∞

We might have reached peak vertical video:

Have consumers started to cool towards short-form video? That’s certainly one read from Google and Snap results.

If anything this serves as a good reminder to not go all in on one content format based on the platforms’ push du jour (just ask news publishers about social video). Different businesses do different forms of content better than others and different forms work better for different purposes.

Don’t give up on vertical video. But don’t go all in on it either.

∞

I’ve been waiting for streaming to make TV advertising easier and more accessible, Amazon is giving it a shot.

Amazon Ads announced Sponsored TV, a new self-service advertising product that allows all brands that sell on Amazon in the U.S. to reach audiences on streaming TV, including on Amazon Freevee, Twitch and third-party services through Fire TV apps.

More ways Amazon is trying to connect its various platforms and generate more ad revenue.

∞

In R.I.P. Social Media Managers I wrote:

Organic social media for brands is dead. And it has been for a while.

I’m not the only one saying this. A Digiday survey found:

This shift in investment in Facebook and Instagram, along with the decrease in usage and posting frequency on the platforms, is a strong indicator that, overall, agencies are seeing a lack of return on investment when it comes to Meta.

But some might be taking it too far, leaving opportunity for the rest:

Digiday’s surveys also found that far fewer agencies are buying ads on Meta’s platforms this year than last year.

∞

This is my kind of lateral thinking:

Disproving

Based on the idea that the majority is always wrong (as suggested by Henrik Ibsen and by John Kenneth Galbraith), take anything that is obvious and generally accepted as “goes without saying”, question it, take an opposite view, and try to convincingly disprove it.

∞

Podcasts are coming to TV.

This is partly Amazon connecting the dots between existing parts to get more mileage out of content and channels and add more ad slots to the mix.

Partly due to the rise of video in podcasting. (Thanks YouTube!)

And maybe partly due to the Smartless show on (HBO) Max (which might have been embarrassing for Amazon since it’s a Wondery show).