Content Distribution Channels

Everyone's reading the Fox–Roku deal as a streaming play. Look closer and it's something more specific: Fox just became one of the biggest free, ad-supported TV businesses in America — on purpose. Start with what Fox already had. Tubi, the free ad-supported service it bought for $440M in 2020, now reaches more than 100 million monthly users. It's quietly become one of the most successful businesses in streaming, and it doesn't charge anyone a cent. Now add what Roku brings. The Roku Channel — also free, also ad-supported — already commands roughly 3% of all US streaming viewership, fifth overall behind only YouTube, Netflix, Disney, and Prime Video. Plus the platform underneath it, the home screen on 100M+ households, and an advertising engine that pulled in $613M in a single quarter, up 27% year over year. Put Tubi and The Roku Channel under one roof, wire in Fox's live sports and news, and you don't have a Netflix competitor. You have something different: a free-to-watch, ad-funded media machine with its own distribution and its own first-party data. Here's why I think this is the sharper bet. The subscription wars are exhausting the consumer. People are canceling, rotating, and resenting the fifth $16/month charge. Meanwhile the fastest-growing corner of streaming is the free, ad-supported one — because "free" never churns. Fox is leaning all the way into the model everyone else treats as the consolation prize. Content gets commoditized. Free distribution plus data plus ad targeting compounds. Wall Street isn't convinced yet — Fox shares fell as much as 18% on the news. But strip out the subscription framing and the logic gets clearer: Fox isn't trying to win the war Netflix is fighting. It's building a different business entirely. Do you think the future of streaming is another subscription — or free, ad-supported, and everywhere?

Modern Trade (MT) vs. General Trade (GT): Two Different Games, Two Winning Strategies 1- Winning in MT: Success in MT is about planogram excellence, offering the right formats and prices as per brand value proposition, securing prime shelf and off shelf space, and in-store activations. Promo bursts (BOGO, % discounts, Giraffes, Premiums, Bundling), seasonal offers and loyalty programs drive shopper engagement. Strong JBPs, ability to negotiate rebates, trade spend and credit terms are critical as MT retailers will push to squeeze out margins, maximize spend and ask for extended credit. Stock management with JIT replenishment & sell-through analytics ensures efficiency, preventing expiries and returns. 2- Winning in GT: GT success is built on maximizing coverage, ensuring availability and visibility—because what is available and visible sells! a- Optimized Reach: Balancing Direct Reach through a distributor (van sales & pre-sell for high-weighted retailers) and Indirect Reach through wholesale (for lower-tier penetration) is key to achieve the targeted weighted coverage with the optimal cost-to-serve. Wholesalers focus on SKUs with high rotation and ensure reach to lower end of the trade if given the right incentives (trade deals, margins, loyalty programs, etc). Direct reach pushes a wider range of SKUs scaling growth through trade incentives, margins, volume based deals and product education drives. b- Strategic Distributor Partnerships: Choosing the right distributor with strong capabilities and one with a portfolio that complements your portfolio is key to success. A good GT distributor requires a portfolio that encompasses a mix of fast-moving Hero SKUs (to drive volume and upselling) and high-margin SKUs (to cover distribution costs). Having exclusive distributors in GT for your business does not guarantee success and can limit penetration especially if your portfolio does not combine a mix of high volume hero SKUs and high margin SKUs. c- Disciplined Execution & Performance Tracking: Setting clear KPIs on volumes, reach, availability, and execution to drive distributor accountability is key. Regular business reviews focused on growth plans is a must. Two channels, two different approaches—but both require precision, execution excellence, and strategic management to win. The right channel strategy must be supported with differentiated format offerings for each channel, supported by the right tools (POSM, Chillers, Trays, etc) and coupled with strong brand building plans driving demand generation and salience on the path to purchase. #Nestlé #ModernGeneralTrade #RouteToMarket #ExecutionMatters #RetailStrategy

