Adbiz

The co-Chief Creative Officer at McCann NY has a lot of listening and judging on tap, and it involves lots of radio spots. Sean Bryan has agreed to serve as the 2018 Chief Judge for the 27th Annual Radio Mercury Awards Competition.

In this column, Barrett Riddleberger, CEO of xPotential Selling, reveals two critical pieces of information about an underperforming sales rep. If the manager had access to this information during the hiring process, they would not have hired this sales rep. Instead, they would have kept looking for a better sales candidate.

Don't think for a minute that the value of spot cable isn't lost on the big retailers come holiday shopping season. In last week’s Media Monitors Cable Spot Ten report, JCPenney moved up to No. 1, with 75,467 spots. The feat makes JCPenney the No. 1 advertiser across all radio and TV media tracked by Media Monitors.

In last week’s Media Monitors Radio Spot Ten report, one brick-and-mortar retailer stood out from the pack with respect to the number of spots it invested in at the nation's FMs and AMs.

Cumulus Media's Westwood One national radio arm has just completed a series of organization changes in its sales team that it says are designed to capitalize on its "strong sales momentum, as well as to propel the organization to new heights in 2018 and beyond." These "important strategic changes to the leadership and structure of the national sales team" see a new President of Sales, as its current leader is retiring "to pursue his life passions in Vermont."

Verizon predicts a record-breaking year when it comes to online spending, with sales expected to reach at least $3.97 billion dollars on Black Friday alone. That’s $2.5 million dollars a minute. This forecast is great news for businesses of any size looking to make money this holiday season, which is extra incentive for your sales solutions team, AEs and GSMs to make the most of Black Friday.

With the Thanksgiving Day holiday approaching, no less than three automotive dealer associations have greatly stepped up their activity at broadcast TV, in the hopes that their efforts will lure potential consumers between now and the end of November.

It's been about seven months, but there's a flame-broiled QSR that is once again actively using spot cable to reach viewers and consumers. Meanwhile, a wireless services company has powered itself into the latest Media Monitors Cable Spot Ten report, as has one of the two big national home-improvement retailers.

A consortium of local television broadcasters led by Nexstar Media Group, TEGNA, Sinclair Broadcast Group and desired merger partner Tribune Media have rolled back the curtain on an industry work group dedicated "to developing standard-based interfaces to accelerate electronic advertising transactions for local TV broadcasters and their media agency partners."

Is the amount of time a viewer actually spends with their eyes affixed on the screen the best ratings metrics for advertisers in the modern era? That's what TVision Insights has been pushing to marketers, and its third-quarter report is now out. What are the shows with the most attention? One is "modern." The other has taken a positive "TURN" in this audience measurement report.

Still don't think taking a "mobile first" approach to attracting consumers is important for your media operation? Consider this nugget of data taken from Deloitte's just-released 2017 Global Mobile Consumer Survey: Close to 264 million Americans use their mobile phones 12 billion times per day. Smartphone penetration reached 82% overall in 2017. One would be remiss, however, to state that this is the result of Gen Z and Millennials. This growth is from a different generation -- one that knows radio more than any other.

Turn on a local radio station, and there's a good chance you'll hear all-Christmas music. That's good news for some big brick-and-mortar retailers who hope to start ringing up registers with holiday gifts purchased by early bird shoppers. Two retailers are using TV to reach potential consumers, according to Media Monitors.

Snap Inc. on Tuesday disclosed in an SEC filing that China's Tencent has acquired a 12% stake in the company. This news was overshadowed, however, by its largely disappointing Q3 results, also released on Tuesday. Pivotal Research Group Senior Research Analyst of Advertising Brian Wieser dissected the numbers, and he's made some adjustments to Pivotal's model on the parent of Snapchat.