Political Ad Growth Slows, Video Spending Rises while Cord-Cutting Accelerates, Kantar Break-Up Considerations + Ads101 on Media Planning With Scott Wensman
Madison and Wall: Saturday Summary for March 15, 2025
Each week on the M&W Podcast, we discuss Madison & Wall’s latest research and continue with our Advertising 101 series, an ongoing tutorial that will explain how the industry really works and why money flows as it does.
After our initial multi-week phase focused on marketers and the ways in which they make decisions, we’re now onto agencies. We started with Macquarie Securities’ Tim Nollen to provide an overview of the agency holding companies, then continued with Heartmore’s Carl Hartman to discuss the role of the global client leader and then went into more depth on media agencies with Prof. Janna Greenberg. On this week’s podcast our guest is former agency executive Scott Wensman, a veteran of each of WPP, Publicis, Interpublic and Omnicom, and with whom we talk about media planning. It’s all available on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also hear more about our work on agencies through the Agency Business podcast, a collaboration with FusionFront Media’s Olivia Morley’s. This past week’s podcast included a fascinating interview with Kern Schireson, CEO of Known, where we talk about his journey from building a data science consultancy to leading Viacom’s advanced TV efforts and ultimately launching Known, an agency designed to address the inefficiencies of traditional holding company structures.
Before we get to the work of the week, we have a special offer related to the AdTech Economic Forum which takes place in New York on March 19. We’ll be participating on stage! If you don’t already have a ticket, Madison and Wall subscribers can get a 30% discount to the event. Register here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/adtecheconomicforum/1308155
Use code: friends_of_BrianWieser
Weekly work
We calculated total spending on political advertising in the United States in 2024. It amounted to $16 billion, which represented a significant slowdown in growth vs. prior cycles, although the outcome was in line with our reduced expectations initially published in September
We reviewed the latest data on consumer spending on video services (which continues to go up) and cord cutting (which continues to accelerate) and illustrated why higher-cost ad-free streaming services have a lot of growth to go
We looked at news that Bain Capital and WPP would be selling off Kantar for parts, including considerations of opportunities for different kinds of potential acquirors including professional services firms, sellers of advertising, marketing technology and other software companies and retailers.
We published an extended meta-analysis on the impact of creative and media on marketer outcomes in a report commissioned by Adobe (available on a complimentary basis)
We published an interview with industry legend and CTV advertising pioneer Peter Naylor (available on a complimentary basis)
More Context
Our recent research on the role of creative and media in driving marketer outcomes is available as a free report.
The publication is primarily a meta-analysis of research on the role of creative as a driver of business outcomes in studies which also consider the impact of choices related to media planning and buying in determining those outcomes. In summary, creative choices typically appear to have more of an impact on outcomes than creative does, although media choices are also very important.
Further research opportunities abound, although it is Madison and Wall’s view that because both functions can have a significant impact on outcomes, marketers who resource both together rather than in isolation are likely better able to optimize spending between these functions.
The full contents of the document are included below, and are also available as a .pdf at https://madisonandwall.com/free-reports
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