Curated Guide to Research
MediaPost's comprehensive guide to current research in the marketplace.
- The second round of the four divisional games was down 7% to a Nielsen-measured 30.6 million in the live program-plus-same-day time-shifted metric.
- The Ford F-Series is the most popular vehicle among car owners in 18 out of 50 states.
- 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.
- More small and medium-sized businesses expect to increase their marketing efforts this year. Those planning to spend more will increase media buying by 35%, according to data released Tuesday by Borrell Associates.
- The largest and most established streamers' share of new U.S. SVOD subscriptions was down to 7.4% in Q4, while Amazon Prime Video and newbie HBO Max had 18.2% and 19.2% shares, respectively.
- The good news is that consumer time spent with media surged during 2020. The bad news is their share of time spent with media supported primarily by ad dollars fell to its all-time low, according to the latest edition of PQ Media's annual Global Consumer Media Usage Forecast. The time the average American spent with media rose 2.9% to 73 hours weekly in 2020, due in large part to the impact of the global pandemic. The time spent by the average global citizen, rose 2.8% to 53 hours weekly, according to the new forecast.
- Buyer attention is a key metric in predicting whether communications will lead to a sale.
- "Wonder Woman 1984" helped push HBO Max to a 19.2% share of new streaming subscribers.
- As far as industrial roadways go, Madison Avenue has lost its luster on Wall Street. That is more or less what the subject line of an email dispatch from "Campaign" magazine suggested this morning, teasing: "Are Holding Companies Undervalued?"
- Newly commissioned research from The Winterberry Group delves into the surge of data collaboration across companies in a post-cookie world, based on in-depth interviews across the U.S. and U.K. with more than 50 industry experts and a panel of senior brand marketers providing input.
- In 2020, companies increased the number of website pages they track consumers in, digital privacy company Ghostery found. Amazon surpassed Facebook in tracker reach at about 29.4% vs. Facebook at 23% in 2020 In the U.S.
- Mark Weiner has joined financial and technology marketing agency Gognito as Chief Insights Officer, overseeing its recently launched research-based consulting practice, Cognito Insights.
- In 2021, Peacock is estimated to hit $604 million in revenue -- $197 million coming from advertising and $407 million from subscription revenues.
- 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.
- Amazon is poised to benefit from conversion performance, insulation from Apple's coming ad-tracking opt-ins, finds Cowen's latest annual survey of senior U.S. media buyers. Research presents a positive outlook for video, and mobile video, in particular.
- The cinema ad industry is getting a jumpstart on 2021, announcing a new and much improved measurement service that will also be integrated into Nielsen's dashboards and printed reports so that advertisers can look at it alongside linear TV, VOD, streaming and other options, too.
- Consumer electronics giant Samsung won the social media buzz during the first 24 hours of CES, according to an analysis released today by analytics firm Talkwalker. With 7,400 mentions, Samsung dominated the competition, placing well ahead the No. 2 and No. 3 most mentioned CES-related brands, Sony and Intel.
- Nearly 60% of TV advertisers are making less traditional TV upfront commitments for 2021.
- Slightly more than half (53%) of Americans get their news from social media at least some of the time, but an increasing percentage of them feel it is making them more confused about current events. That's the finding of a new report from the Pew Research Center, which has been tracking Americans' use of social media for news for several years. While the report does not delve explicitly into the use of social media to convey disinformation and "fake news," it suggests that social media is becoming a less reliable source of news for many Americans.
- In a CES opening day briefing, the Consumer Technology Association's top researchers made the case that the COVID-19 pandemic helped to accelerate many consumer media technologies, including the "connected health" category, unveiling fresh data indicating that shipments of remote health-monitoring devices soared 73% from 2019 and are on track to jump another 24% this year.
- 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.
- Only sightly more than half of Americans believe it is important for their household to be equipped with the latest media technology, according to findings of a national study conducted by GroupM in December.
- On the eve of this week's CES conference, NPD Group released estimates indicating that the U.S. consumer technology industry expanded 17% during 2020, despite -- or maybe even because of -- the pandemic. "Propelled by pandemic needs, 2020 consumer tech sales saw the strongest growth in at least seven years," says Vice President-Industry Advisor Stephen Baker, adding that as a result, 2021 consumer tech sales should be factored for 2020's surge.
- Almost half are burdened with tech stacks that under-deliver on goals, RollWorks and Ascend2 report.
- At least two-thirds of agencies said they believe targeted forms of advertising such as OTT, social media and addressable had the most impact in 2020, according to Borrell Associates.
- Financially beleaguered media researcher Comscore this evening announced it has finalized a deal to recapitalize the company, and also secured "extended data rights" from at least one of its new investors, cable and broadband giant Charter Communications. The other new investors -- Qurate Retail and Cerberus Capital Management -- also have valuable ecommerce and loyalty shopper data, respectively, though those rights are not explicitly included as part of the deal.
- Honestly conceived and professionally executed research is vastly more right than wrong, but nothing is perfect.
