NBC has almost sold out of TV ad spots for Super Bowl 2022

"The 2021 NFL season hasn’t even begun yet, and NBC is almost finished with its ad sales for Super Bowl 56—more than five months before the game will take place.

“As of today, we only have a few units left, and we’re purposely holding them back,” Dan Lovinger, evp, advertising sales, NBC Sports Group, told reporters this afternoon during a press briefing. The pregame show is also “extremely well sold,” he added.

Lovinger said the company has sold its most recent Super Bowl units for as much as $6.5 million per 30-second spot, and secured a matching investment across “other high-profile NBCU properties,” including the Winter Olympics, which will also be in February, at the same time as Super Bowl 56 on Feb. 13."

Source:  AdWeek, 8th September 2021

Carat Trends 2021

 Carat's Trends for 2021 - 12 trends to help navigate the next few years.

Carat Trends 2021 - The Year of Emotionally Intelligent Marketing from Carat Global

Amazon is expected to make over $20 billion in ad revenues in 2020

 "Amazon’s advertising division is pulling in big bucks as its marketplace merchants jockey for position amid the pandemic-fueled eCommerce boom.

The tech behemoth is tracking to post its first $100 billion quarter, with an estimated $21 billion coming from annual advertising dollars alone, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday (Dec. 29), citing FactSet data.

Amazon’s crowded digital marketplace has caused merchants to step up their advertising on the site in order to be more visible in search results. The eCommerce giant's advertising business is currently growing faster than its retail, cloud and Prime subscription divisions.

The 47 percent increase in advertising dollars over last year has helped Amazon become a formidable rival to Google search, which has dominated online advertising."

Source:  PYMNTS, citing a report in the Financial Times, 29th December 2020

The US was the top spending market for AVOD in 2019

Top five countries by AVoD expenditure ($ million)
Ranking Country 2019
1 USA 7,998
2 China 6,777
3 United Kingdom 1,620
4 Japan 1,611 4
5 India 632 5

Source:  Digital TV Research, quoted in Advanced Television, 1st June 2020

11% of product views on Amazon come from sponsored posts

"It’s never been more difficult to sell stuff on Amazon.
Last year, Recode reported how Amazon had, over time, stuffed its search results with advertisements, so in order to show up in customer search results, brands were increasingly having to buy ads.
Since then it’s gotten worse.
Now 11 percent of all product views on Amazon come from sponsored listings, up 3 percentage points in just the past year, according to new data from digital research firm Jumpshot. It’s not clear if that’s because there are more sponsored ads or because sponsored ads have gotten more effective. Going to a product’s page also doesn’t necessarily mean customers will end up buying that product, but brands are nonetheless forking over money to attract these customers’ eyeballs.
Showing up higher in search results greatly affects whether people will click on and buy products. This has repercussions for both small third-party marketplace sellers that base their whole livelihoods around selling on Amazon, as well as giant brands like Samsonite, Dove, and Levi’s. Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment."
Source:  Vox, 16th September 2019

Note - these may be US stats

Addressable TV advertising is more engaging and more effective

"To understand the impact of addressable TV on both consumer viewing and ad engagement, Sky Media partnered with BVA BDRC, Differentology and Affectiva to measure the impact of addressable TV campaigns using AdSmart. The extensive study included ground-breaking facial coding and emotional analytics. Findings are based on more than 130 campaign effectiveness projects, in which 300,000 Sky subscribers were interviewed. The research reveals:
Addressable drives ad engagement. Facial recognition analysis revealed that when addressable ads are on TV, viewers’ attentiveness to the screen can be as a third higher (35%) and on average 21% more engaged.
Addressable cuts channel switching during ads. An analysis using 52,000 ad breaks showed that channel switching was halved (reducing by 48%) when addressable ads were in the first three positions of a break, compared to standard linear TV ads.
Addressable increases spontaneous ad recall. Viewers of addressable TV ads are 10% more likely to spontaneously recall an ad compared to linear TV advertising.
Addressable is amplified when combined with linear. Combining linear with addressable TV advertising increases ad awareness by nearly a quarter (22%). When the frequency of addressable ads is equal or higher to linear exposure ad recall is boosted by half (49%).
Addressable works. Higher engagement and relevance have clear business results, increasing purchase intent by 7% overall and by as much as 20% for new to Tv advertisers who benefit more from the exposure and credibility TV delivers.
Tangible business results for new to TV brands. Local brands like Gasway (35%) and Richardson’s Garden Centre (17%) among 100s of businesses seeing significant business growth through the use of addressable TV advertising."
Source:  Data from Sky, reported in a press release, 15th August 2019