5 ways LinkedIn silently kills your post. No warning. No explanation. Just... gone. Analyzed 600,000+ posts, found algorithm behaviors that LinkedIn will never publicly acknowledge. Some are brutal. Some are bizarre. All are real. 1.     The 60-Minute Cliff Your post gets 50+ engagements in the first hour. Comments flowing. Likes stacking. You're thinking "this one's going viral." Then... nothing. Complete flatline at minute 61. We've tracked posts where 50%+ of ALL lifetime engagement came from that first hour — then the algorithm just... stopped distributing. No second wave. No extended reach. Dead. Why? Our theory: LinkedIn's "quality gate" triggers at the 60-minute mark. If engagement velocity doesn't hit a specific threshold relative to your follower count, the algorithm assumes the content peaked. Distribution stops. 2.     The “See More” Shadow Ban This one's eerie. Post something critical about LinkedIn, gender issues, religion, or politics. Get decent engagement. Someone clicks "see more" to expand your post and... It vanishes. Not scrolls down. VANISHES. Gone from their feed entirely. We've replicated this dozens of times. The post still exists on your profile. But it's been quietly removed from active distribution. No notification. No policy violation. Just algorithmic erasure. 3.     The Ambassador Penalty This one breaks my heart. You have 15-20 loyal supporters. Real people. Genuine fans of your content. They comment on everything you post — manually, thoughtfully, because they actually care. And LinkedIn punishes you for it. When the same accounts engage with your content repeatedly, the algorithm flags it as "artificial engagement patterns." Your reach gets throttled. Sometimes immediately. Your biggest fans are accidentally killing your distribution. 4.     The Ghost Follower Drain You have 10,000 followers. But only 2,000 are "active" (logged in within 30 days). LinkedIn doesn't care about your total count. It calculates engagement rate against your 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦 follower base — including the ghosts. So your 200 likes on a post? LinkedIn sees that as 2% engagement on 10K followers. Mediocre. Distribution slows. Meanwhile, someone with 2,000 active followers gets 200 likes and LinkedIn sees 10% engagement. Exceptional. 5.     The Hashtag Trap Using hashtags should expand your reach, right? Not anymore. Posts with 3+ hashtags now consistently underperform posts with 0-2 hashtags. But here's the strange part: it's not gradual. At exactly 3 hashtags, we see a 15-20% reach drop. At 5+, it's 35%+. LinkedIn's spam detection now treats hashtag stacking as a manipulation signal. The very feature designed to help discovery is now triggering suppression. The algorithm isn't evil. It's just optimizing for metrics we can't see. Understanding these hidden rules won't guarantee virality. But ignoring them guarantees suppression. Which of these surprises you the most? Drop a number (1-5) in the comments

Reminder: be where your ICP is, not where your FOMO is. The fastest way to waste a quarter? 👇 Chase the shiny new channel instead of mastering where your customers actually live. Here's the hard truth: channels don't create demand - audience fit does. Lead with the platform? You get activity. Lead with ICP behavior? You get intent. Here’s the channel-fit test I run before scaling:  👥 Who 👉 is your ICP actually active there?   🧠 Why 👉 does their intent on that channel match your JTBD?  🎥 What 👉 can you create content that fits the format naturally?  ⏱ When 👉 will you see meaningful results within 8 weeks?  💸 Worth 👉 do the numbers hold when you look past vanity metrics?   If it’s not 4/5 or better, don’t scale. Prove it narrow, then earn your way wide. Remember: your job isn't to drag customers to your preferred channel. It's to show up where they're already paying attention. Stop asking 'What's the hot platform?' Start asking 'Where does my ICP go to solve this problem?' I’m collecting field-tested lessons like this into a Real Marketing Curriculum with @Storyblok. Drop your own in the comments for a chance to be featured. 👇  ⚡ Bonus: the strongest contributions win prizes. #partnership

A 4-year-old gets 3.5B YouTube views more than MrBeast. Here's how MrBeast is losing to toddlers and what It means for your brand: Meet Anaya Kandhal, the 4-year-old Indian sensation outperforming MrBeast on YouTube. But this isn't just about cute videos. As an influencer marketing agency owner who's managed 100+ campaigns, I see a goldmine that most brands are overlooking. Parents aren't just seeking entertainment; they're using these channels as digital babysitters and educational tools. This creates a unique opportunity for brands to provide value to both children and parents. D2C brands are missing out. Here's how to tap in: 1. Create engaging, educational content 2 . Focus on parent-approved themes 3. Remember: "Sell content, not products." 5 of the top 7 most subscribed YouTube channels are kids' content and even kids' channels are outperforming religious content in engagement. One key factor driving the success of kids' content is the blend of education and entertainment - often called "edutainment." Successful channels like Cocomelon and Little Baby Bum aren't just entertaining; they're teaching fundamental skills: - Language development through nursery rhymes and songs - Basic math concepts via counting videos - Social skills through stories about sharing and friendship By creating value-driven, educational content, you're not just selling products – you're becoming a trusted part of a family's daily routine. What's one way your brand could create valuable content for young audiences? #influencermarketing #digitalstrategy

