74% of Americans with TV service subscriptions share the passwords

"When it comes to subscription services, a new report has found just how much Americans love to share their streaming, shopping, Uber and mobile subscription accounts with family, friends and even exes.
The latest Country Financial Security Index, which surveyed around 1,000 US adults, revealed that over half (54 percent) are using some type of streaming, ride-hailing, home sharing or maintenance service. In addition, more than half (59 percent) take advantage of these services at least once a week, while one quarter (25 percent) use them every single day.
And when it comes to account sharing, television leads the pack, with 74 percent of TV service subscribers sharing their Netflix, Hulu and Amazon accounts with others. Four in ten (42 percent) are sharing mobile plans and 41 percent are sharing shopping accounts like Amazon Prime and Costco.
As for who is gaining access to these accounts, family (73 percent), significant others (34 percent), friends (10 percent) and ex-significant others (2 percent) make up the sharing pool. Women are more likely than men to share their accounts with family (79 percent vs. 66 percent), and men are more likely to share with an ex-significant other (3 percent vs. 0 percent)."

Source:  PYMNTS, 8th October 2018

Waze has 110m monthly active users

"I recently moved from San Francisco to New York City. While on opposite coasts, with very different pizza quality, one thing they have in common is bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic. Waze was built to address this: “outsmarting traffic, together.” I am proud to see this movement grow to more than 110 million monthly active users globally. Every month, more than 12 million Wazers report over 60 million incidents on Waze. Each report proves something many never thought possible — given the right tools, people will help other drivers and work together to “outsmart traffic” and create a better experience on the road. Through these daily acts of cooperation, we’ve helped each other save time, bypass dangerous hazards, and in the process, we’ve created the most up-to-date map in the world."

Source:  Blog post from Waze, 10th October 2018

Harry's has 6m customers - including 1m women

"Harry’s Inc., the premium men’s personal care products is launching its first brand out of its accelerator Harry’s Labs: Flamingo, with a focus on women’s shaving needs.
On Tuesday, Flamingo, which follows a DTC model, debuts with the intent of speaking to the 1 million female customers of Harry’s (the company currently has 6 million customers total). With an initial product lineup that includes razors, wax kits, shaving gel and body lotion that are all priced under $20, Flamingo joins Billie, Angel Shave Club, All Girl’s Shave Club and other female-oriented brands in the DTC shaving space. Harry’s isn’t just hoping to corner the female shaving market but also to add to its existing product portfolio."

Source:  Glossy, 16th October 2018

The most successful companies to come out of Y Combinator

1 - Airbnb - $31bn valuation
2 - Stripe - $20bn
3 - Cruise - $14bn
4 - Dropbox - >$10bn
5 - Instacart - $7.6bn
Source:  Techcrunch, 17th Oct 2018
(Link has top 20, with current valuations)

900,000 people pay for the Guardian through subscriptions, memebership & donations

"The Guardian now gets more revenue from consumers than from advertising. More than 900,000 people pay it through a combination of membership, recurring contributions, print and digital subscriptions and one-off contributions, accounting for 12 percent of the publisher’s total revenue.
Speaking at the Digiday Publishing Summit Europe in Barcelona, Spain, this week, Anna Bateson, chief customer officer at The Guardian, said she sees that 12 percent figure rising to around 20 percent of the publisher’s total. Unlike advertising, which can be limited by market borders, donations have a more global scope — contributions come equally from the U.K., U.S. and the rest of the world. But the publisher has to overcome payment friction and learn more about what drives donations.
“It’s a revenue stream we can believe in,” Bateson said. “It can grow by improving the payment. There’s still too much friction, particularly on mobile and understanding local variations around how they want to give and the amount will yield future return.”"
Source:  Digiday, 18th October 2018

Amazon has over 120 own-label brands

"Amazon created its first private label brand in 2007, when it started selling bedding and bath products under the Pinzon line.
Since then, Amazon has added 125 other brands, according to TJI Research, which tracks Amazon's growth. The collection includes everything from paper towels and toilet paper under the name Presto! to T-shirts and shorts for kids labeled Spotted Zebra.
And Amazon is accelerating its private label strategy. It has introduced about six dozen brands in the past 18 months, according to a study by Evan Neufeld and Cooper Smith, analysts at research firm Gartner L2."

