The Pitch: Advertising and marketing news for 4.30.24

by  on  in Advertising & Marketing



Owen Design Co. developed a campaign supporting client Har-Tru’s sponsorship of this year’s WTA Credit One Charleston tennis tournament. The multi-channel campaign for the Virginia-based tennis equipment supplier included a national TV commercial, in-stadium motion graphics, digital court displays, court banners, an event space with engagement activities, souvenir items, and social media ads.

Owen collaborated with Alice Blue to create the TV spot, which aired on Tennis Channel throughout the tournament. Event materials were designed in conjunction with Richmond artist Mickael Broth, who created a digital mural for the tournament.



The Martin Agency released a campaign for UPS in tandem with the shipping company’s sponsorship of this year’s Masters golf tournament. The campaign includes a 45-second spot highlighting a small business that impacts a community of golfers. The “Two Dreams” spot is the latest iteration of UPS’s “Be Unstoppable” brand platform.

Addison Clark was hired by Hope Springs Marina in Stafford County. The agency is providing website support, social media marketing and ongoing digital advertising.

Wildfire sponsored the Ad Club at VCU’s Robertson Rush this month. The agency participated in the weekend-long creative sprint in which students compete on teams to respond to a client brief, develop a creative campaign and pitch their executions to a panel of industry professionals.

BrandcenterRecruiter1 McNairEvans

Recruiters meet with students at their personalized stations during last week’s recruiter session at the Brandcenter. (McNair Evans photo)

VCU Brandcenter held its annual recruiter session last week. The two-day event saw nearly 100 recruiters from various agencies and companies participate in-person or virtually to connect with this year’s 70 prospective graduates.

New recruiters this year included CoStar Group, Disney, Peloton, Snap and SoFi. Local participants included CoStar, Brand Federation, CarMax, Familiar Creatures, Sylvain, Martin Agency, Ukrop’s, and Arts &

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The Sherwin-Williams Company Reports 2024 First Quarter Financial Results

by  on  in Business Financial News
  • Consolidated net sales decreased 1.4% in the quarter to $5.37 billion
    • Net sales from stores in the Paint Stores Group open more than twelve calendar months were approximately flat in the quarter
  • Diluted net income per share increased 7.1% to $1.97 per share in the quarter compared to $1.84 per share in the first quarter 2023
    • Adjusted diluted net income per share increased 6.4% to $2.17 per share in the quarter compared to $2.04 per share in the first quarter 2023
  • Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) in the quarter increased 2.0% to $896.2 million, or 16.7% of net sales
  • Reaffirming full year 2024 diluted net income per share guidance in the range of $10.05 to $10.55 per share, including acquisition-related amortization expense of $0.80 per share
    • Reaffirming full year 2024 adjusted diluted net income per share guidance in the range of $10.85 to $11.35 per share

CEO REMARKS

“In what is a seasonally smaller first quarter and with continued demand choppiness in several end markets, Sherwin-Williams delivered consolidated sales within our guided range, gross margin expansion and diluted earnings per share and EBITDA growth,” said President and Chief Executive Officer, Heidi G. Petz. “We also continued to execute our capital allocation strategy by investing $546 million in share repurchases and increasing our dividend 18.2% in the quarter.

“Paint Stores Group sales were up slightly against a strong double-digit comparison, driven by a modest contribution from our February 1 price increase which will reach greater realization in the second quarter. Our recent growth investments helped drive above-market growth in Residential Repaint. Commercial and Protective & Marine sales also grew. New Residential sales were down as anticipated, though we are seeing momentum with our homebuilder customers. Delayed capex projects impacted Property Maintenance sales. In Consumer Brands Group,

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Digiday+ Research: A guide to ad-supported streaming services, from the top platforms to marketing spend

by  on  in Advertising & Marketing

This is the first installment of a two-part series on the top ad-supported streaming services. This report provides an overview of the platforms’ offerings and an analysis of how brands and agencies distribute their ad budgets and ad placements across platforms. Topics covered include:

The second installment will dive into the results of Digiday’s recent survey of brands and agencies to analyze how advertisers’ preferences for ad options, ad targeting and ad campaign measurement match up to the platforms’ offerings. We’ll also examine challenges marketers face on the platforms and provide a guide to which platforms are right for key advertiser needs.

