Regina Buckley

#podcast Ryan Davis Co-Founder & COO of PeopleFirst shares insights and analysis about the activities of influencers and content creators in the campaign leading up to the 2024 election. While celebrity influencers have large followings, the voices of local people sharing authentic content about all kinds of interests broke through the noise to reach key segments of voters. We talk about: * Value of non-political content creators * Trap of preaching to the choir of those who are already interested in the campaign * Micro-influencers and the sweet spot for followers * Gen Z engagement and building relationships * Need for diverse voices to reach those looking for political information https://lnkd.in/g7dVPhy7

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Alt-weeklies deserve to be known for more than just AI-generated headlines about OnlyFans models. Focusing on a couple of viral stories about the industry misses out on what they’ve provided us over the years and the opportunity they still have: in-depth coverage of culture and entertainment coupled with muckraking journalism to expose corruption and hold the power to account. Many in our Stacker newsroom either worked at alt-weeklies or have been voracious readers of them over the years. And we want to see them continue to succeed. That’s one of the reasons we partnered with Wil Gerken and Carla Clark at Foundation CMS. Many alt-weeklies are facing challenges and need free content to reach their readers but also free up their teams to focus on what they do best. Here are a few stories on the newswire that our team felt resonates perfectly with the mission of alt-weeklies like Chicago Reader, Pittsburgh City Paper, Phoenix New Times, Dallas Observer, Cleveland Scene Magazine (Euclid Media), and The Austin Chronicle. SOCIAL JUSTICE & CULTURE - The big issue with 'Big Formula:' Americans want paid parental leave, the formula industry says it's bad for business - Latinos have been the fastest-growing demographic in swing states since the last election. Could they choose the next president? - Latino churches are social service hubs - How Texas election officials are dealing with a flood of challenges to voter registrations - Do AI-generated images reinforce gender and racial stereotypes? ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT  - Disney+ follows Netflix in raising prices for consumers, while eliminating family sharing - These US cities boast the most active nightlife scenes - NFL Inflation: How ticket and concession prices have changed over time LOCAL STORIES & RANKINGS - San Diego is the happiest city in America (but LA is one of the unhappiest)—see where other cities rank (via hims) - Movies and TV shows casting in Pennsylvania - See how Philadelphia ranks in commuting See the link in the comments to learn how to access the Stacker Newswire via Foundation today. (And feel free to link to your favorite alt-weekly stories of all time!)

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✅🖥️ Yahoo Finance (9/12): “In an early renewal of their multi-year deal, the companies said an ad-supported version of Max, which includes all HBO and Discovery+ content, will be available to all Spectrum TV Select packages. Charter is the nation's largest pay TV company. Max and Discovery+ will be added to Spectrum's bundle, which already includes streaming platforms such as Disney+, ESPN+ and Paramount+. As part of the agreement, Spectrum will continue to carry Warner Bros Discovery's TV network portfolio, including sports network TNT, CNN, Food Network and Discovery. The media and entertainment giant's TV business has been struggling due to cord-cutting by consumers and weak recovery in the advertising market.” ⬇️ #streamingtv #ctv #ott #mvpd #cordcutting #avod https://lnkd.in/ey68mGEB

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Insightful deep dive into news mis/disinformation today at Google. As we navigate the largest election year in history, the importance of fact-checking, debunking, prebunking, and fostering media literacy across all ages is more critical than ever.

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I had the pleasure of joining Lou Paskalis, Tim Brown and the Association of National Advertisers to attempt to move the needle on buying quality media in lieu of cheap CPM inventory of questionable origin. Our panel dialogue, "Is the Programmatic Juice Worth the Squeeze," concluded it is because, among other things, quality media produces outcome metrics that matter. Drilling in specifically on news media -- a publishing category that continues to be in a world of hurt, Lou writes in AdExchanger that "... many presenters attempted to debunk the myth that brands that advertise adjacent to divisive or provocative content risk exposing themselves to backlash. Stagwell Global released research that showed virtually no difference in purchase intent for brands when their ads appeared next to editorial content, whether it was inflammatory or not. The question remains: Will marketers overcome their gut feelings in light of compelling research to the contrary?" I am always encouraged by this type of research, but I've come to expect that I'll be discouraged by the lack of change in media spend across trusted, professional journalism. IMHO, what we need to demonstrate *in addition to* these consumer sentiment findings is the hard data that shows equal or better RoAS (or other measurable outcome metrics) in the news content category. Evidence supports my hypothesis of better results in news vs. other content categories. For example, one recent TRUSTX advertiser experienced a 2.5x decrease in cost-per-acquisition on a campaign that was 59% targeted within news domains. News works because it's a lean-in environment where the audience is actively engaged. I am begging brands to give news a second chance. And not because its any advertiser's duty to save journalism, but because the stuff just works.

