Week in Review: Facebook Gets Lots of Bad Press, Shrugs; HBO Hits Some Rough Waters, Can Westworld Save Them?
- Facebook Gets Lots of Bad Press, Shrugs
It seems Facebook can’t do much of anything right these days.They can’t count—in light of the “View-gate” scandal, everyone seems to be noticing that (a) Facebook reports their own views and (b) those video views are based on a decidedly specious metric that counts a three-second glance at a video in a scrolling news feed (with the sound off) as a “view.”Then there’s the whole fake news thing, where every newspaper columnist in America seems to be blaming Mrs. Clinton’s defeat on the spread of “fake news” on Facebook, while media columnists are all calling for them to accept their role as an actual news source.So are advertisers abandoning Facebook, given all the negative publicity?Not a chance. Why It Matters Facebook is fortunate in that it has no real competition. With 1.8 billion subscribers across all ages and demographics, it’s the elephant in every room. There’s also Facebook’s primary ad unit, the dark post. “Dark posts” look like Facebook posts but don’t show up on the brand’s own page. That allows them to be hyper-targeted, so that multiple versions of the same offer or brand message can be sent out to different audiences.To it’s credit, Facebook does seem to be responding. While dismissing the notion that fake news influenced the election as “crazy” and claiming that only 1% of the news on the site was fake, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did promise to crack down on fake news.That may be easier said than done, because not all fake news is obviously fake and because it’s easy for the people who run those sites to set up new sites that sprinkle actual news in with fake news in a way that does not set off fake news detectors. In addition, the danger of accidentally flagging real news as fake is very, well, real.On the measurement front, Facebook also seems to be taking steps to get its house in order. This includes forming an internal “measurement council” and providing more third-party data verification for advertisers. What You Need To Do About ItThere’s not much you can do. Facebook seems to have been sufficiently chastised and is working to fix the problems. As an advertiser, whether you’re a brand, a network or an MVPD, you can try to push back on Facebook to get concessions due to faulty measurement, but don’t fall on your sword about it. Cutting back on Facebook would just be biting off your nose to spite your face. There’s no better way to reach very targeted audiences with ads that are not overly interruptive. Facebook is also a great way to see results: what actions did users take after seeing your ads, which program clip drove more tune-in.
- HBO Hits Some Rough Waters, Can Westworld Save Them?
It’s been something of a mantra over the past year that Netflix wants to become HBO. They’ve been creating their own original programming. Striking carriage deals with MVPDs. And winning awards.That couldn’t come at a worse time for HBO, where the inability to come up with a consistent content strategy meant that much money was spent on shows that either went nowhere (David Fincher’s Videosynchrazy), died after the first season (the Duplass brothers’ Togetherness) or just flat-out got cancelled (Bill Simmons “Any Given Wednesday”.)HBO Now, the networks standalone OTT service only has an estimated one million subscribers (versus around 33 million who subscribe via their MVPDs) and at $15/month (versus $10 for Netflix) is subject to churn rates that some claim are as high as 50%. Why It Matters HBO has been here before. After the Sopranos went off the air and Showtime had a big hit with Homeland, many people were writing off HBO. But they came back in a big way with Game of Thrones and many are hoping that Westworld will provide the same kick.The $15/month price tag may be harder to justify though. It’s a tough call because Netflix appears to be purposely underpriced in order to draw in new users (and Netflix has way more content.) So do they lose money in the short term to attract more subscribers? Tough call. What You Need To Do About It Sit back and enjoy your popcorn. Since HBO does not rely on ads, there’s no play for brands beyond off-air sponsorships (and there’s not much room for product placement on a period piece like Westworld.) HBO has a new round of shows, mainly comedies, coming out, along with a final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. That, plus Westworld, may be enough to get them back on their feet. We certainly hope so.
