It hasn’t been easy to get many Americans to sit down to watch soccer matches outside of tentpole international events like the World Cup. But shows and movies about soccer? Well, that’s a different story.

Manchester City FC knows the power that kind of programming can have on building its fandom outside of its home base in Manchester, England. The Premier League club has an in-house production studio, an esports team, an Amazon Prime Video docuseries, and a robust social media presence—and it was also one of the first Premier League teams to agree to be in the Apple TV+ hit series Ted Lasso during Season 1, before anyone knew how successful the show would be, club CMO Nuria Tarre said.

“We see ourselves as a sports entertainment brand,” Tarre told Marketing Brew.

• During the 2022–2023 season, Man City clocked a total audience of 786 million across all of its competitions, up 28% from the prior season, according to its annual report.
• Tarre said that 99% of the club’s followers live outside the UK—a somewhat surprising stat that’s possible because of Man City’s presence on and off the pitch.

“We know that most of our followers and fans will never, ever make it to Manchester. Their experience is watching games on TV, or following us on social media, or in content,” she said. “From that perspective, having a strategy that constantly looks at how we engage with fans around the world, is fundamental.”

IRL: Some die-hard international fans will shell out to attend a Man City game in person, but since not every fan will experience any of the 55,000 seats in Etihad Stadium, Man City focuses on bringing in-person experiences to key markets like the US.

“We invest a lot in content production and digital platforms and virtual experiences, but we also believe a lot in meaningful engagement—physical engagement—and experiential,” Tarre said.

• Man City organizes various clinics and tournaments, like the Nexen Manchester City Cup in San Diego, a youth tournament that, in 2024, will enter its eighth year.
• This month, the club started the US leg of its Treble Trophy Tour, which celebrates the team’s “treble winning season” by bringing its Premier League, FA Cup, UEFA Champions League, and UEFA Super Cup trophies around the world for fans to see up close.

Read more here.—AM

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GroupM is wrapping up 2023 with a big prediction for retail media: By 2028, retail media network revenue will surpass ad revenue in linear TV and CTV combined. That’s according to a new economic forecast the agency published Monday morning.

Overall, the agency is predicting digital advertising revenue to grow by about 5.8% this year, or $889 billion, excluding political advertising. That falls largely in line with the company’s previous predictions.

That growth, though, is expected to slow to 5.3% next year, GroupM predicted. Last week, Brian Wieser, a former GroupM exec who previously worked on its forecast, published his own forecast. The findings were relatively similar.

Despite the expectation for a slight slowdown in 2024, low global unemployment has “given us confidence around the fact that consumers have been able to continue spending this year and will be able to continue spending into next year, as long as we still have that job security,” Kate Scott-Dawkins, global president of business intelligence at GroupM, said during a press call about the findings.

But back to retail media. That growth prediction isn’t totally surprising. Advertisers have known it to be a buzzword, and recently, seemingly every brand, from Kroger to Uber, is using its audiences to sell ads. The report notes that the largest players in the retail media space are still Amazon and Alibaba. However, the category’s estimated revenue is 5% less than GroupM’s projection in June, dropping from $125.7 billion to $119.4 billion, due to sluggish retail sales in China.

The retail category is benefiting from a “kind of shift amongst advertisers to more direct relationships with their consumers,” Scott-Dawkins said. “The logged-in, consented data that retailers have is valuable, and that’s helping drive a lot of this, as is the nearness to the point of purchase.”

Read more here.—RB

The holiday season is upon us, and, after a rocky handful of years thanks to the pandemic, there are signs that consumers are eager to celebrate like it’s 2019 again—including spending on gifts. That doesn’t necessarily mean everyone will automatically flock to your brand (even if you pull off a viral tweet related to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce).

To help brands “more effectively establish meaningful reach during the highest new customer acquisition period of the year,” multicultural media company My Code took a look at what kinds of content and channels are most likely to appeal to shoppers from different demographics.

“With respect to multicultural [consumers], it’s not just that you can be more effective in addressing an audience when you take the steps to message, as well as behave, in a more authentic and understanding way,” Aaron Braxton, GM of research and insights at My Code, told Marketing Brew. “It also, beyond that, is becoming an expectation.”

Who’s who: More than three-quarters (83%) of US adults have bought or intend to buy gifts this year, according to My Code’s holiday report. Several groups of consumers over-index when it comes to gift-giving across occasions compared to the general population.

• Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander consumers are more likely to be in the market for gifts when it comes to celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, and Mother’s Day.
• Black Americans also over-index on Mother’s Day.
• Hispanic shoppers are most active shopping for Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Valentine’s Day gifts.
• Multicultural women over-index on birthdays, Christmas, and Mother’s Day.
• Openly LGBTQIA+ consumers are the most active gift givers, over-indexing on Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and anniversaries.

Continue reading here.—AM

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Executive moves across the industry.

• Sharon Otterman, formerly CMO of Caesar’s Entertainment, is the new CMO of Macy’s.
• Antonio Lucio was named HP’s new CMO. Lucio was CMO of Meta until 2020 and HP’s chief marketing and comms officer before that.
• Kelly MacDonald was appointed CEO of Maserati North America. In August, she joined Maserati Americas as CMO.

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