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Charting the Stars

Get dirty with Martha Stewart. A fashion line all about playing in the dirt is coming from Martha Stewart courtesy of Tractor Supply Company. The lifestyle maven in partnering with TSC to launch a garden-wear line that will debut this week in select stores and feature eight clothing items.

Steve Harvey on Dr. Phil’s couch. Harvey is taking an equity stake in Merit Street, the media company founded by Dr. Phil. The deal will see Merit acquiring hundreds of episodes of Harvey’s daytime talker and producing new content from the comedian-turned-producer. Merit’s stable of talent also includes celebs like Chris Harrison and Nancy Grace.

Next, the moon will want an agent. Next month’s total eclipse is getting its own two-hour TV special. ABC News and Nat Geo are partnering to produce the April 8th event, “Eclipse Across America,” that will run across several Disney linear and streaming outlets.

Delightful Contradictions?

An upscale Walmart? The discount retail powerhouse is aiming to attract more affluent shoppers by incorporating upscale elements into 800 stores across the U.S. Elements range from improved displays to higher-end products. The effort which began in 2019 already seems to be working with sales at the upgraded stores rising faster than other locations.

High-arousal, low engagement? A recent study published in the Journal of Marketing suggests that, at least for some influencers, the more emphatic the language they use on behalf of sponsors, the lower their engagement. Researchers theorize that high-arousal terms like “Amazing” or “Incredible” may hamper the credibility of endorsers.

 

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Looking for Eyeballs

XTube? What’s the next move for X? It could be video. Sources report that the platform is planning to launch a smart TV app as early as next week. The app would reportedly feature the social platform’s longer-form videos within an interface similar to YouTube.

Mountain into a molehill. At least one analyst is saying that Paramount should exit its costly Paramount Plusstreaming business and he’s calling for the CEO to be fired to make it happen. The analyst says a better play would be for Paramount to simply license content to other streamers.

YOU get a channel, and YOU get a channel … The Utah Jazz finished their direct-to-consumer streaming platform about five months ago. Now, the organization is announcing that Jazz+ has lured about 20,000 subscribers for the $15.50 per month/$125.50 per year offering.

I want my MTV … or something. Music streamer ROXi recently launched a range of music video channels in the U.K. and will soon be bringing the same concept to the U.S. market. The FAST channels will be available across about 90% of U.S. smart TVs in the coming months.

Grab your stakes and silver bullets. Universal Studio’s monsters are finding a new haunt at Pluto TV. The platform’s new Universal Monsters channel will be streaming the majority of the studio’s library of both classic and more modern horror offerings along with other complementary creepy cinema.

Pot O’ Gold Card

A lot of green. The National Retail Federation is expecting St. Patrick’s Day spending in the U.S. to top $7 billion this year. On average, households are expected to pony up just over $44 on a variety of green décor, apparel and food and beverage.

Paddy O’Party people. Data analyst Numerator noted that about one third of consumers plan on celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in their annual Holiday Intentions Preview. But those plans are mostly spontaneous with about 76% say they plan less than one or two weeks in advance.

Clock Stopping

TikTok under examination. A vote on banning the CCP-owned app TikTok could come as early as March 14th. That puts the sale of the U.S. version to a U.S.-based company on a pretty tight deadline. The former CEO of Activision is said to be interested.

Through a mirror darkly. While most debate about TikTok is centering on the use of the data it gathers, U.S. news program 60 Minutes recently highlighted concerning differences between the Chinese version and U.S. version in what content the app serves to children.

Beating the clock. Armchair analysis by industry experts show Meta’s Instagram Reels might be the big winner if the ban forces TikTok users to find a new source for content. Google and YouTube may also stand to benefit significantly from an increase in users and ad revenue.

 

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Retail Ring Up

Dollar for your thoughts. Losing share to low-cost rivals, Target is looking to boost sales with the introduction of a new house brand. Named “Dealworthy,” the bargain label is bowing with 400 items in its roster with most priced under $10 and many just $1 or less.

Buying a TV. Walmart will reportedly buy smart TV manufacturer Vizio for approximately $2.3 billion. Adding Vizio to its in-house ONN brand could potentially give Walmart about a fifth of the U.S. affordable smart TV market in the U.S.

Good Sportsmanship

Flag on the play? When Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. agreed to team up in offering a joint sports streaming venture they probably thought it would be a big win. Now, leading pay TV distributors are calling foul and even the DOJ may begin looking at replays for signs of antitrust issues.

Sports on TV scoring higher. Spending on sports media rights is expected to hit nearly $70 billion in 2024according to data firm WARC. Fragmentation of rights across platforms is expected to continue while 2024’s big sporting events are expected to boost U.S. ad spend on linear TV by about 6%.

