Plus + Plus + Plus = Streaming Name Surplus – Brands are seizing on adding a + to their names to differentiate premium services. Paramount+ is the latest such service. But are we reaching + saturation?
“The plus sign has become such a streaming-industry commonplace that the movie star and entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds mocked the trend in a commercial for his Mint Mobile wireless carrier. His parody promoted Mint Mobile Plus, a fictional streaming service.” [NYT]
Reporters at The Washington Post, New York Times, Stat, The Atlantic, CNN, California Sunday Magazine, Politco, San Francisco Chronicle, Proceso, The New Yorker, Vice News Tonight, Minneapolis Star Tribune, ProPublica and High Country News won George Polk Awards. – The awards, which place a premium on investigative and enterprising reporting that gains attention and achieves results, are conferred annually to honor special achievement in journalism. [Polk Awards]
Jeep reinstates Bruce Springsteen Super Bowl ad after DWI charge is dropped [NY Post]
Netflix to spend $500 million in South Korea this year to develop new content [CNBC]
Australia’s law forcing Google and Facebook to pay for news is ready to take effect, though the laws’ architect said it will take time for the digital giants to strike media deals – The Parliament on Thursday passed the final amendments to the so-called News Media Bargaining Code agreed between Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday. In return for the changes, Facebook agreed to lift a ban on Australians accessing and sharing news. [AP]
In 2021, online grocery sales will surpass $100 billion – Online grocery sales grew 54.0% in 2020 to reach $95.82 billion. That propelled it to a 12.0% share of total US retail sales and 7.4% of all grocery sales. [eMarketer]
Delivery wine brand Usual Wines has gotten the jump on first-party data by utilizing SMS and text messaging communication in its marketing strategy – “For some marketers, SMS andmarketing can be daunting. But as technological advances democratize the platforms, marketers should move it out of the experimental media budget and incorporate it into their core strategies, according to Jamie Sutton, general manager at email and SMS marketing automation platform Omnisend.”
“The ability to synch that first-party data with Google ads and Facebook ads is something a lot of people leave on the table,” said Sutton.” [Digiday]
Comscore expands cookie-free audience targeting solutions for Europe, adding B2B-based Predictive Audiences – Comscore expands its Predictive Audiences solution to even more European markets and announces partnership with Eyeota [Comscore]
Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile dominate $81 billion 5G spectrum auction – Verizon, which bid under the name Cellco Partnership, spent the most on the auction bidding a whopping $45 billion for 3,511 spectrum licenses. AT&T came in second bidding $23 billion for 1,621 licenses. T-Mobile had the third highest bid of $9 billion for 142 licenses. [CNET]
