Tech
Media Buying Briefing: Four takeaways on Upfront Week from a buyer’s perspective
Thanks to Paramount Advertising for sponsoring Digiday’s upfront week coverage and presenting this edition of the Digiday+ Media Buying Briefing, normally available exclusively to paying subscribers.
The annual cavalcade of upfront presentations by the dwindling number of TV media titans is over, and many media buyers and marketers hopefully took a long weekend to recover from attending all of the parties. More than one media buyer I spoke with at the end of last week was practically hoarse from talking so much.
Much was learned last week about where the state of video (as an umbrella term) is headed, and how marketers, through their media agencies, plan to harness it (or not, as explained below).
Let’s start with the fact that there were even live IRL upfront presentations at all. Including the 10 days of NewFronts at the beginning of May, buyers have expressed enthusiasm over being able to gather in person again following two years of virtual presentations, which couldn’t quite convey the same level of excitement as seeing Miley Cyrus or Lizzo perform or Sylvester Stallone expound on Covid.
“I think it shows that people wanted to be in New York, people wanted to get together, people wanted to have conversations,” said Carrie Drinkwater, Mediahub’s chief investment officer. “I think it demonstrated the importance of connection and not doing these deals over Zooms or through Excel sheets.”
I’ve been paying attention in some form or another to the Upfronts since 1991 when few people outside the TV business or media agencies knew what an upfront was. Here are my takeaways at what has likely been a pivotal week in the history of TV/video:
Off to the races — but it may be a marathon
Most media buyers I spoke with expect the market to start moving pretty immediately if it hasn’t already started. They concurred that, given the recent darkening clouds on the economic horizon, media sellers are eager to lay money in. It doesn’t help that clients are also said to be reducing their budgets, as clients take money off the books and return it to the bottom line.
Expect to see deals get cut as early as this week, with linear competing with the major digital players to increase dollar volume. Last year, with linear networks seeking and largely getting massive CPM increases, often north of 20 percent over the prior year, their total upfront dollar intake took a hit, as they counted on momentum continuing into scatter. Now that the scatter market has cooled considerably, networks want to lay in extra volume.
But that may not happen. One buyer who spoke on condition of anonymity, said “That money doesn’t necessarily go back” to the networks that spurned it last year. ”Once it goes to somewhere else, it’s not like we say, ‘Alright, but next year, we’re gonna try to move that money back.’”
Living in a post-schedule world
More than one buyer noticed the absence of schedules, save Paramount/CBS. This is very much the result of content being offered more on-demand than ever. “This week we’ve seen the reality of the world, which is, ‘Let’s present you content and the access points and not worry about how this show’s gonna be on Monday night at X time,’ like the old days,” said one top investment chief. “While it’s important to understand schedules for allocations per quarter, there’s a new world which is, ‘I want my content when I want it, and I want it to be consumer-friendly.’ And that’s what all these partners have done a pretty good job of presenting from their capabilities.”
Streaming takes the front seat
Nearly every buyer agreed that streaming services are the higher priority to sell this season. “We definitely saw that a lot of streaming was a main topic of every presentation,” said Amy Ginsberg, chief investment officer at Havas Media Group.
After all, it’s where audiences keep gravitating in larger numbers. But there’s another value to streaming that comes at the expense of linear TV that perhaps the sellers didn’t intend. One major media buyer had an epiphany moment listening to NBCU talking about how network shows would repeat on Peacock, for which NBC is looking to sell distinct inventory — which to this buyer seemed like double-dipping. “Why am I going to pay for it on Peacock and also pay for it on your linear network?” asked the buyer.
Currency, what currency?
The drumbeats leading up to Upfront Week told a story of networks pushing alternative currencies, as each major media company seemed aligned with one or the other (NBCU and iSpotTV, CBS/Paramount with Videoamp, etc.). That didn’t materialize last week, as buyers and sellers seemed to tacitly agree this is not the year to test alternative currencies in any significant way.
“I do think there’ll be some transactions on non-Nielsen currencies this upfront. It just won’t be at scale,” said Celeste Castle, EVP of research & measurement, dentsu Media U.S.
