advertising

Super Bowl 57, which Fox is scheduled to air on Feb. 12, 2023, is bound to feel different — at least from a marketing perspective. Not only will the halftime show have a new sponsor after Pepsi decided to walk away, following a decade of performances, but the Big Game is also likely to feature a variety of alcohol advertisers now beer giant Anheuser-Busch has declined to pursue another year of category exclusivity — something it’s had for each Super Bowl since 1989.

The alliance announced Wednesday marks a major step toward Netflix’s first foray into advertising after steadfastly refusing to include commercials in its video streaming service since its inception 15 years ago.

The Federal Trade Commission is warning the “shadowy” advertising-tech marketplace that it is on the lookout for any practices that run afoul of its rules, and that any claims ad-related data collection is anonymized to protect consumers are no shield from the long arm of the regulator. And while the FTC is an independent agency, the White House has added its muscle to the warning by circulating it to the press.

Disney Advertising and The Trade Desk said they made a deal that will make Disney’s addressable advertising more widely available via programmatic channels. The companies will also be collaborating on audience data, with Disney’s Audience Graph being integrated with Unified ID 2.0, the open source identity framework being championed by The Trade Desk.

The latest Ad Age Datacenter Campaign Ad Score analysis reveals U.S. Senate races are the most ad-packed so far.

Automakers estimated TV spending dropped 23% in June compared to a year ago, according to iSpot.tv. The June 2022 estimated national TV spending was $161.3 million compared to $209.2 million for the same month in 2021. TV ad impressions however were up 4% for June to 26 billion compared to a year ago.

Comcast has named a new president of its advertising division, appointing industry veteran James Rooke to the role. Rooke steps into the position to replace former Comcast Advertising President Marcien Jenckes who is now heading up the Comcast-Charter joint venture to build a next-gen streaming platform. Rooke will report to Jenckes, who in addition to the JV role is also managing director of Comcast’s advertising group.

He will oversee Comcast Advertising, including AudienceXpress, Effectv and FreeWheel.

TV networks continue to fare better than expected in the current “upfront” market as they harness streaming video and sports — and a willingness to accept lower rates — in order to keep Madison Avenue’s money flowing. NBCUniversal said it wrapped its negotiations in the annual upfront, and could see advance advertising commitments for NBC’s primetime schedule rise by as much as 20%. Variety estimates that upfront commitments for NBC primetime could total between $3.2 billion and $3.4 billion, compared to between $2.68 billion and $2.98 billion for its primetime broadcast inventory in 2021. In 2020, NBC secured between $2.68 billion and $2.84 billion.

Rapidly growing connected TV (CTV) ad revenues are expected to climb 35% to $6.41 billion this year — from “upfront” sales — and to rise another 35% to $8.14 billion in 2023, according to eMarketer’s projections. This estimate includes all CTV advertising deals made in advance, resulting from the traditional TV upfronts, IAB NewFronts and other events.

Scoring strong upfront ad market revenue results, Spanish-language media group, TelevisaUnivision posted “double-digit” volume growth, according to a media executive close to the company — its best result in seven years. The media company posted “high single digit” cost-per-thousand viewer increases versus the upfront market of a year ago. A TelevisaUnivision representative had no comment with regard to the upfront negotiations.

As laws in the United States continue to undergo massive change, one in particular — the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which transfers the right to abortion from federal to state governments — may prompt people to move away from Google and Bing as they rethink privacy. Some believe the decision will have a major influence across the advertising industry.

Madison Avenue’s growing interest in sports and streaming video helped Fox Corp. nab new ad dollars amid a softening market. The owner of the Fox broadcast network, Fox Sports and Fox News Channel expects an uptick in advertising commitments made in advance of its next programming schedule, according to a person familiar with the matter, as the company becomes the latest media outlet to wrap negotiations in the industry’s annual upfront selling session.

The media agency announced today it will test Comscore’s local TV measurement for the 2023 media buying and planning period.

The streaming company is seeking to sell ads around its programming to boost revenue. Partnerships could help it move faster to bring an ad-supported version of its service to market.

As the world’s biggest advertising conference convenes in Cannes, France, all eyes will be on Netflix for clues on how the streaming giant plans to break from its ad-free business model to offer a cheaper subscription for the first time. Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos is scheduled to cap off a week of panels with a talk on Thursday at the Cannes Lions festival.

GroupM within the next month will publish findings of a one-year analysis of various methods currently used by the ad industry for calculating the impact media has on carbon emission and plans for it to become an industry standard by the end of the year.

The former Warner Media ad sales executive will focus on advertising sales and brand sponsorships for all of AMG’s Entertainment Studios television series programming and content.

Do you know what parts of an ad campaign truly ignite your customers? Is it a beloved celebrity? Or a compelling story? Don’t we really want to know if a great, emotional ad gets the proper credit when we measure campaign performance? As a publisher, NBCUniversal knows how important the role of emotions can be. Emotional relationships to our content are what fuels fandom. It’s why we constantly test our content to understand feelings like brand love, because emotional connections with our fans can have tangible benefits for brands. And the same kind of rigor publishers apply to premium content needs to be applied to the quality of the ads as it runs alongside it.

At the same time that we see a natural ceiling forming for the number of subscriptions a consumer is willing to accept, we are also beginning to see the evolution of the streaming “cycler” — the individual who signs up for a month to binge watch their favorite show, only to cancel until they see something else of interest come along. This on-and-off-again revenue model is hamstringing growth for some streamers. As the current competition for eyeballs fuels a multibillion-dollar content war, the need to embrace an advertising model has become the only logical step for addressing a decreasing subscriber universe and ballooning content budgets.

NBCUniversal and Apple News offer marketers new content options and scale within new markets.

NBCUniversal says that 30% to 40% of TV ad campaign’s impressions should come from over-the-top streaming in order to optimize results, based on its recent test with advertisers using data from iSpot.tv.

Disney said it has signed up 10 sponsors as the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Colorado Avalanche battle for the National Hockey League’s championship. There will also be 59 other advertisers in 35 categories appearing during the telecasts.

Amid economic uncertainty and a possible looming recession, Microsoft — a major spender in the TV space — decided to sit out of this year’s upfronts and curtail its TV advertising budget. While media buyers and TV executives don’t anticipate other high-profile advertisers to follow suit, there’s concern that spending will be condensed due to uncertainty.

Nexstar executives told the Credit Suisse virtual conference on Wednesday that it has yet to see even modest recovery from the auto sector, though it’s still finding other categories to plug the hole. The company also spoke to its M&A ambitions, the prospect of selling its Food Network stake and the mindset it’s bringing to its upcoming MVPD and network affiliate negotiations.

Warner Bros. Discovery, two months after closing its $43 billion merger, has taken the first step toward reducing its global workforce, initiating voluntary buyouts in its U.S. advertising sales division. Over time, the cuts will see up to 30% fewer employees in sales. Warner Bros. Discovery has about 3,000 workers in sales, half of them based in the U.S. The timeline for the cuts is not completely clear, according to the source, but plans call for voluntary buyouts to be followed by non-voluntary measures including layoffs.