WPP’s GroupM media investment unit named Richard Hartell CEO of its EssenceMediacom U.S. agency, effective immediately.

Hartell most recently had been Global CEO of Media Future Group, the GroupM unit dedicated to the Google account. He will continue as WPPs’s global client lead for Google.

“Richard is a bright, capable and proven leader at GroupM,” said Sharb Farjami, CEO of GroupM North America. 

“He successfully led one of our most significant client relationships and has an unbeaten track record for driving success for the world’s leading brands over the years,” Farjami said.”His strategic skillset, industry expertise, and deep existing relationships with our clients make him a natural fit to lead EssenceMediacom U.S. into the future. We’re excited for Richard to continue his success at the agency, delivering the best of what GroupM has to offer.”

EssenceMediacom is one of the winners of the Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards, which will be presented during the Advanced Advertising Summit in New York on September 9. 

Hartell joined Essence in 2021 as global chief client officer for the Google account. 

“Richard’s track record with Media Futures Group makes him a great fit to lead EssenceMediacom in the U.S.,” said Nick Lawson, Global CEO of EssenceMediacom. “His dedication to the transformation and growth of our clients and our talent is unmatched. Richard’s tenacity and humanity is a winning combination.”

Hartell will remain on the Global EssenceMediacom leadership team and join the GroupM North America leadership team, reporting the Sharb Farjami, CEO of GroupM North America.

Before EssenceMediacom, Hartell spent nearly 20 years at Publicis Media, where he held the positions of Global Chief Strategy Officer and President of Strategy & Transformation. He also held various leadership positions at Starcom and Spark Foundry.

“Leading media for Google, at such a progressive agency as EssenceMediacom, has been

the highlight of my career,” said Hartell. “I couldn’t be more excited to continue this journey as we shape the next era of media within one of the world’s largest media agencies. This agency is home to the best talent in the business and we’re well-positioned to lead the way on how modern marketing through media, data and technology can make advertising work better for everyone.”

Brian Lesser was named Global CEO of GroupM, the big media buying company that is part of WPP.

Lesser, who had been CEO of GroupM in North America from 2015 to 2017, will assume his new post in September.

He succeeds Christian Juhl, who will become president, corporate development, for WPP.

“Brian is one of the industry’s most highly regarded executives with a track record of success in data- and technology-driven marketing,“ WPP CEO Mark Read said. “GroupM, its agencies and its brilliant people are, in many respects, the engine of WPP. Brian not only knows GroupM inside out but also has a strong vision for the future of the business. We are delighted to welcome him back to WPP.”

Lesser left GroupM to become CEO of AT&T Advertising & Analytics, which became Xandr. He departed Xandr after AT&T bought Time Warner and combined the ad-tech unit with WarnerMedia. Xandr was later sold by AT&T to Microsoft.

He recently stepped down as chairman and CEO of Infosum, which he joined in 2020.

“WPP and GroupM are special organizations to me,“ Lesser said. “I have experienced firsthand the culture of innovation and collaboration that leads to exceptional work for advertisers. I look forward to building with my talented colleagues, collaborating with our industry partners, and investing with our fantastic roster of global clients.”

Juhl became CEO of GroupM in November 2019, promoted from CEO of Essence, the digital media agency acquired by WPP in 2015. 

As president, corporate development for WPP, he will work on various aspects of the agency holding company’s strategic development.

“I would like to thank Christian for his contribution to the success of Essence, GroupM, WPP and our clients over the last nine years,” Read said. “He has built a strong foundation for the ongoing transformation of GroupM, the integration of its offer, and accelerated future growth. I look forward to working with him in his new WPP role.”

GroupM said it named former McDonald’s executive Alycia Mason as CEO of its Wavemaker U.S. media agency network.

In addition to heading Wavemaker’s U.S. operations, Mason will join the network’s global leadership team and the North American leadership team for GroupM.

Mason will report to GroupM North America CEO Sharb Farjami, who previously held the CEO title at Wavemaker U.S.

"Alycia is a proven leader and change agent with an impressive track record of enhancing customer experiences and delivering impactful business results," said Farjami. "Her digital expertise, strategic mindset, brand savvy, and experience leading large, integrated teams make her the ideal leader to drive growth for Wavemaker U.S. Her forward-thinking leadership and brand-side perspective will be invaluable to our entire organization.” 

At McDonald’s, Mason was field VP, heading a multistate organization supporting 1,000 restaurant locations. She also served as the burger chain’s chief U.S. customer experience officer and as VP of digital customer experience and media, expanding its omnichannel business, doubling profitability and media return on investment.

“Alycia is a trailblazer with extensive experience and a deep understanding of the challenges global brands face today. She is uniquely poised to support our clients in making business-critical decisions at the intersection of revenue and technology to secure their future growth,” said Toby Jenner, global CEO, Wavemaker, and global president, GroupM Clients. “I’m excited to work with her and look forward to seeing her lead Wavemaker in the U.S. into its next successful chapter, by positively provoking, innovative solutions for both our clients and our people.” 

Before McDonald’s Mason was executive VP at Publicis Groupe, working on the Kellogg’s account. She held agency posts at Starcom, Mindshare and OMD.

“In my career, I have always been passionate about leading brands and teams through transformative industry change, and this next chapter will be no exception,” Mason said. “I am drawn to Wavemaker’s inventive culture and am excited to lead the industry-leading talent who consistently push the boundaries of the modern media experience. Together, we will work alongside our advertisers to achieve stellar business results and meaningfully impact the audiences and businesses they care most about.”

“In my career, I have always been passionate about leading brands and teams through transformative industry change, and this next chapter will be no exception,” Mason said. “I am drawn to Wavemaker’s inventive culture and am excited to lead the industry-leading talent who consistently push the boundaries of the modern media experience. Together, we will work alongside our advertisers to achieve stellar business results and meaningfully impact the audiences and businesses they care most about.”

A+E Networks said Domino’s will be the marquee sponsor of The History Channel’s original documentary about Jesse Owens that will appear Wednesday on Juneteenth.

The documentary, Triumph: Jesse Owens and the Berlin Olympics, is executive produced by LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s Uninterrupted and Cinemation Studios in association with GroupM Motion Entertainment.

The sponsorship was arranged through GroupM Motion Entertainment's Diverse Voices Accelerator.

Actor Don Cheadle narrates the doc, which tells the story of Jesse Owens’s legendary triumph at the 1936 Olympics, which were hosted by Adoph Hitler’s Germany.

Before the Olympics, Owens broke four world records within 45 minutes at a Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Domino’s is based.

“The History Channel is proud to amplify the remarkable story of Jesse Owens with the powerful upcoming documentary and this incredible partnership with Domino’s and GroupM Motion Entertainment,” Peter Olsen, president of ad sales for A+E Networks, said. “Celebrating diverse stories and voices in front of and behind the camera remains a priority across all our platforms and this sponsorship reflects that.”

This project is the second between A+E Networks and GroupM Motion Entertainment as part of the DVA, with Domino’s support. Last year, they teamed up on 761st Tank Battalion: the Original Black Panthers. 

“The commitment to diversity and uplifting underrepresented voices is a priority for GroupM and our clients,” Chet Fenster, chief content officer for GroupM Motion Entertainment, said. “We are proud to continue to work with brands to find solutions that support equity in entertainment.” 

Total television advertising revenue–excluding political spending–is expected to decline 0.6% to $64.1 billion in 2024, according to a new forecast from giant media agency GroupM.

In addition to traditional linear TV, the total includes connected TV, which GroupM says will account for 30.2% of TV revenue, or $19.4 billion this year. 

Revenues from CTV are expected to jump 20.7% in 2024 and 19% in 2005. 

By 2029, CTV will generate 51.1% of all TV revenue, GroupM says. (GroupM includes some YouTube spending in its TV totals.)

By the end of the year, GroupM expects that less than half of all U.S. households to be pay-TV subscribers. Linear TV revenue is expecting to fall 8.9% in 2024 and another 6.9% in 2025.

Political advertising is expected to surpass $15 billion during the 2024 Presidential election cycle. Looking ahead, GroupM sees political advertising climbing above $17 billion if there’s a presidential election in 2028.

Retail media will be the fastest growing segment again in 2024, GroupM said. Retail media will grow 22% to reach $47.9 billion in revenue. At that rate, it will surpass traditional TV ad revenue a year sooner than expected.

The largest retail media owners in the U.S. are Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, eBay, and Target, GroupM estimates.

Overall, GroupM forecasts that U.S. advertising revenue will grow 5.8% in 2024 and 4.9% in 2005.

“While there are potential cracks under the surface, such as the increase in buy-now-pay-later debt, rising delinquency on auto loans and credit cards, and slowing sales at some national retail outlets, the overall resiliency of consumer spending, especially among more affluent consumers, has driven continued economic growth,” according to the report.

Global advertising revenues are expected to grow 7.8% in 2024 to $99.8 billion. GroupM’s previous forecast in December called for an increase of only 5.3%. 

The more optimistic forecast stems from digital growth, recovery in markets including China and accelerating adoption of retail media, CTV and AI, according to Kate Scott Dawkins, who wrote the report for GroupM.

In 2025, GroupM expects global advertising revenues to increase 6.8% to reach $1.1 trillion, a level the agency hadn’t expected to achieve for another year.

Total TV–linear and CTV– is expected to grow 2.7% to $163.2 billion in 2004, after a 0.4% drop in 2023. But over the next five years, traditional TV is expected to decline 0.2% over the next five years on a compound annual basis (excluding the hyper-inflationary markets of Argentina and Turkey).

Digital pure-play advertising will make up 70.6% of total industry revenue in 2024. By 2029, digital will grab 74.9% of ad revenue, or $985.6 billion.

Global CTV ad revenue is expected to grow 20.1% to $38.3 billion in 2024. Another increase of 20.1% is expected for CTV in 2025.

Retail media will account for 15.1% of total ad revenue in 2024. A decade again, it represented just a 1.5% share.

Giant media buyer GroupM said it named Toby Jenner as global president, Group M Clients, a new position at the company.

In addition to his new role, Jenner will continue as CEO of GroupM’s Wavemaker agency.

The move is designed to accelerate GroupM’s growth, with Jenner leading the company’s go-to-market strategy as well as its growth, marketing and communications functions.

"Toby's deep understanding of client needs, industry knowledge, and track record as the industry’s most successful new business leader make him the best possible candidate to lead our growth and marketing efforts going forward,” GroupM global CEO Christian Juhl said. 

“We have the strongest agencies in the business backed by the world’s most advanced media delivery platform and codified way of working underpinned by our unrivalled, scaled intelligence,“ Juhl said. “Putting our story in Toby’s hands will give us a significant edge as we further strengthen our position and look to accelerate our growth in the months ahead.”  

Jenner has spent two decades with GroupM agencies, including MediaCom and Wavemaker, in markets ranging from the United States and the United Kingdom to Australia and Singapore.

"Over the past year and a half, we've demonstrated the success of combining agency talent with GroupM’s globally-scaled technology and activation capabilities," Jenner said. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to showcase our networked capabilities, which we have been developing across GroupM, to drive the next phase of growth for our organization. I look forward to collaborating with Christian, our agency leaders and, just as importantly, the incredible talent we have across the world’s No. 1 media group to help drive our clients’ business impact and deliver them exceptional growth.”

Ad-tech company PubMatic said it is working with Instacart to use Instacart’s first-party retail media data to target consumers via programmatic ads on connected TV.

Media agency GroupM and its client, candy-maker Mars, are among the first to sign up to use the new capability.

“We are excited to partner with PubMatic and Instacart to scale this valuable retail media data across our programmatic campaigns to optimize performance and drive ROI,” said Ron Amram, senior director, global media at Mars. “By tapping into Instacart’s retail media data across all digital channels, we can boost brand recognition and encourage more consumers to buy our products online or in-store.”

“With digital platforms that offer shoppers delightful commerce experiences and advertisers valuable audience exposure, Instacart is a strategic retail partner for our clients,” said Jessica Brown, managing director, digital investment at GroupM. “We are excited to build upon our longstanding partnership with PubMatic as one of the first agencies to seamlessly activate dynamic audience segments across PubMatic’s premium inventory, so our advertisers optimize campaign impact in real time.”

Retailers like Instacart are growing their retail media business and finding more ways to use their first-party data about customer purchases.

“Advertisers today are grappling with signal loss and looking for new ways to effectively target and measure their campaigns,” Tim Castelli, VP of global ad sales at Instacart, said. 

“Brands realize that Instacart’s retail media data is a valuable, performant solution. CPGs can reach consumers directly at the point of purchase with Instacart Ads on our platform with trusted closed-loop measurement, in addition to leveraging our rich, first-party retail media data off-platform to power and enhance all of their other ad buys, like CTV and premium video,” Castelli said.

With a closed-loop data set, PubMatic will be able to measure return on ad spend and sales impact of CTV campaigns. Pubmatic has been expanding its commerce media business. Last year it launched Convert which provides commerce media networks with a streamlined self-service platform.

“PubMatic’s partnership with Instacart is the future of how commerce companies will build out audience extension capabilities. Instacart’s new flexible solution will not require new integrations through PubMatic’s privacy-compliant ecosystem,” PubMatic VP, commerce media Hashim Mian said. “We look forward to growing our relationship with Instacart by enabling them to tap into our premium global inventory to offer a scalable, off-site commerce media solution to their leading consumer packaged goods brand clients.”

Giant media buyer GroupM said it plans to double its media spending on women’s sports.

Sports continue to get big ratings on TV and women’s sports have been gaining viewers. 

GroupM said it will be forming a marketplace dedicated to women’s sports and will be looking for first-look and first-to-market opportunities beginning with the 2024-25 upfront, with clients including adidas, Ally, Coinbase, Discovery, Google, Mars, Nationwide, Unilever and Universal Pictures participating.

“Our industry has seen the incredible impact of investing in women’s sports over the last several years, but even with continued momentum, women’s sports investments only comprise a mere fraction of total media spend in sports,” said Matt Sweeney, chief investment officer at GroupM U.S. “Starting with this year’s Upfront negotiations, our team will procure elevated opportunities that are a win-win for our advertisers. GroupM advertisers have challenged the marketplace to flip the script on how to invest in women’s sports, and they will continue to play a pivotal role moving forward.”

The effort was kicked off by Ally chief marketing and PR officer Andrea Brimmer, who asked GroupM to establish an advertising marketplace for women’s sports.

“Creating a dedicated marketplace for women’s sports beginning at this year’s Upfront marks a significant step forward in driving real impact in the business of women’s sports,” said Brimmer. “At Ally, we dreamed about reimagining the investment approach so we could drive systemic change in the way women’s sports media is bought and sold. And, today, through the leadership of GroupM and their many clients across industries, this dream is becoming a reality.”

Interest in women’s sports started to gain traction about three years ago, Martin Blich, executive director, Sports and Live Investment, GroupM U.S., told Broadcasting+Cable.

Leagues like the WNBA and the National Women’s Soccer League have recently signed new television rights deal and are open to new sponsorship opportunities.

Women’s college basketball drew a huge audience when Caitlin Clark of Iowa broke the college scoring record.

“The Caitlin Clark effect has been very good for women’s sports, but that's not to say that that's where that ends," Blich said. 

Over the next 10 years, he expects more women athletes to set records. “We’re going to see more and more growth within women’s sports because of that.”

Blich said that nearly all categories that currently advertise in men’s sports could sponsor women’s sports as well.