Sponsor value. Apple Music and Gatorade were the big winners when it came to generating sponsor value from the Super Bowl. A report by Relo Metrics showed the two brands generating more than $20 million each in Sponsor Media Value.

Twinning. USA Today published its Ad Meter rankings of this year’s crop of Super Bowl commercials. At the top of the popularity contest was State Farm’s ad featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. Second place also featured a famous team up, this time with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as “The Dunkings” for Dunkin’ Donuts.

On Guard!

Confidence is low. When asked how confident they are that brands use their personal data responsibly, fewer than 1-in-6 consumers responded “completely confident” (6%) or “very confident” (10%). In fact, nearly half of responses fell in the two low confidence categories.

Think before you scan. The FBI released an alert to consumers noting that a growing number of scammers are tampering with QR codes. Fake codes might lead to sites masquerading as legitimate destinations to trick users out of personal info or could even begin downloads of malicious code.

Earlier warning? Starting March 13th, the FCC will begin requiring telcom providers to report data breachesimpacting customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) within 30 days. The new rule applies to “information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, either alone or when combined with other information that is linked or linkable to a specific individual.”

The tax man leaketh? Poor Internal Revenue Service security may make sensitive taxpayer information vulnerable according to just-completed inspector general investigation. The report says that some former IRS employees, as well as employees of private contractors, may be able to gain access to sensitive taxpayer financial information.

 

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It’s Soup Bowl Time!

Pluto TV makes a play. Launching its first-ever Super Bowl ad to kick off its 10th anniversary, Pluto TV is presenting its viewers as couch potatoes. The ad features rows of potato-costumed viewers in fields being nourished by a variety of Pluto content. Do viewers aspire to be couch potatoes? Time will tell.

Ads in the round. The Las Vegas Sphere made its unique outdoor media available to brand advertisers for Super Bowl week at prices up to $2 million. Now, sources have revealed the brands that have ponied up include AB InBev, Paramount, Nike, Adidas, Lowe’s, FedEx and Verizon.

NFL having a ball. Ads won’t be the only new content projected on the Sphere. The NFL has arranged to have custom Super Bowl LVIII imagery displayed on the Sphere’s LED exterior. The outside of the 516-foot wide Sphere is the largest LED screen on Earth. It’s covered with about 1.2 million LED “pucks” containing 48 individual LED diodes, each diode capable of displaying 256 million different colors.

Playing it safe. Industry observers are expecting Super Bowl advertisers to play things safe this year. With the cost of spots so high, the attention so great, and the potential for exponential negative reaction on social media, many brands aren’t seeing the value in taking big creative risks during this year’s game.

Farewell Apollo. Actor Carl Weathers will make a posthumous appearance in this year’s FanDuel Super Bowl spot. Weathers has appeared in the company’s commercials for some time and his planned role – with some adjustments – ­will go forward with his family’s blessing.

Feeling the Love!

What price love?  The National Retail Federation predicts that total spending on significant others will reach a record $14.2 billion this Valentine’s Day. The NRF’s survey also shows consumers plan to spend a total of $25.8 billion to celebrate the day, on par with last year’s spending and the third highest in the survey’s history.

There’s a word for that. While “situationship” lost out to “rizz” as Oxford’s word of 2023, it is being celebrated by Sweethearts candy. The brand is introducing a limited-edition release of Situationship Boxes containing blurry, misprinted candies that are supposedly “as blurry as Gen-Z relationships.”

Just skip it. To support its brand in India, Cadbury chocolate has released an ad that promises to help consumers skip Valentine’s Day entirely. The new ad is a follow-on to an effort last year that aimed to help chocolate fans ignore the sentimentality of the holiday.

Hear Hear!

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More ears. Audio streaming service Spotify has hit a record 600 million monthly active users. The company, based out of Sweden added about 28 million users in the last quarter.

Eyes on the road please. Tech company, Xperi, plans to incorporate games into its digital car radio platform. Audio-based games would be personalized to users’ preferences and might incorporate simple ideas, such as name that tune, what’s the next lyric, or sports trivia.

 

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More is More!

More Ads. Roku TV and device users will start to see more ads on their home screen. Known for having a simple and easy to use interface, the streamer has plans to integrate advertisers in multiple parts of the screen. Following its release of interactive ads, this is the next step in Roku’s efforts to boost advertising revenue.

More Subscriptions. Amazon’s Alexa, an Internet-of-Things device, may become a paid-subscription service within the next year. A  similar move with Prime Video recently began requiring additional subscriptions for ad-free content. Though Alexa arguably makes homes smarter, it begs the question of are users willing to subscribe to use it and is it even worth paying for? 

