Agency

The resounding question advertisers are asking right now is if they should advertise. In fact, many advertisers have chosen to reduce their ad volumes and spend—whether that’s due to the pandemic’s economic impact on businesses or as a choice to dissociate from wall-to-wall coverage of death and infection. However, this strategy of limiting advertising is not sustainable with coverage of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) here to stay for at least the medium term. And reducing advertising now could have long-term consequences.

All it takes is an “essential” trip to the grocery store to recognize we’re living in a strange time. Masked shoppers do a solemn dance, keeping a 6-foot distance and communicating who has the go-ahead with a brief nod and averted eyes.

The COVID-19 pandemic is posing staggering health and humanitarian challenges. As the crisis evolves, companies must act on multiple fronts to protect their employees, customers, supply chains, and financial performance. Retail and consumer-goods sectors have been particularly affected, with frontline employees directly at risk and companies struggling with demand that is either rapidly evaporating or surging well past the available supply.

Consumer spending tumbled a record 16.4% in April as #COVID19 continues to impact the U.S. economy. KPMG Senior Economist Ken Kim breaks down today’s record decline and whether there are signs that perhaps April be the trough in consumer spending.

VAB’s Keep Calm and Advertise On: How to Successfully Navigate Your Brand Through An Economic Downturn, is a new, comprehensive analysis of data spanning the 1920s through present day, identifying the correlation between advertising investment and business outcomes during periods of economic upheaval due to global health crises and recession.

Personalization has been around for the better part of 20 years, and the superior performance it provides is well documented. However, social distancing measures imposed on most of the world in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic have already deeply affected advertising strategies. In fact, Innovid’s recently released “Global Video Benchmarks Report 2020” confirms a new era of personalization has already begun. The data shows an acceleration of consumer impressions shifting away from desktops and laptops to connected TV (CTV). As a result, marketers need to expand beyond traditional display formats to create targeted, valuable omnichannel experiences with an emphasis on CTV.

As 2019 was a great year for media sales, many sales managers were expecting similar revenue growth in 2020, not including political ad estimates. And then coronavirus arrived. Over the past two months, revenue has dramatic hit. Many sales managers are expecting to see up to a 50% drop in revenue.  In this COVID-19 Special Report media sales managers share their thought about the current state of media sales. And it’s not all doom and gloom! Many are optimistic about the economic recovery awaiting the country in coming months.

At Kantar we’ve spent much of the last few weeks thinking about the here and now, supporting our clients on immediate marketing strategies and planning for the next few months. But it’s now more important than ever to look further ahead; and for media and advertising, to imagine what scenarios the future might hold.  by Jane Ostler – Global Head of Media, Insights / Kantar

The ANA Media Advisory Board has been meeting with CMOs, agency partners, media sellers, and independent consultants. Our focus has been broadly on media transformation and reform. More specifically, we have gathered to discuss the television upfront.

Dealing with the coronavirus crisis and its aftermath could be the imperative of our times. Indeed, we have argued that it augurs the “imminent restructuring of the global economic order.”

It’s Asian American Pacific Heritage Month, and despite the current crisis, Asian Americans have much to celebrate. For years, this fast-growing, highly diverse multicultural group has been largely ignored by marketers, for reasons varying from “too many diverse subcultures” to “too many different languages” to “the general market advertising will reach them.” We’re seeing that now, more than ever before, Asian Americans are a galvanized group (the fastest-growing multicultural group in the U.S. with a buying power of $1.2 trillion), presenting more opportunities for brands to build trust and an emotional connection with them.

The latest insights from Comscore show that while certain retail categories saw significant decreases in visitation and consumer spending, overall spending and visitation to online retail increased across desktop and mobile in March 2020 compared to March 2019.

Music videos began airing first on cable TV in 1981, eventually becoming a driving force in popular culture and delivering some of the larger cable audiences. With the help of music videos’ popularity, multichannel pay-TV services driven by cable would go on to demonstrate tremendous power for marketers trying to reach meaningful audiences and build brands through the first decade of the 21st century. They became a natural complement to broadcast TV and would eventually become a foundational component of media plans. Music videos were important to the growth of cable and pay-TV.

In response to alarming evidence of the continued disparate, negative impact of COVID-19, PepsiCo, Inc. and its philanthropic arm, The PepsiCo Foundation, launched an initiative to provide increased medical and economic aid to communities of color across the country where the company has long worked. The $7 million initiative is a comprehensive project to support immediate relief and long-term recovery.

Women In Film LA, ReFrame and IMDbPro announced the CURBSIDE SHORTS Two-Minute Film Challenge, inviting female and non-binary filmmakers from North America to create and submit for free a short film inspired by life while sheltering in place. What have you discovered about yourself, home, or neighborhood? How do you envision the future coming out of this pandemic? Have you imagined a new character or superhero? Or perhaps been inspired by a real life hero working on the front lines? The contest launches Tuesday, May 19, 2020 at NOON PDT at https://audpop.com/womeninfilm/curbsideshortsfilmchallenge and all submissions must be received by Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at NOON PDT.

COVID-19 has completely disrupted our sense of normalcy. Collectively, we’ve hung our hopes on our ability to create a “new normal” post-COVID with some semblance of life before the outbreak. But, life during this pandemic is not normal, nor will it be in the months ahead. From industries to schools and everything in between, routines have been fractured, lives altered, and jobs lost. As a market researcher working in an industry that thrives on consumer interaction, I can speak best to what I’ve seen while navigating this space and how I think the market research industry will respond to the looming uncertainties ahead.

Data science firm Civis Analytics today released new findings from its COVID-19 Impact Research, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This ongoing survey research studies the social, economic, and educational impacts of COVID-19 in America. Since April 2, 2020, the team has run ongoing national surveys, with deep dives into Washington, Florida, Texas, and New York. The latest round of research highlights the disparity of the impact on communities of color and lower-income households.

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to alter consumer behaviors permanently and cause lasting structural changes to the consumer goods and retail industries, according to findings of an Accenture survey of more than 3,000 consumers in 15 countries across five continents.

What’s next? That is the question everyone is asking. The future is not what we thought it would be only a few short months ago.

What trends and best practices should shared services and functional leaders be considering as they think about the evolution of their operating model? What role might global business services constructs play in enabling digital transformation across the enterprise?