Platform Prater:Usually we’re reporting very good news when the words Facebook, video and advertising are used in the same sentence. Not this time, and it’s huge for communicators who create and place video on Facebook. Turns out Facebook has been overestimating the average time spent viewing, The Wall St Journal reported Sept. 23. “We recently discovered an error in the way we calculate one of our video metrics,” Facebook said. “This error has been fixed, it did not impact billing, and we have notified our partners both through our product dashboards and via sales and publisher outreach.” As communicators know, Facebook counts video views of more than three seconds as views. What they didn’t know was that it discarded everything else when calculating its average duration of video viewed. Excluding video views of fewer than three seconds inflated the average duration. Facebook has replaced the metric with a new one, average watch time. It will include views of any duration. As the Journal noted, this occurrence resuscitates the call for Facebook and others to be more transparent with its data. The backstory illustrates this. Facebook told ad agencies several weeks ago its viewer metric was inflated because it was counting only views of three seconds or more. Ad agencies dug deeper, prompting Facebook to say more about the issue. Despite Facebook’s admission of guilt and its creation of a new viewing metric, one of the agencies, Publicis Media, was displeased. In a note to clients quoted in the Journal, Publicis said, “In an effort to distance themselves from the incorrect metrics, Facebook is deprecating [the old metrics] and introducing ‘new’ metrics in September. Essentially, they’re coming up with new names for what they were meant to measure in the first place.” – As we noted on page 1, last week it seemed like another day, another social brand announcing a live streaming hookup. These announcements almost made the success of Twitter’s second NFL live stream, Sept. 22, seem as much of a yawn as the Patriots’ improbable drubbing of the Texans. Indeed live streaming events is becoming quotidian, yet there’s still an exciting element to it, and for Twitter, which badly needed a win, it’s a new revenue stream, an advertising platform and model for other revenue-generating live stream events, The Motley Fool says. The rogue element: If a brand wants coverage of an event, but network TV is out of your league, live stream it. That’s what the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences did with the 37th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards Sept. 21. The ceremony was carried live on Periscope and Twitter, providing exposure to media and personal brands of news people, but also to United Airlines, a sponsor of the event.
Hill of a Week:When speaking about the CEOs of EpiPen maker Mylan and Wells Fargo getting grilled on Capitol Hill last week, we won’t say people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. It seems obvious that legislators are far from paragons of virtue. Still, from a PR perspective, can one say either Heather Bresch of Mylan or John Stumpf of Wells Fargo did the brands any good with their performances in D.C. last week? What about the PR 101 route of admitting culpability, outlining plans to change things, perhaps announcing a few firings/resignations and then apologizing again? While Stumpf gradually has become more accountable, it’s the gradual part that’s bothersome. [The last major brand that demurred, Volkswagen, was slammed in Germany with 1,400 new lawsuits worth $9 billion, half of them on Sept. 21. Speaking of delaying, for months since its crisis Chipotle relatively quietly has been inserting food-safety measures. Perhaps it’s become the safest place to eat. More prominent, though, were its attempts to distract via burrito giveaways and other tactics. Still, it seems a shame the brand waited until Sept. 21 to give full throat to its food-safety regime with full-page ads and a useful video featuring CEO Steve Ells.] While brands can and do change strategies in the course of a crisis, it appears Mylan and Wells Fargo have decided to hold the line for now. If nothing else, their approach gives PR pros and PR classes much to discuss.
M&A: Finn Partners continued its dealmaking, saying Sept. 21 Stagwell Group made a preferred share investment in it. The firms also will create PR agency Wye Communications as a joint venture. – Financial PR firm KCD PR acquired Wall & Broadway. – O’Malley Hansen Communications acquired Alpaytac PR.
People: Michael Ann Thomas joined APCO Worldwide as technology practice chair for N. America. She formerly led Edelman’s health technology offering. – Financial web site finder.com named Teena Touch its head of PR, U.S. – DeVries Global promoted EVP Jessica O’Callaghan to regional managing director, N. America. She’s been with DeVries for 15+ years.