Business

Corporate America has played an important role in the progress of LGBTQ+ rights over the past two decades, with many companies making public gestures of support. Hundreds of major consumer brands have become regular sponsors of annual Pride events. A record 206 major corporations signed an amicus brief in the spring advocating for the Supreme Court’s June 2020 decision protecting LGBTQ+ individuals from workplace discrimination. Companies are also increasingly making business-critical decisions about recruitment practices, employee-resource groups, and marketing that embrace LGBTQ+ rights.

2020 has been one of the most challenging years for the advertising sector since the Great Recession of 2008. However, among all the paused and cancelled campaigns, digital video remains relatively stable, driven by Connected TV (CTV).  According to IAB’s U.S. 2020 Digital Video Advertising Spend Report: Putting COVID in Context, CTV is largely responsible for the sector’s resilience and was least impacted by COVID-19.

For our recent McKinsey Global Survey on the topic, we approximated inclusion by combin­ing survey respondents’ reported feelings of authenticity, belonging, and comfort participating in the workplace.  Our survey research finds that respondents of all backgrounds encounter barriers to feeling included—and that women, respondents who are ethnic and racial minorities, and those who identify as LGBTQ+ encounter additional challenges.

As the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic comes into sharper focus, the position of the nation’s small businesses appears, overall, to be particularly bleak. By mid-April, according to a report from the Facebook & Small Business Roundtable, about a third had temporarily stopped operating, and by mid-May more than half had laid off or furloughed employees. Our analysis of several surveys of small businesses suggests that before accounting for intervention, 1.4 million to 2.1 million of them (25 to 36 percent) could close permanently as a result of the disruption from just the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The approaches Aetna, Anheuser-Busch, IBM, and others take to keep their teams’ marketing capabilities sharp

The June 2020 U.S. mid-year forecast is marked by declines in consumer and advertising spend across the board. The COVID pandemic sharply transformed the economic expectations from growth as recently as mid-March to the worst economic decline since the peak of the Great Depression in 1932. That’s according to consensus data as of mid-May tracked by Refinitiv that called for a 5.7% inflation-adjusted decline in economic activity.

Walton Isaacson CEO says a ‘seemingly benign idea’ has turned into ‘a brutal affront to our communities’

For many, COVID-19 has radically changed the topography of a typical workday.

As a result of the pandemic, B2B marketers are rushing to convert their in-person events into live virtual experiences

LERMA/ announced that the American Advertising Federation (AAF) Dallas has chosen Salma Gottfried as one of the 2020 Shining Stars in Advertising and Marketing. Gottfried is the principal of Brand Management at LERMA/, a Dallas-based next-generation communications agency dedicated to creating disruptive and impactful content for multicultural America.

Despite the economic downturn wrought by COVID-19, over 75% of local US businesses have remained open during the pandemic — with many  looking to adopt effective, fresh marketing and advertising strategies, according to a recent study by Viamedia.

It wasn’t too long ago that developing and launching a truly breakthrough product was largely dependent on a company’s size and brand stature. Yes, there were exceptions, but they were just that—exceptions. Today, amid widespread information access and connectivity, the scales have tipped, and while massive scale and big budgets remain valuable in launching breakthrough innovations, they’re not necessarily essential.

The Covid-19-induced shift toward digital tools and interaction channels has helped dispel four key myths about B2B selling.

According to a 700 media and advertising professionals conducted just prior to Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter activism, 43% of Black, Hispanic/Latino and Asian professionals in the advertising and media business agreed that the industry is doing its best to advance diversity, equality and inclusion. By comparison, 60% of Caucasian professionals in our community agreed. Only 12% of white people in the ad/media business believed current efforts are insufficient vs. 35% of Blacks, 31% of Hispanics/Latinos and 21% of Asians. The remaining group offered no opinion.

Media owners’ advertising revenues will decrease by $42 billion in 2020, from $582 billion to $540 billion, as advertising spending shrinks due to the severe economic recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, as GDP is expected to contract between -5% and -12% across the world’s largest markets. Global advertising revenues will decrease by an estimated -7%, as the heavy, double-digit decline of linear ad sales (linear TV, print, linear radio, OOH, cinema), -16% to $238 billion, will be mitigated by the stability of digital formats: +1% to $302 billion.

Marketers, looking for increased productivity and transparency in their media investments, are calling for sweeping changes and improvements in the media ecosystem. This includes transformative changes to the upfront marketplace.

On April 16, the National Association of Hispanic Journalist (NAHJ) board announced, in a press release posted on NAHJ.org, that it had voted to cancel national board elections and extend, for another year, the terms of board members, including those of the president and the rest of the executive board. This move encompassed both elected and appointed board members.

With Women’s History Month upon us, there’s no better time to recognize that efforts to increase gender diversity in the boardroom are finally beginning to yield results.

BOTTOM LINE: While its likely not totally shocking at this point, we think that April increasingly feels like the bottom, and the linearity of the quarter appears to be much better in May, with expectations for continued rebound into June. Our and the Street’s 2Q20 estimates are largely in the range of where the companies indicated they were pacing for the quarter in April/early May, and our expectations are that there is likely upside to revenue numbers of at least 4-7%. We will be waiting to see how June shapes up, as well as color around 2H outlook before refining our estimates, but numbers are likely going higher.

As the coronavirus continues to spread across the U.S., brands are looking for ways to stay connected to consumers and to understand the impact of the virus on their lives in real-time, especially among multicultural groups who have been hit disproportionately.