It's the Death of the Upfront as we know it... And I feel Fine

I wrote this article months ago, but for certain reasons I had to remove it, delete it completely and was unable to recover it to share it again... So here goes round 2 as it seems even more applicable today then it did in April!

As that song rings in your head, "It's the end of the world as we know it..." it couldn't help but shine through in the current state of advertising. The Upfront season has come and gone, advertisers have been asked to put their dollars into these machines that run on a demographic currency, spray and pray and hope for the best. There's little to no flexibility, unless you come across your options and you're left scratching your head with an entire year's worth of media budget, HOPING it performs.

Can you really expect media to perform in a channel (linear) that delivers more frequency than reach? Yes, frequency is imperative to building awareness of a brand, especially when trying to steal share from your competition, but not to the tune of 150x a month on one linear channel to one HH (household) in America.... that's just annoying! But the big media conglomerates continue to turn a blind eye to the fact that they have no control on their inventory and force feed advertisers archaic methods of media buying principles.

Enter the market of CTV/OTT/vMVPD or whichever acronym we've decided to call it today. Yes we're beginning to make this space hard to understand, but the one thing that is not hard to understand is the fact that the reach in this space is MASSIVE and growing by the day. In fact, a recent study performed by Roku states that 26% of the addressable universe in America is a cord cutter or cord never. If you're starting your media plan with no CTV being bought, you're starting at a 26% disadvantage to your competition, so how will you be able to grow HHP (household penetration) and steal share in your category?

A great example, below. If you knew your Linear TV buy was delivering 79% of your dollars, but only delivering to 39% of Households, would you be OK with that? Would you not want more control of your frequency to extend reach? How are you going to accomplish that in an upfront buy where your dollar is stuck? These are the questions you need to start asking yourself before you approach an integrated media plan that has a predominance to Linear TV.

“Buying too much inventory is inefficient at best, and at worst, leads to excess frequency through heavy ad loads in programs – annoying consumers and wasting money. The system must change.” - Marc Pritchard, quoted recently in the below Variety Article. "Excess of Frequency".... see chart above... I'll wait.... Do you see it?

He later speaks to how they've taken back control of their negotiations, in partnership with their agencies, however being the lead voice in those discussions. The fundamental shift is happening, led by P&G with the buying power to do so, and turning a 50+ year TV industry on it's head. With the brands leading the charge, they're going to put their business first, nobody else's, and ask for things that will actually grow their bottom line, more control and flexibility.

How do we get more of this? Is the data driven charge going to help support the integrated media plan of the future? Will ACR technology supplant the fundamentals of a 40,000 HH panel built on decade old technology system? How can addressability become the norm, not just in digital channels but across all integrated marketing channels. Kudos to the P&G team for shifting the mindset of the industry and let's keep pushing forward, together, in the new world of advertising.

The age of spending all media budgets in the upfront is over, and as the song goes "It's the end of the world (Upfront) as we know it, and I feel fine".