Month: July 2021

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Historically, T1 has primarily been known as a Korean esports team. How has this influenced your brand partnerships with non-Korean companies?

We try to have a global reach in perspective, but also keep the local touch and flavor. I think every partnership is unique in that sense. Some of our partnerships are very much global partnerships — with BMW being done out of Welt in Germany and then obviously Nike out of the U.S. — but there are local boots on the ground for both of those companies. Asia is a huge market for them, Korea is a big market for them. 

So how do you organically build a partnership around what they do really well, and integrate with our fans who are not accustomed to wanting to be sold to? There has to be an authentic manner in which you approach our fans. With someone like BMW, they have some of the best sports partnerships in the world — they’re fantastic in golf — and they kind of understand how to do it. Even with the pandemic, they had their virtual conference a couple weeks back. Their manga series, integrating that part of gamer culture and kind of seamlessly putting in all the different BMW teams in there, was a good approach to the target audience that they’re trying to reach.

How did the partnership with BMW come together?

It was brokered through our agency, SPORTFIVE. During [League of Legends] Worlds 2019, I actually flew in from Spain to Germany to go to BMW Welt and meet with BMW in person and share my vision for T1 and what we’re trying to build. At that point, we were still fresh off the [joint venture], not even a couple weeks in, and BMW was walking me through what their strategy was. And it was pretty clear that they understood what gaming and gaming partnerships should look like. And they had a really robust strategy. They’re probably one of the first partners that had an integrated, multi-team partnership and a global reach with it — you had China, Korea, you had Europe, you had the U.S. It just made sense for us to partner with someone that had that global approach, because we were taking T1 global at that point with the joint venture between Comcast Spectacor and SK Telecom. It made sense to have partners that wanted to activate locally, but also had that global reach.

How has your relationship with BMW changed as they’ve brought on more people who are endemic to esports and gaming?

I think they’ve done a great job of having someone own the category internally, just like you would need someone that’s going to own your golf partnerships, your traditional football partnerships. For BMW, they really wanted to make it a robust partnership. You saw that they announced a gaming chair using advanced BMW auto technology — they really wanted to leave the space better than they found it. I think someone like that investing their R&D into gaming is really cool to see. I think they’ve done a great job of building the right infrastructure, because BMW, from a brand and partnership perspective, kind of “gets it,” so to speak. They have not disappointed in our two years of working together.

Is this phenomenon of having someone internally own the gaming and esports operations within your company something you’ve seen in the other brands you’ve partnered with?

I think it depends on the brands. Obviously, the endemic brands, they live and breathe it and walk it every single day. So in our deal with Matrix Keyboards, they kind of get it. Secretlab understands it wholeheartedly. I think with Nike, they’ve had individuals in Korea that have done a great job — I’ve been to their R&D space out in Oregon, and they’re building out tech for gamers, and [T1 owner and star League of Legends player] Faker gave feedback on products that he’d like to see. 

Let’s talk about the integration of T1 branding into the physical goods associated with your sponsors. How do you decide which partners to do physical brand integration with?

For someone like Nike — yeah, a T1 shoe would be awesome. You’re probably looking for something more like a Faker shoe, right? Because he’s like the Jordan of video games. For us, to do the branding and things of that nature, you want someone that’s going to be with you for a multi-year [deal]. You don’t want to do a one-off. Our Matrix keyboard is going to come out later this year, which I designed on the T1 side, but Faker heavily designed his keyboard to the point where people are going to be shocked when they see it, because Faker’s interests are different than most pro gamers. It’s meaningful for him, because the design functionality and feeling, the look of it, is very much in line with his growth and rise to where he is today. 

So, though I love the idea of proper branded integrated products — you know, headsets, mice, things like that — you definitely want to do it with the right partners and make sure that everyone’s goals are aligned. 

Individual influencers like Faker have become increasingly important in the gaming and esports space. Are you consciously working to elevate other members of T1 to that sort of influencer status to secure more brand deals?

I think Faker’s kind of in his own category because he’s the owner of T1, he’s an influencer, he’s also a pro gamer first and foremost. And if you look at our roster, we have Tyler1, who’s one of the biggest North American streamers, and one of the biggest league streamers. So we definitely try to find the right mix. 

