Madison and Wall: Saturday Summary

Analysis of news and data related to media inflation, digital ad growth, internet-based marketers, earnings from Vivendi, ITV and P7S1 and a Tik Tok ban for the week ending March 9, 2024

This past week I wrote about media inflation and provided detailed reasons why you should generally ignore any data you see on the topic if it involves third-party pricing data.   As I noted, when it relates to pricing information, typically those who know don’t say and those who say don’t know.  But more importantly, for most users of inflation data it’s important to remember that pricing is a consequence of demand much more than a driver of it.

Separately I published one piece quantifying the growth of digital advertising during the fourth quarter and full year 2023 (including new estimates on commerce media) and another showcasing the industry likely driving much of digital advertising: digital endemics, or “online-born” brands.  In this piece I quantified total ad spending by the 14 companies based outside of China, operating on the internet and which spend more than $1 billion per year.  I also looked at more than 20 large companies in this space in order to attempt to assess whether the “year of efficiency” is over (and whether normal growth in ad spend along with agency fees will return during 2024.)

There were also more earnings results to assess – primarily from Europe – as Vivendi (owner of Havas, among other assets), ITV and Pro7Sat1 published their full fourth quarter figures.   Data provided by these companies generally re-affirms my view that trends playing out in the US are generally playing out in Europe, too.

Finally, on Thursday we saw a rare bipartisan effort in the United States Congress: a House committee voted 50-0 to move a Bill forward that would either force Bytedance to sell TikTok or cause the app to shut down in the United States.  Although there are many steps that need to play out before any such action might actually take effect, I explored the possible impact of a TikTok ban on the rest of the advertising industry in this note on Friday.