Following one of the worst recessions recorded by the U.S. marketing industry, advertising and marketing spending are projected to expand 10.2% this year to $374.2 billion, according to estimates released today by Winterberry Group. That nonetheless represents a 1.3% declined from 2019, the previous year of U.S. marketing budget expansion.

Consumer technology researcher Parks Associates released new data in conjunction with this week's CES conference showing a significant percentage of U.S. broadband households have been experiencing disruption issues due while weathering the COVID-19 pandemic at home.

The global infodemic -- ie. disinformation and "fake news" -- has driven trust in all news sources to record lows with social media (35%) and owned media (41%) the least trusted, while traditional media (53%) saw the largest overall drop, according to the latest edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer.

A study released in conjunction with this week's CES conference, indicates that the pandemic has had a material impact on the role consumer technology plays for many Americans. Forty-seven percent of 1,000 U.S. adults surveyed by Toluna on January 4th, said the pandemic has changed the way they use and view the role of technology in their lives.

Slightly more than half (52.7%) of all Americans do not subscribe to any email newsletters for news or entertainment content, according to findings of a nationally representative survey fielded by What If Media Group in late December. One reason might be newsletter revenue models. The study found that 84.1% of consumers are not willing to pay a subscription fee to access the type of content they like to read the most.

Reflecting the law of big numbers, Google had the most modest ad expansion in 2020 and is projected to do the same in 2021, according to a new outlook report sent to investors by Wall Street equities firm UBS. That said, with a consensus outlook of nearly 20% growth in 2021, Google is on track to remain digital's biggest player, while Facebook at nearly 25%, should stay No. 2. The most rapid growth, not surprisingly, is coming from less developed players like Twitter, Pinterest and especially Snap.

Nearly 4 of every 10 media industry dollars spent on entertainment content this year will be earmarked for distribution on digital media, the narrowest gap in the 9 years the equity research team at securities firm UBS has been tracking it.

While it's no surprise that 2020 was a banner year for the CTV ad marketplace, a new year-end report from eMarketer projects it will only get better from here. The new report, "Q4 2020 Digital Video Trends," projects CTV programmatic display ad spending will expand more than half again in 2021, reaching nearly $7 billion this year, up from just $4.53 billion in 2020.

Only a fraction of top media company executives -- both B2B and B2C -- are placing their bets on advertising growth in 2021, according to findings of a new report from consultants Long Hill Media and Media Advisory Partners, which interviewed 25 C-level execs at the end of 2020 to find out what their strategic priorities are for the new year.

The good news is that the number of consumer and business related complaints filed with the Data & Marketing Commission declined by more than half, according to its just-released 2019-20 annual report. The bad news is it took a pandemic to influence that.