plans to make money in the future. Despite running arguably the world's biggest ecommerce company, asking

consumers to pay for content isn't a model that he's totally sold on.

"These things can change, but I don't see evidence yet that consumers are amenable to those kinds of micro-payments,"

Bezos told a packed room. "In the early days of music subscription services, consumers were not amenable to music

subscriptions—they didn't want that, they wanted to buy it a la carte. Habits and behaviors and patterns of consumers do

change slowly over time—maybe one day they will pay."

Bezos also said that he wants to move the Post from "making a relatively large amount of money per reader, having a

relatively small number of readers—that was the traditional Post model for decades, [a] very successful model by the way,"

to, "a model where we make a very small amount of money per reader on a much, much larger number of readers."

Whether Bezos' vision means reducing the paper's ad load or changing new ad formats isn't clear, but he said that he thinks

it will include a mixture of both ads and subscriptions. Over the past year, the Washington Post has experimented with a

number of new ad products that seemingly fit the bill for Bezos' mandate. In May, the paper rolled out ads that have faster

load times, for example. And last month, it started rolling out a mobile website that promises to load pages in less than a

second.

In terms of his surprising move to get into the media business three years ago when he acquired the Washington Post, "I did

zero due diligence," Bezos said. "I did not negotiate, I accepted the asking price. It couldn't have happened that way except

for the person that I was dealing with was Don Graham, who I've known for 15 years and was the most honorable person."

According to Bezos, Graham—the then-owner of the paper—laid out every single problem as well as every great quality

when making the deal. "I've owned the paper for a couple of years now and if anything, the warts are not as bad as he made

them out to be and the things that are great about the Post are stronger than he made them out to be," he said.

He also compared the culture of the Post as, "swashbuckling, but they're like professional swashbucklers."

That said, Bezos is purposely hands-off with the paper's team. "This is a highly professionalized activity [and] we have

people who have decades of experience doing it. I try to help at a much higher level than, 'should we cover this story or that

story.'"

Artificial learning

Bezos talked a bit about Echo's artificial intelligence technology that uses deep learning to learn more about users' speech

patterns, music preferences and more.

"The fact that it's always on, the fact that you can talk to it in an actual way removes a lot of barriers, a lot of friction—it's

easier than taking your phone out of your pocket," Bezos said.

In one example of how AI is affecting bigger industries—like the food and grocery space—Bezos said that Amazon is using

technology to grade the quality of strawberries for consumers who buy groceries through its Amazon Fresh program.

Lastly, Bezos briefly spoke about the presidential election, slamming Republican candidate Donald Trump, particularly for

how he has handled being covered negatively by the press.

"One of the things that makes this country as amazing as it is, is that we are allowed to criticize and scrutinize our elective

leaders," he said. "The appropriate thing for a presidential candidate to do is to say, 'I am running for the highest office in the

most important country in the world. Please scrutinize me.' That's not what we've seen."

Last week, a report came out that tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel donated $1.25 million to Trump. Thiel is a member on

Facebook's board, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg later defended him. When asked if he would do the same if Thiel was on his

board, Bezos had a blunt message for Thiel.

"Peter Thiel is a contrarian. And you have to remember: Contrarians are usually wrong." http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/jeff-bezos-isnt-convinced-washington-post-can-survive-payment-services-174171

Plummeting Newspaper Ad Revenue Sparks New Wave of Changes

Newspapers are suffering an accelerating drop in print advertising, a market that already was under stress, forcing some

publishers to consider significant cost cuts and dramatic changes to their print and digital products.

Global spending on newspaper print ads is expected to decline 8.7% to $52.6 billion in 2016, according to estimates from

GroupM, the ad-buying firm owned by WPP PLC. That would be the biggest drop since the recession, when world-wide

spending plummeted 13.7% in 2009.

That decline is hitting every major publisher, increasing pressure on them to boost digital-revenue streams even faster to

make up for lost revenue and, in some cases, even reconsider the format of their print products and the types of content

they publish.

Many newspapers have trimmed costs to cope with the worse-than-expected revenue decline. The New York Times Co. and

Wall Street Journal-owner News Corp, likely have further head-count reductions on the way, and the Guardian and the

U.K.’s Daily Mail recently eliminated jobs. Analysts such as Jefferies & Co. have pared back their third-quarter estimates for

publishers including the Times and Gannett Co.

“We operate in a time of rapidly changing market conditions, especially in the world of print advertising,” Gerard Baker,

editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, wrote Wednesday in a memo to employees. “These are days of accelerating

change in the newspaper business.”

In light of the steep downturn, the Journal this week announced a coming revamp of its print editions that will include the

consolidation of sections and other cost reductions, moves designed to make the print newspaper more sustainable for the

long haul and help accelerate the newsroom’s digital transformation. Meanwhile, the Times has been working on a strategy

to significantly boost digital revenue by 2020, including shifting more resources into digital initiatives and looking at ways to

revamp things such as its Metro section.

