At the tail end of February, many laggard advertisers interested in the 2022 NCAA Division 1 Women’s Basketball Tournament found themselves out of luck. ESPN was entirely sold out of ad inventory for the women’s March Madness tournament, with more than a dozen sponsors and 22 advertisers, including Capital One and Invesco, locking in spots more than three weeks before play began—a record for the network.

Record-breaking sellout stories like these are no longer an anomaly: The market for sports inventory is red hot as advertisers seek out safe bets on big audiences and networks sell sports as part of big upfront packages months before kickoffs and tip-offs. All of that means sports ad inventory is selling faster than ever before.

“We’re in a consolidated environment, and the sports are in high demand,” Deidra Maddock, Disney’s VP of sports brand solutions, told Marketing Brew. “People want to make sure that they don’t miss those windows, and they want to make sure that they can get where they want to be at the prices that they need to be at. And so that certainly is escalating the timeframe.”

You don’t have to just take her word for it: It’s apparent for just about every major sporting event on TV.

• Advertising inventory for the March Madness men’s tournament sold out in early March, with John Bogusz, executive VP, sports sales and marketing at CBS, telling reporters that it was “one hell of a selling season.”
• Meanwhile, Super Bowl marketing is moving faster than ever: NBC sold 85% of its Super Bowl inventory seven months ahead of this year’s game, and Fox began discussing 2023 Super Bowl ad inventory as early as September 2021.
• At ESPN, the WNBA’s 2022 season—which starts on May 6—is already “very well sold out,” Disney spokesperson Kristen Smith told Marketing Brew.

No time to waste

That means media buyers are feeling the squeeze as the timelines for all major sporting events on television have been moved up—in many cases by at least several months.

Kevin Collins, SVP of strategic investment at Magna Global, said in 2018, he was inking deals for NFL fall football over the summer, the Super Bowl in October or November, and March Madness in December. “Fast-forward three years to last year’s upfront: I was done with [the] NFL, the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and college football May 14 and May 21,” Collins told Marketing Brew.

In June, he was making deals for college football, golf, baseball, NHL hockey, and NBA basketball—all of which were previously conducted in August. “And then even March Madness was bumped up by almost a month and a half,” Collins said.

Big picture: The accelerated sales windows, which other buyers confirmed to Marketing Brew, comes down to supply and demand: While many live television events are losing their ratings luster, sports telecasts have remained more resistant to ratings erosion, making it one of the few places for both new and long-standing advertisers alike to find big audiences.

But there’s another reason why sports inventory is selling so fast. Click here to read more.—KS

Moments celebrating diversity have become baked into the calendar in the US, especially in recent years: Black History Month in February, Women’s History Month in March, AAPI Heritage Month in May, followed by Pride Month in June, to name a few.

There’s also no shortage of brands that want to join the festivities.

• Time after time, consumers have said they want brands to weigh in on topics having to do with culture and social justice. But when brands do, they often face backlash.
• “If you look at where brand leaders and CMOs are expending effort, purpose is now such an important topic, and not just purpose in the commercial interpretation, but also this whole shift from primarily focusing on shareholders to stakeholder capitalism,” Margaret Molloy, global CMO of brand consultancy Siegel+Gale, told Marketing Brew. “The stakeholders are your employees, it’s the community, it’s regulators, it’s customers, it’s society at large.”

Zoom out: Between all these stakeholders, brands often find themselves threading a needle when it comes to their involvement in moments like heritage holidays. Many say they want companies to take a stance or voice support, but can doubt their motives when they do.

Limited time only

“Brands have a reflex that if there’s a holiday, they want to post about it,” said Nicole Penn, president of full-service agency EGC Group. But one post a year won’t cut it for brands hoping to convince consumers of their commitment to lifting up different communities year round.

Pick a lane: To earn trust, brands need to commit to meaningful investments in a limited number of issues that are significant or relevant to them, according to Penn. And for the topics they’re not well versed in, she said it’s best to keep quiet.

“If you’re a brand celebrating International Women’s Day and you don't have any women on your board, that’s something that’s going to get noticed and called out, and actually will end up being a negative versus a positive,” she said.

Read the full story here.—AM

Elena Hengel is director of marketing at Marketing Architects, a TV agency. “I work with an awesome group of copywriters, graphic designers, sales leaders, and operations specialists to drive sales and build our brand in the television space,” she told Marketing Brew.

After graduating college, Hengel briefly pursued a career in the equestrian sport of three-day eventing. “When I decided to stop riding, I took an internship at a TV agency called Marketing Architects to get a feel for the corporate world, fell in love with marketing, and never looked back,” she said.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? My marketing team wrote a book on TV advertising called All-Inclusive TV: How Booming Brands are Reimagining TV Advertising. This was the first “big bet” on content we’ve taken as a team. It took nearly a year to go from concept to publication, but it was totally worth the time and effort.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? The classic “We’re No. 2. We try harder” campaign from Avis. It’s a great example of a challenger battling a market leader and succeeding through advertising.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile? I purchased a hamster named Digger to have a buddy with me while I work remotely. Best decision I’ve made in a long time. (Although, his work product is lacking since he sleeps most of the day.)

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? I am most optimistic about more brands focusing on building an audience. It’s leading to higher-quality and more relevant content. I am least optimistic about the ongoing privacy changes because I don’t believe most marketers are prepared to lose the level of targeting and tracking they’ve become dependent upon.

What’s one marketing-related podcast, social account, or series you’d recommend? The Marketing Book Podcast by Douglas Burdett is a must-listen for any marketer!

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

Time out: Stumped about when to schedule your social media posts? This report details the best—and worst—times to post across social platforms based on engagement rates.

That’s enough: An analysis of more than 75 million Instagram posts suggests, contrary to popular belief, the number of hashtags used on posts doesn’t influence reach much.

Rank and file: This walkthrough gets to the bottom of why Google rankings may suffer even after page optimization.

Master your marketing moment: Iterable’s Activate Summit ’22 is crossing the pond for its first in-person event. Join experts in London from May 25–26 to discover and share unforgettable marketing moments—and register now for 50% off a Full Access pass.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

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A report from the influencer platform Linqia found that in 2018, about 62% of enterprise marketers were using more than 10 influencers over the course of a single campaign. What percentage of marketers were using 10+ influencers on one campaign in 2021?

1. 65%
2. 72%
3. 31%
4. 90%