Merkle: Spending On Facebook Ads Rebounded In Q3

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As advertisers ready for the holiday season, Merkle’s latest digital marketing report offers some insight on how paid and organic search, paid social and display ad spend in Q3 fared in the pandemic.

The data show that Google search ad spending rose 11 recent year-over-year (YoY) in Q3, up from nine percent in Q2. Travel advertisers cut Google search spending 40 percent YoY in Q3, up from a 47 percent decline a quarter earlier. Retail search spending growth increased slightly from 11 percent YoY in Q2 to about 12 percent in Q3. For financial service companies, Google search spending dropped five percent.

Average cost per click (CPC) declines improved slightly from a 22 percent decrease in Q2 to a 10 percent decline in Q3. And as consumers started leaving their house again, Google click growth slowed from 39 percent YoY in Q2 to 24 percent in Q3.

Spending on Google Shopping ads saw a five percent increase in Q3 compared with Q2, while Google text ad spending increased nine percent compared to 10 percent in Q2.

Overall spending in retail and ecommerce categories led platform growth in Q3 YoY, with retailer sales from Google search ads up 44 percent YoY in Q3, down from an 87 percent increase in Q2.

As far as organic search, retailers and consumer goods brands saw the largest growth rates, with visits up 42 percent YoY in both Q2 and Q3. Travel organic search visits dropped 37 percent YoY in Q3, an improvement from a 50 percent decline in Q2.

Visits for non-essential goods brands were up 54 percent in Q3 while apparel brands saw an 11 percent decrease in organic search visits.

Google organic search visits on mobile increased 33 percent in Q3, down from 35 percent growth in Q2. Together, phones and tablets accounted for 64 percent of Google  organic search visits to brand sites.

Across all platforms, Merkle’s research reveals that paid social ad spend was up 19 percent YoY in Q3, up from 11 percent growth in Q2. Meanwhile, spending on traditional display ad platforms dipped three percent YoY, albeit it was an improvement from an 11 percent decrease in Q2.

Spending on Instagram ads was up 34 percent YoY, a four percent increase from Q2. Similarly, spending on Facebook ads grew 12 percent YoY in Q3, up from four percent growth in Q2.

Pinterest and Snapchat accounted for 17 percent of total social budgets among advertisers whereas Twitter accounted for 11 percent. For LinkedIn, the rate was six percent.

Click and sales growth for Amazon Sponsored Products ad slowed in Q3, but continued to outperform major digital ad products. Ad spending on Amazon Sponsored Brands was up 74 percent YoY in Q3, up from 58 percent growth in Q2. In addition, the format’s average CPC rose 16 percent YoY in Q3 after dropping 19 percent in Q2.

Study Shows Consumers Notice OOH Ads More Amid Shift Toward Hyperlocal Travel

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Nearly half (45 percent) of American adults say they’re noticing out-of-home (OOH) advertising more than before the pandemic began, according to the results of a survey the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) and The Harris Poll fielded from September 21-23 among 2,058 US adults aged 18 and up.

The finding comes as consumers have a newfound appreciation for the outdoors, spurred by shelter-in-place orders. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they try to get out of the house as often as they can, even if it’s just a drive or walk around town. Forty-eight percent are also on the hunt for new places to work from home or spend time al fresco, including outdoor parks, outdoor coffee shops or a friend’s patio.

This new shift in behavior has given OOH ads greater visibility, In fact, 45 percent of respondents said they’re noticing billboards, outdoor video screens, posters, signage and other OOH ads more now than before the pandemic.

Among the most helpful OOH ads to consumers are those that include information on COVID-19 safety and hygiene (38 percent), special offers and promotions (23 percent) and updates on a brand’s business hours and services (20 percent).

When asked what their reaction is to these types of OOH ads, 29 percent said they’re grateful for the useful information, 23 percent said it informed them about something new and 20 percent said it comforted them as it’s a sign that business is resuming as usual.

When thinking about products to buy for themselves and others, 56 percent said billboards were useful, followed by 50 percent for subway or public transit station posters and 49 percent for ads on bus shelters or benches. However, 53 percent said ads on the sides of busses or taxi cabs are not helpful.

