ARE WE ENTERING THE AGE OF CLEAN DIGITAL MARKETING?:  On Monday morning Marc Pritchard, the CMO of P&G, gave a highly-anticipated keynote at the IAB’s annual Leadership Meeting.  The quote in the article’s headline tells you everything you need to know.  The days of buying non-verifiable and non-attributable digital media are over for P&G.  They’re setting the bar high and clean by only buying digital media that is MRC accredited, from TAG-certified vendors, which can be tracked by third party vendors.  Ad Networks need not apply . . . and see you later Walled Garden alligators.  Given the kind of market clout P&G commands ($7B+ in annual media spending), it’s very possible that the market will quickly consolidate around Mr. Pritchard’s position.  This could lead to a new age of quality over cost savings in digital media, which would dramatically favor clean site-served content publishers who own a full set of 1^st party data.  I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for the revolution!  (link)

MORE BILLBOARD LOVE:  Yesterday Billboard announced it was integrating Pandora’s listening data into its “Hot 100” music chart, along with a dozen genre-specific charts.  The move reflects streaming’s growing importance in the music ecosystem, and Pandora’s place as the clear market leader amongst pureplay streamers in the US.  It’s also the bridge of connective tissue made possible by Pandora’s acquisition of Next Big Sound in 2015.  Since 2010 Billboard has used NBS to provide non-broadcast data on what’s trending in music.  And now Pandora’s entire listening data is being routed to Billboard through the existing NBS pipes.  Overall this is a win for artists and labels, because they can now get a full-spectrum view of their music’s popularity and consumption trends.  (link)

SPONSORSHIP SPENDING SURGE:  This morning MediaPost is featuring some stats from IEG on the growth trajectory of sponsorship revenue in the US and Globally.  Sponsorship rev, which is usually tied to events/experiential marketing, is forecasted to increase by 4.5% in 2017 on the heels of 4.6% YoY growth in 2016.  This rate tops the expected 2-3% growth of total marketing spending.  The increase in Sponsorship spending can be explained by marketers’ need to break through the clutter and make brand connections with consumers who have shorter attention spans than ever before.  Obviously the “touch it” nature of experiential marketing gives brands the platform to build loyalty with current and future customers.  (link)

JETLAG 101:  Finally today, here’s some bonus content for all you business travelers out there.  Ever wonder why your body adjusts to jet lag better when you travel West than East?  Well the good folks at The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences have your answer!  It has to do with your body’s circadian rhythm.  Apparently our biological clocks are set to accommodate days which are just over 24 hours long.  So when you add an hour or two to your day by heading West your body can easily adjust to the difference.  But heading East means a total shorter day which can throw your body off because of the larger net difference between the time zone you’re in and what time your body thinks it is.  Interestingly they proved this theory by analyzing 20 years of MLB stats, which showed teams consistently doing better when traveling West than East.  And you didn’t think you’d learn anything new today!  (link)

Have a great Tuesday guys!

RELEASE YOUR INNER CULTURE VULTURE:  Over the weekend I came across an amazing read in the form of Mindshare’s annual “Culture Vulture” report.  It’s basically an all-in summary of factors and trends marketers need to be thinking about right now.  The topics are vast – ranging from the infrastructural plateauing of old line economies like the US and Western Europe, all the way down your very own “borecore” – yes, we all have one!  This one will take 20 minutes to get through, so save it for when you have some time.  But definitely make a promise to yourself to read this – it will make you a more well-rounded marketer.  (link)

TOP DIGITAL STATS:  If it’s Monday it must mean another round of AdWeek’s Top Digital Stats from this past week.  Of all the stats the 12^th one from Adpiler is most interesting to me.  The accompanying infographic shows the breakout of Display ad delivery from the first half of January.  In that period Adpiler tracked an astounding 438B unique display impressions to show where/what device/what size they were served.  It’s a great snapshat of the state of Display today.  Wondering what that graphic might look like in a year or two as engagement-based display (like muted video) becomes more and more prominent.  (link)