“Women’s sports is a natural place for Unilever’s brands to show up, and we have been increasing our investments in this space for years,” said Aaron Sobol, Head of Media Investment U.S., at Unilever. “We’re thrilled to see audience engagement and marketer investment increasing and for the media buying opportunities to continue to mature. We are very supportive of this effort by GroupM and the sports marketplace to drive simplicity for marketers investing in women’s sports.” 

Advertising in women’s sports paid off for GroupM client adidas. Commercials featuring female athletes were 69% more effective than the brand’s average ad on broadcast and cable in 2023, according to research and analytics company EDO.

Overall, advertising in women’s sports drives positive brand impact and increased ad effectiveness, EDO found.

“Beyond prioritizing investing in women’s sports as a whole, we need to challenge the way advertising and sponsorship packages are bought and sold,” said Blich added.  We hope our commitment will help brands execute a more holistic investment strategy centered around audience, while increasing overall sports advertising.”

Some GroupM clients have been advertising in women’s sports for some time. 

“In the spring of 2021, Nationwide became the exclusive insurance partner of the National Women's Soccer League,” said Sara Sorce, associate VP, media, at Nationwide. 

“Since then, we’ve expanded our relationship with a multiyear extension. We are thrilled to see the support of women’s sports reimagined with the creation of a women’s sports dedicated marketplace,” Sorce said. “As a former female athlete, I believe that investment in women’s sports reaches far beyond the field–creating leaders and fostering diversity. Nationwide is proud to partner on leading the way to scale women’s sports opportunities and overall representation in the media landscape”

Clients of all GroupM media agencies -- Mindshare, Wavemaker and EssenceMediacom -- will be able to participate in this year’s dedicated women’s sports marketplace, GroupM said.

Amazon Ads is working with GroupM Nexus, the media agency’s performance marketing unit, to launch the Amazon Marketing Cloud Maturity Framework.

The framework is designed to help clients work more productively with the Amazon Marketing Cloud.

As part of the process, individual clients’ capabilities will be assessed based on such factors as their technology foundation, their ability to use measurement and insights and their use of Amazon Marketing Cloud audience capabilities.  Their stage of readiness will be determined and they will be provided customized solutions.

“Amazon Ads robust product suite can return the best benefit for brands when there is a clear path forward that can be easily navigated,” Amy Armstrong, director of global customer development at Amazon Ads, said. “Working with GroupM Nexus to unlock the power of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) will give brands an in-depth understanding of where they’re at in their AMC maturity, and that’s the first step in building tailored programs that work.”

The insights and recommendations should help GroupM clients get the access, innovation and scale needed to generate results with Amazon Marketing Cloud. 

“Our maturity framework will establish and cement advertisers’ commerce footprint across all of Amazon Marketing Cloud, surfacing new opportunities that unlock growth,” said JiYoung Kim, president, GroupM Nexus North America. “Brands consistently ask for guidance and expertise to help them navigate emerging commerce opportunities available across today’s fragmented media landscape, and the maturity framework provides a roadmap for success that will drive business impact.” 

With television making the transition from a linear medium to a digital one, GroupM has formed a group designed to give advertisers a stronger voice in how TV advertising evolves.

The GroupM Ad Innovation Accelerator consists of a combination of traditional media companies, streamers and tech companies. 

Initial participants are BrightLine, The Walt Disney Co., Kerv, NBCUniversal, Roku, Telly and YouTube. Other interested parties will be able to join.

The goal is to bring GroupM clients together with media sellers and ad tech companies to enhance 30-second commercials in ways that are scalable, standardized and address advertisers’ concerns.

“We have to craft a future of our industry where engagement, innovation, and outcomes converge,” Andrew Meaden, global head of investment, GroupM, said. “As we shape the next era of media where advertising works better for people, it is critical we continue to innovate new advertising experiences with our partners around the world to ensure brands are meeting audiences where they are. With more ad-supported options emerging, advertisers must respect audiences’ preferences and use cutting-edge technology to deliver more personalized content.”

North America First

The Accelerator will first roll out in North America for clients at GroupM agencies Mindshare, Wavemaker and EssenceMediacom.

GroupM will be talking about the Accelerator next week at CES in Las Vegas. 

The media buyer aims to assemble the group early this year, ideally in person, Mike Fisher, executive director, investment innovation at GroupM U.S., told Broadcasting+Cable.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity with the shift away from linear to streaming,” he said. There are opportunities for interactivity and personalization that could boost performance. “What does the future of living room ad formats look like?”

At the same time, Fisher stressed that GroupM is not saying the 30-second spot does not work in streaming.

“In fact, the 30-second spot works best in any sort of premium video content on the TV screen,” Fisher said. “It’s how do we take that to the next level and start to use technology and innovation to make that work harder.”

Also key is making sure that client voices are heard about the pain points they encounter that keeps them from investing more in innovative TV ads.

Fisher acknowledged that as one of the major agency holding companies, media companies are constantly pitching GroupM on their latest innovations. GroupM clients last year ran more than 100 dynamic or interactive campaigns on TV in 2023.

“We really don’t have a centralized way for the need of clients to make their way back to the networks who are creating this innovative ad formats,” he said. “The buy side wants a seat at the table in the development of these things.”

It’s also important that an innovation that is created by one vendor be able to appear on other networks and platforms in the same way one 30-second spot can appear anywhere.

Aiming for Upfronts

In terms of timing, Fisher said GroupM wants the group to move quickly so that developments can be a part of the upcoming upfront market.

“We’re not saying that we need firm commitments, but we definitely want to be doing this with the upfront in mind,” he said.

Members of the accelerator have already endorsed some goals. They have agreed to:

• Set recurring innovation sessions and quarterly meetings to establish goals and determine outputs for newly created advertising models and methods.
• Launch pilot programs in Q1 2024.
• Co-create advertising formats for agnostic use across the media ecosystem using test-and-learn findings.
• Analyze efficiency and efficacy of media campaigns using newly implemented standards and practices

“Building on a legacy of setting industry benchmarks and driving responsible media investment, our program is rooted in shared discovery, proven success and forward-thinking. We’re encouraged by our partners’ collective commitments to impactful advertising and their leadership in advancing new ad formats, specifically for streaming video,” said Matt Sweeney, Chief Investment Officer, GroupM U.S.

“Uniting partners with varying objectives to streamline ad development will have a multitude of benefits for our advertisers, ultimately allowing for quick iteration and better interoperability across platforms. That’s a win-win for our industry,” Sweeney said.

Participants Speak

GroupM provided a slew of quotes from senior executives at the companies that are participating in the accelerator.

"At Disney, we understand the importance of creating meaningful ad experiences to engage viewers, and we are dedicated to doing so at scale. From our pioneering work in viewer-first and choice-based ad offerings to our collaborations with innovative media, technology and streaming providers, we believe in creating flexible options for advertisers while enhancing the overall consumer experience,” said Jamie Power, senior VP, addressable sales at Disney Advertising and a former GroupM exec.

“Innovation is in our DNA at NBCUniversal, and we have long been committed to reimagining the commercial experience to both deliver the results marketers need and create an engaging experience for viewers,” said Ann Scheiner, executive VP, agency partnerships, at NBCUniversal Advertising & Partnerships. “We look forward to bringing this innovative mindset to the Ad Innovation Accelerator, and working collaboratively across the industry to create ad formats and products that are effective for brands and captivating for audiences.”

"YouTube is America’s most watched streaming service, according to Nielsen, and we’re excited to partner with the Ad Innovation Accelerator to leverage the best of digital to improve the TV experience,” said Matt McDonald, global head of connected TV & streaming at YouTube. “While the industry has made great strides launching solutions familiar to traditional TV advertisers, I’m eager to see us collaborate on innovations that fundamentally improve the viewer experience in the living room and deliver results for customers across the funnel.”

“As TV viewing continues to shift to streaming, Roku strives to create a better TV experience overall for consumers and advertisers alike. We’re energized by GroupM’s commitment and look forward to driving outcomes alongside some of the most innovative media and tech firms in the industry,” said Kristina Shepard, VP, global advertising sales & partnerships at Roku.

"Consumers expect more from brands at every touchpoint, and the living room is no different. This collaboration accelerates the innovation feedback loop with GroupM clients to ensure tomorrow’s TV ad experiences align with both viewer expectations, and advertiser needs,” said Robert Aksman, president and co-founder of Brightline.

"AI is paving the way for a more seamless and scalable CTV experience with enhanced targeting and automated dynamic creative optimizations. The future of the living room is bright,” said Jay Wolff, chief revenue officer at KERV Interactive. ”Our collaboration within the GroupM Ad Innovation Accelerator represents a significant step forward in reshaping the video advertising landscape, utilizing industry-leading AI to empower brands to do more with less across their CTV investment."

Ilya Pozin, CEO and founder of Telly, said: “Television needs to evolve into the platform where brand awareness meets performance transcending the traditional 30-second ad. At Telly, we’ve reinvented the television, delivering incredible new ways to reach and engage consumers on the biggest screen in the home and we're excited to partner with GroupM to continue reimagining the future of advertising together.”

Giant media buyer GroupM expects U.S. TV ad spending to fall 5.1% to $62.3 billion in 2024, excluding political ad spending, following a 5.2% decline in 2023.

Traditional TV spending is seen dropping 10.7 to $45.7 billion, while spending on connected TV advertising climbs 14.8% to $16.6 billion in 2024, getting a 26.6% share of TV ad dollars. 

CTV is gaining while traditional TV remains under pressure from cord-cutting and consumers shifting to streaming.

In its forecast a year ago, GroupM predicted that pay TV households would fall below 50% in the U.S. by 2025. Now GroupM said that will happen before the end of 2024.

Political spending is expected to top $15.9 million in the U.S. during a presidential election year.

Looking ahead to 2028, GroupM says that traditional TV will continue to slide. Total TV — traditional TV plus CTV — will be down 2.7% to $57.6 billion. Traditional TV will drop to $36 billion or 62.5% of total TV advertising, while CTV will climb 9.2% to $21.6 billion for a 37.5% share.

One of the biggest areas of growth in the U.S. is retail media, which GroupM said will overtake traditional and CTV combined. In 2024, GroupM estimates, retail media will grow by 11% to $42.5 billion. 

“Growth in 2024 and subsequent years will decelerate as retailers likely add some net-new nonendemic advertisers to their rosters, and some share shift takes place as smaller players challenge Amazon’s current dominance,” GroupM said.

GroupM puts 2028 retail media revenue at $59.7 billion.

In its overall forecast, GroupM notes that the U.S. has surprised many this year with its resilience and is expected to post a 2.1% increase in real GDP in 2023 (or roughly 5% in nominal terms), according to the International Monetary Fubnd.

GroupM sees U.S advertising growing 5.7% in 2024, excluding the skewing effects of U.S. political advertising.

This is a slight upgrade from GroupM’s June forecast of 5.1% when it reiterated its belief that the U.S. would avoid a recession in 2023.

“Heading into 2024, we expect a deceleration to 4.1% growth and ongoing mid-single-digit growth through 2028, roughly in line with, or a little above, nominal GDP growth,” GroupM said.

The U.S. is unlikely to see a repeat of the 2015-19 trend of growth well above and beyond GDP, primarily due to progress made in the transition to digital advertising formats, GroupM said.

“We expect digital to represent 70.3% of total ad revenue in 2024, reducing the capacity for double-digit growth,” the media buyer said.

Globally, GroupM estimates that ad spending growth will decelerate in 2024 to 5.3% from a gain of 5.8% to $889 billion in 2023.

Adjusting for inflation, the gain represents negative real growth.

GroupM expects global advertising will return to positive levels of real growth in 2025, when our nominal growth rate will hit 5.6% and the IMF’s global inflation expectations will fall to 4.6%.

Growth is expected to remain at mid-single digits through 2028, with faster-growing emerging markets such as India, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland and South Africa offsetting slower growth from larger established markets such as Japan and the U.K.

By 2028, GroupM sees global ad revenue reaching $1.2 trillion.

At that point, digital will garner 75.5% of ad spending, up from 59.4% in 2023.

GroupM said it launched a custom-built system designed to monitor and measure its clients ad campaigns on Amazon Ads platforms.

The Amazon Ads Excellence Monitor was designed and co-engineered by GroupM’s Nexus Commerce unit and Amazon Ads. It uses more than 20 variables to measure and monitor media investments in Amazon ads and produce optimal results.

“At GroupM Nexus, we are committed to innovating in every channel that matters to our clients’ businesses and commerce is at the forefront of that commitment,“ GroupM Nexus CEO Nicolas Bidon said. “The ability to codify best practices for Amazon Ads and then measure consistently to improve media performance and business outcomes with one of the world’s most impactful retailers will create an enormous advantage for our clients.” 

The system is now live globally, GroupM said. Initially, the monitor focuses on ads running on Amazon.com, but is expected to be expanded to other Amazon platforms, including connected TV.

“WPP/GroupM has been a valued customer of Amazon Ads since our inception,“ Amazon Ads director, global customer development Amy Armstrong said. “Our joint customer obsession made us excited to co-develop this new tool with GroupM Nexus. We look forward to seeing the value it will provide for our mutual customers.”

Iris.TV said it made a deal to work with media buyer GroupM, which will use the Iris_ID as the primary method for accessing video-level data enriched by input from contextual and brand suitability partners.

The GroupM Premium Marketplace (GPM) will use the Iris_ID to improve video advertising performance and deliver better outcomes for advertisers and publishers, the companies said.

GPM will leverage various video-level contextual and brand-suitability data partners for programmatic deal targeting via the Magnite Streaming and DV Plus  platforms. 

"Streaming is a digital medium with personalized content and ads for every device as opposed to linear, where audiences see the same programming all at once. Without the right technology, publishers cannot help advertisers know if they are reaching relevant audiences,” said Field Garthwaite, CEO and co-founder of Iris.TV. “GroupM is leading the industry on breakthroughs in utilizing data to drive value for advertisers, which will deliver better consumer experiences and help brands achieve better ROI."

The Iris_ID is a universal content identifier that allows Iris-enabled publishers to securely share video-level data within advertising applications in streaming media.

It allows publishers to securely make video-level data available, actionable, and useful for the entire advertising ecosystem. Partners whose data will be made available to GPM via the Iris_ID will include Kerv, Oracle Advertising, Pixability, Precise TV, Silverbullet’s 4D, Silverpush and Reticle. 

“We are pleased to partner with Iris.TV and leverage their video-level targeting across the GroupM Premium Marketplace,” said Kevin Sheehan, director, programmatic investment at GroupM. “We have an ironclad commitment to brand suitable advertising on every medium, and the Iris_ID provides a level of transparency that enhances the way we invest in CTV environments.”

Media buyer GroupM said that it is making its Nexus Fusion retail media platform available to all clients of its EssenceMediacom, Mindshare and Wavemaker agencies. 

Fusion, which provides intelligence to empower better planning and investment in the fast-growing retail media segment, was initially made available to a select group of GroupM clients.

GroupM estimates that retail media will grow 9.9% to $125.7 billion in spending in 2023 and expects it to be bigger than TV in terms of revenue by 2028.

“Commerce advertising — particularly retail media — is a rapidly evolving and, in many ways, an inherently local vertical,” said Samantha Bukowski, GroupM Nexus global head of commerce. “It is uniquely challenging in commerce to aggregate, analyze and action the wealth of disparate data within a single market, much less across the world — but it is also something we are uniquely positioned to solve. Fusion is our mechanism for scaling our collective intelligence to deliver up-to-date, locally nuanced, data-backed insights to our clients.”

Fusion is built on a data lake comprising hundreds of commerce data sources and APIs. It is enriched with intelligence from thousands of global commerce practitioners. 

