Tariffs are driving up the prices on various goods, but for now, consumers still seem to (mostly) be shopping—and this upfronts season, streamers are hoping brands will keep selling to them through their increasingly sophisticated shoppable ads products.

The opportunity for brands is growing: The average US consumer shells out a cool $290 per year on items they saw while watching TV, according to a September 2024 report from Emarketer and shoppable retail media platform Shopsense AI. By 2027, there are expected to be 109 million shoppable media buyers in the US.

After rolling out shoppable ad options in earnest over the past several years, streaming giants like NBCU and Roku have made significant investments into their shoppable ad offerings to try to meet the growing opportunity.

“We need to meet the consumer where they’re at in terms of how they want to interact and shop from TV,” Evan Moore, SVP of commerce partnerships at NBCU, told Marketing Brew. “Sometimes that’s going to be using their remote on screen; other times it might mean they take it to a second screen and continue to shop while watching TV.”

Continue reading here.—JS

It was a newsy NewFronts this year. Literally.

Last Wednesday, a group of news publishers convened at the Interactive Advertising Bureau-hosted event to talk about brand safety and interest in hard news content. The following morning, the New York Times put on its first NewFront presentation in six years.

But many of these publishers’ messages to advertisers focused on what they had to offer beyond their news products.

Hard news has sometimes been a hard sell to advertisers worried about brand safety, and in a news environment that’s been unpredictable and often volatile, speakers from the Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian US spent time noting to advertisers that they don’t necessarily have to spend against hard news to spend with their companies.

“We are using our time today to get you more acquainted with those lifestyle products, and that is because of how much they have grown and changed in the last few years,” NYT CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said to advertisers. “But make no mistake, everything we do at the New York Times, everything we do in lifestyle beyond news, draws its authority and its credibility from the quality and the breadth and the scale of our news.”

Times are a-changin’: At the Times Center on Thursday, The Times spent its hour-and-a-half-long pitch giving advertisers a tour of its core products outside of news, with host Michael Barbaro of The Daily podcast bringing out speakers from various Times verticals.

Levien touted some stats about engagement with games, like the fact that three times the number of people who watched the season finale of The White Lotus (6.2 million people) play NYT games every day. And Camilla Velasquez, SVP and GM of NYT Cooking, said that vertical saw almost 500 million visits last year across its platforms, and announced new content offerings.

Read more here.—AM

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Katy Kelley is SVP, marketing and brand, at Codeword. She’s also worked in senior roles at Ruder Finn, Cohn & Wolfe, and Carrot Creative.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? I’ve always said that my job as a marketer is to know what to say, how to say it, and who needs to hear it to make things happen. Think of it as a cross between a cultural anthropologist, a persuasive writer, and a slightly mad scientist, all focused on creating meaningful connections between what brands offer and the people who will truly value it.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? Listen, Mountain Dew finally getting Seal to transform into a seal while singing “Kiss from a Rose” for the Super Bowl was the animorph the world needed. Just ridiculous, weird fun.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: You wouldn’t guess that I’m a Dungeon Master, the architect of Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. While I’ve enjoyed playing for decades, I started running my own games a few years ago. It’s been a surprisingly insightful teacher in storytelling, strategic thinking, quick problem-solving, and understanding group dynamics. Plus, I always carry a 20-sided die—you never know when you might need to roll for initiative, or decide what to have for lunch!

Continue reading here.

Earlier this year, Google made its marketing mix model (MMM) tool, Meridian, available to the public, igniting a debate about whether open-source MMM is the way to go—or if marketers should stick to vendor’s proprietary tools.

To help your team decide, access EMARKETER’s guide for a full breakdown of the pros and cons based on resources, customization needs, and cost.

Choose the right MMM solution.

Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• NBCU reached a deal to sell US ad inventory for Versant, the forthcoming Comcast cable network spin-off, through the next two upfronts cycles.
• Fenty Beauty became the latest beauty company to partner with the New York Liberty, following in the footsteps of Essie.
• DoorDash is widening its reach to nine more countries with the acquisition of UK-based delivery company Deliveroo.
• Coinbase announced a multiyear deal with Riot Games to become an official partner of Valorant and League of Legends esports events.