That lack of scale is probably for the better, as more than one holding company media agency exec told of the potential for error and confusion since virtually every agency is set to analyze and measure buys off a Nielsen base. “A client is not going to let NBC guarantee their stuff on iSpot and CBS guarantee their stuff on Comscore, and Warner guarantee their stuff on whatever,” said a measurement executive with a major media agency. “That client has to be consistent. So I’m thinking, could you have multiple currencies? Sure. But how are you going to manage your inventory, and then put a value against it? There are so many questions out there.”
Two things all buyers agree on: testing the alternatives needs to happen, and soon — just not in the upfront — because problems with Nielsen persist. Secondly, before any significant amount of transacting gets done on these alternatives, someone’s going to have to figure out who pays for all this. Because it doesn’t come cheaply.
In sum, it’s been a fascinating market to follow, and there will be a few more stories told in coming weeks about how this all shakes out.
Color by numbers
As the industry slides into buying and selling ad inventory for the coming season, iSpot.TV offers up these stats that encompass the prior TV season (from Sept. 6, 2021 to May 8, 2022):
- There were 1.8 trillion total TV impressions, which represents a 6.8 percent increase over the prior season.
- There were 678.2 billion ad impressions over that same time frame, which is a 4.7 percent increase.
Takeoff & landing
- IPG-owned media agency Mediahub landed media AOR duties for rideshare service Lyft, which does the lion’s share of its advertising on digital. VaynerMedia had handled digital duties but didn’t participate in the client’s review.
- Creator commerce company Whalar last week acquired talent & management company, C Talent, which specializes in managing deaf and disabled talent.
- S4 Capital acquired tech services and engineering firm Theorem One to help boost its target goal to make tech services 25 percent of its business.
Direct quote
“In every upfront presentation, they all [claim to have] the fastest growing streaming networks. They all rate the best at X, Y and Z, and It’s the same story. And only one can be right. And that’s what I think is the trick in all this — making sure you know which one’s right when you leave the presentations and you go back to your desk, and you’ve done all this work beforehand.”
— One major chief investment officer, speaking to the similarities of media sellers’ streaming pitches.
Speed reading
- Digiday’s senior news editor Seb Joseph takes a long view of the economic factors that seem to indicate things will get worse before they get better, for consumers and for the companies that serve them.
- Digiday’s managing editor Sara Jerde assembled the best content from Commerce Week in one story, looking primarily at how publishers improved their commerce offerings during the pandemic.
- Digiday’s senior ad-tech reporter Ronan Shields breaks down all the ways in which Microsoft is gathering strength to become a bigger force in advertising.
Tech
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 vs. AMD Radeon 6950 XT: Which GPU should you buy?
The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT has been an interesting GPU this generation. It’s both cheaper than the competing Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090—and sometimes faster, too. It’s now been refreshed with the RX 6950 XT, a late entrant into the tumultuous GPU market. Nvidia has also done its part with the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, which brings impressive performance, albeit with a high cost and power draw at 450W TDP.
With the original RTX 3090 price recently decreasing slightly, it makes for an interesting comparison against the newer AMD RX 6950 XT. The RTX 3090 Ti offers more performance, but is significantly outside of the price bracket of the RX 6950 XT. Is this AMD refresh enough to push performance for AMD ahead of Nvidia, even in the murky waters of ray tracing? More importantly, does it move the needle for high-end gamers enough for them to switch their allegiance from Nvidia to AMD? Let’s find out!
Sapphire RX 6950XT
Brad Chacos
Nvidia RTX 3090 vs. AMD 6950XT: Price
Relax. You can easily find both GPUs in stock now at most retailers, and generally at close to MSRP. The GPU market has experienced a significant downturn during the last several months, with prices quickly dropping from their stratospheric levels.
The AMD RX 6950XT comes in at a $1,099 MSRP for the reference model, and some third-party models range from $1,199 to $1,299. A modest bump from the $999 6900XT pricing—but it does not mean they’re a great deal. With the declining GPU market and murmurs of the next-generation GPUs coming out this year, it has significantly dampened demand and enthusiasm for this level of GPU.
The Nvidia RTX 3090 has also experienced much lower demand, resulting in quickly falling pricing. While you’re still unlikely to find a $1,499 Founders Edition at MSRP, most models such as those from the EVGA RTX 3090 lineup have experienced a significant price drop, coming in as low as $1,609 for the Black series. (The 3090 Ti debuted at $1,999, a big increase over the RTX 3090—and it’s already being discounted at many retailers, too)
The pricing on the used market is even lower, however, with RTX 3090s dipping close to the $1,200 mark in many cases.