“It’s definitely been a hard year for print in the first half,” said Meredith Kopit Levien, chief revenue officer at the New York

Times.

Newspapers have been in a race against time to grow their digital revenues to make up for the collapse of print advertising.

They have made strides, but face challenges on that front, including the dominance of Facebook and Google in the digital

market and difficulty making money on mobile products.

During the past decade, marketers have fled newspapers for a variety of reasons, including declining circulation, aging

readership and the need to fund their digital initiatives.

Other factors more recently have come into play, including the growing use of data and analytics in the media-planning

process. Moreover, advertisers aggressively are pushing into online video, and marketers in sectors such as retail, financial

services and telecommunications are reducing print spending.

“There’s been acceleration in the downturn this year” in print advertising, said John Ridding, chief executive officer of the

Financial Times. “That is partly structural towards digital and mobile and the major platforms, such as Facebook and

Google.”

The newspaper print-ad outlook is a worrisome prediction given that the overall global ad market is expected to grow 4% this

year to $529.1 billion, with a 14% acceleration in digital-ad spending, according to GroupM. Newspapers, however, aren’t

alone in seeing ad dollars dry up. Global magazine ad spending is expected to decline 2.9% this year, estimates GroupM.

To help bolster digital dollars, many publishers slowly are abandoning low-rent display ads and pushing into potentially more

lucrative ad offerings such as native ads, video ads and virtual reality. But so far, digital ad revenues aren’t growing fast

enough to offset declines in print, particularly because ads in newspapers remain relatively expensive.

Although prices vary widely, the average CPM, which is the cost for reaching a thousand people, for a full-page ad in a

national newspaper is roughly $100. Meanwhile, the average CPM for a broadcast TV ad in prime time that reaches 25- to

54-year-olds is roughly $37, according to several ad buyers.

That means that when an advertiser weighs the performance of print ads against their cost, print doesn’t appear as efficient

as other media when ranking return on investment, said David Murphy, chief executive officer of Novus Media, an ad-buying

firm owned by ad giant Omnicom Group Inc.

Using data and analytics in the media-planning process “is being leveraged by more and more national advertisers and

retailers, and that is a recent phenomenon,” Mr. Murphy said.

Jefferies analyst John Janedis has forecast an even more difficult calendar third quarter. Last month he lowered his

estimates for the New York Times, predicting a 17% drop in print-ad sales, worse than his earlier projection of 14%. For

Gannett and News Corp, he estimates combined print and digital ad revenues will decline 12.5% and 7%, respectively. The

companies declined to comment.

In response to the print decline, the Journal may further reduce head count, according to people familiar with the matter.

It isn’t alone. The New York Times said further downsizing is expected in the newsroom early next year. Emphasizing the

importance of digital, the Times this week named A.G. Sulzberger—who has focused on the newsroom’s digital

transformation—as deputy publisher, putting him in line to become the next publisher.

In the U.K., Daily Mail & General Trust, the owner of the Daily Mail, said it was cutting more than 400 jobs last month in

response to a tough ad market. Guardian Media Group, which publishes the Guardian and the Observer, slashed about 250

positions earlier this year.

“Newspapers are a tough place to be right now,” said Stephen Daintith, chief financial officer of Daily Mail & General Trust.

“The decline in the U.K. has been even more severe over the last 12 months.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/plummeting-newspaper-ad-revenue-sparks-new-wave-of-changes-1476955801?mod=yahoo_hs

Cribb Green Cope Publishe Confidence Survey Fall 2016

Responses to the Fall 2016 Publisher Confidence Survey indicate publishers continue to be encouraged about the short

term future, but are not as confident as they were a year ago. One hundred and twenty-five newspaper

publishers/executives completed the 2016 Survey with 64% of respondents owning daily or daily/weekly newspapers and

36% owning primarily weekly publications.

Sixty percent of respondents continue to be interested in buying a newspaper and 65% might-or-would recommend their

children seek a newspaper career, however both of these categories are down from 2015. In 2015, 75% said they might or

would suggest newspapers as a career.

The percentage of publishers who think their local economy is improving is 36%, which is down from 40% in 2015 and from

50% in 2014. Nearly half (49%) feel their local economy is staying about the same.

Publishers who feel their profit will be up next year dropped to 41% compared with 48% in 2015 and 51% in 2014. The

target for digital advertising as a percentage of total advertising has increased, with 49% of respondents saying they want to

have 0%-10% of advertising in digital, and 41% saying they look for 10% to 20%.

The conclusion for this year’s Survey is that publishers remain confident about future performance - but are not as confident

as they were last year. Although difficult to quantify, the presidential election upheaval may be a factor in reducing

confidence levels. http://www.cribb.com/release/2016/10-14-publisher-confidence-survey-2016.html

http://www.retailprintmedia.com