Welcome to Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, our data-obsessed newsletter for marketing and media professionals.

Fox brings on data exec to level up audience-based data offering

“Fox has hired data scientist Mainak Mazumdar as its first executive VP, chief advertising research and analytics officer to build out the company’s audience-based data offering,” Ad Age’s Parker Herren reports. “The move is designed to bolster Fox’s cross-portfolio sales capabilities, increasingly the norm in digital video buying.”

The details: “Prior to joining Fox, Mazumdar served as Nielsen’s chief data and research officer,” Herren writes, adding that in his new role he’ll “report directly to Marianne Gambelli, Fox’s president of ad sales, with the mission of merging Fox’s sales offering across its media assets, including Fox News, Fox Sports, Fox Entertainment and Tubi.”

Essential context: “The hire will bring Fox into step with other media companies, such as NBCUniversal and Disney, that currently offer ad buying that spans their entire portfolio of assets based on audience data,” Herren notes. “That practice is increasingly in demand as TV becomes more digital and marketers look to simplify and maximize buying due to economic headwinds.”

Keep reading here.

See also: VideoAmp hires former Nickelodeon CMO

U.S. ad industry employment slumps

“Employment in advertising, public relations and related services fell by 1,000 jobs in February,” Ad Age Datacenter’s Bradley Johnson reports. “U.S. employment in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) classification of advertising, public relations and related services came in at 494,300 jobs in February based on seasonally adjusted figures.”

Essential context: “Advertising employment has seesawed over the past six months: It fell in September, November, December and February; it rose in October and January,” Johnson notes. “After strong gains in 2021 through summer 2022 as the ad market rebounded from pandemic losses, ad employment has plateaued.”

Keep reading for Johnson’s ad industry drill-downs by BLS classifications.
 

Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell

• “U.S. Jobless Claims Jumped More Than 10% Last Week,” The Wall Street Journal reports

• “How ‘Excuseflation’ Is Keeping Prices—and Corporate Profits—High,” from Bloomberg News

• “Millennials are sinking under the weight of their debts, adding a record $3.8 trillion to the pile last quarter,” per Moneywise (via Yahoo Finance)

• “A stubbornly strong economy complicates the fight against inflation,” from The Economist

Don’t miss: Layoffs and budget cuts—tracking economic moves and news

Roku teams up with Best Buy in data deal

“Roku is boosting its audience targeting and measurement capabilities with the addition of Best Buy’s consumer database, the companies announced Friday,” Ad Age’s Parker Herren reports.

The details: “Through the partnership, advertisers can utilize first-party data from Best Buy Ads, the company’s retail media network that claims over two billion consumer interactions per year, when buying inventory on Roku, which in itself reports access to 70 million user accounts,” Herren notes.

Essential context: “The goal of the merged dataset is to allow marketers to reach a more exact audience based on consumer attributes, continually optimize the target over the campaign’s lifespan and measure outcomes.

Keep reading here.

Also read: Retail media’s measurement problem

Consumer data flaws by the numbers

Marketing data verification service Truthset is out with its latest data-accuracy study, for which it looked at 4.2 billion marketing records for U.S. consumers across demographic attributes. A few of the findings, which cover data analyzed in Q4 2022:

• Truthset found that 81% of consumer age data on file is correct—though that accuracy plummets when it comes to younger consumers, with just 64% of age data correct for the 18-24 age group.

• Just 56% of consumers’ household income data is accurate.

• Likewise, just 59% of marital status data is accurate.

• Marketers’ ability to reach pet owners (89% accurate) is actually better than their ability to reach Asian-Americans (78% accurate).

Previously: Marketers’ consumer data may be extremely flawed—how Truthset is aiming to change that

New requirements for cross-platform video currency measurement issued

“The U.S. Joint Industry Committee, led by media companies, has issued a new set of requirements for cross-platform video currency measurement aiming to certify providers in time for the 2024 upfronts,” Ad Age’s Jack Neff and Parker Herren report. “But while the standards have come fast, implementing them in little over a year will be difficult.”

The details: “The JIC is an outgrowth of work by TV-focused media companies and led by network-owned technology collaborative OpenAP,” Neff and Herren note. “The requirements sent to seven measurement providers, including industry heavyweight Nielsen on March 1, also got backing from major media agencies and holding companies, which issued a joint statement in support.”

Essential context: “The JIC requirements call for full transparency around data sets and methodology, and for all currency providers to seek Media Rating Council certification as well. Currently, Comscore has an application in process for its TV measurement and iSpot.tv for the ad recognition portion of its measurement. Nielsen, which is seeking to restore accreditation for its panel-based national TV ratings, has yet to file an application for Nielsen One Ads, which is based primarily on big data sets from set-top boxes and smart TVs.”

Keep reading here.

Just briefly

• “The FBI Just Admitted It Bought US Location Data,” Wired reports

• “Exclusive: Senator’s TikTok whistleblower alleges data abuses,” from Axios

• “U.S. surpassed 100 mass shootings in only 64 days,” also from Axios

Previously: The final data on Super Bowl 2023 celebrity overkill: Datacenter Weekly (Feb. 24 edition)

The newsletter is brought to you by Ad Age Datacenter, the industry’s most authoritative source of competitive intel and home to the Ad Age Leading National Advertisers, the Ad Age Agency Report: World’s Biggest Agency Companies and other exclusive data-driven reports. Access or subscribe to Ad Age Datacenter at AdAge.com/Datacenter.

Ad Age Datacenter is Kevin Brown, Bradley Johnson and Joy R. Lee.