TV’S UPFRONT CONUNDRUM:  As this year’s Upfronts begin there’s an interesting battle shaping up between two contradicting economic factors.  On one hand Network TV ratings are down.  And I mean way down, as in a 33% drop in prime time ratings over the past four years.  Since TV pricing is derived from audience size you’d expect rates to decrease right along with ratings.  However that’s not happening.  The attached Bloomberg article articulates the point about TV clients becoming fed up with having to pay more and more for ever-shrinking audiences.  On the other side of the pricing curve is a little thing called demand.  This year demand for traditional TV is expected to be up due to brands’ skittishness about OLV.  With heightened concerns over brand safety and fraud in digital, more national brands are rushing back to traditional TV.  So what will happen during the Upfronts?  If the brands’ desire to return to the safety of TV outweighs the cost inefficiencies of declining ratings, get ready for rates to surge as more demand competes for a diminished audience.  Or will brands stay with OLV despite the quality concerns, because traditional TV is no longer worth the cost?  Should be fascinating to watch this one play out.

VOICE ENABLEMENT BEGINS TO MAINSTREAM:  By now most of us have heard the term “Voice is the new Touch”, which refers to the mainstreaming of voice enablement technology.  The underlying driver of this movement is screenless IoT connected devices, which no longer support the visual/touch screen communication input.  Instead these devices rely on auditory communication, which of course means voice.  eMarketer is out with some fresh voice enablement research to provide perspective on where things stands.  The current voice enablement market is a two horse race between Amazon Echo and Google Home.  But it’s a very segregated 1-2, with Amazon taking a commanding 71% of the market right now and Amazon mopping up the next 24%, which leaves 5% for everyone else.   Additionally, eMarketer shows current and trend usage stats by generation in the graph below.  Not surprisingly tech forward millennials are the heaviest users, but you can see voice enablement adoption ageing up over the next several years.  I also find it interesting that voice enablement is the first game changing hardware platform not perfected by Apple in almost a generation.  Although Sari has been on your Apple mobile devices for years, it feels like there was an “iHome” miss by Tim Cook in there somewhere.

INNOVATION COMES IN MANY DIFFERENT FORMS:  Finally today, AdWeek is out with its list of Today’s 15 Most Innovative Ad Executives.  It’s a fascinating list because it includes a wide cross-section of job levels from agency Presidents to Associate Directors, who work at everywhere from global AORs to niche Creative shops.  Usually you either get the top-of-the-top on a “most powerful” list, or a bunch of cool kids you’ve never heard of before in a “thirty under thirty” ranker.  But this list brings an eclectic combination of backgrounds and points of view from the bleeding edge of agency thinking.  It’s a great read from some of our current and future industry leaders.

Have a great Tuesday guys!