The U.S. ad economy will expand 5.1% this year, based on the consensus of Madison Avenue's leading forecasters. The outlook, which represents and improvement from a +4.3% expansion in January when Dentsu issued its update, is now being adjusted based on a major upgrade by GroupM issued over the weekend.

Advertisers are generally more negative about their ad budgets than their agency and media supplier counterparts, a global survey of 325 ad and media execs fielded by World Media Group finds. The study, conducted as part of WMG's new report "What's Next For Content-Led Marketing," represents an improvement from where the respondents said ad budgets netted out for 2020.

The Association of National Advertisers' Center for Brand Purpose this morning released the second in a series of CMO-inspired "playbooks" to help marketers develop and mange "purpose-driven" brands. The new report, entitled "Activating a Purpose Program," is essentially a five-chapter playbook based on interviews with marketers known for managing successful purpose-driven brands.

Fueled by demand for new smartphones, as well as the rollout of 5G spectrum, telecommunications industry ad spending is expected to expand an average of 4.5% annually through 2023, according to a new report released today by Publicis Media's Zenith unit.

Utilizing a mixed methodology that incorporates some massive (30,000-respondent) primary consumer surveys, as well as a panel of expert authorities, Dentsu has created a roadmap of new and emerging intelligence brands need to master today if they want to be "titans" in the 2030 consumer marketplace.

Among the primary factors contributing to a brand's "emotional intelligence," most score lowest in "self-regulation" and "empathy," two qualities that would seem paramount in the minds of consumers following a year of global pandemic and economic duress. That's one of the top findings from Carat's new "Brand EQ Report, which surveyed more than 10,000 people across 10 major markets to assess the emotional intelligence of 48 globally-known brands.

Smartphone users appear to be savvy about how digital publishers and app developers make money via their data, but are less accepting of the industry claim that it's also to improve their "user experience." Those are among the findings of a new study of American smartphone users conducted by attribution analyst AppsFlyer and the Mobile Marketing Association to understand how consumers perceive the role of identity trackers, especially as Apple is poised to give them a universal opt-out.

Increasingly, there are ways for brand marketers to reach viewers on SVOD via so-called "brand integrations," formerly called product placements. And today Nielsen is releasing its first-ever "SVOD Brand Integrations Report" to Madison Avenue some perspective, as well as a baseline to plan with.

There are many ways to dimensionalize the size and scope of media companies -- annual sales, stock market capitalization, etc. -- but using its proprietary methods to assess the explicit value of their media assets, TradingPlatforms.com estimates Disney is worth more than $200 billion on that basis. That makes it the biggest media asset company in the world -- by a wide margin -- scaling five times larger than the second largest in TradingPlatforms analysis, Vivendi.

Because of the pandemic, this is the first time in 30 years I haven't seen any fall pilots and have only seen a few mid-season shows prior to their premieres. So in this week's edition, I'm reviewing these new series after watching at least the first few episodes during their regular broadcast runs. Also due to the pandemic, many returning scripted shows didn't premiere until January or later. These include, ABC's The Rookie, Black-ish, Mixed-ish, NBC's Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, Chicago P.D., Law & Order: SVU, New Amsterdam, Good Girls, FOX's Prodigal Son, The Resident, 9-1-1, 9-1-1: …