| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 State Farm Consolidates Business with Omnicom | | The nation's largest insurance provider is consolidating the majority of its marketing business with Omnicom, Adweek reports, with DDB retaining lead creative duties and OMD continuing to handle media. According to the report, citing "sources with direct knowledge of the matter," several other agencies who have done work for State Farm are most likely out. Some of them are regional agencies and others include non-Omnicom agencies such as Translation, which has produced campaigns targeted at multicultural audiences, and FCB. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: The move at least partially follows the model set by McDonald's, which awarded the lion's share of its account to Omnicom agencies in 2016. Omnicom later launched dedicated agency We Are Unlimited to handle the fast food chain's assorted marketing areas. Wendy Clark, who as DDB North America CEO helped lead the McDonald's pitch, has also been involved with the State Farm move. And this is another major account. State Farm spent some $726 million on domestic media in 2016 and more than $300 million over the first half of 2017, according to Kantar Media. Interestingly, OMD worked with NBCUniversal on behalf of State Farm to schedule a multiplatform branded content and ad deal with the NBC hit series This is Us. | | A Take: Adweek | | | | #2 Diet Coke Gets Major Makeover | | The soft drink brand has introduced the biggest product and marketing makeover in its 36-year history, Ad Age reports. The goal is to regain momentum in the highly competitive diet soda category by more aggressively targeting millennials. The changes include a logo redesign, four new flavors, and new slim cans. Although Diet Coke itself will keep the original shorter, fatter 12 oz. cans. The changes will be promoted by a major marketing campaign from Anomaly with the tagline "Because I Can" that seeks to inject Diet Coke back into the marketplace with appeal to younger soda drinkers beyond its bevy of older female baby boomers. New TV spots will not include pop stars like Taylor Swift who appeared in previous commercials. Instead the company wants to focus more on the product and will use stars like Karan Soni, Indian-American actor who starred in the movie Deadpool. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Diet Coke's rebranding has been two years in the making and is based on the results of focus groups that included more than 10,000 people across the country who tested more than 30 potential new flavor combinations. Diet Coke by the end of 1983 was the No. 1 diet soft drink brand in the U.S. and in 2010 surpassed Pepsi as the No. 2 soft drink overall in the U.S. behind regular Coke. But by 2014, Diet Coke clipped back to No. 3 and the company wants to move it back up. | | A Take: Ad Age | | | | #3 Will Creative Agencies Takeover Media Strategy? | | Adam Kleinberg, CEO of ad agency Traction in San Francisco, writes in Ad Age that it's his belief that creative agencies will replace media agencies as ad strategy leads to a large extent during the course of this year. He believes that the media planning or strategy function will be handled on the creative side in many instances, while media agencies will just handle execution of media buys. He writes that as media buying as become more and more commoditized with buying taking place through programmatic means, media agencies per se are becoming less important. He suggests that media and creative agencies become more collaborative to work with clients jointly. And says both are needed to help brands take the proper marketing path. "Media agencies are very good at spreadsheets, but not a subjectivity," Kleinberg says. "Creative agencies are not only comfortable with subjectivity, they are innately collaborative." | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Kleinberg says the two most recent new clients his agency has won have asked for the Traction creative unit to create a media strategy across paid, owned and earned channels and partner with their existing media agencies to simply execute the buy. "To many, the notion of a creative shot leading media strategy may seem unconventional, perhaps even radical," he says. "We, the world has changed and one thing is certain not to lead the way in 2018 – and that is the status quo." Wonder how media agencies feel about that? | | A Take: Ad Age | |
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| | 34 | | Percentage of marketing executives worldwide who say they feel most unprepared about artificial intelligence, according to a survey by web presence management and SEO company Conductor. Half of the executives polled were from the U.S. Some 29% of respondents also said they feel most unprepared about virtual and augmented reality, while 23% say they feel unprepared about voice search. | – Reported by eMarketer
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| | NBC Rolls With New 'This Is Us' | by Michael Malone
NBC rolled to an easy win Tuesday, as the robust return of This Is Us led the network to a 2.1 across prime in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and an 8 share. That topped the 1.3/5 that CBS earned. Recently renewed Ellen's Game of Games scored a 2.1, which was down a tenth from its premiere on NBC. This Is Us, with the family convening to discuss Kevin's addiction issues, posted a 2.7, level with its fall finale. Chicago Med fell 7% to 1.4. On CBS, NCIS did a 1.5 and Bull a 1.2. NCIS: New Orleans rated a 1.0. All three were flat with last week. ABC and Fox were both at 0.9/3. The Middle slipped 13% to 1.3 on ABC, before Fresh Off the Boat dropped 17% to a 1.0 and Black-ish decreased 9% to 1.0. A Modern Family repeat led into Kevin (Probably) Saves the World at a flat 0.7.
On Fox, Lethal Weapon rated a 1.0, which was off a tenth of a point. Comedy LA to Vegas fell 27% from its premiere to 0.8 and The Mick was off 13% at 0.7. Univision rated a 0.6/2 and Telemundo a 0.4/2. The CW did a 0.2/1 with repeats of The Flash and DC's Legends of Tomorrow. | |
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| • JENNIFER HOHMAN was named global chief marketing officer at IPG's FCB Worldwide. She was previously executive VP, brand solutions for ProSieben's Studio71. Prior to that, she was global chief marketing officer for Kirschenbaum Bond Senecal and was also executive VP, North America business development at IPG Mediabrands. She also served as EVP, global business development at IPG media agency UM.
• PELE CORIZO-BURGESS has joined IPG Mediabrands' Initiative as chief strategy officer. He was most recently global chief creative officer at WPP and GroupM's MEC, where he also served as president of strategy and communications planning for North America. MEC recently merged with Maxus to create a new agency Wavemaker.
• DAVID CARDINALI was appointed head of integrated production at Barton F. Graf. He was most recently an executive producer at Droga5. Prior to that he was a producer and VP at Grey New York.
• CELIA JONES was promoted to CEO of Chicago-based agency The Escape Pod. She has been with the agency since 2016 and was elevated from brand manager.
• ROB JAYSON was named executive VP of insights and analytics at independent media agency USIM. He was previously global lead for branded applications at Publicis Media. He also served as worldwide chief data officer of Publicis media agency Zenith. | |
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| Technology Leadership Summit
February 28 – March 1, 2018 | Raleigh, NC
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March 22, 2018 | New York, NY
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Advanced Advertising Summit – Spring Edition
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April 9, 2018 | Las Vegas, NV
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