R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. has introduced a service for integrating email and other digital channels with direct mail, using Salesforce Marketing Cloud, the company announced on Friday.

Cloud Direct by RRD is a trigger-based service that helps brands connect with customers by email, mobile, advertising and the web, along with postal mail. It is housed in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and is available through its Journey Builder.

“Modern marketing is not about taking sides between channels, but using data to get on the side of the customer,” states Doug Ryan, president, RRD Marketing Solutions.

Among other things, Cloud Direct by RRD triggers a direct mail piece when a subscriber email bounces, the firm says.

In addition, it can send a mailing piece to promote engagement when a person has not clicked or opened in digital channels.

It can also send a personalized direct mail offer based on browser and cart abandonment data, or providing a re-acquisition incentive when a customer unsubscribes.

Founded in 1864, R.R. Donnelley provides multichannel business communications and marketing services.

Toluna has what you might call a double-sided view of email. On one side, it conducts research about what consumers think about products, serving large CPG brands, and it uses email for that. On the other, it deploys email on its own business side. As for its service offering, its solution can be integrated with clients’ tech stacks.

To gain perspective on what’s working in email, MediaPost spoke with Janice Caston, VP of global marketing of Toluna. 

Caston: Marketers are still using email, but it’s a bit more intelligent even than a year ago.

What we’ve seen is smarter targeting of individuals: marketers using technology to make sure they’re speaking to the right population based on where they are in the customer life cycle instead of sending a blanket newsletter. The reporting with most platforms is so rich that marketers in general are benefiting from that to make better decisions.

MP: How does Toluna utilize email? 

Caston: With surveys, we want to keep the consumer engaged, so we’ll vary our approach. We will send a survey, and next there might be a data snippet.

The goal is not to have a relationship that’s solely based on email — we always want to bring to bring the consumer back to our website or our app, and have them engage with the platform. And we want to make sure we’re sending an email with a specific objective. It’s all about making sure that all touchpoints are optimized to provide a great experience. 

MP: So email is only one part of the media mix. 

Capson: We’ve always realized that email is a one-way communication, whereas a website is two-dimensional. We’ve always used email to drive engagement instead of just pushing communications. Most emails are received on mobile device, and you can click to a browser and apps very easily. 

MP: Why do some consumers dislike email?

Caston: Email was getting a bad rap because emails were being sent that were non-targeted and were not actionable. You’re never going to have a high level of engagement with blanket sending of a newsletter — you get that by sending to smaller groups, with more variants.

For example, Target batches materials for me on a weekly basis. I’m sure there are other options — some might get it daily. My average open rate was probably weekly.

MP: Can timing of emails be personalized?

Caston: Yes, we aim to do so with our panelists. The rule of thumb for consumers was mailing on weekends when they had time to read, and for businesses from Tuesday through Thursday, and maybe a little on Friday. Those rules no longer apply, and they differ by business. For some survey respondents, we typically will email at night.

MP: What are people doing wrong?

Caston: If they’re not adopting a platform that allows for segmentation and are sending blanket email. Also, if they don’t take personalization into account based on how the consumer engages with the brand. You never want to get an email that says “Dear customer” if you’re not a customer. 

MP: Who’s doing it well?

Caston: Big brands are getting smart about it — Amazon, Target. In B2B, you see them needing a little bit of improvement.  

MP: Is it difficult dealing with Gmail and the other inbox services?

Caston: If consumers don’t engage over time, Gmail and others will put you in non-deliverable email — not bouncing email, just typically a clutter folder or some other gated folder.

There’s a little secret here — when people are ordering from Amazon and opening confirmations, that improves the deliverability of Amazon’s messages. If you’re not engaging people, that’s when you’re mostly likely to go to clutter.

MP: Is the GDPR having an impact? 

Caston: Most businesses that rely on customer data — like ours — are aware of and compliant with data protection practices. For many businesses, it does have a material impact.

Companies have to adapt a different view of the customer database. The idea of having a database for ten years that is very deep and has information that is not really relevant or too personal — that’s gone.

MP: What’s next for the email channel?

Caston: We’ll start to see refinement of email in all categories. We’ll see brands use more advanced technologies — we will see better segmentation and profiling, universes of one. And it will be automated based on ad-smart criteria.

We’ll also see more personalization throughout the body of the email. AI can assist here — you can use it in some cases even to craft email content or text that is seeming to come from an individual but based on the customer profile. 

The UFC had to move its 232 fight scheduled for December 29 from Las Vegas to Los Angeles -- less than a week before the event -- after the Nevada Athletic Commission would not license the headline fighter, Jon Jones, to participate in Nevada. He tested positive for a prohibited substance banned in Nevada, but not in California.