Facebook's revenues grew 28% year on year in Q2 2019

"Facebook reported a 28% revenue gain to $16.9 billion in Q2 from a year earlier, as the social media giant shook off negative headlines and a record-setting fine for its data-sharing practices this week. Mobile ad revenue hit $15.6 billion, or about 94% of total ad revenue, COO Sheryl Sandberg said in the Wednesday conference call with analysts. The figure was 12% higher than the $13.9 billion reported in Q1, highlighting the importance of mobile ads for Facebook.
Mobile-first video accounted for more than 50% of video revenue for the company, Sandberg said. Brands are working to develop "thumb-stopping" creative that hooks mobile viewers faster than 30-second TV ads. "The best mobile-first ad or ad on Facebook gets to the main point or gets to the product in the first three seconds," she said.
Facebook's "blue" app, its oldest and biggest product, boosted its user base by 8% to 2.41 billion in Q2 from a year earlier, making it the largest social media platform worldwide. Daily active users (DAUs) rose 6% to 1.59 billion from a year earlier. The figures generally don't include users of Instagram, WhatsApp or Oculus, per Facebook's report."
Source:  Facebook Q2 2019 Results, reported by Mobile Marketer, 25th July 2019

Amazon spent $8.2bn on marketing in 2018

"Amazon hiked its marketing spend by 30% to $8.2bn (£6.3bn) last year, making it a serious challenger to Procter & Gamble and Unilever as the world’s biggest advertiser.
The tech giant said in its annual report that its marketing costs "primarily consist of targeted online advertising, payroll and related expenses for personnel engaged in marketing and selling activities, and television advertising".
Amazon added that its marketing spend also includes promotional costs such as "commissions to third parties when their customer referrals result in sales" and "co-operative advertising arrangements with certain of our vendors and other third parties"."

Source:  Campaign, 6th February 2019

Burger King's 'Whopper Detour' campaign drove 1.5m app downloads

"Burger King boosted downloads of its mobile app by 1.5 million with its "Whopper Detour" stunt campaign that offered 1-cent Whoppers to smartphone users who were near rival McDonald's locations. José Cil, CEO of Burger King's parent company Restaurant Brands International (RBI), revealed the results as part of a quarterly earnings call with analysts on Feb. 11.
Customers had to download the upgraded Burger King app and get within 600 feet of a McDonald's restaurant to activate the offer. After customers placed an order, the app navigated them away from McDonald's and toward the nearest Burger King to pick up their food within an hour.
The campaign made the Burger King app the most downloaded app in Apple's App Store for several days in a row and the most downloaded QSR app in the U.S. among direct competitors in December, Cil said. RBI also owns Popeyes and Tim Hortons."

Source:  Mobile Marketer, 12th February 2019

A campaign on Spotify increased visits to Baskin-Robbins by 12%

"Baskin-Robbins saw a 12% lift in store visits — 4.3-times industry benchmarks — from an ad campaign on music streaming service Spotify, according to data verified by Placed. The offline attribution firm joined Spotify as a measurement partner in the United States, per an announcement.
Baskin-Robbins attributed 430,000 U.S. store visits to people who heard the "Baskin-Robbins Got Me Like" ad last summer. The campaign also drove 47,000 incremental store visits and a positive return on investment. Each ad urged listeners to "Find A Shop" and directed them to click and see the nearest Baskin-Robbins store, per a Spotify case study.
Dave Nagel, senior director of consumer engagement at Baskin Robbins, said Placed helped the ice-cream chain to make more efficient decisions about its media spend on platforms such as Spotify. Placed joins Comscore, Digitalist LeanLab, Foursquare, Integral Ad Science, Moat, Nielsen and Nielsen Catalina Solutions as a Spotify measurement partner."

