Two-Thirds Of Agency Execs Have Changed Their Shop Due To COVID, Mostly Financiallyby

 

Two-Thirds Of Agency Execs Have Changed Their Shop Due To COVID, Mostly Financially

• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 27, 2020

Two-thirds of ad agency executives say they have fundamentally altered how they do business in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. That's the finding of a poll of 30 ad agency executives conducted recently by digital marketing and media agency Digital Third Coast.

Not surprisingly, the No. 1 change cited was financial, followed by changing their existing services offering and/or adding new services.

A smaller percentage (16%) said they had reduced the prices they charge clients, while an even smaller number (6%) said they increased the prices they charge.

"As one leader said, the pandemic has been a 'humbling experience,'" reads the report, noting, "one that many have used to hone their offers and focus further on their business model. 

"While many companies didn’t overhaul their offerings, many became more nuanced in the cost of doing business. We found several agencies said they became more competitive in their pricing, or more flexible in their payment plans for existing clients."

You can read the verbatim responses of the agency executives here.

 

Digital Political Ad Fraud Climbing To $377 Million: Study

• by Wayne Friedman , October 27, 2020

Just days before the Presidential election, 13% of U.S. digital political media ad spending -- $377 million -- could be subject to advertising fraud.

According to a study from the University of Baltimore, and CHEQ, a cyber-security anti-fraud company “one in five invalid clicks is not from U.S. voters.”

With over 65% of voters consuming news and information from digital media channels, spending on the U.S. election this year could amount to between $1.3 billion and $2.9 billion.

“Bot-makers create millions of headless browsers, that can simulate all human-like actions such as mouse movement, page scrolling, and clicks, to load webpages and cause ad impressions, that appear entirely human,” according to the authors.

The study says, for example, that 56% of Google political spend occurs in the last month of the election race, with 21% of ad dollars pumped out in the final 10 days. “Due to limits set by Google and Facebook, campaigns are instead spending on more junk ad-prone traffic.”

While media campaign refunds are possible, the study says all this comes too late. The study quotes veteran digital executive Zach Edwards, who says: "In a business ad buy you have an ROI, you have people checking it for months afterwards, and if it didn't pan out you may ask for a refund, whereas in political buying the only day that matters is election day.”

 

COMMENTARY

Marketers Find Surprising Silver Linings In COVID Cloud

• by Shayne Tilley , October 27, 2020

It’s fair to say that 2020 has radically transformed the way we work.

There's been a lot of discussion about how the pandemic has impacted channel spend and brand positioning, but what about the effects on marketers themselves -- both personally and professionally?

While the list of challenges of the past six months is extensive and exhausting, our new research shows silver linings are starting to emerge from the chaos for marketers around the world.

Better communication, collaboration and trust

Creative industries thrive on collaboration and communication. And while it might have taken a little while for everyone to get into the swing of things in terms of digital collaboration (Zoom, Slack, Trello, Teams -- the list of tools is endless) there have been some surprising benefits to learning how to do our jobs remotely.    

Forty-two percent of marketing leaders believe communication with their direct reports and team has actually improved while working from home, and almost a third of all marketers feel that their managers have a greater trust in their abilities now than before the pandemic began.

While younger marketers have found creative collaboration tougher than their older colleagues in a remote setting, these broader improvements appear to be in line with those across a range of industries, with Atlassian finding that 40% of teams have experienced improved collaboration during the pandemic.

Opportunities for growth and training
 
While the industry was hit hard by layoffs and budget cuts in the early stages of the pandemic, the new normal appears to have had some positive impacts on opportunities for training and career development as well.  

With many marketing professionals taking on extra responsibilities and workloads over the past six months, more than one in five believe that opportunities for career advancement have actually increased in 2020.

Equally, younger marketers believe that remote work has the potential to revolutionize training and development, with 41% of under 35s predicting that remote training will have a positive impact on the industry. Similarly, 40% of agency staff feel the same way, compared to just 25% of in-house marketers, which is perhaps unsurprising given the typically heavy schedules of agency teams.  

The number-one reason cited for this optimism is that remote training allows for more focused 1:1 attention - something that was also reflected in a study by Microsoft that found 1:1 check-ins had increased by 18% since the start of the pandemic.
    
Potential for greater diversity and inclusion

Another unexpected benefit to have emerged from the pandemic is that remote work has, in some ways, turned out to be a great equalizer. From intern to CEO, using the same communication tools breaks down hierarchies and puts us all on the same level when it comes to communication.

Working from home (at scale) has normalized remote work across industries, and the majority of marketing professionals expect their company or clients to hire more remote-only talent going forward. Just over a quarter of marketers (26%) believe that being able to recruit remotely enables greater hiring diversity, leveling the playing field even further. The promise of more flexible hiring models hints at greater opportunities, a more equal platform for meritocracy and diversity of talent -- factors the industry has been crying out for for years.  

While time will tell if the optimism about the remote work revolution will translate into a lived and long-term reality, these silver linings have the potential to shape the industry in completely new ways -- and have proven that marketers and their teams are more resilient and adaptable than we ever imagined. 