The UFC executed the campaign to switch the fight's location just days before, with UFC’s out-of-home (OOH) ad agency, Outdoor Solutions, using Adomni’s self-service online platform.

The campaign ran two versions of the advertisement. One promoted the men’s top billed matches, and the other promoted the women’s matches. 

Michael Skenandore, president at Outdoor Solutions, which spearheaded the campaign, said the company has worked with the UFC for years, but this is the first time they needed to change locations on such short notice for one of their biggest fights of the year. “The interesting holiday timing added a challenge,” he said.

Broadsign’s Reach, a network of programmatic, media for digital-out-of-home screens (DOOH), made it possible to find digital boards at the perfect location at the correct time for people to see them. 

Adomni CEO Jonathan Gudai said the UFC refunded all the tickets sold for the fight in Nevada and resold the event —  a sellout in Los Angeles —  within six days. “This being a New Year’s weekend fight, it was very controversial,” he said. “The value of the fight was so important that if this fighter didn’t fight it would have cost the UFC tens of millions of dollars.”

The DOOH campaign — which ran between December 26 and December 29 —  for the fight at the Los Angeles Forum sold out at around 16,000 seats.

For now, DOOH is the only media advertiser that can buy on Adomni’s platform, but Gudai said that later in the first quarter, the company will add mobile.

In February, Adomni will roll out a platform that allows advertisers to search by audience segment. If a healthy snack-food company wants to reach women who go to the gym, the platform will serve up a list of “scored” boards catering to that audience.

What you probably know as a marketer is that mobile is where it’s at. What you may not know is that apps rule mobile devices. Over 90% of a user’s mobile time is spent inside of apps, of which 50% of those apps are games, according to eMarketer.

Understandably, games therefore represent the largest category of apps available for download, according to research from Google and Ipsos Mori.

While performance marketers have long understood this, brand marketers are yet to jump on board due to the legacy stereotypes surrounding gamers. This has resulted in an unfortunate disconnect between where users are spending their time and where brand advertisers are spending their money.

Here are five myths every digital advertiser should be aware of when planning their mobile campaigns.

Myth 1: Gamers are young, with no disposable income.
Wrong. In fact, one-third of all gamers are over the age of 45, 19% are aged 34-44 and 21% are aged 25-34, according to MediaKix. This means that 65% of gamers are over the age of 25. Moreover, female gamers are older than their male counterparts, with the average age for female gamers being 37, while for males it is 33.

Myth 2: Gamers are male.
Probably the most surprising myth to bust — but female gamers represent 55% of the gaming market worldwide, according to MediaKix. And we know that women hold the purchasing power, with women accounting for 85% of consumer purchases, according to Yankelovich Monitor & Greenfield Online. So dismissing gamers as an entire category is a huge missed opportunity if you want to get your brand in front of your target shopper.

Myth 3: Games are consumed at specific times.
Users are increasingly looking for low-commitment entertainment to be enjoyed in short bursts of time in between or while carrying out other activities. According to a report by EEDAR on Mobile & Tablet Gaming, almost 80% of adults play mobile games at home or while multitasking, and over 50% of them play in the bathroom. Yes, you read that right.

Myth 4: Games are consumed on consoles and computers.
Mobile games already represent more than half of the worldwide gaming revenue, and the improved download speeds of 5G will further increase the quantity and quality of mobile games downloaded. What’s more, time spent in mobile games is 3.6 times greater than the next largest category: entertainment. That means that people spend nearly four times the amount of time playing games like “Candy Crush” than they spend in apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and Netflix combined.

Myth 5: Nobody wants to see in-game ads.
There are ad units, such as rewarded video ads, which are initiated by the user, not the system, and offer users a clear value exchange: Users opt in to watch a video in exchange for receiving in-app rewards like in-app currency or premium content. This has shifted the ad experience from passive to active, and put control back into users’ hands, fostering positive brand associations.

Legacy stereotypes and misconceptions have resulted in a negative connotation of the word gamer.  However the modern-day gamer holds immense purchasing power and no longer falls into a niche category of who, when, and how they play games.

The time has come for advertisers to embrace the notion that everyone, and anyone is a gamer, and to realize they’re missing out on reaching their target audience by neglecting this core marketing channel.

Starting off the new year with a fresh security breach, Twitter is warning Android users that their private tweets might have been exposed.

“We’ve become aware of an issue in Twitter for Android that disabled the Protect Your Tweets setting if certain account changes were made,” the company revealed on Thursday.

