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A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM FUTURE TODAY
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LIVE FROM THE NEWFRONTS…
Thursday Edition
Cathy Applefeld Olson
Nielsen took a swipe at ACR data, A+E Networks announced a new FAST channel to elevate “unheard” voices and fuboTV launched custom audience segments and an original program with NBA rising star R.J. Hampton. Welcome to the speed-dating round of the NewFronts, aka today’s all-virtual fourth and final day, which packed in more than 15 presenters including Comscore, Dotdash Meredith and Crackle Plus. We’ve also got updates from TikTok and Twitter.
MEASUREMENT MUSINGS
The number of CTV households has grown 24 percent since January 2020, and consumption has grown by 58 percent, reported Comscore CMO Tania Yuki, who focused heavily on social video. Comscore data shows the biggest social users also often are the biggest streamers. With that, the company is introducing Comscore Total Digital, which combines digital and social media measurement. At the center of trends is the creator economy. “Influencers captured 2.5 times more engagement than all other categories,” including sports, she said. “Branded content has continued to grow as well, with the opportunity to integrate directly with influencers as well as publishers and TV networks.” Also of note, Yuki said, 81 percent of online shoppers like when a brand posts about social issues they support and are proactively avoiding brands that don’t play out with their values.
“A lot of false and inflated metrics can come in when we are measuring machines,” said Nielsen GM of digital audience measurement Ameneh Atai, who tried to hammer home the importance of the company’s measurement of real, verified people and went specifically after providers who use ACR data. “What’s important to consider here is that big data is inherently biased. ACR data is not accurate… Advertisers and agencies need that truth set to make sure numbers don’t add up to more than 100 percent.”
LG Ads is bullish on its ACR data and will continue to empower the world of multiple currencies for measurement using this type of data. “We will not be another walled garden,” said President Serge Matta. Already in 40 countries, the company will continue to scale operations internationally, said Matta, and is bringing on more ad unit and increasing its guaranteed outcomes, including co-viewing and tune-in. He teased more live, on-demand content that lives only on LG glass, like the exclusive content it offers with the NCAA. Additionally, LG will be the first to carry Estrella’s new FAST channel.
No mention of Elon, but Twitter did have news to share. Brands hosted 375 live events in 2021, which collectively clocked 3.3 million hours watched. Many of them were incremental to televised events, and now Twitter is the first social platform to pilot an integration with iSpot and NBCU that aims “to offer clients who purchase a campaign with NBCU an understanding of the incremental audience Twitter offers,” announced Robin Wheeler, Head of Client Solutions. The news follows a Twitter-Nielsen study of 24 campaigns in the US that showed Twitter delivered incremental audience to TV, including 38 percent in the 18-24 demo.
Samba TV recently became an official third-party measurement provider for Disney. Hyundai CMO Angela Zepeda said the automaker used its Total Reach and Frequency tool to explore incremental reach and deduplication and learned among households in the A25-54 demo, Disney’s addressable contributed the highest reach, higher than any linear network and more than twice the next closet one. Samba TV also shared new data from a survey of 20 billion hours of TV, including this fun fact: During Q1 2022, 94 percent of all linear ads reached the same 55 percent of households.
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A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM FUTURE TODAY
CONTENT CACHE
Twitter is bolstering its partnerships, including a new deal with Fox Sports that kicks off with the World Cup from Qatar. Sponsorable content will include both pre-match and in-game programming. The company is also expanding its collab with Conde Nast to include more content from the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, Vogue’s Met Gala Red Carpet and more.
A+E Networks launching a new FAST channel called 4UV, which aims to “build a bridge between mainstream and unheard voices,” said Peter Olsen, President of Ad Sales. Also upcoming is an Innovation programming block that will live on-as well as digital platforms. The company is also amping up podcasts. Grandmaster Caz announced he’ll be leading a new podcast spinoff of A&E’s “Origins of Hip Hop” docuseries.
DotDash Meredith, home to 50-plus brands including People, Entertainment Weekly and Better Homes & Gardens, talked up its video extensions that dig deeper into fan-favorite content across its verticals like red carpet coverage, “People in 10” and “Celebrity Pet Matchmaker.” Janine Rubenstein, host of “People Every Day,” discussed the company’s commitment to working with SeeHer to ensure accurate portrayal of women on screen, and announced that series “Bold School” and “Multiplicity” are joining the company’s SeeHer stable.
Estrella Media CEO Steve Mandala teased the network will unveil its lineup of content resulting from the new partnership with TV Azteca at its upcoming Upfront, but today’s focus was on its digital media which clocks 40 billion minutes per month. When its series “Rica, Famosa, Latina” returns for a sixth season it will premiere on digital first. “MasterChef Latino” will also be back for a new season, with new complementary digital-only show “The Pantry.”
Crackle Plus announced a new branded content studio and gave a peek into its Chicken Soup for the Soul free network that’s bubbling with fam-friendly lifestyle, cooking, home decor, holiday fare and more, and its new partnership with BBC Studios. It also shared some renewal news including a third season for “Going For Broke” (cue a little on-screen bit from creator Ashton Kutcher), which will air both on CSFTS and Crackle. Michael Rapaport introduced his new Crackle show, “Flagrant.”
Canela Media is launching Canela Kids, an edutainment network accompanied by a complementary app and fueled by 1,500 hours of licensed and original content.