“As we bring together the needs of consumer and customer marketing, providing consistent insights that can be shared across all client stakeholders is critical to driving effective commerce media decisions,” said JiYoung Kim, president, GroupM Nexus NA. “While there is an increased focus on individual components of our clients’ media investments, GroupM has a responsibility to steward the entirety of the total media investment.”

Leading off the Advanced Advertising Summit on June 21, part of L.A. TV Week, B+C longtime business editor Jon Lafayette chatted with Mike Fisher, executive director, investment innovation, at media agency GroupM. Their chat followed a presentation by Fisher about pressure points facing the advertising industry as identified by GroupM. Audiences are fragmented: Top shows were generating 10 Nielsen ratings points in 2014, but now they barely break a 1.0. People are watching on numerous devices, not just a TV, and premium content lives across all of those outlets, increasingly being streamed, not broadcast. Specific “walled garden” approaches to measuring viewers across platforms don’t necessarily communicate with each other, and data can be hard to pry away from the platform providers to benefit the advertiser. Topics like that. Highlights of their chat, at the Sofitel Los Angeles in Beverly Hills, are presented here with edits made for clarity and space.  

Jon Lafayette: You talked about the way that you may have to change the way you approach planning. Does that entail starting with traditional media and filling it with streaming? Or are you starting with streaming in order to, in order to build a plan?

Mike Fisher: Yeah, I think traditionally we are starting with traditional and filling it in with streaming. I don't think this is the desired state long-term. I actually believe that we should be starting with audience, starting with streaming and audience optimizing. Linear does still drive a good amount of tonnage. And being able to include audience-based linear in a plan is important as well. We don't want to break out a streaming budget, a linear budget, an addressable budget, a data-driven budget. It starts with an audience. And if we can find that audience in traditional reach and frequency, linear, that's great. Increasingly, as I talked about, we can't, so we need to add these things in. But they shouldn't be thought of as add-ons later on. We should be looking at all supply equal and what’s the best way to take that audience and find them everywhere they're watching?

JL: You also talked about the walled gardens getting higher. Are the YouTubes and the Netflixes and the Amazons becoming more transparent as they sell more advertising and measurement, as companies like iSpot, Comscore, even Nielsen get better at measuring streaming?

MF: They are starting to open up a little bit more on the data front. I don’t think we have any illusions that we’re all of a sudden going to start getting real-time data feeds from Google that give us all sorts of information about their users. That's not something that they've built their entire business on. Privacy is paramount to these people. But we have seen more open understanding of why we need some sort of interoperability, whether or not it's some sort of common identifier or common industry-led standard, to at least give us the ability to do cross-publisher frequency capping, cross-publisher audience rolling up, stuff like that.

JL: You are head of a new investment innovation group. Tell me about investment innovation and what it takes to convince a client to try something new.

MF: Sure. That’s a loaded question. So the idea of investment innovation is to figure out, you know, how do we spend our clients’ money better using technology? And it’s not just how do we do it with clients. I would say 60% of my job is internal. How do I get our team to think about how convergence works? How do I get legacy TV buyers to better understand the value of impression-based buying and audience-based buying? How do I get digital buyers who are thinking in tonnage and thinking in, ‘just deliver an impression, at a moment’ to understand the value of premium content and the importance of content and context matching up with an ad message. So it’s all sorts of internal blocking and tackling as well as our clients understanding how do they use the technology ecosystem better to accomplish their goals. And then I also work very closely with the networks themselves who we buy media from to make sure that what they’re working on and developing are the same things that our clients are asking for from us.

JL: So you must see all the new stuff first. What have you seen lately that really looks like it might have some value to the agency and tier clients?

MF: I mean, the easy answer to say is AI. But I don’t believe that. I don’t think we are at a point right now where AI can help us do our jobs any better than the tools that we already have. I think some of the cooler stuff is around measurement and longer-term understanding of the value that a specific airing or delivery of an impression-based ad has on, not just driving viewership and audience, but driving long-term brand outcome. And the tools that allow us to take that and do more of that. The idea is that we have savings goals with all of our clients. What we tell our clients, and one of the things that my team has been telling our clients for the last two years, is we need to pay more for impressions, but we should buy way fewer impressions. We need to make the impressions that we're buying, they’re going to cost more, more goes into it. They're going to look more expensive as an actual impression. But they’re going to generate far better results and we’re going to buy far fewer of them. And our clients are going to save money by reducing waste. And then we’re going to take that understanding and feed that back into the planning cycle so we can do more of what’s working.

JL: So which is more important, the saving money part or the becoming more effective part? Which, which one sells better?

MF: I’m not going to answer that question. [Audience laughs.]

JL: So have you ever found a thing, it sounded like a really good idea and it just blew up, didn't work, was vaporware. How much of that goes on in the advanced advertising realm?

MF: I’ve said this before, a lot of times we as TV people score ourselves a little bit too harshly. I was at a conference a couple of months ago where I was on stage with a panelist. He was talking about how, you know, the level of innovation that's happening in the TV space is not the same as the level of innovation that’s happening in other spaces. I think it’s bullshit. I think we”ve done a really great job and should celebrate the wins of pulling a industry that was stuck in their ways in television for the same 40 to 50 years forward rapidly. And I'm not saying it’s perfect. There are technology limitations that make it more difficult for us to conduct business the way we would ideally want to be conducting business. But we’ve done a damn good job of getting clients and getting our network partners and the ad tech ecosystem and everybody, even as an agency, all of us coming together to say we can be doing our jobs better and we can be delivering more accountable, targetable, measurable impressions today while the backend plumbing gets built for tomorrow.

JL: In terms of innovation, there's been a lot of talk about currency. I guess the networks all got together before the Joint Industry Committee and then had to convince media buyers to get involved in the process. How do you see, how do you see that process working? Is that going to, is that going to move the ball in terms of, uh, creating currencies, uh, that are based on data you guys have already been using to shape your media buys?

MF: Currency is one of those things that we think a lot about, right? Currency is how we are paying for, and how a seller is selling us, an ad. The JIC, the Joint Industry Committee, which I’m very pro-JIC, is not designed to create currencies. It is designed to create measurement standards that are currency-grade. Media technology providers Nielsen, Comscore, VideoAmp, iSpot and others: They’re creating measurement tools that are validated as being currency-grade. Currency is decided between the buyer and the seller. It is up to me and Paramount and NBC and Warner [Bros.] Discovery to determine how are we transacting using the measurement vendors that are in place. So when Nielsen stands up and says C3 is the currency of record this year, it’s not unless we and the media seller decide to transact on that. So it’s not up to the media, the measurement companies to create currencies. It’s up to them to create strong measurement tools that we believe can be currency-grade.

JL: And does changing your currency change what you buy?

MF: I don’t think so. Because at the end of the day, it’s all counting. We just wanna make sure that we’re counting the right way. 

JL: Where are you guys now in terms of Nielsen versus other currencies in terms of what you're buying and how you're buying it?

MF: We were very disappointed that Nielsen was not ready this year to move away from panel-only data. Nielsen has been talking a lot around their Nielsen One suite to enable big data plus the Nielsen panel. They were not ready for this year’s upfront to be transacted on it. So most of this year’s upfront will continue to transact on the legacy Nielsen panel-only data sets. But we are running side-by-side shadow currency tests using [other] measuring companies, like I mentioned, to get a better understanding of where the discrepancies between panel only and panel plus big data lie.

JL: How much disruption is that? And how will that change when there's a choice on a menu of like five or six different currencies that you could approach different deals with different clients on? 

MF: At the end of the day, you know, I think we as an industry still need to figure out how these different currency-grade products fit together. Our clients don’t want to look at four or five different reports for four or five different media sellers. They want one number that’s validated as being able to say, ‘This is how much money I spent, this is how many of my intended audience saw that unit.’ So I think we're still trying to figure out how we bring together different measurement standards to create that. That’s really one of the benefits of the JIC, which is to create the common standards that everybody’s using, both on the buy and sell side, but also validate that the measurement standards are consistent enough that you could bring these data sets together.

JL: The networks did all of their wonderful upfront presentations in May mostly. Since then it's been sort of quiet. What's the economy look like? What does the media economy look like? What are, what are people talking about as the upfronts slowly, quietly move along?

MF: I wouldn't say quiet, I would say deliberate. We believe that it is a buyer’s market this year. Viewership has changed. You know, we are looking at a little bit of uncertainty with the current WGA strike as well as the potential of the SAG strike. We don't believe it'll have an immediate impact, but we do think it could have an impact longer term on some networks, especially ones that are heavy into scripted content. So we are being a little bit more deliberate than usual as we approach the marketplace. But we're having good conversations and we have seen a lot of excitement from our clients around the role of the upfronts.

JL: So does that create a bigger opportunity for the digital people who are selling already created content to be able to grab bigger shares of media budgets?

MF: I think yes, but it also creates a big opportunity for the traditional networks who have a vast amount of library content in streaming services that they own outright. Being able to say, you know, even shows that were huge 10 or 15 years ago — Lost, Mad Men. Those types of shows are new to an entire generation of people. That's new content. There’s a lot of people out there who never saw Lost, and that’s the type of stuff that the networks that have that library content and understand how to drive people to that during a time when it may be harder to have first-run new content being produced due to the economy, economic conditions or the strike, they will win out for that.

JL: So premium content doesn't necessarily have to be new content.

MF: Correct. It’s what's new to you, what's premium to you when you want to watch it.

JL: And that includes, and I think you talked about this a little bit in your presentation, all the stuff that’s on the YouTubes and the TikToks and stuff like that. That's where you're going when it comes time for people do their TV buying now.

MF: No, not to me and not to most of us in the room, but to the next generation, yes.

JL: And how does that affect the way all the dollars are allocated? Is it on a generational basis? 

MF: It’s all about a deeper understanding of the audience. That's where we get into the idea of multi-varied audience planning. Not just saying, ‘Hey, you're looking for somebody who eats breakfast to buy Pop-Tarts,’ but someone who eats breakfast at 6 a.m., you know, before they go to school. That's probably a TikTok audience. Stuff like that.

JL: And how do you make sure that when you're buying that kind of content that you're not getting into objectionable areas, that it's not either poorly produced, misinformation, those sorts of things? That you're not adjacent to that kind of content? That is hard to police.

MF: GroupM has a fairly robust responsible investment framework that includes user-generated content, objectionable content, news, anything that would be questionable for brand adjacency. So we do a pretty good job of screening for that and baking that into our deals. You know, obviously, it becomes harder to police [objectionable material] in user-generated content. That's why tools like YouTube Select and some of the more brand-safe aggregators, sold directly by the end seller, there's more accountability there.

JL: And does that actually work? I mean, how many times do you get complaints about, uh, about how did our ad run there? Is it, what's the visibility to where ads actually run as the supply chains get more and more convoluted?

MF: I wouldn’t say that there’s a massive amount of complaints we get. Obviously, when you're dealing with an audience-targeted world, stuff does slip through the same way it does slip through in digital. A great example is if you are in the market for travel and you may see maybe inside of an audience and see an Airbnb ad. Um, it's not because Airbnb is sponsoring this particular objectionable piece of content. It's how digital advertising works. You’re in the audience that got bought. It slipped through. It’s few and far between. We very rarely have clients call us or the vendors that we work with very rarely catch these issues.

Giant media buyer GroupM forecasts TV ad revenue will drop 2.4% to $67.7 billion in 2023 amid a questionable economy and industry issues including the strike by the Writers Guild of America.

GroupM’s figure incorporates traditional linear television as well as what the agency dubs connected TV, which includes all digital ad supported revenue from networks, smart TV providers and pure-play apps, excluding YouTube.

In December, GroupM said it expected a 0.1% increase in TV ad spending

Traditional TV is seen dropping 4.7% to $62.8 billion. The drop is partially offset by 7.2% growth of connected TV in 2003. The agency expects connected TV growth to return to double digits in 2024, when an 11.6% gain is forecast. 

By 2028, connected TV revenues are expected to hit $21.5 billion, GroupM said.

GroupM noted that first-quarter revenues were down for all of the major broadcast networks excluding the Olympics and Super Bowl, but that the auto category is expected to fuel a recovery in the second half of the year. 

It might take a while for the writers strike to have an impact on streamers like Disney Plus, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video because many films are already in the can and international content won’t be impacted, while new episodes of late night shows and fall primetime scripted shows won’t be available to the broadcast networks. 

The disruption could ratchet up if the actors go on strike as well.

“We believe the largest media owners, especially those with sports rights, are likely best placed to be able to manage through an extended strike,” GroupM said. 

Also Read: GroupM Unit Finds Addressable Ads Generate More Impact and Emotion

Sports accounted for 21% of all viewing in 2022, up from 15% in 2018, and Amazon, YouTube and Apple TV already have some sports rights and are likely to compete when future rights become available. 

“If we take the recent example of pandemic-related production shutdowns, audiences proved remarkably resilient in time spent with media across gaming, library content and user generated content (remember sourdough starter tutorials?). But if more time spent (and media investment) shift to UGC as a result of writer and actor strikes, it may be a challenge to reverse it,” GroupM said.

The TV numbers were part of GroupM’s global This Year Next Year global mid-year forecast.

GroupM noted that overall, U.S. advertising has had a “lousy” six months since the agency’s December forecast. GroupM predicts ad revenue growth (excluding political spending) in 2023 to be 5.1%. Political spending is expected to total $2.8 billion.

Digital ad revenue in the U.S. is expected to grow 9.7% in 2023 excluding political. GroupM says one of the main drivers of digital growth is retail media, which is forecast to jump 13% to $37.9 billion in 2023.

GroupM’s global forecast is little changed from December with a 5.9% growth rate for 2023 and spending hitting $874.5 billion.

Global traditional TV revenue is forecast for a decline of 1.2%, excluding U.S. political advertising. By comparison, CTV revenue in 2023 is estimated at $25.9 billion, an increase of 13.2% over 2022 revenue of $22.9 billion. The global compounded annual growth rate for CTV through 2028 currently stands at 10.4% with expected revenue of $42.5 billion in 2028.

Retail media is expected to be the third-fastest growing advertising channel in 2023, behind digital out-of-home and CTV. Retail media, which GroupM defines as including ad revenue from last mile delivery services, will grow 9.9% to reach $125.7 billion in 2023, and is forecast to exceed TV revenue (including CTV) in 2028.

GroupM also says that AI is likely to inform, or touch in some way, at least half of all advertising revenue by the end of 2023. AI has long been used extensively across media optimization and, with new tools being developed by platforms and agencies, as well as the rapid development and deployment of generative AI technology, it will disrupt more elements of advertising and media.

Research done by GroupM’s Finecast addressable advertising product and System1 Group found that addressable ads on TV created more positive reactions and generated greater short-term and long-term business impact than traditional commercials.

The addressable ads that feature music, people touching or a sense of place of humor produce more intense emotional reactions and long-lasting effects.

“Our research outlines that addressable TV advertising has a direct impact on how consumers ‘feel’ and outlines important factors for maximizing attention for greater business effects,” Kristian Claxton, managing partner, global innovation at Finecast, said. “This enables us to provide smarter and more robust solutions to our clients by helping them optimize the creative message of their ads while improving efficiency.”

The study was done by applying System 1’s Test Your Ad platform — which measures second-by-second emotional reactions to creative — to ads from 46 of GroupM’s clients across the U.S., U.K, Canada and Australia. The platform uses “Star” ratings to measure positive emotional response and long-term impact; a “Spike” rating to gauge how intensely viewers reacted to an ad and connected it to the brand; and a “Fluency” rating to show how viewers recognized the advertised brand.

