| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 IPG Retains Amazon Global Account | | Interpublic Group was selected to handle the e-commerce giant's $1 billion global media planning and buying account following a review that sources said included several of the major ad agency holding companies. IPG Mediabrands' Initiative was the incumbent media agency and successful defended in the review. WPP and GroupM's MEC was the digital agency incumbent but according to an Adweek report, did not participate in the review. IPG Mediabrands is expected to create a dedicated team to handle the account, led by Initiative. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: This is a massive ad spending account as Amazon is competing not only with other e-commerce companies but also with the major retail chains around the world. However, while the company spends about $1 billion annually on advertising globally, most of its efforts will be focused on U.S. consumers. | Three Takes: Adweek | Ad Age | MediaPost
| | | | #2 Facebook Tops $10.1B in Ad Sales | | The social network took in $10.1 billion in ad sales in third quarter, highest quarterly amount ever, with ad revenue jumping 49% from the same quarter in 2016. At the same time, its daily active users continued to grow, increasing 16% to 1.37 billion and monthly actives also up 16% to 2.07 billion. Facebook also says it has 6 million active advertisers on its platform, up from 5 million in April, and that mobile revenue now makes up 88% of total ad revenue. But as users increased, Facebook has acknowledged that there are more fake accounts on the platform that it had previously disclosed. Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch told a House Intelligence Committee hearing looking into Russian usage of Facebook during the presidential election that about 400,000 of the 2 billion monthly users have been found to be fake. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Despite the Russian ad controversy, marketers continue to flock to Facebook. Meanwhile, as The Wall Street Journal points out, Facebook has been put in the awkward position of have to play down the effectiveness of the phony Russian ads, while touting the strength of its ad targeting and reach to legitimate advertisers. | Three Takes: Ad Age | Adweek | WSJ
| | | | #3 Hulu Grows Sales Research Team | | The streaming TV service has been building up its ad sales research team, Digiday reports, boosting it from six to 12 people over the past 18 months. Among those new hires are people from TV networks, digital media companies, research firms and ad agencies. They include Julie DeTralia, long time NBCUniversal sales and research exec, who heads up Hulu's ad sales research team. While Hulu is a subscription service, it also offers free streaming programming that is ad-supported. Peter Naylor, senior VP of ad sales for Hulu, says as viewership continues to grow and more advertisers become interested, it was important to build an ad research team that can offer similar audience data that linear TV offers. "Building out our ad sales research division was a focus for us not only to help better serve our advertiser partners, but also to drive the industry forward with new measurement capabilities and insight into the changing face of the viewer," Naylor says. The team's work is also being supported by partnerships with other research firms and measurement vendors like Millward Brown, Nielsen Catalina Solutions and Samba TV. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Hulu is building up its content and slowly becoming more of an alternative to linear TV. Since launching its live TV product in beta earlier this year, Hulu has slowly grown it audience for that. DeTraglia says as more viewers watch live TV on Hulu, the more likely they are to catch up on other stuff through Hulu's subscription on-demand-offering. But from an advertiser point of view, Hulu wants to siphon off as many dollars as it can from linear TV. And its ad research unit can help it do that. | | A Take: Digiday | |
| | |
| | 32 | | Percentage of marketers who plan to bring programmatic buying in-house, according to a survey by Advertiser Perceptions. While most advertisers planning to make the move cite benefits such as improved targeting, data, time and cost efficiencies, some 39% cite ad fraud and 26% cite brand safety. | – Reported by MediaPost
| |
| | | |
| | Fox Rides Game 7 to Big Win | by Michael Malone
Fox was a big winner in Wednesday prime ratings, riding the final game of the World Series, won by—spoiler alert!—the Houston Astros. Fox had a 7 rating in viewers 18-49, and a 24 share. That beat ABC's 1.0/4. Fox had a 5.1/19 the night before with Game 6. The competition was hurt by the World Series' final game. ABC saw The Goldbergs fall 14% to 1.2 and Speechless down 18% to 0.9, then Modern Family off 12% at 1.5 and American Housewife down 8% at 1.2. Designated Survivor posted a flat 0.8. CBS was at 0.9/3. It had Survivor off 12% at 1.5, then repeats of SEAL Team. NBC did a 0.7/3. The Blacklist was down a tenth of a point at 0.8, and reruns of Law & Order: SVU and Chicago P.D. followed. Telemundo did a 0.6/2 and Univision a 0.4/2. The CW rated a 0.4/1. It had Riverdale at a flat 0.6, then Dynasty at a level 0.2. | |
| | | |
| • ANNA PARKER was promoted to chief strategy officer of Havas Chicago. She has been with the agency since 2012 and was most recently executive strategy director. Prior to Havas, Parker was a strategic planner with FCB Chicago. • RANDY FALCO had his contract as president and CEO of Univision Communications has extended two more years through January 31, 2020. He joined Univision in January 2011 and was promoted to his current position as few months later. Prior to Univision, Falco was chairman and CEO of AOL. Before that he spent 31 years at NBC, rising to president and chief operating officer.
• KELLY DAY was named president of Viacom Digital Studios, which will create digital content for the company's entertainment platforms, including MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and The Paramount Network. She was previously chief digital officer and chief business officer at Awesomeness TV.
• ANDREW DONKIN has left his position as chief marketing officer at Under Armour. He has been with the company for 15 months, joining from Amazon, where he was head of worldwide mass and brand marketing. Also departing Under Armour is PAM CATLETT, senior VP and general manager of women's and youth. • JIMMY HOLLERAN has joined Reach Agency as executive VP overseeing its Reach Entertainment unit. He was previously with Anheuser-Bush InBev, where he oversaw branding deals and product placements in entertainment content. | |
| | | | |
