Despite an initial falloff due to the Covid pandemic, digital advertising spending grew 12.2% year over year in 2020, according to a new report commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and conducted by PwC. But the report also showed the largest players in the ecosystem further entrenched their hold on the U.S. digital ad market in 2020, commanding more share year over year. 

While 2020 certainly threw us for a loop, and we don’t have a crystal ball on hand to predict exactly what will transpire in 2021, there has been a noticeable shift in frequent topics of discussion at our agency and among industry peers. Many of us are beginning to see early trends emerge within their own paid social campaigns and by observing others. Social platforms are continuing to scale given the influx of daily usage and the increase in e-commerce transaction volume this year, as COVID swept the globe and disrupted our lives in many ways.

Decades ago, families would gather around the TV at the same time every week to watch a show together. Now, TV is available on the go—streaming on smartphones and tablets so that viewers can watch their favorite shows anytime, anywhere. 

Five years ago, Boehr, a resident of Toronto, Ontario, was already subscribing to Netflix and added Amazon Prime to the buffet. Price considerations and bundling played a role in her decision to eliminate cable from her TV diet. “I remember having to buy channels in bundles and many were included in these bundles that I didn’t want or use,” she says. “Plus, I was watching Netflix the most anyway, so it seemed like the cable bill was the natural thing to cut.”

Developing a customer experience strategy is often the most overlooked element in a company’s marketing plan. Many are so concerned about finding more leads, website traffic and completing more sales calls, that they forget to nurture their already-existing clients.

The structure of almost everything we do—how and what people buy, how and where they work, how they interact with others—has been upended by world events in 2020. The consumer behavior shifts we’re seeing today are not a blip. They are likely to stay with us for a long time, some likely forever. Some have been in motion for years, and many have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

2020 was a year marked by lockdowns and isolation, a shift from the physical world to a digital one. Between working from home, an endless breaking news cycle, and streaming services continuously churning out binge-worthy content, it’s unsurprising that many of us were glued to our screens for much of the year.

“In my day…” Wipe that generational skepticism aside: Generation Z, born 1997 to 2012 and the oldest of whom are now entering the workforce, are a cohort to admire, learn from, and even emulate. Gen Z is all about diversity, ethics, and values, with each one factoring heavily in their choice of which brands they’ll buy from and which companies they’ll work for. 

While few will say they’ll miss 2020 when it’s over, the events of the past year – read: the pandemic – will continue to shape consumer behavior and, in turn, the way brands market to them in 2021. “Our pre-pandemic customers are no longer the same,” said Fiona Blades, chief experience officer of MESH, a market research firm. “Their needs are changing.”

2020 offered a glimpse of the nowhere-everywhere future of work, and it isn’t optimistic for big cities. Some evenings, when pandemic cabin fever reaches critical levels, I relieve my claustrophobia by escaping into the dreamworld of Zillow, the real-estate website. Zillow searches have soared during the health crisis, according to Jeff Tucker, the company’s chief economist.

For years, growth in video advertising has driven overall programmatic display growth. Advertiser demand for video impressions has always outstripped supply, but supply has gotten a big boost as consumers started adopting streaming video viewing in larger numbers—especially on connected TV (CTV) devices—and more of those impressions have been made available programmatically. 

The TV industry, let alone the world, is currently in uncharted waters dealing with the coronavirus COVID-19. At times it can feel overwhelming with all of the uncertainty everyone is experiencing, but we’re all in this together, and there are ways for advertisers to navigate these rough seas until we reach calmer waters.

We carried out our first influencer marketing survey in 2017, giving us excellent insight into the state of the industry. We repeated the exercise last year, and have now made our study an annual look into how marketing agencies and brands see the state of influencer marketing.

It’s been a year of big change for display advertising – 25 years on from the first banner ad, browsers’ restrictions on third-party cookies are shaking the foundations of display advertising. At the same time, new opportunities for advertisers are developing across connected channels such as DOOH and CTV. So where does display advertising stand in a post-cookie world where there is so much digital choice?

Advertising has evolved over hundreds of years to become a key driving force behind the modern economy. The third decade of the 21st century will see the industry enter a new age of technological possibilities. Virtual and augmented reality will bloom as advertising gets a face-lift, with outdated approaches destined for the scrap heap.

If you’re not sure why you should put money behind your social media campaigns, these social media advertising statistics should help.

Due to the frenzy of pandemic-induced quarantines, media consumption has seen a massive increase. But what exactly are people doing, and how are they staying informed?

Starting this week, all local TV stations owned by NBC and Telemundo will stop using traditional ratings points to measure campaign effectiveness, in favor of the cost-per-impression (CPM) method.

Consumers and business buyers receive more messages, through more channels, than ever before. Cutting through the noise requires advertisers to deliver hyperpersonalized messages that resonate at the individual level. Now, advertising is undergoing a transformation — the biggest revolution since the launch of digital ads in the 90's — driven by data.

When you think of Roku, you likely think of streaming dongles and surprisingly capable TCL television sets. Increasingly, though, Roku hardware has taken a backseat to the Roku platform, which drove more revenue for the company in the most recent quarter than all those players combined.

Thanks to the massive growth of advertising on social networks and mobile devices—two areas where native ads dominate—native advertising now accounts for more than half of all digital display spending by US marketers. This year, they will allocate $32.90 billion to native digital display ads, up 31.0% over 2017.

According to an Econsultancy and Adobe survey of client-side marketers worldwide, 65% of respondents said improving their data analysis is a very important factor in delivering a better customer experience. That was the most popular answer for the second year in a row, up from a 63% response rate in 2017.

Is your marketing strategy fit for 2018? Stay on top of industry trends influenced by new technology, evolving consumer demands, and a dynamic social media landscape.

Although broadcast TV is getting long in the tooth, it still remains the top media channel worldwide, when measured by consumption, according to new data from Salesforce.

Did you know that social media marketing has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing? Or that 84% of B2B marketers use social media in some form?