Shark Week’s top advertisers—and more from iSpot, Kantar, Amazon, Nike: Datacenter Weekly

Welcome to Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, our data-obsessed newsletter for marketing and media professionals. Shark Week’s top 5 brand advertisers so far This just in from TV measurement company iSpot.tv:Top 2023 brand advertisers by primetime impressions share of voice (SOV) during Discovery’s Shark Week so far: 1. L’OR Barista (2.17%) 2. Pronamel (1.96%) 3. Warner Bros. (1.90%) 4. Valspar (1.86%) 5. Force Factor (1.84%) Notably, of those five, three (L’OR Barista, Pronamel and Force Factor) didn’t advertise during Shark Week 2022. Also, the most-watched Shark Week program so far this year is “Belly of the Beast: Feeding Frenzy,” which accounted for 5.63% of all live, linear minutes watched on Discovery Sunday through Wednesday, per Inscape. Become an All Access subscriber Get access to exclusive resources including Leading National Advertisers, World’s Largest Advertisers, Agency Report, Agency Review Tracker and TV Pricing Report. Click here iSpot hires Leslie Wood to lead research Speaking of iSpot, the company just hired Leslie Wood as its chief research officer, “giving the Nielsen measurement challenger a high-profile addition,” Ad Age’s Jack Neff reports. The details: “Wood spent more than a decade working with packaged goods marketers to merge Nielsen audience data with Catalina household retail sales data,” Neff notes. “She was chief research officer of NCSolutions, a joint venture of Nielsen and Catalina in which Nielsen has the majority stake, for 12 years up until February. ... At iSpot, she’ll lead new currency initiatives across linear and streaming TV and oversee the data science department.” Essential context: “Wood is likely the most honored active market researcher in the business,” Neff writes, “most recently receiving the 2023 American Marketing Association’s Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Award for helping brands understand the business and brand impact of advertising, an honor that’s been bestowed on George Gallup and David Ogilvy among others. Wood also received the Advertising Research Foundation’s Erwin Ephron Demystification Award in 2019 and was inducted into the Market Research Council’s Hall of Fame in 2016.” Keep reading here. Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell • “Weekly US applications for jobless benefits slide to lowest level in 5 months,” per the AP • “U.S. Economy Grew at 2.4% Rate in Second Quarter,” The New York Times reports • “Key Fed inflation rate falls to lowest annual rate in nearly 2 years,” per CNBC • “Here Are Five Takeaways From US GDP, Jobless Claims and Other Data,” from Bloomberg News Don’t miss: Layoffs and budget cuts—tracking economic moves and news Also see: Advertising Salary Guide—why commerce jobs are in demand Ad Age Small Agency Awards See all of the 2023 winners Click here Amazon tops Kantar’s new Brand Inclusion Index “Amazon topped Kantar’s list of the overall best brands in DEI in the U.S., followed by Nike and Disney,” Ad Age’s Adrianne Pasquarelli and Maia Vines report, referencing Kantar’s new Brand Inclusion Index, “which focuses on consumer perception of a brand’s diversity, equity and inclusion strategies and how that influences their buying decisions.” The details: “In the report, one surveyed consumer cited Amazon’s focus ‘on doing business for all customers’ and its ‘not choosing to virtue signal’ as a reason for its high ranking. ... Kantar based its score on a brand’s perceived impact, ranging from negative to positive. The company surveyed 1,000 adults in the U.K. and 2,500 in the U.S. in April.” Essential context: “Unaided by researchers, Nike was voted as the top brand consumers could nominate for its DEI efforts,” Pasquarelli and Vines add. “Kantar noted that just 60% of U.S. respondents could nominate one or more brands making DEI progress without a prompt. Among those who voted for Nike as the top brand, many noted perceived brand values such as fairness and Nike’s history of inclusive marketing.” Keep reading here. See America's Hottest Brands 20 brands that are trending in 2023 Click here Just briefly • “Georgia Schreiner brings her data skills and digital-first approach to Exervus Media,” from Ad Age • “The tricky truth about how generative AI uses your data,” per Vox • “AI-Generated Data Can Poison Future AI Models,” Scientific American reports • “Fabricated data in research about honesty. You can’t make this stuff up. Or, can you?,” from NPR Ad Age Leading National Advertisers 2023 Ad spending, rankings and analysis for the biggest marketers and brands Enter here 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. Become an All Access subscriber Get access to exclusive resources including Leading National Advertisers, World’s Largest Advertisers, Agency Report, Agency Review Tracker and TV Pricing Report. Click here

Shark Week’s top advertisers—and more from iSpot, Kantar, Amazon, Nike: Datacenter Weekly

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