Android users might have been impacted if they had protected Tweets turned on in their settings -- and made certain changes to their settings, such as changing the email address associated with their account -- since late 2014.

At least for now, Twitter is insisting that iOS users were not affected by this latest breach.

Along with an official apology, the social network says it is in the process of informing users who might have been impacted by the issue.

For Twitter, this is just the latest failure to properly protect users’ privacy.

Just last month, the company alerted users to a bug that potentially exposed the country code of their personal phone numbers, as well as whether their accounts had been locked by the social giant.

As with previous attacks on its platform, Twitter suspects foreign actors might have been involved in last month’s breach.

During its investigation, the company said it noticed unusual activity involving the affected customer support form API. Specifically, it observed a large number of inquiries coming from individual IP addresses located in China and Saudi Arabia.

Of course, Twitter isn’t the only social network struggling to keep users’ information secure.

Last month, Facebook admitted it might have mistakenly overshared the photos of nearly 7 million users.

Facebook’s issue stemmed from a photo API bug, which Facebook believed might have affected those who used Facebook Login,  then granted permission to third-party apps to access their personal pictures.

Expense management platform Expensify will premiere its first-ever television ad during the Super Bowl.

The 30-second spot will feature two yet-to-be-announced celebrities “putting an entertaining and elaborate twist on one of the most tedious financial management tasks in the workplace and beyond: filing expense reports,” according to the company, which adds that it is the “start of an evolution of the Expensify brand.” 

The spot was developed by creative collective JohnXHannes New York and will air during the second quarter of the Super Bowl. The ad is part of a national, multi-channel marketing campaign -- “You Weren't Born To Do Expenses” -- which will include “unconventional pieces of content and assets” over the next few weeks, according to the company. 

JohnXHannes New York has worked with Beats By Dre, Squarespace, Nike and Under Armour. The 2017 Super Bowl spot the agency created for Squarespace starring John Malkovich won the 2017 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.

The campaign, which officially kicks off next week and will continue through the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in February, includes digital and film content; takeovers and digital banners; and out-of-home advertising. 

Founded in 2008, Expensify includes a mobile and web app. With features such as patented SmartScan technology and integrations with major accounting software, Expensify has grown to serve over 60,000 businesses globally.

“Given that we have more customers than the rest of the industry combined, people are surprised to learn that we got here entirely without advertising,” claimed David Barrett, founder and CEO of Expensify, in a release. 

In 2017, entrepreneur Howard Milstein made a successful bid for former Time Inc. title Golf, adding to his portfolio of putter-and-tee-related titles. After he purchased the title for around $15 million, he vowed to “expand the reach and quality of the publication.”

With the February issue, Milstein kept his word. A larger, richer Golf delivered expanded content, voices and an uptick in advertising pages.

The magazine, whose pages are now 17% larger, saw ad pages increase by 139% compared to February 2018, with total ad revenue up 143%.

New advertisers to the title include Lexus, TaylorMade, Callaway, Ping, Srixon and Dewar’s and Golf Myrtle Beach.

Golf also expanded its overall editorial offerings with 21% more pages of content.

To achieve its new look, Golf hired husband-and-wife design team Jessica Musumeci and David Curcurito, cofounders of Works Well With Others, to create a more engaging reader experience.

The newly tweaked editorial will focus more tightly on the golfing lifestyle outside of the professional sport. Accompanying the redesign, Golf has added new voices to its mix.

New-to-golf sports writer Will Leitch pens a column called “From Scratch,” while pro golfer and Instagram star Paige Spiranac delivers “Paige’s World.” 

Jason Adel, CEO of Golf magazine and Golf.com, stated: “From advertisers, to current readers who were shown the redesigned magazine, to the contributors themselves, there is a remarkable energy surrounding the new Golf magazine and its cutting-edge content and style.”

Golf has also compiled an in-house video department with 10 staffers to grow out the brand’s digital audience.

The brand, which will turn 60 this year, anticipates a redesign of its website, Golf.com, featuring a UI/UX that brings a deeper level of personalization to readers. Its digital, video and social-media platforms will all receive an upgrade, offering enhanced video and virtual instruction, among other features. 

An ecommerce arm will round out the new Golf properties, making the transition from learning about golf to shopping with ease.

Another iconic title, Allure, also anticipates a redesign.

Reported by WWD, the beauty and fashion magazine will unveil a new editorial look for its print and digital properties— beginning with its March issue — under the magazine’s editor of three years, Michelle Lee.

