Gen-Z, Millennial Parents Media Opps: Headspace promotes CEO amid TV spend increases (Score 68)

Meditation and sleep-aid app Headspace is promoting president and COO CeCe Morken to CEO, effective January 2021. This follows CEO and co-founder Rich Pierson and co-founder Andy Puddicombe moving into advisory roles. Morken has been with Headspace since 2017; she previously served as EVP and general manager of Intuit. Morken also has some marketing experience, so she may prioritize marketing strategy and agency relationships when she takes the helm.

According to Pathmatics, Headspace earned 311m impressions through Facebook ads (49%), Instagram ads (39%), desktop display ads (8%) and desktop video ads (4%). It placed the majority of these ads site direct (94%) onto sties such as facebook.com, instagram.com, msn.com, youtube.com and arstechnica.com. It placed the remainder indirectly through Google AdX + AdSense and Display & Video 360 onto sites such as yahoo.com, finance.yahoo.com, news.yahoo.com, foxnews.com and realtor.com. It spent $2.1m in this channel over the last 365 days, just 29% of the $7.3m it spent over the 365 days prior. 

Per iSpot's estimates, Headspace spent around $27.3m on national TV ads YTD, a massive increase from $510.9k spent in this channel during the same time period of 2019. It began airing ads in this channel in 2019 and full-year spend equaled $911.8k. This year, it placed ads during programming such as "Ridiculousness," "American Dad," "South Park," "Bob's Burgers" and "SpongeBob SquarePants." 

Sellers-- Headspace seems to target Gen-Z and millennial parents with a slight female skew. It reaches these demographics through digital display and national TV ads. Headspace's spend has been all over the place recently as both channels had dramatic shifts. It drastically increased TV spend while dropping digital at the same time, so it must believe TV will provide a better ROI. Sellers should reach out offering relevant ad space. 

Agency & martech readers-- Morken's promotion will most likely not effect the company's agency roster, but she could make hires in down the line that might. There may be project-based creative opportunities as GUT Miami helped with most recent campaign. You can also try offering digital, social and/or media services.