Spots N Dots
The Daily News Of TV Sales
November 30, 2016

NOVEMBER AUTO INCENTIVES DOWN SLIGHTLY

BUT STILL UP FROM A YEAR AGO

Despite pushing hard with Black Friday sales events to give a final boost to November automotive sales, TrueCar reports that incentive was actually down slightly from October. Incentive spending by automakers averaged an estimated $3,475 per vehicle in November, up 13% from a year ago, but down 1.4% from October 2016.

“With only one month of sales to go until the end of the year, it looks like we will not break the annual record for auto sales set in 2015, but from a historical context, 2016 will go down as a blockbuster year in terms of new car sales and the overall health of the automotive industry,” said Eric Lyman, TrueCar’s chief industry analyst. In line with other forecasts we reported yesterday, TrueCar is expecting November sales to total 1.37 million units—up 3.6% from November 2015, but down 4.7% when adjusted for the two additional selling days this year.

BMW is reported to be offering the biggest incentives, averaging $6,279 per vehicle, up 25.3% from a year ago. Daimler AG is next at $4,660, but that is down 4.3% from a year ago. Of the full-line makers, Fiat Chrysler is at $4,154, up 17.9%; General Motors $4,305, up 12.7%; Nissan 4,209, up 12.4%; Ford 3,982, up 23%; and Toyota $2,420, up 2.7%. The biggest incentive increase year-over-year is at Subaru, nearly doubling (+99.5%) to $1,145—but still the lowest of any of the auto makers tracked by TrueCar.

November unit sales are projected to be up double-digit percentages for Subaru (12.9%), GM (11.2%) and Daimler (10.5%), with smaller gains for Kia, Honda, Volkswagen AG, Toyota, Hyundai and Ford. Declines are forecast by TrueCar for Fiat Chrysler, Nissan and BMW.

ADDRESSABLE CAMPAIGN FOR BMW

As addressable TV becomes more available and viable for advertising, BMW is launching a targeted campaign of connected TV commercials through which viewers can customize a BMW X1 (pictured) in-spot and begin their showroom experience without getting off the couch. BrightLine is providing the technology platform in a deal with UM, a division of IPG Mediabrands.

The TV commercial combines full-screen HD video with an interactive element that allows the viewer to use their remote control to change the color of the car, or rotate it to see different angles, all within the :30 spot. UM, working in partnership with the IPG Mediabrands’ Cadreon Advanced TV team, led the investment strategy to support the campaign on leading premium content publishers with inventory across connected TVs.

In addition to the enhanced viewer experience, BrightLine’s InCast platform provides a deeper layer of measurability and campaign reporting metrics for the media seller, the client, and the agency. The vendor says that allows for true one-to-one measurement, reporting, and real-time creative optimization.

ADVERTISER NEWS

Automotive dealers seem to have had a strong Black Friday weekend, and Furniture Today is reporting its retail segment appears also to have prospered over the weekend. It says some furniture retailers set new records with strength across all categories. Bedding door-busters and deals on televisions helped bring the customers in and special financing deals also were attractive to buyers……While Anthem and Cigna have gone to court to fight the Justice Department’s rejection of their proposed merger, documents brought to light during the trial show the two prospective partners have been feuding over details for months, including Anthem creating a team to work on the merger without Cigna’s knowledge. “How do you work on integration without talking to the person you’re integrating with?” the judge asked Anthem……In a different part of the insurance industry, companies have been promoting discounts for bundles, usually combining car insurance and homeowners insurance. Now Allstate may have something new to add to its bundles: it’s buying Squaretrade Inc., a company that sells warranties for electronic products, for $1.4 billion. Allstate’s CEO said “This acquisition expands Allstate’s customer relationships with 25 million protection plans for consumer electronics and connected devices”……A&W Restaurants, spun off from Yum! Brands about five years ago, is back into expansion mode after having closed some underperforming units. The chain will complete this year with 15 new locations and has 20 panned for next year. It says since the spinoff from Yum, same-store sales are up almost 24%...... While Alimentation Couche-Tard was busy acquiring more stores in its second fiscal quarter it “ran into some bumps in the road” operationally during the period, including floods in Louisiana, the disruption of the Colonial Pipeline, and Hurricane Matthew. The operator of the Circle K stores said same-store merchandise revenues were up 2.3% in the U.S. and comp fuel volumes were up 3.5%, but margin fell compared to unusually high fuel margins last year……We reported last week that National Automobile Dealers Association data is showing profitability starting to slip at some automotive dealerships, and now advisory firm Haig Partners is estimating final 2016 profitability by brand. Nissan dealers are taking the biggest hit at down 23% while others with double-digit drops were mostly luxury brands such as Lexus and Infiniti (each down 20%) and Acura, down 21%. Ford/Lincoln dealers were also down double-digits at -15% and General Motors dealers as a whole are down 1%. Toyota dealers are expected to show year-to-year improvement at plus 9%, as are Honda dealers at plus 4%. The decline in luxury brands was largely attributed to discounting caused by high inventory levels.

