TV

That Don’t Impress-ion Me Much

iSpot, which is basically the Zeus of TV advertising data, shared its 2020 TV ad impressions recap with Marketing Brew this week—and there’s a ton every marketer can learn from it. 

TV was turned on its head in 2020. But despite broad calendar shifts (remember when sports just weren’t a thing for awhile?), 18 of TV’s top 25 brands actually increased impressions compared to 2019. 

But before we get into that, some ground rules for reading the stats that follow:

• Impressions = any verified play of an ad on a TV screen for at least 3 seconds. 
• That includes national linear, addressable (including streaming), and local channels, through December 6.

If you’re a TV savant, here’s the full report—but I’ll fill you in on the juicy stuff below. 

Without further ado...

…here are the spots that garnered the most impressions in this cursed year.

• One: Liberty Mutual’s “Caricature Artist”
• Two: Allstate’s “Burger Joint”
• Three: Domino’s “Carside Delivery”
• Four: Liberty Mutual’s “Bad Job”
• Five: Discover’s “No We Don’t Charge Annual Fees”

Why they’re the fab five

So, other than paying to play, how did three insurance ads, one credit card ad, and one Domino’s ad make it to the top five in a particularly difficult year? Two words: Consumer trends. 

For instance: 2020’s general atmosphere of “fear” could sell insurance. And Domino’s sold because it’s a convenient and delicious way to avoid cooking during stay at home orders. 

The same consumer trends impacted other stats in the report, too.

• DTC brand ad impressions were up 13.1% YoY despite an estimated spend increase of less than 1%.
• Of the top 20 DTC brands on TV, five saw ad impressions increase by over 100%. 
• And you can’t ignore Amazon’s colossal 2020. The online retailer had a 163% YoY increase in impressions—more than any other brand. 

My takeaway: Obviously, advertisers can’t control environmental shifts in the lives of their target audiences—like Peloton said back in the spring, stay at home orders meant it “didn’t need advertising.” But they can adapt to trends in such a way that garners them more impressions. 

Why it matters: Per iSpot’s report, “TV advertising still works—incredibly well, if it’s done right. Success these days just demands a little more flexibility (and the use of quality measurement, of course).”

AGENCIES

And the Latest Agency Merger is…

Marketing consultancy Stagwell Group and MDC Partners. Cue gasps, etc. 

You know them from: MDC Partners owns 72andSunny, Anomaly, and Doner, among others. Stagwell agencies include creative consultancy Wolfgang, as well as Code and Theory. 

The fine print: The merger is still “subject to various approvals, including a thumbs up by a majority of MDC Partners shareholders and regulatory and stock exchange approvals,” MediaPost wrote yesterday. 

What’s with all the mergers?

Between the WPP mergers and Dentsu’s latest, these stories are multiplying like a kid who just learned multiplication. 

The short-ish answer: The current economic situation means agencies need to optimize their tight budgets—see also the end of decadent ad agency culture and pandemic-induced layoffs.

AKQA CEO Ajaz Ahmed told Marketing Brew about the advantages such consolidation can hold, soon after his own merger.

• “Instead of competing, the business units are collaborating with one another on behalf of [their] people, clients and the work. The larger canvas we now have for our people and shared capabilities represents the scale to make a meaningful difference to our industry.”

CAMPAIGNS

Twitter Gets Meta

On Monday Twitter put its best “Screw 2020” tweets up in lights. It launched a series of out of home placements including billboards, murals, and more, depicting the best tweets about the 2020 struggle bus, all from real users. 

• The installations—located in NYC, California, and Philly— include tweets by everyone from celebrities like Dionne Warwick to your average witty Joe.
• “In light of everything that’s happened this year, we are excited to amplify the humor and levity that people brought to Twitter,” said Twitter Director of Marketing Robin Tilotta, per Adweek. 

^That’s why Twitter thinks the campaign works…but here’s what I think: The right UGC can make any brand look like a hero—at least according to the following M2 Technology Group stats, per SMT:

• Consumers find UGC 9.8x more impactful than influencer marketing on their purchasing decisions.
• And UGC posts brands share on social see a 28% higher engagement rate on average than standard brand posts.

Bottom line: Unless your brand is Twitter, not every post on a social platform can be spun into promotional content. But some of it has UGC potential, which you should milk for all it’s worth.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A. is helping run Moderna’s vaccine campaign. 
• Facebook is facing a swath of complaints about a lack of resources for small business advertisers.
• StitcherAds is now a certified Snapchat partner, supporting e-commerce initiatives.
• Droga5 is now Combs Enterprises’ (aka Diddy’s) global creative agency of record.

FRENCH PRESS

Marketing tips to make you fancy

Reels: If your New Year’s resolution is to make more interesting Instagram Reels, get a jumpstart here. 

SEO: Find out the three most important things to know about 2021’s SEO landscape.

Data: If you’ve long been on the hunt for a new data analysis tool and would like said hunt to end, check out this list of the top 20 data analytics tools for marketers. 

CMOs: Junae Brown, aka Beyoncé of Marketing, was on the CMO Series today—see the video here ICYMI.

AD ANTIQUES

Vintage Ad Browser

If you need me, I’ll be busy decorating my new apartment exactly like The New Yorker’s holiday season ad from 1986.  

ICYMI

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

• The anatomy of a good brand apology, as learned from Tropicana
• Nature is healing, the advertisers are returning to Facebook
• The case for cursing in ads