HC CAT FIGHT:  There’s no doubt about the lack of love between WPP and Omnicom, two of the world’s largest agency holding companies.  In the last six month alone Omnicom has poached AT&T and VW from WPP by positioning their data platform Annalect as a superior tool for using data to purchase media and track attribution.  To counter these losses WPP has created a data infrastructure termed mPlatform, which according to WPP “will bundle data analytics and digital services, including search, social and automated buying teams.”  Omnicom responded by saying WPP was just playing catch up to their Annalect platform, and suggesting that mPlatform might not provide the level of fee/service transparency required by advertisers.  You can imagine that inference didn’t sit well with WPP.  WSJ has the blow by blow in the following link.  (link)

AUDIO’S EMERGENCE:  Digitas LBI’s The Dose series is featuring a guest contributor article from Susan Panico, Pandora’s VP of Sales Marketing.  Susan does a nice job of articulating the emergence of audio in the new world of connected devices.  Given that voice activation is growing within the IoT landscape and the proliferation of digital content on non-screen devices, audio’s importance as a marketing tool is on the rise.  It’s also worth noting the research around the idea that the more digital audio choices consumers have, the more total audio they’ll consume.  Great stuff Susan!  (link)

PROOF OF LIFE IN AUTO?:  If you work on an auto account you’ve heard the term “plateauing” over and over for the past six months.  It describes the anticipated flattening of the US Auto Industry’s total unit sales in 2017, after six straight years of growth.  But now that we’re into 2017 it looks like some of the auto bears are coming out of hibernation and revising their forecasts upwards – from 1-2% YoY decline to a 1-2% YoY growth.  There are several factors for the growing optimism which are noted in the attached Forbes article.  And while 1-2% growth doesn’t exactly make for a red hot auto market, it does paint the picture of stability in an industry which is already at an all-time high for unit sales and gross revenues.  So maybe a little less doom and gloom for the industry and a little more just getting back to business?  (link)

Have a great Tuesday guys!

TRITON’S NOVEMBER RATINGS:  Yesterday Triton released its November Webcast Metrics Ratings.  Total Average Active Sessions (AAS) was +12% over Nov’15, and so far 2016 is up 8% YTD over 2015.  As always, these numbers are for total stream listening in the US, and don’t delineate ad supported from subscription listening.  So you can’t infer any addressable scale data within these numbers.  Besides the usual historical chart, check out this new data cut from RAIN below.  It shows Pandora’s consistent leadership, Spotify’s growth, and iHeart’s whipsawing all over the place.  Keep in mind the lines on this graph are normalized for comparison purposes.  iHeart’s raw scale is still about one-tenth of Pandora’s, which is noted on the two Y-axis scales on either side of the graph.  Regardless of scale, it’s a fascinating way to look at the audience behaviors of three prominent streamers.  (link)

TOP DIGITAL TRENDS:  AdWeek is out with another round of top digital trends for the week. There are some interesting points on the Socials, evidence that Gen Zers actually still shop in B&Ms, a stop tweeting signal to Trump, and a breakdown of how the primary QSRs are using digital media.  Easy 30 second read!  (link)

MILLENNIAL RESOLUTIONS:  I thought I’d end the week with a funny LinkedIn article which might resonate amongst a few of you.  As a disclaimer I’m not a millennial – way too old to qualify.  But I do work in digital media, and thus am surrounded by millennial coworkers.  I don’t subscribe to the blanket assumption that all millennials are self-entitled slackers, just like I don’t think all Gen Xers are old school curmudgeons.  So don’t take the following article as the opinion of the editor.  With that said, the attached piece is pretty funny.  How many of you are over dependent on the word “like”?  Are you using the word “literally” the way it should literally be used?  And are you guilty of using the dreaded like/literally combo in a single sentence?  And BTW – point #3 is absolutely true.  Nobody below the age of 35 knows how to make a phone call anymore.  Earlier this week I received a 516 word text from a millennial coworker – that’s 516 full words, not characters!  After reading the first half of the text I just called them. J  (link)

Have a great Friday and long holiday weekend guys – be back Tuesday!

