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Today: What's on
WPP's shopping list
If you're like me, the shipping boxes have been piling up in the lobby as I do more shopping online, whether out of necessity or lockdown boredom.
So it's no wonder that advertisers are trying to get more attention of people like me and figure out exactly what it'll take to get me to drop their product in my basket.
We've been writing a lot about the rise of e-commerce and associated advertising lately. Here's a recap:
- Online sales are booming, but they're less profitable than in-store sales, so retailers are renting space on their sites to advertisers, giving rise to the term retail media. It's a $17.4 billion market, or 12% of digital advertising, and it's expected to soar 39% this year, per eMarketer.
- Lauren Johnson spotlighted 8 key execs who are leading the charge at retailers from Walmart to CVS in building retail media businesses.
- We also recently wrote about why some advertisers prefer other retailers over Amazon.
- The rise of e-commerce is driving deal-making, too. E-commerce is one of the areas that the ad holding company giant WPP is eyeing as it looks to start acquiring again. Its clients are putting more of their budgets on e-commerce platforms, and agencies like WPP stand to lose out if they don't have a strong offering to help them get the most out of their dollars.
Read about the companies WPP could buy: Here are 9 tech, consulting, and healthcare companies experts think WPP could buy as it gears up to start acquiring again
Blurred lines
Speaking of e-commerce, there's more than one way agencies are hanging out shingles. Sean Czarnecki wrote about how WPP's PR giant BCW is branching out to e-commerce services as well as consulting.
As BCW's Donna Imperato told Sean: "We knew we needed e-commerce because with the internet, you want to be able to promote the client product or brand and make it easy for the reader to go straight to purchasing that product."
Rival holding company
Go further here: WPP-owned public relations giant BCW is branching out to e-commerce services as online shopping explodes
And here: How IPG is pitching its new CMO-focused consultancy to compete with Accenture and Deloitte
Gaming meets influencers
As gaming soars in the pandemic, video game companies are heavily using social media influencers to make sure they stay top of mind.
Dan Whateley ran down the companies that are the most active in using influencers to promote themselves, based on influencer-marketing company CreatorIQ data.
Twitch led the list, with 426 sponsored posts from 131 creators in September.
It's another example of how marketing dollars are going to creators at the expense of traditional media — and it also means big business for companies like TalentX Entertainment that match brands and creators.
Read the rest here: New data reveals which gaming brands are buying the most sponsored influencer posts on YouTube and Instagram
Other stories we're reading:
- American Express is tapping a former star editor from Teen Vogue to launch a new podcast series to help Black entrepreneurs, as the credit card giant continues its efforts to improve racial equality (Business Insider)
- Five of Google's biggest search engine rivals want the EU to take fresh antitrust action (Business Insider)
- Scoop: The Lincoln Project is becoming a media business (Axios)
- Shopify sellers can now boost their businesses more easily on TikTok (Business Insider)
- Making sense of Amazon's ad platform that's evolving into a marketing marvel (Ad Age)
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
— Lucia Moses