Category: Articles

Canadian communicator and philosopher Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 declaration that the medium was the message offered prophetic insight into today’s era of digital content.

To put a complex subject simply, the vehicle used to consume information determines not only how we read, but what we read. Insightful communicators know that content not devised for digital consumption, dissemination and discussion will be left behind.

Most editors realize the expanding role digital platforms play in broadcasting their message. Studies now suggest that more than half of Canadians consume news digitally. This number can only be expected to grow.

We have seen Canadian outlets, with varying degrees of success, try to bolster readership by displaying content on social media channels and improving readability on tablets and other devices. But communicators who view digital promotion and accessibility as ancillary to content creation miss the mark.

In an era where content is not only read online, but curated, presented and promoted through social platforms, concepts like shareability and interactivity must be part of the initial formula, not an afterthought.

Many news producers have struggled to adapt to this shifting landscape. It’s this dynamic that has allowed for the emergence of “media advocacy” groups like Ontario Proud.

Ontario Proud boasts over 350,000 Facebook followers, devising and sharing Facebook-friendly content, including videos, memes, polls and short statements, usually aimed at disparaging Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. For context, its 350,000 followers substantially exceed the followers of all four Ontario provincial party leaders combined.

While Ontario Proud has been criticized for inflammatory content, its producers clearly understand that socialization must be at the heart of content. In response to Ontario Proud’s success, we have seen countervailing left-of-centre Facebook pages emerge in recent months, such as Ontario Pride and North99, both of which use similar tactics to create an opposing message.

Facebook’s display algorithm is not publicly disclosed, but we know it heavily promotes posts that generate strong reactions, positive or negative. As such, it’s imperative for organizations to reach their audiences in ways that trigger such responses.

This is not to suggest that credible news organizations should aspire to create content like that displayed on Ontario Proud. Canadians expect a much higher standard of accountability and truthfulness from news providers than social media advocates.

But the lessons learned from the success of Ontario Proud demonstrate that controversial positions are worth writing and are more likely to be virally discussed. Editorial boards have obligations to be accurate and fair, but not to be neutral.

Still, some would argue that the current landscape inherently favours vile, cruel and negative content that doesn’t contribute to positive discussion forums.

This is a fair observation, but ultimately raises more questions about the obligations of social media platforms than the merits of any specific content. If the recent appearance of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation gave any indication of public sentiment, it’s that Facebook is not seen as a neutral information vessel, but a public space that people and organizations depend on. Principles of respect are expected and required to be enforced.

Necessary rules and restrictions do not have to conflict with the driving forces of social media content: shareability and buzz. Content can be created in a way that meets these principles without sacrificing the depth and veracity that set top news organizations apart.

For example, the New York Times, recently announced its 2017 subscription revenue exceeded $1 billion with over 157,000 new digital subscribers in its fourth quarter alone. Its success reporting on President Trump, a vocal critic of its content, offers a case study of how thoroughly-investigated stories can generate the strongest reactions, building relevance for online and social media use.

These circumstances are unique and what works for the New York Times will not necessarily be a universally winning formula. In a constantly-changing digital media landscape, the most sustainable practices remain unclear. And as organizations seek to adapt to the current landscape, many will fail.

But if the increasingly tribal nature of digital media tells us anything, it’s that organizations not looking to integrate socialization into content are firing at the wrong goalposts.

It’s time for communicators and journalists alike to accept that the medium is the message. And that medium is increasingly digital.

Views expressed are those of the author and may not represent those of Navigator or its affiliates.

As relations between the West and Russia plunge into a deep freeze not seen since the Cold War, there are growing concerns that Moscow is weaponizing social media to undermine its rivals. While this isn’t the first time Russia has engaged in the spreading of disinformation, this time we’re seeing official Kremlin accounts trolling adversaries through snarky digital diplomacy. Let’s take a closer look at how Russia has transformed the way nations communicate and why this could be the end of traditional diplomacy as we know it.

Russia has a long history of using social media to go after its adversaries, most notably with the use of fake news in the 2017 US presidential election that many argue helped Donald Trump win the White House. Just as unconventional as President Trump’s willingness to blast off half-truths over Twitter to get his message out, Moscow has ramped up its online attacks on Washington and London. The Kremlin has scaled up up the tempo of official tweets in hopes of shifting the conversation in response to the coordinated expulsion of Russian diplomats after an alleged chemical agent attack on a former double-agent in the English countryside.

In any major news event or crisis, there’s always a race against time to set the narrative. Britain, recognizing it needed international support from its allies to leverage pressure against Russia, quickly shaped its argument that the use of a military-grade chemical agent on its soil during peacetime was unprecedented and put the lives of Britons at risk. To Prime Minister Theresa May and her government, this was bigger than the attempted assassination of a former spy.  