WHERE RADIO ADVERTISERS’ MONEY IS GOING:  Finally today, I’d like to highlight the following graphic from Borrell & Associates showing how, and by what percentage, broadcast radio clients spend on other media types.  If you’ve ever sold for a radio station you know the experience is akin to living in a radio-only fish bowl.  You’re constantly worried about beating out WXYZ on an avail and “going for share” amongst all the other stations. The problem with this thinking is that radio gets such a small % of the media spend anyways (right now it’s 6% of total spending), that just being the top radio biller in a market is like being the largest minnow in a bucket.  By comparison, other advertising platforms like Search and Social are gobbling up huge chunks of the pie, as noted in the graph below.

Have a great Monday guys!

GOOGLE’S GROWTH:  Yesterday Alphabet (Google’s parent company) announced Q4 earnings which were up 22% YoY to an astounding $26B.  While their growth continues on the strength of surging ad revenue, there are a few clouds on the horizon.  First is the issue of rising TAC (Traffic Acquisition Costs), which was $800M in Q4 alone.  In order to keep growing ad revenue you need more and more traffic, which even the big boys like Google and FB sometimes need to pay for.  The other ominous sign for Google is the competitive pressure in the connected home.  Despite the fact that Google has a solid entry in the market with Google Home, early market share is leaning heavily towards Amazon Echo.  And once a consumer connects all of their IoT devices through one system, it’s very hard to get them to switch over to another.  I’m sure our friends at Alphabet are well aware of this and are already working on countermeasures. (link)

IT’S A WRAP . . . LITERALLY:  While the rest of the broadcast and digital universe is trying to get a toe hold in the connected cars of tomorrow, CBS Radio is taking a decidedly old school approach to in-car advertising – or make that on-car advertising.  They’re partnering with a company called Wrapify to custom wrap individual people’s vehicles with one giant display ad, and paying these car owner volunteers through a rev share.  The typical participant can earn $250-500/mo, depending the scale of the wrap they’re having put on their car.  I’m not totally sure what kind of market exists from the demand side for this – thinking this would compete for OOH budgets instead of radio or digital.  Sort a quirky new asset to sell for CBS Radio reps and some very brave car owners.  (link)

WTF IS ZERO-SHOT TRANSLATION?:  Ok, this last article of the week is nuts.  I’m very far from being an AI expert, but even this one got my attention.  Google has put a ton of time and energy into voice recognition artificial intelligence.  Up until now their system was good at translating words, but lacked the context which comes with human language.  For an example of what I mean think of the hearing the two phrases “let’s eat, grandma” and “let’s eat grandma” – that one little pause at the comma could make a huge difference for granny.  Anyways, in mid-2016 Google added in a layer of coding which allowed the system to learn for itself, even though it wasn’t specifically programmed to do so.  The result is a new computer learned system called “interlingua”, which is essentially a highly advanced self-created language.  Think of the practical applications for this in the VR space if the device you’re giving a command to could not only clearly hear you, but also understand your mood and the context of what you mean.  And then think of every other application for computer self-learning.  Is anyone else thinking Skynet from Terminator?  Warning on this link though – it’s very deep and complicated. So maybe a weekend read if you’re curious about this kind of stuff and have some time to kill.  (link)

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

PARENTS GETTING THEIR DIGITAL ON:  There’s a well ingrained belief in marketing that the younger you are the more digital media (especially social), you’ll consume.  That’s one of the reasons so many target demos start and end with Millennials.  But not so fast my friend!  It turns out that us ripe old Gen Xers are leading the league with even more hours of overall media consumption and social usage than Millennials.  The following Bloomberg article has the details from a recently released Nielsen study.  The best theory as to why Gen Xers would spend 40 more minutes per week on Social than Millennials has to do with attention span.  Younger users may engage more often with digital platforms but they’re typically doing it in shorter bursts, compared to their parents’ longer session.  Regardless of the cause, it’s a surprising stat to be sure.  (link)

