BRAND MARKETING
National Advertising Division | March 01, 2022
The National Advertising Division (NAD) of BBB National Programs determined that Niantic, Inc. was able to support claims pledging charitable donations to "Black gaming" as well as social and racial justice organizations.
Niantic, a software development company, claimed on its website:
We'll be donating Niantic proceeds from Pokémon GO Fest 2020 ticket sales, committing a minimum of $5 million. Half of the proceeds donated will be used to fund new projects from Black gaming and AR creators that can live on the Niantic platform, with the ultimate goal of increasing content that represents a more diverse view on the world. The other half will go to US nonprofit organizations that are helping local communities rebuild.
We'll be donating $100,000 to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute and doing an employee match of up to $50,000.
We're expanding our partnership with Gameheads a nonprofit that teaches kids how to develop games from beginning to end. This year, they are going fully virtual and taking the program global. We'll be providing $25,000 in scholarships, sponsoring their annual showcase with $15,000, and donating $20,000 to create a new "Developing for AR 101" program where students can earn college accreditation in partnership with Cal State.
This inquiry was initiated through NAD's routine monitoring program. NAD's public interest mission to ensure consumers receive truthful advertising extends to companies' representations committing to support social justice initiatives.
NAD reviewed whether Niantic could support its representations that it was making significant monetary donations to Black Lives Matter and related charities.
Based on evidence provided by Niantic, NAD determined that the challenged advertising claims were substantiated. NAD noted that it appreciates Niantic's commitment to social justice and its participation in the self-regulatory process.
All BBB National Programs case decision summaries can be found in the case decision library. For the full text of NAD, NARB, and CARU decisions, subscribe to the online archive.
About BBB National Programs: BBB National Programs is where businesses turn to enhance consumer trust and consumers are heard. The non-profit organization creates a fairer playing field for businesses and a better experience for consumers through the development and delivery of effective third-party accountability and dispute resolution programs. Embracing its role as an independent organization since the restructuring of the Council of Better Business Bureaus in June 2019, BBB National Programs today oversees more than a dozen leading national industry self-regulation programs, and continues to evolve its work and grow its impact by providing business guidance and fostering best practices in arenas such as advertising, child-directed marketing, and privacy. To learn more, visit bbbprograms.org.
About the National Advertising DivisionThe National Advertising Division (NAD) of BBB National Programs provides independent self-regulation and dispute resolution services, guiding the truthfulness of advertising across the U.S. NAD reviews national advertising in all media and its decisions set consistent standards for advertising truth and accuracy, delivering meaningful protection to consumers and leveling the playing field for business.
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ADVERTISER PLATFORMS
MetaGod | February 10, 2022
MetaGod, the London-based start-up, has announced the launch of its Gamefi and metaverse platform whereby it develops a complete ecosystem with a digitally rendered 3D virtual reality-based metaverse. It offers users the sole authority to create, build, and control their own metaverse focused on gamification, social interaction, entertainment, and play-to-earn.
Since the last few years, the world has been witnessing an internet evolution greater than the innovations from the DotCom era or Social Media era, or perhaps even more significant than the internet itself. The internet is evolving to a stage that is more immersive, intuitive, and one-step closer to completely immersive virtual reality experiences. Online video games, console games, and mobile games have billions of downloads and continue to emerge as one of the most prevalent media forms in our society. This is leading towards a dedicated economy for play-to-earn blockchain games, which is growing at an exponential rate. In this new world of professional gaming and Esports, play-to-earn NFT games have been leading the charge in the fast-rising industry and new investments.
MetaGod is poised to tap on this opportunity by creating a complete ecosystem around Metaverse and Gamefi. Deployed on Binance Smart Chain Network, this ecosystem will have a metaverse, with its first game based on the card game Monopoly that promises unlimited hours of gameplay fun while subsequently allowing players to earn in many ways.
Emma Quinn, the CEO of MetaGod says, "MetaGod offers a metaverse and blockchain-based ecosystem, not just a single product or a game offering. The ecosystem consists of NFT based God Avatar Characters, Gamefi based play to earn offerings, a metaverse whereby users can play and immerse themselves like real world, game development and publication modules, Socializing Platform, Voting protocol for democratized governance and a dedicated marketplace for trading of NFT assets."
METAGOD Gameplay
As mentioned earlier, the MetaGod metaverse features a complete ecosystem, not just a game. In this regard, the ecosystem will feature an SDK whereby publishers can deploy all sorts of games whereby a player can participate, play and create lucrative income while enjoying the fun play.
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ADVERTISER PLATFORMS
boostr | February 10, 2022
Selling advertising has always worked on a transactional basis where publishers need to compete and win business on a deal by deal basis. Successful publishers have realized that revenue retention is a key to growth. In the May 2021 Media Ad Sales Trends report, boostr found that revenue retention and revenue growth are positively correlated. In fact, the digital publishers with the highest revenue growth rates from 2019-2020 had the best client and revenue retention rates. In the same study, boostr found the top 75th percentile of publishers retained 72% of revenue year over year while the median was 55%.
Unfortunately, a majority of publishers are not able to retain significant client spend and need to find more new logos every year. While there are many reasons for this, oftentimes publishers don't have visibility into the problem. "When I'm talking to CROs and ask them what their churn is, half of them aren't sure, the other half often know, but it's a point in time view because it was so difficult to get the data", says Patrick O'Leary, CEO & Founder at boostr.
Drawing inspiration from the powerful SAAS metric Net Revenue Retention and working alongside publishers tackling their churn problems, boostr is excited to announce Net Advertising Revenue Retention or NARR. NARR provides a SAAS play metric for publishers to help them grow by retaining more revenue while improving their enterprise value. Publishers often trade on their ebitda multiple vs SAAS companies trading on their recurring revenue multiple, at higher valuations. Publishers who can look more SAAS like are more likely to fetch higher valuations thus growing enterprise value for their stakeholders.
Revenue retention is critical for publishers and a healthy sign of a strong partnership. NARR provides publishers a new way to measure how they're doing and visibility where action is needed."
Tim Daugherty, SVP Revenue & Digital Operations at Vice Media
NARR is similar to the SAAS metric Net Revenue Retention (NRR) in that it measures how much revenue is retained from a cohort of customers who spent at the same time last year providing a measure of reoccurrence of revenue. By breaking out NARR by Advertiser, publishers can get insight enabling revenue leaders to take action with an impact.
In addition to introducing the NARR metric to the media industry, boostr is announcing productization of NARR for publishers. boostr provides a NARR dashboard out of the box so publishers can quickly get insights into their NARR to develop strategies to grow it. The NARR dashboard is available to boostr clients now.
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