Less BS, More Facts, Some Opinions
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Ka-Thunk Goes The CNIL The CNIL, the French data protection authority, fined Google $170 million and Facebook $68 million because they don’t make it as easy to reject cookies as it is to accept them. It takes multiple clicks to decline cookies – and… Continue reading »
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For nearly 40 years, Catalina has gathered data on consumers’ shopping habits, providing its insights to mostly CPG companies and the retailers that sell those CPG products. Along the way, media got way more complicated as more and more media options to reach those shoppers popped up, while the need for deeper insights didn’t improve at a similar rate.
Today, with everything digitally empowered and enabled, Catalina has had a lot of catching up to do. To fast-track its progress, the company in the last few years struck partnership deals with a host of media companies and ad-tech providers to transform itself into an omnichannel provider of data, insights and audiences.
The latest strategic partnership, Digiday has learned, is with Blockgraph, a tech provider that helps to render viewership and IP data from MVPDs into privacy-compliant information that can be paired with Catalina’s deep resource of shopper data, culled from a 110-million household database. Last week, Catalina struck a separate deal with PlaceIQ to bulk up its access to and knowledge of data in the place-based OOH media space. Other deals have been cut in the last year or more with Yahoo!, LiveRamp, SambaTV, iHeart Media, Experian and AdQuick.
The master plan, said Brian Dunphy, senior vp of digital business & strategic partnerships at Catalina., is to offer its expanded services in three distinct ways:
“We can provide the service in a managed [fashion] or we can provide a self service option, or we can be the enabler that powers that,” said Dunphy. “And we thought this strategy is really working to help take the data that Catalina has, and turn it into more of a currency for cross-platform activation, and the measurement and attribution and insights that come along with it. You can’t build this entire stack yourself — you really need to have partners to have an ecosystem approach.”
Laura McElhinny, executive vp and chief data officer at Horizon Media, said she chose Catalina as the agency’s main external data provider after meeting with multiple other companies through an RFP process. “What’s valuable is the granularity of their data and the baseline they provide us that gives us the breadth and the depth of our own first-party offerings, along with national representation. We don’t have to rely on cookies anymore.”
The Blockgraph deal catapults Catalina further into connecting its shopper data to TV viewing in a streaming world, given Blockgraph’s deep connections in the MVPD space, which remains the primary means through which people are consuming their TV viewing — linear or streaming, router or set-top box. According to Jason Manningham, CEO of Blockgraph, the partnership is about “the direct application of shopper loyalty data for targeting to the TV supply that [CPG advertisers] want to buy, and to be able to do that on a de-duplicated basis across linear and CTV. That’s huge for CPG advertisers who care a little bit about targeting, but care a lot about reach and frequency.”
The PlaceIQ deal is similar in its aims, only that effort is to penetrate deeper into the world of place-based and out-of-home media, enabling Catalina to map location-based visit signals to its shopper ID graph. PlaceIQ benefits by accessing Catalina’s CPG and retail-focused data and audiences.
McElhinny said she’s noticed the expansion and benefited from it. “It looks like they’re going to continue to grow,” she said.
It’s no understatement to say the automotive marketplace is about as upside down as it’s ever been, with massive inventory shortages and used cars selling for higher prices than new wheels. Borrell Associates today is releasing its 2022 Local Automotive Advertising Outlook, which predicts local dealer advertising will surge 8.8 percent to $9.4 billion in 2022, after a 15 percent increase in 2021 over 2020.
As would be expected, digital forms of advertising, both online and OTT, are rising much faster than traditional: Borrell forecasts that OTT ad spending by auto dealers will hit $1.9 billion in 2023, more than they spend on paid search, and far exceeding linear TV and radio expenditures.
Beyond that, digital marketing has swollen to be a foundational element of car dealerships — Borrell’s report notes that dealers collectively spent $38 billion on SEO, web maintenance and hosting, social media, online video content, etc., 4.5 times more than spent on advertising.
“The decades of one currency to rule over the entire TV ecosystem will officially (and finally) come to an end. The industry has been beholden to legacy measurement and currencies for far too long and has evolved to a point where it requires new, future-proofed approaches that meet the current and future needs of an evolving, converged TV marketplace. In 2022, multiple currencies will be the reality, powered by cross-industry collaboration to find consistent ways to count and ascribe value for all forms of TV. This will simultaneously empower the buy-side to better drive ROI with their ad buys and the sell-side to more accurately prove the value of their content.”
— Calum Smeaton, founder and CEO, TVSquared, in the company’s 2022 TV Outlook report on cross-platform TV
The post Media Buying Briefing: Catalina edges deeper into media territory with new Blockgraph partnership, and others appeared first on Digiday.