Source:  Mobile Marketer, 21st February 2019

Facebook has 1.5bn daily active users; 93% of ad revenue is mobile

"Daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.52 billion on average for December 2018, an increase of 9% year-over-year.
Monthly active users (MAUs) – MAUs were 2.32 billion as of December 31, 2018, an increase of 9% year-over-year.
Mobile advertising revenue – Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 93% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2018, up from approximately 89% of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Capital expenditures – Capital expenditures were $4.37 billion and $13.92 billion for the fourth quarter and full year 2018, respectively.
Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities – Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $41.11 billion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018.
Headcount – Headcount was 35,587 as of December 31, 2018, an increase of 42% year-over-year."
Source:  Facebook Q4 & full year 2018 results, 30th January 2019

Ads for Subway, targeted on the weather, helped drive a 31% increase in store visits

"Subway came to IBM Watson Advertising with the goal of driving an increase in store visits. They were interested in leveraging the connection between weather and QSR foot traffic to drive awareness of their $4.99 Footlong promotion via The Weather Channel mobile app. To build awareness and ultimately drive in-store visits to their restaurants, Subway leveraged Watson Advertising’s newest targeting capability – WEATHERfx Footfall with Watson. This capability leverages machine learning to process weather, sales, and footfall data specific to a brand’s store locations to predict increases in footfall traffic and enable brands to intelligently adapt and optimize their media to capitalize on it in real-time. In addition to helping drive a 31% lift in store traffic vs. those who weren't exposed to Subway's digital advertising,
Subway also saw a 53% reduction in campaign waste, salvaging about 7.9M impressions that would have otherwise gone to waste."
Source:  Press release from IBM, 24th September 2018

Nike's online sales rose 31% following its 'Colin Kaepernick' ad

"Talk of Nike Inc. sales taking a hit from the company’s decision to put ex–NFL player Colin Kaepernick at the center of its latest “Just Do It” campaign is looking overblown, based on data from a Silicon Valley digital commerce research company.
After an initial dip immediately after the news broke, Nike’s NKE, +1.93% online sales actually grew 31% from the Sunday of Labor Day weekend through Tuesday, as compared with a 17% gain recorded for the same period of 2017, according to San Francisco–based Edison Trends.
“There was speculation that the Nike/Kaepernick campaign would lead to a drop in sales, but our data over the last week does not support that theory,” said Hetal Pandya, co-founder of Edison Trends."

Source:  MarketWatch, 10th September 2018

Note - (1) It's unofficial data, rather than from Nike itself, and (2) it's really too soon to see an effect from its new ad.

More than 70,000 Twitter users are blocking major brands on Twitter

"More than 71,000 Twitter users have started blocking hundreds of major brands, including Nike, Pepsi, Uber and McDonald's, in a boycott aimed at putting pressure on the social platform to permanently ban Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host, according to a report in Adweek.
Blocking brands could limit the reach of their promoted tweets and other ads from showing up on users' timelines. Other brands being blocked include Red Bull, Starbucks, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Visa and Capital One."

Source:  Marketing Dive, 17th August 2018

Note - If you block someone on Twitter you won't see their tweets, even their paid/promoted tweets.

Netflix pays an estimated $100 to get a new subscriber in the US

"Netflix’s cost of adding new subscribers on its home soil in the US has rocketed in recent years, reaching $100 (€86) per net new subscriber, according to Ampere Analysis. Acquisition costs for domestic subscribers have increased significantly in recent years; from 2013-2015 the cost of a net new domestic subscriber stood at a stable figure of around $60.
In contrast, Netflix’s cost of adding international subscribers has remained relatively flat at $40-$45 for each new customer it adds. So, while headlines about content spend dominate, this report focuses on Netflix’s significant investment in marketing."

