2025: The Year of Media EngAIgement
Let’s face it: AI can be intimidating. It's change. And people concerned about changes in their responsibilities can get guarded.
Super Bowl Advertising for First-Timers: How to Maximize PR Impact
Every year, the Super Bowl serves as the biggest stage for advertisers, with brands investing millions to capture the attention of over 100 million viewers. In 2025, a 30-second spot commanded up to $8 million, making it imperative for advertisers, especially first-time participants, to ensure their campaigns delivered maximum impact. Beyond the in-game placement, the most successful Super Bowl advertisers understood that true value comes from an integrated strategy spanning pre-game buzz, in-game execution, and post-game amplification.
Cannes Lions announces Unilever as Creative Marketer of the Year
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has announced Unilever as the 2024 Creative Marketer of the Year. The honorary accolade is presented to a marketer that has amassed a body of iconic, Lion-winning work over a sustained period of time, with Unilever establishing a reputation for producing brave, creative and innovative marketing solutions.
Disney Pushes the Megacontent Service Ad Envelope at CES 2024
Just 10 days into 2024, Walt Disney opened this year's lineup of Upfront/NewFront events with its fourth annual Global Tech & Data Showcase, organized by the company's advertising sales unit. Instead of a presentation where speakers made their case in front of virtual backgrounds to audiences watching on computers, smartphones or tablets, Disney Global Advertising President Rita Ferro and colleagues did their pitching live for the first time at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, before a capacity audience inside the Chelsea Theatre at the Cosmopolitan hotel.
Super Bowl 2023: An Extravaganza of Legends, Levity and the Lord Above
Super Bowl 2023 commercials captured the zeitgeist of our times -- uneasy yet hopeful, experimental yet reliant on buzzworthy big-name stars, like sports legend Serena Williams in a Michelob Ultra ad and the nostalgic icon John Travolta in a T-Mobile spot (pictured above).
Audacy Study Shows That Audio Has Moved From a Companion Medium to Daily Ritual
Rumors of the death of radio have been predicted since David Sarnoff, then President of RCA, introduced monochrome television at the 1939 World's Fair. In fact, it's alive and growing more vibrant. According to eMarketer's U.S. Time Spent With Media Report 2022, the medium is experiencing an increase in share of media time. Digital audio now accounts for 12.7% of U.S. adults' overall media time, averaging one hour and forty minutes (1:40) a day compared to social networks (1:15), tablets (1:09), or watching videos on smart phones (:40).
Super Bowl LVI: Sports, Music and Commercials Done Right
Overnight, the presentation on NBC and Peacock of Super Bowl LVI managed to do what the Fox News team has been trying to do for months -- convince the masses to toss their masks. I have no idea how many people were collectively packed into SoFi Stadium on Sunday, but I could count on one hand (okay, maybe two) the number of spectators and participants I saw wearing "protection." The crowd was literally crammed in, shoulder-to-shoulder and cheek-to-cheek, screaming and yelling or otherwise communicating for close to four hours -- each of them no doubt forming a cloud of microscopic droplets around them, which is among the very best ways of transmitting COVID-19 (and many other viruses, for that matter). Even the celebrities and other VIPS in attendance were ensuring that they did their part to put forth this message.
Animal Planet (and Animal Shelters) Gear Up for the Annual "Puppy Bowl"
It began with a heartbreaking walk on a beach in Puerto Rico. There, Chrissy Beckles saw abandoned dogs, starving. She spent a week feeding them, taking them to the vet and experiencing an epiphany she calls her "Oprah moment." Beckles decided to devote her life to these stray dogs, known as satos, on the island. That led to her founding The Sato Project, a nonprofit that has rescued some 6,000 dogs in Puerto Rico and placed them in homes. Sometimes, those homes are found because The Sato Project brings dogs to no-kill shelters. Sometimes, it's because the pups are seen frolicking on Animal Planet's annual Puppy Bowl.
Super Bowl Advertising Scores Big in Delivering Multi-Platform R-O-I
NBC isn't getting $6.5MM for Super Bowl ads simply because of the large audience. It's long been established that people pay attention to these ads more than any others. They are expecting to be entertained. They will discuss the ads with friends and see post game segments on morning shows. In the past ten years or so, the degree to which people pay attention has risen even higher. The added value for the advertiser is that people engage with Super Bowl ads as they do with movie releases (many even have trailers) and each tidbit and the final products are shared via social media. Online engagement is a proxy for endorsement. Is there anything better for the brand or the agency? Well, maybe WonkaVision -- where Willie Wonka showed us you can just reach into a screen and pull out the chocolate.
Postgame Report for Marketers: Super Bowl Scores on Digital Streaming
No matter the final score, the Super Bowl is always TV's biggest live event. And this year's game delivered for marketers across platforms. Super Bowl spots are a high-profile — and costly — way to advertise, but the growing audience for digital video and social media are helping to extend brands' investment well behind the fourth quarter.
