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Gen-Z, Millennial Media Opps: Progressive announces CMO is stepping down

Progressive announced that long time CMO Jeff Charney will step down sometime before January 2022. Charney's official departure date is up in the air, and reportedly depends on the timing of his replacement. He is staying on to help manage the transition. Charnely joined Progressive in 2010 and served as Aflac's CMO prior to that. This does not signal any immediate opportunities, but this company's agency roster are marketing strategy will be under new leadership sometime within the next year.

According to iSpot, Progressive spent around $251.8m on national TV ads YTD, a 21% increase from $199.4m spent during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend equaled $1b in 2020, a 13% increase from $866m spent in 2019. This year, it placed ads during programming such as "NFL Football," "College Basketball," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "Friends" and "NBA Basketball." 

Magellan reports Progressive placed about 4.6k podcast ads over the last year. 

Per Pathmatics, Progressive earned 5.3b impressions through desktop display ads (40%), desktop video ads (31%), Facebook ads (16%), mobile display ads (9%), Instagram ads (3%) and Twitter ads (1%). It placed the majority (80%) of these ads site direct onto sites such as youtube.com, facebook.com, yahoo.com, instagram.com and ebay.com. It placed the remainder (20%) through a variety of indirect channels onto sites such as yahoo.com, zillow.com, amazon.com, reddit.com and aol.com. It spent around $39.6m on digital display ads YTD, a slight 6% decrease from $41.8m spent during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend jumped 11% from $204m in 2019 to $227.2m in 2020. 

Sellers-- Progressive targets a wide range of consumers, but it seems to focus on Gen-Z and millennials with a male skew. It allocates the majority of its ad budget towards digital display and national TV ads. The company increased spend in both channels from 2019 to 2020; however, it only increased YTD spend for TV. It also invests in OOH, print, radio and local broadcast TV ads, per Kantar. I do not expect to see many changes to the company's marketing strategy until Charney steps down. Sellers should contact this company and offer relevant ad space. 

Agency & martech readers-- Progressive works with creative AOR Allison+Partners supplementing PR. These accounts will become vulnerable once Charney departs. I recommend readying your pitches and start reaching out later this year to be top-of-mind. The next CMO could also partner with additional shops such as a digital or media buying/planning agency.