As businesses rooted themselves deeper in digital ecosystems, many sought counsel on digital transformation, IT and cloud security. The push for digital transformation, along with the increase of sophisticated cyberattacks last year, benefited large IT firms. By the end of next year, the cloud security market is expected to reach $12.73 billion. This will have been a 25.5% increase since 2017. As the market expands, companies will have to use elevated branding to set themselves apart from other services.
Their product might not come wrapped with a beautiful bow like consumer products—but B2B teams need to make their final Q4 sales soon. This is why it’s critical to approach their advertising team now—they’re spending the remainder of their budget and they’re planning for next year. Make sure you’re coordinating with the right contacts to get ahead of your competition. On Monday we covered the top consumer brands to watch in Q4. Here are the top B2B brands from a range of sectors to keep tabs on.
The end of the year is quickly approaching and it’s time to close those final ad sales. Some of the best opportunities can be found in young consumer brands. This is why we’ve analyzed the ad spending of some of the top performing startup brands from this year. These brands were first identified based on LinkedIn’s Top Startups in 2021. We sifted through the consumer brands and identified those that had the best quarter-over-quarter outlooks.
The pandemic has impacted the entire nation, but its influence greatly varies across state lines. Those living in California had a different experience than those living in Texas. And those living in New York had a different experience than those in Florida. Much of this has to do with public policy. Restrictions varied greatly among locations, leading to differences in regional ad sales. Due to the variations, we analyzed pandemic regional trends from four states—California, Texas, Florida, and New York—to help you with your regional sales strategies.
Prior to the pandemic, most consumers didn’t pay much attention to the names of big pharmaceutical companies. But now that public health has been on the forefront of our minds for more than a year and a half, we’ve moved from indifferent to engaged. Pharmaceutical companies are highly regulated but that didn’t stop them from spending [**$6.58 billion**](https://www.fiercepharma.com/special-report/top-10-ad-spenders-big-pharma-for-2020) on advertising last year across B2B and B2C sectors. Here’s a check-in of the latest trends and spending taking place in the pharmaceutical category.
Roughly twice as many Americans retired in the first fifteen months of the pandemic than they did in 2019. Some of these retirements were by choice—driven by increased investments and a refocus on what matters in life. Others were involuntary—people in struggling industries were laid off and didn’t return to work. While there is a “Great Resignation” happening across all working age groups, Baby Boomers are leaping into early retirement—ready or not. And financial planners have found themselves in demand. How are we seeing financial services bring customers in?
B2B advertisers shifted much of their budget to digital last year. But only a small portion of that shift went to Facebook. This summer, 11% of B2B digital advertisers bought placements on Facebook. Even though the platform allows marketers to build highly specific audiences, B2B marketers are slow to use the social media site. When we take a deeper look, Facebook B2B advertising is growing but not at the expense of traditional formats—and the creative from major companies shows us how.
The heat between gig companies and worker rights groups is intensifying. And the ad numbers show it. Last year, businesses like Uber and Lyft contributed a record-breaking $200 million to the Prop 22 campaign in California, which allowed the companies to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees. As similar legislation gets closer to the ballot in Massachusetts, how much money will these companies shell out?
The NFL season is back this year with several changes. One of the most significant changes is the sports league’s stance on betting. Up until this year, the NFL has opposed legalized betting. But this year, the league announced that it signed deals with three Official Sports Betting Partners—Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings and FanDuel. With this change, we’ve seen programmatic advertising in this category increase 157% year-over-year, with DraftKings in the driving seat.
Between Disney’s Magic Kingdom’s 50th anniversary celebration and Halloween, a season of fun activities at amusement parks was planned starting next month. Unfortunately, Delta is putting a damper on the Fall fun. Just as travel began to recover, families cancelled their plans again. How does that impact advertising trends? Disney fans were excited to return to the theme parks in California and Florida once they reopened and mask mandates were relaxed.
The cigarette industry has faced a declining customer base for years—and COVID didn’t help. As more people quit smoking, cigarette producers are shifting their strategies. Philip Morris, owner of six of the world’s 15 top cigarette brands including Marlboro, is now changing course and pursuing a “smoke-free future.” In doing so, it is investing heavily in healthcare alternatives and respirable pharmaceuticals. The most recent CDC data found that 14% of Americans were regular smokers in 2019.
Over the last two decades, we’ve seen several new business categories be born. Without companies like Netflix, Uber, Apple and many more changing the status quo, this past year would have been completely different. They’ve changed everything from how we watch videos and listen to music to how we order takeout. Consumer category creators are well known because they affect our everyday life. But behind the scenes, software category creators have been changing the way businesses run.
The past year and a half has been exciting for the world of gaming. As an alternative to social media and Netflix titles, socially distanced people flocked to gaming platforms. Whether it was attending Travis Scott’s unforgettable concert in Fortnite or buying a Marc Jacobs outfit in Animal Crossing, people found enjoyment in their virtual worlds. August saw many new releases. Did top advertising brands line up with popular launches?
Snapchat is uniquely set up to enable people to connect in fun and meaningful ways. And this has benefited the social media company greatly during the pandemic. The number of daily active users on the platform is up about 23% from last year and engagement is high. Last year we tracked how the company responded to the coronavirus crisis. This serves as a check-in to see which advertisers are increasing their spend most on the platform, and which have dropped their spend.
The number of streaming households outpaced homes paying for traditional TV for the first time last year. But that doesn’t mean that TV viewership is off the table when it comes to advertising. Early into the pandemic MediaRadar began tracking how our new lifestyle was impacting TV advertising. We saw increased spending from categories like toys and games and household cleaning products. At the same time, sports advertising plummeted.
Between account-based marketing plans, in-app messaging, social media and content across channels, digital marketing is a lot to handle for B2B companies who are still fairly new to the space. According to MediaRadar data, there were 22.7k new digital advertisers in the B2B space between January 2019 and June 2021, with more than half currently active. Marketers aren’t only investing in digital ad placements. They are using their budget to work with influencers.
Only 1% of cars on American roads today are electric. But a decade from now, this won’t be the case. Between growing consumer interest, a policy push from the Biden administration and support from automakers themselves, we’ll see electric vehicles (EVs) become more of a norm than a luxury. Though the automotive industry went through the wringer last year and advertising plummeted, EV advertising in 2021 has already surpassed spending from the first seven months of 2019.
With Robinhood’s IPO a little more than a week behind us, plenty of headlines detail how the stock is performing. But we wanted to know: how is the retail investment app advertising, and how does it compare to other investment firms? Last month we discussed how Robinhood’s programmatic spending increased significantly in the lead-up to its IPO. It went from spending barely any on the format to becoming the top programmatic spender in its category.
Facebook made impressive earnings last quarter—up significantly from the same period last year. Our data suggests that Facebook has stayed true to form: most of their revenue comes from the cumulation of thousands of small, niche advertisers (with a handful of big brands thrown in.) And now that the economy is recovering, there has been a massive influx of advertisers. We saw an 87% jump in the number of advertisers in Q2 compared to last year. Who are these advertisers and have the top spenders shifted?
We’ve been hearing a lot about the chip shortage lately. And though the conversation mostly surrounds cars, the lack of semiconductors affects a range of industries. From construction to smartphones, much of our economy depends on these materials. Though Big Tech companies have been bringing in huge earnings, tech companies are facing headwinds with a limited supply of chips. But are supply chain issues enough to disrupt advertising budgets? It doesn’t appear so.