Consumers’ renewed tendencies to spend time outside is a detriment to digital marketers as 68 percent said they spend so much time looking at screens these days that they often tune out digital online ads.

Though 65 percent of respondents said they’re interested in taking a road trip due to the pandemic, many are reluctant to use certain modes of transportation. For example, 42 percent are using airplanes less and 34 percent said they won’t board a flight until after the pandemic. Similarly, 37 percent said they’re using taxi or ride-sharing services less and 27 percent won’t use these services until the pandemic is over.

In the next few months, 45 percent of respondents said their travel patterns will be decreasing in number of trips and distance in comparison to pre-pandemic; 27 percent believe their travel patterns will be similar to what they were; and 19 percent said their travel patterns will be similar to what they were before the pandemic but more focused on trips closer to home.

COVID-19 has affected 80 percent of consumers’ holiday plans, with 45 percent reporting that they plan to stay home and celebrate with their immediate family only and 27 percent saying they’ll limit the number of people at gatherings to 10 people or less.

Just three percent are willing to travel internationally during the holidays and four percent are willing to travel domestically over 1,000 miles. A majority of respondents will travel anywhere from 50 to 200 miles during the holidays. Twenty-nine percent said they don’t plan to travel to any holiday destination this November or December. For those who do have travel holiday plans, 56 percent will use their personal vehicle and 16 percent will fly.

As far as holiday shopping, 68 percent plan to spend more or the same amount on holiday meals and wine, liquor or beer. But 58 percent prefer shopping online from September through January, followed by 42 percent who want to shop in person.

Still, 43 percent said they try to make fewer trips to the store and stock up on as many items as they can to minimize their in-store shopping, while 34 percent said they’ve stopped casually shopping in-person and only go in for pre-determined items.

The pandemic has also disrupted brand loyalty as 43 percent said they use a mix of new brands and brands they’re familiar with since the pandemic. Thirty-two percent haven’t tried new brands.

Lastly, 65 percent of consumers wish there were more outdoor dining offerings as 47 percent are tired of cooking meals at home.

App Annie: Consumers Spent $28 Billion In Apps During Q3

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Mobile is having its best year thanks to the pandemic. According to App Annie’s latest report, in Q3 consumers downloaded 33 billion new apps globally and spent a record $28 billion in apps — up 20 percent year-over-year.

As markets ease stay-at-home restrictions, mobile usage remains high worldwide. Monthly time spent in mobile apps increased 25 percent YoY in Q3, in excess of 180 billion hours each month of July, August and September 2020, as per App Annie.

Of the 33 billion new apps consumers downloaded in Q3, 25 billion were from Google Play, which saw a 10 percent YoY, and 9 billion were from iOS, representing a 20 percent YoY.

By consumer spend, Tinder ranked number one, followed by TikTok, YouTube, Disney+, Tencent Video, Google One, BIGO LIVE, Netflix, Piccoma and iQIYI.

As for downloads, TikTok ranked first, followed by Facebook, WhatsApp, Zoom, Google Meet, Instagram, Messenger, Snack Video, Telegram and Snapchat.

On Google Play, non-gaming apps accounted for 55 percent of all downloads. India and Brazil were the two largest markets by downloads for Google Play.

The categories with the most amount of downloads on Google Play were games, tools and entertainment. App Annie also observed strong quarter-over-quarter growth of downloads for libraries & demo (310 percent), dating (100 percent) and events (45 percent) apps, perhaps a sign that consumers are resuming in-person interactions.

On iOS, non-gaming apps accounted for 70 percent of all downloads. The US—where consumer spend on sports apps increased by 55 percent from Q2—and China were the two largest markets by downloads for iOS.

Games, photos and video and entertainment were the largest categories by downloads on iOS for five straight quarters. The travel category was the largest driver of overall growth on iOS.

Similarly, travel (50 percent), navigation (25 percent) and weather (15 percent) apps on iOS all had strong QoQ growth.

App Annie says that in France, Germany, the UK and the US, there was a strong rebound of time spent in Airbnb, Google Maps, Booking.com, park4night, blitzerd.de, and Speedbot.

