AGENCY WORK HIGHLIGHTS

• 🏈 Our client AMC Networks will be running an AMC+ commercial in this Sunday's Super Bowl, focused on the streaming service's 2022 programming and promoting the season premiere of The Walking Dead (Part 2 of the epic final season). To amplify the awareness generated during and following the Super Bowl, our Paid Media team planned surrounding support across lower-funnel tactics day-of game; multiple digital awareness plays; and will capture sports audiences for retargeting. Our Earned Media team has secured notable NFL players and influencers to join the campaign including DeSean Jackson, Devale Ellis, and Vamp. Aligning the Super Bowl with TWD, the influencers will add to the social conversation with their own unique spins on recapping, counting down and reenacting the top MVP, athletic and most touch-down-esque moments from the series. Versions of the spot will run across NBC, Telemundo, and Peacock coverage of the event. Keep an eye out during Fourth Quarter for our Big Game moment!

• Our Partnerships Team and Allied Sports collaborated with Tencent on PUBG MOBILE’s first-ever in-game event, the Chicken Dinner Bowl, by brokering the participation of Miami Dolphins’ star Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa as team captain for the Erangel Hawks. North and South American players are encouraged to join a team and complete in-game missions. The team with the most points at the end of the event will receive a special reward and be announced this Friday, February 11th during a special show match event featuring Tua and his Erangel Hawks: BellaFox, Hot Jukes and Medalcore vs PUBG MOBILE’s Helmet Guy and his Miramar Wolves: FAROOQ, Bite Gaming, Kim Gaming and Her Gaming. The match will be hosted by PowerBang, one of the game’s biggest stars and most experienced mobile esports host in the world.

INDUSTRY UPDATES

Ad Vendors / Platforms / Data

• The New York Times reports 375K net new digital subscriptions in Q4, $2B in annual revenue in 2021 for the first time since 2012, and targets 15M+ subs by the end of 2027. (The New York Times)

• Last week, Meta reported its first-ever quarterly decline of daily users globally, along with lower-than-expected ad growth that sent its stock plunging roughly 20%. Not only was user growth across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp essentially flat last quarter, but the main Facebook app lost 1 million daily users in North America, where it makes the most money through ads. (The Verge)

• Last week IAB Europe was fined 250,000 euros by Belgium’s data watchdog for multiple GDPR violations. These relate to its processing of personal data by its “Transparency and Consent Framework” (TCF), which is on 80% of the European internet. In addition to the fine, all data collected through the TCF must now be deleted by the more than 1,000 companies that pay IAB Europe to use the TCF. This includes Google’s, Amazon’s and Microsoft’s online advertising businesses. (Irish Council for Civil Liberties)

• NBC says it has sold out all advertising spots for Super Bowl LVI, The network says for the first time, all the ads will run across NBC, Telemundo and streaming, including Peacock. (In past years some ads had been sold separately for the different platforms.) 40% of the advertisers in the game are new, totaling about 30 companies. (THR)

• Roku has partnered with Entravision to launch its advertising business in Mexico, where it is the number one CTV platform. This is the company's first foray into Latin American ad sales. (Forbes.mx)

Awards / Festivals / Industry Events

• The horror/drama “Nanny” from the first-time feature filmmaker Nikyatu Jusu nabbed the U.S. Grand Jury prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. “The Exiles,” about three exiled dissidents from the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, won the Grand Jury prize for U.S. documentary. “Utama,” a Bolivian character portrait, nabbed the top award for world dramatic film, while the Indian documentary “All That Breathes” took the world documentary Grand Jury Prize. (THR)

Cinemas / Theatrical

• The Encanto soundtrack collected a third nonconsecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Feb. 5). The set earned a new weekly-best 115K equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Jan. 27 — up 11%. In the last 10 years, only four soundtracks have spent at least three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200: Encanto (three), Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born (four in 2018-19), Black Panther: The Album (three, 2018) and Frozen (13, 2014). (Billboard)

• As Hollywood studios battle pandemic fallout and feed movies to streaming services, audiences can expect far fewer theatrical releases than usual in 2022. Business over the next 12 months should help clarify the implications a lighter release schedule will have on the exhibition business. (Variety)

• Alamo Drafthouse is expanding its North American footprint, with plans to open four additional venues in Chicago, Birmingham, Grand Prairie, Texas and Glendale, Colo. It intends to welcome those venues — and previously announced in-the-works multiplexes in Staten Island, N.Y.; Arlington, Va.; and St. Louis, Mo. — in late 2022 through 2024. (Variety)

Gambling / Casinos

• Louisiana outperformed New York per capita in a GeoComply comparison of the first weekend of legal online sports betting in each state. The GeoComply data on the first 36 hours of legal online wagering noted that unique players in Louisiana represented 3.6% of the state’s population, compared to 3.3% in New York. (Wagers.com Earnings + More)

Live Events / Attractions

• F1 and Las Vegas have moved beyond just discussing if a race should be held there and are now hammering out specifics/logistics of a 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix. (Sports Business Journal)

• PBS has announced a new series, Broadway in Concert, which pays tribute to iconic musicals that shaped the landscape of American musical theater. The series kicks off with An Evening With Lerner and Loewe - Broadway in Concert, premiering Sunday, March 6 at 6:30 pm ET on PBS. Additional episodes of the series will be announced at a later date. (Broadway World)

• Hello Park, an immersive park franchise, has announced six new locations into its network this year in the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Slovenia, Qatar, and Russia. Hello Park is a franchise model based on a subscription; partners can electronically access the latest games and content updates. Using a system of cameras and sensors, many guests can interact with the projections at the same time, with no need for queues. (Bluloop)

  

