Campaign Imminent: Party City taps media AOR amid CMO search (Score 49)

Sales Lead: To drive social engagement despite a slump in sales, Party City (PC) has picked 22squared as its new media AOR at the end of 2022.

• The agency now handles media planning, paid media investment, digital strategy, ad tech consulting, and analytics.
• The account is led by a 15-person team headed up by 22squared's group AD and SVP, Austen Tully, and its media strategy and planning director and SVP, Jenny Yeend.
• Right now, PC is particularly focused on driving in-store and online purchases via more efficient and effective social media platform use.
• This shift replaces PC's former media AOR, Dentsu’s 360i.
• The company and 22squared are currently focused on targeted social media activations ahead of graduation season.
• We predicted that PC would seek new agency partners as it seeks a CMO to replace Julie Roehm.
• The company will likely:
  • Shift strategy
  • Launch a new campaign
  • Ramp up spend
  • Seek additional new agency partners
• Target demographic: 
  • Parents, especially moms, ranging from Gen-Z through Gen-X

Additional spending insights:

• Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: PC hasn't utilized national TV since allocating around $573 in 2021. 
• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: So far this year, the retailer has spent approximately $344k on digital ads, only about a third of the approximately $1.1m spent by this point last year.
  • YTD data: PC has earned ~44.8m digital impressions YTD, 87% via Facebook ads and 13% via Instagram ads.
  • Last year: In 2022, the company spent roughly $4.9m on this channel, down 25% from the roughly $6.5m spent in 2021.
• Additional channel insights  
  • The company utilizes OOH, print (newspapers), radio, digital, and Google Ads.
  • PC sponsors podcasts such as The Ben Shapiro Show and No Jumper.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: Get in touch soon to see if any additional agency reviews follow this one, especially considering its ongoing CMO search.
• Current agency roster:
  • ​​​​​​​22Squared: Media AOR (December 2022)

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix; podcast insights by Podchaser.