Neither model is a great price-to-performance choice this late into the release cycle, however. Most high-end gamers who don’t have a top-tier GPU will likely be best served by waiting for the next generation this year.
The AMD RX 6950 XT is the latest to test its mettle against Nvidia.
Thiago Trevisan
Nvidia RTX 3090 vs. AMD 6950XT: Performance
AMD certainly threw in a surprising performance with the original 6900 XT—it was able to match or beat the RTX 3090 in certain games and scenarios. Has the RX 6950 XT finally crossed the Rubicon in all performance areas? Not quite. When it comes to ray tracing performance, the RTX 3090 is still out ahead. (Check out Brad Chacos’ review for a deeper dive on the new AMD refreshes.)
Thiago Trevisan
In games such as Watch Dogs Legion with traditional rasterization, we can see the AMD RX 6950 XT performing as well or better than the RTX 3090 (especially at lower resolutions). This trend continues in other games such as Horizon Zero Dawn, where it’s able to keep up with the RTX 3090. Game after game, both GPUs trade blows and are highly competitive with each other.
Both GPUs have party tricks up their sleeves for performance, too. AMD has Smart Access Memory that can boost performance when coupled with a Ryzen CPU, along with Radeon Super Resolution. This will give it significant boosts in many games, besting the RTX 3090 in some cases, as shown below in Horizon Zero Dawn. Nvidia also has DLSS technology that does wonders for keeping graphical fidelity and high frames simultaneously—which is a gamer changer when paired with ray tracing.
Thiago Trevisan
What happens when we introduce ray tracing? That’s where Nvidia’s RTX 3090 still holds an advantage over AMD. The 6950 XT does not have upgraded ray tracing hardware when compared to the 6900 XT, keeping it behind the Nvidia RTX GPUs in this case.
It can be argued that there are diminishing returns for ray tracing visuals and performance, with varying results. The technology puts insane strain on performance, lowering frame rates significantly until you claw some back with the help of an upscaling technology like DLSS or AMD’s FSR. The visual impact doesn’t always make losing that performance worthwhile, either. But when it comes to the “halo” GPUs like these, ray tracing can be part of the reason you get a high-end GPU in the first place; you want to turn all the eye candy up to Ultra, including ray tracing. Paired with Nvidia’s DLSS, the performance penalty can be mitigated, and the visuals enjoyed fully.
This is one big advantage of the RTX 3090 versus the newer 6950 XT—maximum performance and visuals matter when you’re spending way over $1,000 for a GPU. AMD’s ray tracing hardware is a generation behind Nvidia’s implementation, while its DLSS rival, FSR 2.0, is great but still in its infancy, with only a handful of games supporting the fledgling technology at this point. That means ray tracing is best experienced at 1440p resolution on the 6950 XT, while you can usually crank ray traced games even at 4K on the 3090. If you’re not interested in ray tracing however, the 6950 XT is a mighty fine choice for significantly less cost.
Let’s not forget that the RTX 3090 is certainly better geared towards content creation and other workstation use cases, as well. With a whopping 24GB of GDDR6x VRAM, it will handily beat the 16GB RX 6950 XT in most content creation tasks. The 3080 Ti would be a more reasonable competitor to the 6950 XT in this case as a pure gaming solution.
Nvidia RTX 3090 vs. AMD 6950 XT: Power and other things to know
The RTX 3090 packs a TDP of 350W, with many third-party models eclipsing 400W. The RX 6950 XT comes in a 335W TDP, which is reasonable for the performance that it puts out. Remember, the 3090 Ti is already up to 450W TDP—so next-generation offerings will likely go up significantly in requirements.
You’ll want a minimum of a 750W power supply for both, but we’d recommend you up that even higher for future proofing—as high-quality power supplies tend to last a long time.
You’ll need a case with good airflow for both these options, and better clearance than lesser GPUs require. (They’re often wrapped in a nice, thick, beefy air coolers to keep their temperatures in check.)
Which is the better option for water cooling? We’d argue that the RTX 3090 is, since it likely will have a wider range of water blocks available on the market. Plus, with its steaming-hot VRAM, it often benefits more from taking a deep swim versus the typically cooler RX 6950 XT.