WALMART WANTS TO SELL YOU YOUR NEXT CAR:  So Walmart is getting into the auto sales business . . . sort of.  Yes, it’s true that about 25 Walmarts in select states will begin piloting a program to sell cars in-store, but it’s not the usual dealership experience you’d expect.  Instead customers will see an auto kiosk run by a 3^rd party company called CarSaver.  These kiosks will be manned by sales and finance teams who can take consumers through the entire purchase journey, and then direct them to a nearby dealership to complete the sale and pick up their new car.  This setup requires a three-way relationship between Walmart, a dealership group (AutoNation in this case), and an online bank (Ally in this case).  For connecting all of these dots together CarSaver will earn a $350 “success fee” for every car sold.  So whose ready for a test drive in those treacherous Walmart parking lots? J (link)

RADIO REVENUE DECLINE:  As you may recall, the RAB (Radio’s trade association) made the decision in 2016 to stop reporting broadcast radio revenues.  This decision was made because radio’s rev continues to decline – and what trade group responsible for promoting their industry wants to highlight declining numbers?  So without the RAB we’re forced to look elsewhere for revenue stats.  And the first group to publish a full set of 2016 data is SMI, who derives their numbers by surveying 70% of the agencies in the US and then models out a total spend.  According to SMI, total revenue from radio broadcasters declined .5% in 2016.  For some context, Digital was on the high side with 13.3% YoY growth.  As you can see in the following Inside Radio link, broadcasters are already spinning this with a “we’re holding our own” narrative.  And the flat is ok argument might be reasonable except for one important point – 2016 was a political year.  Normally in Presidential election years radio sees a 2-3% kiss on their rev, and then falls back in the following year.  So if they were down .5% in 2016, the extra political money may actually be masking larger drop which will be exposed in 2017.  Not a pretty picture. (link)

Have a great Thursday guys!

MOBILE TV?:  In an interesting development on the TV side, Snap has entered into a contract with Nielsen to measure it’s viewership using mDAR (Mobile Digital Ad Ratings).  This deal will allow Snap to generate TV-like ratings by demo and daypart that mimics what TV buyers are used to seeing from the networks, in the hope of creating an apples-to-apples marketplace.  With this agreement, along with Snap’s recent deal with Turner to create original content, you can envision the emergence of a new “mobile TV” swim lane.  The agreement may also help Snap offset some recent measurement controversies around the validity and viewability of their audience by given them ratings from the standard bearer of TV measurement.  Wondering if other digital video platforms may do the same?   (link)

HISPANIC LONG TAIL:  For the last few years marketers have been playing a game of tug of war with themselves over the question of Hispanic advertising.  Should it be a standalone marketing effort with dedicated budgets, or can efficiency and message continuity be achieved by rolling multicultural into one Total Market strategy?  The answer to this question is becoming increasing clear.  Total Market may be a nice short cut solution today, but it doesn’t do enough to build a brand (or business) amongst US Hispanics over the long run.  In the following Forbes article the guest author supports the point of “long tail value” which can only be built through dedicated marketing, and supports this assertion with a dizzying array of stats on the US Hispanic marketplace.  In particular, pay attention to the Hispanic millennial and affluence numbers.  It’s just way too big and distinct of a market opportunity to address via Total Market.  (link)

SELF-PROMOTION GONE OVERBOARD:  Finally today, you know I can’t pass up the opportunity to take a swipe at the broadcasters, especially when they tout success about ridiculous things.  For today’s Exhibit A check out the attached Inside Radio link touting the success of iHeart Radio as the #1 national radio advertiser for the past week because they ran 65,000 house commercials to promote their own stream service.  What?  So they’re subjecting listeners to 65,000 filler ads in a single week because they can’t sell the inventory to paid clients?  Why not just play more music? . . . I’m assuming listeners would rather hear songs than commercials about a streaming service?!?  And if you’re truly a diehard iHeart listener wouldn’t have heard about and decided on their streaming platform by now?  Since the platform relaunched in Sept’13, iHeart has run exactly one gajillion ads trying to get listeners to switch.  I know frequency sells in radio . . . but c’mon already!   (link)