Consumers spent a record $28 billion in apps in Q3. On Google Play spend grew 35 percent YoY to over $10 billion, while on iOS spend grew 20 percent YoY to $18 billion.

The US, Japan and South Korea were the three largest markets driving consumer spend on Google Play. For iOS it was the US and Japan.

Google Play consumers spent the most on games, social and entertainment apps, fueled in part by Disney+, Twitch, Globo Play and HBO Max.

iOS users spent the most on games, entertainment and photo and video apps.

A major breakout app was Snack Video, which launched on iOS on July 30 and broke into the top 10 apps by worldwide downloads, driven by installs in India.

Emarketer: US Travel Industry Digital Ad Spend To Plummet By 41 Percent

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The pandemic has devastated the travel industry at large and according to eMarketer, the effects will linger in Q3. According to the researcher’s updated forecast, travel industry digital ad spending in the US will plummet by 41 percent year-over-year to just $3.24 billion this year. That’s in comparison to eMarketer’s previous estimate that travel digital ad spending would grow 19.3 percent.

Travel will now account for just 2.4 percent of digital ad spending in the US.

EMarketer anticipates travel digital ad spending in the US will rebound to a 15.3 percent growth rate to $3.74 billion in 2021—a figure that barely exceeds the industry’s expenditure of $3.64 billion in 2017.

Until a vaccine is introduced and cross-border travel restrictions are lifted, consumers may be reluctant to travel the way they did before the crisis. This behavior will only worsen the situation for the travel industry.

The future is rosier for US digital ad spending as a whole. Emarketer estimates that total nationwide digital ad spending across all industries will recover from a sluggish 1.7 percent growth rate this year to 21.1 percent next year. Before the pandemic hit, eMarketer forecasted 17 percent growth in US digital ad spending.

Research shows consumers are eager to travel again. According to Skyscanner’s “The New World of Travel” report, US consumer searches for international travel were down by just six percent from the monthly average seen in 2019. The number of domestic travel searches made in August was six percent higher than the 2019 monthly average.

In addition, the report revealed 44 percent of US travelers believe it’s safe to travel domestically, as evidenced by the nearly one million passengers the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened during Labor Day weekend.

Consumer travel behavior has in fact started to pick up for some regions. For example, the number of national and international flights to Puerto Vallarta & Riviera Nayarit more than doubled in October from September, according to TravelPulse.

Confidence in cruising has also increased. According to MMGY Global’s Travel Safety Barometer, the cruise travel safety barometer rose seven points, from 24 in September to 31 in October. That progress comes as the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) announced it would require pre-boarding COVID-19 tests for all passengers and crew members on ships carrying over 250 people.

WARC: Ecommerce Sales Set To Reach $2.9 Trillion This Year

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With out-of-home activities on the back burner until further notice, consumers are increasingly turning to contactless services and online shopping. As a result, ecommerce is on track to have a huge year. According to WARC’s latest global ad trends report, the pandemic will lead to an additional $183 billion in online spending in 2020, while overall ecommerce sales are projected to grow by 30.4 percent to $2.9 trillion.

Brands are prepared to spend big to reach online shoppers. WARC’s data show companies will invest $59 billion in ecommerce advertising this year, driven by an increased use of lower-funnel tactics.

Ecommerce ad spend shows no signs of slowing down. Advertising across ecommerce sites, omnichannel retailers and social commerce is growing 30 times faster than the wider online ad market, the report found.

That upward momentum is likely to continue, as research from McKinsey & Company shows 21 percent of Americans have tried a new digital shopping method since the pandemic and 80 percent intend to continue the usage beyond the crisis. In addition, many have found new places to shop via a digital channel, including an online ad (23 percent) and social media post (16 percent).

The report also provides insight into how Alibaba and Amazon’s ad businesses, respectively, are performing in the age of coronavirus. Growing 4.5 times faster than Facebook’s and 63 times faster than Alphabet’s, Amazon’s ad business is expected to be worth $18.1 billion this year, up 35.6 percent from last year.

