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

GroupM launches ‘readiness program’ for the post-cookie era

“GroupM, WPP’s media investment arm, is lending its weight to push ad tech providers to experiment in Google’s post-cookie platform, announcing that it is working with its brands and Google Chrome to prepare for the coming shift in digital advertising,” Ad Age’s Garett Sloane reports. 

The details: On Wednesday, GroupM launched “what it called a ‘readiness program,’ in partnership with Google Chrome, to understand how the ad tech ecosystem will evolve once cookies sunset next year,” Sloane notes. “GroupM has already been testing parts of Google’s Privacy Sandbox, which is a series of APIs—application programming interfaces—designed to run ad auctions, deliver ads and measure their effectiveness without relying on cookies that track consumers. But the true tests won’t start until January, when Google’s Chrome web browser turns off 1% of internet traffic to cookies.”

Essential context: “Google has said it expects to turn off 100% of third-party cookies by the end of next year,” Sloane adds. “Many ad tech providers are working on alternative identity solutions, and they are building up first-party data products that attempt to address privacy concerns.”

Keep reading here.

Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell

• “U.S. applications for jobless claims rise as labor market begins to show some signs of cooling,” per the Associated Press

• “Mortgage rates fall for third straight week, bringing some homeseekers off the sidelines,” CNBC reports

• “Wholesale Inflation Posts Largest Monthly Decline Since the Start of COVID-19 Pandemic,” from U.S. News & World Report

• “US economy cools as retail sales dip, monthly producer prices decline,” per Reuters

• ICYMI: “US ad employment is now at an all-time high,” from Ad Age Datacenter

Also see: Layoffs and budget cuts—tracking economic moves and news

The advertisers that love the NFL

TV measurement company iSpot.tv gave Datacenter Weekly an exclusive first look at its Midseason NFL TV Ad Touchdowns & Takeaways Report. This ranking caught our attention:

Top 10 NFL brand advertisers, ranked by TV ad impressions share of voice (SOV)
Live, national linear, English-language NFL games only, Sept. 7-Oct. 31

1. Geico—3.03%
2. Progressive—3.01%
3. Bud Light—2.30%
4. Burger King—2.15%
5. State Farm—1.81%
6. Amazon Prime—1.73%
7. Subway—1.71%
8. Hyundai—1.71%
9. Verizon—1.69%
10. T-Mobile—1.63%

Also read: Flag football is attracting major brands and Gen Z

More NFL news: Ad plans for Prime Video’s Black Friday game

Gen Z ❤️ podcasts

“Gen Z has typically been associated with ephemeral attention spans—after all, this is the same generation that’s driven the rise of TikTok,” writes Ad Age’s Gillian Follett. “But new data shows Gen Z does have an appetite for some long-form content, especially podcasts. The demographic is driving a significant spike in podcast listening in the U.S., according to Spotify’s latest annual ‘Culture Next’ report, which tracks trends across the streaming service’s Gen Z user base.”

The details: “In the first six months of 2023,” Follett reports, “Gen Z consumers (who currently fall between the ages of 11 and 26) generated almost 900 million podcast streams on Spotify—a 48% increase over the number of streams the cohort drove in the first half of 2022.” 

Essential context: “That data stems from surveys of more than 11,000 Gen Z consumers, focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted in partnership with youth culture agency Archival, as well as Spotify’s own first-party data,” Follett adds.

Keep reading here.

Just briefly

• “Taylor Swift fans used record amounts of data during the Eras Tour in North America,” The Verge reports

• “‘Kelce’ becomes a top trending dog name in America, pet company’s data shows,” per Fox News

• “Morgan Stanley fined for putting customer personal data at risk in computer purge: New York AG,” from CNBC

• ICYMI: “Consumers speak out on brand activism and Intuit finds a novel way to gather Gen Z data”—the Nov. 10 edition of Datacenter Weekly

• ICYMI: “What brands are actually willing to pay Instagram influencers”—the Nov. 3 edition of Datacenter Weekly

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.