Here's a preview of the new CTV market share estimates, thanks to Roku and eMarketer. Citing estimates reported to its shareholders, Roku will have 84.7 million CTV users this year, making it the
dominant platform people use to access TV, OTT and other forms of video via their tv sets. According to eMarketer's most recent estimates, which will be updated in August, Amazon Fire will rank No.
2 with 71.2 million CTV users, edging out gaming consoles (as a group), which fall to No. 3 in terms of CTV market share.
Americans say they are using social media more in recent weeks because of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially women. That's the finding of a Knight Foundation and Gallup survey of U.S. adults conducted
April 14 to 20, which found that the net difference of those say they are using social media more or less is +18% overall, but only 10% for men and 22% for women.
Thanks, in part, to an estimated $7.1 billion in political ad spending, the local TV advertising marketplace will experience a relatively modest erosion in 2020 ad spending, according to an updated
forecast from BIA Advisory Services, adjusting for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. BIA revised its 2020 local TV ad outlook down 5% to $25.3 billion from its initial, pre-pandemic forecast of
$26.9 billion, citing ""significant decreases in advertising from many business verticals like travel, leisure and retail."
Self-reported brand loyalty does not appear to have suffered so far during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from Civic Science's ongoing tracking poll shows nearly nine-in-ten Americans have steadily said
they are loyal to their favorite brand. That continues an upward trend that began in 2019, when the annual percentage of brand loyalists suddenly shot up four percentage points vs. 2017 and 2018.
Ad demand fell 35% year-over-year in April, marking its lowest point since MediaPost and the Standard Media Index began benchmarking the U.S. ad marketplace in 2012.
Amazon and Google gained another ecommerce rival this week and SEO experts gained another platform in which to optimize content with the announcement of Facebook Shops, a mobile-first shopping
experience where businesses can create an online store on Facebook and Instagram for free.
There are two revelations in a just-released Pew Research Center study of the sources and credibility of the sources of news Americans rely on. The first is that 16% of Americans say they rely on the
White House Task Force. The second is that half of those Americans believe the task force has been making much ado about nothing -- the highest level of cynicism of any group of Americans relying on
any source of news about the pandemic.
Nearly half (45%) of consumers say their mental health has worsened because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and nearly a quarter (24%) expect brands to help. That's one of the more interesting findings of a
new wave of COVID-19 pandemic research being released this week by market researcher Global Web Index.
Amsterdam-based agency We Are Pi has issued a manifesto for the "new society rules" coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Relevance, sensitivity and action are key to business success," the agency
says in the report, adding: "To stay in touch with an ever changing consumer base, there are enduring nuances that need to be considered. New Society Rules decodes today's biggest cultural shifts,
identified through deep conversation with people from all over the world at the heart of change."
As consumers begin shifting from an initial crisis phase to a more "normal" and sustained period of the COVID-19 pandemic, analysts are beginning to project some of the longer-term effects on media.
After months in which many consumers were staying-at-home, there has been one surprising and unanticipated change in their media habits: a spike in use of linear broadcast TV.
Bing, with help from Microsoft Research, is using Natural Language Representation models to improve results on each search. On Tuesday the Microsoft search engine introduced a feature that serves a
one-word answer for queries, as well as a carousel of related excerpts from a variety of resources.
Consumers are shifting from an "acute" phase of concern about the pandemic to a "transitory" phase that will ultimately lead to "normalcy," top analysts at market researcher Global Web Index said late
Tuesday during a press preview of their latest wave of COVID-19 tracking studies.
After the pandemic, 28% of consumers surveyed will spend more time comparing makes, models, prices and promotions online.
As I'm writing this, it's the 60th day we've been self-quarantined in Hoboken New Jersey. I'm in my apartment with my wife, my son who turns 21 this week, and my 80-plus-year-old mother-in-law. In
this week's edition, I provide my first-person account of TV viewing life under quarantine.
