TV

A sellers' market

We covered what media buyers want at this week’s upfronts, where networks like ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia are presenting. Now, we look at what they’re expecting.

Imagine there was a restaurant that made you order your food nine months in advance, but when the food came, it was half the size of the portions on Yelp. So the restaurant tried to make it up to you by serving lots of appetizers you didn’t even really want. 

This is the plight of media buyers in 2021. Well, sort of. It doesn’t involve food. But it does involve not necessarily getting what you paid for. 

Marketing Brew spoke with six media buyers and advertisers to learn what they’re expecting out of this year’s upfronts, a year after the industry had to improvise its way through buying and selling inventory in the middle of a pandemic. 

• They expect rates to increase despite last year’s upheaval—even though ratings are falling.
• They know streaming services won’t make it easy.
• And they’re still prepared to spend an enormous chunk of change on advertising. 

Why? Because networks still have the upper hand:

• While media buyers are snapping up inventory, networks hype ratings for certain shows and broadcasts.
• When those ratings inevitably come up short, networks are often stuck with a “make good”—a guarantee that brands will get the eyeballs they paid for somewhere.
• This limits the supply of actual inventory throughout the year. So supply goes down → prices go up. 

Geoffrey Calabrese, chief investment officer at Omnicom, said “the only reason it's a sellers’ market is because of a shortage of linear [TV] supply based on delivery issues.” In other words, networks can’t “deliver” as many viewers as they want at any given time. "There's mass under-delivery across the board,” he said. 

What pandemic?

Even as marketers stumble from the rubble of 2020, networks are raising their costs. Multiple media buyers told Marketing Brew that networks are looking for a 10% increase in cost per impressions compared to last year. 

“They can't expect double digit increases because people are getting vaccines and wearing masks,” Mike McHale, head of activation at creative media agency Noble People, told us, explaining that networks are trying to use the recovering economy as a reason to charge more. 

Read the rest of the story here. — RB

SOCIAL MEDIA

Reddit, set, go

Last week, Reddit announced it’s starting an in-house creative strategy agency for advertisers. 

• Dubbed KarmaLab, the agency will help Reddit’s advertisers (you? maybe?) create campaigns. 
• Reddit said costs are determined “via a scaled offering dependent on campaign objective and need.”

Reddit’s past brand safety issues have made advertisers think twice about the platform, but it’s taken steps to address them in recent years.

• For example, it shut down thousands of its most controversial subreddits last year, and collaborated with Oracle Data Cloud to provide brands with real-time brand safety controls.

According to Reddit, KarmaLab has already helped brands like Samsung and EveryPlate create custom campaigns for the platform. The agency comes along as Reddit’s ad business grows; in October 2020, eMarketer said it expected Reddit to make $289.9 million in ad revenue in 2022, up from $212.5 million in 2021. In December, the company told Ad Age it predicted “$1 billion in annual revenue in two to three years.” 

Looking ahead: KarmaLab could be the next stage of Reddit courting advertisers to build out its ad biz even further. After all, Facebook has an in-house creative agency too, and let’s just say its yearly ad revenue makes Reddit’s look like pocket change. — PB

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E-COMMERCE

Must-Buy TV

“The Rachel” haircut isn't the only cultural touchstone that Jennifer Aniston introduced in Friends. 

During the show's run, TV execs envisioned a world where viewers could click a button and purchase the character's clothes, popularizing the (terrible) term “T-commerce.”

Now, streaming services and TV networks are increasingly making this world a reality. NBCUniversal, Hulu, Amazon, and YouTube have made it easier for people to buy stuff—you know, the whole point of advertising—with shoppable advertising inventory. In practice:

• You could tell Alexa to add a frozen pizza to your shopping cart after watching a DiGiorno ad.
• NBC and Hulu’s ads use QR codes, making it easier for audiences to look up a product with their phone.

Marketing Brew spoke with execs from NBCU and Hulu, who claim that viewers want these kinds of shopping experiences woven into their favorite shows. But media buyers, some of whom said publishers like Amazon are seeking to charge a premium for shoppable inventory, have mixed feelings.

“I wouldn’t pay a premium for it. All media is to drive sales, full stop; there’s not a premium when they do the sale directly in the spot,” said a media buyer. “It hasn’t set the market on fire.” — RB

Read the full story here.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Ogilvy just appointed its first-ever female global chief creative officer, Liz Taylor. 
• AT&T (WarnerMedia’s parent) and Discovery are merging their media assets to create a new entertainment company in a $43 billion dollar deal. 
• Twitter is reportedly working on a subscription service called Twitter Blue that will cost $3 per month.
• Procter & Gamble wants to increase LGBT inclusion in its ads, and is planning to spend more than $1 million over the next three years to make that happen. 

SPONSORED BY UNIVISION

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FRENCH PRESS

Instagram: You don’t have to know a lot about coding or tech to understand these eight ways to cheat the Instagram algorithm. 

Emails: This infographic will update you + yours on 2021’s freshest email marketing design tips.

SEO: Are you in a keyword research slump? Click here for seven tips that’ll get you out of it.  

756 million pros: Yep, that’s how many of the biz world’s finest are on LinkedIn. And here’s your chance to get your marketing message to them in the place where business is done. Learn how here.*

AD ANTIQUES

Vintage Ad Browser

Dear Dr. Fauci: Can fully vaccinated people take off the kind of mask shown in this 1976 ad? LMK. 

ICYMI

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• What media buyers want out of 2021’s upfronts
• Agencies say they'll commit more ad dollars to Black-owned media
• Ads are starting to imagine a post-pandemic world