Future of Media: Ryan Reynolds' soccer gambit, Discovery+ reveal and BBC audio

This week, we've got Ryan Reyolds, Discovery, the BBC and out of home advertisers all pushing into new frontiers. Let's reflect on what we've learned.

Reynolds on the ball

Ryan Reynolds is the best content marketer out there. His body of work largely involves some heavy winks to camera – he's enjoying his stint as a 'sell out' but he's also profiting from it – like when he sold Aviation Gin to Diageo based on how hot his marketing made the property.

His attention has now turned to humble Welsh non-league football club Wrexham AFC, with a business venture intended to save the obscure team.

Simon Oliveira, managing director of KIN Partners, explained that Reynolds and comic-buddy Rob McElhenney will make their money back simply by turning their tenure into an underdog tale for a popular streaming service. The football club investment will pay itself due to the star power involved.

Read more on how the media-marketing-sport deal might work out here.

The + side

Discovery has relaunched ad-funded streaming service Dplay as Discovery+, with an additional paid tier affording on-demand access to its pay TV channels.

It joins the streaming plus party: there's Disney+, Apple TV Plus, ESPN Plus, Hulu Plus, Samsung TV Plus, BET Plus and Paramount Plus. Going deeper, it shares a ‘Dis+’ with the hugely successful streaming behemoth Disney+.

James Gibbons, Discovery’s executive vice president general manager UK & Nordics, kindly talked me through how he sees it playing out.

It is coming to market with AVOD and SVOD tiers and faces huge competition, but on the plus side, it enjoys a big share of UK audiences and stands to grow it with the move.

BBC's audio strategy

BBC Global News' Project Songbird has enlisted a synthetic voice to read articles from BBC.com and in doing so, will make its stories work harder for it.

The text-to-speech-based commercial proposition will allow audiences to listen to their favourite feature articles hands-free without the need to actively click and browse. It dials into the rise of smart speaker listening, podcasting and more, and will be a useful exercise in determining the voice medium's true value to the masses.

What does it mean for the BBC, with audio being the new frontier of search?

Best DOOH

The out of home industry took a real kick in the **** when people got locked down at home. But it got smarter. It had to.

Andrew Newman, chief executive of DOOH.com, reflects on some of the best innovation using dynamic data the digital out-of-home advertising industry has seen this year, arguably during its most difficult year, ahead of The Drum Out of Home Awards.

Other stuff

• Apocalypse ravages ITV's top shows in climate disaster ad campaign [Coronation Street burns]

• BuzzFeed acquires HuffPost to form digital media titan [Verizon's still processing the ads]

• Bringing a 615-year-old South Korean palace to life: how SK Telecom harnessed the power of 5G [Old meets the new]

• UK launch of Bookshop.org marks new chapter for independent bookshops [Can it loosen Amazon's grasp of the book market]

• Direct mail posts lockdown resurgence, says Royal Mail [At home? Ads through the letterbox]

Panels

With our 2020 festivals coming to a wrap, I'm proud to share some of the media conversations we posted.

• Streaming accelerated at a huge rate post-Covid; recognise this opportunity and change your reliance on linear TV. This panel with Roku explored how to think audience-first and consider new audience consumption when making your media plan.

• The Trade Desk explained how buyers can capitalise on increased internet, connected TV and mobile use. Learn more about the opportunities.

• Iponweb explored how advertisers can move away from third-party cookies and put first-party data to use: here's how to tap into that competitive asset.

• Hubspot detailed how advertisers can quickly change their messages during difficult times. Here's how to keep your brand speaking when others go dark.

• AdColony banged the Drum for integrating gaming into marketing plans. Learn about the variety of touchpoints these advertisers can access.

• Media Bounty explained how brands can ensure they are not inadvertently funding or sitting next to damaging content, eg anti-climate change. This is a subject close to my heart. The secrets to transparent media buying are here.

Well, that’s this week’s round-up. If you missed the last one, I have summarised it here.

Got a tip, a correction, a complaint, want a chat? I'm at john.mccarthy@thedrum.com or @johngeemccarthy on Twitter.