Campaign Imminent: Verizon taps new creative AOR for the first time since 2015 (Score 60)
Sales Lead: Verizon Wireless recently selected Ogilvy as its new lead consumer business agency partner..png)
- This shift replaces McCann, which picked up the account in 2015.
- Ogilvy picked up Verizon's B2B account in December 2022.
- The change will officially go into effect in 2024, but Ogilvy started working to evolve Verizon's creative approach and leveraging insights since last year.
- Ogilvy recently rolled out two campaigns for Verizon centering around its new myPlan service and NFL Sunday Ticket (see video above).
- The hire does not affect partnerships with other agencies; these include IPG's FCB, R/GA, Golin, MRM, and Momentum.
- We thought an agency review would follow the recent departure of Verizon's former CMO, Diego Scotti.
- The company will likely:
- Debut an additional campaign
- Continue ramping up digital spend
- Seek additional new agency partners
- Target demographic:
- A wide but male-skewed audience ranging from Gen-Z through Gen-X
- Business DMs
Additional spending insights:
- Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
- YTD spend: So far this year, Verizon has spent approximately $313m on national TV commercials, a 32% increase from the approximately $236.9m spent within the same 2022 timeframe.
- Last year: The company spent around $427.5m on this channel in 2022 after having spent 10% more, around $475.5m, in 2021.
- 2023 ad programming: Verizon's 2023 commercials have targeted male sports enthusiasts watching shows such as NFL Football, NBA Basketball, College Basketball, The Oscars, and NHL Hockey.
- Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
- YTD spend: The telecommunications company has allocated roughly $142.8m on digital ads YTD, already 7% more than the roughly $133m allocated in all of 2022.
- YTD data: Since the beginning of 2023, Verizon has earned ~17.1b digital impressions via YouTube (34%), Facebook (25%), desktop display (17%), Instagram (14%), destop video (5%), and mobile display (5%) ads.
- Last year: In 2021, the company's estimated full-year spend declined by 21% to $133m from that of $168.8m spent in 2021.
- Additional channel insights
- The company utilizes Google Ads along with radio, digital, local broadcast, radio, OOH, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and online video (via Youtube.com, Youtube IOS, and Youtube Android) ads.
- Verizon invests in short-form DRTV ads.
- It has extremely widely dispersed network TV coverage and will likely launch a new campaign within the next 60 days or so.
- Verizon's top TV networks include ENET, BRV, TENC, FREE, and FXX.
Additional agency insights:
- Opportunity: Reach out soon to remain top-of-mind.
- Since agency reviews follow one another and this one follows additional agency hires and a CMO departure, additional reviews are likely, especially once Verizon taps a new CMO.
- Current agency roster:
- IPG:
- Ogilvy: B2B AOR (December 2022); multicultural AOR; creative AOR (hired September 2023, goes into effect January 2024)
- FCB: AOR
- R/GA: AOR
- Golin: AOR
- Momentum: AOR
- MRM//McCANN/McCann NY: Creative AOR
- Publicis Groupe: Media AOR (December 2022)
- Publicis Groupe's the community: Creative and multicultural AOR
- Zenith Media: Media AOR
- Formerly Known As: Media AOR
- Basis Global Technologies: Media AOR
- Rauxa: Digital AOR
- AKQA: Digital AOR
- VM1: AOR
- Madwell: AOR
- EP+Co. Headquarters: Experiential agency partner
- IPG:
Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix; DRTV insights by Media Analytics.