NETWORK NEWS

TV’s next reality competition show, World of Dance, has added Derek Hough and Ne-Yo as judges, joining executive producer and judge Jennifer Lopez. Hough was a pro dancer on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and will appear on the upcoming NBC special, Hairspray Live! on December 7th. Ne-Yo is a Grammy-winning singer, composer, producer, actor and dancer that appeared on NBC’s holiday musical The Wiz Live! in 2015. World of Dance will feature contestants from all genres of dance competing for a $1,000,000 prize……People familiar with the situation are saying that the 2018 Grammy Awards Ceremony will return to New York City. The show has bounced between Los Angeles and New York since its inception in 1959, and was last in NYC in 2003. James Corden of the Late Show on CBS will host the 2017 Grammy’s from Los Angeles on February 12th at 8 PM (ET)……ABC will air new episodes of The Great Christmas Light Fight on Monday, December 12th at 8 PM (ET), with a second hour of the competition series airing at 9 PM (ET). The series features families from across America decorating their homes to the extreme for Christmas in hopes that they will win $50,000 and the coveted Light Fight trophy. The total prize package for the season is valued at $300,000……Carnival Cruise Lines has agreed to sponsor the two-part season finale of The New Celebrity Apprentice on NBC. The season finale of the reality show will air on February 6th and 13th of next year. In addition to the program sponsorship, the Carnival Corporation will launch the Celebrity Apprentice Charity Challenge that will offer free cruises to raise awareness and support for charitable organizations chosen by celebrity participants. The New Celebrity Apprentice with new host Arnold Schwarzenegger, will debut on Monday, January 2nd at 8 PM (ET)……Former Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch will appear as himself in the winter finale of FOX’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Lynch is a witness to a horde of convicts who have just escaped from a prison van on the streets of New York. The back-to-back episodes will air on Sunday, January 1st at 8:30 PM (ET). Lynch will appear in the first episode……Carla Gallo’s character. Dr. Daisy Wick, from the FOX drama Bones will be featured in an upcoming episode of Rosewood. Thursday’s episode has Dr. Rosewood and Villa investigating a case that leads them to Cuba, where they must solve two new mysteries. Daisy is brought in from the Jefferson Institute to help them decipher some evidence.

MONDAY RATINGS

The Voice on NBC placed first again with a 2.0 Nielsen 18-49 rating, while the lead-out program, Timeless scored a 1.1 rating. Both programs were off by a tenth of a point from last week. ABC aired the CMA Country Christmas special which picked up a 1.3 rating, up from a 0.9 for the special last year. The CW is airing a four-show crossover event that likely boosted Supergirl’s rating that posted an unadjusted 1.1 demo rating. That would be a season high for the program. Jane the Virgin posted a 0.5, also an improvement over the previous week. On FOX, Lucifer was up two tenths to a 1.2 and Gotham was flat with a 1.1 rating. CBS aired reruns except for The Odd Couple that dropped a tenth to a 0.9 demo rating. Adjustments are pending due to a pre-emption for Monday Night Football in Green Bay, the country’s 68th-biggest market.

