Three months ago, media companies warned investors that the TV scatter market was slowing down.

And they thought it was bad then.

This quarter, the scatter market—i.e., all the ads on linear TV that advertisers don’t commit to buying during upfronts negotiations—has slowed considerably from a quarter ago, according to Standard Media Index.

• In the third quarter, scatter spend on traditional TV was down 38% year over year, according to SMI.
• That’s compared to last quarter, when scatter was down 17% YoY.

The pullback is causing additional strain on the TV advertising business, executives have told investors.

“The reality is that the scatter market has been pretty dry right now,” Jean-Briac Perrette, Warner Bros. Discovery’s president and CEO of global streaming and games, said this month. “It’s not a very constructive environment right now, as you have heard from a number of other players, peers, and across the broader advertising market.”

Not uniform: Pullback appears to be uneven. Fox Corp. “observed some softness” in the linear entertainment scatter marketplace, CEO Lachlan Murdoch told investors, but was seeing “healthy scatter demand” in news and sports, CFO Steve Tomsic said. At Paramount, the scatter market is softer in digital than in traditional TV, CEO Bob Bakish said.

Brace yourself: And as macroeconomic uncertainties and inflation concerns weigh on the industry, there’s no way to know when it’ll let up. “We expect these conditions to be temporary,” Roku CFO Steve Louden told investors, “but it is difficult to predict when they will stabilize or rebound.”—KS

Hypothetical question: How often do marketers ask influencers about their priorities and goals? In May, Deloitte surveyed 400 US creators to get a better understanding of how they approach working with brands and the challenges they’re facing.

The company’s findings? That many of the speed bumps in the influencer marketing industry “can be resolved or reduced when platforms and brands learn more about the priorities of the creators they team with and work to turn those relationships into growth opportunities for all parties,” per the report.

For instance…

• 69% of the creators surveyed said that, when deciding whether or not to partner with a certain brand, the brand’s relevancy to their audience is a top priority.
• Pay came in a close second, with 66% saying it’s an important factor when considering partnerships.
• Nearly 60% of respondents said that securing brand sponsorships is difficult, and 46% said maintaining those sponsorships is difficult.

Pay up: The survey found that, on average, influencers working with brands say that 55% of their income is from these partnerships. Half of respondents cited “receiving timely payments” as a challenge of brand partnerships.

• As we’ve covered before, influencers are also increasingly demanding transparency when it comes to pay, an issue that’s given rise to platforms like Clara, FYPM, and Hashtag Pay Me.

+1: The report could spell bad news for companies that recently renamed themselves Meta—only 27% of creators said they see the metaverse as “relevant to their business” over the coming year.

Deloitte’s takeaway? That creators are looking for more out of their side of the deal. Per the report, “creators are looking to grow their businesses with longer partnerships, greater collaboration, multiple sources of revenue, streamlined payments, and tools for tracking content performance.”—PB

If you read last Friday’s newsletter, you might’ve answered our hypothetical question: You have $500k in ad spend for the remainder of the year, and you can only put it in one place. Where are you putting it?

More than 1,300 of you answered. Here’s the breakdown:

• 27% said TikTok
• 26% said Facebook/Instagram
• 16% said LinkedIn
• 14% said TV (linear/CTV)
• 9% said Twitter
• 8% said Snapchat

The results give a look at which platforms marketers are eyeing at a time when economic uncertainty persists. In Q3, Meta’s revenue fell for the second quarter in a row, Snap posted its slowest quarterly growth ever, and ad spend doesn’t exactly look rosy over at Twitter either.

On the TV front, Paramount’s streaming unit saw advertising revenue rise 4% year over year in Q3, though its TV division took a 3% hit. Warner Bros. Discovery’s ad revenue for its TV networks dropped 11%; on its Q3 earnings call, the company’s president and CEO, David Zaslav, said its advertising sales “​​have been impacted by a number of factors that include the macroeconomic downturn.”

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t share quarterly earnings, though this summer, people familiar with the platform told the Wall Street Journal that it is expected to triple its ad revenue to as much as $12 billion this year. Insider Intelligence expects TikTok’s ad revenue to reach nearly $10 billion this year, lower than its earlier projection of $11.6 billion.

This week’s poll: Have you modified your holiday messaging this year to account for inflation and other economic concerns?

Yes
No
Sorta

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

Ready, set, shop: A look at how Black Friday has changed over the years and why that matters for marketers.

Midterms: Senator-elect John Fetterman leaned on an unorthodox and brash social media strategy while campaigning. Read about it here.

We can’t all be Wendy’s: How to create a unique brand voice without being cringey.

Go off, marketers: Only 1 in 5 marketers feels prepared for their future—and a lack of training is to blame. Get the whole story with MarketingProfs’ State of B2B Marketing Training Report 2022 and take the 2023 survey.*

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Marketing Brew is hosting a full-day affair of industry exploration and navigation on November 15 in NYC. Complete with brand leaders, industry connections, and your favorite editorial team, The Brief: A Summit Presented by Marketing Brew is an event that cannot be missed.

Incredible speakers from REI, McDonald’s, Vans, and more will take to the stage to tackle the dizzying industry topics we love so dearly. Rebranding, attribution, omnichannel, CTV, social commerce, brand values—we promise to tackle all the buzzwords Brew-style with some of the most notable brands and individuals. Register here before time runs out!

Stats: Insider Intelligence expects Twitter’s global ad revenue to grow 4.9% year over year to $4.7 billion in 2022, down from its Q1 forecast of 25%. It also expects Meta’s worldwide ad revenue to decline “for the first time ever” this year.

Quote: “You can go outside wearing sweatpants and a puffer jacket, and you’ll be sexualized. I could be on a podcast, and it could just be my voice, and I’ll face the same thing. So, I think it will be there, no matter what you do or how you present yourself.”—Stanford basketball player Haley Jones talking to the New York Times about navigating social media and NIL deals as a woman athlete

Read: “The Hot Shoe Right Now Is Called a Dad Sneaker. What Do Dads Think About That?” (the Wall Street Journal)

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

• Why sports podcasts could be a slam dunk for advertisers who know how to navigate the in-demand space
• Are activists pressuring advertisers to pause their ads on Twitter?
• Free portfolio program One School goes global