The Ad Industry in 2018 — The Year of Magical Thinking
Sir Martin Sorrell, the industry’s most prominent agency spokesman, now has the difficult job of explaining, on behalf of WPP and of the industry in general, why revenue growth has been so difficult to achieve and what can be done about it. Since its peak in 2015, WPP shares have fallen 28% in value. In the main, Sorrell points his finger at “major customers, who are holding back ad spending to cut costs, and the long-term impact of technological disruption and the short-term focus of zero-based budgeters, activist investors and private equity.” By Michael Farmer
Transparency is a big word for an important idea, but I’m curious if it will actually have an impact on the advertising business. If you casually peruse articles about advertising published in the last few years, you’ll see a steady increase in the volume of people talking about transparency, but if you dive one layer deeper, you’ll find it’s still just talk — not a business practice for most companies.
The wait is over for investors and Hispanic market observers who have been asking about Univision Communications‘ Initial Public Offering plan, and when the company targeting Hispanic and millennial consumers will come to fruition. After a series of delays, there will be no IPO. By Adam Jacobson
This year’s Oscars were dull. No surprises. Enough politics! By David Morse / New America Dimensions
BabyCenter and Collage Group, a leading insights and strategy company, released findings from their new study, “Futurecasting Families: Early Insights into Generation Z & the Future of Parenting.” The two organizations partnered on this research to place Generation Z alongside current Millennial moms to offer an early look at how this young generation of digital natives will prioritize, shop, communicate, and connect when they become parents.
NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises announced the launch of Telemundo Academy, a first-ever multimedia educational institution to empower and train the next generation of media leaders. The academy’s first partners will include internationally renowned singer, actor and record producer Armando Christian Perez’s (Pitbull) SLAM Miami (Sports Leadership and Management) and the Doral Academy, two highly regarded local charter schools. 
The top three categories for Total U.S. ad spend are television, print-originated content and mobile. They accounted for 73.9% of total U.S. ad spending in 2016. TV and print totals include both legacy/linear and digital spend, while mobile spend is 100% digital. By Jack Myers
For a country founded on religious freedom, mainline Christian denominations face the harsh reality of declining attendance. “Do not attend church or identify with any organized religion” are trending upward among most populations, according to statistics published by The Pew Center. by Karla Fernandez Parker
Univision Communications Inc. (UCI) announced that Peter H. Lori has been named Chief Financial Officer, effective immediately. Lori, who has served as Executive Vice President, Finance, Chief Accounting Officer and Deputy Chief Financial Officer for UCI, succeeds Francisco (Frank) J. Lopez-Balboa, who has decided to leave the company to pursue other opportunities. Lori will report to Randy Falco, President and Chief Executive Officer.
To kick off the 100-day countdown to the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™, Telemundo Deportes revealed a series of key updates for its coverage plans as the exclusive Spanish-language home of the largest sporting event in the world. In addition to multiplatform coverage and production updates, Telemundo Deportes announced a line-up of top-tier advertising partners, digital partnerships, more legendary and groundbreaking commentators, and insights of its latest consumer focused study around the FIFA World Cup™.
According to an analysis published by Jillian Berman, Georgetown University’s Center on Education, and the Workforce, though women are more likely to go to college and earn degrees than men, they don’t reap as large of a benefit from their education. Instead, says the report, women typically need one more degree to earn as much as men on average.
Café Bustelo® is partnering with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) to launch the fifth-annual Café Bustelo El Café del Futuro Scholarship.
I was reading with huge interest Gonzalo López Martí’s last couple articles on the pros & cons of the different kinds of advertising providers a marketer can choose from and I think he missed one elephant in the room: consulting firms. You know: Accenture, Deloitte, PwC et al. Allow me to share with you what I recently wrote about that the phenomenon. Here it goes. By Santiago Olivera – President of Young & Rubicam Buenos Aires
You’ve seen the growth numbers. You’ve seen the purchasing power. You’ve seen the large multicultural successes in 2017 such as Coco. And you’ve been hearing it for years now. You know you have to start tapping into the multicultural market for the future of your brand or business. So what’s stopping you?
I recently proposed to a group of CMOs that short versus long-term was a meaningless distinction and that successful marketing is requires building and triggering memories across the buying cycle so that people are predisposed to buy your brand and pay the price asked. Here’s why. by Nigel Hollis
The simultaneous use of second-screen devices—smartphones, tablets and desktops/laptops—while watching TV has increased year to year and will continue through at least 2019. However, 2018 will be the first year in eMarketer’s forecast in which the use of desktops/laptops in this context declines.
Blasted with a constant firehose of information every single day, consumers are trying to filter the noise more efficiently than ever. If you know anything about System 1 thinking, you know just how automatic it is for the brain to tune out what’s irrelevant.
Results from the February 2018 CMO Survey indicate that companies are investing in the development of marketing knowledge. The largest investment is in the development of marketing capabilities— which are the complex bundles of knowledge and skills for carrying out marketing activities that are deeply embedded in organizational processes. These capabilities are likely in areas such as digital marketing, MarTech platforms, and marketing analytics where companies are trying to get up to speed fast. A 6.5% increase in spending on marketing capabilities is expected in the next year.