You know, we do try to make it a family atmosphere as well. We built a big building in Seoul, where we want people to come home after military service or after they’re done with their playing career and they’re trying to figure out what’s next. We want to be able to give them that second career. A lot of these kids leave school at eighth grade and they don’t have the educational background, but they’re famous for gaming. They’re bright kids and they know that they understand brands, and we try to give them an opportunity to come back and keep leveraging their fan base. 

What are your future plans for T1, in terms of brand partnerships? 

From an industry perspective, you’re probably seeing it already a little bit, but crypto exchanges and cryptocurrency — it’s coming fast and furious. Obviously TSM went there first, with FTX. But I would expect T1 to jump in there pretty soon with a pretty cool deal that would allow us to educate the market, too, because crypto kind of gets a bad rap. So, if we ever do a deal with a crypto thing, you’re going to see educational content coming out of our shop, because we have younger consumers, right? We want to make sure that they’re educated when they’re seeing a partner like that in there. 

Otherwise, it’s just doing a great job servicing our current partners, organically growing them, and still making great content, even though COVID is still affecting how we can and can’t shoot. We’re qualified for the [annual Dota 2 championship The International], which is the biggest prize pool in all of esports. So we’re going to bootcamp in a couple weeks, we’re going to have content for the first time for our Dota guys. So just really trying to maximize what we can while we’re still in lockdown. I’m hoping that once that goes away, we can do really cool in-person activations again.

Hanrahan’s view of the physical office is that it should reflect a company’s mission. Hanrahan recently took the company through a rebrand and at the same time worked with leaders and employees to develop a mission and values statement. With a hybrid workforce, he’s dedicated to investing in efforts that will rally his team around their new mission and values and help build and strengthen relationships across teams. 

In terms of reinvesting, so far much of that has involved travel and events — “bringing people together, but doing so in a more deliberative, thoughtful way,” said Hanrahan. In mid-July, the company, for example, sponsored two off-sites in New York. Bringing in speakers and coaches will be part of the plan going forward. “We’re thinking about what the team needs,” Hanrahan add.

“As you think about deploying capital, look to what your leadership and your team want to do in terms of building a stronger culture, and see whether you can experiment with those things,” he advised his fellow CEOs. 

As for what’s happening to its physical space, Angi plans to reduce the footprint of two of its three offices in the U.S. In doing so, it is eliminating all personal offices (including that of the CEO) in favor of an open office plan and more conference rooms. “A greater percentage of space than ever before is being dedicated to group working,” Hanrahan said, calling it an experiment that could evolve along with the company’s future needs. The plan “lends itself to a flatter organization, it feels more approachable and breaks down barrier between the leadership and the folks who run the business,” he said. “I’m super positive about it.” 

Daniel Anstandig, cofounder and CEO of Futuri, an AI-powered audience-engagement platform that serves media companies like Nexstar and Cox Media Group, has observed that as many firms shrink their space, they are reinvesting in their tech infrastructure, in particular services that facilitate hybrid work. Other companies are evaluating where their offices are located, and whether less costly markets would enable them to reinvest in developing talent and better facilitate the working preferences and wellbeing of their people. 

“There’s a new reality and awareness that just closing an office is not enough: there has to be more of an investment in the wellbeing of a team and how it’s going to be coordinated around the mindset of a team,” Anstandig said.

When it comes to decisions around reallocating capital that would’ve spent on office space, “companies and business leaders should be oriented around work as a set of activities, not as a place,” said Joel Steinhaus, CEO of Daybase, a network of on-demand work locations created last year by a group of former WeWork executives. “In today’s hybrid work environment, where virtual connection has become more commonplace, leaders should be striving to make every virtual collaborative experience as secure, inclusive and engaging as those that are face-to-face.”

Daybase’s model for the hybrid workplace centers on building out a network of well-equipped work locations, built close to home in neighborhoods across the U.S. When combined with the office and home, the idea is that the Daybase location forms a complete hybrid work ecosystem. “Historically, companies and employees have been limited to the imperfect choice between working from a centralized corporate office or co-working space, and working from home,” said Steinhaus, formerly head of strategic initiatives at WeWork. “But the pandemic has created a demand for a seamless hybrid work experience.”