Ads shown to addressable-TV audiences average 3.0 Stars, putting them in the top 33% of all ads. Traditional TV ads average 2.4 Stars.

Addressable audiences showed greater emotional responses, expressing 7% more happiness and 6% fewer neutral reactions.

Viewers seeing the addressable ads recognized brands more quickly and responded more strongly, with a Spike rating 6% higher than broad audiences.

“Brands that invest in ads for broad-beam attention are more likely to achieve longer-lasting business results among addressable TV audiences,” System1chief customer officer Jon Evans said. “Overall, the greater short- and long-term impact of addressable TV ads makes it a trusted and powerful medium for upper, middle and lower funnel marketing.”

The study was based on reactions from 13,000 TV viewers in four countries and conducted during March.

Media buying agency GroupM said it is pledging to allocate 5% of its spending on media outlets owned by or focused on Black, Hispanic, Asian American and Pacific Islanders and LGBTQ+ Americans.

The pledge expands GroupM’s Media Inclusion Initiative. 

“As the largest media investment company in the world, we have a responsibility to accelerate growth through the next era of media,” said Kirk McDonald, CEO, GroupM North America. “That means making our industry more inclusive and  equitable for all publishers. As well as, sharing brands’ products and services with audiences that are representative of the changing face of America in service of growing their businesses.”  

GroupM also said it hired Cynthia Morgan Jenkins as head of supplier diversity to develop and nurture relationships with diverse-owned media and content partners. She reports to Gonzalo del Fa, president, GroupM Multicultural. 

“The Media Inclusion Initiative helps us, and our clients achieve greater equity while supporting the voices, content and editorial written for and by these communities and creating a more diverse media marketplace in the process,”  said del Fa. “Not only have we doubled the number of clients participating in the Media Inclusion Initiative, but we’re also seeing those brands increase their commitments." 

Also Read: Hispanic TV Summit: Latinos Feel ‘Invisible’ and That's a Problem for Marketers

GroupM says that since it launched its Media Inclusion Initiative 18 months ago, its clients have made a triple-digit percentage increase in client spending in Black-owned media. The growth outpaced the industry according to data from Standard Media Index.

“GroupM has shown a commitment to supporting Black-owned media and we’ve seen leading brands within GroupM step up and partner with REVOLT to do impactful work over the past two years,” said Detavio Samuels, CEO of Revolt. “We believe GroupM’s latest initiative will encourage more brands to place bigger bets on Black-owned media companies and this new initiative is a step toward shifting the paradigm moving forward.”

in July 2020, GroupM launched the GroupM Multicultural Marketplace, which features 300 Black-and Hispanic-owned and/or focused publishers  that create, curate, and distribute content specifically for minority audiences.   

“We’ve seen increasing client support for our Media Inclusion Initiative since we first launched in May 2021,” said Matt Sweeney, chief investment officer GroupM US. “By providing an intentional way for brands to support diverse-owned  media we can ensure our clients are providing a platform for diverse voices, ensuring inclusive representation and reaching broader audiences.”  ■

Blacked-owned media company Sunwise Media will produce a documentary series for OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network called Rebuilding Black Wall Street: Greenwood, a project that is being backed by GroupM advertising clients including Domino’’s.

Rebuilding Black Wall Street: Greenwood is the first project resulting from a new strategic partnership between GroupM Motion Entertainment and Warner Bros. Discovery. 

The partnership supports GroupM’s Diverse Voices Accelerator, an initiative that supports creators, writers, producer, directors and studio from traditionally underrepresented groups in entertainment.

Also Read: Hearst, Sunwise Media Make Plans To Reimagine Saturday Morning TV

Rebuilding Black Wall Street: Greenwood is a six-part series that will premiere on OWN in the fall. It is created by executive producer Ri-Karlo Handy and his company Sunwise Media Inc.  Sunwise creates family-friendly original content for African-American viewers and promotes diversity and cultural relevance as an effective marketing tool.

The series will chronicle the reconstruction of the Greenwood District of Tulsa, which was destroyed in the 1921 massacre. Over the course of six episodes, viewers will be guided through Greenwood's rich history and the personal journeys of the cast, many of whom are the descendants of Black Wall Street residents.

"We have a responsibility to create a more inclusive and equitable industry," said Kirk McDonald, CEO, GroupM North America. "This benefits everyone. It empowers content creators who face barriers, provides brands with access to diverse and engaged audiences, and offers viewers authentic programming that captures the richness of the human experience."

In addition to content development, the Diverse Voices Accelerator provides opportunities for support from brands. Projects created under the DVA will be supported by GroupM agencies including Mindshare, Wavemaker and EssenceMediacom, with participating clients like Domino’s (a Mindshare client) and other brand partners, who are committed to diversity and inclusion. 

“At Domino’s, it’s important that both our media and advertising reflect the diversity of our customers, our team members and the communities we serve,” said Kate Trumbull, Domino’s senior VP, Brand and Product Innovation. “Through our partnership with GroupM’s DVA program, we are proud to support the creation of original programming developed by a variety of diverse voices in media and entertainment.” ■

GroupM said Robert Wheeler was hired as chief marketing officer, North America.

Wheeler had been group VP and corporate communications lead for WarnerMedia. He will report to GroupM North America CEO Kirk McDonald.

"Robert is a change agent with a remarkable track record of elevating new and venerable brands to unsurpassed heights. His exceptional marketing skills have earned him a reputation for building trust  with various audiences," said McDonald. "With strong momentum and exciting projects in the pipeline, we are excited to have Robert join our team as GroupM shapes the next era of media for our clients." 

Before WarnerMedia, Wheeler was head of global communications for Xandr, where he worked with McDonald. Earlier in his career, he held posts with AT&T, TiVO and NBCU. He started his career as an NBC page.

"GroupM is a beacon of purpose-driven excellence in the media industry, creating impactful experiences that resonate with both brands and consumers," said Wheeler. "I am honored to be a part of such  a respected and trusted brand—it is a privilege to help champion how GroupM will make advertising work better for people."  ■

GroupM said that it is rebranding its Motion Content production and distribution unit as GroupM Motion Entertainment in North America, and said it will be working more closely with the content teams at the GroupM media-buying agencies.

The rebranded company will work with media partners and entertainment creatives on original programming, program funding and branded entertainment.

It will also connect GroupM clients to talent and creative partners that shape culture.

GroupM Motion Entertainment will be co-led by Richard Foster, Global CEO GroupM Motion Entertainment and Kirk McDonald, CEO of GroupM North America.

“GroupM Motion Entertainment is yet another way we are strengthening and elevating meaningful content connections between consumers and our client partners,” said McDonald. “With increasing competition for consumer attention, purposeful and creative storytelling is now a required ingredient for brands. This offering provides an effective partnership for media and creative to engage intentionally, and at scale.”

Motion Content has coproduced more than 1,800 television series, working with top producers, talent, networks and platforms. Its current series include The Circle on Netflix and Love Island on Peacock.

“GroupM has a long, successful track record of investing in partnerships with networks and world-leading producers to deliver premium entertainment,” Foster said. “However, the media landscape continues to evolve rapidly, with the ascent of SVOD, AVOD, FAST channels, social video platforms and the subsequent change in consumer behavior.

“These factors bring new challenges and opportunities for funding, development, and monetization of premium entertainment,“ he said. ”GroupM Motion Entertainment will work alongside other GroupM agencies, and in partnership with advertisers, producers, networks, and platforms, to develop mutually beneficial content and creative partnerships, to deliver premium entertainment for our partners and clients.” ■

Giant media buyer GroupM forecasts that traditional pay TV will reach less than 50% of U.S. homes by 2025.

Cord-cutting has been growing since 2012, when pay TV penetration was over 90%. Advertisers have been slower than consumers to shift away from traditional media because advertisers prefer to place their brand message next to higher-quality, professionally produced content.

But ad dollars will follow consumer eyeballs. “Currently we expect connected TV to grow double-digits over the next four years and make up nearly a third of all TV advertising revenue by 2027,” Group M said in its year-end global advertising forecast.

Also Read: U.S. Pay TV Penetration Retreats to Pre-Satellite Level 61%

“You’re seeing that brands and advertisers need to expand their definition of professionally produced video in order to meet their reach goals,” GroupM global director, business intelligence Kate Scott-Dawkins said.

Historically, GroupM noted, large brands with big TV budgets account for most TV advertising. But in its report, the media buyer wonders what happens if it becomes impossible to reach a majority of the population with television-based campaigns?

GroupM notes that those conditional already exist in China, where linear TV reach is down to 46%.

“The solution for many marketers in the near term is mixed reach — activating and measuring campaigns across not only linear and connected TV but also online video and OOH video inventory,” the report said.

A similar situation could develop in other countries, GroupM notes.

“In the U.S., in the closing months of 2022, streaming providers have claimed virtually all the most-watched TV programs other than live sports, which is still dominated by linear networks and cable channels,” GroupM said. “But as Apple, Amazon and other nontraditional players enter the market for sports rights, even this last bastion of linear viewership won't be guaranteed. Sports alone certainly haven’t been enough to stem the losses of video customers from cable and satellite providers.”

Increasing streaming services are adding viewing share by jacking up how much they spend on content.

“While we note that Amazon, Comcast, Disney, Netflix, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery each spent upwards of $12 billion in 2021 on content, the current economic environment has resulted in some additional focus on profitability in the near term, which could constrain content spending growth on streaming services,” GroupM said. “Hence it is unclear how the pace of streaming content investment will continue, but we do believe it will continue to grow over time.”  ■

Media buyer GroupM expects ad spending on television and professional video will edge up 0.1% to $67.7 billion as part of a less optimistic forecast released Monday.

GroupM  sees traditional TV down 3.8% to $64.4 billion in 2023, with the decline offset by a 19% increase in spending on connected TV to $13.3 billion.

The media buyer sees a similar pattern in 2024 and 2025, followed by overall TV and provide falling 0.5% in 2026 and dropping 1.3% to $67.4 billion in 2027. At that point, traditional TV will be falling 2.8% to $47.4 billion, while CTV will be increasing 1.8% to $20 billion.

Also Read: GroupM Sees Pay TV Reaching Less than 50% of U.S. Homes By 2025

Globally, GroupM execs TV and professional video advertising to grow 1.5% to $157.8 billion in 2023. And 2.7% to $162.1 billion in 2024.

Across all media, GroupM expects global advertising to grow 5.9% in 2023, a bit slower than inflation and down from a forecast of 6.4% growth GroupM made in June. Strong gains are predicted for connected TV, retail media and fast-growing markets including India.

Also Read: Magna Sees National TV Network Ad Revenue Down 6.3% in 2023

In the U.S., GroupM expects ad spending across all media to increase 5.5% to $321.9 billion.  Barring an escalation of the war in Ukraine or another COVID-19-sized global disaster, Beyond that, GroupM expects advertising to increase 6.2% in 2024 before returning to a trend of decelerating mid-single-digit growth through 2027.

GroupM says the reduced global expectations are largely caused by developments in China. 

The media buyer also notes a change in what it calls digital endemic companies. 

Digital endemics could afford a “grow at all costs”  mindset while the cost of capital was cheap, GroupM said. “But as central banks globally have raised interest rates this year, venture capital funded companies and newly public companies have had to become more conservative, and we have seen a significant deceleration in sales and marketing expenses across this category. There is also an element of maturation among this group that has likely led to deceleration in advertising growth.”

GroupM notes that retail media is expected to reach $110.7 billion this year, an upgrade from a prediction of $101 billion made in September. Retail media will grow another 10.1% to $121.9 billion in 2023. 

 Media buyer Zenith also released a global ad forecast and predicted 4.5% growth in 2023.

Zenith expects the ad business to be resilient despite the current economic headwinds, with the expansion of new channels such as retail media and advertising on subscription video on demand (SVOD) services being strong spots.

Zenith estimates total video ad spending will make up 30% of the overall advertising market and will grow at a 4.8% compounded average growth rate between 2022 and 2025, supported by the growth of advertising on platforms such as SVOD, FAST and all other AVOD, which includes platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. 

Advertising on SVOD services will grow strongly, reaching $13.1 billion in 2025 at a compounded average growth rate of 27.9% from 2022 to 2025. While the launch of advertising on Disney Plus  and Netflix has gained the most attention, other platforms are likely to follow suit.

Retail Media, which consists of display and search advertising on e-commerce sites and/or the online sites of traditional retailers, will also drive significant growth as retailers increasingly focus on retail advertising solutions. Outside of China, where Retail Media is already prevalent, Retail Media is expected to grow from $39.2 billion in 2022 to $64.2 billion in 2025, representing a compounded annual growth rate of 17.8% over the period. ■

OpenAP said advertisers can now buy commercials programmatically on linear TV and digital video using OpenID audiences.

GroupM is the first agency to take advantage of OpenID’s programmatic capabilities.

The OpenID audiences have been integrated into three supply-side platforms —FreeWheel, Magnite and Xandr Monetize — giving buyers access to premium inventory from multiple programmers. 

Also: Pedigree, MediaCom, OpenAP Win Advanced Advertising Innovation Award For Best Target Market Definition

“The growth of cross-screen viewing will only continue to accelerate, and agency buying teams need to be able to view the performance of a campaign in totality – regardless of how they bought or where the video was consumed,” OpenAP chief business officer Chris LoRusso said. “Our sell-side partners have invested heavily in automating buying channels, and by extending the reach of OpenID to programmatic, we’re breaking down the silos that exist between linear and digital and buying teams and are making it easy and simple for an advertiser to maximize their spend across the entire premium video footprint.”

OpenAP was founded in 2017 by Fox, Turner and Viacom to create a standardized way for media buyers to define target audiences one time and use that definition to buy ads from multiple programmers. OpenAP shifted from being a consortium to an advanced advertising company and is now owned by Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery.

“It is imperative that we, as an industry, use the technology at our disposal today to simplify and optimize all aspects of video advertising for the betterment of advertisers and the overall consumer-ad experience,” said Esra Bacher, managing partner of programmatic investment at GroupM. “The interoperability of the OpenID spine with SSPs like Magnite will add further fuel to GroupM’s Premium Marketplace and help us start to resolve some of the fragmentation that has existed across the media ecosystem.”

OpenAP last year established OpenID, an identity framework accepted by the majority of media buyers and sellers, and XPm, which gives advertisers cross-platform campaign metrics from a menu of measurement companies.

“We’re committed to solving for fragmentation across the premium video ecosystem and partnering with those who can help further interoperability across television,” FreeWheel VP, supply strategic relationships Misha Williams said. “By continuing to work with Open AP and enabling programmatic delivery of OpenID through FreeWheel, we’re making it easier for advertisers to unify their audience delivery across all premium video. For advertisers and publishers that choose to transact via OpenID, this simplifies the ability to target and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.”

“OpenID represents a major breakthrough for industry-wide efforts to unify linear-digital audience activation and measurement,“ Matt McLeggon, senior VP, advanced solutions at Magnite said. “As viewers shift to CTV and OTT, buyers have increasingly turned their attention to programmatic as a way to reach digital audiences with greater efficiency. Magnite’s ubiquitous reach in CTV will amplify advertisers’ ability to combine the operational efficiency of programmatic with the power of cross-platform reach and measurement.”

Xandr head of enterprise sales and partnerships Tom Koch added: “As the industry continues to grow investment in CTV, it has become paramount that buyers can identify and reach viewers wherever they are engaging with content while approaching video with a truly screen-agnostic lens. We’re excited to expand our partnership with OpenAP to enable the OpenID for programmatic, unlocking new opportunities for buyers to extend the reach of their linear audiences in digital channels with our premium CTV partners who trust Xandr’s Monetize SSP to help maximize their yield.” ■

In a more complicated media world, GroupM, the giant media buyer, sees big changes in the way people shop, with e-commerce growing at a fast clip.

