Welcome to December, where we invite you to The Media Tracker’s advent calendar. Each week, we’ll highlight the year’s top trends with predictions on what’s to come in 2024.

While this isn’t nearly as exciting as Bonne Maman’s jam packed advent calendar, we hope you enjoy.

2023 Advent Calendar 🗓️

Week 1 🚪: retail

The theme: retail based companies really flexed their ad dollars in 2023. Many Fortune-100 companies under tech and finance had a jerky year, turning ads on and off due to the rollercoaster of current events. Retail was a sector that remained reliant when it came to IO’s.

• Rolex has run ads across WaPo and branded content pieces with NYTimes this year. The focus has spanned from their sustainability partnerships to stories of modern leaders.

• Van Cleef & Arpels was a top dollar client for many publishers from WSJ to NYTimes. They stuck to RON, stream takeovers, and HPTO’s over branded studio and newsletter sponsorship to promote various jewelry collections.

• Hermes, Celine, Chanel, Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Balenciaga and others appeared within stream takeovers to RON ads, all promoting new seasonal collections through spring/summer and fall/winter.

Thoughts & Notes: retail companies historically stick to on-site advertising but Puck’s Line Sheet proved to be a successful medium for luxury brands to also get in front of their desired (HHI + INT) audience. Sponsors like Jaeger-LeCoultre to Dôen show potential for retail to expand ad dollars even beyond a fashion focused newsletter. As we always say, readers of business and tech are also probably interested in retail brands.

Ads across the web this week

• Energy: Nucor (WSJ), ExxonMobil (WSJ), Cisco (Semafor)

• Tech: Meta (NYTimes), Global X (Puck), Instagram (WaPo, Politico), Contentful (WSJ), Cisco (Bloomberg), HP (NYTimes), Currencycloud (Bloomberg)

• Aerospace/Transport: RTX (Punchbowl News)

• Business/Finance: Mastercard (NYTimes), McKinsey (Bloomberg), PwC (The Atlantic), KPMG (NYTimes)

• Healthcare: Evernorth Health Services (Forbes), PhRMA (Politico)

• Non-Profit: Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (Axios) 

• Travel: Belmond (NYTimes)

• Real-Estate: Corcoran (WSJ)

• E-Commerce/Retail: bibigo (NYTimes), Remy Martin (WSJ), Chanel (NYTimes), Hermes (Puck), Bulgari (NYTimes), Chanel (WSJ), Absolut (The Atlantic), Sidney Garber (NYTimes), Pratt Industries, Inc. (WSJ)

• Entertainment: NBA (NYTimes), Max (Puck), The Metropolitan Opera (NYTimes), NewsNation (The Hill), Hamilton Musical (NYTimes), Paramount+ (NYTimes), Netflix (Vox)

Notable Campaigns 

Meta ran a HPTO across NYTimes on 12/4, promoting their partnership with Ray-Ban and their smart glasses collaboration.

Evernorth Health Services is running a week-long HPTO across Forbes, promoting brand awareness around their capabilities.

McKinsey ran a HPTO across Bloomberg on 12/4, promoting their livestream event at COP28.

Instagram ran a HPTO across WaPo on 12/5 and Politico and Axios today, 12/7, promoting their support of federal legislation that puts parents in charge of teen app downloads.

Contentful ran a HPTO across WSJ on 12/5, promoting general brand awareness.

NewsNation ran a HPTO across The Hill on 12/6, promoting them live streaming the Republican Primary Debate on Wednesday.

HP ran a HPTO across NYTimes on 12/6, promoting their products for work and business.

Max is running a week-long HPTO across Puck, promoting all that there is to stream on their platform.

Paramount+ is running a HPTO across NYTimes today, 12/7, promoting their award-winning shows available to stream on their platform.

Corcoran is running a HPTO across WSJ today, 12/7, promoting their holiday home collection.

Netflix is running a HPTO across Vox today, 12/7, promoting the new film Leave the World Behind.

Cisco is running a HPTO across Semafor today, 12/7, promoting their AI Readiness Index.

Newsletter Tracker

Here's a link to the full newsletter list

Across the newsletter tracker, this week has a STR of 63%, 5% down from last week 💵

New Branded Content

• Axios: Zendesk, Cooley, Samsung, Grab, Autodesk

• WSJ: Visit Saudi

• WaPo: YouTube, AARP, EcoLab, AWS

• Fortune: JBS

Here's a link to the full branded content list

Industry News + Product Launches

• Morning Consult launched Counter/Consensus, a new biweekly Political Intelligence briefing.

• NYTimes launched a new installment “Style Outside” in partnership with Google, having a number of Times journalists use the Google Pixel 8 to capture street style around the world.

• Morning Brew hired Sara Badler as their chief commercial officer, advertising.

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