Saturday 20 November 2021

dentsu 2022 Media Trends

 Our new 2022 Trends report has been published - all about how we are transitioning to a 'new normal' as we move through the pandemic.  

See the deck on Slideshare below - 


Wednesday 20 October 2021

Squid Game is Netflix most popular show, with 142m households watching in the first 28 days

"There  is  no  better  example  of  this  than Squid  Game, a  unique  Korean  story  that  first  captured  the zeitgeist  in  Korea  and  then  globally.  Released  on  September  17,  it  has  become our  biggest  TV  show  ever. A mind-boggling 142m member  households  globally  have chosen  to  watch  the  title  in  its  first  four  weeks. The  breadth  of Squid  Game’s  popularity  is  truly  amazing; this  show  has  been  ranked  as  our  #1  program  in 94  countries  (including  the  US).  Like  some  of  our  other  big  hits, Squid  Game has  also  pierced  the  cultural zeitgeist,  spawning  a Saturday  Night  Live skit and memes/clips  on  TikTok with  more  than  42  billion  views. Demand for  consumer  products  to  celebrate  the  fandom  for Squid  Game is  high  and  those  items  are  on their  way  to  retail  now."

Source:  Netflix Q3 2021 Letter to Shareholders, 19th October 2021 

Note 1 - This smashes the previous record of 82m set by Bridgerton in January 2021

Note 2 - This is 2/3 of Netflix 214m member households

Note 3 - Netflix definition for 'watching' is to watch at least 2 minutes

Monday 13 September 2021

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

AMC cinema chain's box office receipts were higher in Labor Day 2021 than in 2019

 "AMC Entertainment broke its Labor Day weekend admissions record, thanks in large part to the $90 million raked in by Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” which drew the lion’s share of the two million moviegoers during the four-day weekend from Sept. 2-5, according to a CNBC report.

This is the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that 2021 attendance was higher than the same weekend in 2019.

“This encouraging surge in attendance at AMC signals that as Hollywood releases movies, Americans eagerly want to return to movie theatres again,” said CEO Adam Aron in a statement on Tuesday (Sept. 7).

“Shang-Chi” raked in $71.4 million in ticket sales from Sept. 3-5, the second-highest opening during the coronavirus outbreak, trailing only “Black Widow,” which saw $80 million in sales in July. The $90 million-plus brought in by the new Marvel hero movie is almost triple the previous Labor Day weekend record set by “Halloween” in 2007 ($30.6 million)."

Source:  PYMNTS, 7th September 2021

101 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs sold for $24m

 "The popular Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection made a splash in the art world this month with its own Sotheby’s auction for a lot of 101 of the Ethereum-based profile pictures. And the recent hype around the randomly-generated ape illustrations extended into the auction, with a winning bid that smashed expectations.

The auction closed today with a winning bid of $24.39 million, well ahead of Sotheby’s estimated range of $15 million to $18 million. That works out to about $241,500 per Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT. The average sale price for a Bored Ape on leading secondary marketplace OpenSea over the last seven days is just above 46 ETH, or nearly $164,000."

Source:  Decrypt, 9th September 2021

The game 'I Expect You To Die 2' 'has generated >$1m in sales in the first week'

 "The sequel to Schell Games’ popular VR puzzle game hit a major milestone just one week after going on sale.

In 2016 Schell Games launched their game I Expect You To Die on Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, and SteamVR headsets. In this James Bond-esque adventure, players took on the role of a professional spy tasked with solving a variety of cinematic puzzles within a set period of time. Needless to say, the game was an instant hit, captivating VR players with its colorful setting and unique puzzle-solving mechanics.

Capitalizing on the success of the original game, Schell Games launched I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar in August of 2021. Now, less than a month after its release, developer Schell Games is claiming that its sequel title managed to surpass $1M in sales less than a week after launch. This is a huge milestone not only for the developer but for the VR industry in general."

Source:  VR Scout, 9th September 2021

Monday 6 September 2021

The tube is back to 50% of its pre-pandemic weekday usage levels

 "For some, this is alarming, threatening to repeat past spirals of decline: fewer trains means many journeys become less viable, and rail less attractive. Ominously, industry sources say the areas most likely to suffer service cuts are subsidy-reliant branch lines in the north of England and rural areas – the very areas the government has pledged to invest in. Government figures show private car usage has already surpassed pre-Covid traffic, while public transport wanes. Chris Page, the chairman of the campaign group Railfuture, says: “The rail industry needs to control its cost base to deal with the realities of the pandemic, but cutting services will lead to lower rail usage and declining revenue.”

