Gen-X, Millennial Media Opps: Discovery continues ramping up spend as it builds brand awareness for Discovery+ (Score 52)

Discovery is still promoting its new streaming service Discovery+, per its Q1 earnings report. SG&A expenses grew 48% in Q1, primarily due to advertising costs associated with Discovery+. The investment has paid off considering Discovery+ already has 15m paid subscribers. It is also gearing up for a big marketing push during the Olympic games this summer. While it does expect to keep spending at a higher than normal level, it will slow down at some point in the near future. Going forward, Discovery plans to refine its marketing plan to be more efficient once it bolsters its user base. 

According to Pathmatics, Discovery earned 9.6b impressions through Instagram ads (38%), desktop video ads (36%), desktop display ads (23%) and mobile display ads (3%). It placed the majority (83%) of these ads site direct onto sites such as instagram.com, youtube.com, geniuskitchen.com, yahoo.com and finance.yahoo.com. It placed the remainder (27%) through a variety of indirect channels onto sites such as yahoo.com, reddit.com, cnn.com, buzzfeed.com and fandom.com. It spent about $66.6m on digital display ads YTD, a massive increase from $768.8k spent in this channel during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend jumped from $4.2m in 2019 to $9.2m in 2020. 

Magellan reports Discovery placed approximately 370 podcast ads over the last year. 

Please view our national TV spend chart broken down by brand here. All data comes from iSpot. Discovery has decreased spend in this channel for all of its brands but HGTV, Science Channel and Discovery+.

Sellers-- I believe Discovery is mainly targeting Gen-X and millennials. The company allocates the majority of its ad dollars towards digital display and national TV ads. It is currently spending the overwhelming majority of these dollars on Discover+, which I think will continue for at least another year. Discovery also invests in OOH, print and local broadcast TV ads, per Kantar. Sellers should reach out offering ad space to secure some of these extra ad dollars. 

Agency & martech readers-- To the best of my knowledge, Discovery takes care of creative, media planning, marketing partnerships and brand activation. We have not seen any changes since it hired global CMO Patrizio Spagnoletto earlier this year, so keep pitching your services. I recommend offering PR or communication assistance with a focus on helping build brand awareness for Discovery+.