Spots N Dots
The Daily News Of TV Sales
October 19, 2016
TEENS ARE STILL BUYING FASHION & GAMES
BUT OVERALL TEEN SPENDING IS DOWN
Piper Jaffray Companies, an investment bank and asset management firm, has found some new trends—and reaffirmed some old ones—in its 32nd semi-annual Taking Stock With Teens research survey, which highlights spending trends and brand preferences amongst 10,000 teens across 46 U.S. states. Since the project began in 2001, Piper Jaffray has surveyed more than 140,000 teens and collected over 37 million data points on teen spending in fashion, beauty and personal care, digital media, food, gaming and entertainment.
“While total spending among the teen demographic appears to be down slightly versus last year, we are encouraged that the upper-income teenagers in our survey are indicating more optimism and positive spending trends. This increase in spending among upper-income teens seems to be largely broad-based across fashion and beauty,” said Neely Tamminga,Piper Jaffray senior research analyst.
While overall teen spending is down compared to fall 2015, spending trends in fashion and beauty are encouraging among upper-income teens where total spending is indicated up 2.5% year-over-year. Historically, Piper Jaffray says results from the upper-income survey set tend to lead overall spending.
Denim brands saw an uptick to 19% aggregated mindshare and showed up as a top trend among upper-income females for the second consecutive survey in a row. Among upper-income teens, fashion athletic apparel is still on the rise with a new high of 35% share achieved with Nike, adidas and Under Armour gaining share.
The beauty category’s wallet share among upper-income females reached 11%―the highest value seen in the survey’s history. Specialty store formats continue to outpace legacy channels for beauty.
Restaurants represented 23% of overall spending for upper-income teens; teens are choosing limited-service concepts at nearly a 50% greater rate than full-service concepts. With that, teens consider the overall value equation versus price-alone when choosing preferred dining destinations, with the average check ranging from $5 to $17.
Amazon Prime adoption has grown across all income brackets in each of the past six surveys, most recently indicating Amazon Prime exists in 58% of households of the teens surveyed. This survey, along with other previous Piper Jaffray consumer surveys, suggests that there are 63-66 million Prime households in the U.S. For the first time in the survey, YouTube outpaced cable TV when teens respond to how they spend their time.
The only two categories that exceed male teen spending on video games (12%) are food (20%) and clothing (16%). Video game spending among males remains above survey history averages.
The Taking Stock With Teens survey is a semi-annual research project comprised of gathering input from approximately 10,000 teens with an average age of 16.0 years. Teen spending patterns, fashion trends, and brand and media preferences were assessed through surveying a geographically diverse subset of high schools across the U.S.
ADVERTISER NEWS
Houston-based home builder, LGI Homes, is finding success by focusing almost exclusively on low-price entry-level homes. The Wall Street Journal reports that LGI Homes is forecasting a 24% growth rate this year, which if the fastest rate in the publicly traded U.S. home-building industry. LGI has a very aggressive marketing operation, including sending out 400,000 targeted fliers each week to apartment complexes and other rental units within a 25-mile radius of its new home developments. LGI has expanded beyond its core market of Texas to other areas such as Charlotte, NC, Nashville, TN, Denver, CO and Seattle, WA……In a related story, homebuilders are still positive about the market, but not as much as they were in September. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index fell by two points in October to 63. Anything above 50 is considered a positive sentiment……Despite a 26.9 percent drop in its stock price, Shake Shack remains positive about its future. Edwin Bragg, VP of marketing and communications at Shake Shack told Adweek that he thinks the company’s marketing efforts will reverse the stock price slump. Bragg said “Yes, we’ll do it by continuing to innovate and bring Shake Shack to more places. We recently opened in Dallas and we’re testing our salt-and-pepper honey chicken at the Brooklyn Shacks.” Currently, Shake Shack has 100 locations around the world……The battery supplier for the new Chevrolet Bolt EV is predicting that 30,000 of the vehicles will be sold next year. The Bolt will start at $37,495, but federal tax credits could bring that down to $29,995……Bose, Bacardi and Gatorade are three brands already partnered with Spotify’s Branded Moments service. The service features a commercial that runs at the beginning of the user’s playlist, and if the ad is watched to completion, the listener gets 30 minutes of commercial-free streaming. Spotify’s reps were in New York recently pitching agencies and brands deemed to be a good fit for the platform……The New York Post is reporting that Banana Republic plans to convert some full-line stores in the NYC area to outlet stores, targeting locations in urban shopping districts. Banana Republic’s same store sales were down by 9% in the most recent quarter……The Giant Eagle supermarket chain is offering buyouts to 340 corporate employees, or one percent of its 34,000-employee workforce. The company, based near Pittsburgh, says it’s cutting cost because of falling grocery prices. Analysts say the chain faces competitive pressure from discount grocers like Aldi. The company operates 420 supermarkets and GetGo! convenience stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland.