More Viewers. Peacock broke streaming records with its exclusive telecast of the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins wildcard game. Around 23 million viewers tuned in throughout the game. That made it the most-ever streamed live event and accounted for 30% of internet traffic at the time.

News Set to Music!

Radio Ga Ga.  Recently released research from marketing effectiveness guru Peter Field is good news for radio. Among other findings, Peter notes that advertisers using AM/FM radio have seen notable increases in brand trust (up 58%), profits (+42%), market share (+28%), and return on ad spend (+23%).

Honesty is such a lonely word. Americans’ ratings of nearly all the professions measured in Gallup’s most recent annual Honesty and Ethics poll were lower than they’ve been in recent years. Even nurses, who consistently rank at or near the top, are down 7%. Advertising practitioners are down 5% and rank 20th of the 23, still above car salespeople, congressional representatives and senators.

Make time for the Wildest Dreams. Meta is introducing new nighttime nudges for teen Instagram accounts to suggest limiting their time on the app at night. The message will appear when teens have spent more than 10 minutes on Instagram late at night and encourage them to close the app and go to sleep. The new feature is part of a suite of tools being introduced to help parents and teens manage their use of the company’s social platforms.

Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation!

Young people in malls? Is this the 80s.  Retail experts say members of Gen Z are helping malls. The instant gratification of the digital space has turned young shoppers into a generation that values the touching, trying out and buying products immediately in physical stores.

Ok, boomer. In digital retailer Temu’s first full year of operation in the US, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers shopped there more frequently and spent more than younger shoppers. In fact, the platform’s most loyal shoppers are individuals aged 59 and older.

 

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Get Your Money’s Worth

Less is more? Streaming heavyweight Netflix released about 16% fewer movies and shows in 2023 than in 2022 according to What’s On Netflix. A new report from the site notes that scaling back output is part of the streamer’s strategy to focus on quality but viewers may notice they’re paying more for less since the latest price increase came in October.

What price ads? About two-thirds of streaming customers would choose an ad-supported option if it saved them $4 to $5 per month on their subscription according to recently released research from Hub. The data also shows most viewers consider ad breaks less than 90 seconds “reasonable.”

Less Netflix, more chill? Overall audience engagement for Netflix declined by 7 billion hours streamed globally in 2023, based on data from Netflix’s weekly “Global Top 10”. That’s a 17% reduction in viewing year over year.

Eyes On! Eyes Off!

Keeping our eyes on the ball.  The NFL topped its own record from 2022, landing football games as 93 of the top 100 most watched programming events in 2023. They had 82 the prior year.

Taking their eyes off the ad. About half of Americans say they try to avoid ads either always or most of the time according to a recent Nielsen report. It’s most prevalent for “free with-ads” services like YouTube.

Engaging in eye rolling. Average monthly churn rate for SVOD services rose to 6.3%, up from 5.1% the same time last year, according to subscription research firm, Antenna. “Serial churners,” subscribers who have canceled at least three services in the last two years, accounts for about 25% of their number, a 10% increase from the prior year.

Keeping an eye on the airwaves. Vizio’s Inscape smart TVs are now measuring over-the-air signals. This “Tuner Data” is layered with other data points, giving a clear picture of what people are watching. The insights go as far as device-level data, allowing for optimizations for both local and national campaigns.

 

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Streaming Season!

Can you stream me now? Wireless company Verizon is hoping the popularity of streaming can boost sales of their unlimited wireless service plans. The telcom is planning to offer a bundle of ad-supported Netflix and Max for $10 per month to their “Unlimited” plan customers.

Parapple Plus? With industry leaders beginning to suspect the number of standalone streaming services has outpaced what consumers are willing to support, bundling is a becoming a hot topic. The latest bundle-ship being discussed is between Paramount + and Apple +.

Was it one of those novelty oversize checks? Comcast’s president said The Walt Disney Co.’s $8.61 billion check to buy out Hulu arrived on Friday. There may be more to come as the final valuation of the platform takes place, but Comcast says at least the first “check cleared, it’s in the account.”

Hear! Hear!

Wrapped or it didn’t happen. It’s that time of year again: Spotify Wrapped season. Listeners for the past 9 years have come to enjoy diving into the personalized year-in-review, learning what came out on top. Based on real data from its 574 million listeners, Spotify deployed a Wrapped campaign through a series of billboards, social posts, in-app executions to “invite the world to learn more about themselves and moments in culture that defined the year.”