WPP's GroupM was the big winner in terms of net new business gains during the first quarter of 2020, according to a just-released compilation by Comvergence. With $962 million in first quarter gains,
GroupM's media services units became an even bigger fish in what turned out to be a smaller first quarter pond, as total new business activity slowed due to the pandemic.
Like much of the rest of the global economy, new business activity slowed precipitously for the media services industry during the Q1 2020. Total volume of media account turnover declined 51% to $2.9
billion from $4.95 billion in Q1 2019, according to just-published estimates compiled by Comvergence.
Marketers are complicit in the toxicity of social media, they misunderstand its function and how brands should participate in it, and yet they appear to be held hostage by it. Those are some of the
main paradoxes confronting brand marketers, according to a damning new report from the social media analyst at Forrester Research. "Every company should ask the question, 'Should we be on social
media?'," writes Forrester analyst Jessica Lieu in the new report, "It's OK To Break Up With Social Media."
Survey respondents went from spending nearly six hours every week behind the wheel of a car to a quick six minutes each day.
While COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders have impacted all industries in the past few months, the search term "Coronavirus exit phase" continues to rise, up 232% by May 15, according to recent CodeFuel
data.
Like most industries, the global marketing and media research trade faces an uncertain future in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it's impact on business economics. To benchmark the magnitude of
the effect, ESOMAR conducted a survey of its members in April and found most expect some "slight" to "big" negative disruption that is likely to result in a significant amount of layoffs for marketing
and media research professionals.
Nearly two-thirds (64%) of members os the Association of National Advertisers currently work with a minority-owned market, advertising or research agency, according to findings of a just-published new
report from the ad a trade association on "supplier diversity."
The pandemic will give rise to the "next normal," which will largely be defined by a change in consumer psychographics, not consumer behavior.
A lack of commuters is balanced by home listeners -- but it's the established shows that are feeling the love, not new launches.
At a time when analysts already are projecting U.S. ad spending could decline as much as 17% in 2020, one category appears to remain buoyant: political. Advertising Analytics has revised its previous
forecast for U.S. political ad spending up 11.7% to $6.7 billion due primarily to the fact that there will be less "face-to-face" campaigning and candidates will need to rely even more on advertising
to influence and persuade voters.
Political ad spend for the 2020 political season so far is at $2.19 billion -- more than $1 billion more than spending at this point in 2016 and 2018 -- two big political election years -- according
an estimate by Advertising Analytics. Driven by higher-than-expected primary spending and the absence of live event campaigning, political advertising is now expected to total an even bigger record of
$6.7 billion this year. Advertising Analytics is raising its estimate by 12% because of primary spending, higher fund-raising, and what it says is the "lack of face to face campaigning" -- due to
COVID-19 disruption.
Homebound consumers bought more sweets and convenience foods, such as ice cream and frozen entrees, than they did a year earlier.
Twenty-eight percent of 69 videos checked against factual data repositories were found to include misinformation, and some came from national news sources. Factual videos from government and
professional sources comprised just 11% of the most-viewed videos, and 10% of views.
Nearly nine in ten advertisers are deferring campaigns with just over half holding back spend for six months, according to a WFA report covered in "Campaign."
At a time when many marketers are trying to come to grips with the physical dislocation of consumers from their brands in the real world, interest is spiking among both brands and agencies in
accessing content about "digital strategy. "This showcases adapting to the new normal," Michael McLaren, CEO of the B2B Group at Merkle, in analyzing the most significant findings in a unique tracking
index of the content being consumed by the top 500 advertisers and the leading ad agencies.
The vast majority of consumers say they are unlikely to have their sentiment about a brand change either way if their ads appear next to coverage of COVID-19, and there has been relatively not change
over time. That's the conclusion of the second wave of consumer studies conducted by IAS (Integral Ad Science) probing the impact the pandemic coverage is having on advertising adjacencies.