NETWORK NEWS
NBC severed ties with Billy Bush on Monday night following Bush’s suspension from his Today Show duties. The suspension followed the release of a damaging audio tape with Bush and Republican Presidential Nominee, Donald Trump from 2005. Matt Lauer, Today’s host-in-chief, noted that Bush was a “valued colleague and longtime member of the broader NBC family.”...... CBS has picked up Candy Crush, a new one-hour, live action game show from Wipeout creator, Matt Kunitz. Candy Crush Saga and its sister title, Candy Crush Soda Saga, are two of the top 10 grossing mobile games in the U.S. On average, 18 billion game rounds are played every month around the world……The Voice has been renewed by NBC for two more seasons, and the producers have announced that Gwen Stefani will return to a judge’s chair next season. Stefani will join current judges Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, Alicia Keys, and emcee Carson Daly, when season 12 debuts in February 2017. New judge, Miley Cyrus will sit out next season, but will return for season 13……CBS has cancelled two of its three summer scripted original series. Both Braindead and American Gothic will not return to the CBS schedule. The network had previously announced that it has renewed Zoo……The eighth episode of this season’s Empire on FOX will feature actress Gina Gershon in guest starring role. Gershon will play Helene Von Wyeth, the founder of her own fashion label, who partners with Empire for her annual fashion show. The airdate for the episode will depend on the World Series. Gershon joins Mariah Carey, Sierra McClain and Birdman as guest stars on the Empire this season……FOX is developing a new procedural drama with former Law & Order SVU showrunner, Neal Baer and Supernatural writer, Cathryn Humphris. The yet-to-be named series centers around a group of law enforcement specialist who form a new unit of the FBI to investigate hate crimes. The team’s goal will be to bring justice to those that have been wronged and healing to the communities that have been affected by the crimes…… Univision was the number 2 rated network among A18-34 this past Saturday night as the RiseUp As One concert delivered 262,000 viewers in the demo. The lead out program, Liga MX match, America vs. Tijuana delivered 369,000 in the demo. That was enough to put the Spanish language network ahead of CBS, NBC and FOX for the night among younger viewers……New data from Samba TV show that 32% of the households that watched The Simpsons 600th episode last Sunday did not watch the series live at all last season. The episode did get a boost from a strong NFL lead in. The results from Samba TV show that the program had 2.44 million households in the first minute and that dropped to 1.99 million five minutes in. By minute 20, the household number had dropped to 574,346.
MONDAY RATINGS
CBS had the top rated Nielsen 18-49 program on Monday with the veteran series The Big Bang Theory taking a 3.4 rating, maintaining last weeks’ performance. The same story for the freshman comedy, Kevin Can Wait, with a 2.1 demo rating. 2 Broke Girls was able to deliver a 1.6 rating, but the comedy was not much help to the season premiere of The Odd Couple. That series only managed a 1.1 rating, while the CBS 10 PM (ET) drama, Scorpion, posted a 1.3. The Voice on NBC placed second for the night with a 2.6 rating and Timeless scored a tenth of a point improvement over the previous week with a 1.5. Dancing with the Stars on ABC was able to do a 1.5, while Conviction lost nearly half of its lead-in dropping to a 0.8 rating. Lucifer and Gotham on FOX both posted a 1.1 demo rating. Supergirl did a 0.9 and the season premiere of Jane the Virgin managed a 0.4 for The CW. Univision and Telemundo tied with a 0.7 average rating for the night.
