AMERICA’S EASTER SPENDING

The NRF expects Easter spending to hit a new record this year at $24 billion. “More people are celebrating, spending an average of $192 when they do, and buying more seasonal items.” A survey from Prosper Insights and Analytics found that 81% of US adults intend to celebrate the holiday this year. A significant event among retailers, Easter generates $7.3 billion in food and $3.3 billion in candy, while 44% of consumers will buy flowers and 27% will buy clothing, which are the highest percentage since the NRF began tracking sales in 2007. “Even those who don’t celebrate are paying attention to the holiday this year, with 54% saying they plan to shop for Easter bargains, spending about $23 each.” (MediaPost: 3/21/23)

25 WAYS TV GROWS BRANDS

A new report from the Video Advertising Bureau used a decade’s worth of research across 1,000 brands (including highlights on Uber, Microsoft, and Caspar) and 80 categories to identify ways that investment in TV drives business outcomes. Through “custom analyses and real-world examples” the report looks at how TV delivered across each stage of the purchase funnel. Among the 25 Ways:  TV turns brands into household names (#2), it drives website traffic and repeat visits (#16), it successfully launches new products (#19), and it strengthens share of market (#21). (PRNewsWire, VAB: 3/21/23)

NIELSEN’S UPFRONT PLANS

“Nielsen intends to bring Nielsen ONE Ads to this year’s upfronts after the ratings giant’s cross-screen measurement platform finally hit the market in January.” Nielsen will continue to use audience panels but will also include filtering of big data sets to improve measurement for TV campaigns that use more granular targeting. The company has introduced “second-by-second viewership and census-level data into its Nielson ONE Ads dashboard this year. But that data isn’t ready to be transacted on and can only be used for planning purposes.” CEO, Karthik Rao, says “our plan is to build C3 and C7 metrics that marry audience panels with ACR and set-top box data.” The “wider array of viewership data at a more granular level should make Nielsen’s C3 and C7 metrics more accurate and appealing to marketers.” (AdExchanger: 3/21/23)

STREAMING 2023 – WHAT MARKETERS SHOULD KNOW

Ad Age assembled an overview of 11 key themes that marketers should be aware of this year, when considering streaming for their brands. Topics include the competitiveness of streaming, who’s winning the streaming wars, a guide to all the acronyms, untangling the streaming bundles, how to create ads for streaming platforms, the types of available ad formats and whether ad fraud can exist in streaming. Ad Age looks at the shift from linear TV to streaming and the difference between the two. The report concludes with how streaming platforms are breaking through the clutter of different marketing and what the future of streaming look like. This list is sure to provide insight on all things streaming in 2023. (AdAge; requires subscription: 3/21/23)

THE JOY OF LETTING LOOSE: DANCING ON TV

In a series on the building blocks of culture, The NYT lets loose for an interactive article on ways that TV has been influenced by “normal people letting loose” and dancing. This metaphor for a “surprise waiting around every corner” includes images and video from commercials (e.g. Ragu’s Chicken Tonight, the Six Flags guy), music videos (e.g. Christopher Walken in “Weapon of Choice”), Film (e.g. the Musical acts in Breakfast Club and Ferris Beuller, Mama Mia!), our favorite shows (e.g. the Friends opening), and even awkward, real life examples (e.g. Microsoft leadership on stage, the Macarena at the DNC.) (New York Times: 3/23/23)