Russia, on the other hand, decided its best defence was to try and manipulate the public’s view of the attack and undermine the investigation by sowing the seeds of doubt through the use of memes that are easily shared across social platforms. In what surely enraged the British and its allies, Russia’s ability to thumb its nose at 10 Downing Street by taking lighthearted swipes at what many would consider a very serious provocation and violation of international law seemed to have gained some traction.

The fact that Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Her Majesty’s official opposition, has been accused by the governing Tories of being a Russian lackey and not fully siding with the government’s response shows this disinformation campaign has managed to drive a wedge into Westminster in what in another time would likely have seen bipartisan condemnation of the attack.

By some accounts, Russian tactics are working, and it is emboldening the Kremlin’s trolling efforts, even by going so far as to suggest the British were behind the attack. We have now entered the phase where official government spokespeople are lobbing ludicrous accusations that fly in the face of facts and reason, which is incredibly dangerous.  If nations cannot rationally communicate with one another during a time of crisis, situations can quickly spiral out of control.

By dismissing the mass expulsions of its diplomats from more than 20 countries around the world, the Kremlin has managed to appear unfazed by the seriousness of the situation — despite the fact that its ability to gather intelligence has been diminished.

By denying basic facts and deflecting any responsibility, Russia’s digital diplomats are engaged in what is known as “whataboutism”— a strategy of consistently drawing attention to “Western hypocrisy” when it’s accused of any wrongdoing. While this may not be new in international affairs, Russia  has taken this strategy mainstream with memes and online polls and is doing a good job at countering any rational arguments.

The bigger issue at play here is that when governments counter serious allegations with outlandish accusations, they further erode the public’s trust in the very institutions that are supposed to be held to the highest standards of trust and accountability. Through the use of politically charged memes, Russia is blurring the lines of fact and fiction that is causing many people to contemplate nonsensical theories they would have never considered before.

The Kremlin recently decided to shut down a US consulate in St. Petersburg based solely on the response it received from a poll it published on Twitter, which could have involved American citizens voting for the closure of one of their own diplomatic outposts. This is a prime example of how emboldened the Russian state has become in squaring off with the West and how the days of old fashioned diplomacy might be dead. Any thaw in relations between East and West may be a very long way away.

It’s important that governments, just like companies, remain committed to transparent communications or risk losing their credibility and damaging their reputation. But for Russia, its credibility and reputation doesn’t appear to matter as long as its strategic objectives are met, no matter the cost.

Spotify, the popular music streaming service, has never turned a profit. In 2017, it posted an operating loss of $461 million. Now it wants investors to value the company above $20 billion, going public with an unconventional approach: direct listing.

The 12-year old company eschewed the standard Initial Public Offering (IPO) playbook. Rather than ring bells, blitz media, and sell to institutional investors in advance of the first day of trading, Spotify let its existing shareholders offer holdings directly to the market.

Spotify is not raising capital. Its shareholders and employees have been free to buy and sell the company’s stock for years now. Founder and CEO Daniel Ek sees a direct listing as a natural next step to a larger stage. He has taken a zen approach to the listing. It’s business as usual—nothing to get too hyped about, and it’s “just another day in our journey to fulfill our mission.”

This approach is both novel and controversial. It’s not how a tech company goes public. Which is why the approach has generated significant earned media. I’m now questioning  the age-old advice that communicators should never talk strategy, they should do strategy.  Sometimes the process is the story, and it’s one worth telling. And in this case, the story might be bigger than Spotify.

Spurned bankers are hoping Spotify fails for failing to see the risk of listing directly. Convention has it that you need bankers to help the company secure an appetite for its shares. Failing to do so could result in wild trading activity in the first few days and weeks— or worse, a cratered stock price within months. It’s a risky move that will prove to be an act of genius or arrogance.

That, or we’re reading too much into this — it could be just a practical decision. If the company doesn’t need to raise capital, why waste time and money on fees and distractions? As a popular consumer brand, Spotify feels it has a good pulse of its value. It also has years of private trades under its belt, so it’s not going into this completely in the dark.

The move could shift the dynamic between Silicon Valley and Wall Street. The power balance has long favoured Wall Street. As Spotify writes a new playbook on how to go public without Wall Street, tomorrow’s tech startups may follow Spotify’s lead. If this hasn’t sent shivers down the spine of the Wall Street establishment, it should. Not because this is a middle finger to Wall Street—but because it’s more of a shrug. And that’s much more offensive. Why? Because the New York Stock Exchange changed its own rules to allow the listing. That’s huge. Spotify didn’t have to play by Wall Streets rules, it played by its own. You can’t get more Silicon Valley than that.

