Welcome to week 2 of our December Advent Calendar, where we dive into newsletters from this year.

2023 Advent Calendar

Week 2🚪: newsletters

To note: The Media Tracker kept tabs on a total of 86 newsletters this year. This number of course ebbed and flowed as various media companies shuttered some and merged others.

Overall, the tracked newsletters had an average STR of 53% in 2023.

Looking ahead into 2024, expect more newsletters to merge into others, along with expansions in the AI category as there’s no slowing down under this sector. Meta and other Big Tech will also continue ramping up newsletter sponsorships to ensure they remain in front of policy and decision makers.

The standouts 🏆

• Meta sponsored 54 newsletters this year, running heavily across Politico and Axios, while PhRMA sponsored 56 newsletters this year, running heavily across Politico, Puck, and Axios.

• 29 different associations sponsored the tracked newsletters. Some key players were The International Dairy Food Association, Association of American Railroad, and The Alzheimer’s Association. Newer associations joined in on ad spend from Blockchain Association to the National Association Of Black Law Enforcement Officers.

• Deloitte YoY continues to sponsor every week of WSJ CMO Today and CFO Journal, with a STR of 100%.

• The Messenger launched their morning newsletters with Capital Access Alliance with a 17% STR, and more recently launched their business newsletter with Financial Services Forum, with a 16% STR.

• Semafor Security newsletter merged into the existing Semafor Principals newsletter with a 76% STR. Puck merged their political based newsletters into The Best & The Brightest, which we will begin tracking in the coming issues.

Ads across the web this week

• Energy: ExxonMobil (WSJ)

• Tech: Meta (NYTimes), ServiceNow (WSJ, Forbes), Salesforce (Politico), Apple (WSJ), Twilio (Bloomberg), Instagram (WaPo), AT&T Business (Bloomberg), Apple Card (NYTimes), Ericsson (NYTimes), Dell Technologies (WSJ), Intel (Vox), Elastic (The Atlantic)

• Aerospace/Defense: Boeing (Roll Call)

• Automotive: Genesis (Semafor)

• Business/Finance: Thomson Reuters (Quartz), TD Bank (The Atlantic), Accenture (Fortune) Accenture (NYTimes), Wells Fargo (Axios), Cboe (WSJ), McKinsey (Bloomberg), PGIM Investments (WSJ), BCG (Fortune), Bank of America (Axios), Brookfield (Bloomberg), Tata (Semafor)

• Healthcare: PhRMA (Politico)

• Real-estate: Corcoran (WSJ)

• Non-Profit: PCMA (Politico), UN Office for Partnerships (Bloomberg), Advanced Medical Technology Association (Axios)

• Travel: Catalunya Tourism (NYTimes), Only In Madrid (NYTimes)

• E-Commerce/Retail: Breitling (Politico), Google Pixel (NYTimes), Chanel (WSJ), Absolut. (Vox), Patagonia (NYTimes), Bibigo (NYTimes), Ferragamo (NYTimes), Chopard (Bloomberg) 

• Entertainment: Paramount+ (NYTimes), SiriusXM (Vox), Max (Puck)

Notable Campaigns 

PCMA ran a HPTO across Politico on 12/11, calling on Congress to reject H.R. 5378 to help reduce drug prices.

Meta ran a HPTO across NYTimes again on 12/11, promoting their partnership with Ray-Ban for the next generation smart glasses.

ServiceNow is running a week-long HPTO across Forbes and across WSJ on 12/11, promoting their Generative AI product.

Accenture is running a week-long HPTO across Fortune, promoting their research reports.

Goldman Sachs ran a HPTO across Axios on 12/11, driving to their branded content piece on the new era of AI.

Apple ran a HPTO across WSJ on 12/12, promoting the iPhone15.

Thomson Reuters is running a week-long homepage top banner takeover, driving awareness around their AI-Assisted research.

PhRMA ran a HPTO across Politico on 12/13, driving awareness towards the IRA letting politicians decide where funding goes for research and medicines.

Accenture ran a HPTO across NYTimes on 12/13, promoting their Built for Change podcast.

Instagram ran a HPTO across WaPo on 12/13, driving awareness towards their support for parents being in charge of teen app downloads.

BCG ran a HPTO across Fortune from 12/13-12/14, promoting their strategic management consulting capabilities.

Newsletter Tracker

Here's a link to the full newsletter list

Across the newsletter tracker, this week has a STR of 63%, 8% down from last week💰

New Branded Content

• Axios: Goldman Sachs, Autodesk

• WSJ: AMD, BCG

• Fortune: Delta, JBS Pt. 1, JBS Pt. 2

• Bloomberg: Wells Fargo

Here's a link to the full branded content list

Industry News + Product Launches

• The Information shares their state of play and plans to grow its presence in Asia come the new year.

• Holding company 2024 ad spend forecasts.

• Runway ML, the video AI startup, is partnering with Getty Images to develop a new AI video model that can be used by advertising, media, broadcasting and other companies.

• Jacob Donnelly is leaving Morning Brew to start his own media company called A Media Operator (AMO).

• Punchbowl News is acquiring Electo Analytics, a public affairs data company.

• Punchbowl News is layering in a premium subscription called “Premium Policy: The Vault.”

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