JetBlue is among thousands, who are lip servicing supplier diversity and inclusion; especially in the tire industry and companies headquartered in Atlanta.

No James.

You can't simply add the digits and ignore the +/- signs.

Look at it this way.  The article says:
1. "a 13% contraction in March 2020,"
2. "national ad spending expanded 22% in March vs. the same month last year." (when referring to the current year).

While we don't know the actual dollar amounts, let's use a base number of (say) ,000 'widgets' for March 2019.   So:
- if March 2019 was 1000 widgets and March 2020 was down 13% that means that March 2020 was 870 widgets
- if March 2021 was up 22% on March 2020 then March 2021 was 1061.4 widgets.
- this means that March 2021 is up by 6.14% on March 2019

This means that in round terms the market is up around 6% over the two years.   This hold whatever the actual March 2019 dollar figure was.

The 'surge' you refer to is +25% on 2020 and +6% on 2019.

I hope that clears things up.

Thanks Ken!

Jonathan, I think that Nielsen would lose a lot of homes in terms of being in-tab if it tried to  analyze  those panel members that supplied complete data---say for a month---in both March-April 2020 and the same time in 2019. Just guessing, but this might cut the base down to only 10,000 and who knows if such a subsample is representative of the whole panel---even if it shows an increase in viewing, not a slight decline. The idea to look at "internal data" is a good one and were I  Nielsen, I'd be reviewing my meter panel local market surveys. What do they show in terms of trends in HUT and PUT over time?

Not to mention the agency's lack of control over the things they actually do do. Come on, man!

Great one Dave!

Maarten, unfortunately, it's fine from an advertiser's viewpoint to pay an ad agency based on "outcomes" aka sales results, however, the agency has virtually zero control ove rthe many aspects of product development, packaging, performance and distribution, so it's taking a huge---and unwise---in my opinion----risk in accepting such a deal.

As a compromise, if the agency was paid a fair fee that covered it's legitimate out-of-pocket costs plus a modest profit and then allowed to share in the profits---calculated honestly---that resulted in brand product sales as a result of its efforts, that's a horse of a different color. The problem is how do you evaluate both of the agency's key services---"creative" and "media"? And, how do you calculate the incremental sales garnered by the client as opposed to sales that would have been gotten anyway? These and related questions about how to share in the outcome are the main stumbling blocks to such deals. Invariably, the client bean counters will tilt things in the client's favor and the agency gets the shaft.

Perhaps one analysis is for Nieslen to unify its sample thereby comparing usage amongst only those homes that have been in-tab for the period in question, as well as during a baseline period of time. Nielsen could then discern whether or not these unified homes also show a signifcant decline in usage.

What's surprising about this is that last year Nielsen was releasing reports, itself, based on its local market surveys in the top 25 DMAs, that showed huge increases in SVOD and CTV activity but also, at a lower level, for "linear TV" during the daytime hours ( 9AM-4PM ). Yet, it allowed national peoplemeter data to be distributed to clients which showed less, not more  all -daypart viewing than at the same point the preceding year. Makes one wonder if the national folks were even aware of the seeming contradiction with the local data and whether anyone was concerned about it.

My long experience with Nielsen---a mainly positive one---- makes me think that this is an isolated, yet disturbing incident and that, now alerted, even if belatedly, to the problems both in panel management and its own, internal issues, that Nielsen will promptly move in the right direction, make whatever changes are needed and, I hope, be very transparant about it. An independent audit would probably be a good first step.

Wouldn't -13 to +22 be a 35 point surge?

Elyse, I too like Prof. Byron Sharp's work.

The key thing to note is that his book is called "How BRANDS grow".   His focus is on growing brands.   It is not focussed on immediate sales.   It's the difference between a long-term objective (brand growth) and a short-term objective (sales growth).

Over the decades 'marketing' has shifted from annual (or longer) targets and KPIs to look more like 'sales' (which used to be two very different departments in a business) as demonstrated by 'marketing' having quarterly (and even monthly) 'goals'.

As consumption grows the timelines shrink - hence that change.   But ask yourself, how many of the products still exist as a brand.

The thing is BOTH have a purpose.   NEITHER are 'right' or 'wrong'.

Should be easy to take on Pluto and Tubi, since neither service has ad sales personnel available.

