Digiday December 17, 2019 Nine months after the launch of Apple News+ it is safe to say the latest platform initiative is not a cure-all for publishers’ business model issues. Of course, this time around publishers entered Apple News+ with realistic expectations. But the early results so far indicate that Apple’s move to offer a paid subscription service for news is having little impact on the bottom lines of publishers.  While Apple News+ has helped with generating some additional revenue and reaching more international audiences, publishers indicate that the revenue generated from the initiative is, to date, modest. “We’re happy to be on there

The Ad Contrarian December 8, 2019 Have you ever wondered why the highly touted marketing miracles never seem to work for you? Stick around. In recent years, copywriters, "branding" experts, "strategic" thinkers, and advertising and marketing agencies have evolved a conceit in which they refer to themselves as "storytellers." Although it is largely self-inflating bullshit, I enjoy this conceit. It puts an emphasis on the concept of "stories" and helps me explain and expose one of the great logical errors of our industry. I call it the "untold stories" problem. Here's how it works. Most of the information we get about the success or failure