WEEKLY RATINGS
The ratings slide for the NFL continued for the week of October 10th with NBC’s Sunday Night Football giving up the first place position for Nielsen’s 18-49 ratings. The number one spot belonged to the FOX NFL postgame show, The OT, with a 5.5 rating in the demo. SNF with the Colts and The Texans placed second with a 4.9 rating, and CBS’s Thursday Night Football game with the Broncos and Chargers doing a 4.7. FOX’s Empire (3.5), The Big Bang Theory on CBS (3.4), The Simpsons on FOX (3.0), The Voice (2.9), Football Night in America PT 3 (2.8) and This is Us, all on NBC, and College Football on ABC finished out the Top 10.
USED CAR PRICES STILL FALLING
Wholesale prices of vehicles up to eight years in age fell by 3.6% in September, according to the NADA Used Car Guide. That was the largest decline recorded in 2016 so far. As a result, NADA Used Car Guide’s seasonally adjusted used vehicle price index fell by 1% to 117.5, the lowest level sinceMarch 2011.
At the segment level, Jonathan Banks, vice president of vehicle analysis and analytics at NADA Used Car Guide, said price movement was led by mainstream small cars. “Subcompact and compact car segment losses reached 4% each," he noted.
As forluxury segments, losses for the month were amixed bag."Luxury mid-size and compact utility losses were the largest of all luxury segments for the month," statedLarry Dixon, director of market intelligence at NADA Used Car Guide. "Prices declined byjust under 4% for the pair."
NADA Used Car Guide analysts are now forecasting that prices of vehicles up to eight years in age will fall byaround3.5% during October compared to September.For context, October 2015prices fell by an average of just under 3 percent.Looking ahead, the analysts expect depreciation toslowtoward the end of the year.InNovember,prices are expectedto fall by under 2%, followed by an even smallersub-1%decline in December.
NADA Used Car Guide'sfull-year forecast expects prices to be downby an averageofaround 4%on an index-basis from 2015.
THIS AND THAT
Omnicom Group missed Wall Street expectations for revenue growth with its Q3 results. Organic growth overall of 3.2% was below the Street’s consensus of 3.5% and analyst Brian Wieser at Pivotal Research Group said North America organic growth was “surprisingly light” for the ad agency holding company, reported up by 1.7%...... Yahoo surprised Wall Street with better-than-expected Q3 results. However, advertising sales continued to erode as Yahoo execs try to get the company’s sale to Verizon across the finish line……Social Security recipients will get a payment increase next year—but only 0.3%, or about $5 per month for the average retiree. For those working, the cap for earnings subject to the payroll tax will rise 7.3% to $127,200.
AUTOMOTIVE UPDATE
Federal judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said Tuesday he is “strongly inclined” to approve the $10.03 billion settlement proposed for Volkswagen to buy back and/or compensate 475,000 owners of 2.0-liter diesel vehicles. A final decision on the legal case stemming from VW’s use of illegal software to defeat emission tests is expected by October 25……The Detroit News says General Motors is out to attract disaffected VW customers with a new turbodiesel version of its 2018 Chevrolet Equinox crossover and diesel versions of the Chevy Cruze and new Cruze hatchback.
DONE DEALS
Cox Media Group has promoted CFO Brett Fennell to CFO and EVP of national ad platforms, including CoxReps, Gamut and Videa. In addition, SVP of Sales for CoxReps and president of HRP, David Palmer, will be promoted to president of CoxReps, reporting directly to Fennell. Jason Morrow, current president of TeleRep, a division of CoxReps, will be promoted to COO of CoxReps. All three changes are to take effect on January 1, 2017. Kim Guthrie was recently named president of CMG and praised all three executives saying “It is remarkable to be able to tap such strong internal talent in our leadership ranks to fill these important roles.” Guthrie will assume the role as CMG’s president in January.