Lessons from this Super Bowl ad season, why brands are betting big on sports & strategic shifts toward 'digital-first'

PLUS: Getting to the "true ROI of an ad," how to put your diverse ad supplier investment strategy into action, CTV and retail media giants are making big moves to gain a competitive advantage, & insights from in-house media teams.

This issue is brought to you by Michael Stoeckel , Dena Caravello ,& Laura Franta-Abdalla

Lessons from this Super Bowl ad season

Last month, the Super Bowl raked in record-breaking ad revenue once again. With the cost of a 30-second Super Bowl ad increasing by 11% this year alone, the pressure was on brands to make a splash and go all-in to make their campaigns count. For some, this meant tapping into the power of the “second screen,” celebrity appearances, and omni-digital extensions of their live TV campaigns, with Verizon, Dunkin, and State Farm topping industry rankings for best ads.

While many focused on adjacent digital strategies and the creative to select their favorites this year, EDO CEO, Kevin Krim, reminded us that there is a science to measuring brand awareness, consideration, and intent, especially for brand categories like entertainment. This is likely why Walt Disney/Marvel’s anticipated blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine & Universal’s Wicked are ranked at the top of EDO’s Engagement Index.?

Sports continue to attract TV ad revenue

This year’s Super Bowl revenue also reinforced the importance of sports, and the NFL specifically, to the traditional TV business and the National TV ad revenue that supports it.? After all, according to Nielsen,? NFL games accounted for 93 of the 100 most-watched live programs on TV in 2023.?

That is probably why, just a few days before the Super Bowl, ESPN, FOX, and Warner Bros announced a new sports TV joint streaming venture. While previous Hulu skeptics may predictably dub it the next “‘Clown Co.’ for Sports,” their move will likely pose a considerable threat to this sports anchor. If premium sports programming moves to streaming, does this mean traditional linear ad delivery will spin into a final death spiral??

TV isn't dead—it's just changing.

It all depends on how you look at it. Many quickly point out that TV isn’t dead; it is just changing. In fact, according to Dave Morgan, this may be the push we need to stop spending time differentiating between streaming and linear TV. “Isn’t it time to move on and treat everything on TV like TV?”?

But what does a digital-first vs. a TV-centric strategy mean for advertisers? Sure, a strong brand still matters—there are strong arguments to back up the claim that, now, more than ever, the brand is a central component for cross-channel ad effectiveness. However, as advertisers move more and more towards “digital-centric” strategies, brands will need better processes in place to create more targeted ads and make data-informed optimizations in real time. At the end of the day, every step toward getting to the “true” ROI of an ad buy is a step in the right direction.?

CTV x Retail Media & Google v. the IAB

Speaking of CTV, Retail Media’s current silver medalist, Walmart, caught a rather big— albeit somewhat under-the-radar—fish this month. They are betting that their acquisition of the Vizio brand’s streaming video audience insights, low-cost in-store screen space, and dominant footprint in the electronics space will pay out big for its retail media arm, Walmart Connect.?

Meanwhile, it isn’t quite all sunshine and roses in digital land. With the long-anticipated depreciation of the often-misused cookie, a good bit of mud has been tossed at Google.?

This should all set us up for a very interesting 2024. We’ve got March Madness just around the corner, have been told to expect a new sports streaming offering to launch just in time for the football season, and have already previewed plenty of new ad opportunities. In parallel, we’ll find out if Google puts a fork in Chrome’s third-party cookies by the end of the year or if we’ll spend more time waiting for the ax to fall.

More from Hudson MX

Closing the Diverse Supplier Investment Gap

38% of respondents in a recent 2023 ANA study said that diverse media investment increased over the previous year. However, 56% shared a community-wide interest in supporting and investing more in BIPOC, LGBTQ+, women, disabled, and veteran-owned media suppliers.

What can we point to as the cause for the gap between “intent’ and action”? The ANA suggests that many advertisers and agencies have not surpassed the theoretical stage of considering pathways toward better supporting diverse media suppliers.

Check out this guide for resources, insights, and tools to get started.

In-housing media activation has its benefits – but agencies still have a vital role to play

Over the past year, we've dedicated a great deal of time listening to our clients and other in-house brand teams share some about their strategic motivations for shifting certain aspects of their work in-house, operational challenges and opportunities they've uncovered during their in-housing journeys, and how they're hoping to improve collaboration and transparency with their agency partners.

Last quarter, we joined the late industry titan, Ben Jankowski, and Tobias Wolf to share hightlights and insights from our joint study with WARC .

WARC subscribers can read this article here, or you can request a copy of it here.

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