Alibaba’s ad business, the third largest in the world, is set to make $23.5 billion from selling ad inventory across its ecommerce properties this year, a 6.6 percent increase from 2019.

Lastly, WARC found that livestreams are bolstering China’s ecommerce sales and growing to account for a fifth of the country’s ecommerce. Taobao, TikTok and Kwai—the largest three livestreaming platforms there—accounted for 69.1 percent of livestreamed sales this year.

DoubleVerify: Consumers Are Open To Ads, But Context Is Critical

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As retailers prepare their holiday season marketing, they’d be wise to make contextual ads a key area of focus, for a new DoubleVerify study shows they’re the reason consumers are increasingly trying new brands during the pandemic. The global study, which surveyed 10,000 consumers across the US, the UK, France, Germany and Spain, examines how device types, evolving news cycles and new ad technologies have impacted consumers’ engagement with brands online.

Globally, consumers have more downtime and a need to stay informed as 44 percent are using connected television (CTV) devices more and 54 percent are using their smartphone more. As a result, time spent consuming content has ballooned, from 3 hours 17 minutes to an average of 6 hours 59 minutes.

Social media saw the biggest increase in consumption, with 48 percent of consumers spending more time on social platforms. In addition, 43 percent of 18-24 year olds report using YouTube more during the pandemic, followed by 40 percent for TikTok.

Nearly half, 47 percent, are spending more time reading online news and using streaming services such as Netflix more.

A need to access trusted information has encouraged consumers to subscribe to free publications, as 24 percent have done.

The report shows that a shift away from cookie-driven targeting solutions requires positive contextual targeting. In fact, 69 percent of consumers say they’re more likely to look at an ad that’s relevant to the content they’re seeing, with 44 percent saying they’ve tried a new brand after seeing a relevantly placed ad.

For example, 68 percent of consumers are more likely to engage with food and beverage ads that appear adjacent to relevant content they’ve already viewed.

Brands must reach consumers on the appropriate channel, however, as younger consumers prefer to see ads on social media (57 percent) while those over 45 years of age prefer seeing ads on television.

Equally as important as acknowledging where shoppers are open to seeing ads is determining the environment for an online ad, as 67 percent are more likely to engage with an ad on the website of a publisher they know and trust. For example, 41 percent of respondents say it’s appropriate for healthcare brands to advertise beside pandemic-related content.

Consumers are open to COVID-adjacent ads too, as long as they’re in the right place. For example, 48 percent favorably perceive ads adjacent to positive and neutral pandemic content, such as community success stories.

Over half (53 percent) of consumers are also more likely to look at ads on a publication’s homepage than on a different section of the site.

Still, fake news can threaten conversion, as 55 percent of consumers say they’d be less likely, or would never, buy from a brand if the brand’s ad appeared next to fake or misleading content.

Why Focusing Exclusively On Short Term Metrics Can Cause Long Term Catastrophe For Mobile Games Marketers

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I’ve been in the video game industry for over 23 years, working on the marketing and publishing side. I got my start way back in the industry at Microsoft on the original Xbox, and went on to work with Sega, Ayzenberg, ArenaNet, Amazon Game Studios, Blizzard and most recently, FoxNext. I’m also the founder of AListDaily and who Eric Ayzenberg affectionately calls “the architect.”

Over the course of my career, I’ve become fascinated with KPI measurement. Running mobile game publishing for the last four years has exposed me to a corporate focus and unequaled value of “short-term” metrics—the almighty return on advertising spend (ROAS), with user acquisition (UA) being completely judged on one simple metric: ROI. Did this ad spend against this cohort result in profit? If so, spend more. If not, discontinue spend.

Growing up professionally in the early days of video game marketing, my roots are in brand marketing. Other than sales, “long term metrics were really all we had. Impressions, share of voice, brand affinity and price elasticity were all highly valued back then by my bosses.

I recently read a study conducted by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) that helped ground me in how to balance the long and short of marketing.

I’m going to share why marketers need to fight for long term metric acceptance and value from management as it’s the only way games-as-a-service and free to play games have a chance to last years and deliver on the expectations of long-term live support.