Beyond real estate, Steinhaus believes companies should invest in digital tools that will make employees more productive and engaged when they are in the office. Innovations like desk booking and digital concierge services serve to enhance the user experience for employees needing to book meeting spaces, workstations, parking spaces and meal delivery, he advised.

As with Angi, team-building exercises with remote employees is now more important than ever, Steinhaus agreed. Firms should reinvest in offsite initiatives and team gatherings. “Even in their remote day-to-day lives, people want to be social and connect with their team members to help facilitate open dialogue, create authentic connections, and build trust,” he explained.

Finally, he believes employers should not stop short of investing in wellness initiatives for their teams, a growing priority at many companies as they emerge from the pandemic and return to the office — and, everyone hopes, some semblance of normalcy. 

“The past 18 months not only took a toll on everyone, but also brought into stark relief the need for workers to prioritize their health and wellness,” Steinhaus added. “A great way for companies to reallocate funds is to consider the overall health of their people.”

Puma hired Matthew Shaw as its senior strategist for esports as far back as 2017, for example. Others like KFC, however, don’t have the same pedigree. It set up KFC Gaming earlier this year. And yet despite those differences, both sets of advertisers see a gaming industry that’s moving further into mainstream culture and want to keep in lock-step with it. 

“I’m going to have to bring someone new into my team to help run point and scale our efforts in esports,” said Sean Pate, brand communications officer at online eyewear retailer Zenni Optical. 

His reason being that esports has become too strategically important for the eyewear business to do anything else. In fact, Zenni manufactures a full line of blue-light-blocking gamer glasses and runs a gaming-focused Twitter feed separate from its main brand account.

“We believe we have an opportunity to be an endemic product that’s part of any gamer’s kit,” Pate continued. 

If gaming is indeed a gold rush, then no one wants to be without a pickaxe — especially those that have been prospecting for some time. Since 2019, Zenni has been steadily moving further into esports via deals with teams such as the Golden Guardians and Houston Outlaws. It got to a point where those investments became so big that the business needed to be more hands-on. 

“Esports is now too significant for us not to [make this move] — not only because we have a specific product line for it but also for our brand in general and our investment levels,” said Pate. 

Normally, this would spell bad news for agencies or at least see their role diminished somewhat. After all, it’s not unusual for in-house teams to take over some or all the tasks usually handed to an agency. Zenni, however, will keep working with communications agency DKC to make them work. There’s no point walking away from what has effectively been Zenni’s consigliere on all matters gaming when its advice so far has guided the brand to the point where one of the most popular esports players in Clayster is willing to endorse it. 

“They [DKC] are working in great cooperation with me on the guidance of what moves do we make,” said Pate. “Our investment in the Call of Duty League in March was bigger than all our partnerships combined up to that point, so it took months of examination to determine whether it was the right move.”

Indeed, plotting the best path forward isn’t just about knowing which influencer is on the right side of edgy for a campaign. There are fandoms to figure out, IP to identify, technical innovations to assess and platforms to lean into — all while hurdling the many challenges that come with resonating with an audience that’s opposed to anything that whiffs of corporate chicanery. Understandably, advertisers continue to rely on specialists despite having expertise in-house. 

“For many of our campaigns where we work with influencers and creators in and around gaming, we do so directly with our in-house team,” said Stephen McSweeney, a digital marketing specialist at Pringles Europe. “But we tend to partner with agencies or a media platform like Twitch for the larger campaigns.”

It’s an arrangement that underscores what this latest in-house wave actually looks like. Agencies are increasingly doing less big-picture planning and more execution — just like the previous in-house waves. “You’ve either got brands bringing in internal experts, you’ve got media agencies and creative agencies starting up their own divisions— it’s a fantastic time, because we could all agree [Twitch] is a hugely underutilized marketing channel to target Gen Z and millennials,” said Adam Harris, global head of Twitch’s Brand Partnership Studio.

For instance, Paul Mascali may head up gaming and esports across the PepsiCo business, but he’s backed by the specialist Zero Code team within Omnicom. Then there’s Joe Barnes, director of sports marketing at Bud Light, who hired Code Red as its esports agency in Europe last year. 