Source:  Advanced Television, 12th July 2018

US Podcasting ad revenue exceeded $300m in 2017

"U.S. podcast ad revenue hit an estimated $314 million in 2017, an 86% increase from $169 million in 2016, according to findings from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC made available to Marketing Dive. The report, the IAB's second annual Podcast Revenue Study, forecasts that podcast revenue will reach $659 million by 2020, a 110% increase from 2017.
The preferred type of podcast ad was host-read, which made up two-thirds of podcast ads in 2017. Direct response ads accounted for 64.2% of campaign revenue, with brand awareness ads at 29.2%. Ads integrated or edited into programming made up 58% of the podcast ad inventory in 2017, up from 43.6% in the previous year."

Source:  Marketing Dive, 12th June 2018

Approximately 15% of the time spent watching YouTube is on TVs

"Technology has evolved in the last few years to give viewers a lot of convenient ways to watch internet video on a television screen.
Dedicated digital media players like Roku devices and Apple TVs have been around for years, and it's possible to stream digital video from most video game consoles. More recently, people have been adopting devices like the Google Chromecast, which let users stream video from their mobile phone or computer over a WiFi connection to their TV sets.
YouTube says more people are taking advantage of these options. According to the company, people now watch an average 150 million hours of YouTube per day on TV screens, or about 15 percent of the overall time spent watching YouTube. An Ipsos study commissioned by YouTube found that seven out of 10 of its viewers were watching YouTube on TV screens at least some of the time.
"TV is the fastest growing surface for YouTube viewership," Debbie Weinstein, managing director for YouTube video global solutions, told CNBC.
This viewership isn't replacing mobile viewership, but is rather adding to it, with many using mobile devices as a bridge.
"A lot of the viewership on TV is casting from the mobile device," Weinstein said. "I think it's more about technology and how it interacts in their [users'] lives."
YouTube TV viewers tend to stick around longer than viewers on other platforms, too, the company said. The average mobile YouTube viewing session is 60 minutes, while on TV it's much closer to the typical television watching duration of 4.5 hours. (YouTube declined to give a precise time)."

Source:  CNBC, 30th April 2018

Spending on apps and advertising on Apple's App Store was more than $100m a day for the whole of 2017

Spending on apps and advertising on the App Store now running at more than $100 million/day (sustained over one year.) pic.twitter.com/C7heINXWRH

— Horace Dediu (@asymco) January 5, 2018

Unilever & Nestle get a return of £2 for every £1 spend on digital display ads in the UK

"On average, for every £1 Unilever and Nestlé spend on display ads in the UK both brands return almost double in sales, according to data from the Internet Advertising Bureaux (IAB UK).
The figures come as a year of FMCG digital efficiency drives and agency reviews draws to a close, with the IAB claiming that every £1 spent on digital display units yields a typical ROI of £1.94 across all major British supermarkets.
The study tracked the programmatic display advertising of nine consumer goods brands including Persil, Magnum, Tropicana, PG Tips and Nescafe across a number of premium sites like the Guardian, Mail Online, Yahoo and Gumtree.
Though it didn’t specify the breakdowns for individual brand ROI, it noted that one brand it monitored saw a £3.38 ROI for every £1 it invested.
The research was completed over a year-long period, comparing display spend with short-term sales numbers gleaned from i2c – a joint venture between Sainsbury’s and Nectar card owner Aimia – and Nielsen’s Homescan data. The resulting data, which was commissioned by i2c and the IAB gives an insight into the shopping behaviour at all major UK supermarkets."

Source:  Data from the IAB, reported by The Drum, 12th December 2017

79% of web sites track visitors - & 10% send data back to 10 or more companies

"A new study from Ghostery, an anti-tracking tool, shows that an overwhelming majority (79%) of websites globally are tracking visitors' data — with 10% of these sites actually sending user data to 10 companies or more."
Source:  Data from Ghostery, reported by Axios, 12th December 2017