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Last week saw 2 BIG influencer mktg M&A deals. Publicis Groupe bought Influential, and Stagwell bought LEADERS. Today I write about the Influential deal. I est the forward revenue multiple at around 2.5x. Let's break it down... ---SELLER: Influential--- • IM platform for marketers and influencers • Founded 2013 by Ryan Detert, Piotr Tomasik 🌊, Daniel Steele • 300 employees • 3.5M influencer network • Access to 90% of influencers w/ 1M+ followers • AI-powered platform w/ 100B+ datapoints  • 300+ brand clients incl Disney, Hilton, Hulu, McDonalds ---FINANCIALS & CAP TABLE: Influential--- • $150M revenue in 2023 • 50% YoY revenue growth • $51.5M capital raised between 2014 to 2021 • Investors incl Paradigm Agency, Plug And Play, Ruttenberg, Capital Zed, Tech Coast Angels, WME, ECA Ventures, Regal Funds, ---BUYER: Publicis--- • Diversified agency holding company (#1 by net bookings) • Founded 1926 • Based in Paris • In 100+ countries • 103,000 employees • €13.1B 2023 net revenue ---FINANCIALS (in €): Publicis--- Stock performance as of 7.29 at 940am ET… • Share price: €97.72  • Mkt cap: €24.9B • Up 15.6% YTD • Up 33.1% YoY 1H 2024 YoY results per public filings (PE 6.30.24)... • Net revenue up 5.9% to €6.7B, from €6.3B • Operating margin up 6.1% to €1.2B, from €1.1B • EBITDA up 4.9% to $1.4B, from $1.3B  • €744M in free cash flow, up 2.6% YoY • €3.1B in cash • €3.2B in total debt (incl earnout/buyout) ---DEAL DETAILS--- • $500M purchase price • Expected to close Aug 2024 • 3.3x 2023 LTM revenue multiple ($500M / $150M) • If assume 2024 revenue growth slows to 30% from 50%, implies $200M forward revenue and a 2.5x revenue multiple  • Deal structure undisclosed (likely an earnout) ---DEAL VALUE PROP--- Overall, expand Publicis IM client services… • More creators to target any audience demo, niche • Better creator-client matching, campaign design via Influential AI + Publicis data businesses, Epsilon • Offer holistic digital campaigns that blend IM w/ digital, affiliate channels • Better ROI analysis of IM campaigns for brands, will drive more spend • Retain client media spend as moves away from linear TV and into social / streaming / other digital —IM MARKET NOTES— • $7B in 2023, up 17.4% from 2022 • Up more than 10.6% for all digital ad spend • Est to be $8.1B in 2024 and $9.3B in 2025 • Social spend to be $186B by 2025, exceeding linear TV spend – IM is fastest growing segment ---POST DEAL OPS--- • Influential will operate standalone • CEO Ryan Detert will stay on ---WHAT ELSE I FIND INTERESTING--- Following WPP's acquisition of Goat in 2023, and Stagwell buying LEADERS last week, I expect big agency IM M&A to continue ramping...though few scaled companies remain! I'll write more in my Friday newsletter. -- I'm the founder of RockWater Industries. We do M&A and strategy advisory for media, agencies, and creator economy. My DMs are open.