Streaming video continues to gain steam over linear TV, as Americans are tuning in to streaming platforms in record numbers. Streaming services accounted for 38.7% of total U.S. TV usage in July 2023, according to Nielsen — a new record high for the category. Just a year prior, streaming claimed the largest share of U.S. TV viewing for the first time. 

Meanwhile, cable and broadcast usage fell below 50% in July 2023 in terms of total share among U.S. viewers, Nielsen reported. Total broadcast viewing was down 3.6% to finish the month at 20% of TV, representing a new low. Cable viewing lost a full share point to capture 29.6% of TV usage in July.

What’s more, Americans have been adopting ad-supported streaming services at a faster rate than purely subscription-based options: The number of CTV households streaming ad-supported streaming services reached 83.7 million, a 17% increase from May 2021 to May 2023, while households streaming non-ad-supported services reached 81.1 million, a 9% increase, according to Comscore’s 2023 State of Streaming report.

“Even though streaming viewership continually increases, it is not cannibalizing linear but rather casting a wider net of fans for our advertisers to build

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Allianz Partners achieves record financial results in 2023

by  on  in Business Financial News


Allianz Partners achieves record financial results in 2023 | Insurance Business America















Report details segment-wide growth

Allianz Partners achieves record financial results in 2023

Insurance News

By
Roxanne Libatique

Allianz Partners, a major global insurance and assistance provider, has disclosed its financial outcomes for the year 2023, setting new records for revenue and operational profit.

Performance of Allianz Partners’ health segment

In the health business segment, revenues surged by 23.4% to reach 2.959 billion euros. This growth was propelled by organic expansion, increased engagement in the small and mid-size enterprise (SME) sector, and forging new alliances with local insurance entities.

A significant role in this growth was played by the enhancement of the digital health services through the Lumi health ecosystem, which served over a million users in the past year.

Performance of Allianz Partners’ travel insurance segment

The travel insurance division reported an 8.0% increase in revenues, totalling 3.297 billion euros. The resurgence of travel activities in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly following the lifting of travel restrictions in Australia and New Zealand, contributed to this rise.

Additionally, sustained advancements in North America and Europe helped bolster the segment’s performance. The recent introduction of the allyz mobile app marked a significant stride in the company’s digital outreach.

Performance of Allianz Partners’ mobility and assistance segment

The mobility & assistance segment showed a revenue increase of 11.2%, amounting to 2.902 billion euros. This was led by the robust performance of the roadside assistance and home businesses across Europe and Latin America.

Despite stability in the mobile device and digital risk (MDDR) business, remarkable growth was noted in markets such as India, Spain, and France.

Allianz Partners businesses’ growth in 2023

CEO Tomas Kunzmann reflected on the year’s achievements, noting significant strides in all key business areas, including travel, health,

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The power of organizational health

by  on  in Business Information Companies

For decades we’ve seen companies’ fortunes rise and fall based on their ability to react to, and recover quickly from, geopolitical shocks, technological advances, economic uncertainty, competitors’ bold moves, and other disruptions. Amid this volatility, which these days is accelerating rather than abating, many have a hard time staying the course. But some continue to survive and thrive despite the challenges. Why do these companies manage to succeed, year after year—operationally, financially, and otherwise—while others don’t?

Twenty-plus years of proprietary McKinsey research tells us that one of the main reasons is organizational health.

Organizational health refers to how effectively leaders “run the place”—that is, how they make decisions, allocate resources, operate day to day, and lead their teams with the goal of delivering high performance, both near term and over time. Organizational health comprises three elements: how well the entire organization rallies around a common vision and strategy, how well the organization executes its strategy, and how well the organization innovates and renews itself over time.

Our latest research on the topic reiterates the degree to which organizational health is not just nice to have; it’s required for sustained performance and organizational success. McKinsey’s Organizational Health Index (OHI) continues to show, for instance, that, over the long term, healthy organizations deliver three times the total shareholder returns (TSR) of unhealthy organizations, regardless of industry. Other findings point to greater resilience and higher financial performance in healthy organizations, even as the world around them has become that much more complicated (see sidebar, “What is the Organizational Health Index?”).