The redesign will feature a new typeface, younger and more diverse photographers, a dedicated wellness section and a focus on “beauty-forward” editorial. Allure will also introduce some new sections, including a “My Favorite Product” page by Lee and a new back page dedicated to vanities and bathrooms called “Beauty Spaces.”

As other women’s magazines have gone digital-only, Lee told WWD that Allure will not abandon print, but will evolve with the new marketplace.

“As a brand, we’re committed to it. The company is so committed, and there’s a growing interest in beauty. We’re definitely very invested [in print],” she told WWD.

According to the report, Allure’s readership dropped by 6% from a year ago, but digital is thriving, with desktop traffic increasing by 11% year-over-year, mobile by 13% and video by 23%. February ad pages saw an increase of 27%, compared to last year.

Netflix is cracking open more viewership numbers, following the explosive debate over its reported “Bird Box” viewership a few weeks ago.

In its quarterly earnings report, released Thursday afternoon, Netflix said in its first four weeks of release, “Bird Box” now has 80 million views, with a view being a household that watches at least 70% of the film.

The company previously reported that 45 million household had watched the film in the first seven days after release.

Then, Netflix upped the ante, suggesting that it now accounts for 10% of all TV screen time in the United States. Netflix arrived at that number by looking at how many hours of video it serves to TV screens every day in the U.S., which it pegs at 100 million.

It estimates TV screens in the U.S. are on for around 1 billion hours every day, including in hotels, bars, etc), thus 10%.

It’s a bold statement, even if Netflix acknowledges that its share of mobile screen time is lower — and that the figure is also lower in other countries, due to lower penetration.

But the message is clear: At any given moment, a significant percentage of the U.S. population is watching Netflix.

The company followed that claim up by strategically revealing additional viewing metrics around some of its other shows.

“Elite,” a Spanish original, has now been seen by more than 20 million households in its first four weeks of release, the company says. “Bodyguard,” (a coproduction with ITV Studios in the U.K.), “Baby” (an original series from Italy, and the Turkish original “The Protector” all saw more than 10 million views in their first four weeks.

The point in releasing those numbers was to show the company’s originals out pace the U.S., even series developed in Italy or Turkey can attract millions of viewers on the company’s platform.

Similarly, Netflix said its original series “You,” a series that flopped on Lifetime but was available on Netflix everywhere else in the world, was picked up by Netflix for an exclusive second season. The company says “You” was seen by 40 million households in its first four weeks.

This quarter marks something of a new era for Netflix.

The company has never previously disclosed any viewership figures, and the ones it released on Thursday, however selective, are sure to be picked apart and analyzed for weeks to come. Inevitable comparisons will be made to Nielsen’s streaming ratings, which are U.S.-only for now.

In its latest Magazine Media 360° Brand Audience Report, MPA – The Association of Magazine Media looked at which of the 110 magazines had growth across all three online platforms — web, mobile and video — in November 2018, compared to the prior year.

Hearst was the publisher with the most brands on the list, with seven: Elle Décor (129% growth in November 2018 compared to the year prior), Cosmopolitan (71%), Town & Country (70%), House Beautiful (56%), Harper’s Bazaar (46%), Esquire (37%) and Road & Track (33%).

“Editorial intuition combined with our proprietary data tools, is leading to better, smarter creative decisions, Brooke Siegel, vice president, content, Hearst Digital Media, told Publishers Daily. 

“When our brands find a topic or story that deeply engages our audience, we chase it ambitiously and aggressively across all platforms. When we see a strategy working, we share it across all our teams. It’s a collaborative effort and it’s one that’s working,” she said.

MPA found 13 brands had notable overall online growth. The MPA says this growth is “bucking the trend of declining web traffic in favor of mobile and video growth.”

Travel publication Afar led the pack with 167% growth across online platforms in November 2018, compared to a year ago.

Afar was followed by Elle Décor (129%) and American Media, Inc.'s Men’s Journal (122%).

Taste of Home (Trusted Media Brands, 38%), Saveur (Bonnier, 30%), Fast Company (Mansueto Ventures, 20%) and Food & Wine (Meredith Corp., 13%) were also on the list.

Four of the magazine brands that experienced over 300% video viewership growth year-over-year in MPA's September 2018 Brand Audience Report were also Hearst brands: Esquire, Elle, Cosmopolitan and Seventeen.

In the October MPA report, about half the titles with the most video growth year-over-year were Hearst.

The Hearst titles that more than doubled their video audiences from October 2017 to October 2018 included: Road & Track (1252%), Town & Country (945%), Esquire (579%), House Beautiful (216%), Car and Driver (170%) and Cosmopolitan (151%).