It will take time—lots of time—to know whether Spotify made the right call. We should remember that past attempts at IPO alternatives by tech companies appeared disastrous in their early days. In 2004, Google sold shares in a Dutch auction. The move was interpreted as a disaster at the time. It priced its shares at $85, which was considered the low-end of its price expectation of $85-$95. Behind the scenes, the company was hoping the shares would sell closer to $108-$135.  It closed that first day at $100.34—respectable, but not the boom the company wanted. It was considered a disastrous start. But it would turn out to be the stock that woke the market up as more consumers understood and used the Google product. By the end of the year, the stock doubled. Today, the stock trades 10 times more than where Google’s shared closed on that first day.  

In hindsight, Google didn’t need to a wildly successful IPO. Perhaps Spotify doesn’t need one either. Spotify is part of a growing trend of private companies that can comfortably avoid selling shares to the public because they’re more than capable of raising money on their own.

Like Google, Spotify offers a product that consumers access multiple times a day, across devices, in and outside of the home. The user experience is filled with hits of dopamine. For many, it’s an essential app, as essential as toothpaste, heating, and transportation. As we continue to migrate our lives to the cloud, we build affinity with the apps and services we use every day. That has long been the sweet spot for traditional companies, and if Spotify is breaking new ground for tech companies, it will be the sweet spot for tomorrow’s tech stars. They can focus on building their user base, grow as a private company, and go public on their own terms. A good product, an addictive user experience, and a good story. That could be tomorrow’s ticket to Wall Street.

“Alexa,” Alex Jones, the conspiracy radio host, growled while holding Amazon’s smart speaker at eye level. “Do you work for the CIA?”

“No. I’m not employed by them. I’m made by Amazon.”

My brother sent me the YouTube video a few days after I got my own smart speaker — a Google Home. “Say hi to the NSA for me,” he added.

As with many new users, the clip hit uncomfortably close to home. I was struggling to answer two key questions about the product: first, how exactly did it work, and, second, how much of my information was being monitored and analysed? And by whom?

The idea that a digital personal assistant like Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home collects and analyzes user data shouldn’t come as a surprise. Every aspect of our digital lives—from Facebook, to YouTube, to Spotify and our banking apps—generates a wealth of personal information, some of which is used to target us with relevant advertisements.

Despite recent fears about data security as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, you can make a strong argument that our present online environment isn’t that scary. We voluntarily give up personal information so that a genuine and accurate profile of ourselves can be created online. This lets us make better use of these tools and provides us with (usually) contextually-relevant advertising.

While it may be unnerving for some users to Google “veterinarians” and then have Google later serve ads for Kibbles ‘n’ Bits, it’s less frustrating than seeing ads completely unassociated with our interests or needs.

While many people are willing to give up some privacy for an easier digital life, Alexa and Google Home raise worries that they collect far more data than users would otherwise wish to give up.

This fear seems unfounded, though. Yes, smart speakers are always “listening” in the sense that they are awaiting their commands (“Hey Google…” “Alexa…”). While they are “listening” in the most basic sense, they’re not analysing or storing every conversation you have within earshot. From a practical perspective, it would be a massive and pointless monetary drain on Amazon or Google to collect and store every word said by users.  

In fact, as we can see from ads that have made use of smart speakers, when issues arise, they’re not caused by Google or Amazon making too much use of personal data. Instead the problem is that they are not making enough use of it. So far, we are not seeing evidence that these new digital assistants are having a noticeable impact on ad targeting.

Last year, when users asked their Google Home Minis about their day (a feature that recaps weather, traffic, top news, and your personal calendar), Google included a short teaser for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Google claimed this wasn’t so much an ad, as it was a way to keep users up-to-date on recent events. However, the idea that the release of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was one of the top news stories of the day didn’t wash.

Instead of targeting these ads to users who might actually be interested in seeing Beauty and the Beast, Google served the ad broadly to its users, upsetting many people who found the teaser’s presence jarring. Google’s first misstep with its smart speakers wasn’t the result of “listening” or “monitoring” users, collecting their data, and using that data to target ads towards them — it was because they didn’t.

Had Google used its vast user-specific data to target the ads, it’s conceivable that users may have considered the ad more appropriate and not an intrusive attempt to earn marketing dollars.

The Beauty and the Beast spot didn’t follow the approach that has been so successful for Google’s search advertising approach. Nor did a recent foray by Burger King.

Burger King ran a television ad in which an actor claimed there wasn’t enough time to list all the ingredients in a Whopper, so instead called out “Hey Google, what’s in a Whopper?” Viewers who had Google Home close enough to the TV were inundated with the digital assistant’s robotic voice reading off the Wikipedia article for Whoppers. This, understandably, frustrated some users. Google quickly patched the Google Home software to stop the readout.

