WHAT YOU’RE LISTENING TO IN YOUR HOME:  As we enter the age of the connected home, with digital content running through IoT platforms, we can start to see a profile of audio streaming consumption in the home.  A first example of this is the digital audio usage on Amazon Echo.  Pandora is the far and away the leader in listening on Echo with 43% of total consumption, followed by iHeart with 36%.  One of the biggest surprises is that Amazon Music only accounted for 13% of streaming on their own platform – so much for that ecosystem play!  And Spotify rounded up the field with paltry 7% – guessing that teenage listeners don’t make decisions on music in the home?  Expect to see this trend continue as more and more music consumption shifts to connected devices.  (link)

RADIO MARRIAGE:  Big news from the broadcast world yesterday, as CBS Radio and Entercom announced a merger.  Last year CBS’s parent company announced the plan to spin off their radio division.  But given the no-growth outlook for the radio industry they weren’t able to find a buyer or get a high enough valuation on an IPO to make the deal work for them.  So merging with a smaller broadcaster, who desperately wanted CBS’s large market footprint, was a synergistic fit.  CBS gets to unload its radio stations (tax free!) and still retain 72% of the stock in the new combined entity, and Entercom’s CEO David Fields gets to run what will now be the #2 broadcast group in the US, behind iHeart.  There are only six overlap markets where CBS/Entercom own more than seven stations between them, so there will be minimum divestiture required to finalize the transaction.  The deal is expected to close in the back half of 2017.  (link)

PROPEL + PANDORA = POWER:  The following AdExchanger link includes a great example of the power that an integrated marketing plan can have on a brand.  The brand is Gatorade’s Propel, and the marketing campaign was executed by Pandora.  The campaign includes the perfect convergence of using audience data (fitness enthusiasts) to promote custom content (workout genre stations), and offer listeners a reward (sponsored listening), by interacting in a way that’s totally native to the workout experience (gyroscopic engagement).  In plain English, fitness enthusiasts were invited to add Propel’s workout station, and then unlock a commercial free hour of listening by shaking their smartphone several times.  All of these elements combined to create an innovative program and impressive results for Propel.  (link)

THE GREATEST COMMERCIAL EVER:  As you may be aware the Superbowl is happening this Sunday.  To mark the occasion I’d like to take you back to Superbowl XVIII on January 22, 1984.  That was the setting for Apple to run what is widely considered the greatest ad in the history of marketing.  The ad, of course, was the Orwellian themed “1984”, which promoted the launch of Apple’s new Macintosh computer on the following day.  The creative draws a perfect analogy to the book 1984, by contrasting IBM as the monopolistic status quo to Apple as the revolutionary upstart.  And the craziest thing about this ad is that it only aired one time!  The 1984 ad actually overshadowed the football game itself, and put Apple on a trajectory to eventually displace IBM as the preeminent hardware company in all of tech.  All of this from a :60 commercial airing just once.  Really shows you the power of advertising.  Here’s the YouTube link of you want to give it a watch. (link)

Have a great Friday (and weekend) everyone!