This story is part of Digiday’s Masters of Uncertainty series, a look at people and companies at the center of media’s defining storylines. Find the rest here.
Over the last 18 months, David Tann has noticed an evolution at his Atlanta-based branding and design agency, Tantrum. Client inquiries that once revolved around brand identity services were becoming inquiries around strategic consulting, especially from a diversity, equity and inclusion perspective.
According to Tann, it signals that agencies and companies are becoming more thoughtful and strategic about how their brands are intersecting with the social climate and current events.
He’s not wrong. 2020’s massive social justice movement has transitioned from a raging boil to a steady simmer as companies continue trying to make good on the wave of DE&I promises made since the murder of George Floyd. With a renewed focus on corporate America’s lagging DE&I statistics over the last year and a half, agencies and companies rolled out diversity pledges around better hiring practices and committed themselves to more frequent work with Black-owned agencies, creatives and enterprises.
The turbulence of 2020 has since calmed, but now Black and minority-owned agencies, Tantrum included, grapple with a different issue: Navigating the surge in business brought in by the aftermath of 2020’s protests and sustaining it even after #BlackLivesMatter was no longer trending, all without losing their integrity.
‘It was in the news. Everyone was talking about it, and it’s just not as much in the news anymore. That shouldn’t be,” said Mike Popowski, CEO of Atlanta-based agency Dagger, and co-founder and board member of The A Pledge diversity initiative collective.
“Instead of trying to collaborate with somebody on a one-off occasion about a piece of work that might be focused on a certain demographic, it’s always diverse all the time,” he added.
Across the industry, agencies helmed by people of color say they have noticed an increase in inquiries for work from mainstream brands and agencies looking to fulfill their DE&I promises. Canada-based creative agency Six Cinquième said those promises and work went as soon as they came, leaving leadership questioning if the jump in work was just the industry’s knee-jerk reaction to calls for equality. Art collective Slug Global observed something similar here in the States.
Meanwhile, down in Atlanta Tann at Tantrum said it’s less about work waxing and waning. Instead, companies and organizations are increasingly asking for strategic consulting as opposed to just brand identity. It’s a service Tantrum, which has five full-time employees, has always offered. But as brands look to tread more carefully in how they fit into cultural moments, it has become a more valuable offering.
Over the last year, Tantrum has added clients such as Microsoft, Soma Intimates, Bath and Body Works and others, with a number of projects focusing on DE&I. For example, Tantrum worked with The Athlete’s Foot to support the development of its equity program called Staart, which is an initiative to foster Black-owned retail and entrepreneurship, particularly through franchising. The Tantrum team also worked with public relations firm Weber Shandwick on a number of campaigns that specifically targeted minority audiences.
However, it’s a very thin line to walk. Tann said that he doesn’t see Tantrum as a Black agency, meaning he doesn’t want to be “put in a box as the Black company that only works on Black projects.”
“The weight of that is very heavy sometimes. There are moments where it’s intense for me,” he said. “Sometimes I can’t enjoy it because there’s this intensity of an entire population of people this is going to speak to, and we don’t take that lightly.”
For the better part of Tann’s 15-plus-year career, he had been the only face of color in the room. Often, the 41-year-old creative said he was overlooked for promotions and other opportunities to advance his career, pushing him to launch Tantrum in 2018.
As a creative, Tann describes himself as old enough to remember when people were getting trampled for televisions on Black Friday, but not so old that he doesn’t understand why TikTok is cool. Still, his career has taken him through positions at major companies, from a graphic designer at Hallmark Cards to vp and creative director for the Atlanta Hawks. At Abercrombie & Fitch, he launched the lingerie brand Gilly Hicks and opened the first seven stores. He also did a stint at Kohl’s, where he managed 16 brands for packaging, before landing a job with the Atlanta Hawks, where he launched a new brand identity for them and helped rebuild their retail department.
By 2018, Tann was a husband and father of two looking to branch out on his own. Taking what he called a leap of faith, Tann launched Tantrum with the Hawks as its first client. “That was the only client. I was in my basement, like we’ve got to figure out how to make this work. Now we’re here,” he said. Since launch, Tantrum has also worked with Atlanta’s women’s basketball team, Atlanta Dream, The Gathering Spot (a members-only networking club) and Camp cannabis brand.
When the Black Lives Matter movement came to a head, Tann held off on making a formal statement. But after seeing a multitude of companies release statements and post Black #BlackLivesMatter squares on social media, he took to the company blog last June to talk about his experience as a person of color in corporate America.
