When media pros across a wide spectrum look for previously unrecognized trends and fresh insights into what’s happening in the world of advertising, for nearly 20 years they’ve turned to MediaRadar, the advertising-intelligence platform that delivers analysis targeted to the needs of buyers, sellers and planners.
This is especially true in the years since two leading associations serving the media market, American Business Media and Magazine Publishers of America, ceased tracking and publishing print-advertising data for magazines and related media.
MediaRadar, according to its website, delivers cross-media insights across a database of more than 4 million TV, digital and print brands. And Todd Krizelman, MediaRadar’s founder and CEO, is an influential analyst who speaks frequently at industry events.
Todd Krizelman.
Fox Tales, as the newsletter for Fox Associates, naturally thought Todd would be a great person to interview and share his perspective and analyses with you, our readers. What follows is our recent interview with Todd, edited for brevity and clarity.
Fox Tales: What’s the overall outlook for advertising this year, particularly the last three quarters?
Todd Krizelman: The sentiment is improving. The second half of 2023 experienced a contraction of around 3% year-over-year in digital and print B2B media, with notable improvement in Q4. Despite a slow start this year, we anticipate 2024 to be slightly up from the overall dip experienced last year.
Fox Tales: What’s driving that likely performance?
Krizelman: A mostly flat inflation rate and a series of interest-rate reductions promised for later this year, as highlighted March 20th by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, should help pave a promising future. This will make business loans more affordable, so we are expecting more spending year-over-year. Additionally, some segments, like technology, which is up 10% YoY through February 2024, are already experiencing growth in ad spend.
Fox Tales: What kinds of media-company advertising/marketing channels are growing?
Krizelman: MediaRadar data reveals spend in B2B events rose 14% YoY in 2023, reinforcing the impact that live events have on sales and lead generation for B2B companies. Q1 is also off to a strong start in 2024. Within digital media, whitepapers, webinars, and email marketing are notable channels that are growing.
Fox Tales: Which ones are flat or receding?
Krizelman: There was a great discussion at the Business Information & Media Conference in February around the role of print in B2B media. Notably, while print trade-magazine ad pages are not growing, they’re remaining flat. Our 2023 data sample observed almost 43,000 advertisers buy in print B2B media. And around 60% of these advertisers (26,000) only place in B2B print.
Fox Tales: What’s the mood among both marketers and media companies?
Krizelman: The first half of 2023 was very difficult for many media companies. High interest rates and bankruptcies along with record-setting inflation chilled the market, resulting in many marketers scaling back their ad spend. So the mood is decidedly more positive one year later. Many companies that sat on the sidelines in 2023 are now ramping-up, looking to build their sales.
Fox Tales: How has the Vivvix acquisition transformed your business?
Krizelman: The acquisition of Vivvix [Kantar Group’s advertising-intelligence business] in Q4 2023 allowed a greatly expanded suite of data that we can offer our clients. The biggest impact are the new datasets we can offer with insights on ad formats, including search-engine advertising, local TV, radio, out of home, and cinema. This allows an even more comprehensive view of the market for our clients.
Fox Tales: Talk about the role in this advertising ecosystem of firms like Fox Associates.
Krizelman: Fox Associates represents an array of publishers, including both B2B and consumer. They work with businesses across many industry verticals—from pharmaceutical to financial, consumer electronics to travel. This makes them an essential resource for so many types of publishers in the market.