To The Principal’s Office
Principal-based media buying is a hot-button issue. Both its proponents and its detractors have very strong feelings.
Take, for instance, the scrap last month between the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (think of it as the ANA of the UK) and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (the UK’s answer to the 4A’s).
The associations traded barbs over a disagreement regarding principal-based media.
Principal-based buying also stirred a clash on a panel at the Future of TV Advertising conference in Sydney this week, Mumbrella reports.
According to Chris O’Keefe, COO of Australian independent agency Match and Wood, who spoke on the panel, it’s not surprising that smaller agencies are far less gung ho about the practice than agency conglomerates. Holdcos with global clients and pricing guarantees are the ones that often include principal-based buying as part of a campaign, he said.
But IPG Australia CEO Mark Coad did not agree that principal-based buying is “as evil as the press makes out,” which is how the moderator put it.
“ I don’t like the way you framed the question,” Coad said. “Have [the press] demonized it? Yeah, of course they have; but they’re demonizing stuff that barely [exists].”
Pit Stopped
Live sports is the tentpole of linear TV.
Reality shows are relatively cheap and easy to produce, and news programs are practically a mandatory public service, like jury duty. But sports is the true pillar upon which the US television advertising business is built.
But is even that foundation beginning to crumble?
Take Formula One, the fast-growing car racing sport popularized by a Netflix documentary series, “Drive to Survive.” There’s also an Apple film called “F1” coming out in June. But even Formula One, which has cultural cachet, is finding lukewarm market reception for a major new broadcast rights deal, The Wall Street Journal reports.
One problem is that F1’s viewership skews international, and big advertisers prefer more Americans. The race times, thanks to time zones, are also often poor for US ratings.
Although Netflix owns “Drive to Survive,” it’s not bidding on the live rights, and ESPN gave up its exclusive negotiating window, since it previously aired the races.
In other live sports news, ESPN also ended its longtime deal with Major League Baseball last month.
Mundus Sine Brandus
Brands haven’t quite figured out what to do about Bluesky just yet.
CEO Jay Graber hasn’t completely ruled ads out, as she told TechCrunch in December. But, for now at least, organic engagement is the only way to reach users.
However, creating a branded account is easier said than done – particularly when many Bluesky users specifically joined to get away from all the ads, AI slop and algorithmic feeds found on other platforms.
Adobe learned the hard way on Tuesday when its first-ever Bluesky post (skeet, if you’re nasty), said, “We’re here to connect with the artists, designers and storytellers who bring ideas to life.”
Innocuous enough, right? Except many independent artists despise Adobe for a number of reasons, including the switch to a subscription model in 2013, routinely increasing prices and training its “ethical” AI on unlicensed content, just to name a few gripes.
Bluesky’s art community clowned on Adobe to the point that it eventually deleted the post.
So what’s the lesson here?
For one, there is no single social platform approach. Know your audience. Oh, and at the very least, search for your brand’s name on a platform to see what people are saying before you create an account. It might avoid some headaches.
But Wait! There’s More
Walmart’s ecommerce business was profitable this quarter for the first time, per CFO John David Rainey, and the retailer expects sustained profitability despite whatever happens with tariffs. [WSJ]
Reddit’s own conversational AI agent will use Google Gemini, furthering the partnership between the two companies. [TechCrunch]
DTC razor brand Harry’s is rebranding to Mammoth Brands and pursuing acquisitions to become a consumer brand holding company. This comes after the FTC successfully sued to block Harry’s from being acquired by CPG and household brand holdco Edgewell. [The Information]
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