Source:  CNN, 8th October 2018

UK online ad spend rose to £6.4bn in H1 2018

"UK advertisers spent £6.4bn on digital advertising in the first half of 2018, according to the latest results of the IAB UK and PwC Digital AdSpend report.
In the first six months of 2018, there has been year-on-year growth of total digital advertising spend of 15%.
The overall display market remains healthy, with H1 year-on-year growth of 20%, taking it to £2.3bn. This growth was driven by Video, which saw the largest year-on-year increase of 40%, taking spend in the first six months to £967m. Non-video display inventory accounted for £1.3bn of spend in the first six months of 2018.
Search has grown 15% to £3.3bn, commanding 52% of total digital adspend, whilst classified remained flat at £726m.
With the maturation of the market, the half year figures are now reported for combined mobile and desktop adspend and the methodology has been updated accordingly. The 2018 full year report, due for publication in April 2019, will continue to provide a detailed analysis of formats and spends."
Source:  Press release from !AB UK using data from IAB & PwC, 10th October 2018

More than 50% of the traffic on the internet is encrypted

"In the Global Internet Phenomena report that will be released tomorrow, we give a conservative number that "more than 50% of the traffic on the internet is encrypted." In reality, the number is probably closer to 75-90% of the overall traffic, since some applications "usually" encrypt their data."
Source:  Blog post by Sandvine, 1st October 2018
Also in the report -
"In the biggest teaser/reveal so far for the upcoming Global Internet Phenomena Report, Sandvine can reveal that Netflix is the #1 downstream application worldwide with almost 15% of global internet traffic."
Source:  Blog post by Sandvine, 28th September 2018

Video viewing on mobile in the US grew nearly 55% from 2015-2017

"Parks Associates today released a new whitepaper ahead of IBC, “Video’s Critical Path: Success at Web Speed,” that reports by the end of 2017, U.S. broadband households were spending nearly three hours per week watching video on a mobile phone, an increase of nearly 55% from 2015. This shift comes as households are watching less live broadcast video on their televisions, which dropped from over 60% of video consumption in early 2012 to 44% at the end of 2017. The whitepaper, sponsored by MediaKind, addresses these shifting trends and the impact of OTT video on the pay-TV ecosystem and the new opportunities available for pay-TV providers in this environment."

Source:  Parks Associates, 14th September 2018

Ads for Subway, targeted on the weather, helped drive a 31% increase in store visits

"Subway came to IBM Watson Advertising with the goal of driving an increase in store visits. They were interested in leveraging the connection between weather and QSR foot traffic to drive awareness of their $4.99 Footlong promotion via The Weather Channel mobile app. To build awareness and ultimately drive in-store visits to their restaurants, Subway leveraged Watson Advertising’s newest targeting capability – WEATHERfx Footfall with Watson. This capability leverages machine learning to process weather, sales, and footfall data specific to a brand’s store locations to predict increases in footfall traffic and enable brands to intelligently adapt and optimize their media to capitalize on it in real-time. In addition to helping drive a 31% lift in store traffic vs. those who weren't exposed to Subway's digital advertising,
Subway also saw a 53% reduction in campaign waste, salvaging about 7.9M impressions that would have otherwise gone to waste."
Source:  Press release from IBM, 24th September 2018

The final episode of BBC 1's 'Bodyguard' had 11m viewers

"BBC One’s political thriller Bodyguard ended with its highest overnight audience of the series, concluding with an average of 10.4 million viewers/47.8 per cent share, and a peak of 11.0 million viewers.
This makes Bodyguard the #1 non-World Cup programme of the year across all channels. It also means the episode is the biggest drama across all channels since 2011, and the biggest BBC drama since 2008.
Bodyguard, written and created by Jed Mercurio, and made by World Productions for BBC One, additionally attracted the highest young audience for any drama on any channel during 2018, with the finale attracting 1.3 million 16-34 year olds (42.3 per cent share).
On BBC iPlayer, Bodyguard has broken records with episode one being the biggest episode of any programme ever on iPlayer with 7.3 million requests so far. The series currently has over 24.2 million requests across all six episodes, while the series finale helped drive BBC iPlayer’s biggest ever day of over 12.6 million requests on Sunday 23 September. Bodyguard will remain on BBC iPlayer exclusively in the UK as a box set for the next six months."

Source:  Advanced Television, 25th September 2018