In the wake of nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice in 2020, major agencies and brands pledged to spend more with media companies owned by people from underrepresented backgrounds. Now, ahead of the 2022 upfront season, Nielsen is rolling out initiatives designed to drive more ad dollars to diverse-owned media.

The measurement firm in February debuted an initiative—dubbed the Diverse Media Equity Program—for both buyers and sellers to try to alleviate some of the roadblocks that diverse-owned media companies can face when seeking to attract investment from advertisers and their agencies, said Stacie M. de Armas, SVP of diverse intelligence and initiatives at Nielsen.

On the buy side, Nielsen is developing reports and metrics aimed at giving agencies and advertisers additional data they can use to plan buys across diverse-owned media companies, whether they’re local TV stations, streaming platforms, or radio stations.

On the supply side, Nielsen has developed a fund geared toward financially supporting diverse-owned media companies as they seek out sometimes costly third-party certifications to prove that they are minority-owned, which can often allow them to capture more ad dollars.

A long time coming

Nielsen began fielding requests from advertisers and agencies in mid-2020, following widespread protests. At the time, de Armas said, Nielsen realized it didn’t have all the answers that they sought.

“There were, first, some real operational questions—like, who are diverse-owned [companies], and how are they certified, and what sort of certifications are there?” de Armas explained.

Advertisers and agencies wanted to know which companies were diverse-owned media suppliers and what they could expect in terms of audience reach, de Armas said. She found that some diverse-owned media companies didn’t meet the criteria that many advertisers and agencies were looking for, including third-party certifications. And some weren’t providing metrics from widely used measurement firms, she said.

Rewind: Overall, there is limited data on the amount of money spent with certified diverse-owned media companies, de Armas said, but brands have historically spent few ad dollars on them. Last year, GroupM got commitments from 20 clients to invest at least 2% of their annual media budgets in Black-owned media, while IPG Mediabrands pledged to allocate a minimum of 5% of total media spend to Black-owned media by 2023.

• Nielsen has tried to make those commitments easier to fulfill by looking at both sides of the equation. For suppliers, the firm is looking to expand the number of certified entities by defraying the cost of becoming one.
• Nielsen and Procter & Gamble have together seeded a $130,000 program that will reimburse companies for the fees that the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) charges when verifying whether companies meet the requirements to be certified as Minority Business Enterprises—a designation de Armas said often needed before major agencies will spend using budgets earmarked for diverse spending.
• Those application fees can range from a few hundred dollars to more than a thousand dollars, depending on the annual revenue of the organization, de Armas explained.

Click here to read more about what Nielsen is doing.—KS

This week, a new podcast-tech company, Spooler, debuted its first podcast: The Refresh from Insider, a daily news brief produced in partnership with Insider* that’s updated consistently throughout the day, specifically 7am–1pm ET, Monday through Friday.

Spooler was co-founded by Insider Inc. CEO Henry Blodget and James Boggs, Apple’s former head of podcasts, as well as Andy Bowers, Insider’s head of audio. It’s backed by Insider’s parent company, Axel Springer, but operates as an independent company, Bowers told Marketing Brew.

How it works: Spooler’s tech is based on the same stuff that powers dynamic ad insertion in podcasting, Bowers said.

“We’ve taken the technology that, in part, my old company, Megaphone, and others developed to insert dynamic ads and stitch those together in real time, and we’ve given that technology to content creators,” he told us.

• That tech is being used to create a “story-by-story playlist instead of a single newscast,” Bowers said, that’s composed of short audio clips—anywhere from about 15 seconds to five minutes—that can be changed, updated, removed, or inserted whenever and wherever in the playlist.
• The pod can be listened to as one episode made up of different “chapters,” as Apple Podcasts calls them. But those who subscribe will see new clips appear as episodes of their own to indicate that the show has been updated.
• Spooler’s tech solves a problem in podcast creation: The lag between the time a podcast is recorded, mixed, and delivered to listeners’ feeds.
• Historically, if a story changes between the time a podcast is recorded and when it is posted, creators will sometimes add disclaimers addressing the timing, something Bowers said he dealt with during his time with Slate’s Political Gabfest, a podcast he created. With Spooler, he said, they can just swap out the podcast’s content instead.

On Tuesday, when The Refresh debuted, “there was news breaking all morning,” Bowers said, so the show was updated seven times in its first few hours in order to keep pace.

Ad implications: The Refresh only has one exclusive sponsor, Cisco’s Webex, but “we’re lining up others already,” Bowers said.

He thinks the format of the show—a compilation of very short, ever-changing audio clips—presents an opportunity for more specific targeting of podcast ads.

“You can drag and drop things wherever you want, so you can decide where the ad should go in a much more thoughtful way than you often can in a show where you just drop a dynamic ad marker,” he explained.—AM

*Insider acquired a majority stake in Morning Brew in 2020.

It’s been a week since Russia invaded Ukraine, and companies have responded by pulling the financial rip cord—suspending services and sales, sometimes as a sign of solidarity or to comply with sanctions.

Here’s a look at some of what we’ve seen so far:

• Apple is “deeply concerned” about the invasion and has paused the sales of its products in Russia.
• TripAdvisor and Google Maps have suspended the ability for users to post reviews of some listings in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, per the Wall Street Journal, “in response to an influx of political statements posted as reviews to businesses and tourist destinations in the region.”
• H&M and Ikea have suspended sales in Russia.
• Visa and Mastercard have banned some Russian financial institutions from their networks, and have pledged $2 million each in humanitarian relief for Ukraine.
• Meta announced that it would stop recommending content from Russian state media on Instagram and Facebook.
• Snap has “stopped all advertising in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine,” and has pledged more than $15 million in humanitarian aid for Ukraine. Twitter has also paused ads in Ukraine and Russia.
• Nike has halted online orders in Russia because it “cannot guarantee delivery,” per Reuters. Adidas also halted its partnership with the Russian Football Union, joining soccer’s governing bodies FIFA and UEFA in “censuring Russia.”
• DirectTV has dropped RT America, accelerating the timeline of a deal that was set to expire at the end of the year.
• Airbnb has said it will arrange free short-term housing for up to 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine.

How can you help? Here’s NPR’s rundown of reputable NGOs and nonprofits that are supporting humanitarian efforts for Ukraine.—RB

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

The Tok: Some simple creative insights to level up your TikTok posts.

Shopping spree: If you work in retail, check out these social media marketing tips.

Post plz: Here are four easy ways to collect user-generated content.

CXperts save the day: Contentsquare sat down with JanSport, Sonos, and other retail ~heroes~ for a big ol’ advice-fest. Find all their insights on achieving e-commerce success on this interactive hub or by downloading their new report.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

A new report from McKinsey tackles some of the ways brands can adjust prices to account for inflation while maintaining customer loyalty.

High risk: Brands that jump straight to raising prices across the board risk damaging existing relationships with their shoppers, and can even see negative effects on sales, according to McKinsey.

• Their “ADAPT” (Adjust, Develop, Accelerate, Plan, and Track) plan suggests spinning this situation into an “opportunity to forge a new partnership with your customers by helping them address their own pain points and cost increases.”

High reward: One of those pillars centers around a concept familiar to most marketers—personalization. The “D” stands for “develop the art and science of price change,” a process that McKinsey says means tailoring price increases specifically by customer and product segment.

• For instance, retailers could increase prices for secondary or tertiary products that “are less price-sensitive for consumers,” thus avoiding any backlash that might come from upping the cost of their more primary, or “key-value” items.

“Adjusting prices based on customers’ willingness to pay and on product differentiation can help companies be thoughtful about their price increases now and beyond inflation,” the McKinsey team wrote.

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

• How Facebook advertisers are faring after Apple’s privacy update
• Mood Board: Behind the scenes of Gopuff’s not-so-Super Bowl ad
• In advertising, the pandemic is (mostly) over