“No one’s going in blind [into gaming and esports],” said Joe Marsh, CEO of T1 Entertainment & Sports. “We were in talks with a luxury brand that had an agency that has done some deals with other teams, but they also had someone that understood the space. That’s exactly what you need; to build something lasting and organic, and not just a one-off, big splash that fades away.”

See BMW’s current setup. There are six of its marketers working on esports in tandem with specialists from outside the group, like those creators at the teams they sponsor. Often, these teams double as agencies, helping their commercial backers develop, activate and even measure campaigns. Naturally, BMW figured that the benefits of this hybrid approach outweigh its costs — at least for now. 

“We have a dedicated department working on gaming and esports sponsorship opportunities,” said Pia Schoerner, head of esports at BMW Group. “It’s part of a wider digital entertainment team I lead that has around 23 people in it.” 

Gaming is becoming more dominant as an entertainment medium. But Schoerner, like many of her counterparts, is fascinated by how far-reaching it has become. BMW can’t afford to lose sight of that.

“We talk a lot about the concept of digital entertainment because we acknowledge that our younger target audiences won’t necessarily watch as much TV as they previously did or will be interested in cars,” Schoerner said. “It’s meant that we’ve had to rethink how we might launch cars on these platforms as well as accept that there may be more demand for brand collaborations, not advertising, as well as the use of influencers to promote our message.”

Finding someone like Schörner or Mascali isn’t easy. Marketing trends are like catnip to chancers — those marketers who don’t know as much as they say they do about a major trend but try to coast on it nevertheless. Consequently, hiring the right person can be a slow, meticulous process. Get it wrong and it could throw a whole strategy out of whack. 

Even when hiring candidates from within the esports industry, brands need to exercise caution, as the space is rife with “esports consultants” whose resumes are stacked with buzzwords and false qualifications. Fortunately, the world of gaming and esports is a small one, and a single qualified hire with genuine industry experience is likely to invite confidence among other trusted collaborators.

“People move from one company to another company, and we all know the space very well,” said Margot Rodde, founder of the boutique gaming/tech creative agency WePlay. “And we all speak the language, and it’s hard for somebody external to come in and understand that world.”

“A lot of advertisers will try to approach this moment as just another shift of one movement from one generation to the next when there’s a lot more to what’s actually happening,” said Jason Chung, assistant professor of sport management and executive director of esports at the University of New Haven. “It’s not about the preconceived ideas people have about a medium, it’s really about understanding the fundamental changes that people are going through.”

The upfront review

The annual TV advertising upfront market is all but over, but its impact on the broader TV, streaming and digital video market remains to be seen. So as TV networks, streaming-only sellers, advertisers and agencies cross their final Ts, let’s look at the major questions left on the negotiating table.

The key hits: 

• Linear’s scarce supply is even more in demand.
• It’s all TV now.
• The scatter market will be expensive.
• Linear ad dollars are looking for new homes.
• Next year’s negotiations will be heated.

Linear’s scarce supply is even more in demand

Traditional TV’s viewership declines have caught up to the upfront market, but they have yet to undercut traditional TV companies’ hold on the market. If anything, the lessening of available linear inventory has reinforced TV networks’ bargaining position.

In this year’s upfront market, TV networks pushed away ad dollars earmarked for their linear networks and pressed advertisers and agencies to pay higher prices for that inventory. The scarcity of their linear networks’ ad supply was a major factor, but another factor was the heightened demand for that inventory. This year saw an increase in DTC marketers joining the upfront market as well as the return of movie studios that had largely sat out last year’s cycle.

“It felt like a lot of the increased money in linear was from a lot of new sources. There weren’t a lot of traditional TV upfront advertisers adding more TV to their mix,” said one agency executive.

It’s all TV now

The pressure on the linear side of the upfront market positioned streaming as a release valve for both buyers and sellers.

With linear TV viewership eroding and streaming viewership growing, TV networks need to shift ad dollars to their streaming properties for two main reasons. First, they need to stop piling up advertiser debts for viewership guarantee shortcoming. Second, and more importantly, they need to start to offset the costs of their streaming properties in order to justifying paying for programming that audiences will pay to watch even with ads and even when ad-free Netflix is only an app away.

