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Marcus Johnson (00:00):

In a fast-moving market, you have to know what's working. With Nielsen Ad Intel you'll know the wheres, whens and hows of advertising across industries and channels, maximise your ROI and achieve better results. Stop guessing enough of that, start winning instead. Nielsen Ad Intel. Hey gang, it's Friday, September 19th. Jeremy, Marisa, Danny, and listeners, welcome into Behind the Numbers, an e-marketer video podcast Made possible by Nielsen. I'm Marcus. And join me today's conversation. We have the briefings crew all living in New York, the Senior Director Jeremy Goldman.

Jeremy Goldman (00:42):

Hey, great to be with you. I'm so excited to be with my fellow marketing and advertising briefing folks by the way.

Marcus Johnson (00:48):

It's a good group. Senior Editor, Daniel Konstantinovic.

Daniel Konstantinovic (00:52):

Hello, happy to be here.

Marcus Johnson (00:55):

And the analyst, Marisa Jones.

Marisa Jones (00:57):

Hi, happy to be here.

Marcus Johnson (00:59):

Thank you. Thank you. Taste Facts. Facts about the alphabet, two for you. One, the word "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. It was first used in its Latin form, alphabetum, during the second and third century CE. But this one, I think, is the most interesting part of the alphabet, which is the ampersand. So it's that squiggly and thing sign that we use sometimes. It used to be taught as the 27th letter of the English alphabet. It's a ligature, a character consisting of two or more letters joined together and it's a ligature of a Latin word et, which means, and. The Merriam-Webster dictionary notes that if you squint you can make out the et kind of curled together into an ampersand. It was called "and per se and" meaning and by itself is the word and, so and by its and is the word and. It was read at the end of the alphabet "and per se and" over time became "ampersand."

Daniel Konstantinovic (02:19):

One day historians will look back at this moment in time and be saying the same kind of stuff.

Marcus Johnson (02:19):

This podcast.

Daniel Konstantinovic (02:25):

Yeah, this exact podcast, this will be a crucial piece of mystery.

Jeremy Goldman (02:31):

You learn a lot at the very start of this podcast. There are a lot of people who just like first three minutes they stay on and then they're like, "Okay, I'm good. I've learned enough today."

Marcus Johnson (02:40):

Our drop-off rate's pretty significant enough after the third minute.

Daniel Konstantinovic (02:43):

One day people are going to look back at this podcast recording and say the kind of stuff you were saying, Marcus, but it'll be about the dizzy face emoji with the squiggly eyes.

Marcus Johnson (02:55):

And I won't understand what they're talking about then either. Today's real topic, the most interesting thing at Advertising Week is we'll discuss. So Advertising Week New York 2025 is from October 6th to the ninth. 16,000 people will be in person attending from over 4,000 companies listening to 1300 speakers during over 500 events. And I asked the gang to tell me what they think will be the most interesting thing slash session advertising week this year. They of course went through all 500. They probably just picked from the first page, let's be real. This will the course be scored and the champion crowned for picking the most interesting thing. Jeremy is up first. Which session will be the most interesting, Jeremy?

Jeremy Goldman (03:48):

So this is really difficult and I went through everything by the way, but I did it based off of keywords, okay? But there's a lot of topics that we get asked quite a lot about. Social media is one of them and there's a really good one on the tech stage. It looks really exciting. Can I get a second opinion on social media? And it's basically just about people are turning to social more and more to make major decisions. I think there's been so much talk about search being eaten alive by generative AI and I think that people aren't necessarily focusing enough on basically social as a decision engine from purchasing from recommendations on what show to watch next.

(04:35):

We just had the Emmys recently. So I think that that's a really interesting topic and Reddit will be on that with Genentech and CMI Media Group and they're going to be talking about how industries that are maybe even less sexy, arguably like healthcare and mortgage and home buying can really benefit from having a concrete social strategy. So I'm really excited for that. I think there are other platforms from a discovery standpoint beyond Reddit that a lot more marketers are turning to. So I just think it's a really interesting topic.

Marcus Johnson (05:12):

So this one I think is interesting because, well, I don't know if I agree with the premise of the session because you are right in that people are going to social more for a lot of reasons. But you mentioned the decision engine piece of this, but I wonder whether it's a trustworthy decision engine. I guess I'm wondering what people think of the information that they see when they get to Reddit after a doctor's visit because the session description reads, "More and more people turn to social media for even the most critical decisions. In a world where people go directly to Reddit after a doctor's visit, how can brands learn from industries like healthcare, mortgage, home buying and more who have turned that into brand power?"