London, where weekday tube usage is now about 50% of pre-pandemic levels, up from a nadir of 5% in 2020, has fought to restore virtually a full timetable, despite heavy financial pressures. With fare revenues of about £5bn covering almost three-quarters of TfL’s budget, it depends more than most cities on effective public transport – for funding and to function without congestion, says Vernon Everitt, TfL’s managing director for customers, communication and technology."

Source:  The Guardian, 29th August 2021

Amazon 'is operating 164 freight flights a day in the US'

 "More than 70% of the U.S. population lives within 100 miles of an airport where Amazon Air or one of its partner airlines operates

[...]

Last month, Amazon opened its $1.5 billion “superhub” at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, which spans 600 acres and features an 800,000-square-foot robotic sort center, where packages are sorted by zip code and consolidated into trucks before delivery. The hub could handle up to 200 flights a day.

Amazon flight activity has increased 17% over the past six months to an average of 164 flights per day, DePaul researchers said. The researchers predicted Amazon will expand its flight operations by another 12-14%, bringing its daily total to more than 180 by January of next year."

2/3 of UK homes subscribe to paid video streaming services

 "One element of the Establishment Survey results that is always of interest is the number of UK households with access to a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service. This update for Q2 2021 shows that access has continued to increase since our last release. The number of UK households with a subscription to any SVOD service is now 18.8 million homes (66%), up from 17.4 million in Q3 2020.

All of the main services have seen growth, with market-leader Netflix increasing to 16.8m households in Q2 2021, up more than 1.5m since Q3 2020. Amazon Prime Video saw a larger growth in households than Netflix, increasing over 2.3m homes to 12.5m. The largest percentage-change in the market was from Disney+, which is growing from a smaller subscriber base than Amazon and Netflix, having launched in March 2020. In Q2 2021, Disney+ was available in 4.8m households, up 24% since last time. NowTV also increased, to 2.3m homes.

With the overall growth of 1.5 million homes lower than the aggregate growth for individual services, it’s also clear that more homes have multiple SVOD subscriptions. The proportion of homes with an SVOD service that subscribe to two or more services has risen to 65.3%, up from 58.3% in Q3 2020."

Source:  BARB's 2021 Establishment Survey, 26th August 2021

Apple Arcade 'has 5m subscribers, with a churn rate of 20%'

 "Based on third party data services (e.g. SensorTower, which tracks downloads), Apple Arcade does not seem to be very popular. Most estimates suggest 5MM or fewer subscribers, which means the service is used by less than 0.5% of Apple’s 1.1B active iOS users.

[...]

Most telling, however, is Arcade’s churn. Roughly 20% of subscribers leave the service each month (implying an average tenure of only five months). This is three-and-a-half times the worst performing SVOD. In fact, Apple Arcade experiences more than twice the churn of HBO in the month after the finale of Game of Thrones… but every month! Note that Netflix’s churn is best in class by some margin."

Monday 1 February 2021

Twitch has over 30m average daily visitors and an average viewership of 2.5m at any given moment

 "Facts & Figures

Average viewership at any given moment - 2.5 Million+

Unique creators streaming each month - 7 Million+

Average daily visitors - 30 Million+

Employees around the world - 1,800

Minutes watched in 2020 - 1 Trillion+"

Source:  Twitch Press Centre, retrieved 1st February 2021


Friday 29 January 2021

Over 20% of McDonalds sales in the UK in Q4 2020 were delivery sales

 "The only thing I'd add John is, as Chris mentioned, obviously we're seeing both digital and delivery growing significantly in those IOM markets. In the U.K., for example, over 20% of their sales in Q4 were delivery sales. So, we are seeing some significant growth both in delivery and digital."

Source:  Extract from the McDonalds earnings call, reported by The Motley Fool, 28th January 2021

Facebook has 1.84bn daily active users

 "Facebook daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.84 billion on average for December 2020, an increase of 11% year-over-year.

Facebook monthly active users (MAUs) – MAUs were 2.80 billion as of December 31, 2020, an increase of 12% year-over-year.