“The networks were really adamant about us spending on streaming in order to get linear. A lot of the share [of advertisers’ commitments] had to go to streaming if you wanted to be a linear player at all,” said a second agency executive.

Meanwhile, considering the double-digit price increases that TV networks demanded for the linear TV inventory, ad buyers sought out streaming-only players like Amazon, Roku and YouTube as supplementary options. However, advertisers are beginning to see these companies as more than alternates. With Amazon’s IMDb TV and Roku’s The Roku Channel loading up on TV-quality original programming and audiences increasingly watching YouTube on TV screens, advertisers adopted the perspective that these TV alternatives actually are actually TV as well. Even TV networks are seeing a similar picture.

“The competitive set we’re in is premium video,” said one TV network executive.

The scatter market will be expensive

TV networks were unwilling, among other reasons, to take advertisers’ linear dollars because they want to ensure they have some inventory to sell outside of the upfront in the so-called scatter market where they can reap even more revenue per impression.

Scatter advertisers already pay a premium over upfront advertisers, and they are likely to see rates skyrocket as a result of this year’s upfront. In addition to upfront advertisers being unable to secure as much linear inventory as they would have liked, there are advertisers that typically wait until the fall to negotiate upfront deals under the calendar-year model. Some executives at agencies and TV networks are unsure whether there will even be enough linear TV inventory for a calendar year upfront, meaning those advertisers may need to move to the scatter market.

As a result, some scatter ad buyers are looking to get ahead of the situation by locking up scatter inventory as many as nine months in advance. However, inventory may open up. A second agency executive said some upfront advertisers secured surplus linear inventory for fear of missing out on audiences and may opt to offload some of it. That may be even more likely to happen if they find non-linear options to be more favorable financially.

Linear ad dollars are looking for new homes

Traditional TV ad dollars are on the move. With advertisers being locked out of linear, marketers will need to find other means of replicating TV’s reach. This is also not a new trend, but it seems to have reached a tipping point this year.

In this year’s upfront, advertisers became more comfortable with the programming options across Amazon’s and Roku’s CTV platforms and on digital video platforms like YouTube. They need the likes of Amazon, Roku and YouTube to provide stronger competition to TV networks in order to give advertisers more buying options buoy their bargaining positions. This goes back to their embrace of the idea that, if something is being seen on TV, then it’s TV. 

One digital video publisher sees this new perspective as an opening to sell TV advertisers on the videos they post to social platforms. If an advertiser is comfortable with a publisher’s YouTube video when played on a TV screen, why shouldn’t they be interested in it when viewed on any screen?

Next year’s negotiations will be heated

Agency executives came out of this year’s negotiations feeling bullied. They felt like the networks pushed up the dealmaking cycle and strong-armed them into agreeing to price increases that exceeded the usual inflation. But they also didn’t feel like they had many other options as advertisers continue to see TV as their primary means of reaching a lot of people.

Next year may be different.

Upfront advertisers typically rely on the preceding year’s audience data to inform their upfront buying strategies. This year that data was thrown out of whack by the pandemic. So while streaming viewership has surged, the uncertainty around all things post-March 2020 led some advertisers clinging to the comfortable confines of traditional TV. 

Over the coming year, however, advertisers may accumulate the data necessary to shift where they spend their money. Between the leveling of the streaming playing field and advertisers being pressed to find non-linear options, advertisers may glean a better insight into how far a dollar may go beyond traditional TV. 

“Next year, if we can prove to clients this is the scale of streaming versus a linear buy, we can actually get the supply and demand balance back in order,” said a third agency executive.

What we’ve heard

“They can’t hold us to strict flexibility terms if the next minute they’re saying, ‘We can’t take your money.’”

— Agency executive on TV networks’ rigid upfront cancelation terms

Stay tuned: TV networks’ advertiser debt dilemma

At the same time as TV networks sought to secure new revenue in this year’s upfront market, they also sought out ways to settle their existing debts.

The ongoing linear viewership declines have resulted in networks owing advertisers for falling short of reach guarantees. And with linear viewership continuing to erode and reducing the inventory available for networks to make up for the misses, the networks have had to present advertisers with different options to wipe their ledgers.

