Advertising agencies are responsible for initiating, managing, and implementing paid marketing communications. In addition, some agencies have diversified into other types of marketing communications, including public relations, sales promotion, interactive media, and direct marketing.
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Casino Games and Sports Betting Here
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Here’s how every social media company is adopting subscriptions (TechCrunch)
For the longest time, social media companies have relied on the fact that their service is “free” to use. All these companies banked on showing ads and getting some user data in return to let them use social networks without any charge. Now with declining revenues and tough global economic conditions, social networks are resorting to offering subscriptions in one way or another. These paid plans can unlock features ranging from vanity checkmarks to exclusive stickers to increase reach and more.
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Greg Tingle
TechCrunch's Ivan with an excellent feature article on online based subscriptions. Numerous valid points. The world's financial markets and most companies/firms and people looking more closely at their budget and spend resulted in quite the perfect storm.. Decades ago I heard an example based on tech/software giant, Microsoft (which these days has a stake in LinkedIn) - the "cocaine model" i.e: if you want the really good stuff you have to pay! Get it! There can be free subscriptions as well as paid subscriptions. Then there's licenses - be it 1, 2, 3 or lifetime deals, and so it goes on. Streaming entertainment has also adopted some of the principles, be it Binge, Netflix or YouTube (with or without ads), and so it goes on. Games: X-Box and/or PlayStation did and I understand still are doing some subscription based deals. Salesforce, the CRM system has a subscription/license type offering. At this moment we've got a free of charge news service, with selective promos and advertising online, plus we also help promote others goods and services, including press release services, streaming media services, event promotions, MBS, I.T, branded merch for various companies and much more. It's all about sustainable business models.
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Big Tech groups disclose $10bn in charges from job culls and cost cutting
Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft reveal hefty price tag as they rein in spending
Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft will collectively incur more than $10bn in charges related to mass redundancies, real estate and other cost-saving measures, as the Big Tech companies reveal the hefty price they incur to rein in spending.
The US companies that have been implementing the largest job cuts in the tech sector disclosed the high costs related to their restructuring efforts in earnings statements released this week.
The four groups had previously announced 50,000 job cuts to convince Wall Street they were heading into a “year of efficiency”, as Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg described it. This trend comes after more than a decade of heavy spending in a focus on aggressive top-line growth.
Despite the companies’ high upfront costs such as severance payments, investors appear encouraged by the steps taken.
Since formally announcing their cuts, the companies have together added more than $800bn to their market capitalisations. Meta, the earliest mover among the Big Tech groups, has seen its value almost double since detailing its job cuts in November.
While savings could have been made by implementing more gradual cost reductions, tech companies were being rewarded by the markets for “ripping the band aid off”, said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.
“Big Tech has been spending money like 80s rock stars for the last four to five years,” he said. “It feels like there’s adults in the room now.”
The process to become leaner in the wake of macroeconomic pressure contrasts starkly with the pandemic-era hiring boom, with headcounts increasing rapidly at tech companies that were responding to a rise in demand in digital products and services.
Apple remains the only large tech company that has not announced any job cuts or a cost-cutting programme, despite on Thursday reporting its first decline in quarterly revenues in three and a half years.
According to Layoffs.fyi, a tracker logging instances of tech redundancies, almost 250,000 employees have been let go across the sector since the start of last year.
Some of the most recent, from this past week, include software group Okta, which laid off 300 employees, data analysis company Splunk, with 325, and image-sharing social network Pinterest, which said 150 roles would go.
The deepest cuts have come from the biggest names. In November, Meta announced it would let go 11,000 of its employees, as well as dump office space and data centres.
On Wednesday, the Facebook parent detailed charges of $4.6bn related to restructuring. Severance costs ran to $975mn, according to a company filing, though that cost was offset by “decreases in payroll, bonus and other benefits expenses”. A further $1bn in charges related to reducing office footprint is expected in 2023.
Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy told employees in January the company would eliminate 18,000 roles.
Speaking to investors on Thursday, Amazon’s chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky said $640mn had been spent on severance in the fourth quarter of 2022, as well as an additional $720mn on abandoning real estate, primarily due to pulling back on opening new physical grocery stores. The company did not share further details on charges it might incur in the current quarter and beyond.
Google parent Alphabet, which is laying off 12,000 people, said it expected to incur severance costs ranging from $1.9bn to $2.3bn, with most of the impact in the current quarter. At the high end of that guidance, the cost of severance will work out at approximately $191,000 per employee. Alphabet faces a further $500mn in costs relating to office space reduction in the current quarter, it said.
Despite the cuts, Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat told investors on Thursday the company would continue “hiring in priority areas, with a particular focus on top engineering and technical talent, as well as on the global footprint of our talent”.
