2 min read

Turning GIFs (and Other Things) Into Cash

Picture of Tyler Wilcox Tyler Wilcox : August 4, 2017

Where digital meets travel + lifestyle … A collection of can’t-miss news from this week. Sign up to get the TURNER Weekly Download in your inbox every Friday.

Science Sponsored

Do those sponsored ads you see popping up in your social media feeds really work? Condé Nast says yes – and they have the science to back up their claim. The media giant asked market research firm Neuro-Insight to monitor the brainwave activity of 200 consumers as they interacted with a variety of sponsored video posts on YouTube and Facebook. According to Digiday, the firm’s findings showed that Condé Nast’s videos “were 60 percent more effective at memory encoding than traditional YouTube pre-roll advertising and 17 percent more engaging than general Facebook content, including user-generated posts from friends.” In other words, sponsored posts are here to stay.

Twitter Crash

Is Twitter on the way out? The social media platform’s active monthly user count shows that barely anyone is signing up for new accounts, and that two million users in the U.S. said goodbye to tweeting. Bad news, perhaps – but there’s a silver lining. The company reported growth compared to the first part of 2017, with revenue of $574 million. So even if new users aren’t coming to Twitter, advertisers are finding more and more value from the platform.

Turning GIFs Into Cash

Everyone loves GIFs! And Giphy, the popular search engine for GIFs, is going to try to turn that love into money. According to TechCrunch, Giphy will begin testing sponsored GIFs – users who search for GIFs may be served a sponsored GIF within the messaging tab. With 200 million daily users, it makes sense that the company would want to monetize. Giphy is tight-lipped about when sponsored GIFs will begin appearing, and also about what brands will be involved. “We already work closely with the world’s leading brands in content, entertainment, technology and advertising,” said Giphy COO Adam Leibsohn. “When we’re ready to launch our ad products, it naturally follows that we’ll be working with our existing partners.”

Autoplay Time

We all can’t get enough of autoplay ads, right? RIGHT? Well, probably not. But Google is experimenting with embedding autoplaying ads in its search results – for example, if you Google the latest Lady Gaga video, it might just start playing immediately. “We are constantly experimenting with ways to improve the Search experience for our users," the tech giant explained in a statement. Not many of us will see this as an improvement – but oddly, Google has a solution. Google plans to block autoplaying videos in Chrome, because they’ve found that users can’t stand them. So … we’re confused?

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