D.C. United appoints marketing chief (Score 49)

Sales lead: This hire will affect the team's marketing strategy & may lead to agency appointments. 

• D.C. United (DCU) named Lisa Franklin CMO in May 2023. 
• Franklin most recently served as global brand marketing & communications SVP of ThriveDX. 
• She now leads all marketing operations for DCU.

Target demographic: Male Gen-Z & millennial soccer fans with a Hispanic skew

The organization will likely:

• Outsource some marketing duties to agency partners
• Try new marketing tactics

Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)

• YTD spend: MLS has not aired a national TV ad so far this year.
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend fell from $144.8k in 2021 to $4k in 2022. 
• 2022 ad programming: It placed ads during MLS Soccer and Sábados de concierto.

Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)

• YTD spend: MLS spent about $4.5m on digital display ads YTD, a significant increase from $2.5m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2022. 
• YTD data: 613.4m impressions via Facebook (52%), Instagram (38%), YouTube (7%), desktop display (2%), and Twitter (1%). 
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend equaled $6.7m in 2021 and $6m in 2022. 
• Ad location: It placed 99% of these ads directly onto sites such as facebook.com, instagram.com, youtube.com, twitter.com, and dallasnews.com. It placed 1% of these ads indirectly through Google AdX+AdSense onto sites such as complex.com, solecollector.com, pigeonandplanes.com, firstwefeast.com, and football.fantasysports.yahoo.com. 

**The above spend information refers to MLS.**

Agency analysis:

• Opportunity: Contact the new CMO now to be top-of-mind.
• Current roster:
  • In-house: media

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics.