Party City didn’t have much of a social media strategy before the pandemic, according to its CMO Julie Roehm. When she joined the company in December 2019, she set out to change that.

“When I started, we as a company had been in social briefly with Pinterest and some of the normal Facebook ads, but it hadn’t really been a primary strategy,” Roehm told Marketing Brew. “They were just sort of dipping their toe [in].”

Only a few months after the start of her tenure, Covid swept through the country, keeping people in their homes and forcing even more eyes online.

Shifting gears: Coincidentally, one of the first things Roehm did at Party City—even before the dramatic shift in consumer behavior—was move most of the retailer’s media budget to digital platforms, including Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Google, she told us.

• In the past year, the share of its budget spent on social in particular has doubled, Roehm said.
• This January, Party City’s paid media-buying efforts led to a nearly 10% increase in traffic compared with that month last year.
• From 2020 to 2021, paid social traffic improved 30%, Roehm told us, primarily driven by Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Gift that keeps on giving

Party City’s social strategy goes beyond paid advertising. For instance, Roehm established the company’s first internal influencer team and forged partnerships with creators like “mom influencers” Maria Bailey and Ashley Lyn.

“I’m so glad we did because…during the pandemic, we leveraged that heavily,” she explained, relying on influencers to tell the brand what they needed to pull off pandemic-era celebrations. That information inspired Party City’s party kits for events like birthdays and graduations.

To each their own: With stores shut down temporarily in 2020, Party City promoted those kits on social media, sending them to influencers who could “talk about it in their own words, through their own terms,” Roehm said.

• In one example, Party City mailed out a DIY balloon garland kit to test how easy it was for influencers to assemble the product on their own, and whether or not they found it worthy of the ’gram.

“Social has been a gift that keeps on giving for us,” Roehm said, explaining that Party City’s influencers not only post content for the brand, but also provide feedback about what’s working and what isn’t. “It helps us a lot to refine our go-to-market positioning and strategy.”

Party City is also homing in on specific platforms like Pinterest as it sharpens its social strategy. Read more here.—AM

Sunday night’s Grammy Awards was billed as a return to normal for the telecast after being held last year with no audience due to Covid. But that doesn’t mean audiences returned.

The annual music awards show, which was broadcast on CBS and available to stream via Paramount+, drew just over 8.9 million total viewers across platforms, according to fast national data from Nielsen.

That’s slightly higher than the 2021 broadcast, which saw a record-low 8.8 million average viewers.

When the final numbers are in Tuesday, CBS estimates that this year’s telecast will see adjusted final numbers (which also include out-of-home viewing) come to about 9.6 million. In 2021, the final audience figure was 9.4 million.

No comeback story: The results highlight the challenge for live-entertainment broadcasts to win back audiences after seeing viewership bottom out during the pandemic. Both the Grammys and the Oscars saw their lowest-rated nights in history in 2021, but the Oscars, which aired in March, was able to draw back some viewership, recovering by about 58% to 16.6 million viewers after seeing a record-low viewership in 2021. No such luck for the Grammys.

Yes, but: Live awards show ratings have been trending downward for the last several years, with the rise of on-demand streaming largely chipping away at once-dominant events. But live events on television are still a surefire way to get in front of big audiences, even if their sizes are dwindling. That’s why advertisers are still willing to spend big on those broadcasts despite shrinking ratings. The 2021 Grammys generated $67.6 million in advertising revenue for CBS, according to Standard Media Index, which tracks ad spending at major advertising agencies.

One exception: Live sports telecasts continue to remain most resilient, with NFL games actually gaining viewership in the most recent season.—KS

Each Tuesday, we spotlight Marketing Brew’s readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Anna Curtis is the digital marketing manager at Neon One, a company that specializes in software for nonprofits. “I introduce and reiterate our brand online with people that work at nonprofits,” she told Marketing Brew. “It’s my responsibility to reach people in all stages of a buyer’s journey and express the value we can provide to companies in the social good sector.”

Describe your career to date. My marketing roots go as deep as sophomore year…of high school! I took that passion with me into college and graduated with a degree in marketing. Since then, I’ve worked at a B2B lead-gen company, an ad agency in Denver, and I even worked as a digital-marketing freelancer living in Hawaii for four years. Now I’m at Neon One, where I market SaaS solutions to help nonprofits find success.

Favorite ad campaign? REI’s #OptOutside campaign. I love it! It was a one-time PR stunt of shutting down on Black Friday to encourage people to enjoy the outdoors. Something that could have had a big negative impact on sales, [but] gained them lots of good attention. Enjoying nature over consumerism is something I can get behind. I love the brand!

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile? I was a skating carhop at Sonic back in my day. I could easily skate around with six Route 44 drinks on my tray, no joke.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? Most: Marketing becoming an avenue for educating rather than pitching a product. Least: Facebook ads. We play in the space, but the lack of data and insights is becoming a concern.

What’s one marketing-related podcast, social account, or series you’d recommend? Chris Walker from Refine Labs. He’s great for B2B lead-gen knowledge!

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

Status symbol: Twitter seems to be testing out a new feature that allows users to add status updates to tweets.

Hit the links: LinkedIn’s creator mode is getting some new tools and features, like improved post analytics.

Don’t you dare: If buying fake TikTok comments has ever crossed your mind, this guide walks you through the process—and shows why it’s not such a great idea.

Creative collabs: We visited SXSW and learned all about how creativity and collaboration are the keys to making truly impactful work. Check out what we learned here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

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

• Anzu says it’s making it easier for brands to advertise in games
• Why this sports podcast network is looking to TikTok to find talent
• Oreo’s one-day Blockbuster takeover let people experience 2007 again

Charli D’Amelio is among the highest-earning influencers on TikTok, partnering with brands like Dunkin’, Invisalign, and Morphe Cosmetics on sponsorships. How much did D’Amelio make in 2021 in her business ventures?

1. $8.7 million
2. $23.5 million
3. $17.5 million
4. $12.5 million

Keep scrolling for the answer.