Music / Audio / Podcasts

• Sirius XM said its subscriber base grew in Q3 and earnings ticked up. Its SiriusXM service added 186K net subscribers in the quarter, giving it 34.4M. Another 8.9M were in a trial period for the service as of the end of the quarter. Subscriber acquisition costs grew by 9% in Q3 as automakers pushed to produce vehicles at pre-pandemic volumes. (Marketwatch)

• Spotify, on the other hand, saw its share price plummet last week after it reported disappointing subscriber growth in Q4 2021. The company said it was too soon to know whether the recent Joe Rogan controversy was having any impact on its business. (Bloomberg)

• Amid the Spotify exodus, the Obamas are preparing to shop for a new podcast partner as their 3-year deal with the company winds down. (Insider)

NFT / Blockchain / Crypto

• Coinbase announced that Tobias Lütke, who leads ecommerce giant Shopify, will be joining its board of directors. In a blog post, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong touted Lütke's early support for cryptocurrency and suggested Shopify could play a key strategic role in crypto's future. (Decrypt)

• Disney is hiring an NFT expert to lead its efforts in the space, one of 4 NFT-related jobs on Disney’s website. (Disney)

• The same groups that have historically driven cryptocurrency growth — millennials, men and high-income households — continue to show the most interest in purchasing bitcoin. 70% of bitcoin owners say making money is their “major reason” for investing. Ideological motivations — believing that cryptocurrencies are the future and enjoying the community of people who invest in them — registered a relatively distant second and ninth, respectively. (Morning Consult)

• A hacker stole $320M worth of Ethereum cryptocurrency from decentralized finance platform Wormhole (which bridges Solana and other blockchains) last Wednesday. The attack is the largest against the cryptocurrency industry so far in 2022 and one of the top hacks of the industry to date. As of Thursday morning, all of the stolen funds were “restored,” the trading platform was back up, and the vulnerability used by the attacker had been fixed, Wormhole. (Cyberscoop)

OTT / Streaming

• While promotional price sign-ups are still make up a small portion of premium SVOD acquisitions, they were especially popular in Q4 of 2021, accounting for over 13% of all sign-ups. Showtime was the most prevalent discounter, attracting nearly 20% of all their 2021 sign-ups at a promotional price. (ANTENNA)

  

• HBO Max will expand to 15 more European countries on March 8th. Once WarnerMedia flips the switch in those locations, HBO Max will be officially accessible in 61 territories across Europe and the Americas, following its debut in Spain, Andorra and four Nordic nations in October. The service will arrive in six more European countries, including Greece and Turkey, later this year. (Marketwatch)

• Univision and Televisa closed their $4.8B Spanish-language media merger. The new entity, known as TelevisaUnivision Inc., builds on a previous production alliance created by the companies as they looked to fend off a rising number of rivals aiming at Hispanic viewers in the age of streaming. (Deadline)

• Amazon announced that it will raise the price of Amazon Prime memberships for the first time in 4 years, citing investment in the company’s entertainment offerings, and its exclusive deal with the NFL to stream Thursday Night Football beginning next season. The annual membership will rise by $20 to $139, while monthly memberships will rise by $2 per month to $14.99. (THR)

• Comcast's joint-venture streaming operation with ViacomCBS has received full regulatory approval for a European launch. The new streamer, Sky Showtime, will launch in more than 20 European markets encompassing 90 million homes later this year. (DigitalTVEurope)

• The reporter-turns-publicist or reporter-turns-copywriter pipeline in Hollywood (and other industries) is hardly new, but Netflix has drawn curiosity for luring reporters and editors from seemingly enviable posts at established lifestyle sites and glossy magazines, building a 'fandom engine' to market its shows. (Insider)

Retail / Lifestyle / Travel

• Five Commerce Trends worth watching in 2022: Consumers are battling the urge to splurge; the ecommerce boom is set to continue; AR: coming to a store near you; Buy now, PayLater services have surged, and Brand Discovery is evolving. (GWI)

• Only 43% of those celebrating Valentine's Day plan on going out to dinner, compared to 69% who said the same pre-pandemic, according to a poll of more than 1,000 US adults last month. 15% said they don’t know if they're going out to dinner this year, up from 4% in 2017. (Morning Consult)

  

Social Media

• Meta has paused new users from joining its social media tracking tool CrowdTangle. Facebook's parent company, which disbanded the CrowdTangle team last year, has been under pressure to provide greater transparency into its platforms. The tool is used by organizations and individuals to follow, analyze and report on public content available on Facebook, Instagram and Reddit. (Reuters)

• TikTok takes up more of its users’ time than any other social media platform in the US. This year, adult TikTok users will spend an average of 38 minutes per day on the app. Twitter ranks second at 35 minutes, with Facebook third at 31. Impressive as the TikTok figure may be, it’s down 2 minutes from last year. By contrast, Twitter’s time spent represents a new high for the app. (eMarketer)

  

• Twitter might be moving on from its current 280 - character limit. It's reportedly working on a new feature called 'Articles' that allows users to create articles and long-form posts within the app. (TechCabal)

Video Games

• Sony is buying Bungie, the developer of Destiny and the original creator of Halo, for $3.6B. The acquisition arrives shortly after Microsoft’s announcement that it intends to acquire Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68.7B. Bungie will “continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games." (The Verge)

AND NOW THE GOOD STUFF

• The UK government published its national AI strategy, which outlines its long-term vision for the technology and its impact on society.

• Rodney Brooks, the creator of the Roomba, throws cold water on the idea that AI will surpass human intelligence in the near future.

• A unique look behind the curtain at how one VC fund increased returns.

• How Peloton uses design and gamification to keep people on the exercise platform.

• If you think gentrification is about new coffee shops and high rents, you are missing an essential aesthetic element.

• Watch out for the Trisolarians! Scientists might have found the first-known planet orbiting three stars at once.