Earlier this month I initiated the paid version of Madison & Wall for advisory and consulting clients as well as stand-alone subscribers.
If you work for a company that has access but I don’t have your corporate address, please reach out to me at brian@madisonandwall.com and I can make sure you are added to the full distribution list. If you and your company don’t yet have access but would like to please enquire about it!
Ahead of the real kick-off of earnings season for media and advertising-related companies this coming week, I took a look at fourth quarter marketing and advertising activities from some who reported early. So far ad spend from financial services companies collectively looked very strong while it was a more muted (although I still think positive on the margins) from the two large consumer goods companies I looked at, Nike and General Mills.
I then did a deep dive analyzing the newest retail sales data, with context around the scale of overall consumer spending. While retail sales are still positive, overall consumer spending – mostly services – is looking much stronger, which is as good a singular economic baramoter as any (although there really aren’t many good ones at the present time given the increasing role of cross-border advertising).
Finally, I provided additional commentary on some of the media stories of the week, including observations on Reddit (now poised for an IPO in March), Disney (still facing activist Nelson Peltz and news around an NFL investment in ESPN) a full-year over full-year assessment of key streaming video trends based upon my analysis of new Nielsen data.