At the same time, retail media — advertising and marketing sold by retail outlets — is also becoming a more important part of the landscape, reaching $101 billion globally, up 15% from a year ago.

Also: Kroger Making Data Available For Programmatic CTV Ads

“E-commerce, after a surge of investment and adoption during the pandemic, is finding its place in a world where in-person activities are resuming,” GroupM noted in a new report, This Year Next Year: 2022 e-Commerce & Retail Media Forecast. 

E-commerce accelerated during the pandemic. GroupM expects global e-commerce sales to total $5.4 trillion this year, accounting for 19% of global retail sales. The media agency expects e-commerce to account for 25% of retail sales by 2027.

U.S. e-commerce is expected to grow by 25% in 2022. Revenue from e-commerce will account for about 16.6% of retail sales this year and reach 26.6% in five years, GroupM said.  

The top 20 global e-commerce companies accounted for 67% of global e-commerce sales in 2021. The biggest e-commerce companies ranked by revenue were Alibaba, Amazon, JD.com, Pinduoduo, eBay, Walmart, Shopee, Rakuten, Mercado Libre and Vipshop.

Retail media, considered a test-and-learn environment not so long ago, has more recently become a growing line item on many marketer budgets,” GroupM said. “There remain significant disparities in capability depth, data quality and partnerships across global markets and within retail channels, but the promise of retailer first-party data, albeit residing in yet another walled garden, is tantalizing — enabling purchase-based targeting and closed-loop measurement.”

GroupM sees retail media surpassing $160 million in annual revenue within five years. In 2021 retail media represented 18% of global digital advertising revenue and 11% of total global ad revenue.

In the U.S., GroupM expects retail media to reach $33 billion in 2022, outpacing other forms of media advertising.

“Over the next one to three years, retail media will likely see greater competition, more frequent decoupling of data from inventory and greater participation by non-endemic brands,” GroupM said. ■

Media buying giant GroupM introduced a new approach to measure carbon emissions in its own operations and along its media supply chain as part of its goal to be carbon net zero and to decarbonize its media supply chain by 2030.

Surprisingly, even digital ads can have an effect on the environment. GroupM estimates that media contributed 55% of its carbon footprint, which is equivalent to cars driving 7.3 billion miles. The majority of that footprint is the company’s chain of outside suppliers.

“Our clients want to prioritize media investment with publishers and platforms that are actively decarbonizing their media supply,” said Christian Juhl, GroupM’s Global CEO. “While we applaud the many steps taken to quantify ad-based carbon emissions in recent years, having different standards across companies, platforms and markets is delaying meaningful action. By sharing this global framework, we hope to begin aligning our industry behind a consistent set of standards that will create clear goals and incentives for rapidly decarbonizing the media supply chain.”

To develop its decarbonization framework, GroupM worked with independent specialists in carbon measurement and incorporated input from clients, industry partners, third parties and experts across GroupM and parent company WPP.

In addition to providing standards for measuring carbon emissions, the framework also outlines steps advertisers can take immediately to accelerate their decarbonization efforts. These include buying fewer but higher-quality ads, cutting the complexity of the supply chain by reducing intermediaries, and buying low-carbon media products.

GroupM will be moving from measuring the carbon emissions of categories of ads to being able to determine the carbon footprint of individual vendors.

GroupM wants to share its framework and quickie move toward an industry-wide approach.

“If we all continue to work on this problem independently, we're going to have a very limited impact on carbon emission reductions,” Oliver Joice, global chief transformation officer at GroupM agency Mindshare, said. “This framework and the research behind it is our attempt to consolidate the industry around a unified vision of decarbonization, starting with defining consistent parameters around boundaries, then agreeing on what data is required and coming together on a calculation methodology. It took us 10 to 15 years to get meaningful progress on privacy, and five to eight years to get meaningful progress on harmful content. We simply do not have that much time to align around what carbon measurement and carbon reduction look like.” ■

Media buyer GroupM and measurement company iSpot.TV have completed a study that found that 8% to 10% of connected TV ad impressions are being counted as delivered when the TV is turned off.

With cord-cutting and viewers shifting to streaming, marketers are moving ad dollars to connected TV. GroupM estimates that connected TV ad revenue will rise 26.7% to $12 billion this year.

The overcount results in about $1 billion in CTV ad waste, Stephens analyst Nicholas Zanger estimated.

The results of the study led GroupM to aim to create new standards for streaming viewability and CTV measurement, and iSpot has developed a product called iSpotCTV Verification, which measures continuous play at the campaign level. GroupM will have exclusive access to the product when it completes testing and development.

GroupM said that The Walt Disney Co., Fox (and its Tubi unit), NBCUniversal, Paramount, Vizio and Warner Bros. Discovery have committed to working with agencies and advertisers on the new standard, which would be designed to ensure ads are counted only when delivered to screens that are turned on and have people in front of them.

“The explosion of streaming is rich with opportunity to deliver smarter ad experiences across a wide variety of possible channels,“ GroupM North America CEO Kirk McDonald said. “With any technological advancements, it's our job to close the gaps so all avenues of ad delivery are verified. As responsible investment stewards of our clients’ media spend, this verification illuminates both the issue and the opportunity for our industry. Regardless of the medium, if an ad is running, we want and should be able to attribute, measure and report that an ad was served and seen.” 

Details from the iSpot-GroupM study found that while, on average, 8% to 10% of overall streaming impressions were delivered when the TV was shut off, 17% of impressions delivered through CTV devices such as dongles, gaming consoles, and sticks were delivered when the TV was shut off. Gaming consoles had the lowest rates of continuous play.

Native smart-TV apps, which account for about 50% of all CTV viewing, had virtually no incidence of overcounts across streaming ad delivery. 

Depending on the mix of TV make and model, streaming device and publisher app, the CTV impression overcount by publisher ranged from 2.5% to 15%.

Stephens analyst Zanger thought the fact that there was nearly no overcounting when the operating system embedded in a smart TV was used was significant.

Samsung, Vizio and LG operating systems are only accessible via TV integration, while CTV operating systems available from Roku, Amazon, Google and Apple are accessible through sticks or dongles. “In our view, the study further supports our thesis [that] CTV hardware/software combo participants are in the most enviable position,” Zanger said.

The study comes as the industry reexamines how TV ads are measured and who is doing the measuring.

"This CTV study between GroupM and iSpot is another example of the importance of independent third-party measurement in the industry,” said Aaron Sobol, head of U.S. media investments and partnerships at Unilever. “The validation that impressions are being counted while the TV is off is vital to understand and needs to be fixed. We support and applaud our partner in GroupM for their dedication and rigor to develop this critical learning." 

“We want both our world-class content and our advertisers’ messages to be seen, measured and properly counted,” Warner Bros. Discovery chief advertising sales officer Jon Steinlauf added. “By addressing continuous play with a solution our entire industry can get behind, GroupM propels greater trust, transparency, and accountability in the CTV space, and that benefits everyone in this ecosystem.”

GroupM and iSpot evaluated hundreds of millions of aggregate and anonymized CTV impressions delivered across 20 million smart TVs, various platforms and publishers between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2021. The analysis was restricted to ad buying through programmatic channels, using a single smart TV manufacturer’s automatic content recognition data as the underlying match.

GroupM and iSpot will conduct a phase two of the study with an expanded data set. ■

Leading media buyer GroupM sees total TV advertising revenue rising 3.4% in 2022, with a big gain in connected TV offsetting a small decline in traditional TV.

The gain comes despite macroeconomic difficulties including inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The numbers include $12.6 billion in election year spending.

GroupM sees total TV ad revenue of $70.7 billion in 2022. The agency breaks that down by traditional TV, down 0.4% to $58.7 billion, and what it calls “connected TV plus” jumping 26.7% to $12 billion.

Connected TV’s share of the TV/professional video market is expected to be 16.9%.

Also: Zenith Sees U.S. TV Spending Up 3.2% With Political Ads Boosting Spot

For 2023, GroupM sees total TV revenue up 1.8% to $72 billion. Traditional TV is expected to drop by 2.2% to $57.4 billion, while connected TV plus is expected to increase by another 21.6%. That would bring CTV’s share to 20.2%.

Despite $4.2 billion in political advertising in the 2024 presidential years (a bigger chunk of that spending will go to digital) total TV will slip 0.1% to $71.9 billion, according to the GroupM forecast. Traditional TV revenues will fall 3.5% to $55.3 billion while connected TV plus adds 14.3% to hit $16.6 billion, with a 23.1% share.

By 2027 total TV spending will be down to $71.3 billion, with traditional TV down to $59.5 billion and connected TV plus up to $21.7 billion, or 30.5%.

For the whole U.S. advertising business, GroupM sees 2022 revenue rising 9.3% to $329.9 billion, excluding that $13.6 billions political spending. Including political, GroupM expects the U.S. ad business to rise 12.6% to $343.4 billion. In 2023, the agency sees spending growing just 2.6%, then accelerating again in the presidential election year of 2024 to 9% growth.

By 2027, GroupM sees U.S. ad revenue at $424.3 billion.

Digital is a big driver, increasing 14.8% in 2022 and taking a 61% share of ad revenues. By 2027, digital’s growth will slow to 6.7%, but it will have achieved a 71% share.

On a global basis, GroupM has trimmed the outlook it released in December, but notes that the ad business isn’t shrinking but continues to grow despite the war in Ukraine, inflation fears, supply chain issue and lock-downs in China.

Positive economic indicators include low unemployment levels, high household savings, strong new business formation and interest rates that, while rising, remain near historic lows.

Cuts in spending by some marketers will be offset by increases from other from others and many of the same factors that drove unprecedented growth for the industry in 2021 will continue in 2022.

Television advertising is forecast to grow 4% in 2022. GroupM notes that because of the local-language programming being developed by streamers in particular is making the TV business more global.

While television remains better than many alternatives for the purposes of satisfying reach and frequency goals, its reduced effectiveness will only encourage marketers to explore alternative strategies, GroupM said. Connected TV environments, including digital ad inventory from streaming services, will capture shares of existing budgets much more than they will drive new ones into the industry. ■

In the middle of an upfront in which measurement is a key issue, one of the biggest media buyers in the world is making its position clear on what it will use for currency in 2022-23 and how it is preparing for the future.

GroupM said it will continue to transact using Nielsen data for the upfronts.

But it also said it will be using alternative currencies, including outcome-based approaches, with a dozen of its largest clients to shadow its Nielsen-based deals. Those clients include Unilever, Nestle, Ferrero, Domino’s, TJX Cos. and Mars.

Also: The Front-Runner: How iSpot Became a Favorite To Claim Nielsen’s Measurement Crown

“The industry requires a robust measurement solution that can solve the problem of cross-screen reach and frequency and is representative of how consumers watch video,” GroupM U.S. chief investment officer Matt Sweeney said. “The industry agrees that panel-dependent measurement needs to shift to a transparent path built on a stable, reliable methodology and a foundation of proven technology, which captures the shift in viewer consumption habits.” 

After last year, when Nielsen was found to have undercounted viewing and lost its accreditation, the seal of approval from industry watchdog the Media Rating Council, the TV networks and media industry stepped up their search for an alternative to Nielsen, which had dominated the industry. Some agencies and media companies, including NBCUniversal and Paramount, said they planned to do some deals using alternative currencies.

Nielsen One Alpha is one of the currencies networks and clients will be familiarizing themselves with. Nielsen is planning to roll out Nielsen One, which supplements panel-based methodology with big data to capture cross-platform viewing on a consistent and comparable basis.

GroupM will also be testing data from iSpot.tv, Comscore and VideoAmp for possible use in the future.

“As we reframe what measurement looks like in this new environment, we are looking forward to partnering with GroupM to establish test and learn pilots for our brands, develop a framework for KPI-based measurement approaches, and move toward a single currency,” said Rob Master, VP of media and marketing at Unilever. “This process will enable us to consider what the measurement ecosystem should look like as audiences embrace new technologies and consume content in different ways.”

“The capabilities of the alternate measurement currency providers are rapidly growing, and we will be using this year to test and learn with these providers,” added Dave Saxton, integrated communications planning team lead, Mars. 

GroupM has put together a list of requirements for the companies that will provide measurement for the industry in the future. They will need to: 

• 1. Incorporate feedback from the buy side and input from the Association of National Advertisers;  
• 2. Gain universal acceptance and utilization by all media partners; 
• 3. Provide traditional and digital partner coverage, with the opportunity to add new metrics like attention;  
• 4. Provide fair and accurate audience representation;  
• 5. Move towards standardization and greater transparency and plan to undertake the MRC audit process (if not already accredited); 
• 6. Provide interoperability across GroupM’s tools and systems; and 
• 7. Share new commercial models to fund measurement. 

“Marketers are leaning into new tools and technologies to bridge the measurement gap, raising important questions about the accuracy and sustainability of panel-based measurement as changes in the digital media environment continue to accelerate beyond one currency,” GroupM North America CEO Kirk McDonald said. “Outlining expectations with our measurement partners and working together to implement standards is critical to create real change that makes advertising  work better for our clients and to better track our progress towards client growth goals.”  ■

Giant media agency GroupM, supported by Magnite and PubMatic, introduced the GroupM Premium Marketplace, which aims to make programming buying of connected TV, digital video and display ad inventory safer, more transparent and more efficient.

The marketplace will give GroupM clients direct and advantaged access to quality ad inventory and reduce the opportunity for fraud.

Also: Magnite Accelerates Programmatic Sales of Live Streaming Inventory

“Today’s programmatic ecosystem has become incredibly complex and inefficient, and clients are rightly concerned about transparency and accountability across the digital and programmatic supply chain,” said Andrew Meaden, GroupM’s global head of investment. “GroupM Premium Marketplace solves these problems for our clients by making the media buying process simpler and more transparent and by using technology to ensure our clients always receive the maximum benefit of GroupM’s unique size and scale.”

Through this marketplace, GroupM will be able to take a unified approach to buying connected TV, creating competitive bidding advantages, reducing technology costs and have supply chain transparency.

“GroupM clients will have the ability to select all inclusive, commission-based or SaaS-based payment options depending on the needs of their business,” said Axel Jonuschies, GroupM’s managing partner for global programmatic investment. “Flexibility and affordability when operating large budgets helps our clients be successful, especially with the ongoing transition from traditional TV to programmatic CTV experiences where we can combine the best from both worlds.”

PubMatic said that publishers and media companies will also benefit from the GroupM Marketplace.

“This partnership helps advertisers and publishers build a comprehensive media strategy for the safe, data-driven advertising of the future,” said Emma Newman, chief revenue officer, EMEA, at Pubmatic.

“While buyers benefit from one centralized, easily accessible interface for high-quality supply that would provide a diverse inventory landscape for GroupM clients, publishers gain better inventory monetization from exposure to new clients within the GroupM portfolio,” Newman said. “Both buyers and publishers get a simplified and more direct path to working together, which will allow for more joint innovation and improved transparency.”

“This partnership is indicative of how modern agencies are transforming media planning and execution, with GroupM leading the way on innovation,” added Sean Buckley, chief revenue officer, CTV at Magnite. “We are excited to roll up our sleeves and collaborate with the GroupM team to make advertising more efficient and effective. This is another major milestone in streamlining the workflow between the buy and sell side, while continuing to scale digital media investment for the independent internet.”