Networks’ primary new method of addressing the under-delivery issue in this year’s upfront was pushing advertisers to adjust their audience targets to be more reflective of the people most likely to actually be watching linear TV, a.k.a. the over-50 crowd.

“Certain networks were, for the most part, incentivizing advertisers to age up their demos to [the] 25 to 54 [years old age group] or 25 to 64 or 18+, so they can deliver those audiences because they don’t have younger audiences anymore. They will be able to deliver 18+ audiences with less make-goods,” said an agency executive.

Problem is, some advertisers are not interested in older audiences because they consider those people to either already be set in their ways with the products they use and the brands they buy, whereas younger audiences may be better long-term customer acquisition targets.

Beyond asking advertisers to age up their audience demos, TV networks offered to limit upfront ad price increases for advertisers willing to settle their debts. However, it didn’t really work out in the advertiser’s favor. “The math ended up being way off,” said the agency executive. “If you have $300,000 to $400,000 in liability and get $100,000 in negation value, you’re losing money on the deal.”

So in the end, what will likely be the most effective strategy that TV networks used this year’s upfront to deal with their debt dilemma was to get advertisers to agree to let the networks make up for linear shortfalls by offering streaming inventory. This is neither a new approach nor necessarily a panacea considering that the networks’ streaming inventory is also believed by ad buyers to be tight. All of that is to say, the issue of TV networks’ advertising debts has yet to be settled.

Numbers to know

-6.1%: Percentage decline year over year in TV ad impressions during the first half of 2021.

48.3%: Netflix’s global share of digital original audience demand.

What we’ve covered

How news publishers are using the Olympics and AR to flex their emerging tech storytelling

• The Washington Post and USA Today are using augmented reality to spotlight the sports new to the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer.
• It’s a foray into a relatively new mode of storytelling made possible only at sizable publishers that have the funding and resources to experiment.

Read more about their emerging tech plans here.

How Yahoo is experimenting with platforms and partnerships to grow its audience

• Yahoo wants to reach 900 million monthly, paying users by further enticing them with shoppable videos, online sports betting partnerships, and cross-brand content offerings.
• Verizon will remain a partner on 5G projects, which has been a large focus for innovation.

Read more about Yahoo’s roadmap here.

The Financial Times plans to open 2 more U.S. bureaus to target ‘global Americans’

• The UK-based publisher is opening new bureaus in Houston and Hollywood to reach more readers where American companies are dominant players on a global scale.
• TheHouston bureau officially opens in September and is the FT’s first joint office with Nikkei, the Japanese financial news company that acquired FT in 2015 for $1.3 billion.

Read more about FT’s strategy here.

What we’re reading

Hollywood’s updated production safety protocols:
Entertainment industry groups have agreed to loosen the health and safety measures for productions that were instituted in the wake of the pandemic, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The changes include allowing studios to require everyone on set to be vaccinated and to allow people not to wear masks when outdoors.

TV programming pipeline backs up:
TV networks and streaming services put so many projects into development during last year’s production hiatus that a backlog has emerged, according to Variety. Writers and agents say that they’re having a hard time finding buyers for potential projects as a result.

States look to lure productions:
States including California are dangling incentives, like tax credits and cash rebates, to attract film and TV projects, according to The Wall Street Journal. More than 30 states already offer financial carrots to film studios, but behind the renewed effort to entice productions is states’ hope that the shoots will help their local economies to recover from the pandemic.

And with online shopping significantly increasing in light of the pandemic, Hotwire is hoping its new direction will get shoppers to their mobile app to shop hotels, said Melissa Postier, director of brand marketing for Hotwire.

“We know that the Gen Zers and later millennials are on these newer social platforms,” Postier said. “So we’re creating these 15-second content video snapshots trying to showcase what you could get with Hotwire.”

For its latest campaign, the travel brand is leveraging paid and organic strategies across digital platforms, with organic posts across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. But it’s firing on all cylinders on TikTok. In addition to a paid hashtag challenge, Hotwire has tapped at least 20 influencers, including celebrity Jason Derulo, one of TikTok’s most-followed accounts with 47.5 million followers.

