| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 NFL Sales Strong as Kickoff Approaches | | Despite lingering concerns about the impact of last season's ratings declines and some recent advertiser defections, the NFL's four major TV network partners have sold upwards of $2.2 billion of commercial time for the upcoming regular season, Broadcasting & Cable reports. While the total take is down about 10% from the approximate and record-setting $2.5 billion they took in prior to the start of the season last year, it's still a solid number considering all the negatives they have had to sell against, including competing for sports ad dollars with both the Winter Olympics and World Cup that will be televised in early and mid-2018, respectively. They also had to overcome the pullouts of major erectile dysfunction drugs Cialis and Viagra, as well as major QSR Subway and some automakers. But new pharmaceuticals have come in, as well as new retailers and insurance companies, among others. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Even with last year's ratings declines, the NFL's Sunday afternoon and primetime telecasts are, for the most part, the most-watched programs on television by far. "You still can't get the mass reach you get with the NFL anywhere else," one sports media buyer, echoing the thoughts of others, told B&C. "We still see value in the NFL and believe in it as an ad vehicle and so do our clients. "Whether we spend on the NFL has not been an issue for most of our clients. They are back in." | | A Take: B&C | | | | #2 MEC/Maxus Named Wavemaker | | The in-house merger of the two WPP and GroupM media agencies has resulted in the combined unit getting a new name – Wavemaker. In the new name announcement, it was explained that Wavemaker combines the W in WPP and the M in GroupM and says the new operation will be "making waves happen when media, content and technology come together." The merged agency will now have 8,500 employees serving clients in 90 countries through 138 offices globally. Combined billings are $38 billion and include clients such as L'Oreal, Marriott, Paramount and Colgate-Palmolive. Part of the savings after merging the agencies, as previously reported, will be reallocated to another WPP media agency Essence. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Pivotal Research Group senior analyst Brian Wieser says that "there's nothing new here per se, but the decision to combine MEC and Maxus reflected the commoditization of media agencies." He and fellow consultant Greg Paull also noted that the move to consolidate and invest more in Essence comes following WPP's loss of the $4 billion AT&T account to Omnicom's Hearts & Science last year. | Two Takes: Adweek | MediaPost
| | | | #3 OpenX Uncovers Shady Programmatic Auctions | | The programmatic ad tech company, by making thousands of dollars worth of buys through an anonymous demand-side platform to gather details, has found a "shadowy first-price auction" marketplace that may violate industry standards, MediaPost reports. Jason Fairchild, chief revenue officer and a co-founder to OpenX, says the effort "analyzed more than a million impressions through multiple exchanges across nearly a dozen sites and identified several supply-side platforms that appeared to be deploying non-transparent first-price mechanics to significantly increase clearing price." The exchanges were effectively tuning their algorithms to circumvent the "second-price auction" that has been the basis of programmatic market bidding since its inception. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: What OpenX has uncovered means buyers can be getting ripped off on their bidding in ad auctions. But as MediaPost reports, OpenX is not being completely altruistic in exposing the shady auctions. The company is planning on Thursday to unveil a new tool of its own that will offer buyers more transparency in helping them deal with the problem. | | A Take: MediaPost | |
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| | 12 | | Percentage of increase in Honda sales among multicultural millennial buyers since 2010, according to Susie Rossick, assistant VP of marketing at American Honda Motor Co. She says that's why the company is unveiling a new campaign marketing the 2018 Honda Fit geared toward multicultural millennials, hoping that about 30% of the subcompact car's overall sales will come from this group. | – Reported by MediaPost
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| | 'Talent'ed NBC Rolls to Easy Win | by Michael Malone
A strong America's Got Talent buoyed NBC to an easy ratings win Tuesday, as the network did a 2.1 rating in viewers 18-49, and an 8 share. Next up were ABC and Telemundo at 0.7/3. America's Got Talent dropped a tenth of a point to 2.5, as did Hollywood Game Night at 1.1. ABC had Bachelor in Paradise at a flat 1.2, then a pair of Black-ish repeats, then Somewhere Between at a level 0.4. CBS was at 0.6/2 with repeated dramas NCIS, Bull and NCIS: New Orleans. Univision was at 0.5/2. Fox had repeated comedies, including The Simpsons, The Mick and Family Guy, en route to a 0.4/2. The CW, in repeats of The Flash and DC's Legends of Tomorrow, did a 0.2/1.
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| • TITO MELEGA has joined WPP's dedicated Ford agency Global Team Blue as global chief creative officer. He was most recently doing freelance creative work, but was previously creative director for the Americas at TBWA/Chiat/Day, where he oversaw the Nissan account. Prior to that was VP, creative director on the Mitsubishi account at BBDO. He also worked as a senior art director on the Lexus account at Publicis Groupe's dedicated unit Team One.
• CHRIS SHUMAKER was named to the newly created role of executive VP, managing director, growth, and chief marketing officer at The Martin Agency. He joins from FCB, where he was global CMO. He also served as U.S. CMO at Publicis North America and as executive director of business development at Grey New York, and earlier held the position of senior VP, director of development at The Martin Agency, which he now rejoins.
• VML has acquired Rockfish Digital which will now operate within the digital agency as Rockfish. As a result of the acquisition, Rockfish CEO MICHAEL STICH and Rockfish president and chief strategy officer DAWN MAIRE will join the VML executive leadership team, Agency Spy reports. VML is part of the WPP holding company. • PETER RICE was promoted to president of 21st Century Fox. He will continue to serve as chairman and CEO of Fox Networks Group. Prior to being named head of FNG, Rice was chairman, entertainment for FNG. Prior to that he was president of Fox Searchlight Pictures and executive VP, producton for Twentieth Century Fox. | |
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