With thousands of programs available to watch on demand across dozens of services, modern TV watching often requires spending a lot of time searching through content catalogs. But media companies are increasingly interested in recreating the way traditional TV used to deliver programming: by having something already playing as soon as the TV is on.

Instead of searching through, say, Peacock’s free library for a specific episode of Real Housewives, you could choose a preprogrammed channel that’s always streaming reality TV and jump right in.

Big picture: These kinds of always-on digital channel offerings—referred to as free ad-supported streaming, or FAST—stand in contrast to ad-supported video-on-demand, or AVOD, and their popularity is growing, well, fast.

• In the second quarter of the year, 55% of consumers said they used at least one FAST service, according to an August report from Hub Entertainment Research, up almost 10 percentage points from Q4 of last year.
• Comcast Advertising reported in July that six in 10 households with connected TVs were using FAST services, more than doubling year over year.

Looking ahead: Many ad-supported platforms see those linear-like channels as a way to grow the engagement and scale they need to attract advertiser dollars, media executives said during Advertising Week New York.

“Everyone needs a FAST platform,” Kelly Metz, managing director, advanced TV activation, Omnicom Media Group, told Marketing Brew onstage Tuesday. “There needs to be an equivalent to broadcast in the streaming world.”

Keep reading here.—KS

Grin, a creator management platform used to source talent and execute influencer campaigns, just got hit by Meta’s silver hammer.

As a result of Meta’s recently updated API, Grin users told Marketing Brew the software is no longer functioning at its prior capacity.

• Marketing Brew obtained emails Grin sent to some users, notifying them about some changes coming to the platform.
• On September 27, a Grin customer success manager sent an email that said, “To align with the requirements for Meta’s API and service guidelines, our industry is going to undergo some changes, and Grin is on the front lines so that we make sure we remain the closest to Meta and all these changes.”
• Meta’s API guidelines and policies haven’t changed since September, Shenny Barboza, a communications manager at Instagram, told us.

Some influencer marketers said that these changes have apparently made the platform less useful for them. In particular, at least one marketer told us that Grin’s “influential customers” Shopify integration is no longer available, influencers must grant Grin permission to use their information, and marketers can no longer search for creators from Instagram on Grin’s main platform.

Click here for the full story.—PB

Retail media networks are so 2021.

On Wednesday, Uber announced the formal debut of its advertising network, letting it show ads to riders on the way to their destination. Similarly, DoorDash announced on Monday that it’s expanding its own advertising network to include more self-service options for advertisers.

Zoom out: As advertisers lose signals about consumers, any company with a captive audience—be they an app or retailer—can potentially make a few extra billion dollars by running ads, a sign that walled gardens are growing greener than ever.

• Retail media ad spend is expected to jump 31% to nearly $41 billion this year, nearly tripling from 2019, according to Insider Intelligence.

Uber’s network is part of what Mark Grether, Uber’s general manager of advertising, is calling “mobility media.” Still, it remains to be seen whether mobility advertising networks can compete with the likes of more established retailers and their media networks, like Walmart or the newly minted Kroger-Albertsons, which can mine their massive amounts of shopping data to help advertisers reach audiences.

“What will happen in our industry is you will see a consolidation. A few big players will basically command most of the advertising spend. And I would argue the size of Uber allows us to really command an outsize component of the media spend,” Grether told Marketing Brew.

Read the full story here.—RB

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Little bird: Need a refresher on the Twitter algorithm and how to optimize for it? Look no further.

: If your brand is on Pinterest, you can now add popular songs to Idea Pins.

Think different: Here are four ways to approach Black Friday a little differently this year to stand out.

Learn: A well-constructed budget is at the core of any successful company. Learn how to “lay the foundation” with our upcoming one-week Financial Forecasting sprint starting November 13. Grab your spot before it’s too late.

Site insights: Figure out what’s really going on with your website with Semrush’s Site Audit tool—and optimize your web performance for a better user experience to boot. Try it free for 7 days.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Have you been wondering how HBO is crushing the modern marketing game (any House of the Dragon stans)? Or how Duolingo’s Duo the owl became a storytelling sensation on TikTok? And really, how the heck has Vans managed to transcend the generations and stay part of the cool crowd, even as our beloved skinny jeans get dunked on day after day?

Well, you’ll find the answer to all these questions and more (yes, much more) at the biggest Marketing Brew event yet: The Brief on Nov. 15. This jam-packed day of panels, presentations, and networking will give you strategies to implement immediately, plus the chance to interact personally with some of the best in the industry (not to mention your fellow marketing rock stars).

Quick: We have special pricing for only a limited time, so grab your ticket here before the cost goes up!

Time for another holiday retail report.

Deloitte, which already published its holiday retail forecast, is now out with the results of its holiday retail survey. The research, conducted among nearly 5,000 consumers earlier this month, indicates you might receive fewer gifts this year.

Shoppers plan to buy nine gifts this year, compared with 16 in 2021. Thanks, inflation.

• Gift cards, on the other hand, are on the rise. Consumers will be spending 7% more of their holiday budgets on gift cards this year than they did last, while all other retail categories saw a decline in average expected holiday spend.
• About four in 10 shoppers want to shop sustainably for the holidays.
• Roughly one in three said they plan to buy resale items.

In addition to buying fewer gifts, consumers also plan to spend less time shopping this year. ⏱

• They’ll spend 5.8 weeks browsing for gifts, down from 6.4 weeks last year.
• The average shopping duration in 2020 was 5.9 weeks, and about seven weeks in 2018 and 2019.
• Shoppers plan to spend about one-quarter (23%) of their holiday budgets by the end of October, compared to 18% in 2021.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• CMO tenure is at its shortest in more than a decade. What does it take to stay in the role?
• After a two-year wait, NBCUniversal brought its brand-tastic BravoCon back to New York
• Why Vox Media continues to invest in ad tech