In this article, we look at the latest OHI results and highlight a few of the more compelling insights that the index reveals about leadership, data and technology, and talent management. We also identify several principles for building or maintaining organizational health over

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BTS of Tesla’s Short-Lived Ad Team

by  on  in Advertising & Marketing

As Tesla‘s sales slide, insiders say the automaker left creative ideas on the cutting-room floor without allowing its nascent marketing team to launch its first significant marketing campaign.

Investors were enthusiastic when founder and CEO Elon Musk declared that the business was set to “give advertising a go,” having eschewed it for 20 years. However, 10 months on, the 40-person “global growth” team tasked with delivering on this has been laid off, with former staffers sharing that none of the campaigns they had been working on saw the light of day.

Greg Costanzo, a senior production manager who joined the team in late February 2024, wrote on LinkedIn that people were laid off before “any real creative work or campaigns of our own went live.”

“Although I am disappointed, it was the most gratifying, challenging and invigorating two months of my career,” he added.

A source with knowledge of the matter told ADWEEK that a bigger creative strategy was in the works; the team didn’t get a proper shot at it. The group was still establishing processes and on the brink of shooting its first significant work when the plug was pulled.

Navjeet Gill, a senior performance manager at the brand until this week, wrote on LinkedIn that he was one of the founding members who spearheaded Tesla’s advertising efforts in North America.

“I was described as a ‘one-man marketing team’ since I was responsible for developing strategy and executing marketing campaigns,” he said.

“Since these initial days, the team had grown with world-class talent [who were] developing full-funnel marketing campaigns. Unfortunately, the team was laid off before any of these campaigns were launched,” Gill continued.

But Musk, it seemed, had grown impatient with the early marketing efforts. Confirming Tesla’s decision to axe the department, Musk took to X with

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Can You Get A Business Credit Card Without A Business?

by  on  in Business Card Companies

Key takeaways

  • It is possible to get a business credit card without owning a business if you earn money independently, such as through freelance writing or driving for rideshare apps.
  • Typically, on your business card application, you can list yourself as the sole proprietor in the business tax identification number section. Further, you can list your Social Security Number rather than a tax ID number.
  • Some card applications may require you to mail in additional documents for approval, such as income information.

Business credit cards offer some unique perks you can’t always get with personal credit cards, including bigger sign-up bonuses and specialized rewards categories. But are you eligible if you work for yourself as an independent contractor or freelancer, or if you have an occasional side hustle?

In most cases, the answer is yes. To be approved for a business credit card you just need to be earning some money independently. Here’s what you need to know about applying for a business credit card when you don’t have a traditional business:

Qualifying work for a business credit card

You may be more of an entrepreneur than you think. Any income-producing endeavor can be considered a legitimate business for a business credit card. Just a few examples of common nontraditional ventures include:

  • Running a dog-walking business in your neighborhood
  • Buying and selling on eBay
  • Working as a virtual assistant
  • Driving for ridesharing apps like Uber or Lyft
  • Owning and leasing rental properties
  • Delivering food with app-based companies like DoorDash or Grubhub
  • Tutoring kids in person or online
  • Buying and selling antiques
  • Independent consulting work
  • Selling homemade items at markets or online (such as on Etsy or Facebook Marketplace)
  • Working as an entertainer
  • Freelance writing and editing
  • Building websites
  • Managing social media sites

In short, if you earn money from the

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First Business Financial Services Inc. Reports Mixed Q1 Results, Misses EPS Estimates

by  on  in Business Financial News

  • Net Income: Reported at $8.6 million, falling short of the estimated $9.13 million.

  • Earnings Per Share (EPS): Achieved $1.04, below the estimated $1.12.

  • Revenue: Totalled $36.28 million, slightly below the estimated $37.58 million.

  • Loan Growth: Loans increased by $60.6 million or 8.5% annualized, indicating robust expansion across products and geographies.

  • Core Deposit Growth: Average core deposits grew to a record $2.346 billion, reflecting a 17.6% annualized increase from the previous quarter.

  • Net Interest Margin: Experienced a decrease to 3.58%, reflecting ongoing industry-wide compression.

  • Tangible Book Value: Grew by 12.9% annualized, showcasing strong earnings generation and effective balance sheet management.

On April 25, 2024, First Business Financial Services Inc. (NASDAQ:FBIZ) released its 8-K filing, disclosing a mixed financial performance for the first quarter of 2024. The company reported a net income of $8.6 million and earnings per share (EPS) of $1.04, falling short of analyst expectations of $1.12 per share. Despite this, FBIZ demonstrated robust growth in its loan and deposit portfolios.