(06:00):

And as you can see from this chart here, most doubt social media health information, most people. And if they are going to trust a platform in this regard, it's most likely to be TikTok according to KFF. So I know a lot of people are going to Reddit, they're going to Reddit a lot more, but I don't know if that's a good thing as it pertains to how much people trust, particularly, health information at least.

Jeremy Goldman (06:22):

I mean, I think for me it's less about Reddit and more about the general premise. "How important is it to be thinking about your brand across all different social platforms and figuring out what your strategy is from a discovery standpoint?" I think also depending on how, as you know, we've got a wealth of data in our database and we have a lot of different points that show that in particular, trusted influencers that you get to have a relationship with. You will take a lot of information from them, be it on TikTok or Reddit where there are some powered users that are essentially the influencers of that platform. So I think it's really situational. I think that's definitely true that you've got to vet your information online. But whether or not all of the information is true, the fact is your users, your customers and the prospects you're trying to reach are on social. So if you're not part of that conversation, what chance do you have at really being discovered?

Marcus Johnson (07:22):

In Reddit's defense, and you're talking about social media more broadly, but Reddit really does seem to be the social player of the moment in a lot of regards. And a big part of that is because they're getting surfaced a lot more as part of the AI searches. Reddit's kind of having a second window of sorts. You can see from this chart here, Reddit surfacing in Google searches and being the most cited website by AI models according to June Semrush data has led to this surge in US Reddit users. According to our forecast team, they've gone from about 110 million 2 years ago to 170 this year. So Reddit is a place where people are going to find information. Whether they trust it a certain amount or not, it is a place. And so I think that the point is still well taken.

Daniel Konstantinovic (08:14):

As for the Reddit question and the example of going to Reddit after a doctor's visit or something like that, I think that is definitely a powerful use case for Reddit individually as a platform. But I think it's also something that it doesn't have a complete hold on. I think that a lot of people are starting to go to ChatGPT for very similar purposes like typing in their symptoms or something the doctor said there. And I think that does pose a threat to the search, get opinions from everyone, use case that Reddit provides. But that's more of a specific Reddit only point.

Marcus Johnson (08:56):

Right. I mean, Semrush was saying that Reddit is the most cited place when people are doing that, but Danny, to your point, they're reading the answer and they're moving on with their life. They're not going to Reddit and continuing that conversation even if Reddit is overwhelmingly the number one source for these AI models when they're pulling stuff.

Marisa Jones (09:18):

Yeah. I guess I was also going to ask Jeremy your opinion on do you think AI is going to cannibalize this growth that we're seeing from things like Reddit? Even if it is citing Reddit, to your point, Marcus, a lot of people won't necessarily be going to Reddit once they get the answer.

Jeremy Goldman (09:34):

Yeah. So what's interesting is Reddit has a really fantastic tool called Reddit Answers that they launched last December that has been growing quite a bit this year. And I think you basically see everybody is trying to create their own version of chat gpt to keep you a little bit more engaged. But you're right, I think part of the challenge is generally people go to Reddit because they have a specific problem and they've solved that problem or they address whatever need and then they don't say, and, "Let me see how I can stay on this platform," right? It's a little bit about how that platform kind of developed. So it's really valuable and people are very motivated, but at the same time you have to figure out how do you keep people on platform and engaged. And I think that that is a particular challenge that they have more than let's say a YouTube, which has more of a mixed model. Sometimes people go to YouTube for a specific answer and sometimes they just say, "I want to go down the rabbit hole and spend the next six hours of my life here."

Marcus Johnson (10:38):

All right, it's a good start. Can I get a second opinion on social media? It will be a Thursday session at 12:20. Marisa, which one do you have for us?

Marisa Jones (10:45):

Now, I did only look at the first page, but that's because I saw what I was most interested on the first page.

Marcus Johnson (10:52):

How will you ever know?

Marisa Jones (10:53):

So that's the only reason. So the session that I'm finding most interesting is Streaming Strategic Advantage: How Precision Meets Scale. Danny and Jeremy will know that I'm very interested in CTV and streaming. So this jumped out to me immediately and I think it's very interesting just looking at CTV as audiences shift away from the linear landscape. But while I'm assuming just based on the title, this panel will talk a lot about precision targeting within streaming. My big question and why I'm interested in it is are they going to go beyond that to address that there are many problems for advertisers in the CTV landscape?

(11:33):

I'm wondering if they'll address lingering issues with the format, which namely I would say ad reach is still very low compared with traditional models. Providers are really proliferating. There's a lot of fragmentation in it, so advertisers are confused on where to invest. Subscribers are largely not on ad tiers, so that presents a problem. And a lot of platforms, especially sports-centric ones, see very high churn rates. We also are seeing tariffs potentially posing a threat to the CTV landscape and there are issues with measurement and inconsistent measurement standards still. So I'm very interested to see whether any of these concerns are going to be addressed and where the panelists see the future of CTV because of these concerns.