Family daily active people (DAP) – DAP was 2.60 billion on average for December 2020, an increase of 15% year-over-year.

Family monthly active people (MAP) – MAP was 3.30 billion as of December 31, 2020, an increase of 14% year-over-year.

Capital expenditures – Capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, were $4.82 billion and $15.72 billion for the fourth quarter and full year of 2020, respectively.

Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities – Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $61.95 billion as of December 31, 2020.

Headcount – Headcount was 58,604 as of December 31, 2020, an increase of 30% year-over-year."

Source:  Facebook's Q4 2020 Results, 27th January 2021

82m households watched (at least some of) Bridgerton on Netflix in the first 28 days

 "A record 82 million households around the world watched Netflix original series Bridgerton in its first 28 days.

Netflix reported that the period drama has made the top 10 in every country except Japan – hitting number one in 83 countries including the US, UK, Brazil, France, India and South Africa.

The success of the series also propelled the books, by Julia Quinn, into The New York Times best seller lists for the first time – some 18 years after they were first published."

Source:  Advanced Television, 28th January 2021

Netflix has 204m paying subscribers

"Netflix powered past the 200 million subscriber mark in 2020 to cap its biggest-ever year of growth, driven by viewership gains during COVID-19.


In the fourth quarter of 2020, Netflix added 8.51 million paid streaming subscribers, about 2.5 million more than expected, to stand at 203.7 million worldwide at the end of the year."

Source:  Variety, 19th January, 2021

Sunday 17 January 2021

OnlyFans has 85 million subscribers & 1 million creators

 "The site, which has boomed in popularity in the past year, is technically open to anyone – from personal trainers to artists and cooks – but it’s best known for one thing: nudes. Creators charge subscription fees for exclusive content, put up pay-per-view posts, and generate income from tips and livestreams.

A spokeswoman for OnlyFans told Guardian Australia there are more than 1 million creators worldwide, 85 million registered users, and it paid out more than US$2bn ($2.7bn) globally this year."

[...]

"Use of OnlyFans exploded during the pandemic, going from 7.5 million users last November to 85 million now."

Source:  The Guardian, 22nd December 2020

Just Eat Takeaway.com's orders rose 57% in Q4 2020

 "European food-ordering firm Just Eat Takeaway.com NV said on Wednesday it had received 57% more orders in the fourth quarter than a year earlier, as strict social distancing rules and work-from-home trends continued to boost online orders.

Order growth accelerated from a 46% jump in the third quarter, as countries across Europe went back into lockdown due to swelling numbers of coronavirus infections.

Takeaway’s orders were up 56% in Germany and 58% in the United Kingdom. Restaurants in the Netherlands delivered 39% more meals through the company’s platform.

The company said it expects revenue to have jumped more than 50% in the whole of 2020, with an adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin of around 10%."

Source:  Reuters, 13th January 2021

Netflix is the second largest TV company in Europe by revenues

 "Since launching in 2012, Netflix has grown rapidly in Europe. By 2016, it had launched its services across the whole of Europe, and passed the $1 billion revenue milestone. By 2017, it had the largest customer tally of any subscription TV business in Europe. And by 2020, it reached another milestone. Last year, Netflix had become the second largest entity in Europe in terms of revenues, behind only Comcast (which owns Sky’s operations in Europe), and overtaking the German public broadcaster ARD. It would seem that there is no limit to Netflix’s meteoric rise as it helps itself to a greater portion of the audio-visual revenues. In 2020, Netflix alone accounted for more than 6 per cent of all European TV revenues.”"

Source:  Ampere Analysis, 14th January 2021

Monday 11 January 2021

Carat Trends 2021

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

Friday 8 January 2021

Amazon is adding eleven planes to its delivery fleet in 2021 & 2022

" Today, Amazon announced its first-ever purchase of eleven Boeing 767-300 aircraft, expanding its fleet to continue to serve customers. The purchases include seven aircraft from Delta and four aircraft from WestJet, which will join the network by 2022. Amazon Air’s fleet expansion comes at a time when customers are relying on fast, free shipping more than ever."

Source:  Press Release from Amazon, 5th January 2021

UPS 'expects nearly 9m returns' in the first week of 2021

 "UPS expects to induct 1.75 million returns into its system every day this week, which would represent the highest weekly total of returns in the carrier's history, a spokesperson told sister publication Supply Chain Dive via email.

