From Upfronts to NewFronts, Madison Avenue Faces Its Post-COVID Future
From the NewFronts to the upfronts, brands are jockeying for position to claim the infusion of advertising dollars coming back into the marketplace in 2021.
The rebound is being fueled by Americans shaking off the pandemic, according to Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at media-buying giant GroupM.
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“We have a lot of juiced-up demand from a lot of consumers with a lot of extra money to spend,” he said on the latest episode of Variety’s “Strictly Business” podcast.“It’s stimulus-driven in many cases, at least collectively, because we really do need to remember a lot of people are still struggling, but on average people in the economy are very, very able and willing to spend money.”
Listen to the podcast here:
Also fueling advertising growth is not just a robust level of new business formation, but the emergence of new kinds of businesses more oriented to the explosive growth of e-commerce coming out of the pandemic. “A business forming in 2021 versus a business forming in 2019 could be radically different in every aspect of what they do and how they do it,” said Wieser. The average company reserves 1% of revenue to advertising. But what if the new generation of businesses being formed was more like 2%? Something like that is happening, and more of that extra money is flowing into Google, Facebook and Amazon.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Wieser address many key trends impacting the advertising world, including the rise of connected TV, addressable advertising and the extinction of third-party cookies.
“Strictly Business” is Variety’s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. A new episode debuts each Wednesday and can be downloaded on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher and SoundCloud.
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