NBCU Completes Upfront, Sees Q3 Ad Revenues Declineby

 

NBCU Completes Upfront, Sees Q3 Ad Revenues Decline

• by Wayne Friedman , 7 hours ago

With the release of its third-quarter financial report, Comcast’s NBCUniversal says it has completed its upfront advertising selling deals for the current TV season, with “strong volume commitments and higher pricing.”

The company did not provide details.

The upfront selling season has been hampered by production delays for many new shows this year, which have slowed advertising commitments -- deals typically agreed to in the June-August period. Some advertisers have pushed season-long deals to begin in January.

For the July-September period, NBCUniversal’s broadcast networks and cable networks witnessed ad revenue declines of 12% (to $1.05 billion) and 2% (to $793 million), respectively.

NBC’s cable networks experienced a rare decline in distribution revenue -- down 3.8% (to $1.6 billion) -- largely due to the loss of games and subscribers for its regional sports networks in the period as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic

NBC’s broadcast platforms, TV networks and TV stations continued to see gains in distribution revenues -- retransmission content fees -- growing 4.9% (to $620 million).

On the plus side -- for both broadcast and cable -- content licensing revenue was sharply higher, up 65% (to $740 million) and 17% (to $326 million) respectively -- partly due to the timing of deals as well as programming transactions for NBCU’s new streaming service Peacock.

NBCU says Peacock now has nearly 22 million subscribers. It also touts a recent deal with TV streaming platform distributor Roku.

Filmed entertainment was down 25% to $1.3 billion, with theatrical revenue sinking by 95% (to $29 million) versus the third quarter a year ago.

Boosting these results in a positive direction were rising home entertainment revenues -- up 49% ($279 million), including the streaming of theatrical-intended movies such as “Trolls World Tour.”

Theme park revenues globally sank due to the pandemic -- down 81% to $311 million.

Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Studios Japan have been operating at limited capacity, while Universal Studios Hollywood remains closed.

Parent Comcast Corp. witnessed a 5% decline in overall revenues to $25.5 billion, largely due to COVID-19 issues.

For its cable communications unit, the company’s video business was down 2% to $5.5 billion, with high-speed internet revenue up 10% in the period to $4.7 billion. Comcast revenue suffered due to lower fees for its regional sport networks, amidst cancellation of sporting events.

Video subscribers had a net loss of 273,000 to a total of 20.09 million, while broadband internet subscribers grew by 633,000 to total 30.1 million.

 

Nielsen Ad Intel Expands Into Search, Partners With BIScience, The Search Monitor

• by Wayne Friedman , 8 hours ago

Nielsen is adding search data to its Nielsen Ad Intel product, expanding its U.S. digital advertising data.

Nielsen is partnering with The Search Monitor, a provider of ad intelligence, giving Ad Intel subscribers real-time market data across search advertising channels including paid search, organic, product listing ads and shopping engines worldwide, across desktop and mobile devices.

The Search Monitor analyzes worldwide search engines, including Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu, Yandex, Naver, AOL, Sogou, Haosou, Amazon, and Google Shopping.

Nielsen Ad Intel already has 24 different media categories as part of its platform. The company says Ad Intel will allow users to measure display and video ads on social and in-app platforms.

As a part of this effort around digital, it is also partnering with BIScience, a digital ad intelligence and media measurement company, and its AdClarity advertising product, to provide increased coverage by measuring additional sites and advertising types, integrating virtual and human panel data, across desktop and mobile devices.

BIScience is in 30 global markets, analyzing over 1 million advertisers.

 

A reason for the importance of local-direct business! Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

TV Could Lose $5 Billion In Advertising Through 2023: Analyst

• by Wayne Friedman , September 29, 2020

Television advertising could lose further share in the wake of rising digital advertising in the next few years -- due to continued growth of small and medium-sized businesses using digital platforms.

Digital advertising will rise by $94 billion through 2023, with TV slipping $5 billion and other media -- print, radio, outdoor -- collectively losing $14 billion, according to MoffettNathanson Research.

“Digital’s gains are primarily coming from attracting new money into the market rather than eating away from TV ad budgets in absolute terms,” says the report -- primarily from small and mid-size businesses.

Total U.S. advertising will rise 33% to $302 billion in 2023 versus $227 billion in 2019, the report says.

TV has been especially hard hit by the recent loss of TV advertising of national traditional retail brands during the COVID-19 crisis. “We believe traditional retail is just one example of traditional businesses likely to cut back on TV ad spend due to top-line pressures from Covid-19,” says the report.

But going forward, TV may benefit from rising big brand technology advertisers -- Amazon, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple, Microsoft, eBay and Facebook. It is estimated that on average, these technology companies spent 20% of their media budgets on television in 2019.

“On the structural health of TV’s core advertiser segments, we believe that weakness among retail may in fact be offset by strength in technology,” MoffettNathanson Research says.

In addition, it says that while accelerating cord-cutting trends are hurting TV, “we expect this will be partially offset by an increase in AVOD [advertising video on demand] spending.”

In 2019, U.S. digital advertising totaled $104 billion, with TV at $77 billion, print at $20 billion and other media at $25 billion.

By 2024, digital advertising will increase its growing dominant share of the U.S. advertising market -- up to 69% in 2024 (from 46% in 2019), MoffettNathanson says.

TV will sink to 22% in four years, from 34% in 2019, while print media will be at a 3% share (down from 9%), with other media going lower to a 5% share (from 11% in 2019).