Northeast Digital Opps: Boston Globe Media hires CMO amid spend decreases (Score 67)

Boston Globe Media (BGM) named Peggy Byrd as its first CMO, effective October 2020. Byrd will be responsible for audience engagement, customer service and all other marketing duties. She most served as principal of her own consulting firm, Byrdsnest, and before that she served as SVP of multicultural strategy at iHeartMedia. BGM also hired Cameron Muir as search engine optimization manager in June 2020 from Genuine, where he held the same role. It promoted Jenna Cirbo from audience engagement Co-op to audience engagement coordinator in January 2020. We will likely see changes to the marketing strategy as well as a possible agency review following. 

According to Pathmatics, BGM earned 104.7m impressions through Facebook ads (92%), desktop display ads (6%), Twitter ads (2%) and mobile display ads (1%). It placed the majority of these ads site direct (96%) onto sites such as facebook.com, twitter.com, legacy.com, statnews.com and aaa.com. It placed the remainder indirectly through Rakuten Affiliate Network onto sites such as zillow.com, yahoo.com, fandom.com, kohls.com and icepop.com. It spent around $772.6k in this channel over the last 365 days, down 81% from $1.4m spent during the 365 days prior. 

Sellers-- BGM seems to focus the entirety of its marketing budget on digital display ads. It decreased spend significantly over the last year, but I predict the new CMO will ramp spending up once she implements her own strategy. Sellers should reach out offering digital ad space. There may be local marketing opportunities in the Boston area as well. 

Agency & martech readers-- As you know, new CMOs will commonly review their new company's agency roster, as well as hire additional shops. Reach out soon in order to be top-of-mind. We believe you will face creative competition from Hill Holliday. Agencies located near the company's Boston headquarters may have the most success.