The week’s must-read data news and analysis for marketers: Datacenter Weekly, July 2 edition

Welcome to Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, our data-obsessed newsletter for marketing and media professionals. Reading this online? Sign up to get it delivered to your inbox here. First-party confusion In “Marketers will rely more on first-party data in wake of Google move—but are confused about how,” Ad Age’s Jack Neff writes, Marketers want to use their first-party data more as they prepare for the inevitable end to third-party cookies, but they suffer “data paralysis” when confronted with all the options, according to new research by Kantar. An online survey Kantar conducted in April and May among 672 advertising executives in 39 countries found 81% of respondents believe they should be using their first-party data alongside primary research data from outside. Further context, per Neff: Some 60% of advertisers said enhancing their own data with data from other sources is going to become more important in the years ahead, and the same number expect insights from their own data to increase, a number that rises to 74% among bigger advertisers with more than 10,000 employees. Keep reading here. Ad industry jobs rebound “Employment in advertising, public relations and related services surged in June, showing its biggest-ever one-month increase,” Ad Age Datacenter’s Bradley Johnson reports. “Digital media continues as the ad industry’s hot spot, with internet media employment scoring its biggest one-month gain since last July.” Keep reading here for Johnson’s analysis (complete with charts) on ad industry employment by various U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics subcategories, including ad agencies. Overall U.S. employment surge “Stocks rose at the open and the S&P 500 hit another record high after the June jobs report showed an accelerating recovery for the U.S. labor market,” CNBC’s Jesse Pound and Thomas Franck report. “The economy added 850,000 jobs last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones were expecting an addition of 706,000.” Keep reading here. Essential context: “The leisure and hospitality sector added a stunning 343,000 jobs—more than a third of June’s total job gains,” Axios’ Courtenay Brown and Felix Salmon report. “That’s a big deal, because industry employers have been the most vocal about their inability to find workers.” Keep reading here. Job seeking in context Job-listings platform Indeed decided to probe the current unemployment situation by surveying its users (and potential users). In June, as Indeed’s Nick Bunker writes, the Indeed Hiring Lab “surveyed 5,000 people in the US, ages 18-64. The sample included individuals both in and out of the labor force, and both employed and jobless workers.” Key insight, per Bunker: Among the unemployed, concern about COVID-19 is the most commonly cited reason for a lack of urgency in looking for work. In the eyes of many job seekers, vaccination against the virus—for themselves, family members, coworkers, and customers—is a key milestone to be reached before they will be ready for a new job. What’s more, unemployed workers seem more patient than they otherwise might have been thanks to the financial cushions of savings, employed spouses, and enhanced unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. Keep reading here. See also: “Marketers are quitting their jobs—why the industry should brace for an exodus,” per Ad Age. Twitter’s new data play In “Twitter reveals e-commerce and data strategy in ad pitch deck,” Ad Age’s Garett Sloane writes, Twitter is looking to play catch up to social media rivals in areas like performance marketing, e-commerce and ad tech, making moves in recent weeks to woo direct-to-consumer brands. This includes sending brands and agencies a 68-page document last week outlining how the company has rebuilt its ad platform to cater to marketers that need more advertising options, and addressing concerns around privacy crackdowns. The lengthy ad deck ... addresses how Twitter is designing its overhauled ad platform to handle issues like Apple’s privacy changes in iOS 14.5 software, which impacts how brands collect data and target consumers. Key data-related insight, per Sloane: Twitter also outlined the main ways it is preparing for Apple’s privacy changes and data restrictions. Twitter highlighted what it calls “Click ID,” which is its answer to Apple’s lockdown of IDFA—identifiers for advertisers in iOS 14.5 software. Keep reading here. Best places Ad Age is on the hunt for the best places to work. Does your company stand out among the best? Prove it to the market and employees by entering Ad Age Best Places to Work 2022. Register for Ad Age’s survey and awards program by Aug. 13 at AdAge.com/bptw2022. Ad Age Best Places to Work 2022 will honor companies in advertising and marketing that are quantifiably ahead of the pack in important factors such as corporate culture, benefits and employee development. The competition is open to agencies, ad tech firms, brand or corporate marketing departments or groups and in-house agencies of marketers. More details here. New Kantar chief Kantar has a new—and somewhat surprising—CEO. As Ad Age’s Jack Neff reports, Research and data behemoth Kantar has appointed a new CEO from outside the industry: Chris Jansen, currently CEO of global private schools group Cognita. Jansen effective Nov. 1 will succeed Alexis Nasard, a former Heineken chief marketing officer who the company announced in April was leaving the Kantar CEO post after only four months on the job. Essential context, per Neff: Jansen is a somewhat unconventional hire for a big research player, having spent the past six years running the private school group. Before that, he led the U.K.’s Automobile Association to a stock market listing and has held leadership positions at British Gas and British Airways. Like his predecessor, Jansen started his career at Procter & Gamble Co. Keep reading here. Just briefly Target practice: “LinkedIn’s 1.2B Data-Scrape Victims Already Being Targeted by Attackers,” Threatpost reports. Play ball: “The Data Behind Baseball’s Stickiest Problem,” from The Wall Street Journal. Talk therapy: “To guard against data loss and misuse, the cybersecurity conversation must evolve,” per TechCrunch. 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.

The week’s must-read data news and analysis for marketers: Datacenter Weekly, July 2 edition

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