GroupM Premium Marketplace is currently available in EMEA and North America and will launch in additional markets starting later this year. ■

Media buyer GroupM predicted that U.S. TV ad revenue will grow 6.2% to $74.168 billion in 2022, after rising 4.1% in 2021, a historic year for overall advertising revenue growth.

The bright spots for the industry are CTV and political spending. GroupM sees CTV growing 23% in 2022. And the agency expects candidates and interest groups to contribute about $7 billion to TV revenues during the mid-terms. 

 Also: U.S. TV Ad Spending To Rise By 4% in 2022, Zenith Forecasts 

Political advertising is increasingly important to the TV business. “We expect that by 2026, political advertising will account for more than 13% of all TV advertising, up from 9% in 2020, with heavy concentrations of demand directed to a relatively modest number of local TV markets, the agency said in its report, entitled This Year Next Year--Global End-Of-Year Forecast.

GroupM notes that pay TV subscriptions continue to fall, limiting the reach potential of ad-supported TV. That trend is more pronounced in the U.S. than in other markets.

 Also: Magna Sees U.S. Long-Form Video Ad Revenue Rising 4% in 2022 

“Nonetheless, television will hold its own weight in absolute terms, as the defections of some advertisers will be offset by the emergence of others, while ongoing growth in political advertising...helps sustain the overall sector’s durability on a multi-year basis,” the agency said.

With U.S. TV companies investing in streaming, revenues are rising for both subscriptions and connected TV. GroupM said what it calls CTV plus ad revenue will be $16.6 billion in 2021 and rise to $20.3 billion in 2022. By 2026, CTV-plus ad revenues will hit $32.6 billion.

Over all, Magna has raised its estimate for growth total 2021 media industry ad revenue to 22.7% from a prior forecast of 17.3%. Naturally the increase is led by digital advertising. For 2022, the agency sees U.S. ad revenue rising 14.6%. Excluding political advertising in 2022, underlying growth would be 28.4%.

‘It’s possible that this is the fastest growth in the history of advertising,” said Brian Wieser, global president for business intelligence at GroupM.

Wieser noted that 64% of global advertising is now digital, but that larger, more sophisticated advertisers are still spending 40% to 50% of their ad buffets on television.

That’s “not because they're dinosaurs necessarily. But because large brands can use television. They can make TV work. They can take advantage of the brand building capacity and more importantly, they have the budgets to do it,” he said.

Between TV and digital most of the spending and growth is accounted for. “Yes, that does mean crumbs for everyone else,” he said.

The growth in spending is coming despite the global supply chain issues and despite concerns about inflation, which might actually be good for ad revenue because spending is often based on sales volume, and both phenomena could lead to people buying more higher-priced goods. “As long as consumers are willing to spend more money, there will be more advertising," Wieser said.

GroupM sees global ad revenue growing 9.7%, excluding U.S. political advertising. That’s up from Group M’s prediction of 8.8% in June.

Digital advertising accounted for 53.4% of all advertising in 2021, up from 60.5% in 2020, with Alphabet, Meta and Amazon accounting for from 80% to 90% of the global total. ■

Finecast, GroupM’s addressable TV company, is making Iris.TVs’ contextual targeting and brand safety tools directly available to Finecast’s local market clients.

At a time when more advertisers are jumping into connected TV and streaming video, the integration with Iris.TV will enable them to taking advantage advanced TV’s targeting capabilities while protecting them against fraud and having ads run in inappropriate content.

“Guaranteeing brand safety is one of Finecast’s central offerings to brands looking to activate in the Advanced TV space,” said Marissa Jimenez, president of Finecast US.

Also: Advanced Advertising: Catching Up on Addressable TV

“We are thrilled to be launching this new partnership with Iris.TV, a dynamic company that matches our commitment to brand safety and security. As Finecast grows our presence in the US and enters into this new era of targeting and compliance, the addition of IRIS-enabled video-level contextual targeting and brand safety solutions will ensure we continue to provide our clients with the most innovative and highest performing solutions that we have in other markets,” Jimenez said.

All GroupM video buys for Finecast U.S. clients will be Iris-enabled. Those clients’ ads will run in contextually aligned video programming verified by Iris.TV data partners including Oracle Advertising, GumGum, Comscore, Reticle, Kerv Interactive, and Zefr.

“We are excited to announce our new strategic partnership with GroupM to enable their brand clients to access video-level data across both CTV and online video formats to inform contextual and brand-safety targeting,” said Field Garthwaite, co-founder and CEO of Iris.TV. “This new partnership will allow all GroupM clients to access privacy-compliant video-level data across any screen — an absolute necessity as we enter the post-cookie era and marketers seek more compliant targeting options.”■ 

Global advertising growth is exceeding expectations as the pandemic loosens its grip on economic activity, according to media agency GroupM.

In a forecast sharply revised from December, GroupM sees global ad revenues up 19% from last year--excluding political advertising in the U.S.--and 15% higher than 2019, the pre-pandemic year. 

GroupM sees global advertising, including U.S. political to surpass $1 trillion in 2025, up from $641 billion in 2020.

GroupM previously released its forecast for the U.S. market, which said total TV ad revenue was expected to be flat in post-election 2021. 

Also Read: Magna Sees National TV Ad Sales Up 5% on Stronger Prices

“Midway through 2021, it has become apparent that the market is growing much faster than we expected and from a larger base than we previously believed,” GroupM said in its report. “While many of these growth factors were in place before last year, the pandemic has proven to be an accelerant.”

Some of the key factors in the rapid growth include the expansion of app ecosystems, small business formation activity and the growth role of cross-border media marketplaces.

Among the markets where GroupM expects 20% growth or better are the U.K., Brazil, China and India. Canada, Australia and the U.S. are expected to have growth rates in the high teens.

GroupM has raised its forecast for digital advertising to 26% growth in 2021 versus its 15% expectation in December. The current forecast for TV is a 9.3% increase, up from 7.8% previously. 

Also Read: GroupM’s Matt Sweeney on Being Digital and Responsible

Connected TV plus inventory will account for $16 billion in media company ad revenue, up by 25% over 2020 levels. GroupM anticipates connected TV plus ad revenue will grow to $31 billion globally by 2026.

GroupM noted that consumers will be shifting their TV viewing to streaming globally, just as has happened in the U.S.

“This is a net-negative for marketers because a growing share of that content will almost certainly remain ad-free. Advertisers will find television less useful for achieving reach and frequency—two of the critical characteristics that have long given the medium its unique power,” GroupM said. “At the same time, the upside of the wider use of streaming platforms is that there will be greater opportunities to apply addressable advertising concepts to television.”

GroupM noted that global ad revenue has become more concentrated, with the 25 largest media companies accounting for about 67% of all ad revenues, up from 42% in 2016.

The shift to streaming might accelerate that trend.

“U.S.-based legacy TV network owners, including Comcast, Disney, ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia, join Netflix, Amazon and Apple in their active development or deployment of their new offerings around the world, pairing massive video libraries with growing investments in local content,” GroupM said.

“As they do so, they will be positioned to significantly enhance their positions as sellers of content to consumers and advertising to marketers worldwide. To the extent they deploy enough capital in this endeavor, they will likely succeed. This will then have knock-on effects on further consolidation among less-well capitalized single country-focused media companies,” it said.

Total television advertising revenue in the U.S. is expected to be flat at $64.1 billion, a strong post-pandemic performance for a non-election year, according to media buyer GroupM.

Excluding political spending, ad revenue for 2021 will jump 10.5%, reversing a 10.4% decline in 2020, GroupM said. 

GroupM’s numbers include digital extensions of television, what the agency calls “Connected TV Plus,” which will account for about 15% of spending in 2021 and climb to 35% by 2026.

Going forward, GroupM sees total television spending, excluding political, slipping 2.3% in 2022, edging up 0.8% in 2023, falling 1% in 2024, dipping 0.2% in 2025 and finishing down $1.5% in 2026 at $60.5 billion.

“Television faces countervailing pressures that negatively affect its media owners on the margins; however, advertising is set to remain relatively stable following a year of recovery-driven growth,” GroupM said in its This Year Next Year report.

GroupM notes that large brands that advertise on TV will mostly maintain their spending as ratings fall and prices rise. Any losses are offset by newer brands, including the digital giants.

“Total spending is unlikely to change by much as long as television is better than the next-best alternatives at delivering on brands’ marketing goals,” the media buyer said. “New approaches to managing reach and frequency with linear and connected TV plus inventory will go a long way toward ensuring this.”

National TV revenue excluding political are forecast to grow 8.7% to $43.4 billion in 2021, GroupM said. Nation revenues will be flat in 2022 and wind up slightly lower at $43.2 billion in 2026.

The forecast for local TV ad revenue calls for a 14.8% increase to $19.8 billion in 2021 excluding political. In 2023, a 7.3% drop is expected, with revenue of $17.3 billion in 2026.

“National TV will continue to outperform local TV on an underlying basis (excluding political spending), much as it has for many years, due to the economy’s increasingly national—rather than local—orientation among businesses,” GroupM said.

Overall GroupM sees 2021 as a comeback year for advertising. It expects 22% growth in media ad revenue to $279 million (excluding Political) and expects the gain to continue through 2026, when revenue will hit $388 billion.

GroupM expects digital advertising (excluding political advertising) to increase by 33% in 2021, building on last year’s 10% growth. At this pace, digital will account for 57% of all advertising in the U.S. By 2026, digital advertising will continue to  outpace the overall market, accounting for 69% of the industry.

Advanced advertising technology is beginning to climb out of the experimental phase, GroupM chief investment officer Matt Sweeney said at the virtual B+C/Multichannel News Advanced Advertising Summit Tuesday, but there is still a way to go before the tech becomes mainstream.

“Many of the tools in the advanced TV space have matured to a point where we're comfortable going beyond just testing and leaning in,” Sweeney said. “...We're still evolving on the advanced TV side.”

Part of the difficulty is navigating the number of advanced ad platforms and providers, he said. 

Also Read: As Viewership Fragments, Engagement Is the Key

“We're trying to figure out how we navigate this holistically, versus buying addressable TV from one platform partner and data driven linear from a second platform partner and digital video from a large media company that also has their own platform,” Sweeney said. “That's the challenge right now and it's about the proliferation of platforms, the proliferation of data sets, and then some of the challenges around measurement. We need all this stuff to come together, like it has on the digital side with programmatic.”

Another challenge is being able to activate the technology in both linear and advanced TV environments simultaneously. That requires more effective measurement. 

“You’ve got to be able to measure the effectiveness, not just of traditional linear -- and those systems are fairly well known and well established -- but doing that along with some of the advanced TV investments that we're making across digital and data driven linear and streaming and connected TV,” Sweeney said. “That's the challenge right now. But we've got many progressive clients who understand that nothing is going to be 100% as the market evolves. But it has matured and we're going to lean more heavily into that in this year's upfront and beyond.”

Also Read: Spring TV Events Offer a Look at Future of Television 

While advanced advertising technology is one way for marketers to recapture some of the ad dollars lost as more and more television viewers switch from traditional linear programming to streaming and lower commercial loads, Sweeney said they should also look toward other ways of driving engagement with viewers. 

Sweeney estimated that a typical one hour linear program has about 16 minutes of commercials, which drops to about six minutes for a one-hour ad-supported streaming show. While advanced ad technologies are one way that programmers and marketers can backfill some of that lost commercial time, in reality it forces them to try to broaden their audience reach. 

“...Really what it does is it forces marketers and their media agent to look at expanding the audiences and the ability to find those audiences beyond just traditional TV and digital, streaming and addressable environments. We need to go beyond that,” Sweeney said. “We need to look at audio as a channel, as a way to engage with folks. And then there are a lot of digital platforms that have incredibly high engagement numbers with younger demographics. We're also excited about some of those partnerships and how they're evolving as well.”

Sweeney was optimistic about the upcoming upfronts, adding they will be “a cake walk” compared to last year. But with the economy improving and demand declining, there is the danger of price inflation, of which Sweeney and his clients are well aware. 

“Our clients want to know where the value is,” Sweeney said. “I think there's a point at which the value of a unit or an impression gets beyond an effective and efficient investment vehicle.”

That could be remedied at least in part by expanding the audience reach through audio, digital and other means. Sweeney said GroupM and its clients will still lean heavily into  digital, streaming and addressable inventory across several platforms, “but we also have to have some optionality beyond that because at some point the prices don't make sense potentially.” 

In the Wild West atmosphere of the new digital video frontier, GroupM’s Matt Sweeney is a new sheriff in town.

While digital is essential for reaching viewers as traditional ratings shrink, GroupM has launched initiatives to help their clients find brand safe environments, use data ethically and prepare for a future where reaching multicultural audiences will become increasingly important.

Sweeney will be the keynote speaker at the Advanced Advertising Summit on April 27. Here is a preview of what he’ll be talking about.

Traditional TV ratings are down. Can digital alternatives make up for the eyeball marketers aren’t getting from mass reach media like broadcast and cable television?

The simple answer to that is yes, absolutely. Look, you've seen the ratings and you know where consumer attention is. It's an on-demand world and digital and streaming are almost out-delivering it on adults 18 to 49. More people will be watching digital and streaming than traditional TV. I think that that chasm will be crossed sometime this summer.

But the short answer to that is yes. And it's been that way for a couple years. This is not that new for GroupM. We've been leveraging digital delivery and streaming as a larger percentage of our upfronts over the last two years to three years and that will continue to progress and may accelerate a bit given what we're seeing with consumer consumption.

Given the engagement and the interaction and the targeting that you get when you spend your money on digital-based video, are you getting more bang for the buck for  the people you reach?

Really good question. The ability to measure and attribute that delivery vis-à-vis traditional video delivery on TV is a challenge. Those technologies and partners have matured but they're still not at a point where you can isolate the ROI of digital delivery versus traditional delivery. Brands would argue they've been building their brands on traditional TV for 20, 30, 40 years. And now that someone's watching an ad on an iPad or a computer screen, or on a TV through an app, what is the contribution of that to brand value over the course of the last 10 to 15 years?

Also read: #SpringTV, A Look Into the Future of Television 

But we are getting to a point where instead of trying to replace GRPs that are degraded in traditional linear, we're now looking at reach extension as a better metric for value. There are some people that watch linear and digital and streaming, right? So you can get those people in both of those environments. There are a lot of broadband-only households where you can't reach those people in traditional linear. Those people are more valuable because they  are in one environment and not in both. So we’re figuring out how to engage with those folks, leveraging data and working with traditional media partners, but also some of the digital media partners, to reach-extend. That's a lot of work, but that's where we're spending a lot of our time. That's sort of an advanced TV workstream that we've created across planning and strategy and investment within GroupM.

Tell me more about that workstream.

So we have this whole playbook and how to do that depending on which audience you want to reach and whether or not you can activate them in traditional and digital streaming or just in digital streaming and not in traditional. We've got a whole playbook, it's some 30 some odd pages long. 

People have been talking about advanced advertising for a long time. Are there any techniques or technologies that have moved solidly from the experimental “let's test it” phase to something that people are really using at scale that's contributing meaningfully to their businesses?

Oh, yeah, these guys have been talking about this for a long time. I think there's been a hype cycle around advanced TV, and whether that's the data connected to it, the platforms, the measurement, the media partners and their supply, it's been hyped for a while. I do believe that many of those platforms and those technologies have matured to a point where we can feel comfortable with the risk-reward for putting a significant -- which means more than a low single single digit -- percentage of upfront budgets into some of those environments.

And we're going to continue to test and learn and we've been educating our clients that, look, there will be some risk in these platforms and in this activation, but the reward outweighs the risk given where consumer engagement is. In some ways we don't have a choice and we've been doing a lot of this testing over the last couple of years. So we know who to partner with and who not to partner with.