DEMO VERIFICATION PICKS UP STEAM:  Over the last six months there’s been a growing chorus of requests (aka demands) from the digital buying community for demo verification.  The following AdExchanger article outlines why this is becoming a bigger issue.  Lack of transparency from networks on how they’re deriving demo data and inaccurate probabilistic modeling have led to in-demo accuracy rates which in some cases are under 30% – yikes!  Several in the industry see audience verification using tagging as the “Viewability of 2017”.  Good topic to get up to speed on.  (link)

SANTA SORT OF CAME TO TOWN DURING HOLIDAY’16:  AdAge has a mixed final report on how Retail faired during Holiday’16, along with a forecast for 2017.  The consensus is +4% YoY growth across all Retail sectors.  Growth came from online sales (of course!) at +11%, cold weather apparel was up due to a frigid December for the Eastern half of the US (not kidding, they track this stuff), and stronger than expected gift card redemptions at the B&Ms during the week between Christmas and New Years.  But there wasn’t enough holiday cheer for all to enjoy.  Dept Stores like Macy’s and Kohl’s were down.  As a result store closings are looming for Sears, Macy’s, Limited, etc..  So truly a mixed bag from Santa this year!  (link)

PANDORA’S SECRET SAUCE:  As post-CES coverage continues to flow in, I want to flag the following interview article with Pandora SVP Steven Kritzman.  He does a nice job of summarizing Pandora’s competitive strengths around time spent on platform, engagement-based ad products, and the power of audio in the connected homes and connected cars of tomorrow.  If you work at Pandora you already know these strengths by heart, but it’s still compelling to see all of this laid out in one piece.  A must read for all you Pandas out there!  (link)

Have a great Thursday guys!

AUDIO STREAMING SKYROCKETS:  First up today, another indication of the growing prominence of streaming in the music ecosystem.  Nielsen is reporting that overall music consumption in the US rose 3% in 2016, and that the primary engine of this growth was audio streaming which rose 76% YoY.  One caveat to this stat though – Nielsen is only factoring on-demand services into their YoY calculations.  So Pandora and the streams from radio broadcasters are missing here.  My guess is that if you added the rest of streaming to the calculation, you’d probably end up with growth in the +20-30% range.  Still impressive, regardless.  (link)

TLR SHADINESS:  Speaking of Nielsen, they’ve made an unusual change to their measurement definition of radio stations’ Total Line Reporting, which might end up creating more streaming inventory for the broadcasters.  First some background.  Nielsen allows stations to do something called Total Line Reporting (TLR) when their streams are an exact simulcast of what you hear from their broadcast antennas.  This allows broadcasters to combine both AQH Rating #s and claim more total audience, which they can sell for higher rates.  The TLR protocol has been in place for a while, so nothing new here.  What is new is Nielsen’s disclosure that broadcasters now only need to simulcast in a station’s Metro Survey Area in order to qualify for TLR.  That means any listener who uses an IP address outside the Metro is no longer required to hear the simulcast.  This will allow broadcasters to insert different programming (and ads) for non-Metro listeners, thus creating new streaming inventory to sell.  This change sort of feels like a measurement slight of hand to benefit the broadcasters.  And it’s so bizarre that the broadcasters themselves don’t even have a handle on this yet.  But I’m guessing they’ll embrace the change since it benefits them.  (link)

PROGRAMMATIC LEARNINGS:  And finally today, AdAge has a summary article on programmatic using a “what have we learned so far” perspective.  I believe the author is spot on, especially with the first, second and last points.  Programmatic isn’t just an efficiency play meant to save money by eliminating sales/buying costs.  In fact the whole process is more accurately described as “programmanual”, with a constant need for experts to help set up and optimize the DIDs.  When you build anything new there’s usually a process of launch/learn/adjust, and the programmatic side of digital media is going through this very thing right now.  (link)

Have a great Wednesday!