Top 2023 podcasts. There’s a podcast out there for everyone. This year the podcast analytics platform Podtrac, named the top 25 new podcasts of 2023 based on the average downloads per episode. Number 1 on the list is Scamanda by Lionsgate Sound, followed by The Retrievals from Serial Productions. To qualify as “new”, a show must have published its first episode between December 1, 2022 and October 31, 2023.

Watch Your Language 

There’s a word for that. Oxford University Press has announced its annual word of the year. The word is “rizz,” the online abbreviation of “charisma.” Other words considered for the honor include “Swiftie,” “beige flag,” and “situationship.”  Meaning, respectively, “a Taylor Swift fan,” “a boring personality warning sign,” and “a complicated, uncommitted romantic relationship.”

Such a lonely word. Honesty, or at least the perception of it, seems to be in short supply among news organizations these days. According to this year’s Gallup Media Confidence poll, Americans’ confidence in the mass media to report the news fully, fairly and accurately is at its lowest point since 2016. 39% report having “no confidence” at all compared with 27% in 2016.

A different way to say “cheese.” In a new, non-dairy brand extension, Kraft will introduce Kraft NotMac&Cheese. The new product replaces dairy with fava bean protein and coconut oil powder. It will be rolled out to U.S. retailers over the next several months.

 

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That’s Just Super!

Making a mountain. Paramount Global’s CBS brand will be broadcasting Super Bowl LVIII from Las Vegas on February 11th. As part of the run up, Paramount is planning to transform the Mirage’s famous volcano into the Paramount mountain to promote the conglomerate’s catalog of entertainment properties.

An avalanche of interest. In prior years, Super Bowl ad inventory has typically been available right down to the final minutes before kickoff. Not so this year. CBS is reporting they have “virtually sold out” of all ad inventory for the game. This year’s 30-second spots were reportedly priced between $6.5 and $7 million.

Artificial? Sweet!

This is NOT Black Widow. Scarlett Johansson has filed suit against an AI app developer for using her name, likeness, and AI-generated voice in an online ad. The ad, generated by AI itself, begins with actual video of Johansson then transitions to AI-generated photos of the actress while a voice meant to sound like the actress narrates.

This is NOT Ford Prefect. Elon Musk has introduced a new startup company boasting an AI chatbot built to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Dubbed “Grok,” the new chatbot has been designed to “answer questions with a bit of wit” modeled after popular novel “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

This is NOT me watching Beverly Hills, 90210 on Paramount+. While other streamers, notably Netflix and Disney+, have recently cracked down on password sharing, Paramount+ has notably announced no plans to discourage the practice. The company’s CFO recently downplayed the impact of password sharing on subscriber growth noting Q3 saw 2.7 million new net subs for the premium streamer.

This is NOT a radio. As habits are evolving, it is no longer uncommon for TVs to be used as radios. Among Americans aged 13+, 6.9% of audio listening is done through CTV devices or gaming consoles according to Edison’s Share of Ear study. The rate of increase has nearly doubled since 2020. Though TVs make up a good portion, Edison cites that mobile phones will be the “primary battle zone” for listeners.

Block It Out? 

Ad blocker blocker. YouTube’s announcement threatening to ban anyone using ad-blocking software to skirt having to pay for the streamers ad-free premium plan seems to have had an impact. Namely, Ad-blocking software companies are seeing hundreds of thousands of uninstalls of their products.

Stealth snacking. Doritos has introduced Windows-compatible software that it claims will silence the tell-tale snacking sound of crunching for online gamers. Like everything these days, this sound-cancelation plug inpurportedly uses AI trained by thousands of corn-chip-generated crunches.

A place for everything. 70% of Netflix, Disney+, and Max streamers subscribe to ad-free tiers. Quite the opposite is true for Hulu and Peacock subscribers where 57% and 64% are on ad-supported plans. The survey conducted in June 2023 among 4,000 participants 18+, breaks out different subscriber behaviors by platform as well as traditional media and demographic.

 

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Hey Big Spenders!

Record ad spending. The world’s 100 largest advertisers spent $347 billion in 2022 according to a recent AdAge report. That’s up a 2.3% from 2021 and sets a new record. The U.S. share of that total was up 8.7% over the previous year.

Record spooky spending. The National Retail Federation is predicting spending on Halloween will reach a record $12.2 billion this year. That number partially owing to the fact that a record level of intended participation in activities. 73% of consumers surveyed say they will be getting their spooky on this year.

Record holiday spending? The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) is predicting a 3.8% increase in October through December retail sales in their annual Holiday Shopping Forecast. They report that 87% of consumers plan to shop at brick-and-mortar stores and that about 80% expect their budget to remain the same or increase from last year, besting a 73% figure for the same metric for 2022.

