Large audiences are still valuable

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Good morning, Marketers, and the Superbowl reminds us large audiences are still valuable.

I was struck by reports that NBC had sold most of its Super Bowl ad inventory by mid-summer and at a higher price than last year even though the audience was at a 15 year low. The two determining factors, of course, are scarcity and reach. An audience of 96.4 million may be a dwindling audience — but it’s still a very large audience indeed.

In a fragmenting world where individuals are increasingly willing and able to consume niche content on niche channels, the ability to reach a large and diverse audience has some nostalgic appeal. OOH advertising has been renewing itself through digital connections and singular events like the Super Bowl can put big brands in front of vast numbers of eyeballs.

Such events are unlikely to become extinct — but they are becoming increasingly rare. Witness the plummeting audiences for the Olympic Games and the Academy Awards.

Kim Davis

Editorial Director

Shorts

What we’re reading. Scott Brinker reviews data showing that two thirds of SaaS spend within companies is now managed by business units rather than IT. About 1 in 5 individual employees buy their own SaaS subscriptions and expense them. As he rightly says, it seems too late to call this “shadow IT.” “(I)t’s the kind of shadow that a towering landmark casts in the bright light of day. Tourists pay money to visit it and take selfies.”

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About The Author

Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.