The State Of KPI Measurement In Mobile Games Publishing

I’ve noticed a trend of gaming companies being enamored with purely attributable marketing spend. By that, I mean spend a dollar and see exactly how much revenue that dollar generates to your company.

This is a very common practice in the mobile games industry, where, as of right now, you can do this in your UA paid media spending on mobile. You do that through technology, which is basically code that goes into your ads that uses the unique identifier of the person viewing the mobile IDFA to connect all the way through the funnel of that person seeing your ad, clicking it, going to your app store, installing your app, playing your app and eventually, hopefully spending money in your app.

There is a data breadcrumb trail that will go all the way back up. And that is empowering to UA teams because they can then do cohort analysis, namely splice that data in many different ways. For example, they can look at people they brought in at a particular time, people that they brought in under a specific piece of creative, people that come in from Facebook versus Google and people that are on iOS versus Android. And they can make very calculated decisions on how much they are willing to spend to get other people like those different groups.

What this has done to senior level folks running game companies in the mobile gaming industry is put them in the mindset that all marketing should be measured this way. That is extremely challenging because the attribution technology and the data sources break when you get into other forms of marketing.

A very easy example of that would be if you run a television ad, there is no way to know somebody watched the television ad and then installed and played your game and then whether or not that is a valuable player or not a valuable player. It’s disconnected.

Where Short Term ROI Focus Falls Short

We need to be better as marketers to provide evidence where possible to encourage management that not all marketing should be completely short term ROI focused, and that there is value in things like brand spending.

If we only focus on purely attributable ROI measured marketing spend, you basically will never do anything for the long term value of the game. As a result,  branding gets shoved to the side and is ignored. That is a short term win with potential for a long term catastrophe.

A lot of video games nowadays have extremely long lives, like World of Warcraft is now in its 17th year. If World of Warcraft was launched on iOS 17 years ago on Apple, and Blizzard decided that they were only going to look at ROAS in their UA media spends, I would challenge the notion that it would have ever lasted 17 years because it was not building the brand. It was only looking for new players at the top of the funnel that had some evidence that they could spend.

Short Term Marketing’s Impact On Brand Perception And Price Sensitivity

What will end up happening is if you’re only looking at ROI on a particular media UA spend, it will force your UA team and the team responsible for building the creative to make decisions that are not based on long term value.

So let’s say we’re running the marketing for a mobile game and the mobile game is a new IP, it’s not a license and nobody’s really heard of it. It’s also in a genre that’s really hot right now. Let’s say when Candy Crush came out, you think you have a spin on the match-three category and so you create a game that’s called Gem Crush instead of Candy Crush. So what you’re doing is capitalizing on someone else who has built momentum without trying to build any resonance or affiliation with your own version of that. You will probably see early indications of great success. You can make advertisements that look similar to Candy Crush advertisements. And you will probably get a great deal of people who will be interested, click and download the game, plus maybe spend a little bit of money early on.

And maybe that’s successful. But what will happen over time is that genre will lose some of its steam. People have seen it. There have been lots of competitors that enter the market. You’re not the only Candy Crush, type match-three game. And there will be somebody who maybe puts on the license that people have heard of. So now, instead of just Candy Crush and Gem Crush, which is your game, there is a Frozen-themed match-three game from Disney.

Guess what? That game has brand equity. It has awareness and the downstream effect of brand equity and awareness, while not attributable, would be realized by the marketing team marketing this match-three Frozen game. They will be able to come out of the gate and have greatly reduced cost per installation and cost per impression (CPM) that will allow them to go at a larger scale than you and probably will bring in more loyal customers because there’s a fondness and affiliation, a familiarity with the Frozen franchise. You will have missed your ability to build a long term business because you don’t have that same affiliation and brand affection. The switching costs between the game you’re marketing, Gem Crush, is very low. Players have not built an emotional connection to your brand. They tried it because it was the new hot thing and they’re just as easily swayed by going back to the originator, either Candy Crush or something more familiar, which is the Disney brand.

That’s the long term effect, which is also related to price sensitivity. One of the best case studies of price sensitivity is the mobile device business. There are two big players— Apple with the iPhone and Samsung with the Galaxy. Why is it that Apple is able to charge 50 percent more for a device that may not be quite as powerful as the similar model from Samsung? It’s only one thing: the brand building, brand affiliation and brand equity that they’ve created for that over time.

