Curated Guide to Research
MediaPost's comprehensive guide to current research in the marketplace.
- The good news is nine out of ten Americans are loyal to at least a few brands a year after the COVID-19 pandemic. The bad news is we don't really know how their loyalty has changed because of it.
- How does a global brand like the Four Seasons Hotel & Resorts oversee media buys for 100+ properties, yet still manage to increase website bookings, boost revenue, and drive incrementality to channels like SEO and direct for each hotel? Very strategically. Traditionally, the luxury hotel chain's media budgets were fixed and held at property level. That is until their agency, Acronym, realized it was limiting their advertising reach. Instead, after a successful test pilot, Acronym unified Four Seasons' media buys, and the corporate office essentially gave them what amounts to a "blank check," which enabled them to provide a more strategic and aggressive media investment.
- The USC research, conducted on Facebook and LinkedIn, found that one platform's algorithms discriminate by gender, whereas no evidence was found on the other.
- Media and marketing industry merger and acquisition deals crashed in both deal volume and dollar value during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the second quarter of 2020, but they are beginning to trend upward again, according to an analysis published by investment banking firm Berkery Noyes.
- CTV ad demand continues to surge, according to an analysis published today by a leading Wall Street equities firm, based on recent calls with digital ad execs, and one of the major reasons is the ability to buy it programmatically.
- As field agents servicing Nielsen's TV panel stopped entering homes, the VAB says this led to sharp "under-counting of overall TV use."
- Facebook on Thursday released a dataset for AI researchers that includes a diverse group of people who were paid to provide the company with information about age and gender.
- Amazon expanded into search to bring silos of data together across all companies. This data is making Amazon the ecommerce business a powerhouse. Here's how.
- Roughly eight to nine episodes have aired among the top 20 prime-time scripted entertainment shows. A year ago, 17-18 episodes had run.
- A critical mass of households now don't need other devices to stream, interact with or receive addressable advertising.
- In its debut in a highly regarded study of Americans' social media platform usage, TikTok ranks just behind Snapchat and Twitter, and well ahead of the far more established Reddit as a social media destination U.S. adults say they use. That's one of the top-line findings from the just-released 2021 edition of a periodic study of America's social media preferences and habits.
- Local traditional media may see strong benefits. Several marketers at small and-medium sized businesses surveyed said they would "return" to advertising with a "shop local" message, Borrell Associates finds, buying more advertising, increasing social media activity, and broadening their mix. Borrell's latest poll provides insights into January-March 2021 results as well as how marketers' budgets look for the remainder of the year.
- Pluto TV and other free, ad-supported streaming services will face greater competition for subs and advertising as fragmentation increases, however.
- Public perception about the inaccuracy of political polling during the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections has contributed to a crisis of confidence for the survey-based research industry, especially media researchers, a roundtable of industry experts said Monday.
- Amazon's share of the U.S. digital advertising market rose from 7.8% in 2019 to 10.3% in 2020 -- and will continue to take search share, in particular, from Google, especially as Google phases out cookies, according to new eMarketer projections reported by WSJ.
- Netflix loses $6 billion a year in password sharing -- if projections are true.
- A year after finding it the least responsible of the major social media platforms, IPG Mediabrands is going all in with TikTok, unveiling a new, three-year "creator and content" initiative with the company to develop custom campaigns for IPG clients.
- While trust in most institutions has fallen following a year of the pandemic, economic crises and political turmoil, trust in media has fallen to all-time lows since PR giant Edelman began tracking it in 2012. The overall media industry currently has a "trust index" of 51, according to the just-released Edelman Trust Barometer 2021, ranking it last behind Business (61), NGOs (57) and Government (53) among major societal institutions.
- Television series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) are based on characters appearing in Marvel comics who have a shared reality with the theatrical film franchises. From 2013-2020, a dozen shows were produced by Marvel Television, with ABC Studios and ABC Signature Studios, across broadcast, cable, and streaming (ABC, Netflix, Hulu, and Freeform). A couple of series set in the X-Men universe, which were not officially part of the MCU, were produced by 20th Century Fox (for Fox and FX). In this week's edition, I review -- and rate -- all of them. Nuff said!
- Advertisers today face many ethical issues beyond truth in advertising. Top brand attributes for building trust, love and loyalty include respecting privacy, standing for what consumers believe in, having similar ideologies, solving issues if products or services do not deliver as expected, being genuine and authentic, and delivering on promises made in advertising or marketing.
- As consumers and industry pros become more reliant on technology than ever, we're also losing trust in it.
- In my home country, The Netherlands, Kantar and Ipsos will now deliver a fully integrated set of media usage data across all media.
- In one surprising finding, prospects are more positive about gated content than marketers, Orbit Media Studios and Ascend2 report.
- And they found the year the most challenging time of their careers, Sitecore reports.
- The mobile-first mantra has taken over where mobile-friendly left off. What does this mean for marketers?
- In 2020, live cable TV viewing grew 20% among all cable networks, largely due to sharply increasing news coverage. But long-term ad concerns remain for cable networks, says one analyst.
- The ad industry continues to roll out new protocols around online data and consumer privacy. LoopMe surveyed consumers to find out if they're really aware of the changes, and what they thought.
- IPG Mediabrands' Magna Global unit becomes the second major agency forecasting unit to update its U.S. advertising outlook, revising its 2021 forecast to +6.4%, a 2.3 percentage-point improvement for the 4.1% growth it was projecting for the U.S. ad economy when it released its last estimate in December 2020.
- Google continues to mislead parents by representing that apps on the Play Store intended for young children under the age of 13 comply with a federal law regarding children's privacy, advocates say in a new FTC complaint.
- Ad prices on Facebook have surged 30% over their 2020 levels, reaching their pre-pandemic levels -- and are projected to soar throughout 2021, according to an agency analysis.