Record holiday spending, too? Forecasts from Deloitte agree with the ICSC (or is it the other way around?). The renowned accounting firm is predicting holidays spending to surpass pre-pandemic levels for the first time. Consumers they surveyed expected to spend an average of $1,652, a 14% YOY increase.

Too Sneaky?

The pause that refreshes? No, not that one. This one is now on Hulu, Peacock, and Max where an ad appears as an overlay to the screen when users pause the streaming. “Pause Ads” turn up a few seconds after a viewer has decided to halt the programming, but not necessarily every time. Streamers are experimenting with the format to boost revenue.

Needling the thread. Meta has taken to promoting its Threads app by cross-posting Threads posts to Facebook users’ feeds with no option for opting out of the unrequested content. The strategy is not unprecedented. The platform has previously used similar tactics to boost Instagram Reels.

Tu-DUM 

YouTube Beats Netflix. In a recent poll from investment bank Piper Sandler, teenagers consume more with YouTube than video champion Netflix for the first time. The data shows teens spend 29.1% of their daily video consumption with YouTube with Netflix following in second place at 28.7%. With a more competitive streaming space, YouTube stands strong as a free entertainment platform.

Netflix Adds Live Sports (kind of). Netflix unveils its latest tactic in the media world – live sports of a sort. By using stars of their documentary series “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” and “Full Swing”, Netflix hopes to attract fans to the “Netflix Cup”. This golf match ties together the pro-athletes, the series, and a new sponsorship format through the event.

 

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The Mind of the Consumer

Measure Shopper Sentiment

Switching it up. What’s the leading reason why consumers switch brands? According to a Forbes Advisor consumer survey, 7 in 10 respondents say that they would switch brands for better product quality while 61% say “better deals” might make them jump. Asked what encourages them to stick with a brand, 74% said “customer service.”

Something old, something new. Almost half of respondents to a recent survey said they were open to considering gifting pre-owned items this holiday season. The same report also found that 44% plan to shop during “pre-season” events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday to help blunt the impact of inflation.

What’s the frequency? A new study from Roku and Magna Media Trials found It takes between 10 and 15 exposures to an ad to achieve maximum ad recall. For a brand’s existing customers, impact peaks between 2-to-3 ad exposures.

Missing the mall. An annual holiday shopping survey is predicting about half of Gen Z consumers will be planning trips to the mall this season. That’s higher than the average for all age groups. The report also pins a $958 per person holiday spend for 2023.

Hacks and Scams and Spam … Oh My!

Hit “like” to be scammed. A recent report from the FTC reveals that one in four people who report losing money to scammers say it started on social media and that losses to social scammers since 2021 have hit $2.7 billion.

Impending spam shortage? Google and Yahoo have both announced new bulk email requirements for 2024. Gmail and Yahoo Mail bulk senders will need to employ strong authentication for their emails following industry best practices including things like one-click unsubscribe and staying under a reported spam threshold.

It’s a gamble. MGM Resorts has said a ransomware hack last month that darkened the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas, crashed its website, and hampered hotel operations across multiple properties has cost the chain more than $110 million.

YOU Get an Ad … And YOU Get an Ad … 

Ad-mazon Prime. Amazon announced ads are coming to Prime Video in 2024, starting with US, UK, Germany and Canada subscribers. Two tiers will be offered – ad-supported and ad-free. Viewers can pay an additional $2.99 per month to the current membership price to access content ad-free. Amazon vowed to have “meaningfully fewer ads” than its competitors.

Music Television. Spotify and Roku have expanded their partnership to collaborate on CTV video ads for its listeners. Soon, the two hope to roll out more video ad products such as podcast video ads. With over 500 million listeners monthly, Spotify said this is the first step in launching its CTV partner network.

 

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Eyes

Ad-supported adding up. A recent sweeping report notes that some 238 million people – about 3 in 4 households – in the US were streaming on CTV devices as of May, reflecting a 4 million rise from May 2022. The number of those households streaming ad-supported services climbed by 17% year over year.

Write “A Big Check.” Disney could be hoping the initials ABC bring a windfall for the house of mouse. Some analysts, however, see the move to sell the legacy media name as less about money and more about a “repositioning” away from connections with “old” media.

Firefly flashbacks. Feel like your favorite series keep getting canceled? Maybe you’re watching too much Max. A recent report notes that service has the highest series cancelation rate, topping even broadcast TV.

At the top. Hulu is joining other streaming services in launching a “Daily Top 15” program ranking. Competing streamers Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV+ have featured daily top content for more than a year. Max joined the party recently and, now, Hulu is the latest to feature popular programing in a promoted category.

