TV

The NFL Won’t Save You

Over the summer, as college leagues across the country canceled games and the Olympics were postponed, marketers crossed their fingers that the NFL’s return would 1) actually happen and 2) save 2020’s TV ad revenue from plummeting further. 

Football-starved fans + the NFL’s return to TV should = crazy-high viewing numbers, right?

Not so much: The first two weeks of the NFL’s 2020 season showed a 7% decline in viewership year over year, per MediaPost. 

To be fair, ratings typically rise as the season progresses. But this YoY decline might indicate that football alone can’t save traditional TV revenue. 

PIVOT!

Whether the decrease in ratings is due to the buildup of sports seasons happening simultaneously because of early pandemic delays, accelerated cord-cutting, or a lack of fans in the stands, marketers still need to know how to navigate the season.

We figured BABE Wine would know a little something about dealing with surprisingly low NFL ratings after all the hype—the alcoholic beverage brand is the official wine of the NFL.

“All we can do in this environment is put our drinkers first while staying true to our brand identity and voice…Amplifying the fan experience, both at home and in-stadium, will always be our top priority,” BABE Wine’s GM Chelsea Phillips told Marketing Brew. 

Case in point: BABE Wine released football-scented candles to amplify fans’ olfactory at-home experience. 

BABE’s not alone: Other NFL sponsors and advertisers are playing with tactics for meeting their target audience where they're at. 

• For instance, Oikos yogurt started a branded TikTok channel with a hashtag challenge just for NFL fans. 
• Football players from Juju Smith-Schuster to Ezekiel Elliot took part in the challenge, because if you can’t watch players on the sidelines from the stands, at least you can watch them on TikTok. 

Looking ahead: The NFL’s early viewership isn’t as sky-high as some of us might have hoped. But marketers can still do the 2020 pivot and optimize brand messaging accordingly.

CAMPAIGNS

Girls Who Create Integrated Campaigns >>>

Girls Who Code, a nonprofit increasing the number of young women in STEM careers, partnered with Today at Apple to offer a multidisciplinary week of free virtual programming leading up to Day of the Girl on October 11. 

Here’s how the partners are handling virtual event promo:

User-generated content (UGC): The nonprofit asked young women to share their #SisterhoodStory—a tribute social post to the supportive women in their lives. 

• In a May 2020 Sprout Social report, 30% of internet users wanted to see more UGC, and 41% of social media marketers planned on trying it out.

Influencer marketing: Girls Who Code enlisted celebrities such as Becky G and Madame Gandhi to headline event sessions. These celebs also function well as influencers, as they’re especially popular among the nonprofit’s Gen Z target audience.

My takeaway: Centering the event around Day of the Girl and #sisterhood among both cis and trans girls is integral to Girls Who Code’s values, which should drive interest. Studies show consumers respond well when brands express consistent values.

SPONSORED BY CRITEO

Grab the Retail Media Bull by the Horns

Is retail media a silver bullet for brands? For those seeking measurable performance, access to first-party data, and a way to reach shoppers at a digital point of sale, well, it just might be.

According to a newly commissioned study by Forrester Consulting on behalf of our friends at Criteo, 76% of brands say their growth depends on retail media advertising. But, they face some challenges in fully realizing its potential. At the same time, 62% say they have no clear owner of the strategy.

So what’s holding them back?!

That’s the question driving Criteo’s webinar, “Consumer Product Brands: It’s Time to Take Control of Your Retail Media Destiny.” 

The event’s going down on October 14th at 11am ET, and there’s gonna be some big brains in the retail media house, including Collin Colburn of Forrester, Michael Greene (Global Product Solutions Director at Criteo), and Loretta Jordan (Criteo Senior Product Manager).

Sign up for the webinar here.

CMOS

Ross Simmonds Gave Us a Content Marketing Masterclass

Ross Simmonds is the founder of Foundation, a content marketing agency that services B2B companies. He also stopped by Morning Brew CEO Alex Lieberman’s CMO Series last week to drop some serious wisdom:

Create once, distribute forever: “It is becoming more and more difficult to actually get your content in front of your audience. It’s also a more cluttered and noisy time than ever before. So, what do brands need to do? They need to embrace distribution…You create that asset once, and then you have to have a distribution engine around it that is going to allow that asset to be spread for months to come.”

Repurposing content: “You have to understand the type of content your audience would want and where your audience is, and then give it to them over and over again until they’re tired of it. And then you create something new.” 

My takeaway: After listening to what Ross Simmonds had to say, I might be convinced that content is no longer king—distribution is seriously vying for the crown. 

Watch the full interview here to learn more.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Advertising Week is in full swing.
• TikTok’s deal is likely to drag on past the U.S. presidential election.
• Google pledged to pay $1 billion in royalties to publishers over the next three years.
• The Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal on cross-media ownership rules.

SPONSORED BY OUTFIT

Brand production at scale? Sky’s the limit. Outfit empowers your teams to self produce content and do it at scale by helping you automate brand production. Everything in marketing—from social tiles and digital ads to proposals and emails—can be automated for the benefit of the wider business. Find out more about brand automation and what Outfit can do for you.

FRENCH PRESS

Marketing tips to make you fancy

Videos: You love video content, I love video content, and Gen Z loves short form video content. With that in mind, here are 20 of the best mobile video editing apps to make your (social) life easier. 

Launches: You’ve probably heard about Hiki, the trendy full-body sweat brand, from someone in the marketing community by now. This case study dives into how the DTC darling shifted its launch strategy during Covid-19. It’ll be good to have in your back pocket for the next time the brand comes up in your Slack threads. 

Instas: If you’re a small business on Instagram, you might be missing out on these little-known resources. 

Events: Morning Brew CEO Alex Lieberman is hosting a virtual Advertising Week panel on the latest trends in personalized marketing. Add it to your cal for this Wednesday, October 7, so you don’t miss his convo with Nate Checketts, CEO of Rhone; Joey Leichman, VP of Buyer Development at OpenX; Lex Josephs, VP of Sales and Partnerships at Walmart; and Sharon Harris, CMO of Jellyfish.

CMO SENTIMENTS

Sign up here for Morning Brew CEO Alex Lieberman’s CMO Series on LinkedIn, in which he chats with the most important marketing leaders in the industry. Then read on for three questions that’ll help you get to know these marketing leaders a little better.

Lucky us, Mike Mikho, the CMO of Laundry Service, came on the show last week too and answered the following questions. 

Alex Lieberman: What is your favorite ad unit?

Mike Mikho: Someone talking about a brand positively. When done right, Snapchat AR lenses are some of the coolest and hardest working ad units that a brand can take advantage of.

AL: Best book you’ve read since the beginning of the year?

MM: The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger.

AL: Marketing word you hate most?

MM: Storytelling.

Watch the full interview here, then tune in next week for Alex’s conversations with Twitter’s Global Director of Culture & Community God-is Rivera and CloudApp Marketing VP Joe Martin.

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Marketing Brew stories from the last few editions.

• The 4A’s pushed back on President Trump’s executive order banning “divisive” diversity training at ad agencies
• This Ferris Bueller-style commercial says a lot about nostalgia marketing in 2020 
• Facebook named Alex Schultz its new CMO