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Fantastic article by Jaime Robinson in ADWEEK about independent agencies. For the past 6+ years Keynes Digital has always supported the indie agencies and we couldn’t be more excited about the future for these incredibly talented people. Jonathan Kantor Kejal Macdonald with Zuzu Digital exactly what we spent time discussing recently. #agency #independentagency #partnerships #owneroperators #marketing #mediamixmodeling #mmm #brand #brandmarketing #brandresponse #creative #graphicdesign #webdesign #emailmarketing #marketingagency #digital

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I've been a little out of the news over the past few weeks, partially due to election over-saturation and also because Symitri is knee deep in our highly anticipated in-market beta. That's why I am just reading this in-depth AdExchanger article from Allison Schiff on a Boston University study about PAAPI. According to the article, "removing third-party cookies entirely had a hellacious impact on performance. Ad clicks plummeted more than 88%, and ad-attributed conversions dropped by nearly 90% compared with the third-party cookie status quo." This definitely got my attention. But the results are completely expected. That's because PAAPI, by itself, is a protocol for cohort-level ad targeting and not for post-exposure measurement. The absence of integrated measurement combined with dismal scale makes it almost a forgone conclusion that these measured results will be so ... well ... unmeasurable. As a reminder for those that lost track of Google's acronyms, PAAPI is a black-box that magically assigns browsers to interest groups, which SSPs and publishers can avail to media buyers without sharing PI in the bidstream. PAAPI is for targeting. If you want measurement, you need to implement additional Google-created components that are all part of Privacy Sandbox. And this is the rub. The reality not highlighted in this article is that we'll all have to subscribe to a sizable list of Google technologies, which further locks us into the Google ecosystem. And I think that is a dependency we should not be re-creating. The open Internet deserves an independent approach to post-cookie performance and scale where advertisers and publishers stay in control of their data. As clever as PAAPI, TOPICS and other Google technologies may be, they are brought to you by the same company that eats publisher revenues for lunch and controls auction dynamics for about 40% of programmatic ad spend.

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Mega-mergers like Omnicom and Interpublic should raise serious concerns for companies navigating sensitive public policy and PR challenges. When a single corporate conglomerate owns agencies representing BOTH SIDES of a conflict, how can you be sure your strategy stays protected? Conflicts of interest and blurred lines seem inevitable. In the high-stakes world of public affairs and PR, discretion and loyalty are non-negotiable. That’s why so many organizations turn to independent firms like Sachs Media for: ✔️ Conflict-free representation ✔️ Strict confidentiality with no shared parent company ✔️ Direct, senior-level attention without competing priorities In a world where influence is everything, your voice should never be just another account on a balance sheet. Choose partners working only for YOU.

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More and more people are downshifting from ad-free to ad-supported memberships across multiple streaming platforms as Americans grapple with their household budgets. A good demographic to target with economic messaging these final days as Facebook enters the restriction period... "Crucially, Netflix saw momentum in its ad-supported membership tier, which jumped 35% quarter over quarter. While Netflix doesn’t expect ads to become its primary growth drive until 2026, it said the ad-tier accounted for over 50% of sign-ups in the third-quarter in countries where it’s available." https://lnkd.in/eW95ntYM

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(Variety) NBCUniversal pulled out all the stops to market its blockbuster adaptation of the Broadway smash Wicked, partnering with over 400 brands for IP tie-ins. The Big Picture: In the words of Universal chief marketing officer Michael Moses, “The world doesn’t operate like a monoculture anymore, so you have to be everywhere.” In an entertainment ecosystem, where big-budget streaming releases debut without a sound, and movies only stay in theaters for a month, a robust marketing campaign may be more important than ever for financial success. Behind the Scenes: Wicked represents the biggest worldwide marketing push ever for NBCUniversal… and maybe any movie studio ever. ▪️The marketing campaign is rumored to have cost $150 million, on top of the two-part franchise’s $320 million production budget… and it’s unclear if the marketing budget includes the campaign for Part 2. ▪️ The campaign included drinks with Starbucks, hotel suites at Hilton, toys with Lego and Mattel, apparel at Target, cast voices on Amazon’s Alexa, and even lighting up Manhattan’s Empire State Building in pink and green. ▪️ The promo partner retail campaigns reached two billion shoppers and notched 25 billion impressions, according to Deadline. (Note: Everyone likely read about the opening this week but the numbers and business model behind it are what’s even more interesting.) #brands #marketing #entertainment #businessmodel #campaigns https://lnkd.in/eWgK2W4w

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Big Mood drops on Big Toobs today! From writer, director, to lead actors—some of the warmest, funny, and smart women you will ever meet. This series explores the joys, complexity and feralness of female friendship 🤌🏽💕🤌🏽