Ears

Keep your ears on the road. American drivers spend 76% of the time they’re listening in the car with linear platforms. This includes venerable AM/FM radio plus radio streams, SiriusXM Radio, and other radio services. This contrasts with 60% of time spent with streaming audio outside the car.

Radio to get real-time? Media powerhouse iHeart is planning to offer real-time bidding for its 850+ radio stations in 160 markets, enabling media buyers to buy audio ads the way they now buy digital. That said, no definitive time was given for the real-time rollout.

Break into the biz! Audio streamer Spotify is launching a new tool to help songwriters get recognition for their compositions. The “Promo Cards” tool introduced for artists in 2020 is being expanded to include writers who can design their “card,” share it on social media, and bridge to “written by” playlists for Spotify listeners.

Toes and Nose 

Unlimited power not included. If you’ve been holding off on purchasing your Louboutin heels, now may be your time … if you’re a huge Marvel fan. The fashion house has announced a limited edition line that will incorporate Marvel’s “Infinity Stones” macguffin and other comic book elements into shoes, bags, and accessories.

Too on the nose? DC lawmakers have introduced the “Banning Surveillance Advertising Act” that prohibits the use of personal data to target advertising. The bill only allows targeted advertising based on a consumer’s location but does allow ads based on the content the user is engaging with.

 

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Cartoon Characters

Feuding with the mouse. Nearly 15 million Charter cable subscribers are going without Disney and ESPN programming as a feud over pricing of programming continues. Charter says its subscribers foot the bill for about $2.2 billion in annual Disney costs while only about 25% of them regularly engage with the content. For its part, Disney has launched social media promotions encouraging Charter subscribers to make the switch to Hulu.

Barbie coming home. Warner Bros.’ record-breaking release, Barbie, will be available for in-home rental and purchase on digital platforms beginning next week. WB has set September 12th as the release date after the film’s successful 54-day theatrical run that has generated more than $600 million in the U.S.

‘Tis the season … almost. Comic legend Eddie Murphy is starring in his first Christmas movie. The actor will helm “Candy Cane Lane” to be released on Prime Video on December 1st. The holiday comedy will have Murphy and his family battling magical holiday critters to save his town after a bargain with an elf goes sideways. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.

Eyes on the Ball

Project Flagship. ESPN+ has been a complimentary, non-competitive streaming service for a number of years. As of late, it has been reported that “Project Flagship” is a go. The code-named project has been actively planning and aims to launch a standalone streaming service that sells direct-to-consumers. ESPN is an integral part of many cable deals, and it begs the question of what will happen next?

ACC at the movies. The Atlantic Sports Conference will have 75 games televised with the Theater Sports Network (TSN). These games will appear on the big screen after a distribution agreement with ESPN. Of the 75 games, 6 will be Bowl Games and will give fans “the feel of a stadium experience.”

Just for kids! Super Bowl LVIII will not only air on CBS in 2024, but on Nickelodeon too. Paramount Global is trying its hand on a special broadcast just for kids. John Bogusz, EVP of sports sales at CBS, said sponsors will have the opportunity to run separate creative. Ads  highlighting alcohol or gambling will be swapped entirely.

Social Circles 

Growth spurt. While still dwarfed by many of the top platforms, Snapchat may be an up and comer. Users have doubled since 2018 and, this year with a projected 13.4% growth in users, the app is expected to dethrone TikTok as the fastest growing social.

A Facebook subscription? Meta is exploring ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram that would depend on user subscriptions for revenue. The new business model is being discussed for the EU but could pertend big changes in how social platforms address revenue generation and privacy issues.

Hot take incoming. “Social Media Is Dead” reads the headline of a recent Insider article. The article goes on to bemoan the shift of social platforms to a largely commercial ecosystem and predicts more and more users will turn to messaging apps and group chats for their social outlets.

 

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Insert Clever Streaming Headline Here

Climbing the mountain … slowly. Paramount reduced losses on its DTC streaming by 5% in the past year while adding around 700,000 Paramount+ subscribers during the quarter — vs. forecasts of a loss — upping the service’s total base to 61 million users. There were also encouraging signs in the streamer’s digital ad business. 

The new math? A major sticking point in recent Hollywood negotiations is fair compensation for contributions to streaming content. But the math to value content, both for producers and advertisers is confusingly complex. Parrot Analytics described the process of putting together a profitable streaming lineup as “akin to playing 3D chess while blindfolded on a roller coaster.”