First Business Financial Services Inc. Reports Mixed Q1 Results, Misses EPS Estimates

First Business Financial Services Inc. Reports Mixed Q1 Results, Misses EPS Estimates

First Business Financial Services Inc operates as a bank holding company specializing in commercial banking products focused on small and medium-sized businesses, business owners, executives, professionals, and high-net-worth individuals. The company’s comprehensive suite of services includes commercial lending, asset-based lending, equipment financing, and treasury management, among others.

Quarterly Financial Highlights

The first quarter saw FBIZ achieving significant growth in its core business areas. Loans increased by $60.6 million, marking an 8.5% annualized growth rate, while core deposits grew by $98.8 million or 17.6% annualized. This growth underscores the company’s strong market position and ongoing expansion efforts across its product lines and geographies.

Despite these gains, the company’s net interest income saw a slight decrease of $29,000 from the previous quarter, totaling $29.51 million. This

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5 Common Data Protection Challenges That Businesses Face

by  on  in Business Information Companies

Data protection requires administrative and operational controls; technical controls, such as access management, authorization and encryption; and physical controls that protect the computing hardware and work environments.

Many organizations focus on technical controls and protections, said Rebecca Herold, founder and CEO of consultancy Rebecca Herold & Associates, but they’re not addressing the administration protections, such as documented policies and procedures to make employees aware, or sufficiently monitoring the physical aspects. “So, it is just piling into the ongoing breaches that you read about every day in many industries around the world,” she added.

Everyone rightly focuses on the regulated data, including personal, card holder and healthcare information. But there’s a lot more that needs attention. “It’s expanded,” said Heidi Shey, analyst at Forrester Research. “It’s not just the source code that people have historically been worried about or secret formulas.”

Data protection challenges mount

New data protection challenges can involve IoT sensor data collection, algorithms, APIs, and machine learning and AI models that companies have developed. “Many times, consumer IoT devices such as smart cameras and smart vehicles are being used to support the business,” Herold explained. “And there is data that is shared that is collected by those products that usually the business isn’t even aware of.”

With the potential for financial loss, reputational harm and penalties for noncompliance with data privacy protection regulations, security leaders need to track the location and ownership of the company’s data at rest, in transit and in use and understand the security risks. That includes the data encryption and sensitivity level, potential impact on the business if the data is compromised and the dependencies between the data and other applications.

Globally, the 35 highest data privacy violation fines in 2023 totaled $2.6 billion, according to Forrester. The EU issued 19 of those fines

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Marketers should stop calling advertising an investment

by  on  in Advertising & Marketing

MoneyBrands should stop framing advertising as an investment, according to Nationwide’s director of brand, marketing and corporate affairs.

Speaking today (24 April) at Thinkbox’s ‘New business case for advertising’ launch, Nationwide’s Richard Warren said the word investment is “problematic” when discussing advertising in the boardroom. He claimed the exco and boards within many businesses don’t see advertising as an investment, but as a running cost.

“Whilst we [marketers] might think this is really clever and shrewd to cloak advertising in the word investment, they just think it’s bollocks,” said Warren.

He recalled in the past overhearing CFOs say the easiest things to cut are “training and advertising”, pointing to the long-term payback of brand equity as a key reason.

“Just don’t bullshit. Don’t call it an investment, because they will not think of it as an investment,” Warren argued.

Whilst we [marketers] might think this is really clever and shrewd to cloak advertising in the word investment, they [the exco/board] just think it’s bollocks.

Richard Warren, Nationwide

The key argument marketers need to make to persuade boards to spend on advertising is the longevity play and the need to keep “watering the garden”, he added.

Fellow panellist Matt Chappell, global client success officer at Gain Theory, agreed marketers should not “try and bullshit”, as “a CFO is going to see through it”. Instead, he advised marketers to speak the language of risk.

“Show the risk of not doing anything,” said Chappell, who believes this will demonstrate to the exco what can be lost if spending is not directed towards marketing.

The benefits of committing to marketing are clear, said Warren, who pointed to the internal benefit of creating a “strong brand campaign.” He claimed Nationwide’s brand revamp has had an “enormous” impact internally.

“When you’ve got 18,000 colleagues on

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