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

CROSS-PLATFORM RETARGETING:  So this is interesting.  On Friday Google announced a new wrinkle in its retargeting capabilities which allows advertisers to run YouTube video ads based on behavioral retargets from Google’s base Search product.  For an example, if you start searching for Jeep dealers near you on Google, using this data an auto manufacturer or dealer could retarget you the next time you’re on YouTube.  Up until now Google has been very strict about keeping its 1^st party data within its own walled garden, so this is a departure.  Granted, since YouTube is one of Google’s top properties it’s not too much of a stretch to understand why they’d want to use data from one platform to help monetize another.  But it makes you wonder if the walls of the walled gardens are about to become a little easier to get over. (link)

SPRINT GETTING ITS TIDAL ON:  Apparently yesterday’s news that Tidal has been inflating its subscription numbers wasn’t enough to derail the announcement that Sprint has recently acquired a 33% ownership in the streamer.  The price tag for a third of Tidal is $200M – giving them a $600M valuation.  On paper this seems reasonable for Sprint.  It’s a low cost way to give them a foot in the digital music space, and they’ll be able to cross-market Tidal by preinstalling into all Sprint phones sold.  But as Samsung proved with the Milk Music fiasco, just because you build it doesn’t mean they’ll come.  Regardless of whether Sprint is involved or not, Tidal still needs to give listeners a compelling reason to buy a subscription vs. all the other digital music options available.  In the meantime, I’m looking forward to seeing Jay-Z in Sprint yellow, instead of his usual black.  (link)

CHANGE IS COMING:  Finally today, you can tell the radio broadcasters are really thinking about all the positive and negative things (from their viewpoint) which could come from the new Trump Administration and a Republican-controlled Congress.  With Trump’s position on so many issues being diametrically opposite of Obama’s the radio industry is grappling with these unknowns, as outlined in the attached Inside Radio link.  Undoubtedly the biggest concern is around the idea that Congress would consider performance royalties on terrestrial radio broadcasts.  This would be a game changer for the industry in a bad bad way, since right now radio is getting a free ride on content costs.  On the positive side, will the new FCC leadership relax cross-ownership rules which still only allow one company to own 8 combined TV and radio stations in a single market?  What about the tax deductibility of advertising as a business expense?  If Congress makes good on a promise to streamline the tax code could that incentive be eliminated?  And finally, is the net neutrality doctrine in jeopardy now that Tom Wheeler is no longer running the FCC?  His rumored replacement, Ajit Pai, is said to be against NN, which could usher in a pay-for-play era of data delivery across the internet.  Yikes, I’m tired just thinking about all of this stuff.  J  (link)

Have a great Tuesday guys!

MORE TROUBLE FOR TIDAL?:  A European news agency is reporting that Tidal’s paid subscription numbers may be inflated by as much as 50%.  This conclusion was made by comparing the 850,000 unique users Tidal is reporting to the labels (and paying royalties on), to their recent publicly stated subscriber numbers of 1.2M, and their initial audience projections of 3M.  There’s speculation that Tidal has been including older inactive accounts and free trial listening in its subscription totals, which is leading to the variance.  Obviously this isn’t good no matter how you slice it.  Even 1.2M worldwide subs is a sickly number, and if that’s being overinflated there might be real trouble on the way for Tidal.  (link)

TOP DIGITAL TRENDS:  AdWeek is out with another list of this past week’s top digital trends.  The first bullet about a slight drop in US live streaming views from June to November is notable.  Remember last week’s news about FB no longer paying influencers post on Facebook Live?  Wondering if that has anything to do with live streaming’s downward trend.  And the fourth point about Twitter selling Fabric, it’s app developer platform, to Google is also interesting.  Speculation is growing in the industry about Twitter selling or shutting down its non-essential services like Fabric and Vine as a way to become more attractive to potential buyers.  Interesting stuff.  (link)

