Progressive hires CMO amid national TV spend increases (Score 53)

Progressive announced Remi Kent will take over as CMO on November 1st, 2021. We told you about incumbent CMO Jeff Charney's retirement plans earlier this year. Kent will join from 3M, where she worked her way up through the marketing ranks, and most recently served as SVP and global CMO. Kent will be responsible for Progressive's $2b marketing budget and will report to CEO Tricia Griffith. 

**We are unable to confirm Kent's email address at the time of publication because she does not start until November.**

Per Pathmatics, Progressive earned 16.5b impressions YTD through desktop display ads (38%), desktop video ads (30%), Facebook ads (18%), mobile display ads (7%), Instagram ads (5%) and Twitter ads (2%). It placed the majority (75%) of these ads site direct onto sites such as facebook.com, youtube.com, instagram.com, yahoo.com and twitter.com. It placed the remainder (25%) through a variety of indirect channels onto sites such as zillow.com, ebay.com, amazon.com, finance.yahoo.com and reddit.com. It spent around $106.5m on digital display ads YTD, a 33% drop from $159.8m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend increased 10% from $201.6m in 2019 to $221m in 2020. 

Magellan reports Progressive placed around 370 podcast ads over the last year. 

According to iSpot, Progressive spent around $442.5m on national TV ads YTD, a 20% increase from $368.8m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend jumped 14% from $554m in 2019 to $631.2m in 2020. This year, it placed ads during programming such as "NFL Football," "College Basketball," "NBA Basketball," "Friends" and "The Price Is Right." 

Sellers-- Progressive has a broad target audience, but I believe it is primarily targeting Gen-Xers and millennials, with a male skew. So far this year, the company has been increasing national TV spend, while decreasing digital spend. It will be interesting to see if the new CMO continues increasing national TV spend. Progressive also invests in OOH, print, radio and local broadcast TV ads, per Kantar. The new CMO may change up the company's marketing strategy, but in the meantime, sellers should reach out and offer relevant ad space. 

Agency & martech readers-- Progressive works with creative AOR Arnold Worldwide, with an in-house team taking care of media buying and planning. As you know, CMOs commonly review their new company's agency roster. Start preparing your pitches so that you can reach out and be top-of-mind when she starts in November.