Marcus Johnson (12:18):

Yeah. There's so much here and I think this one I think is very interesting because you think CTV is very hot topic, but there are still so many to what you're pointing out, Marisa, there are still so many issues and things to be worked through. So I think the only one I would push back on a little bit is the tariffs piece. Tariff seems to affect everything. I said this to Paul Vernon I think a year or two ago, I think if every streaming service, particularly ones like Netflix have a lot of staying power could double their prices I don't think churn would really move at all. I did find a bit of data, so I think basically showed the large chunk of folks would tolerate significant price increases. 44% of people said they would tolerate an over 30% price increase before cancelling or downgrading to a plan with ads. The rest said 10 to 20% would be fine, it's going to adjunct test data. So I don't think that the tariffs will have as much of an effect in this space, but I think all the other points are extremely well taken.

Daniel Konstantinovic (13:21):

Yeah. And to your point, Marcus, I think that consumer might not cancel Netflix if they were to increase their price by 30%, but they might downgrade to ad supported plans or cancel other streaming subscriptions.

Marisa Jones (13:36):

Yeah.

Daniel Konstantinovic (13:36):

Netflix would be their main one, but the others kind of get cut out I suppose.

Marisa Jones (13:44):

No, yeah, just going off that point, I wonder if they're going to address how smaller players are faring if cost increases and tariffs do end up kind of trickling down. Like you said, Danny, things like Netflix have a lot of staying power. People are very unlikely to cancel it because it's Netflix. That's just not the first service that you think to cancel. You probably think to cancel a smaller subscription that you might have. So I'm wondering if they're going to address what smaller players in the streaming landscape, maybe fears that they might have right now.

Jeremy Goldman (14:12):

Which is by the way-

Marcus Johnson (14:13):

Please.

Jeremy Goldman (14:14):

I was just going to say I think that that's why Paramount is reportedly interested in a Warner Brothers discovery deal with that thinking that basically in the future you don't want to be the one service. I think Marcus, we've talked about this on other shows going back probably two years where I think of it as a game of musical chairs and somebody is going to be left without a chair.

Marcus Johnson (14:37):

Yeah.

Jeremy Goldman (14:38):

And who is going to be the one that gets squeezed out of this market. And if you're a traditional player and you can get bigger, then you're going to have a better catalog and then you're less likely to be squeezed out.

Daniel Konstantinovic (14:52):

I think the fragmentation aspect is a really interesting part of the CTV story. There are a whole lot of providers, it's not very easy to compare and contrast performance and ROI across these different platforms. So I think that's a big frustration for advertisers. I'm curious if that's something that will be addressed. I think maybe you're already starting to see the market move toward addressing that with things like all of these streaming services starting to offer a programmatic inventory through Amazon, just going to one big provider and striking a partnership so that advertisers can have an easy in to all of these different streaming services.

(15:37):

But I do think that it's a big problem, and it's something that has repeated in other digital ad sectors and now CTV is going through it too. Our May forecast says that CTV will take up a third of total TV viewership time by 2027 and it's set to capture an even bigger share of ad spend just over the next several years. So I think there is some time for the sector to address these issues before CTV becomes the dominant and main form of video consumption other than linear. So I guess we'll see what happens, but I'm very curious to see what the state of those issues is right now.

Marcus Johnson (16:15):

Yeah, lots of elements to this. So an interesting one indeed, this session on Streaming Strategic Advantage will be Monday at 9:40. Jeremy, oh no, you went already. No more. Danny, you're up.

Daniel Konstantinovic (16:29):

All right. My pick was a panel that's going to happen I believe on the second day or third day. I think it's on the Wednesday of ad week. It's called The Agency Model of the Future. And it's exactly what it sounds like. It's about the current sort of precarious state of agencies. I think that the traditional ad agency business models are under threat for a lot of reasons. I mean, AI is probably one of the biggest or if not the biggest, although we've also been writing about issues like a lack of young hires at ad agencies. So I'm very curious to hear what these people who work at these agencies who are leadership at some notable creative or data focused agencies about what they're doing to change, to adapt for the future because I think that you really have to do some soul-searching no matter what kind of client base you're serving or what type of service you're providing as an agency right now.

