Curated Guide to Research
MediaPost's comprehensive guide to current research in the marketplace.
- It's no surprise that TV has been a big media beneficiary in terms of increased consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the benefit appears to be sustaining, according to findings of a new wave of entertainment consumer research by Hub Entertainment Research. The study, which was fielded in February and March of this year, indicates the percentage of Americans 14-74 who feel their TV viewing has increased has jumped from 69% last summer to 77% currently. Importantly, the percentage indicating they are watching "a lot more" TV has jumped an even greater percentage than those indicating just a little more increased viewing.
- The average U.S. household will subscribe to three subscription video-on-demand streaming services this year, according to estimates published by Wall Street securities firm UBS.
- 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.
- Citing a "healthier-than-expected recovery" of the U.S. economy, coupled with "the significant impact of fiscal stimulus," GroupM updated its U.S. advertising outlook for 2021, calling for total ad spending to expand more than 9% over 2021, or nearly 15%, after factoring out the impact of 2020's political advertising boom.
- The U.S. ad recovery is looking better with each new ad industry forecast update, but this weekend's revision by GroupM offers the most bullish adjustment to date, with total U.S. ad spending now projected to expand 9.1% this year, or nearly 15% after factoring out the effects of incremental political ad spending during 2020.
- The latest report focuses on behavior and trends in various subjects, including travel, retail, health and wellness, technology and finance.
- There is more potential long-term gain from distribution, subscription and ad revenues in streaming.
- Half of 500-plus brand and agency media buying decision-makers surveyed by Forrester consider optimizing addressable TV and other emerging channels a top priority, but 100% have encountered challenges in trying to use addressable at scale.
- In a finding that appears to defy conventional wisdom -- not to mention many other media research studies -- a new Nielsen report finds the amount of time the average American spent using media each day actually declined precipitously at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Some 86% of senior marketers worldwide believe lack of leadership and capabilities has resulted in missed revenue.
- Fraudsters were more likely to go after Gen Z, at 44%, and Millennials, at 37%, more than any other age group. Those numbers increased in the U.S., at 53% and 40%, respectively, according to recent data.
- 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.
- While Fox News Channel remains the dominant source for political news among Republicans, especially conservative ones, newer TV news rivals Newsmax and OAN (One America News) have made significant inroads. According to a new study released this morning by the Pew Research Center, 43% of Americans overall got news from Fox News in the past week, while only 10% got it from Newsmax and 7% got it from OAN.
- Remember all that bread-baking last spring? Americans are over it and reconsidering restaurants, says the Hartman Group.
- "Opt-in rates are expected to be very low, which effectively ends the IDFA as a reliable identifier of users," Trip Chowdhry, managing director of equity research at Global Equities Research, wrote in a research note published Monday.
- 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.
- The U.S. ad economy contracted for the second consecutive month in February, dropping 7.3%. The declines in January and February of this year followed five consecutive months of expansion that ended 2020 and signaled an end to the COVID-19-related recession.
- Disney gained in the number of actual games, including two Super Bowls, MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson says. ESPN's "Monday Night Football" was up 4% last season to $232.1 million in national TV advertising, according to Standard Media Index. For the new 11-year contract, MoffettNathanson estimates ESPN's average yearly NFL cost will grow 42% to $2.7 billion.
- "It's Amazon's world, and other rights holders are living in it," GroupM Business Intelligence Global President Brian Wieser wrote in an analysis of the new NFL rights deals he sent over the weekend.
- The pandemic drove advertisers to invest even more in the "Triopoly," confirms a provisional GroupM analysis provided to "The Wall Street Journal."
- This year's increases won't be enough to wipe out 2020's losses. The ad marketplace won't grow larger than what was seen in 2019 until 2022.
- 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.
- What happens when Apple users encounter that pop-up after privacy regulations take effect? On average, 47% will not allow tracking, and 67% of those age 65 and older will not allow it. Some 21% of those age 35-45 say they're very likely to allow it, according to survey results released this week.
- The NewtonX Graph uses APIs to interface with private databases from partners including recruiting firms, professional associations, trade associations and conference organizers, data providers and search engines such as Dow Jones Factiva, Bing, Google, LinkedIn, and Xing, among others. It scans for professionals that match customer criteria.
- 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.
- Robinhood, known for its stock trading app that made a splash during the GameStop fiasco, named Google vet Aparna Chennapragada its first chief product officer.
- The MRC found there is no single standard for measuring outcomes and it will instead focus on the "quality" of data used to measure them.
- While many consumers have some implicit knowledge why digital identity trackers exist, most don't understand what the explicit value exchange is.
- 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.
