Following five semi-annual revisions since it was first benchmarked in July 2021, the Big 4 agency holding company forecasting composite for worldwide ad-spending growth for this year has fallen 1.1 percentage points to 4.3%. The composite — a simple average of each holding company’s percentage growth estimate for total ad spending — also shows the consensus falling to 5.8% for worldwide growth next year, down from +7.1% when it was first benchmarked in January 2022.
Dentsu has struck deals with seven major media companies to do deals on the basis of its own, proprietary currency, dubbed “DELTA.” Importantly, the deals aren’t just with the biggest players, such as NBC Universal, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, which have been pushing the adoption of alternative advertising currencies, but smaller network suppliers, including Hallmark and A+E Networks, Dentsu SVP U.S. National Video Innovation Brad Stockton said during a presentation at the Advertising Research Foundation’s Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement in New York City Wednesday.
Citing “macroeconomic factors,” Dentsu this morning became the latest major agency holding company to revise its 2023 ad outlook downward. Dentsu now estimates global ad spending will rise 3.3%, down half a point from the 3.8% it projected in its last forecast in December 2022. Dentsu also reduced its U.S. at growth projection for the year down nearly a percentage point, to 2.6% from the 3.7% growth rate it predicted in its year-end 2022 forecast.
Japanese advertising and PR firm Dentsu confirmed today that it was indicted for violating Japan’s Antimonopoly Act in connection with bid rigging activities that took place during the leadup to the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Other companies were also charged including Hakuhodo, Tokyu Agency, Fuji Creative, Cerespo and Same Two.
The Big 4 agency holding company consensus outlook for next year fell again this morning, as Dentsu slashed its 2023 estimates for global ad spending growth to 3.8%, the lowest estimate of any coming out of the major holding company forecasting units. The 2023 growth estimate is 1.6 percentage points lower than the 5.4% growth Dentsu projected for 2023 in its last update in July.
Media agency Dentsu said it will shift its local TV buying to a Comscore-based currency, which will allow it to make transaction based on advanced audiences in all 210 markets. Dentsu media buying units include Carat, Dentsu X and iProspect. Dentsu reached an agreement to use Comscore for local TV measurement in February.
Exclusives
The partnership will let Dentsu’s clients access NBCUniversal’s network of consumer contact across movies, entertainment, news, sports, ecommerce, subscriptions, theme parks and more.
’22 Will Be Spot TV’s ‘Year Of The Test’
Executives from NBCUniversal Local, Magna Global, Zenith and Dentsu told a TVNewsCheck webinar last week that the move from GRPs to impressions, plus Nielsen’s inclusion of BBO homes in its measurement, will make for a year of transition before ratings normalize.
FuboTV has fully integrated with Dentsu International’s M1 people-based identity and data platform to better target the live sports viewers on its live streaming TV platform. The companies said that advertisers can now use M1’s connected individual, device and panel data across fuboTV’s connected TV inventory that includes 50,000 live sports events per year along with more than 100 sports, news and entertainment channels.
Ad Execs: Cutting Out Research Middlemen Is An Option
Executives from Dentsu, Publicis Media, UM Worldwide and E.W. Scripps entertained the prospect of buyers and sellers being their own source of TV audience data in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s TV2025 last week, prompted by the industry’s threadbare patience with Nielsen.
The consensus, an ongoing compilation of forecasts and revisions from the Big 4 forecasters Dentsu, WPP’s GroupM, IPG Mediabrands’ Magna, and Publicis Media’s Zenith units — improved to an 11.7% expansion in global ad spending vs. +10.6% when GroupM and Magna published their most recent updates in June.
With Dentsu weighing in as the last — and most pessimistic — of the major agency holding company forecast updates, Madison Avenue’s global consensus outlook has dropped to an average 6.2% decline for 2020, and a 7.3% increase in 2021. For the U.S. ad economy, the consensus outlook drops to -4.4% in 2020 and a 4.3% expansion in 2021.
Media agency Dentsu Aegis Network said it will be using data from TVision as part of its Attention Economy initiative, which aims to compare attention across all media channels to improve the impact of advertising. Dentsu’s agencies will utilize some aspects of TVision’s data, in parallel with proprietary insights tools, to plan TV/OTT campaigns based on attention metrics for the first time.
TVN To Present: Optimizing Spot TV In A Challenging Economy
Leading spot TV advertising and technology executives will address how the global coronavirus pandemic has affected their business during a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar set for June 25 at 1 p.m. ET. Speakers will talk about geo-targeting in a patchwork of DMAs in different stages of coping with the crisis; new categories and opportunities, and progress on impression-based selling, performance-based campaigns and the rollout of technologies to streamline and optimize transactions. Register here
TVN Focus On Advertising | TVB Driving Impressions-Based Ad Buying
“In our current multiplatform world, everything is now being sold on an impression basis except linear TV,” says TVB President Steve Lanzano. “We want local TV stations and the ad agencies to be able to sell and buy that way, too. We have been working with the buying agencies for some time behind the scenes and now we are going public.”
The Wall Street Journal reports that Interpublic and Dentsu are expected to submit offers to acquire most of data broker Acxiom, as consumer data becomes an increasingly critical ingredient in the ad-buying process, even as it faces increased scrutiny. Journal subscribers can read the full story here.
Japanese ad giant Dentsu ‘s aggressive buying spree shows no signs of slowing down. According to a new report from corporate finance advisory firm Ciesco, Dentsu and larger rival WPP were the most active acquirers in the digital, media, marketing and technology sectors in the first six months of 2015.
Aegis Group, the London-based agency holding company that began as a Paris-based media-buying service, is about to become part of a Tokyo-based marketing services giant that will be one of the largest in the world. In a surprise deal announced during the wee hours, the board and key managers of Aegis agreed to be acquired by Dentsu in an offer valued at $3.85 billion.