(17:30):

If you're a creative agency, AI is definitely a big threat for... Well, I think that there will always be a market for a human creative touch, but there are a lot of large clients like say Coca-Cola who has been very publicly experimenting with AI and historically has had deep agency relationships. That's a brand that might decide, "Hey, we don't need to have these costly agency relationships, we can just use AI to create ads." Just like they did last holiday season. I think other big brands might follow suit. Those are also the ones the companies that agencies are competing for in terms of business and there's only so many of them. Those are also companies that have the ability to take advertising in-house in a more effective way now thanks to AI. I could go on and on about all the different issues or things that are interesting to me, but I'll let it sit there in case you guys have anything to say.

Jeremy Goldman (18:28):

So I really like this one. I might like it more than mine if I'm being honest.

Marcus Johnson (18:35):

Damn it, Jeremy. It's a competition.

Daniel Konstantinovic (18:36):

Sounds like we have a winner.

Jeremy Goldman (18:37):

No, we're trying to be fair. I'm just trying to be fair when I say objectively we've talked about this same thing where we have story boarding meetings where we go through and we talk about different threads that we're seeing on an ongoing basis. This is one we're seeing a lot where there are platforms that are offering these features where bit by bit you might question, "Why do I need my agency?" Or, "Do I need them as much? Do I need to re-scope them in terms of what they do for us?" And then the agencies have to figure out where they add value and is that value going to shift and does that impact the pricing model? So I think that there's so many different things that I don't know if they all get covered at this panel, but I think that that's something that I encourage everybody to seek out as much content on as possible. This is going to be a major change in the agency world over the next few years.

Marisa Jones (19:32):

I'm also interested, and I don't necessarily have an answer for this, but if they're going to address this thread that we've been following, it seems like daily about economic uncertainty and how that's impacting advertisers and where advertisers are investing, how much they're investing, studies showing that marketers worldwide are anticipating budget cuts, especially in the current quarter. So I'm wondering if they're going to address that all.

Daniel Konstantinovic (19:58):

Yeah, if you're an agency, those are all enormous, maybe even existential threats to the business. And pivoting to small and mid-sized businesses, which is something we've seen some of the big four agencies do, is also not a guaranteed new source of revenues because it's something the big tech platforms are also doing is trying to open up to small and mid-sized businesses. So if I'm some mom and pop business that's trying to advertise online, why would I go through Omnicom instead of just going straight to Meta and using the services that they provide?

Jeremy Goldman (20:35):

Well, there's another argument which is the whole mom and pop thing that never would've gone to Omnicom before to these major holdcos start to pick up business that they would never have touched before because they have to in order to... A lot of these, let's not forget, are public companies and it doesn't look great to say, "We're just not going to grow. We're going to take a meaningful step backwards." So I think that they are in a tricky position.

Daniel Konstantinovic (21:05):

Yeah, exactly. It's a space they have to move into to open up more revenues. But even that space is contested by other big forces.

Marcus Johnson (21:15):

The Agency Model of the Future, Wednesday session 2:30. All right, gang, so we had, "Can I get a second opinion on social media?" It was the first one. Streaming Strategic Advantage: How Precision Meets Scale, and then the Agency Model of the Future. And the most interesting session and the winner is Marisa. It wasn't close. Jeremy tried to team up with Danny at the end there, didn't work.

Daniel Konstantinovic (21:42):

Yeah. I'm going to need the ref to take a second look. Slow motion replay, please.

Marcus Johnson (21:46):

This podcast doesn't you don't have that kind of money.

Jeremy Goldman (21:48):

I said no vote. I mean, Marcus is the decider in chief, fair.

Marisa Jones (21:51):

I'll take it.

Marcus Johnson (21:53):

Exactly.

Daniel Konstantinovic (21:54):

Congratulations. Take it all the way to the bank.

Marisa Jones (21:56):

Thank you.

Marcus Johnson (21:57):

Well done. Marisa is indeed going to be, I think a very interesting conversation, but over 500 sessions to choose from so lots will be going on. Enjoy if you are going or from a distance if you are not. That's all we have time for. Thank you so much to my guests. Thank you to Jeremy.

Daniel Konstantinovic (22:15):

You're muted, Jeremy.

Jeremy Goldman (22:16):

I know. I couldn't find the unmute so I just went like this so...

Marcus Johnson (22:21):

Jeremy left already. He was furious with the decision.

Jeremy Goldman (22:24):

Thank you. It was great to be with you as always, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson (22:27):

Yes, indeed. Thank you to Marisa.

Marisa Jones (22:28):

Thank you for having me.

Marcus Johnson (22:30):

And to Danny.

Daniel Konstantinovic (22:31):

Thank you. Yeah, always a pleasure even when I lose.

Marcus Johnson (22:34):

Thanks. To the whole editing crew and to everyone for listening to Behind the Numbers an e-marketer video podcast made possible by Nielsen. Subscribe, follow, rate, review, all of that stuff. We'll be back on Monday. Happiest of weekends.