Slings and down arrows. Sling TV’s parent company, Dish, revealed that its streaming subsidiary lost 97,000 subscribers in the second quarter. It lost 55,000 in the same period last year and now sits at its lowest subscriber base in almost six years.

Didn’t mean to bug you. Users of the YouTube TV app on iOS and iPadOS are reporting a playback bug according to user posts on Reddit. Both live streams and DVR content can freeze while displaying the loading icon. The YouTube engineering team is aware of the issue but sources say there is likely no quick fix.

In Search Of 

Spider repellent? OpenAI has released a new webcrawler onto the net called GPTBot. The bot will collect data from the internet to train AI models. Site owners, however, can opt-out of allowing data collection from their sites by adding a GPTBot exclusion their code.

Bing Chat going on safari. Well, “in” Safari, and Chrome, too, if Microsoft has their way. The company announced that it will soon roll out AI-powered Bing to third-party browsers on web and mobile.

On the trail to the trial. A California judge denied Google’s request for summary judgement in a $5 billion class action suit against the search giant. Plaintiffs claim Google secretly tracked online activity of users even when they were using the browser in the privacy-oriented “Incognito” mode.

Ear Buds 

Hears the beef! With nearly 47,000 spots airing, Wendy’s is at the top of the weekly radio advertiser charts for the first time ever. The QSR aired about twice as many as its next category competitor, McDonalds. It took the top spot from last week’s winner, Babbel.

Now hear this. A study on media attentiveness that compared audio ads on AM/FM radio and podcasts with visual ads such as TV and online display generated interesting findings. Research suggests that, not only can audio advertising hold its own with TV but that it may also outperform the visual media in generating attentiveness and brand recall.

 

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Soaring Profits?

Will pink land in the black? The marketing campaign for summer movie “Barbie” is rumored to be about $150 million. That’s about $5 million more than it cost to produce the movie! Will it pay off? The movie’s opening weekend saw ticket sales of about $162 million, so it’s off to a good start.

Spot me a buck? After 12 years of holding prices for its premium streaming service steady at $9.99, Spotify will be bumping U.S. prices by a dollar. The move came just ahead of the company announcing second quarter results that disappointed analysts

High price of cord cutting. Consumers looking to save money by cord cutting are seeing incremental price increases by premium streaming services add up. Services from YouTube, Sling, Disney, and ESPN have all seen increases totaling north of 50% over the last 5 years.

Password Payoff. After many discussions of Netflix’s password crackdown, the results are in. Netflix attributes its best subscriber growth in the last 6 quarters to the password policy change. 5.89 million users created new accounts during Q2 – a long way from the projected 1.19 million – resulting in a 2.7% revenue increase year over year.

All Creatures Great and Small

To build a better doghouse? Lowe’s and Petco are expanding their store-in-store program after a successful pilot over the course of 2022. The move will bring internal Petco locations to nearly 300 Lowe’s stores throughout the United States by the end of 2023.

Birds of a feather. Elon Musk sheds Twitter’s feather features with its new rebrand – X. Musk tweeted “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds… if a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow.” CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted the new X logo shortly after marking the start of an era.

Cats beware. ALF is coming back to screens with new content and, presumably, the same appetite for felines. Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort studio is partnering with ALF’s creators to produce new Fubo content to anchor pitches for Reynolds’ stable of other product and service brands.

 

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Stream it to Me!

Demand high for video on demand. Annual revenues of U.S. subscription video on demand (SVoD) services will catch up with traditional pay TV in 2027 according to projections from GlobalData. Revenues from the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu are forecast to increase from nearly $47.6 billion in 2022 to $64.6 billion in 2027.

Your driver will arrive after these messages. Uber is introducing full-length video ads on its ride-hailing app, Uber Eats, and Drizly. The ads will be shown to users while they wait for their drivers or during their trips on the primary Uber app. In the Uber Eats app, video ads will play after customers place orders until their deliveries arrive. Drizly will feature ads in search results, the app, website, and other areas of the site.

More from less. Despite increasing time spent streaming, consumers are “stacking” fewer SVOD services. Data from Hub Entertainment Research shows a first-time, and relatively striking, decline in the average number of TV sources used by each viewer.

Linear and CTV two peas in pod. US adults still spend several hours per day on both linear and CTV platforms—2 hours, 55 minutes for linear TV and 1 hour, 55 minutes for CTV according to eMarketer. While linear ad spend is declining slowly, CTV is increasing at about 21% YOY.

Sincerest form of flattery. Apparently, cable giant Comcast wouldn’t mind being Roku. The company is partnering with Spectrum to create a new 4k streaming device they’re calling “Xumo Box.” The plug-in device will be the backbone of the companies’ foray into free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST).