Microsoft’s planned savings — which include 10,000 job cuts — has resulted in it incurring a $1.2bn charge in the final three months of 2022, $800mn of which was from severance pay.
Salesforce, which will not report earnings until March, is expected to be another company facing significant restructuring costs, having announced a 10 per cent reduction in its workforce last month. That move came as activist investor Elliott Management took a multibillion-dollar stake in the company, saying it intended to work “constructively with Salesforce to realise the value befitting a company of its stature”.
Likewise, Alphabet has drawn attention from activist Sir Christopher Hohn, of TCI Fund Management, who wrote to chief executive Sundar Pichai, saying he needed to make further headcount cuts and trim “excessive employee compensation”.
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Advertising makes the business world go around
WWE news: Sponsorship revenue nearly tripled that of last year, but much of that came from the more than $1 million paid by Pepsi, which owns the Mountain Dew brand, in sponsoring the Pitched Black match - Dave Meltzer
Musk says Twitter in precarious position, defends cost cuts
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Elon Musk is defending his massive cost-cutting at Twitter as necessary for the social media platform to survive next year, due in part to debt payments tied to his $44 billion takeover of the company.
“This company is like, basically, you’re in a plane that is headed towards the ground at high speed with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work,” Musk told a late-night audience on a Twitter Spaces call Tuesday.
That’s after Elon Musk said earlier on Tuesday that he plans on remaining as Twitter’s CEO until he can find someone willing to replace him in the job.
Musk’s announcement came after millions of Twitter users asked him to step down in an online poll the billionaire himself created and promised to abide by.
“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” Musk tweeted. “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”
Since taking over the San Francisco social media platform in late October, Musk’s run as CEO has been marked by quickly issued rules and policies that have often been withdrawn or changed soon after being made public.
Musk said Tuesday night that he “spent the last five weeks cutting costs like crazy” and trying to build a stronger paid subscription service because otherwise Twitter might be operating with $3 billion in negative cash flow next year. He in part blamed the $12.5 billion in debt tied to his April agreement to buy the company, as well as the Federal Reserve’s recent interest rate hikes.
Some of Musk’s actions have unnerved Twitter advertisers and turned off users. He has laid off more than half of Twitter’s workforce, released contract content moderators and disbanded a council of trust and safety advisors that the company formed in 2016 to address hate speech and other problems on the platform.
The Tesla CEO has also alienated investors at his electric vehicle company over concerns that Twitter is taking too much of his attention, and possibly offending loyal customers.
Even more unnerving for investors, Tesla shares are plummeting.
Shares of Tesla are down 35% since Musk took over Twitter on Oct. 27, costing investors billions. Tesla’s market value was over $1.1 trillion on April 1, the last trading day before Musk disclosed he was buying up Twitter shares. The company has since lost 58% of its value, at a time when rival auto makers are cutting in on Tesla’s dominant share of electric vehicle sales.
Shares fell Wednesday, as they have every day this week.
A single share of Tesla that cost about $400 to start the year, can now be had for less than $140.
Musk sought to defend some of his recent Twitter decisions on the Twitter Spaces call.
“They may seem sometimes spurious or odd or whatever,” Musk said. “It’s because we have an emergency fire drill on our hands. That’s the reason. Not because I’m naturally capricious. Or at least, aspirationally, I’m not naturally capricious.”
Musk, who also helms the SpaceX rocket company, has previously acknowledged how difficult it will be to find someone to take over as Twitter CEO.
Bantering with Twitter followers earlier this week, he said that the person replacing him “must like pain a lot” to run a company that he said has been “in the fast lane to bankruptcy.”
“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk tweeted.
As things stand, Musk would still retain overwhelming influence over platform as its owner. He fired the company’s board of directors soon after taking control.
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5 Keys To Online Success
It is being more commonly understood that the dot.com bust of 2000 was more the result of bad business models and execution than of some intrinsic fault within the Internet. Many businesses with models appropriate to the Internet are alive and thriving.
Perhaps you’re wondering if your own business has what it takes to be successful on the Web? While every situation is different, experts have noted that successful online businesses possess a number of common characteristics. Let’s take a look at five key characteristics that they share.
1. Management possessed a “Net” awareness.
Dun and Bradstreet’s 20th Annual Small business Survey reports that two-thirds of today’s small businesses have Internet access, and approximately 50 percent of those also have a Website. And more than 60 percent of those with Internet access plan to increase their use of the Internet in coming months.
As business owners and decision-makers, you will most certainly benefit by spending time online learning about the Internet. Look at how your competitors and industry are using it, try to discern where your markets potentially hang out, and ask lots of questions.