MMM 2.0:  If you’ve spent any time with CMOs in the last 6-8 years you’ve probably heard the term “MMM” or marketing mix modeling.  It’s basically been the north star of media planning and allocation for the last several years, as it attempts to quantify where to spend marketing dollars by platform.  Think of the model as a series of levers (media types) which marketers can pull up or down (change investment in that media), and then monitor the outcome (usually via sales or site visits), which helps them determine that lever’s effectiveness.  An important limitation to MMM is that these levers are independent of one another.  In other words, if you change two things simultaneously you can’t really tell which change made the impact on your results.  Until now, that is. As you’ll see in this attached AdExchanger guest column, marketers are becoming sophisticated in “MMM 2.0”, including the ability to package up different digital publishers into one lever, to determine attribution impact.  I know this is deep theory for a Monday morning, but it’s a good topic to be versed in.  (link)

Have a great Monday!

BILLBOARD COVER:  Pandora’s Tim Westergren is on the cover of this month’s Billboard magazine, along with the accompanying article.  It’s a very comprehensive piece which begins with the current state of digital audio, and Pandora’s entrance into the on-demand side of the business.  Then the author works backwards into a biographical story on Tim and the history of Pandora.  When you read about the journey it becomes clear that it’s more than just running a business for Tim – it’s a mission to change the music industry for the better.  And for a really interesting contrast, check out the Billboard cover about Pandora from 2013 below, and then look at this week’s cover right next to it.  Talk about a complete 180!  (link)

A CLOSER LOOK AT ADDRESSABLE SCALE:  I particularly like the MusicWatch study featured in the attached RAIN link because it’s one of the few research pieces which aggregates US Audio Streaming consumption across both free ad-supported and subscription platforms.  It gives a true indication of the relative size of each competitor, and it reinforces the argument for addressability.  Yes, Pandora’s free streaming service represents 25% of total streaming consumption in the US . . . and it’s all addressable.  And yes, 7% of Spotify’s 17% share is ad-free subscription listening, bringing their addressable reach down to 10%.  And finally, YouTube remains the dark horse with an impressive 27% of the streaming market, but addressable only through video ads and not audio.  Great summary piece to be versed in.  (link)

CAN WE HAVE AN HONEST TALK?  I normally don’t feature self-help material in this blog, but this particular LinkedIn post really stood out to me.  We all know media sales and alcohol have been completely intertwined since Don Draper lifted that first Old Fashioned.  These days the clients dinners, sale conferences, and industry events seem to blur into one never-ending drinking binge.  And I’m not passing any judgment here, as I’m usually the guy ordering the last drink of the night that nobody really needs.  So have you ever asked yourself what media sales would be like if you didn’t drink?  Could you do it?  Would it somehow hurt your career, or even help it?  A pharma sales rep name John Crowley made the decision to stop drinking, and dealt with these questions.  His story is recounted with amazing honesty and detail.  Totally worth the read, whether you’ve thought about this before or not.  (link)

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

TV’S AD LOAD BINGE:  In the digital audio space we often talk about the commercial loads per hour of the streamers vs. the radio broadcasters.  But there isn’t the same amount of attention paid to the TV side, until now.  According to MediaPost, TV broadcasters have been steadily raising their commercial load per hour – up to 10.7 minutes of ads per hour in December, which is 18% of the clock.  In addition to the increase of net commercial time, there’s also the phenomenon of more total commercials of shorter lengths being run.  Think about the typical TV break with bookended :15s on either side, brought to you by’s, time/temp sponsorships, etc., all on top of the normal :30s.  This increase creates unit fatigue for viewers who don’t necessarily pay attention to the length of the ads.  They just see commercial after commercial coming at them and eventually change stations.  For a reference point the typical FM radio station is running 11-12 minutes of ads per hour, AMs are running 15-16 minutes per hour, and streamers are running 3-4 minutes per hour.  (link)