“The awareness is great and I’m sure the intentions are good, but where was the outrage three weeks ago?” he wrote. “If I had told you my story then, would you have believed me? Probably not. Or even if you did, would it have compelled you to action? Probably not.”
As more brands and companies look to partner with minority-owned agencies more often, it becomes a balancing act, per Tann. On one hand, Tann said he doesn’t want to take away work from minority-owned agencies that have committed themselves specifically to the DE&I space. On the other hand, Tann said he understands the need for agencies of color to have a seat at the table to give minority agencies more share of voice in the industry and the opportunity to create more authentic work. Put simply, it’s the idea of being a Black-owned agency versus an agency that happens to be Black-owned.
Alongside Dagger’s CEO Popowski, Brandon Butler is another co-founder of The A Pledge as well as executive director of Butter.ATL, the editorial arm of Dagger. As a Black creative who has been in Tann’s shoes, Butler said he sympathizes with both sides of the coin, noting that the way to push for diversity is to be in the room where decisions are made.
“I do believe that my work stands up against anybody’s work. And I would hope that the first thing somebody doesn’t see when they see my work is ‘A Black person made that.’ I’d like to just be a person,” Butler said. “That’s the catch-22. Somebody has to go first sometimes. If you want to see the change, you have to be the change.”
By February, Tantrum agency will be celebrating its fourth year in business with a new level of self-assuredness, Tann said. “If it’s not for you, cool. It’s not for everybody. We’re not even trying to pretend like it’s for everybody. We’re good,” he said.
However, there’s still a lot of work to be done as the agency continues to build a name for itself. “I feel like I just got a Grammy off of my mixtape,” he said. “Yeah, I got a Grammy, but this isn’t even an album. This is the beginning.”
The post ‘That weight is very heavy’: Minority-owned agencies grapple with spike in work as the industry makes good on DE&I promises appeared first on Digiday.
Shutterfly has recently rolled out its largest marketing effort to date.
Since late last year, the California-based photography product service company has been ramping up its social media, streaming and online video efforts. It’s part of the brand’s redirection to promote Shutterfly’s newly expanded offerings, like graphic prints and designs. It’s also a play at introducing itself to newer, younger and Gen Z audiences said Craig Rowley, Shutterfly’s CMO.
“People are consuming media differently,” Rowley said, adding that the brand has to adjust its media mix to where consumers are spending their time, like streaming services and social media. “They’re showing up in different environments and we want to be in the places where they’re going to be.”
Shutterfly is not alone. As the pandemic has continued to push people to spend more time online and in front of the television for streaming, brands like Edible Arrangements and Vivid Seats have also looked to digital video to diversify their media mix and get in front of more shoppers.
The shifted media mix launched alongside Shutterfly’s “Make it a Thing” campaign last October, boasting more digital and streaming video than prior campaigns. The campaign, created in partnership with branding and marketing agency Mischief features 30-second spots portraying potential Shutterfly gifts, like family photo Christmas tree ornaments.
The company has also punched up its social media advertising spend, especially on TikTok and Snapchat, per Rowley. The “Make it a Thing” campaign and digital marketing efforts that surround it make it the brand’s largest effort to date, he added.
It’s unclear those ad dollars are spent as Rowley declined to provide further details. However, the CMO said that Shutterfly’s ad spend is up year-over-year. In the first half of 2021, Kantar reports that Shutterfly spent more than $47 million on media. Throughout 2020, the personalization company spent about $26 million on media, slightly down from the $34 million spent total in 2019. Those numbers do not include social media as Kantar does not track those figures.
The way people shop has changed, meaning many are looking toward brands to “add value in the moment and they expect instant gratification no matter where they are,” said Eddie Gonzalez, vp of strategy and performance at media company Razorfish. In response, companies like Shutterfly have created more marketing touch points in their strategies.
“Marketers that have been successful in activating a full-funnel strategy have been able to create a more complete picture of how marketing is driving growth for the organization,” Gonzalez added.
Per Rowley, the initial campaign saw good delivery with consistent video completion rates and engagement. “Those are the kinds of short-term things you can manage,” he said. “We’ll have to see longer-term whether it impacts things like brand awareness, brand familiarity or relevance.”
Moving further into 2022, Shutterfly will continue to invest in the current brand campaign, including the new direction with expanded social media efforts, online video and streaming.
“In these digital environments, there are many use cases of things that people didn’t even know they could make on Shutterfly,” Rowley said. “[It’s about] being able to express that down into detail, and actually targeting those against relevant audiences as well.”
The post ‘We want to be in the places where they’re going to be’: How Shutterfly is reintroducing itself to younger shoppers appeared first on Digiday.
