PUBLICIS, OMNICOM, IPG RAISE FULL-YEAR FORECASTS

“Publicis Groupe raised its full-year revenue growth forecast after posting strong organic growth for the third consecutive quarter of 2022, even amid an uncertain economic climate,” Ad Age’s Alexandra Jardine reports. “Publicis now expects organic revenue to rise 8.5% this year, higher than the already increased 6%-7% 2022 revenue growth forecast it issued in July.”

Meanwhile, “Omnicom Group delivered solid third-quarter organic revenue growth across disciplines and regions, and it boosted its organic growth forecast for the year,” Ad Age Datacenter’s Bradley Johnson reports. “Omnicom expects full-year 2022 organic growth of 8% to 8.5%. That’s up from the full-year organic growth guidance of 6.5% to 7% that Chairman-CEO John Wren made in July.”

Also, “Interpublic Group of Cos. raised its full-year revenue growth forecast slightly as it reported 5.6% organic revenue growth for the third quarter,” Ad Age’s Brian Bonilla reports. “The agency holding company now expects its organic revenue will rise 7% this year. In July, it anticipated exceeding 6.5% organic growth this year.”

Keep reading about Publicis’ results and forecast here, Omnicom’s here and IPG’s here.

5 KEY TRENDS IN TV ADVERTISING RIGHT NOW

TV advertising analytics firm iSpot.tv gave Datacenter Weekly an early look at it Q3 TV Advertising Rundown report. Five key findings:

• Cable news climbs: “The three biggest cable news networks—Fox News, MSNBC and CNN—grew their collective share of TV ad impressions from 20.3% to 22.5%” in the third quarter, per iSpot.

• Brands are doing more budget-conscious messaging: “As wallets tighten with rising recession concerns, more TV ads used value-based ad creative themes in Q3 compared to the same time last year and in 2020,” iSpot reports. “Retail and restaurant/QSR [quick-service restaurant] brands led the charge in deploying budget-friendly messaging with viewers, respectively making up 43% and 34% of the ‘value’ ads in Q3.”

• COVID-related TV advertising plunges: “Even with pharma brands running vaccine and booster-related spots, COVID ad impressions are down 70% year-over-year vs. Q3 2021,” per iSpot.

• Sports betting continues to rise: “A year after sports betting ads surged onto national TV for the 2021 NFL season, the industry grew ad impressions by nearly 13% year-over-year.”

• Brands are scaling back on spokespeople: “During Q3 2022, 76% of TV ad impressions did not feature a specific spokesperson/mascot. That’s up from 71% in Q2 2022, and 66% in Q3 2021,” according to iSpot.

UBER’S BIG DATA PLAY

“Uber is debuting an ad format that will tap into the company’s first-party data to target riders during each part of their route,” Ad Age’s Erika Wheless reports. “Journey Ads will serve brand messages to riders while they are waiting to connect with a driver, waiting to be picked up and during their trip. The ads will also apply to Uber Eats orders.”

Essential context: “The new format is the first under Uber’s unified ad division and comes in the wake of a series of incremental steps the company has taken to build out its ads business over the last few years,” Wheless notes. “Uber’s ad division generated $141 million in revenue in 2021, up from $11 million in 2020.”

Early adopters: “Early brand users include NBCUniversal, Heineken and film distributor United Artists Releasing,” Wheless adds.

Keep reading here.

AD AGE LEADING NATIONAL ADVERTISERS 2022

In his introduction to the Ad Age Leading National Advertisers 2022 report, Ad Age Datacenter’s Bradley Johnson reports that advertisers scored “the second-biggest spending gain on record” in 2021, marking “an extraordinary turnaround from the pandemic plunge in 2020. Spending has continued to grow in 2022, though budgets could come under pressure as marketers grapple with inflation, rising interest rates and slumping consumer confidence amid escalating expectations of a recession.”

There’s a lot to LNA 2022—so the Datacenter team has come up with multiple entry points for you to make your own deep dive. To wit:

• “LNA 2022—10 most-advertised brands in the U.S., ranked”
• “LNA 2022—Will ad spending rise in the (coming) recession? It’s happened before”
• “LNA 2022—25 biggest U.S. advertisers, ranked”
• “LNA 2022—U.S. market leaders and category rankings”
• “LNA 2022—Big spending gains and cuts”
• “LNA 2022—What comes next after 2021's ad spending surge”
• “LNA 2022—Ad spending by medium, category and advertiser”

The newsletter is brought to you by Ad Age Datacenter, the industry’s most authoritative source of competitive intel and home to the Ad Age Leading National Advertisers, the Ad Age Agency Report: World’s Biggest Agency Companies and other exclusive data-driven reports. Access or subscribe to Ad Age Datacenter at AdAge.com/Datacenter.

Ad Age Datacenter is Kevin Brown, Bradley Johnson and Joy R. Lee.

This week’s newsletter was compiled and written by Simon Dumenco.