SMART WINDSHIELDS?!?:  At last week’s CES and this week’s North American Auto Show we’re starting to hear buzz around the next phase of the connected car evolution . . . Smart Windshields.  The OEMs have been monkeying with heads up display in the corner of windshields for years, but those were just illuminated projections coming from the top of the dash.  Tomorrow’s smart windshields will truly be computers unto themselves.  This will open up a whole new frontier in sight-based in-car marketing for display and even video.  Admittedly, safety concerns may limit this platform’s development for first-person drivers.  But imagine the day when driverless cars will be projecting all sorts of content right to your windshield as you ride along.  (link)

SOUNDCLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF RAIN:  You may recall about six months ago that SoundCloud revamped its business model from a file sharing service (think Napster 2.0) to a subscription-based platform.  According to Investopedia early results from this switchover have not be positive, with only ~250,000 listeners purchasing a sub.  By comparison 11M purchased Apple Music subs in its first six months out of the gate.  The reason for the lackluster start probably has to do with the product itself.  Since SoundCloud relies on users to upload content they end up with a real hodge podge of music on the site.  By comparison Spotify and Apple mostly feature the normal label releases, which is the version everyone knows the songs by.   You can imagine the prospects for SoundCloud may become even more bleak once Pandora launches its own on-demand platform later in Q1.  (link)

IS CONTENT BY ITSELF ENOUGH ANYMORE?:  Finally today, I wanted to share a provocative Bloomberg article which has been making its way around the trades over the past few weeks.  It’s centers around Time Warner’s decision to sell itself to AT&T.  It’s a prime example of a successful content provider (TW) merging with a distribution platform (AT&T).  What’s scary for the TV and Movie industries is that Time Warner (which owns HBO, CNN, Warner Bros Studios and countless other successful media properties), decided they could no longer go it alone.  So what does this say for the rest of the of the weaker networks out there?  And is it time for other old school networks to find a dance partner on the distribution side to keep afloat during this age of media consolidation and content proliferation?  (link)

Have a great Tuesday guys!

WHAT TO BE THINKING ABOUT IN 2017:  The starter’s pistol has gone off for 2017.  CES came and went with its usual bang, and the digital media community is getting back to their desks to start executing on this year’s marketing strategies.  So what should we thinking about in 2017?   A good place to start is the following AdAge article, which highlights five key areas to keep an eye on.  There’s a little bit of something on this list for everyone, including mCommerce’s impact on FinTech, Amazon’s effect on Retail, the proliferation of PMPs in programmatic, advancements in audience verification, and video’s continued migration to digital.  Great article to help frame out 2017!  (link)

DISLOCATION DILEMMA:  Throughout CES in Vegas last week there was tons of buzz around IoT, VR, AI, and countless other tech trends which don’t even have cool initial nicknames yet.  But of all the panels and interviews, I thought the following prediction from former Fox President Barry Diller provided the best macro-view of what’s happening in our industry.  Mr. Diller’s theory of content “dislocation” helps explain what’s happening to the traditional broadcast TV and movie industries.  Content on these channels used to be distributed with a one-to-many delivery model.  Now it’s many-to-many, with content being created by so many more mid to small players and consumers using new tech options to find preferred content on their own.  The results of this dislocation will have a profound effect on the entire media industry.  Very interesting theory to noodle on.  (link)

VIVA AUDIO:  And finally today some perspective on digital media’s transformative effect on audio.  Did you ever think you’d see the day when Inside Radio would actually print that the “when and where listeners tune in is steadily shifting from terrestrial to digital”?  Pureplay streamers know this to be true, and this year’s CES has helped confirm the theory.  With new in-home tech advancements like Amazon Echo and Google Home, voice activated integrations are becoming the heart of the connected home.  Streaming audio has a front row seat for the revolution, and 2017 truly feels like the beginning of important era for our industry.  (link)

Have a great Monday guys!