Admittedly, I'm a bit confused about the point of this commentary. Star worship has existed for thousands of years going back to famous gladiators.

Individual personalities, good or bad, drive interest in every sport.  And while individuals are part of a team, nobody can argue that without certain individuals, certain teams would not win (or lose).  It's really that simple.

There are other tactics brands can take too, to generate more awareness, visibility, and top line revenue, that are hyper-efficient.  My question is: when will more brands open their minds to what is possible beyond which they have been led to believe is all there is?  Would 30:1+ returns on spend all day long, ongoing be of interest?  Would generating traffic specific to the query, that converts at 2.5-3x what they normally see be of interest?  That makes for a better consumer experience and brand experience? 

Why have such consternation about cookies, when there are so many more impactful marketing tactics in the toolbox?  I get the importance of advertising and targeting to efficiently build brand awareness, but driving top line revenue, and gaining visibility and awareness, can be accomplished in other ways.  As the article says, those who understand the power of data, could care less.  Indeed there is a modicum of truth to this. 

Want to discuss?  Hit me up.  615-280-0269.  Cheers!  :)     -Cory

Never forget... It's the old geezers that have the most money.

Must every enemy of Trump become the friend of Biden?

his ideas are quite destructive.  we have shown that the targeting proposed by the MMA out performs reach based planning by 50%

I suggest all marketing people read Byron Sharp's "How Brands Grow."  This book shows, through a deep dive into data, that brands grow because of increases in penetration and increased penetration happens because more people are thinking of your brand in more places.  That means thay you need to get your message out to as many people as you can afford (within reason, of course).  Targeting should be used to enhance reach, but in many cases, as the author stated, targeting limits reach.  

Also, there are a number of watchouts with targeting: 
1)  many companies misdefine their targets
2)  many companies define their targets too narrowly
3)  people aren't static, they move in and out of targets

Instead of limiting who you reach, targeting can be a great tool for ensuring that you are reaching the most people at the right time in the replace.

Douglas, as you, no doubt, know, I have long been pointing out that national TV's "average commercial minute viewers"  rating is a bogus "measurement". In fact, it's not even a measurement as viewing is assumed if the commercial is on the TV screen. But what you are really saying---or hinting at---is that nobody watches commercials. Yet TV advertisers have long been aware of this. Way back in the 1960s,  day after commercial recall studies made it quite evident to CMOs and brand managers that many program viewers did not watch  commercials. Typically, only 30-35% of them recalled seeing an average commercial---with prompts to aid their memories--- while about 65% of these folks---or 20-24% of the program audience could provide a worthwhile description of the message's sales pitch. This, of course, was the ovrall average---but the key point was that in all of the thousands of studies, there seemed to be a ceiling---you never got a recall score higher than 50-60%.

My point is simply this, today, we have "eye camera" studies that tell us that 40% of the "audience" at least notes the average commercial---visually----that is the eyes are on the screen for at least two seconds when it appears. Moreover, the average commercial noter keeps his/her eyes on the screen for about half of the commercial's content. So, yes, now---as before---  there's a fairly large amount of commercial avoidance---or lack of attention---but if an advertiser gets, say, 20% of a show's audience to watch most or all of the brand's message each time it appears, over the course of weeks and months, with many exposures in various show contexts and dayparts, there will be a cummulative message registration effect---and a large part of the ad schedule's reach will have gotten the message. That's why so many branding advertisers continue to use "linear TV".

@Dan Ciccone - couldn't agree more.  

I agree about the need to be realistic. Commercial broadcasters operated profitably for decades in the U.S. with no customer tracking at all, just a handful of third-party audience measurement companies (one of which posted the humble slogan on the back cover of its reports "Remember, ratings are only estimates"). Linear TV is not dead as long as buyers and sellers agree to trust the less-than-reliable system of tallying those who might still be in the room during the ads during breaks, not use the mute button, or not use their DVR. 

As a marketer, I would be happy if my competitors followed the advice of this article.  I'll take targeting and the 50% improvement in ROAS I have documented.

In all of these articles, it always baffles me that nobody talks about getting back to basics. Take the time to identify content that your target customer is consuming and present a message that is appropriate for the content.  That is a tried and true model for 60+ years - the cookie made advertisers lazy - time to roll up your sleeves again!