2. They had an organized plan.
Do you remember the story Alice in Wonderland and the Cheshire cat? One day Alice came to a fork in the road. Looking around, she saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road should I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” the cat replied. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “In that case,” the cat said, “it doesn’t matter which road you take.”
Once you have gotten familiar with the Internet and its potential for your marketing, create a written plan of action. Simply putting your ideas down on paper will help focus your thoughts. Set goals and identify how you can get there.
How important is it to have a plan, or better yet, a written business plan? The Small Business Administration says that most successful companies started with a detailed business plan and those that didn’t plan were far more likely to fail.
3. Successful ventures implemented their creative ideas and then learned from what worked and what didn’t.
Kraft Foods is the largest branded food and beverage company in North America, and the second largest worldwide. Paula Sneed, one of their vice presidents, was a keynote speaker at an Economist Conference. She boiled down the basis for their success down to three simple “ingredients” which I believe are also important to all businesses, no matter what size.
Make smart bets. Kraft identified initiatives that build brand, increase customer loyalty, or cut costs.
Move fast. Once identified, they implemented their initiatives. I think one of the most notable things Sneed said was, “If we’re going to fail let’s fail fast and fail cheap.”
Make course corrections. Kraft expected both success and failure. They made mid-course corrections based on early feedback to improve the likelihood of success. Even failures provided good market feedback they could use for future initiatives.
4. Successful Web ventures did targeted marketing.
As a marketing consultant I find that many small businesses have great difficulty identifying their choice markets. I can’t tell you how many times I ask entrepreneurs what their target markets are, only to be told, “everyone.”
But targeting your marketing to “everyone” doesn’t make sense. Targeting means identifying those potential customers who represent the best prospects for sales and focusing your marketing efforts on them. This is simply the old 80/20 rule (that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers) in practice.
In fact, finding a niche and working to serve its unmet needs is one of the best uses for the Web. Why? Because the Web isn’t really a mass marketing tool, as some would believe. It’s actually a supreme targeted marketing tool.
5. They combined online and offline marketing.
I always hear people making either/or kinds of comments about offline versus online advertising. But successful companies recognized that online and offline advertising are synergistic. They support and amplify one another.
Here are two simple examples. First, including your website URL in all your offline advertising messages (yellow pages, magazine ads, circulars etc) will bring traffic to your website. Second, a signup form on your website that you use to send prospects your standard marketing printed materials (brochures, sales materials etc).
While these five Keys do not guarantee online success, including them in your business will certainly improve your chances for success.
Advertising News Media Blog: Organic Search Results
In Web search engines, organic search results are the query results which are calculated strictly algorithmically, and not affected by advertiser payments. They are distinguished from various kinds of sponsored results, whether they are explicit pay per click advertisements, shopping results, or other results where the search engine is paid either for showing the result, or for clicks on the result.
Background
The Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Petal and Sogou search engines insert advertising on their search results pages. In U.S. law, advertising must be distinguished from organic results. This is done with various differences in background, text, link colors, and/or placement on the page. However, a 2004 survey found that a majority of search engine users could not distinguish the two.
Because so few ordinary users (38% according to Pew Research Center) realized that many of the highest placed "results" on search engine results pages (SERPs) were ads, the search engine optimization industry began to distinguish between ads and natural results.[citation needed] The perspective among general users was that all results were, in fact, "results." So the qualifier "organic" was invented to distinguish non-ad search results from ads. It has been used since at least 2004.
Because the distinction is important (and because the word "organic" has many metaphorical uses) the term is now in widespread use within the search engine optimization and web marketing industry. As of July 2009, the term "organic search" is now commonly used outside the specialist web marketing industry, even used frequently by Google (throughout the Google Analytics site, for instance).
Google claims their users click (organic) search results more often than ads, essentially rebutting the research cited above. A 2012 Google study found that 81% of ad impressions and 66% of ad clicks happen when there is no associated organic search result on the first page. Research has shown that searchers may have a bias against ads, unless the ads are relevant to the searcher's need or intent.
The same report and others going back to 1997 by Pew show that users avoid clicking "results" they know to be ads.
According to a June 2013 study by Chitika, 9 out of 10 searchers don't go beyond Google's first page of organic search results, a claim often cited by the search engine optimization (SEO) industry to justify optimizing websites for organic search. Organic SEO describes the use of certain strategies or tools to elevate a website's content in the "free" search results.
Users can prevent ads in search results and list only organic results by using browser add-ons and plugins. Other browsers may have different tools developed for blocking ads.
Organic search engine optimization is the process of improving web sites' rank in organic search results.
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