You may be able to build a profitable short term business if you’re just looking at ROI in the short term window. You may not be able to right the ship if you just use that exclusively as your only means of marketing.

How To Balance The Short And Long Of Marketing

To balance the short and long of marketing, you must be more evidence-driven in the non-attributable marketing spending that you’re doing.

What I think is lazy is when marketers go in front of their boss and say, “But what about brand spend? It’s important for the long term business health of our game.” And the boss turns to them and says, well, can you prove that? And you throw your hands up and you say, well, I can’t show a directly attributable ROI on brand spend, that’s impossible.

That’s lazy. Classically trained packaged goods marketers that never have been forced into this new world of data driven marketing need to adapt and try to put the breadcrumbs together.

While it’s really difficult to run a television spot and then immediately go measure how many new games you sold from that television spot, it isn’t impossible to run the television spot and then look at the cause or correlation into another metric that isn’t completely all the way down the funnel that is more attributable.

Isolate one variable that has highly correlated effect and then go the next step down, another variable that is proven by that prior one in a highly correlated effect, and then further and further getting you to some amount of certainty that there is evidence to whatever the most important metric that you’re trying to drive—whether that’s profitable installs or if that’s retention in your game.

Those metrics are measuring different things, but that’s what needs to happen to justify brand spending, rather than just giving up and saying, “well, I think it worked, our revenues are up.” This bread crumb process can then be used as evidence and justification for further brand spends down the line. If you build this case you can then start a proposed spend pitch with, “we have evidence that our TV brand spend on average reduce cost per install by 20%”

Don’t ignore what data can provide, embrace it and try to come up with as much evidence as possible to get close to attribution. It isn’t going to be perfect because there is not the same sort of attribution available for outdoor billboards, for your public relations efforts or running a cool sizzle trailer on YouTube. But there are data points that can be measured.

Magna: Ad Sales Declined By 7.2 Percent In The First Half Of 2020

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Advertising revenues dropped 17 percent year-over-year (YoY) to $46 billion in the second quarter of 2020, according to Magna Global’s latest US advertising forecast.

Linear media took a hit as ad sales plummeted 38 percent in Q2, the result of declines in national and local media formats. National television ad sales saw their worst quarter ever, decreasing by 30 percent as a result of the absence of live sports events. Search declined by three percent, its first decline ever in the second quarter.

On the other hand, digital media in Q2 was flat YoY, reflecting a resilience driven by the surge in digital media consumption during lockdowns. Google posted a 6 percent decline in US ad sales, at $14 billion. Facebook and Amazon both reported growth, the former by 14 percent YoY to $8.3 billion, the latter by 43 percent to $2.5 billion.

In the first half of 2020, ad revenues dipped by 7.2 percent YoY. Linear ad sales saw a 23.1 percent decline while digital ad sales increased by 5.7 percent. National and local television both posted decreases of 19 percent.

Suffering the largest declines in the first half were print and radio, each down 33 percent; out-of-home, down 22 percent; and on-screen movie advertising, down a whopping 63.6 percent.

The latest macroeconomic data shows the US economy will decrease by 5.2 percent in 2020 after falling by 10 percent YoY in Q2. Taking this data into account, Magna has adjusted its full-year growth forecast to show that in 2020, net ad revenues will fall by 4.6 percent to $213 billion, linear ad sales will decline by 16 percent to $81 billion and digital ad revenues will grow by 4.2 percent to $133 billion.

Magna anticipates ad spending will rebound in 2021 by a 4 percent increase due to economic recovery and the Tokyo Olympic Games. Verticals that will increase their linear ad spending in 2021 include entertainment (12 percent), restaurants (8 percent) and technology, personal care and pharmaceuticals (all at 5 percent). For travel marketers, the outlook is less rosy, as Magna expects travel ad spend will decline an additional 15 percent in 2021.

