The 10 Most Watched Ads on YouTube in 2017 – This impressive collection of work includes two video ads that exceeded 100 million views. Which was your favorite? Natalie Portman for Miss Dior or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson" for Apple? AdWeek
B2B Tech Buyers More Motivated by Reliability & Ease of Use Claims Than Price. A study by Lavidge of 400 B2B decision makers in the US reports that technology buyers prefer reliability (64) over low cost (49%) when justifying purchasing decisions. MarketingCharts
The 2018 Hiring Outlook for Marketing and Advertising Jobs. 46% of marketing and advertising executives say it is somewhat challenging to find skilled workers today; 7% say it is very challenging – MarketingProfs
New IRI Report Details Value of Contextually Relevant Advertising. Marketers who instead mix in relevant context strategies can bolster sales lift and further increase return on investment (ROI) by up to 30%. Morningstar
The Advertising Media That Consumers Trust Most. Research from Clutch reports 61% of respondents trust TV/br/oadcast video; 58% trust print; 45%, radio/podcast; 42%, out-of-home/billboards; 41%, online; and 38%, social media. MarketingProfs
How Twitter Celebr/ated The Last Jedi in Style With Real-Time Billboards. Disney teamed up with Twitter to plaster fan tweets across giant billboards in real time. AdWeek
Google Mobile-First Index Rolls Out For 'Handful Of Sites'. Webmasters will see significantly increased crawling by Smartphone Googlebot, and the snippets in the results, as well as the content on the Google cache pages, will be from the mobile version of the pages. SearchMarketing Daily
Google faces fresh EU showdown as rivals attack search giant's response to record fine. "(Google) continues to place its shopping service at an advantage in search results." Telegraph
Instagram ad revenue to double to $10.87bn by 2019. eMarketer predicts a thirds of social media users will use Instagram by 2021 – The Drum
How Instagram's new features will impact organic reach. The addition of follow hashtags and a Recommended for you section have favorable and unfortunate implications for br/ands, publishers and influencers. Here's a rundown – DigiDay
Facebook adds Snooze button to mute annoying friends and Pages. For when you don't want to unfriend or unfollow and just need a br/eak. The Next Web
Facebook Will Now Punish Posts That Beg for Likes and Comments. Facebook said in a statement on Monday that it will begin clamping down on "engagement bait" across its social network starting this week. Fortune
Facebook's Plan To Take On TV. That's right. And for starters, in January Facebook Watch will host a live show, "Mixed Match Challenge," produced by the WWE. MediaPost
On the Lighter Side:
Giphy's List of the Most Popular GIFs in 2017 Is a Gift to Behold. From NFL celebr/ations to dancing Wonder Woman. AdWeek
Awww. Samsung and Casey Neistat Turned an Abandoned Shopping Mall Into a Winter Wonderland for Kids. Happy holidays to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee! AdWeek
TopRank Marketing in the News:
What was the top digital marketing news story for you this week?
