Digiday+ Briefings: Marketers message around slowly returning to normalcy this summer after ‘the collective experiences we ’ve lost’

In our most recent Marketing Briefing, senior marketing editor Kristina Monllos explored marketing messages for summer 2021, including brands' decision to lean into the missed experiences of the last year and a half.

In this week's Media Buying Briefing, senior editor, media buying and planning Michael Bürgi looked at advertisers' reactions to the ANA's recent RFP to potential consultant partners in an effort to prevent confusion around the media buying process.

Get a taste of the Marketing Briefing and Media Buying Briefing below and subscribe to Digiday+ to have both delivered straight to your inbox every week.

Marketing Briefing: Marketers message around slowly returning to normalcy this summer after ‘the collective experiences we’ve lost

By Kristina Monllos

When it comes to marketing messages for summer 2021, brands are leaning into the missed experiences of the last year and a half. Think BBQs, birthday parties, family reunions, travel — the experiences and normalcy that people have been yearning for since the onset of the pandemic will be front-and-center in marketing messages set for this summer in the United States.

Doing so comes as vaccination rates rise across the U.S. and regions roll back Covid-19 restrictions. With more people vaccinated and getting ready to gather again, marketers are aiming to capture the attention of those audiences to inspire domestic travel, returning to restaurants and assisting with those missed experiences, according to marketers and agency execs.

“You’re going to see communication that is about reclaiming things,” said Ruth Bernstein, CEO, Yard NYC. “That lost trip, that anniversary experience that was delayed. I expect the cruise industry to lean more into this — especially with their older consumer base.”

The focus of summer marketing is on “people getting back together safely,” said Dan Sanborn, president of Wheelhouse Labs and chief marketing officer for media, marketing and investment group, Wheelhouse, He added that lifestyle brands, especially those centered around outdoor lifestyles, like grills or even cocktails, will likely message around small gatherings.

Maggie Cadigan, managing director of growth at The Many, echoed that sentiment: “It’s all through the lens of experience and the collective experiences we’ve lost.”

“Direct mentions to the pandemic will reduce significantly, the overall mood tends to be more positive and campaigns will leverage the power of human connection,” noted RAPP US’ Chief Creative Officer, Moa Netto.

That’s not to say messaging related to the pandemic will subside entirely. Marketers and agency execs say mentions of cleanliness and sanitizing spaces as well as maintaining distance and staying safe are table stakes and that language will continue in messaging.

Quote of the week

“Every client we speak to is focused on diversity and inclusivity, whether that’s how they can make sure their dollars are going toward more diverse audiences or targeting diverse owners like Black or female-owned media owners. There’s also a realization among clients that disinformation can’t have the same equal access opportunities as quality journalism when it comes to media dollars. Because if you leave that then you don’t challenge risks to things like democracy and sustainability. It’s time for advertising to really step up and do its part. We should’ve done this right the first time.”

— GroupM North America CEO Kirk McDonald’s response to Seb Joseph on socially responsible advertising.

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Media Buying Briefing: How will media agencies react when programmatic is put under the microscope?

By Michael Bürgi

Concerned that the exploding world of ad tech and automated media buying, specifically the $82 billion programmatic space, just keeps getting more confusing and complex, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) issued an RFP to potential consultant partners to understand the practice from beginning to end.

It wasn’t quite the live grenade that the ANA tossed at the media agency world in 2016 when the industry association — which represents marketers who spend billions on advertising — alleged that media agencies were covering up fraudulent and unethical behavior. At the time, media agencies lined up to swing back at the ANA and defend themselves — all while worrying what might get uncovered when it was reported in 2018 that the FBI was also investigating the issue. (To date, no serious instances of fraud have been uncovered, media agencies noted to Digiday.)

This time, holding company media agencies are staying quiet — either declining comment or not responding to requests for comment. That could have something to do with the fact that the ANA is far less accusatory this time, citing the desire to help marketers understand the flow from initial idea to actual execution, and the accompanying money flow. “The lack of full transparency for ad delivery and ad quality is diminishing marketers’ ability to fully optimize investments and drive greater business growth,” said Bob Liodice, ANA president and CEO. “We believe this lack of transparency is costing advertisers billions of dollars in waste.”

But a few holding companies that own data companies could also be less excited about closer scrutiny on how programmatic dollars flow through their systems. Though no one is alleging it (yet), they could potentially be favoring in-house operations along the programmatic supply chain, including metrics support and the like.

Some agencies welcome the attention to the issue. “There are so many players involved in programmatic, from SSPs to DSPs to verification companies, etc., that it can lead to fatigue or apathy on the part of marketers to pay attention” to where the dollars go, said Prerna Talreja, group director of marketplace/biddable media at Crossmedia, an independent media agency. “Advertisers don’t necessarily make the decisions as to which vendor gets chosen, so from an agency perspective, not every decision might be completely neutral. That’s why it’s good if marketers start to ask more questions.”

Direct quote
“We’ve become familiar with the Amazon walled gardens and the Facebook walled gardens, but we’re about to become familiar with device-led walled gardens, operated by people like LG, Samsung, and Vizio. The use of identifiers in the TV market is evolving at really quite a space. What I’m hoping people are going to do is to stand back and look at other forms of [a] signal other than identifiers … You see a shape of connected TV and targeting and attribution which has moved beyond the straight identifier cookie-based world of the online advertising market, and I think there’s terrific opportunity in that.”

— Longtime WPP digital executive Rob Norman, now director at Piano, on the deprecation of cookies and the changing nature of identifiers, to BeetTV.

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