Again, the furor was caused not from too much use of personal information, but by using no personal information. Users who had no interest in learning about the Whopper—no matter how clever they found the ad—were frustrated at having their homes and smart speakers hijacked by advertisers.

There are a lot of ways to effectively and inoffensively target advertisements towards potential customers. Key among those is ensuring that ads are useful to those seeing them. While it is a common refrain that people are “sick of advertising”, no one appears to be sick of consuming. As a result, no one minds ads for things they actually want to buy. Google already knows this and has shown how successful targeting ads in this way can be.

Companies risk further frustrating customers if they don’t integrate personal information into smart speaker advertisements. Simply put, less information means less accurate ad targeting. If, instead, companies make full use of the information they already have, they can make advertising less intrusive, getting the products users want in front of the customers who want to buy them.

 

Views expressed are those of the author and may not represent those of Navigator or its affiliates.

Over the past several weeks, American teenagers have seized the forefront of their national gun debate – speaking to media, challenging politicians and sharing their personal experiences with gun violence. It doesn’t stop at gun policy – but all over the world, age increasingly predicts how people vote.

Indeed, on many issues, generational divides exist on national questions. Most young Americans have a favourable view of gay marriage relative to older generations.[1] Young Britons voted overwhelmingly against Brexit in 2016[2]. Right here at home, young voters turned out in record numbers for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in 2015.

It is conventional wisdom in politics that young people do not vote. Therefore, parties put forward platforms that appeal to other parts of the population that reliably show up to the polls. But as witnessed in Canada’s 2015 election and the United Kingdom’s 2017 election, the younger demographic can influence elections when motivated to turn out.

In Ontario, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives are the odds-on favourite to win the June election. The party has led every opinion poll since the Sudbury by-election, and won five out of seven by-elections (even in reliably Liberal areas) since the start of this parliamentary session.

According to a recent poll, the 18-24 demographic still backs the Ontario Liberals, where 42 per cent of voters say they will back the government, compared to 24 per cent for the PCs and 18 per cent for the NDP.[3]

In Doug Ford, the PCs have new leader who is a potent political force.

Comparisons with Donald Trump aside, Mr. Ford is anything but. The Fords have, for years, relied on the support of working-class communities in Toronto. In fact, they often had more voters in common with the Liberals and New Democrats than the Progressive Conservatives.

And while Donald Trump channels the voices of those who feel left behind by the economy, Mr. Ford channels the voices of people who feel left behind by this government. People who feel the government has overtaxed, overspent and intervened more than its welcome.

In other words, Mr. Ford is a conventional conservative who appeals to bedrock pocketbook issues. He rails against the elites and taps into concerns about the role of government in everyday lives.

Never to be undone, the Liberals have tried to seize the populist mantle with more Bernie Sanders-flavour. This week, the Liberals’ commissioned a throne speech that zeroed in on the anxieties of people just getting by, as work becomes more precarious, where stable and lifelong jobs with high wages and health and retirement benefits shrink in number.

Young people bear more of this burden. Today, almost one third of young workers are in temporary contract work – a generation ago, that number was one-quarter. The unemployment rate of those 24 and under is also disproportionately higher than the average – at 11.2 per cent in January relative to the average of 5.5 per cent. With skyrocketing housing prices in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, youth everywhere increasingly feel they will never be able to buy their own homes.

At the same time, young people are particularly supportive of the sexual education curriculum – a fact that the Liberals are sure to exploit.[4]

Mr. Ford’s position on the sexual education curriculum may affect the PC campaign if the Liberals manage to convince and energize young voters to turn out and vote against conservative candidates. Mr. Ford is already walking back his earlier statements on several social issues and has committed to also being the leader for the more progressive elements within the PC Party.

Despite this, in March, half of voters 18-24 disapprove of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s performance, with only 32 per cent approving and the rest expressing no opinion. In contrast, Mr. Ford has a net positive rating of 5 per cent, with almost one third expressing no opinion over his leadership style.

Mr. Ford speaks with a personal authenticity and credibility that other politicians can only aspire towards. In him, the PC Party can suddenly reach new constituencies that they could not hope to reach under more conventional leaders or normal elections. Mr. Ford certainly can make inroads among younger voters too.

 

Sources

[1] http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/567922/distribution-of-eu-referendum-votes-by-age-and-gender-uk/

[3] https://www.campaignresearch.ca/single-post/2018/03/15/Doug-Fords-PC-Party-Set-to-Win-Big-in-June

[4]http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/ON%20Sex%20Ed%20News%20Release%20(2015%2002%2028)%20Forum%20Research.pdf