Welcome to Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, our data-obsessed newsletter for marketing and media professionals.
How data is transforming Super Bowl and Winter Olympics marketing: Datacenter Weekly
NBCU partners with iSpot
“NBCUniversal has selected iSpot.tv as its first alternative cross-platform measurement currency,” Ad Age’s Ethan Jakob Craft reports, “inking a multi-year deal with the company that is slated to include key measurement tests of both Super Bowl LVI and the Beijing Winter Olympics next month. ... Publicis Media has signed on as an inaugural partner to test the new measurement currency across NBCU’s One Platform ad offering.”
Essential context: “The highly anticipated announcement comes months after NBCUniversal first issued a sweeping request for proposals that saw dozens of measurement companies respond,” Craft notes. “The media behemoth is seeking measurement options that can work alongside Nielsen, the TV industry’s long-dominant measurement provider whose near-monopoly was jeopardized last year after an audit revealed it significantly undercounted ratings.”
Keep reading here.
The timing: The Beijing Winter Olympics kick off on Feb. 4 and wind up on the 20th.
The big picture: According to data shared by iSpot with Datacenter Weekly, the pandemic-delayed 2020 Summer Games—which ran July 23 through Aug. 8, 2021, across NBCU networks—delivered 1.23% of the total U.S. TV ad impressions for all of 2021, for live, first-airing programs across all networks.
The data Super Bowl
Avocados From Mexico will use its airtime in the upcoming Super Bowl LVI broadcast to drive brand awareness, but as Ad Age’s Asa Hiken reports, the produce brand “is also looking to find ways to use its Big Game commercial to better identify its consumers and, most importantly, direct them to make a purchase”—with help from a digital activation called “House of Goodness.”
“At the heart of this campaign,” Hiken adds, “is a new marketing strategy that blends brand and performance metrics. Dubbed ‘brandformance,’ it is an approach that hinges on developing robust consumer profiles, said Ivonne Kinser, VP of marketing and innovation at Avocados From Mexico.”
Essential context: “These profiles are built using first-party data,” Hiken notes, “which the campaign will seek to acquire via shoppable content. ... Powered by a deal with e-commerce software MikMak, which itself has teamed with data platform LiveRamp, Avocados From Mexico will receive a detailed view of consumers who are driven to purchase, including psychographic (traits on psychological attributes), demographic and behavioral information.”
Keep reading here.
Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell
• “Inflation at 40-year high pressures consumers, Fed and Biden,” per the Associated Press.
• “Inflation: What’s driving it, who benefits and when will it end?,” from the Los Angeles Times.
• “Mortgage Rates Jump to Highest Level Since March 2020,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
• “U.S. jobless claims rise by 23,000 to 230,000,” ABC News reports.
Previously: “U.S. advertising employment increased by 2,300 jobs in December,” from Ad Age Datacenter.
Ad Age Agency Report 2022: Call for entries
The upcoming Ad Age Agency Report 2022 will include the industry’s definitive ranking of agencies, agency networks and agency companies. Make sure your agency is included by completing Ad Age Datacenter’s questionnaire. Please download the questionnaire at AdAge.com/arq. Deadline is Feb. 4.
Watch for it: Ad Age’s 78th annual Agency Report comes out online and in print on April 25. See last year’s report: AdAge.com/agencyreport2021.
TikTok teams up with CreatorIQ
“TikTok is adding software platform CreatorIQ as a new influencer marketing partner,” Ad Age’s Erika Wheless reports, “allowing CreatorIQ clients to now plan and execute TikTok creator marketing campaigns. CreatorIQ customers will now see creator and content metrics from the TikTok Creator Marketplace through the CreatorIQ dashboard. Brands will have access to TikTok’s first-party insights on audience demographics, growth trends and video performance.”
Essential context: “The TikTok partnership comes on the heels of CreatorIQ’s acquisition in September 2021 of Tribe Dynamics, an influencer marketing analytics platform,” Wheless notes. “Creator IQ users include Anheuser-Busch InBev, Airbnb, Calvin Klein, CVS, Dentsu, Disney, H&M, Sephora and Unilever.”
Keep reading here.
ICYMI: 10 most-advertised brands in the U.S. in 2020
Exclusively from Ad Age Datacenter:
We’ve also published rankings/charts for:
• World’s biggest advertisers
• Biggest U.S. advertisers
• Biggest agency companies
• Biggest agency networks
• Biggest agency ventures by category
See them all here: “The Big List: Top marketers, brands and agencies”
Just briefly
• “The 9 most popular insurance ad characters, ranked,” from Ad Age.
• “These TikTok Stars Made More Money Than Many of America’s Top CEOs,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
• “Why subscriptions are a major 2022 direct-to-consumer opportunity,” from Ad Age.
• “Online Grocery Sales Closed in on $98B in ’21,” per Progressive Grocer.
• “The past seven years have been the hottest in recorded history, new data shows,” The Washington Post reports.
• “More Than Half of Voters Back a National Data Privacy Law,” according to a new Morning Consult/Politico poll.
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 Catherine Wolf.
This week’s newsletter was compiled and written by Simon Dumenco.