PODCASTS

Spotify:

On Tuesday morning, Spotify—wait a second... ON TUESDAY MORNING, SPOTIFY ANNOUNCED IT BOUGHT MEGAPHONE, A PODCAST ADVERTISING COMPANY . 

What Megaphone does: Megaphone’s platform has two capabilities—publishing and advertising. 

• If you’re a podcaster, it lets you publish, monetize, and measure your pod. 
• If you’re an advertiser, Megaphone finds your target audience and lets you measure ad performance. 

What Spotify does: Other than making playlists that remind you of the summer road trip you took three years ago, Spotify also has an ad-serving tool called Streaming Ad Insertion (SAI). SAI gives Spotify’s podcasters and advertisers info about their target audiences and other marketing metrics. 

What they’ll do together: “The deal, valued at $235 million, means Spotify can offer its proprietary Streaming Ad Insertion (SAI) to third-party podcast publishers for the first time,” per Adweek. 

Ch-ch-changes

“We don’t have any more inventory to sell to hungry advertisers,” Spotify’s Global Head of Advertising Business & Platform Jay Richman told Ad Age regarding SAI. 

So while Spotify is technically sold out of SAI-eligible ad space, it can now (in theory) expand inventory to include third party pods rather than just its in-house pods. 

• TL;DR: You no longer have to wait for Michelle Obama or Joe Rogan to drop a new podcast in order to buy SAI-powered inventory.

Microphone: If you’ve ever tried to advertise on a small indie podcast, you likely know how frustrating the lack of analytics can be. Spotify’s acquisition of Megaphone could make podcast advertisers' lives easier in that respect because it expands the pool of pods that can offer more sophisticated data and insights.

Megaphone: But if you’re a publisher who isn’t Gimlet, Parcast, or the Ringer, or on Megaphone, or in a Spotify partnership…you might be crying right now. More pods having access to the glitziest analytics could make it harder for you to secure podcast ad dollars. Unless, of course, you eventually partner directly with Spotify too.

CMOS

Call a Spade a CMO

If 2018 was the Year Of The Woman, 2020 is the year of women leaving tech for consumer product brands. That doesn’t have the same ring to it, but it’s also not wrong—yesterday, Kate Spade New York announced Tinder’s Jenny Campbell as its new CMO. 

• Before serving as Tinder CMO, Campbell spent seven years at Nike and worked on the tech side of Nike+. 
• See also: leadership positions at agencies Wieden+Kennedy and 72andSunny.

Zenon vibes: Hiring a tech-oriented CMO can only mean one thing for the American fashion house—DTC innovation. Campbell will focus on “direct-to-consumer strategy and engagement [and] digital community-building,” per a press release shared with Marketing Brew. 

#WomenInSTEM: Despite its sartorial nature, Kate Spade isn’t setting any trends with this hire—it’s following them. 

• In August, Peloton not only hired two lead marketers instead of one in a classic Silicon Valley move, but also tapped Apple’s Dara Treseder as its senior VP, head of global marketing and communications.

Big picture: Whether Covid-19 accelerated the “hire tech marketers” trend or caused it, brands across industries are showing interest in lead marketers with extensive experience optimizing for a digital landscape. 

SPONSORED BY DIVVY

Ever Had a Budget in the Red? Read This

Let’s be honest: Seeing your budget dip into the red is never fun.

You dialed in all the numbers, you granted spending permissions across your teams, but before you could even catch it—you went over budget.

Luckily for you and your business, Divvy lets you gain real-time visibility into your spending.

With Divvy, you can track spending by person, vendor, card—any way you like, in one platform. 

In other words, you can now wield the glorious power of making quick money decisions without ever going over budget.

Make your job easier, your business more efficient, and your budget actually behave like a budget—all in real time.

Spend smarter with Divvy today.

TV

Shop 'Til NBCU Drop

On Monday, NBCUniversal unveiled its latest One Platform Commerce initiative, because you definitely haven’t been doing enough online shopping these past few months.

• NBCU has partnered with PayPal to bring shoppable content to consumers across its channels.
• It also teamed up with brands, like sleek pots and pans creator Our Place, for the new offering. 
• Speaking of Our Place, it seems like NBCU understands the appeal of smaller brands: 94% percent of One Platform Commerce’s partner brands have never run a TV ad. 

Zoom out: One Platform Commerce isn’t NBCU’s first shopping innovation rodeo. In late 2019, it launched ShoppableTV—a function that lets viewers scan on-screen QR codes to “connect with a product’s ecommerce interface,” per MediaPost…aka buy stuff. 

Why it matters: NBCU’s announcement seemed pretty cut and dried—until it talked about the future of the platform. 

• “As One Platform Commerce expands, we’ll continue to open up new avenues for partnership with talent brands—giving fans new ways to connect with the icons and influencers they love,” said NBCU EVP Head of Marketing & Advertising Creative Josh Feldman. 

Influencers? On TV? I’m curious to hear what you all think of that plan—hit reply with any and all hot takes.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Peloton, a brand that just a few months ago “didn’t need marketing,” announced a multi-year collab with Beyoncé. 
• WarnerMedia laid off ~1,200 employees after the pandemic continued to negatively impact its Q3 revenue. 
• Google confirmed that Core Web Vitals, a user experience measure, will become ranking signals in May 2021.
• Nielsen is adding 55 million smart TV devices to its addressable TV ad measurement.

SPONSORED BY UNBOUNCE

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JOBS GUIDE

Did you know that, by 2021, Forrester estimates that 50,000 marketing and advertising jobs will be lost on the agency side of the industry alone? That stat is just one of 50,000 reasons why we decided to launch a four-chapter Guide to Getting a Marketing Job in a Post-2020 World. 

For chapter number three, we asked the experts what it takes to land a PR/Comms gig during unprecedented times. Experts = The founder of Small Girls PR—as well as two very different employees Small Girls hired during the pandemic—and marketing career expert Amanda Nachman.

Voila: Read the PR and Comms chapter here.

AD ANTIQUES

Vintage Ad Browser

In honor of Veterans Day, here’s an ad from the 1910s in which the U.S. Treasury enlisted Joan of Arc herself to sell war savings stamps. But in all seriousness, I want to express my gratitude to anyone who has served in the U.S. military—I’m thankful for your service today and every day. 

ICYMI

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

• Oura Ring’s billboard proves no one else slept during the election either
• What you need to know from all those “What Biden Means for Marketers” articles
• Weed won the election—here’s what that means for cannabis marketers