Gartner: 44 Percent Of CMOs Are Facing Midyear Budget Cuts Due To COVID-19

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Almost half of chief marketing officers (44 percent) are facing midyear budget cuts in 2020 as a direct result of the pandemic, shows Gartner’s “The Annual CMO Spend Survey Research: Part 1.” Fielded from March to May, the responses reflect CMOs’ optimism about business rebounding in the next year and a half, in addition to a desire to play things safe in 2021 by targeting existing markets.

After somewhat adjusting to COVID-19, CMOs are hopeful about the future—when asked about the impact of the business and economic climate over the next 18 to 24 months, 73 percent of CMOs said they expect the pandemic’s negative impacts to be short-lived. Similarly, 57 percent believe performance will return to pre-pandemic levels in the next 18 to 24 months.

Those who expressed some signs of concern about the future impact of COVID-19 include respondents in travel and hospitality (22 percent) and consumer product brands (34 percent).

Despite their rosy outlook, CMOs acknowledge the pandemic’s effects on their marketing budgets. For example, 44 percent of CMOs are prepared for a moderate cut of up to five percent or a larger cut of more than 15 percent.

Among some of the adverse actions CMOs have taken in response to COVID-19 are canceling or postponing customer-facing marketing events (44 percent), delaying a campaign launch (41 percent) and reducing permanent, temporary and contractor headcount (37 percent).

Other ways CMOs responded to the pandemic include launching special COVID-19 communications to customers (61 percent), adding listening tools to monitor COVID-19 customer sentiment (47 percent) and promoting ecommerce offerings (40 percent).

Over the last few months, CMOs have come to value brand strategy more. In fact, 33 percent of respondents cited brand strategy as their most vital strategic capability, overtaking analytics at 29 percent. Whereas last year, brand strategy was at the bottom of the list.

Looking ahead, 79 percent of CMOs are focused on their existing markets to fuel growth, particularly by introducing new products (45 percent) and increasing sales of existing products (34 percent).

Gartner’s findings are based on an online survey conducted among 432 respondents in the US, Canada, France, Germany and the UK.

Modernizing OOH With Ubimo’s Norm Chait

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During this 223rd episode of “Marketing Today,” I interview Norm Chait, the Head of Out-of-Home Solutions at Ubimo.

On the program today, we modernize my definition of out-of-home based on what Ubimo is doing with its location-based intelligence offering and bringing audience understanding, location, and traffic monitoring to an old medium. The updated view Chait shares on what out-of-home should look like today can expand what’s possible for marketers.

Chait begins by talking about what attracted him to the out-of-home space and how Ubimo uses location intelligence to understand what people do throughout their day. We then discuss how technology has dramatically changed the out-of-home space by helping marketers understand where a particular audience is originating from and where they’re going. Chait says, “it all basically starts and ends with audiences and understanding what these folks are doing and how do we tie them back to a physical location.” Then we talk about how marketers can leverage these data points in the out-of-home space and how privacy is handled. He says, “every signal we see, every segment that’s built, is based on opt-in data, and it’s all based on location services.” We then talk about how Ubimo has approached data during COVID and how the current environment presents marketers opportunities to connect with shoppers when they’re thinking about shopping.

Highlights from this week’s “Marketing Today”:

  • What attracted Norm to out-of-home. 01:09
  • Learn about Ubimo. 02:49
  • How Quotient fits into the mix. 04:26
  • Bringing measurement to behavior that would otherwise be a void. 05:49
  • How marketers can work with Ubimo. 07:38
  • The digital out-of-home DSP. 08:56
  • Different elements of the data that can be leveraged to understand the traffic of out-of-home placement. 10:50
  • How privacy is handled in this environment. 13:14
  • COVID dashboards. 14:29
  • How marketers should be thinking about marketing differently during this time. 19:40
  • Norm shares a defining experience. 21:52
  • Norm reflects on advice he would give to his younger self. 23:29
  • Norm shares about an impactful purchase he made in the last 6-12 months. 24:27
  • Are there any brands, companies, or causes that Norm follows that he thinks other people should notice? 25:58
  • Norm’s take on the top opportunity and threat facing marketers today. 27:59

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Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on opportunities around brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies, but he is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine startups.