In addition to measuring risk, GroupM has been talking about responsible investment. What does that mean and how does it affect what you buy?

It's important. We've got this foundational approach to investment around responsible investment. And it's an absolute strategy and something that was developed at GroupM where we've been a leader in responsible investment. 

That started with brand safety and viewability. We were the first buyer talking about the importance of viewability in digital media environments and about fraud and the importance of a clean supply chain, and not just the cleanliness of that supply chain, but also the efficacy of it, so that we weren't paying unreasonable adtech taxes.

We were the co-founder of GARM [Global Alliance for Responsible Media] back three years ago. We launched the New Majority Ready coalition trying to prepare our clients in advance for what we knew the census would show, that audiences were evolving and multicultural audiences were going to be important for growth. We created a minority-owned digital marketplace last June where we went through the due diligence of identifying 300 minority-owned media companies and put them into a marketplace and help them figure out programmatic and how we could activate across platforms so that we could help them grow their business. 

We talk about data ethics as well. That is foundational across all our investment, whether that's for the upfronts  or buying local advertising or traditional radio. So those things are still important and increasingly important within GroupM investment.

Are social issues important in media buying?

Social awareness, social justice. You're seeing corporations and brands vote with their money and I think we're going to see more and more of that. And we've created a process in the framework to help our planning and buying teams, not just in terms of understanding how we engage with multicultural audiences in environments but that represent multicultural voices as well. 

You can reach minority audiences and the NFL but I think it's more important to reach those audiences in environments where the content being produced is being produced by minority audiences as well. So we're doing a lot of that work. I think GroupM will once again lead in this space.

How is automation and programmatic affecting the agency business?

I think that I think the future of the media business, the future of TV, is data driven and platform-based. That affects everything in the ecosystem, including how we staff and train and how we hire. 

We're going to look more like Xaxis's programmatic offering in the next three to five years than we have traditionally and across all linear investment for sure. 

Does programmatic affect what you buy and where you buy it and who you buy from?  

That goes back to that responsible investment framework. Brand safety is job No. 1. That's like table stakes. So you're accessing this inventory programmatically. We want to know you know who the seller is and we want to deal directly with them. We want to understand the audiences and the data connected to that supply. We want to make sure that that data was sourced ethically. And what we mean by that is just because you can target someone with data, even if they are opted-in, they clicked and agreed to have their data shared, whether it's geo location data or some others’ data, it doesn't necessarily mean you should use it. So we've got a tool that's available to our planning and buying teams to make sure that we're doing that due diligence and understanding why  not all data that's available should be used.

Used so yeah, all of these things are part of that foundational element of what GroupM is all about. It's about responsible investment. We've got a framework with five pillars around multicultural audiences, around supporting fact-based journalism and local news, which we think is important, and the brand safety and viewability and  data Integrity are part of that framework.

We know who we're buying from when we're buying a linear schedule. We understand that. When that becomes audience-informed, we then need to know and understand what data sets were used to develop these audiences and more importantly, we're going to buy directly from the media owner. We're not going through aggregators and playing that game. We don't. We don't need to. Not at our scale.

Media buyer GroupM said it has collaborated with Unilever to create a Data Ethics Compass, an online tool to help evaluate the risk involved with using data assets to target consumer with marketing campaigns.

The tool is used when campaign are being planned to judge the appropriateness of using data, based on, among other things, who the data is collected, and also to consider whether consumers might feel that the way the data is being used is “creepy.”

Also Read: GroupM Brand Safety Report Looks at CTV

The Compass takes into consideration where the campaign will run, where the advertiser and agency is located and the category in which the client competes.

“Our Data Ethics Compass provides clients a consistent approach on how best to navigate ethical risk and prioritize and respect the privacy of people on the other side of the screen,” said Krystal Olivieri, GroupM’s Global senior VP for data strategy and partnerships. “This new capability demonstrates GroupM’s belief that even though you have access to certain data, it doesn’t mean you should always use it. We have an obligation as an industry to re-establish an appropriate balance.”

Also Read: GroupM Starts Addressable TV Ad Company in Canada

The compass is designed to highlight concerns the agency and its client might want to address before launching campaigns employing data using a continuum ranging from green and yellow, which would indicate low to acceptable risk, to orange and red, warning of potential problems.

“Creating a responsible digital ecosystem continues to be a priority for Unilever and adding an ethical overlay for use of data in media is a key next step,” said Jennifer Gardiner, Unilever’s senior director of media. “Consumers are growing increasingly distrustful of advertising and lack clarity in how their data is being collected and used in profiling tactics. Our partnership with GroupM on the launch of this much-needed tool sends a reassuring and bold signal that we must all hold ourselves, our partners and agencies to the highest standards, truly putting consumers first.”

As more marketers adopt advanced advertising approaches, including addressable advertising the use of data because more integral to the process. Marketers and media companies want to use the data to make advertising more engaging and improve the media experience for consumers. But privacy is also also a concern among consumers and violating a customers trust could lead to severe consequences.

“The burgeoning of privacy protection laws around the world reflects the widespread consumer demand to have the interests of the individual paramount in considerations concerning data usage,” said Nicola McCormic, general conceal at GroupM. "With ethics ranking three times more important to company trust than competence, binary decisions taken on whether data is ‘opted in’ or not are no longer sustainable in our industry. GroupM’s Data Ethics Compass enables us to think more holistically about data use and the impact on the end-user.”

Sweeney came to his new post from Xaxis,  GroupM’s programmatic media arm, signaling a new approach to a changing media landscape. Sales execs call him very strategic and a great partner. “He learned extraordinarily quickly and he was well prepared for the upfront,” said an ad-sales head from a top media company who asked not to be identified.

But before getting to the upfront, Sweeney had to deal with the pandemic on behalf of his clients. “We ranked our preferred partners based on how flexible they were with us through COVID when we needed to move or even cancel some dollars,” Sweeney said. Now, GroupM is judging them on delivering on their upfront guarantees. Ratings have eroded, but might rebound as scripted shows return to schedules.

Media companies are responding well. “We expect that to continue because it will impact what budgets look like in next year’s upfront,” Sweeney said. “If you can’t deliver consistently, why would I not option dollars away from you and put them where they can have the greatest impact for our clients?”

At a time when some wondered if there would be an upfront, Sweeney convinced GroupM clients to mostly buy at the traditional time, a strategy validated by a scatter market where prices are high and little inventory remains available.

“We have to expand on the definition of TV and go beyond traditional pay TV,” he said, noting that one needs only to follow the money to see that media companies are investing in programming, data and technology to pursue more direct-to-consumer business. Similarly, ad dollars are increasingly following viewers towards streaming with outlets owned by the big media companies such as Hulu, Peacock and Pluto TV.

“We have to make sure there’s value there,” he said, adding that the industry needs to collaborate so advertisers can measure and optimize across media brands.

Sweeney is not the only digital guy who believes TV advertising remains powerful. Some of the smartest, data-driven marketers — Amazon, Google, Facebook — spend more money on TV than they did three years ago as a percentage of their marketing budgets, he said. “There’s still tremendous value there.”

Media agency GroupM and SpotX said they will be working more closely on programmatic ad buying.

GroupM is expanding its global Premium Supply offering--in which publishers reserve high-quality inventory for the media buyers clients--to the U.S. 

SpotX will provide technology for GroupM Premium Supply in the U.S. and SpotX will be the agency’s preferred programmatic video exchange partner.

“As the largest media advertising company in the world, GroupM is continually looking for the most efficient ways to reach high-quality inventory while providing full transparency to our clients,” said Esra Bacher, managing partner - programmatic investment lead at GroupM. “As viewership dramatically increases in streaming video, we have chosen to partner with SpotX due to their strong relationships with the supply-side of the video ecosystem. We’re excited to continue our great work with them moving forward.”

GroupM started Premium Supply in 2017 and now operates it in more than 10 markets world wide. In addition to premium content, participants in GroupM Premium supply promise transparency about fees and auction mechanics, as well as reduced fees. The money saved is used to buy more inventory from participating publishers.

The SpotX-GroupM agreement is part of a trend to optimize supply chains that has led to buyers and sellers working with a smaller number of intermediaries. In addition to SpotX, GroupM works with Index Exchange focusing on display media.

As part of the agreement, SpotX will also develop unique programmatic solutions for GroupM clients, which will streamline the ad planning, buying, decisioning, and optimization processes.

“In today’s climate, we understand that media agencies have many different choices in SSPs, and we are thrilled to be recognized by GroupM for our programmatic expertise and substantial ties to publishers,” said Sean Buckley, COO at SpotX. “We’re excited to enhance the partnership GroupM and their clients have with our platform customers and continue to scale the digital video ecosystem.”

Connected TV is hot, attracting the attention of advertisers and media buyers. Eager to combine the measurability of digital video with the appeal of sight, sound and motion on the biggest living room screen, brands are paying top dollar to reach consumers via this medium. It’s also attracting fraud, though, causing concerns about inventory quality, invalid traffic and measurement. At Advanced Advertising, part of Fall TV 2020’s suite of virtual events, top executives from the world's largest media investment company GroupM, which recently issued a brand-safety playbooks, and digital media verification company DoubleVerify, which has made comprehensive CTV measurement a priority, discuss the latest techniques for ensuring CTV media quality and performance, while the industry develops standards for the channel.

Fall TV 2020 interviewed Joe Barone, Managing Partner, Brand Safety Americas, at GroupM ahead of the Sept. 14 Advanced Advertising session, about the topic, the event and trends in the media industry.

Fall TV 2020: Comscore CEO Bill Livek on Impressions-Based Future

Q: What are you looking forward to most out of this conversation? Where are you expecting the conversation to go, and what would you hope audiences will glean from it? 

Joe Barone: From our perspective the key factors to unlocking further growth are technology standardization and transparent contract terms. These are the key takeaways I’d like to make sure are communicated.

Q: By the way, are you approaching your preparation any differently that you might have, if the pandemic had not hit? How (if at all) has the pandemic touched your lens on the space, when you engage in these conversations with other industry leaders? 

JB: The pandemic has accelerated the viewing shift to streaming, increasing the urgency for the factors listed above as well as comprehensive cross-platform audience measurement.

Q: What remain your greatest concerns about brand safety in the year ahead in the advanced TV space? How would you like to see the different players (agencies, brand safety solution providers, brands themselves, et al) in the ecosystem improve the state of play for all of us?

JB: The biggest brand safety issue is invalid traffic. As we move to a standard best practice of measuring IVT, it’s becoming obvious that all secondary markets for CTV inventory are rife with fraud. This awareness may begin to restrict or even reverse the flow of video investment to CTV, especially in light of the CPM premium vs. digital video. Publishers and resellers need to recognize and address this risk through technology standardization, transparent business terms, and 3rd party measurement integrations.

Fall TV 2020: STIRR's Adam Ware on OTT Innovation by Local Broadcasters

Q: When you think about the clients your agency serves, and this area of concern, what do you most want them to know about where the industry is going and what they can expect? 

JB: CTV as user behavior is here to stay. We need clients willing to test and learn and then apply new insights to future investment. And please traffic more than one execution, frequency capping is still a major issue!

For more information about Advanced Advertising and Fall TV 2020, please visit FallTVEvents2020.com.

Kirk McDonald, who has been heading up AT&T’s Xandr advanced advertising unit, has joined the ranks of executives leaving the company.

Mike Welch, who was in charge of product and business development at Xandr, will be the new head of the unit.

Earlier this year, Xandr CEO Brian Lesser left the company when it appeared he wasn’t going to become CEO of AT&T’s WarnerMedia unit, succeeding John Stankey, who was named CEO of AT&T.

Xandr was later made a part of WarnerMedia, now headed by Jason Kilar, the former CEO of Hulu.

Earlier this month, WarnerMedia let go three senior executives including Bob Greenblatt and Kevin O’Reilly, both of whom were key programmers at AT&T launched its HBO Max streaming service.

In the year since AT&T took control of Time Warner, the heads of several other units have departed including the heads of HBO, Turner, Warner Bros and Turner Advertising Sales.

In his new job, McDonald will be chief executive of North America for WPP’s ad buying unit, known as GroupM.

At GroupM, McDonald succeed Tim Castree, who left late last year after being in the job about a year.

Local news is likely to play an outsized role in the 2020 election cycle, both in terms of political advertising — with GroupM expecting more than half of the record $15 billion U.S. political ad spend will go to TV stations — and with local political stories having important national implications.

This has been particularly good for TV stations. In May of 2020, Elevate at SmithGeiger found the pandemic had produced hefty increases in local news viewership. Some 75% of survey respondents expressed the most confidence in local outlets’ COVID-19 news coverage, compared with 72% for network TV news, 71% for cable news and 48% for Facebook.

“There is all this partisanship on social media and other media and I think local news is one of the few places where there is less of it,” Meredith Local Media Group president Patrick McCreery said. “With all the challenges of the pandemic and racial strife and political partisanship, our reporting is more important than it has ever been.”

To build on that trust, Tegna has been beefing up its coverage of major issues, said VP of news Ellen Crooke.  “Being the most trusted source of news in the country, we are really aiming at making sure that our voters are well versed on the issues and where the candidates stand,” she said.  

“There is a real hunger for accurate information,” she added, pointing to the success of Tegna’s fact-checking series Verify. “We had 9.4 million visitors from March to June to our Verify stories and that is up 77% from November to February, and we had over 4 million video starts of those stories, up 335%.”

The election is both a giant national and local story, said Scripps VP of news Sean McLaughlin. “In some ways the election has never been more national,” he said. “But on the flip side it has never been more local when you consider the economic impact of the coronavirus and the different ways the civil unrest and the coronavirus is manifesting itself across our footprint.”

That is also making local TV reporting central to the election coverage efforts of national news organizations. This reflects both travel restrictions and the deeper understanding that local reporters have of their communities, executives said. As a result, the Scripps stations are working closer than ever before with the company’s Newsy channel; CBS News is benefiting from the local versions of its CBSN service and its owned stations; and ABC, NBC and Fox News are all working closely with their companies’ owned TV stations.

Giant media agency GroupM expects that global ad spending, not including U.S. political activity, will decline 11.9% during 2020, followed by 8.2% growth in 2021.

GroupM said the plunge in spending should be considered “modest,” given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global GDP. As spending fell more during the global financial crisis in 2009.

Spending is expected to be down 20% in Brazil, 20% in Japan, 10% in Australia, 15% in France, 12.5% in the U.K, 5.1% in Canada and 1.8% in South Korea.

The agency expects ad spending to grow by double digits in half of the world’s top 10 markets, and by single digits in the other half of the biggest countries.

The forecast is based on countries taking steps, including “hibernation” policies for their economies, to slow the spread of the coronavirus. 

“In our forecasts we assume that a vaccine will be developed and distributed by some time in the first half of next year, although even the world’s foremost experts are hardly certain,” GroupM said.

“In our forecasts we assume that a vaccine will be developed and distributed by some time in the first half of next year, although even the world’s foremost experts are hardly certain,” the agency said.

TV advertising is expected to drop by 17.6% in 020, not including U.S. political advertising. It is expected to rebound with 5.9% growth in 2021.

TV’s share of spending is dropping to 27% in 2020, from about 37% 10 years ago.

For 2020, GroupM is breaking out digital extensions of TV, radio, print and outdoor advertising as a separate estimate. GroupM said these digital extensions account for $31 billion in spending, or a 13% share of all advertising activity. That’s up from $22 billion, or 7% five years ago. Digital extensions of traditional television drew $12 billion in spending, or about 9% of global TV spending.

