VOD Story of the Week
Netflix rolled out their long-awaited Basic with Ads tier this week. The tier will cost £4.99 (around half the price of a standard subscription), granting access to 90-95% of Netflix content. Ad Load will average four to five minutes an hour, featuring spots of either 15-or 30 seconds in length. Streaming giant Disney+ have also announced plans to bring out an ad-supported tier in December.
OOH Story of the Week
Media Owner Clear Channel has hit an OOH milestone with the installation of 3,600 digital screens. They have invested heavily in expanding its mall network with installation of 600 ‘Live Screens’ in high-traffic retail environments, and a further 3,000 AdShel Live Screens on the high street. This is underscored by in-house research which suggests 60% of UK retail spending is still conducted in physical retail environments. They boast their DOOH network is the largest in the UK in 185 towns and cities, as well as early adoption of new technologies such as Waterlite panels which consumer up to 50% less energy.
Campaign Story of the Week
As Halloween drew to a close on Monday, you could hear the distant sound of sleigh bells emerging from the TV set. Christmas may be 7 weeks away, but brands have already begun roll out of their Christmas ads. Alison Hammond appears as a medieval countess for Sainsbury’s, Morrisons have brought back ‘Farmer Christmas’ and Lidl’s ad stars a celebrity toy bear. Christmas is a key period for brands, not only to promote sales, but also to tap into the emotion of the season to build positive brand association.
Digital Story of the Week
Meta have announced plans to end the human curation of the UK Facebook News tab, turning it into a fully automated product. The decision to pull investment from the product comes at a time when Meta is seeking to shift Facebook’s focus away from news and towards short-form video. Meta claims news is no longer a priority for the Facebook platform and its users. Meta first launched the Facebook News tab in 2019 and is predicted to end in 2024 when its three-year contracts with publishers expire.