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Everything Gavin Bridge says here about the opportunity for FAST (Free Ad Supported Streaming TV, eg Tubi) is why streaming platforms are a partnership and ultimately exit opportunity for MakeLoveNotPorn, because our 'human curation layer on top of the internet' offering represents the partner/investor Holy Grail - how to monetize sex, safely: 'FAST services shouldn’t shun brand extensions from adult brands, especially given the interest in the genre and their higher than average adoption of FAST. .. At the end of the day, capitalism will ultimately see that the most money to be made is made, and it is for reasons like this that I think what’s outlined here will happen sooner than later.' https://lnkd.in/etq9KYJe

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Last week, Pesach Lattin, who I consider among our industry's most animated and entertaining personalities, published a 30 minute video podcast, which he and I recorded shortly after the last MFA bombshell and Google's (yet again) delay of Chrome cookie deprecation. The two primary topics haven't lost any relevance in the weeks between our recording and ADOTAT's publication. When I open a conversation here on LinkedIn, I write what I believe and try not to mince words. I stay true to this mantra in our video dialogue, which I hope at least some of you will watch. We had a good time bantering back and forth on a handful of heavy digital advertising subjects, and I have to hand it to Pesach, who makes the conversation all the more entertaining with his clever quips and fast-paced, provocative questions. Grab yourself a kale smoothie, a glass of Amarone or your favorite breakfast cereal ... and let me know what you think. I'd appreciate your comments.

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Michelle Neumann and I are on the ground at Brand Innovators Trade Marketing Summit at Roku. Hearing from top marketers on how they propell their respective businesses forward. Let us know if you are on the ground. We would love to connect!

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At The Trust Project, we talk a lot about the "anxious middle" our research has found and the news avoidance that may result. ICYMI, Benjamin Toff's book dives into this subject and provides some interesting insights. He places the number of news avoiders at 8% of the U.S. population. I'd call that the hard-core. There are many more who loosely avoid the news, take time off from news or rely on their friends instead of a regular news source because of anxiety and distrust. To win them back and fulfill its core role in democracy, journalism must "redouble efforts to engage with the broader world," Toff urges. Agreed. See Politico's interview with Toff here: https://lnkd.in/gRAtrTpM

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This is how John Wren, CEO of Omnicom, summed up the rationale for combining forces with Interpublic Group (IPG) during an interview on Bloomberg TV. Shocker, the message seems to be "bigger or better." But there's another message around "flexibility and agility." And his third message goes something like this: "Let's leave the creativity to the talented people ... enabling them with the best tools, cutting edge" so they can confidently converse with advertisers. He closes: "It's always changing. Yesterday doesn't exist anymore. Just what's tomorrow. We're the place to come to." That's their story to inspire advertisers to open their checkbooks? P.S. I can't be the only person thinking you've got thousands of PR professionals at your disposal. Did you consider media training -- even a quick refresher -- before stepping on set with Bloomberg's Caroline Hyde?

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Who will the merger between Omnicom and IPG be good for? Not for employees - Expect to see layoffs and for those that remain, a huge amount of busywork adapting to new corporate policies and procedures. Not for the work itself - Consolidating creative agencies and media buying will further water down creativity and disincentivize innovation. Not for clients - See above. It's a survival move with shareholder value being the primary consideration. Could these holding companies have saved themselves by other means? I've worked at big brands and small startups, big holding companies and small agencies -- and I can tell you that the best work, the most creativity and the most innovative solutions are coming from the smaller outfits. If you're a brand of any size looking for an agency partner that will deliver outsized value, consider these smaller guys, to name just a few. nmbl, Public Display of Affection (PDA), Magic Camp, Darkroom, X&O, QRY

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One key observation I’ve taken away from this election—and have been sharing with founders, non-profit executives, and leadership team members—is the fundamental shift we’ve seen in media consumption and the growing importance of personal digital platforms. This week’s episode of Scott Galloway’s No Mercy / No Malice podcast does a great job of breaking down the mechanics behind this shift. ✅ Note: These mechanics go beyond politics and are applicable across the business world. I highly recommend checking out this episode and asking your marketing partner for a plan to invest in both the medium and in the digital footprint of your leadership team. ⤵️

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