Italy's Serie A could award its 2021-24 broadcasting rights tomorrow to either Sky or DAZN (backed by TIM) for a fee significantly down on the previous cycle.
Either outcome looks good for Sky: increasing coverage at a lower fee, or pivoting to aggregation as DAZN will need to access Sky’s subscriber base.
DAZN and its ally TIM are also shifting strategy, but with weak rationale. The Italian auction reinforces our expectation of a drop in Premier League fees in the imminent British tender.
Amazon advertising grew by 52% in 2020, growing at a faster rate than Google and Facebook, with even more headroom to expand in 2021.
Amazon is poised to benefit from another pandemic year after investing heavily in warehouse safety and aggressively expanding its logistics capabilities.
Expansion in groceries is likely in 2021, while Amazon's brand-focused strategy takes a back seat. Clarity over regulations in India will drive long-awaited expansion.
Amazon is finding women’s fashion, a missing piece of its household-centric model, a tougher nut to crack than downmarket apparel.
Higher-end US department stores are pushing back with an omnichannel model, emphasising long-term partnerships, a clever full-price/outlet model, and experiences which cross the online-offline divide.
In apparel, Amazon and big box retailers have already triumphed over lower-tier American department stores, and even prestigious fashion brands are finding it harder and harder to refuse cooperation with the giants.
This third edition of Europe's Creative Hubs, produced on behalf of Bertelsmann, highlights the challenges of the digital age for enterprises of the creative industries of France, Germany and the UK from new consumer behaviours and the advent of new competitors and new forms of competition for users and customers from tech giants, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix. The report calls upon policymakers in Europe to ensure a level playing field for traditional media in the key areas of taxation, competition law, privacy and data protection, highlighting the interaction of these three in the market for online advertising.
Yet another annual hype cycle in 2018 can’t hide a tepid consumer appetite for all VR platforms and heavy weather for the industry as a whole
The launch of Oculus GO, a standalone device at an attractive price, is a milestone for VR; nevertheless, even Facebook remains worried about reach and the state of the industry
Mobile AR is still a strategic focus for Google and Apple, producing diverse applications instead of just games, but new headsets from Microsoft and Magic Leap which promise advanced MR experiences have no launch dates
Subscription fashion retailer Stitch Fix has gone public, revealing a rare example of a new, private, technology-based company capable of making a profit.
Stitch Fix relies on the ‘mixed intelligence’ of algorithms and human stylists to offer its customers a curated fashion “Fix” of clothing and accessories, aiming to cut through some of the chaos of ecommerce.
Though Stitch Fix’s success is not guaranteed, there is much to be learned from its approach of focusing on building a solid business and generating positive earnings early, rather than growing users at any cost.