PANDORA STILL THE PRIORITY:  If there was ever any doubt about Pandora’s importance in the streaming royalty landscape, the following RAIN article and corresponding SoundExchange blog post should clear things up.  Despite the increased competition from other streamers and label-direct licensing deals which don’t pass through SoundExchange, Pandora remains the 800 lbs gorilla in the room.  Maintaining (and growing) Pandora’s compulsory royalty payments for the free ad-supported side is a top priority for SoundExhange, even as Pandora prepares to diversify its product offerings with On-Demand.  As a refresher, Pandora Plus/Premium’s royalties will now run through the labels themselves via direct licensing agreements, while the ad-supported royalties will still be routed through SoundExchange.  Everyone can breathe easier now.  J  (link)

AUDIO AS THE NEXT SOCIAL PLATFORM?:  AdAge is featuring an interesting twist on the typical “power of Audio” narrative in the following link.  In it the author suggests that all brands should care about their audio strategy, but not just as an efficient reach vehicle with cross-device parity and massive time spent.  Instead the article is more about Audio’s power as an experiential and/or social vehicle, which coexists with other display/video social platforms like FB, Snap, Twitter, etc..  Part of this notion can be credited to the proliferation of podcasting which has given listeners more on-demand audio choices than ever before.  Another factor is the emergence of live shared audio such as real time concert streaming and Facebook Live.  Regardless of the causes, there’s more of a reason to make Audio a key element of any brands’ marketing plan than ever before.  (A special Editor’s credit to Pandora’s Lauren Williams for digging this gem up!)  (link)

Have a great Thursday guys!

FB LIVE STRATEGY SHIFT:  In an interesting twist to their Facebook Live strategy, FB has indicated a shift away from paying publishers and influencers to post live short-form content.  The feeling in the content community is that last year’s paid deals were FB’s way to launch the platform by having a decent amount of live content ready to go.  But now in the post-launch phase they’re not renewing the initial content deals, and are instead relying on user-uploaded content to carry the momentum.  In the last part of the attached Recode article the idea of FB shifting to longer form content (think Netflix) is teased.  Not sure how that would come across live though, since longer form content is usually better when its preproduced, edited, and archived.  I guess we’ll see what FB has up their Live sleeve in the next few months.  (link)

MOOKIE MONSTER?:  Yesterday I previewed WPP’s new data management platform called mPlatform.  The question, of course, is what secret sauce will mPlatform bring to the table to set itself apart from the myriad of other DMPs out there.  One hint may be around the idea of cross-device tracking of consumers in a cookie-less mobile landscape.  WPP is actually working on their own proprietary tracking technology (called a “mookie”, not kidding), to accomplish this.  Of course, the industry leading way to track individuals from web to mobile devices is to start with user-entered registration data.  But outside of Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, and to some extent Google, no other publishers in the US have a complete set of this data at scale.  So will the mookie fulfill this goal or will it crumble?  (sorry, I know that was terrible J)  (link)

TRAITS OF A GREAT SELLER:  Finally today, I’d like to share a diamond in the rough I found on LinkedIn.  The article comes from Bill Golder, the CEO of a small sales consultancy in Michigan.  I especially liked this piece because I’ve been asked the same question 100 times in my career about the most important traits for being a good salesperson.  I believe Mr. Golder’s response is spot on.  A natural curiosity to learn as a “student of life” will make you a good salesperson in any industry.  I’m also a firm believer in having passion for any job you do, and the fearlessness to fail fast is a prerequisite.  I’ll have to admit I’ve never taken the approach he describes in #3 of declining to submit on an RFP because of a lack of access to key decision makers, but I agree that it’s sometimes better to cut your losses early and focus your time/energy elsewhere.  This one will get you thinking about how well you stack up to these points.  (link)

Have a great Wednesday guys!