Stormy Seas?

Avast ye password scalliwags! It may not be piracy in the strictest terms, but password sharing is an affliction across the streaming ecosystem. As Netflix continues its crackdown on the practice, it’s interesting to note that Hulu and Disney+ actually show higher levels of the practice and, all told, more than a quarter of subscribers share passwords.

Retailers bracing. The majority of retail supply-chain respondents to a recent survey are worried that consumers will reduce spending for the upcoming holiday season. Data shows retailers ordering less and expecting consumers to be expecting discounts and freebies with purchases.

Ahead to the Past

Going wild. NBC announced that a new iteration of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom will air on the network this fall. The original series premiered in 1963 and was hosted by Marlin Perkins. In its heyday it averaged 34 million viewers, racked up five Emmy Award nominations, and won twice.

Video flashback. Petco and Snoop Dogg are teaming up for a new TV commercial. In the new spot, the hip-hop artist contemplates the life of a very lucky dog. He then morphs into a Doberman Pinscher that fans might recognize from the musician’s very first video, 1993’s “Who Am I? (What’s My Name)?”

Nuggets are timeless. A full 23 years after cult classic animated feature Chicken Run debuted, Netflix will bring back the Aardman Animation team to release Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. Billed as “a Bond movie, but with chickens,” the film will reunite many of the characters from the cult classic original.

Throwin’ Money Around

Switched for Kick. Félix Lengyel, a Canadian streamer, signed a massive deal with Kick, Twitch’s rival platform. The two-year commitment amounts to $70 million with incentives that could total to $100 million – about the same as LeBron James’ two-year extension with the LA Lakers. Leaving for a smaller platform, the live-streamer commented “Kick is allowing me to try and do things I haven’t been able to before.”

TikTok coins. One-time in-app purchases drove TikTok to be the first mobile app ever to surpass $1 billion in Q1 2023. TikTok was followed by the “Honor of Kings” game at $570 million and YouTube with $530 million. As the only non-gaming platform in the top ten apps, it earned more sales than Candy Crush Saga, Roblox, and Pokemon Go.

 

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Tap the Brakes

Get out! For the second consecutive year, L.L. Bean has gone “Off the Grid” in May for Mental Health Awareness Month. On May 1st, the retailer paused all social media channels to prioritize time outside and encouraged followers to join them. The retailer also issued a Feel-Good Challenge, to help raise money for Mental Health America.

 Spreading thin. Seventy-one percent of CMOs said they lack the budget to fully execute their strategy in 2023, according to a Gartner, Inc. survey. In digital channels, CMO’s expected to boost spending on paid social and decreased spend on paid search.

CMO Spending 2023

Funding feuding. The seemingly immense power of influencers to shape brand communications has led to the phenomena of the “de-influencer” in which brands pay competing personalities to defend, debunk, or generally, argue with high-profile supporters of their competition. We live in interesting times.

Togetherness

Keeping the band together. Last week bi-partisan legislation, the AM for Every Vehicle Act, was introduced in the House and the Senate. Lawmakers are concerned about reported plans to remove broadcast AM radio receivers from vehicles since the AM band has traditionally played a vital role in emergency communications as the backbone of the national Emergency Alert System (EAS).

Bringing the streams together. Disney CEO, Bob Iger, has announced that the company will roll out a single streaming app that combines programming from Hulu and Disney+ by the end of this year. 40% of the company’s domestic ad units are currently addressable and Iger sees potential for the single app to help leverage that potential.

Tacos bring everyone together. Well, except for Taco Bell and Taco John’s. The former is going to court in an attempt to cancel the “Taco Tuesday” trademark owned by Wyoming-based Taco John’s which has possessed it for more than three decades, long before it became a pop culture phenomenon.

Going it alone? ESPN is reportedly considering making the jump to become a wholly stand-alone streaming operation. The move would abandon the traditional TV distributors who, in 2022, were paying it fees totally $8.72-per-subscriber per-month. The initiative even has a cool project codename: “Flagship.”

Law and Order

Shrink is growing. Retail theft, especially organized and violent instances, seems to be on the rise. Target’s hit to profitability is projected to be about $500 million this year after topping $400 million last year. Home Depot also reports that crime is increasing at double digit rates.

Meta checking its couch cushions. In the largest fine levied since the EU’s strict data privacy rules took effect, Meta was hit with a record $1.3 billion penalty and ordered to stop transferring users’ personal information to the U.S. The sum makes Meta the unlucky frontrunner in the “who’s had the biggest EU data fine” category as it strides past the 746 million euro fine that was levied against Amazon in 2021.

 

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