Happy Friday, everyone! Knee deep in presidential debates and caucuses, we hope you are ready for a productive distraction with our Friday features. In this week’s edition, we look at the global OTT market and its projected growth over the next five years. Also, the FTC is reviewing influencer and sponsored content guidelines, the Association of National Advertisers has a mixed reaction to the proposed privacy rules in California, Patreon is lending money to creators for big projects, and Shopify shares five tools for helping you achieve your 2020 goals.

Global Streaming Market Expected to Reach Nearly $180B by 2025

According to a new report by KBV Research, the global streaming video market is expected to grow to nearly $180 billion in the next five years, growing at a rate of 14.3%. Often referred to as direct-to-consumer streaming services (e.g., Disney+, Netflix, Hulu), the services are served “over the top” of internet services, allowing consumers to watch programming wherever they have an internet connection. This could be through Smart TVs, smartphones, tablets or other enabled devices.

While many of the services like Netflix and Hulu are stand-alone services, companies like AT&T and Dish have developed companion streaming services to complement their linear TV products. For example, Dish operates Sling TV which offers streaming options and live TV; AT&T offers DirecTV Now with similar options; and broadcast network CBS runs CBS All Access. Read more data gleaned from the report on ReporterLinker.com.

FTC to Review Influencer and Sponsored Content Guidelines

In a recent statement by FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra, the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing its policies on influencer and sponsored content. He cited several examples where companies violated FTC rules of disclosure. Lord & Taylor, for example, paid 50 influencers to wear a specific outfit and post a photo of them in it on Instagram, with appropriate company hashtags. The outfits were soon sold out. The company failed to disclose, however, that those posters were paid for their “influence,” a clear violation of FTC rules.

In another case, skin-care brand Sunday Riley paid employees to write fake reviews on Sephora.com. The employees were advised on how to avoid being caught. The violation occurred because the reviewer did not disclose a material (employer-employee) relationship with the brand. In both situations, the FTC agreed to settle with the companies, but it feels it needs to be tougher.

“Going forward, we need to seek tougher remedies for companies that are illegally astroturfing or disguising their advertising as an authentic endorsement or review,” Chopra wrote.

The commissioner asked the FTC to consider three additional steps in addressing sponsored content and influencer marketing:

• Develop requirements for technology platforms like Instagram and YouTube that facilitate and profit directly or indirectly profit from influencer marketing
• Codify elements of the existing endorsement guides into formal rules so that violators will be subject to civil penalties and liable for damages
• Specify the requirements that companies must comply with in their contracts with influencers, including sample terms that companies can adopt in their contracts

“The FTC will need to take bold steps to safeguard our digital economy from lies, distortions, and disinformation. I welcome broad participation during the public comment period to help us chart our path forward,” added Chopra.

Read Chopra’s entire statement at FTC.gov, or the summary on TubeFilter.com. 

Association of National Advertisers Reacts to Proposed California Privacy Rules

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) voiced its concerns about the latest version of the proposed California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in a February 19 blog posthttps://www.ana.net/blogs/show/id/rr-blog-2020-02-Some-Answers-But-Some-Big-Questions-Remain. The ANA said it will file its detailed comments by February 25, the deadline for providing feedback. While some of the changes are good and include suggestions made by the ANA, the organization says concerns remain. Here are a few cited by Dan Jaffe, group executive vice president of government relations for ANA.

• Vague phrases are used that are subject to “unpredictable interpretation” such as “reasonably linked” and “reasonably accessible.”
• The definition of household has been modified which will require businesses to verify members of a household, but it will not allow those business to charge fees to cover the costs of a consumer request to know or delete.
•  Another issue is browser settings and how they impact a consumer’s intent to opt out of a data sale. The ANA believes this precludes consumers from making individual choices about data exchanges by specific businesses.

“We will continue to evaluate the AG’s latest draft and provide comments as appropriate during this review period.  Though enforcement won’t begin until July 1, there’s very little time for the AG to provide further clarifications about the law.  Absent clear rules of the road, both consumers and businesses will be left guessing about their rights and obligations.  Guessing games for values as fundamental as privacy are not a good situation for anyone involved,” Jaffe said.

Review the ANA’s blog post, “Some Answers, But Some Big Questions Remain” at ANA.net. 

Patreon Launches ‘Patreon Capital’ to Fund Creators’ Work

Patreon, a platform that helps creators monetize their work, has launched Patreon Capital, an alternative financing service that provides micro-loans to creators, reports The Verge. Similar to a cash advance, Patreon gives creators the money they need up front for a project in exchange for a portion of future earnings and some interest for their trouble. The program is like others offered by ecommerce platform Shopify and payment platform Stripe.

According to Nieman Lab, about a dozen companies have accepted cash advances from Patreon Capital. Patreon is hoping to expand the program, but the assumption is that they will choose their investments carefully. Multitude was one of the company’s first beneficiaries. They received a $75,000 cash advance.

“This arrangement is directly tied to the fact that we have successful podcasts making money on Patreon, and that we’ve already invested in the Patreon system to pay this stuff back,” said Eric Silver, Multitude’s head of creative, in Nicholas Quah’s story, “Need Cash Fast? Patreon Is Now Lending Money to Its Creators to Launch Projects with High Startup Costs,” on Nieman Lab.

In related news, another piece of Patreon’s 2020 strategic plan is to better serve creators across the globe. The platform currently serves more than 150,000 creators from 180 countries, with 40% of those being outside the U.S. This creates an opportunity for Patreon to better serve their creators by accepting different forms of currency, new payment methods and additional languages. In November 2019, Patreon said it had more than 4 million patrons, and last year, Patreon paid out more than $1 billion to creators.

5 Tools to Help You Achieve Your 2020 Goals

We already two months into the new year, but it is never to late to evaluate your goals and set new ones. Sometimes it is hard to know where to begin though. In a January 22 blog post by Dayna Winter, Shopify offers more than 40 tools to help business owners and leaders to set and conquer goals. Here are five that we want to try:

1. Read “9 Things Successful People Do Differently” by Heidi Grant Halvorson. Winter says this book is a quick read and offers some latitude in making mistakes and learning from them.
2. Find a goal setting planner that matches your work style. We like the Clementine Creative Essential Planning Kit, but includes 11 page templates which includes a monthly planner, daily planner, goals, habit tracker and to do lists.
3. TED Talk: Try Something New for 30 Days by Matt Cutts. The talk is from 2011 but the wisdom still rings through today. You get some easy-to-follow, almost profound advice in about three minutes.
4. Tally: The Anything Tracker by treebetty LLC: an app that allows you track anything, including habits, money, exercise, work goals by the week, month, year or forever. Available for iOS.
5. BeFocused: an app by Denys Yevenko to help you stay focused, manage tasks and track progress. Available for iOS.

For more great goal setting ideas, read Winter’s suggestions in “The Big List of 40+ Tools to Set, Track, and Conquer Your Goals” on Shopify.