Tastemade is adding a Home vertical to its suite of lifestyle brand-seeped free ad-supported channels aimed at transforming viewers into makers. It’s cooking up some strong response: 84 percent of audiences are sampling two or more of its recipes per month.
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A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM FUTURE TODAY
BRAND ACTIVATIONS + INNOVATION
TikTok, which hit 1 billion active monthly users worldwide, has a new offering for brands. TikTok Pulse enables advertisers’ content to show up next to the top-performing, “safe” content of the day. The top 4 percent of videos will be based on metrics including viewer engagement, views and creator engagement signals, said Ray Cao, Global Head of Product Strategy. Categories out of the gate include Beauty and Personal, TV and Movies, Fashion and Auto, with more to come. Inventory is premium and limited; marketers can purchase through TikTok Ad Manager at a fixed CPM, Pulse can be used for third-party verification and clients will get post-campaign audience reporting.
Brands that partnered with creators on TikTok saw 26 percent lift in brand favorability and a 22 percent lift in brand recommendations. TikTok brought a bunch of creators on stage to give insights about to best collaborate. Singer/songwriter Jessia shared her experience teaming with Dove on the platform. “I’ve been a fan for what they’ve done for body positivity so as soon as they approached me, I said how do we make this happen. We’re both fans of each other and working toward the same message, and it’s not just about the numbers.” Samantha Hartsoe advised brands to hang in for longer than a three-month collab, citing six months to a year as the sweet spot. “It’s important for us to build trust with our communities. We want to show authenticity, and we won’t be able to do that in a month,” she said.
fuboTV’s growing in engagement and offerings. Its Fubo Sports Network YouTube channel gained 86,000 subscribers in the past year, and its Twitch channel brought delivered more than 100,000 viewers per show. Ninety-four percent of its content is viewed on a big screen and 89 percent is watched live.
We checked in with Diana Horowitz, SVP, Advertising Sales, about the evolution of fubo Sportsbook, which debuted last year in Iowa and Arizona. “Our goal is to turn passive viewers into active participants and we intend to continue iterating the app to further integrate wagering into our live TV streaming platform,” she said. And about its feature FanView, which adds live stats and scores to the sports viewing experience. “These interactive product features provide custom sponsorship and branded entertainment opportunities that can be tailored to elements of the game like free-to-play question integration, sponsored play of the game and custom reminders,” Horowitz said. “We believe the integration of interactivity and wagering into our streaming video product will help drive audience engagement and define a new category of interactive sports and entertainment television.”
TREND WATCH
Look for major expansion of CTV in international markets, said Tal Chalozin, co-founder/CTO at Innovid, who shared some stats from the upcoming latest incarnation of it Benchmarks survey. Key takeaway… 48 percent of ads delivered in North America are viewed on connected television vs. mobile or desktop, vs 22 percent in many international territories including LATAM.
Retail media network GSTV provided insight into the effectiveness of its video streams that play at gas stations, er, “fuel retailers.” The service reaches more than 100 million unique viewers monthly, with 15 minutes of engagement per month delivering “the right people with the right message at the right moment in the day at scale,” said CEO Sean McCaffery. Fuelers spend 3.7 percent than those who don’t fuel up that day, and its new GSTV Amplified media network is delivering results: A major candy brand recently gained 7 percent sales lift in-store after a GSTV campaign; an energy drink saw 2.5 percent sales lift in nearby stores. MGM Studios CMO Stephen Bruno offered a testimonial based on collabs on two films: “When looking to drive people to a theatrical experience, you’ve got to surprise and delight them. GSTV understands what we need in terms of ROI.”
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A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM FUTURE TODAY
SPOTLIGHT ON SHOPPABLE
Creative has to work harder to drive commerce on CTV than in other digital experiences. This was the consensus during the “Bringing Store To Screen” panel. “Commerce is still new to the CTV format,” said Rachel Tipograph, MikMak CEO, who said consumers are just beginning to get comfortable with QR codes or text prompts at the end of ads. “We’ve noticed it still takes around 30 seconds for the consumer to react. So to drive commerce through CTV, brands and agencies need to [deliver] that 30-second creative experience.”
How is Future Today working with clients to evolve ecommerce strategies? “Shoppable TV has two components to it. First, the ability for users to be able to interact with an ad to learn more information about the product being talked about, and second, as the users moves further down the funnel, the ability to pass data that can then be used for attribution and closing the loop,” says Vikrant Mathur, CEO. “We offer our ecommerce and retail partners both ad formats that help nudge their prospects downstream and the support for any third-party data and attribution service that helps them close the loop.”
SCENE + HEARD
“It’s been a quiet month at Twitter, so there’s really no better time for us all to get together.” – JP Maheu, Twitter VP, Global Client Solutions
“Communities are the new demographic.” – Sofia Hernandez, TikTok Global Head of Business Marketing
“There’s so much content, viewers are experiencing decision purgatory.” – Peter Olsen, President of Ad Sales, A+E Networks
“Be a bit courageous, look around the corner, think about what can break through. There’s so much opportunity to take waste out of media.” – Mike Law, CEO, Carat US
That’s a wrap on our 2022 NewFronts coverage. If you have a parting takeway you’d like to share, I’d love to hear from you at [email protected].
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