8 Digital Stats From Last Week

1 Aug 2017

There was a ton of newsworthy stats and research revealed in the last several days around digital advertising, social media marketing and other topics. Check out the eight digital marketing stats this week that grabbed our attention.

1. P&G dramatically scales back digital campaigns
During Procter & Gamble’s fourth-quarter earnings call on July 27, the packaged-goods giant reported that it cut approximately $100 million to $140 million in digital advertising spend last quarter because of brand safety concerns and ineffective ads. While finance chief Jon Moeller did not explicitly call out YouTube’s brand safety issues that began earlier in the year, he did say fake traffic driven by bots, as well as objectionable content led to the company pulling back on its advertising spending.

“Digital ad spending was lower versus a high base period and due to current period choices to temporarily restrict spending in digital forums where our ads were not being placed according to our standards and specifications,” the company said in its earnings release.

2. Where digital advertisers seem to be in better shape
Factual, a location data company, orchestrated a deep data dive into how CrossFit trainees—or CrossFitters—behave offline. For instance, they are 54 percent more likely to visit farmers markets compared to other consumers, according to the tech player.

More interestingly for the Adweek reader, though, Factual found that CrossFitters are 26 percent more likely to work at ad agencies and 231 percent more likely to work in online advertising.

3. Acura’s cool AR stunt
A few weeks ago, Acura set up a racetrack in El Toro, Calif., around a former Marine base and asked four influencers to drive a car as quickly and safely as possible around the course. Acura gave the drivers augmented reality-equipped helmets that overlaid HD graphics on top of the real world to make it look like they were driving through a jungle and snowstorm, making it difficult to stay on course. Acura livestreamed footage from the race across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

An impressive 500,000 people tuned in to watch the elaborate hour-long broadcast on Facebook and Twitter, reaching a total of 3.58 million people after the stream ended. All told, more than 115,000 minutes of content have been watched on Facebook alone and the livestream collected nearly 44,000 reactions.

Read more about AR’s growing impact on brand marketing from Adweek senior editor Lauren Johnson here.

4. Make VR a real income-driver
Need a new gig? There are currently more than 1,400 jobs listed on LinkedIn alone for companies looking for virtual reality editors, per Adweek contributor Matt Kapko. Check out his widely read piece from this week’s magazine on the 10 jobs of the future that every marketer will want.

5. Social giant is still growing but slowing
Facebook reported advertising revenue of $9.16 billion in the second quarter of 2017, a 47 percent increase over the same quarter last year. While second quarter earnings were plenty strong, it does show a bit of deceleration—the company reported a 59 percent increase in overall revenue between the second quarters of 2015 and 2016.  That year-over-year deceleration falls in line with what a few notable agencies reported to Adweek late last month—slower growth in cross-client ad spend in the second quarter compared to previous years.

Read Adweek staff writer Marty Swant’s full break-down here.

6. Search behemoth seemingly cannot be stopped
Google had an even better second quarter. According to its earnings statement released last week, the company brought in $22.67 billion in advertising revenue in the second quarter, an increase of $3.53 billion from the same period the previous year. Aggregate paid clicks also increased, jumping 52 percent, while paid clicks on Google’s properties jumped 61 percent. Meanwhile, aggregate cost per click fell 23 percent and cost per click on Google’s properties fell 26 percent.

7. Muy loco location run
Dos Toros just wrapped up an endeavor called the “13 in 13” Snapchat Challenge, where the tacos and burritos chain called on New York City dwellers to snap selfies via the mobile app for a chance to win a trip to Chicago, as well as free burritos for a year. The contest, which asked participants to go to 13 of the company’s locations, is designed to celebrate the brand opening of a restaurant in the Windy City later this year.

All told, Dos Toros received 581 contest submissions and two people completed the challenge in five hours. Engagement data wasn’t available, but it’d be interesting to get such stats as well as impressions figures.

8. Social summer vacations
Experian recently gathered data from an analysis of tweets using various travel-related hashtags. More than 12 percent of consumers discussing travel plans also hashtagged “beach.” For the consumers interested in the beach, 43 percent also hashtagged “amusement park.”

 

Source: Christopher Heine, Ad Week