Madison and Wall: Saturday Summary
Analysis of news and data from Walmart, Vizio, Warner Bros. Discovery, WPP, Globant and Reddit for the week ending Feb. 24, 2024
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This week saw more earnings results, generally reinforcing points I’ve made before. To paraphrase William Gibson, the advertising growth is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed. Of course, that won’t stop some industry executives from incorrectly claiming that it’s a tough ad market. More correctly said, there are tough media.
As an illustration, on one end of the week we saw Walmart reporting 33% growth in its total advertising business, now amounting to $3.4 billion during its last fiscal year, and on the other we saw Warner Brothers Discovery experiencing a -8.7% decline, as reduced revenue at linear TV networks can’t be offset by growth in connected TV advertising, which I analyzed in some depth on Friday. Of course, CTV is still a big source of growth, and Walmart’s proposed acquisition of Vizio will be meaningful for the acquiror, as I wrote on Tuesday.
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For another example of contrasts, I compared WPP’s full year results with those of its one-time affiliate Globant as the two companies produced final full year results this week and last week, respectively. Despite operating at 1/6th the size, during 2024 Globant will likely produce more organic growth in absolute terms than the advertising industry’s biggest player, largely tapping budget pools that should be up for grabs to both companies.
I also wrote about another beneficiary of key advertising growth trends of globalization, operating scale and perceived marketing performance as Reddit filed its S1 ahead of an intended initial public offering for that company’s stock. While the top-line trends weren’t overly surprising, there were many data points that were first revealed in the document, which I analyzed in my note on Thursday.
Finally, I appeared as the guest on a two-part podcast hosted by Australia’s Mi3 this week. Part 1, where we talk about trends impacting the world’s largest marketers over the course of a 43 minute conversation, can be found here (registration is free). Part 2, focusing on agencies and media owners, will be posted next week.