GROUPM BUILDS IT OWN PLATFORM

When you’re the world’s largest buyer of advertising, why should you have to use someone else’s data-driven platform? You don’t, so WPP’s GroupM has launched [m]PLATFORM, described as an advanced technology suite of flexible media planning applications, data analytics and digital services.

Brian Gleason, most recently Global CEO of Xaxis, has been named CEO of [m]PLATFORM, which will operate as a products and service organization within GroupM. “He will lead the continuous development of market-leading technology to ingest any data important to identifying a client's audiences and applications that efficiently engage them on any platform,” the company declared.

For clients, [m]PLATFORM says it will improve advertisers' ability to use audience-defining insights from hundreds of data sources to find and communicate with their consumers across all media. [m]PLATFORM makes it possible for media planners at GroupM agencies to use the most detailed consumer data to achieve results for their clients. It is supported by a team of data scientists, technologists and digital practitioners from across GroupM specialist companies and Xaxis.

[m]PLATFORM connects wide-ranging WPP data sources across Kantar and Wunderman; third-party data providers; GroupM's data from unique agreements with global media partners; and clients' own data when they choose. The connected platform includes: [m]Core, combining cross-platform data (display, mobile, video, offline CRM, apps, etc.) for a singular consumer identifier,[m]ID; [m]Insights,an audience-centric media planning tool with cross-channel planning; [m]Analytics,which marries online and offline campaign-level data to[m]IDto enable analytics, attribution and optimization; and [m]Report, which merges data into a single, intuitive visualization dashboard with actionable intelligence.

GroupM is building a global organization to support [m]PLATFORM. Four regional Presidents will report to Gleason. In North America, that’s Phil Cowdell,recently named President of Platform Services inNorth America.

HIRING TO SLOW A BIT IN 2017

America's employers are more cautious with hiring plans than in the past two years, according to the semi-annual survey from DHI Group, Inc., which assists firms in hiring professional staffers. More than half (56%) of hiring mangers anticipate increased hiring levels in the first half of 2017; however, this is a six point drop from when surveyed inJune 2016and a five point drop from when asked a year ago.

The survey period cut across Election Day, so DHI says it is too early for substantive insight about hiring plans related to the election results. The responses do paint a picture of employers being less bullish on hiring in 2017. A significant number (68%) of hiring managers who focus on recruiting technology professionals anticipate more hiring, however even that is a 10 point drop fromNovember 2015, indicating waning confidence levels.

Even as employers appear more cautious with hiring in the year ahead, positions are taking longer to fill. Nearly half of hiring managers who recruit across industries state the time to fill open positions has lengthened compared to last year, the highest since the survey began. DHI says this is slightly more evident among tech-focused hiring managers who face increased competition as employers across the country increase their tech needs and skilled talent is becoming harder to find.

The inability to find qualified professionals remains the primary reason employers broadly have difficulty filling positions.

NBCU PLATFORM PROVING POPULAR

NBCUniversal’s Audience Targeting Platform (ATP) is getting a favorable review from The Huffington Post. Denise Colella, SVP of Advanced Advertising Products & Strategy for NBCU, was interviewed at a Beet.TV event recently and said almost all of the clients from year one have come back for more. “We’ve seen the amount of budgets that are getting optimized double and we’ve seen a tremendous increase in clients,” Colella said.

THIS AND THAT

Planet Fitness has been running a commercial including big-reach network programming highlighting its “Judgement-free Zone.” “Judgment” is spelled without an “e” in the middle, but the company has trademarked the misspelled phrase and utilizes it on its website and in locations. Was it a mistake or done on purpose? Should someone be fired for the mistake? Judg for yourself……Bill Hoffman, President of Cox Media Group (CMG), has been announced as the recipient of the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Broadcasters Foundation of America. The award will be bestowed on Hoffman during the Golden Mike Award dinner on Monday, February 27, 2017, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. The gala is a major fundraiser for the mission of the Broadcasters Foundation of America to help broadcasters in need……The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had declined in October, increased significantly in November. The Index now stands at 107.1 (1985=100), up from 100.8 in October. "Consumer confidence improved in November after a moderate decline in October, and is once again at pre-recession levels," saidLynn Franco, Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board. (The Index stood at 111.9 inJuly 2007.)