After two years of virtual upfront presentations, the dimly lit cocktail hours, mainstage events, and in-person deal-making meetings are back, meaning that this year’s NewFronts and upfront season are (mostly) back to normal.

When it comes to the measurement relied upon during negotiations, though, this year will be anything but.

Explain: For the first time in recent memory, networks, platforms, and ad buyers are heading into negotiations with no audience measurement option that is officially accredited by a third party.

• Nielsen, long the TV industry’s primary audience yardstick that measures viewership by age and gender based on its household panel data, lost official third-party accreditation of its TV products last fall. A completed audit from the third-party Media Rating Council isn’t expected until well after negotiations are finalized.
• Meanwhile, rival measurement firms Comscore and iSpot, which use big data sets to measure audiences, aren’t much closer to accreditation.
• That means it’ll be an upfront season like none other, as TV networks like NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, and Paramount head into negotiations armed with various measurement tests aimed at giving advertisers alternatives to choose from.

But don’t expect a free-for-all: This year’s upfront is all about testing, testing, and more testing, as the entire industry gets comfortable with a new measurement reality.

“The urgency and the appetite is one that’s being equally felt on both the sell and buy side, and that makes for a very interesting marketplace,” said Sean Cunningham, president and CEO of the Video Advertising Bureau, an industry group that has been critical of Nielsen and an advocate for alternate measurement. “I think that we’ve very quickly gone to multiplicity as an assumed approach.”

Click here to read about how advertisers are thinking about measurement this year.—KS

In 2020, Sephora was one of the first brands to take the Fifteen Percent Pledge, a promise to dedicate 15% of shelf space to Black-owned brands. That commitment is now part of its Accelerate program, which started in 2016 and has since mentored ~75 early-stage brands, according to Retail Brew.

Looking back: The accelerator was “initially centered around international beauty tech and social impact.” But Rauvan Dulay, Sephora’s VP of global merchandising, business development, and strategy, told Retail Brew the program is now specifically focused on diversifying the retailer’s in-store assortment, as well as “what it takes to be successful” on shelves.

• This year’s cohort has 10 participants, including fragrance company House of Foster and Shaz & Kiks, a haircare brand co-founded by sisters Kiku Chaudhuri and Shaz Rajashekar.
• The six-month program includes a weeklong bootcamp “covering everything from investment strategy to marketing—the two topics participants appreciate the most,” Dulay said.
• The program is helping Sephora, too. Two participants in last year’s cohort, Eadam and Hyper Skin, introduced the retailer to the concern of hyperpigmentation for darker skin tones, something that its product selection hadn’t addressed.

End game: Sephora sells half of last year’s cohort in its stores and online. Dulay told Retail Brew that although it’s the company’s “intention to launch all the brands,” participants are ultimately at different stages, so the number that hits shelves varies from year to year.

Read more about Sephora’s Accelerate program here.—MS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Downrank: LinkedIn has rolled out new features to make your feed less cluttered and more relevant.

Pulse: That’s the name of TikTok’s new contextual ad feature, which allows advertisers to place ads next to trending creator videos.

To the max: Google seems to be all-in on its new Performance Max campaigns, announcing in its Q1 earnings calls that they’ve seen “strong customer adoption, particularly among small businesses.”

Helllooo, untapped potential: US Hispanic audiences carry hugely influential brand-growth potential—and with TelevisaUnivision’s advanced advertising and marketing solutions, your brand can utilize cross-platform, in-culture messaging at scale to seize this significant marketing opportunity. Grow with TelevisaUnivision here.*

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Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

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Which headlines are real marketing news, and which one is fake?

1. Chicago to offer canned tap water ‘Chicagwa’ for free at local businesses
2. Ikea’s newest meatballs are for insects
3. Blake Lively’s Met Gala dress had a hidden brand message
4. Arkansas sues Family Dollar over persistent rodent infestation

Keep scrolling for the answer.