In a rare self-reflecting study about their own members ability to communicate with and effectively manage their agencies, the World Federation of Advertisers found agencies generally perceive they have less frequent interaction with clients related to providing them feedback on their performance. And when it comes to asking their agencies for feedback about their own performance, there was an even bigger divide with a majority of agencies indicating it either never happens, or only happens on an ad hoc basis.

A majority of agencies became more flexible with their clients in terms of their terms of payment and other practices, but most held firm on pricing so far during the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey of 130 digital agencies worldwide found. The survey, which was fielded over the past few months by global digital ad services outsourcing firm Uplers, also found that a majority of the agency respondents expect the impact of the pandemic to last for at least six months.

Madison Avenue's consensus outlook for 2020 turned negative for the year, as the second of the Big 4 agency forecasting units weighed in with its mid-year adjustment. GroupM now projects U.S. ad spending will decline 7.6% this year. Coming a day after IPG Mediabrands Magna's mid-year update -- also a negative one -- the consensus for 2020 now stands at negative 3.5%, while the 2021 outlook has fallen to a tepid increase of 1.7%.

While only one of the major agency forecasting units -- IPG Mediabrands Magna -- has officially released a mid-year update for its global and U.S. ad outlooks, the Madison Avenue consensus is already looking weak for 2020. Magna's new outlook, which calls for a 7.2% erosion in global ad spending during 2020, brings the industry consensus down to just a 1.2% gain, though that likely will move into negative territory as the other major agency holding companies issue their revised outlooks based on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the economic recession.

Asked which, if any, brands had a positive impact for them during the pandemic, "other" was the No. 1 choice among 1,000 Americans responding to a recent survey by OpinionWay for digital communications agency JIN. Overall 73% cited at least one brand, and 17 charted above had enough statistical significance to be recognized by at least 1% of the respondent base. On this scale, albeit a highly fragmented one, ecommerce platforms Amazon and Walmart stand out as tentpoles, with 6% each of respondents.

These unique data visualizations were created by Chicago-based digital shop Digital Third Coast based on the agency's analysis of Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to see how the homepages of major news sites covered the coronavirus outbreak over time. The visualizations show the progression over 10 weeks -- from Jan. 1 to March 9 -- including the density of headline mentions (above) and total headlines appearing above the fold (below).

A plurality of Americans -- especially NFL fans -- support more players taking a knee in recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement during NFL games. That's one of the findings of a national survey conducted by DeVries Global and Dynata in the wake of George Floyd's death and the Black Lives Matter protests nationwide.

Nature and educational-oriented cable networks including Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, History Channel, and National Geographic Channel are the highest-ranked in terms of interest among non-cable subscribers, according to the latest edition of Beta Research Corp.'s "Cable Network Interest Study." The study, which samples a representative base of both subscribers and non-subscribers of cable TV services, also found that similar network interest among non-cable subscribers who are also heavy users of streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Prime.

"Uncertainty is the new normal, along with fear, anxiety, and stress," reads a just-released white paper written for media buyers trying to figure out how to navigate this year's network upfront advertising marketplace. While those terms could well be applied to upfronts of year's past, their context is different in the midst of a pandemic that has disrupted much of the media marketplace, as well as advertiser budgets and plans.

While many media, and especially digital commerce-based media experiences, are known to have so-called "cohort" effects in which someone helps users navigate and/or decide on what to consider or buy, the phenomenon is even more complex inside U.S. Hispanic households where language plays an important role.