Good morning.
After supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, many ad agencies and their clients paused spending on social media and digital news content. And while marketers are resuming ad campaigns this week, many advertisers will be in “wait and see” mode through next week’s presidential inauguration as they continue to navigate how to balance business goals amid the current political climate.
Last week, performance marketing agency Tinuiti reported that 27% of brands it works with halted social media spending—that’s slightly more than the 26% that paused spending in July during the Facebook advertising boycott. And while the summer pause was focused on a single social network, last week’s changes had an expanded scope.
Pausing advertising isn’t a decision that advertisers take lightly. Even a few days of going dark can affect both sales as well as insights when it comes to optimizing campaigns on a daily basis. Read the full story here.
In other news, the Ad Council has now raised $37 million of the $50 million that it is allocating toward marketing efforts to educate people about the Covid-19 vaccine. So far, companies including Bank of America, Facebook, General Motors, The Humana Foundation, NBCUniversal, Walgreens and Walmart, among others, have all donated. Meanwhile, creative agencies including Pereira O’Dell, JOY Collective, Dentsu Health and Alma have all donated work pro bono to help with assets.
Also, CES 2021 has been underway virtually, and marketers, without their usual events in Las Vegas, have been turning to innovative new ways of engaging attendees and the public. For example, P&G has created a virtual LifeLab that lets people create their own avatars and digitally walk around a space that features news about P&G products as well as other topics like sustainability. There’s even a virtual stage where P&G CMO Mark Pritchard and others have been giving speeches.
Other companies are also creating expanded virtual content for CES. Panasonic has been publishing a variety of talks with experts and held a virtual concert featuring the Cold War Kids, and iHeartMedia and MediaLink created a virtual CES party for hundreds of attendees to network via a new platform created by Spatial Web. Meanwhile, General Motors created dozens of pieces of content to highlight the company's focus on electronic vehicles.
And with February just a couple of weeks away, more brands are announcing they'll appear during the Super Bowl. Cheetos, Doritos, Frito-Lay, Fiverr and Scotts Miracle-Gro all announced their plans this week, and plenty more are expected to announce in the coming days and weeks. Stay tuned for more on that front.
We hope you’re staying healthy as we start off 2021.
Marty
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