A conversation topic that keeps coming up with enterprise IT leaders that I'm chatting with is the idea of having a company brain or knowledge base for AI agents to access key knowledge, decisions, business facts, and other key information in the organization. Increasingly, one of the biggest components for a successful AI strategy is having a strong data strategy. Agents are only as useful as the authoritative data they have access to, which means the way we manage our company information has taken on a completely new level of importance. Historically most of the energy we put into data organization and governance went into our structured data, such as the data living in our CRM and ERP systems, data lakes, and databases. But this is only 10% of corporate data. 90% of our corporate information is unstructured, and largely made up of enterprise content. This is the content that contains our key product roadmap decisions, design assets, marketing campaigns, HR policies, contract terms, PRDs, and many other critical forms of knowledge that’s both critical for people and agents need to work with. Now, getting individual access to this knowledge via agents is manageable, which is where we’re seeing a lot of great experimentation today. But enabling an enterprise with hundreds, thousands, or tends of thousands of employees to all have access to the right authoritative sources of truth for enterprise knowledge, securely and in a well-governed manner, is much harder. Enterprises will need to invest in ensuring their corporate knowledge is in systems that agents can easily work with (via MCP, CLIs, and more), have sources of truth for the most up-to-date information, have well governed access controls and data protection standards, and make sure future knowledge is captured and entered back into a system that agents can learn from. Most importantly, these brains or knowledge bases need to be able to work with your entire agentic stack, like Codex, Claude Cowork, Copilot, Perplexity, Agentforce, Slack, ServiceNow, Gemini, and more. This is one part a technology task and another part organizational. It’s not easy, but the upside is enormous on the other end of the journey. It means you can reliably farm out tasks and problems to agents knowing they’re working with the right enterprise content to inform their decisions and augment work. At Box, we’re excited to enable enterprises on their journey of bringing their company knowledge to any agent, securely. You can learn more about one of the approaches to this architecture here: https://lnkd.in/gusPbUsF

👀 Tubi has reached a 6.2% share of all ad-supported streaming. Why does this matter? Until now, the advertising industry has relied on Nielsen 3P data that measures TV viewing across paid subscription AND ad tiers. Brands aren’t able to parse which tiers audiences are watching on, which prompts the question: how much of the streaming universe can actually be reached with advertising? According to newly released Nielsen data from Q4 2025: 🏆 Tubi holds 6.2% of total ad‑supported streaming, and is now the #1 fully free ad-supported streamer in terms of adults 18+ reach and second-highest overall free AVOD platform, behind YouTube. ⚡ Tubi is the #4 streamer for adults 18+ ad-supported reach, behind YouTube, Prime Video, and the Disney bundle (Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN). 📺 Tubi outperforms all broadcast and cable networks in ad-supported minutes watched among adults 18-49, including CBS, NBC, ABC and ESPN. 📈 Over a five year span (Nov 2020 and Nov 2025) Tubi’s 18-49 and 25-54 audiences have grown nearly 10X - 973% and 885% respectively. Of course underlying this is a broader tectonic shift, as younger audiences increasingly gravitate to free on-demand streaming and expect greater choice, relevance and originality in content. It’s a highly dynamic market and we are happy to see greater transparency here! https://lnkd.in/edGbUBci

ICP marketing done right ⤵️ Two years ago, 15% of Mutiny’s pipe came from outbound. Now it’s 45% — all while overall pipe has grown significantly. How they got there: 1️⃣ Account selection Moved from gut-based decisions to precision ICP targeting. Account selection incorporates three types of signals via Keyplay and 6sense: firmographics, technographics and buying intent. These signals are all back-tested against good fit accounts (closed-won) and bad fits (closed-lost). When looking at Mutiny’s LinkedIn ads, the new ICP account grades jumped off the page. Tier A accounts saw a 30% conversion from lead to opportunity. Tier B accounts had an 8% conversion. For Tiers C and D, the conversion was a rounding error. 2️⃣ Account engagement The accounts then get uploaded into Clay to personalize outreach (LinkedIn, email, ads) at scale. The goal: making all of Mutiny’s outreach feel 1:1 while operating on a 1:many scale. What about BDRs, you might wonder? The scaled plays drum up initial interest. Mutiny then looks at who visits the website at a contact level. BDRs follow up with extremely personalized, 1:1 messages. (This is the “2012 BDR job”, but all directed at warm ICP accounts.) 3️⃣ Account measurement “We’re definitely not an MQL shop. We don’t say that word here.” The team is goaled on pipeline within ICP accounts. As a leading indicator of pipeline, Mutiny takes a unified approach to measuring where they stand within each target account (TOFU, MOFU, BOFU, open opp, etc.). — What a cool approach to ICP marketing at scale and with modern tech 👏 👏 Read the full story in today’s Growth Unhinged: https://lnkd.in/eM6r2q5Z Huge props to Liam Goldfarb, Stewart Hillhouse and Adam Schoenfeld 🙏 #marketing #sales #abx

Getting on the shelf is just the first step; staying there and driving sales is where real brand-building happens. Placement matters. A product tucked away in the wrong section or out of a consumer’s direct line of sight is a missed opportunity. Visibility drives recall, and recall drives purchase. But distribution isn’t just about logistics—it’s about relationships. Strong ties with distributors and retailers don’t just ensure availability; they create brand advocates on the ground. A retailer who trusts a brand is far more likely to recommend it to the most important person in the chain - our customer. Most importantly, availability is non-negotiable. A product that isn’t on the shelf when a consumer looks for it is a lost sale, and over time, a lost consumer. Consistency in supply, smart demand forecasting, and last-mile efficiency are what turn a stocked shelf into a successful brand. In India, where kirana stores remain the backbone of everyday shopping, offline distribution is not just a sales channel; it’s a trust-builder, a credibility marker, and the key to reaching millions of consumers where they actually shop.