Digital advertising is expected to decline by 2.3% in 2020 after nearly a decade of double-digit growth. Digital’s share of ad spending is growing to 52% in 2020 from 48% in 2019 because traditional media was hurt even more by the pandemic.

Digital extensions of TV, including Hulu, Roku and other streaming video, will grow 3.7% in 2020 and 11.3% in 2021, accounting for about 9% of total TV spending.

Forecasting advertising spending during an unpredictable worldwide pandemic is easier than it sounds, according to Brian Wieser, global president, business intelligence, at media buyer GroupM.

GroupM’s latest U.S. forecast, excluding political advertising, called for a 13% drop in overall ad spending for 2020 and 4% growth in 2021. 

Television overall will be down 7.1% this year and down another 11.7% in 2021. National TV is expected to drop 11.3% this year, with a 5.6% rebound next year. Local TV, bolstered by an estimated $8 billion in political spending, is expected to grow 0.8% during 2020. Next year, with the presidential election behind us, local TV ad revenue will drop 40.2%, GroupM said.

(In a separate report, Magna Global, another huge agency, forecast a 13.2% drop in national television advertising revenues for 2020 and a 4.3% rebound in 2021. Local is expected to grow 2.8% in 2020, including political spending, then drop 14.5% in 2021, with core revenue up 0.1%.)

The drops in advertising are not as pronounced as they were during the 2008 financial crisis, when ad spending plunged 16% despite a smaller drop in gross domestic product, Wieser noted.

That’s because, although a handful
of categories have been shut down by COVID-19, most have figured out how to do business in a pandemic, Wieser said. That means that they will figure out their marketing needs and spending patterns will be predictable.

Wieser said he had been following the spread of the coronavirus since January. By February, it was clear the impact was going to be worse than SARS, and by March he was alarming people by asking whether this could be worse than the Great Depression. “I was being warned that I was scaring people,” he said. 

In March, advertisers canceled what they could cancel and paused what they could pause. 

Finding a New Stable

“But after a couple of weeks of regrouping and figuring how to operate if possible, a new normal — an overstated term, but let’s call it that — took root,” Wieser said. “What I think is happening is that most categories of marketers realized they actually can adapt to this. It’s not the end of the world for most categories and most categories that tend to be large advertisers — they’re pretty OK.”

That’s why, given the steepest drop in gross domestic product since the Great Depression, ad spending isn’t suffering proportionately.

Wieser said that short-term increases in new COVID-19 cases, or even states tightening up social distancing and stay-at-home rules at this point, shouldn’t have a big impact on total ad spending.

“We’ve had a pretty good view about
how this plays out, and the vacillations
of the past few days in the [stock] market don’t make me think we need to rethink this,” he said. 

Even something that could have a big impact on advertisers, like whether or not live sporting events return, would likely have only a marginal effect on total ad spending. 

“We know the sports leagues will try to start the season, but will they complete what they start?” Wieser asked. “In Germany, they’re playing soccer, so it can work if you do everything right. Now, are you confident we’ll do everything really well? I don’t know about you, but past evidence is not supportive of that.”

Either way, from a forecaster’s vantage point, “the observable evidence that
sports causes incremental spending, or
that eliminating sports leads to an elimination of spending, is pretty modest,” Wieser said.

With no sports, marketers who need to advertise will, with the help of their media agencies, find other ways to reach those viewers.

Pricing Impacts

The shift will have implications in terms of price inflation for other programming, as money moves from high-priced, highly-rated ad inventory to lower-rated inventory with lower costs per thousand viewers (CPMs), he said.

“That’s why it’s not as hard as you might think to forecast if you start with the view that most large marketers have figured out how to adapt their business,” he said. 

Television advertising spending in the U.S. is expected to fall 7% to $61.07 billion in 2020 and another 12% next year, according to a new forecast from GroupM.

The huge media buyer sees national TV dropping by 11% this year, but growing at 6% in 2021.

GroupM includes streaming outlets and offshoots like Roku and Hulu in its national TV figures. It predicts that streaming TV will do better than traditional TV, losing 3% in 2020 and gaining 15% in 2021.

In its report, the agency notes that cord-cutting reducing pay TV viewing and ad-free streaming services grabbing viewers “could fuel inflationary conditions.”

Including about $8 billion in political advertising, local TV should be up 1% in 2020. But core local TV advertising will be down 34% because of weakness in local retail and auto spending. Without an election in 2021, local TV spending will plunge by 40%.

“A potentially important assumption behind our forecasts relates to the return of professional sports. As of the writing of this document, some leagues have developed plans to resume play; however, whether schedules will proceed as intended remains to be seen,” GroupM said. “While some incremental advertising spending could certainly follow from the resumption of play, the specific impact on spending is probably limited because much of what would end up in sports inventory would end up elsewhere if sports did not resume.”

Over the longer term, GroupM sees television spending bouncing back and forth between election and non-election years, finishing basically flat at $61.3 billion in 2024.

GroupM said all U.S. advertising spending will decline by 13% during 2020, with a 4% rebound in 2021.

Digital advertising will edge down 3% in 2020 — flat including political advertising. It should grow by 12% in 2021. GroupM figures that pure-play internet media properties will have a 49% share of the total ad market in 2020 and 54% in 2021.

“Economic activity is presumed to be somewhat normal after 2022, although the scale of decline and the actions taken at the present time will all have implications on the specific pace at which the economy expands, let alone when we return back to even just 2019 levels,” the report said. “This is, of course, a key assumption on its own: the absence of much of a safety net for many people who will be severely impacted by the ongoing cataclysms represent risks to a broader economic recovery.”

Television advertising spending in the U.S. is expected to fall 7% to $61.07 billion in 2020 and another 12% next year, according to a new forecast from GroupM.

The huge media buyer sees national TV dropping by 11% this year, but growing at 6% in 2011. 

GroupM includes streaming outlets and offshoots like Roku and Hulu in its national TV figures. That streaming TV will do better than traditional TV, losing 3% in 2020 and gaining 15% in 2021.

In its report, the agency notes that cord-cutting reducing pay TV viewing and ad-free streaming services grabbing viewers “could fuel inflationary conditions.”

Including about $8 billion in political advertising, local TV should be up 1% in 2020. But core local TV advertising will be down 34% because of weakness in local retail and auto spending. Without an election in 2021, local TV spending will plunge by 40%.

Related: Magna Forecasts 13.2% Drop in 2020 National Ad Revenue

“A potentially important assumption behind our forecasts relates to the return of professional sports. As of the writing of this document, some leagues have developed plans to resume play; however, whether schedules will proceed as intended remains to be seen,” GroupM said. “While some incremental advertising spending could certainly follow from the resumption of play, the specific impact on spending is probably limited because much of what would end up in sports inventory would end up elsewhere if sports did not resume.”

Over the longer term, GroupM sees television spending bouncing back and forth between election and non-election years, finishing basically flat at $61.3 billion in 2024.

GroupM said all U.S. advertising spending will decline by 13% during 2020, with a 4% rebound in 2021.

Digital advertising will edge down 3% in 2020--flat including political advertising. It should grow by 12% in 2021. GroupM figures that pure-play internet media properties will have a 49% share of the total ad market in 2020 and 54% in 2021.

“Economic activity is presumed to be somewhat normal after 2022, although the scale of decline and the actions taken at the present time will all have implications on the specific pace at which the economy expands, let alone when we return back to even just 2019 levels,” the report said. “This is, of course, a key assumption on its own: the absence of much of a safety net for many people who will be severely impacted by the ongoing cataclysms represent risks to a broader economic recovery.”

With technology and a pandemic remaking the media landscape, media agency GroupM has issued a new report on brand safety for marketers that focuses, in part, on connected TV.

With viewers staying at home CTV viewing has skyrocketed. In addition to large audience, CTV advertising is attractive because it is targetable and addressable.

“After the COVID-19 stay-at-home, people’s viewing behaviors will be changed. This could lead to more opportunities to talk to the right person based on location, interests, and within contextually relevant content,” noted the report, spearheaded by John Montgomery, global executive VP, brand safety at GroupM.

However, the report warns that with CTV, measurement varies by device, ads can appear to support content that doesn’t align with brand values and fraud happens without vetting.

“Traditionally, brand safety risk was limited to digital—programmatic and social. Now, with established media digitizing and reinventing themselves, opportunities to improve brand safety practices are appearing across new avenues,” the report said. “Combined, these factors yield new challenges for established media and old challenges for new media. But there is opportunity to be found with every obstacle. Brand safety is a complex, nuanced matter and will continue to evolve in the years ahead.”

With CTV fraud is attractive because video prices are higher than other digital media. And issues can arise because of many ways CTV can be bought, including through devices, platforms, exchanges and other third parties, and the many formats offered. On top of that many publishers, in order to support their own sales teams, prevent third parties from reporting on show and app level placements.

The report offers suggestions for ways to lower the risk of CTV Advertising. They include:

“As the evolution of CTV continues, we look forward to a continued maturing of the ecosystem, bringing deeper analysis and verification capability, enhanced transparency and common definitions,” the report said.

The report also notes that the disappearance of the third-party cookie presents advertisers with opportunities and challenges.

“A potential pitfall may be the downfall of independent, third-party measurement,” the report said. Simply put, if measurement companies cannot access data directly and can only gain access to already-processed aggregate data from the publishers themselves, measurement may stop being impartial. While it may appear that this problem is limited to audience verification, content verification may not be exempt if content categories or URLs are seen to be revealing personal data.”

GroupM said it remains committed to privacy-enabled independent measurement. It said it will work with its partners to address this issue, noting that it is not only important for brand safety, but necessary for transparency about what advertising bought and how campaigns performed.

GroupM also noted that the use of content avoidance technology has been blamed for hurting news revenues at a time when viewers are tuning in to keep up with the latest on the pandemic, demonstrations and politics.

“Aggressive use of avoidance technology has taken much of the blame for news demonetization,” the report said. “There are simple ways to advertise in news without compromising brand safety, but to avoid hard news, or even bad news, flies in the face of the facts.”

The report points to research suggesting that most people do not have a negative impression of brands that advertise in hard news, provided the creative messages are appropriate. People spend more time on hard news and the engagement rates are higher.

“Marketers should reconsider blocking news and utilize their available brand safety experts to help determine their appetite for news,” the report said. “Take into account the keywords or categories that are being excluded and how this may influence the campaign and disadvantage high-quality, legitimate publishers. Now is the time to reconsider the avoidance of advertising in the news. There is a lot riding on this.”

GroupM said it has long advised clients against any blanket blocking and has worked with industry bodies, such as IAB U.K., to provide best practice guidance on how to use avoidance technologies appropriately.

The report concludes that advertisers will always face risk, particularly in dealing with user generated content. 

“In turn, we will continue to refine mitigation tools and strategy. Disinformation will continue to thrive by finding new avenues. Privacy debates will not be concluded. As a matter of fact, with the advent of artificial intelligence, ethical debates about how to regulate it will only be further ignited,” GroupM said. “Fraud, viewability and context will have to be addressed in DOOH, audio, CTV and gaming. The risk may evolve, but the underlying truths will always be valid: Independent measurement is critical, industry-defined standards and framework are crucial, and education and literacy programs are necessary.”

GroupM, WPP’s giant media buying operation, said that Christian Juhl will become global CEO, effective Oct. 1.

Juhl, who had been CEO of Essence, GroupM’s global data and measurement-driven agency, succeeds Kelly Clark. Clark took the post in 2016 with a three year commitment to prepare the business for a changing media environment..

The move is the latest change at WPP and GroupM, where the executives who built those companies, Martin Sorrell and Irwin Gotlieb have either left the company or stepped down from management roles.

“Christian has the right combination of leadership, people and technology skills to build the modern media company, something he has demonstrated extraordinarily well at Essence,” said Mark Read, CEO of WPP. “We have a great number of talented people across GroupM and its agencies, and I have every confidence in Christian’s ability to be an outstanding leader to them and an outstanding partner to our clients.”

Juhl joined Essence in 2013. The agency was acquired by WPP in 2015 and has grown since joining GroupM.

“I’m truly honored and grateful for this opportunity to help deliver on Mark’s vision for WPP as a creative transformation company,” said Juhl. “Media frames the future for creativity, and GroupM's incredible agency brands, talent, client partnerships, and scale give us the unique opportunity to help reshape the industry and the way people think about advertising.”

Clark will help Juhl with the transition and serve as a senior advisor to WPP And GroupM.

“Kelly has had a very successful three years as CEO of GroupM, reflected in its recent strong run of new business wins,” Read said. “I’d like to thank him for his dedication and leadership over many years with the company. I am delighted that he will support Christian during the transition and continue as a trusted senior advisor to the company.”

The three cable giants that own NCC Media said they have named GroupM programmatic leader Nicolle Pangis president and CEO of the national cable advertising sales organization.

Pangis had been global chief operating officer at GropuM’s [m] Platform, where she oversaw strategic partnerships, product management and technology development. Prior to [m] Platform, Pangis was global chief revenue officer of Xaxis, an early programmatic digital media business, then its global chief operating officer.

“NCC has an excellent reputation in the linear ad space, and will now extend that leadership position into the advanced ad business,” said David Kline, executive vice president and president of media sales at Charter Communications. “Nicolle, now armed with premium multiscreen television content, great viewership insights and the scale required to deliver on advertisers needs, combined with her past experiences in programmatic digital, is the perfect combination needed to drive NCC to great heights.”

NCC Media is owned by Charter, Comcast and Cox, and is looking to grow its data-driven media business with both linear networks and addressable advertising.

“NCC Media is a trusted media partner for many of the world’s largest advertisers, and I’m thrilled to join the company as we launch the next phase in our development,” Pangis said. “I’m excited to build out the teams and platforms that truly unlock the best of NCC Media and empower our partners and brands with the best products as the evolution of addressable media continues.”

In April NCC created a new division that will design, deploy and sell unified advertising solutions across its participants’ national footprint. The group will build products that deliver targeted audiences across linear and video on-demand platforms.

Related: Comcast, Charter, Cox Form New Advanced Ad Group

“We are excited to have Nicolle on board to lead NCC’s transition,” said Billy Farina, senior vice president at Cox Media. “This is another step in future-proofing NCC and a clear sign that we are reinventing the business to meet the demands of brands and marketers.”

Media agency GroupM has forecast that time spent with online media worldwide in 2018 will surpass time spent with linear TV.

The report comes during NewFronts week, a time when digital programmers are pitching advertisers on the importance of reaching consumers via online and social media.

Consumers worldwide will spend 3.69 hours per day with online media worldwide, compared with 3.63 hours spent with linear TV, according to the GroupM report. That gives online a 38% share and TV a 37% share of the media day, weighted by local media investment.

That compares with 2017's 3.53 hours with digital media and 3.71 hours with linear TV.

In the U.S., TV still holds an edge over online media, with 4.59 hours per day forecast for TV in 2018 versus 4.20 hours for online. But TV’s share of the U.S. market is declining. GroupM pegged it at 39% in 2018, down from 41% in 2017, while online will rise to 38% from 36%.

The increase in time spent on digital corresponds with a increase in e-commerce. GroupM predicted worldwide e-commerce will increase 15% in 2018 to $2.442 trillion, or 10% of all retail.

GroupM also looked at how media was being transacted. It found that 44% of online display advertising was transacted programmatically in 2017, up from 31% in 2016. GroupM forecast that rising to 47% in 2018.

Only 22% of online video was transacted programmatically, but that’s up from 17% in 2016 and will rise to 24% this year, GroupM said.