Need a break from winter weather or the Winter Olympics? We’ve got you covered with this week’s Five on Friday. In today’s edition, Matrix Solutions says media ad spending was flat last year, Ion Interactive shares interesting and important content marketing stats, TechCrunch tells us about Joymode, a subscription that is supposed to stop us from buying everything we want, Adweek offers tips for stopping influencer fraud, and Venture Beat explores the idea that blockchain could kill Netflix and streaming video as we know it. Wait, what? Read on for more Five on Friday.

Media Ad Spending in 2017 Was Flat

Last week Matrix Solutions, a global ad sales platform for media, released its first advertising spending report. In this report, Matrix Solutions reviewed the activity of 10,000 active users within media and sales teams between 2016 and 2017.

‘According to our data, overall ad spend remained relatively flat from 2016 to 2017, which means the stakes are higher than ever for media organizations looking to improve their bottom line,’ said Mark Gorman, CEO of Matrix Solutions, in a news release. ‘Understanding where brands are investing provides media ad sales teams with a leg up in bringing in revenue more efficiently.’

Highlights from the report include:

• Media organizations increased ad spending in specific categories, including trade organizations (8.94 percent), media/communications (4.84 percent), and health and beauty (4.09 percent).
• Certain categories saw decreased activity including beverages (15.89 percent), automotive and related (9.98 percent) and restaurants (5.87 percent).
• Broadcast experienced ad sales growth in media/communications (6.56 percent), general services (2.24 percent), and health and beauty (0.70 percent).
• Digital broadcast saw ad sales growth in almost every category, at an average rate of 13 percent growth. The only decline was in financial services (2.09 percent).
• Radio saw increases in health and beauty (26.15 percent), travel and leisure (24.28 percent), general services (15.15 percent), and home improvement (3.87 percent).

According to the report, local advertising is more important than ever before, and national ad spend is no longer necessary for a brand to be successful. Read the full news release here on PRWeb or download the full report from Matrix Solutions here.

5 Content Marketing Stats You Need to Know 

In a fascinating infographic, Ion Interactive shares 75 essential content marketing statistics we need to know. Here are five to consider:

1. 45 percent of a brand’s image can be attributed to what the brand says and how it says it.
2. 23 percent said of a brand’s content is not immediately engaging, they wouldn’t read that brand’s content again.
3. 79 percent of people scan content rather than reading word by word (if you got this far, congrats!)
4. 65 percent more people remember a piece of information if it is paired with a visual.
5. 92 percent of consumers want brands to make ads that feel like a story.

Read the other 70 content marketing statistics on Ion Interactive online.

Rent Instead of Buy, says Joymode

Joymode, a one-year-old Los Angeles startup, has created a new type of subscription. This one doesn’t specialize in product or service like streaming video, beauty boxes, cars or SaaS. They specialize in everything else. The idea behind Joymode, which just raised $14.3 million in funding, is to procure products that people want to use but don’t necessarily want to buy for themselves, reports TechCrunch.

Looking for camping equipment, board games, a vacuum cleaners or karaoke machine? No problem. Joymode has a warehouse full of more than 5,000 products delivered each weekend to local subscribers. According to TechCrunch, the average Joymode customer spends $296 to get nearly $3,200 worth of stuff in their first year.

‘Our whole premise is people should own less. We’re trying to help you fight the consumption hangover of debt and clutter and clutter and environmental impact,’ says founder Joe Fernandez, the man who founded Klout.

A visit to the Joymode website shows the company’s premise in simple terms: Joymode delivers what you need for amazing experiences and takes it back when you’re done. In a word, genius. Joymode says that, to date, it has lowered landfill waste by 573,477 pounds, saved $6,286,953 in unnecessary purchases, and saved 86,759 of storage space.

Learn more about Joymode on the company website, or read this January 31 article, ‘Inside Joymode, a subscription service saving you from buying all of the things,’ by Jonathan Shieber for TechCrunch.

Adweek: How to Stop Influencer Fraud

In a recent article, Adweek revealed how prevalent influencer fraud is becoming, citing a  a New York Times’ story piece revealing fraud by The Follower Factory who made money generating fictitious followers for social media stars, celebrities and influencers who wanted to grow their Twitter audiences. Adweek also quoted some recent Digiday statistics that will make you think twice about vetting influencers for your brand:

• A single day’s worth of posts with the tags #ad or #sponsored on Instagram included at least 50 percent fake engagement.
• Out of 118,007 comments, only 20,942 were not made by bots.
• Comments by bots comprise more than 40 percent of total comments for than 500 of 2,000 sponsored posts daily.
• Fifteen percent of influencers who sign up to promote a brand never create a post.

Fortunately, there are things a subscription company can do to fight influencer fraud. Adweek shared a checklist created by Sway Group with suggestions:

• Know your influencers and have your team monitor their behavior online – social growth, language used in comments and the quality of their engagements.
• Know what type of content works well for specific influencers. Align your campaign with appropriate influencers.
• When measuring ROI, don’t include activity from bots in your metrics.
• Monitor influencer activity to identify fraud by assessing follower growth over time, identifying problems with engagement rates and watching for hashtags that will superficially inflate engagement.

Read more about influencer fraud and Sway Group’s suggestions for fighting it in ‘How to Stop Influencer Fraud Before It Starts,’ by Eliza Valdez for Adweek.

Can Blockchain Kill Cable and Netflix?

I’ll admit that I don’t fully understand what blockchain is or how it works, but in a recent piece for Venture Beat, Rizwan Virk explores the idea that blockchain could kill both cable and Netflix. The way Virk explains it, blockchain technology is powered by a peer-to-peer network of computers. Through blockchain, entertainment like that provided by cable TV networks and streaming services like Netflix and Hulu could be decentralized, stripping gatekeepers of their authority to share content.

If decentralized, Virk explains, no single company or website would have authority of how content is distributed. Content could instead be distributed across a computer network. Virk goes on to explain how such a model could disrupt the entertainment industry (yet again) through blockchain. Check out Virk’s article, ‘How Blockchain Could Kill Both Cable and Netflix‘ on Venture Beat and let us know what you think. Do you think blockchain has the power to kill cable and streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and CBS All Access? While this may be technologically impossible, it seems unlikely.