Instead of predominately branded content, Hotwire allowed Derulo and other influencers creative liberty in the spots to remain true to the nature of the platform, which relies on authenticity. For example, in one spot, Derulo changing his child’s diaper, flicking at the idea of parents who need a vacation.

As Digiday previously reported, working with a top TikTok influencer could run advertisers up to $100,000. For a hashtag challenge, that number jumps up to $150,000 per week.

According to Postier, the travel brand opted to employ a predominantly paid strategy on TikTok to better build a brand presence. “We knew we needed to do that because we wanted to do this right for the Gen Zers,” she said. “We wanted to be sure that we were creating content that isn’t just slapping Hotwire all over it.”

At present, more than 60% of the brand’s digital ad spend is dedicated toward online video via Hulu, Roku and YouTube TV. Hotwire also has a portion of its budget dedicated to podcast ads. In years past, the brand relied heavily on broadcast television spots, but now say that ad spend has seen a year-over-year decrease, per Postier (although Hotwire did not respond to a request to detail spend in time for publication).

According to Kantar, Hotwire spent more than $22 million in advertising overall during Q1, up from the $5 million spent that same time last year. However, those figures exclude spending on social channels as Kantar doesn’t track social media spending.

Hotwire’s TikTok strategy, could be comparable to tactics used in Facebook’s heyday, according to Duane Brown, founder of performance marketing shop Take Some Risk.

“Spending advertising money, on top of the money spent to create content, says that a brand is trying to make TikTok work and [make it] a viable channel,” Brown said. “The benefit of [that] is that if done right and you have the right content, you can scale faster and make a bigger splash on the ad platform and channel.”

And as brands continue to vie for that younger audience’s attention, leveraging both a paid and organic strategy across TikTok is going to get marketers the best bang for their buck, per Brown.

“Going viral is not a strategy and it is not something anyone can guarantee. Brands will do both paid ads and organic on TikTok as that will give them the best of both worlds,” he said.

“We’re moving away from a legalistic approach to addressing data abuses and towards a more rigorous approach,” said Erie Meyer, chief technologist at the FTC during the agency’s PrivacyCon event. “This means we’ll be approaching investigations with an interdisciplinary lens including [with] privacy engineers and designers, financial analysts and product managers, and yes, technologists. But this won’t happen overnight.”

FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter has also pushed for a more holistic approach to evaluating problematic data practices that takes into consideration the role of data collection as a revenue driver for companies. 

The FTC invited researchers to discuss their work investigating algorithms, the Internet of Things, children’s privacy issues, as well as ad tracking and targeting, including in digital TV environments and on Twitter. A session focused on algorithms, for example, delved into discriminatory job ad targeting, including on Facebook, and the implications of requirements for transparency in job ad algorithms. A session dedicated to ad tech research addressed issues including how smart TV apps can expose personally-identifiable information and how first-party cookies can be used for cross-site tracking even without third-party cookies.

Meyer explained how a transition away from reliance on legalistic remedies to stop data abuses might manifest. “It might mean that we need to look at restructuring business incentives or even corporate structure,” she said, adding that change on paper is not good enough if it doesn’t come to life in practice. “If a company can come into compliance by papering over questionable conduct, they’re not actually changing the facts on the ground,” said Meyer. 

Now hiring: ad tech experts 

Another indication that the FTC means business: it’s hiring. The agency put out a call  for technologists, researchers, engineers and even content strategists to work on small teams with people in its Office of the Chief Technologist and Office of Technology Research and Investigation and alongside FTC attorneys “to drive the investigative efforts of our work for projects that affect millions of consumers” and “provide leadership and insights that will help the FTC effectively protect consumers and competition in the digital world and stay on the cutting edge of technology.”

And the commission specifically wants people with expertise in ad tech, AI, misinformation, privacy and social media tech. “To all the other people who might be tired of working on designing multivariate tests to improve ad conversion rates, come help us change the facts on the ground. We’re hiring,” said Meyer.

Observers on both sides of the aisle have argued that more funding and resources for the agency would help it build up staff and resources for understanding complex data-fueled systems such as the ones keeping ad tech motors humming. Antitrust legislation pending in the U.S. House and Senate could establish more funding and resources for the FTC.