The expected 8.75 million returns this week is a 23% increase over the highest week of returns for the 2019-2020 holiday season.

The carrier's single-day record is 1.9 million returns — set Jan. 2, 2020."

Source:  Retail Dive, 7th January 2021

Apple App Store customers spent over $540m on apps on New Year's Day 2021

"[Apple] App Store customers [spent] $1.8 billion on digital goods and services over the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, driven largely by spending on games. Customers ushered in 2021 by setting a new single-day spending record of over $540 million on New Year’s Day."

Source:  Press Release from Apple, 6th January 2021

Tuesday 5 January 2021

Over 10% of songs streamed around the world are by British artists

 "A new analysis from record labels association the BPI reveals that 1 in every 10 songs (10.1%) streamed around the world is by a British artist. The UK’s share of global streaming is four times greater than its share of global GDP (2.2%)1, underlining the UK’s exceptional performance in music. 

The BPI, which represents over 450 UK-based record labels, carried out the analysis based on the music charts of 14 major music markets2, which together account for around three quarters of global recorded music consumption. The 1 in 10 result highlights the extraordinary global influence of British music. The ease of accessing UK music via streaming services and worldwide promotion by labels means that more British artists are now connecting with more fans to build international careers. Music markets previously out of reach, notably in Asia, South America and Africa, are much more accessible thanks to streaming’s global reach and record labels’ digital marketing. Newly-signed artists can now also expect to have a more immediate international impact than previous generations."

Source:  Press release from the BPI, 31st December 2020


Nearly half of HBO Max subscribers watched Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas Day 2020

 "On HBO Max, anticipation for Wonder Woman 1984 was apparent, with nearly half of the platform’s retail subscribers viewing the film on the day of its arrival, along with millions of wholesale subscribers who have access to HBO Max via a cable, wireless, or other partner services. HBO Max also saw the total viewing hours on Friday more than triple in comparison to a typical day in the previous month.

“Wonder Woman 1984 broke records and exceeded our expectations across all of our key viewing and subscriber metrics in its first 24 hours on the service, and the interest and momentum we’re seeing indicates this will likely continue well beyond the weekend,” said Andy Forssell, Executive Vice President and General Manager, WarnerMedia Direct-to-Consumer. “During these very difficult times, it was nice to give families the option of enjoying this uplifting film at home, where theater viewing wasn’t an option.”"

Source: Press release from Warner Media, 27th December 2020

Note - HBO Max had over 12m subscribers in early December 2020, but has probably added millions more since the deal to stream Warner movies was announced - say 20-30m paying subscribers - so I would estimate that something like 10-15m watched Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas Day


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


Amazon delivered over 1.5 billion parcels over Christmas 2020

 "Amazon is reporting a record-breaking holiday shopping season that saw more than 1.5 billion toys, electronics and household goods delivered amid the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“Amazonians around the world have truly shown what it means to be customer-centric and support our communities this year,” Jeff Wilke, CEO of worldwide consumer at Amazon, said in a press release on Tuesday (Dec. 29). 

“When our customers — including healthcare workers on the front lines — most needed essential supplies, our teams and partners went above and beyond to stock and deliver those items,” he said."

Source:  PYMNTS, citing a press release from Amazon, 29th December 2020

Note - I'm assuming that this covers the period from Black Friday onwards.


176 songs received over 1 billion video views on TikTok in 2020

"The growth of TikTok in 2020 produced some staggering numbers. Over 176 different songs surpassed 1 billion video views as TikTok sounds. Earlier this month, "The Playlist" was revealed as part of the Year On TikTok: Top 100 retrospective, highlighting the most significant songs on TikTok in 2020. Together, those songs racked up over 50 billion video views on over 125 million creations, and 5 of them reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Nearly 90 songs that trended on the platform in 2020 climbed onto the Top 100 charts in the U.S., with 15 of those reaching #1 on a Billboard chart. Just in the past year over 70 artists that have broken on the platform have received major label deals, including Claire Rosinkranz, Dixie D'Amelio, Powfu, Priscilla Block and Tai Verdes, and dozens more have charted on Rolling Stone's Breakthrough 25. To help take stock of music's massive year on TikTok, we're unveiling our first-ever U.S. music report."

Source:  Tiktok's Year in Music, 16th December 2020