So, is the 6950 XT enough to best the RTX 3090?
The 6950 XT is a slightly more powerful addition to the high-end AMD lineup, putting up an impressive performance versus the RTX 3090. It’s simple: If you’re playing at higher resolutions and want to use ray tracing, Nvidia still holds an advantage here. DLSS and the Nvidia encoders are also great technologies that serve people well.
If you’re after pure frame rate goodness—without as much ray tracing, the 6950 XT can be often a much better choice than the RTX 3090, especially in sub-4K resolutions. AMD offers great technologies such as FSR, Smart Access Memory to really up the performance too.
So, who wins? Unfortunately, the 6950 XT comes in too late in the release cycle to be relevant in the rapidly declining GPU market, making it an expensive option. The aging RTX 3090 is a similar story. Its high price was never a very good option for purely gaming—making better use for hybrid content creators/gamers instead. The RTX 3090 Ti is an even worse value proposition this late into the story, making it only relevant for a few high-end enthusiasts who don’t mind the price tag.
3090 Ti: The symbol for diminishing returns in an ever changing market. Beautiful, but flawed!
IDG
The verdict: This is a good ole’ fashioned standstill. We’d wait out the market a few months as both will experience even steeper declines in price with the introduction of the next generation. Otherwise, if you really must have one now, the decision will come down to ray tracing preference and resolution you’re playing at. Both GPUs will give you good, all-around performance for years to come—but neither are a great choice right now as the GPU market is rapidly changing this year.
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Confessions of an in-house creative strategist on feeling unfulfilled, difficulty in returning to agencies as the ‘pay is less’
The war for talent between agencies and brands’ in-house agencies has cooled. Even so, for adland talent who’ve made the move in-house, some say they are looking to go back to agencies after feeling creatively stifled. It’s not the easiest strategy to execute.
In the latest edition of our Confessions series, in which we trade anonymity for candor, we hear from an in-house creative strategist about their experience, why they want to go agency-side now and how pay is keeping them from doing so.
This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
What’s the in-house experience like?
I’ve been in-house for about a year. It’s very one-sided. The difference between agency and in-house is that with agencies, there [are] a lot of opinions and ideas [outside of the brand message] that go into creative. With in-house, you have the brand’s message and all creative is reflective of the brand’s message. With in-house, regardless of trends in the market, it’s a lot of ‘we’re going to stick to this one way of doing things’ mentality. It’s a lot of opinions about what the creative should be based on what it has been before. It makes it hard to introduce something fresh. It makes it hard to hire or be a new hire. If you’re not actually going to adhere to advice from new hires, what’s the point in getting new people? Are you just bringing people on board for a second opinion? That’s what it feels like.
Sounds like you don’t have the creative control you desire.
It feels like more of a second opinion role than to get something to manage or control. [Where I am now] it feels like we’re leaning more into what [our strategy] used to be than thinking about what we could be. That’s a big issue with in-house. With agencies, like I said, there’s a lot more trial and error. With in-house, a lot more of this is what we’re doing, these are the funds we have and this is what has worked in the past. In reality, a lot of what worked in the past, when you put it back into the market, it’s not going to work anymore.
Why do you think it’s more challenging to get to a new creative strategy in-house?
With agencies, you have multiple perspectives. You’re working on multiple brands. You can see something working for another brand and talk to your client about it. You can pivot. You have the background and perspective to [pitch that pivot]. When you’re in-house, you only have the knowledge of your brand and what’s working for you.
Are you looking to go back to agencies?
Personally, I am looking to go from in-house to agency but I get paid a lot more being in-house than what I’ve been offered at agencies. I’ve been in interviews with agencies where they’re telling me that I’ll be learning [programs I already know how to use] so that’s why the pay is less than what it should be. There are agencies I’ve interviewed with who ask me to move to New York for less than what I make now and make that work. [With inflation,] there’s no reason why salaries aren’t also increasing.
So you’d like to make the jump creatively but it’s hard when the compensation isn’t up to what in-house offers?
It’s hard. I’ve been lowballed, too. They’ll post a salary for a position, go through the interviews and then offer less than what’s listed on the salary description. What was the point of putting the salary range there? I feel like people are putting salary ranges on job descriptions just to attract people with the experience that they are looking for but by the time they make the offer, it’s not what they said it would be. It’s offensive.
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