Gen-Z, Gen-X Opps: Earnest appoints CMO, starts airing national TV ads (Score 51)
Sales lead: Get in touch to offer ad space & agency services. 
- Earnest hired Shanee Ben-Zur as CMO, effective October 2023.
- Ben-Zur most recently served as Crunchbase's CMO & CGO.
- In her new role, Ben-Zur is responsible for all marketing activities and increasing brand awareness.
Target demographic: Gen-Zers & their Gen-X parents seeking student loans
The company will likely:
- Continue moving ad dollars from digital to TV
- Experiment with additional new ad channels
- Build out the agency roster
Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
- YTD spend: Earnest started airing national TV ads this year, spending almost $5m YTD.
- Ad programming: It placed ads during programming such as Gunsmoke, NBA, SportsCenter, Murder, She Wrote, and Law & Order.
Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
- YTD spend: Earnest spent nearly $2.3m on digital display ads YTD, a 15% decrease from $2.7m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2022.
- YTD data: 216.9m impressions via YouTube (68%), Instagram (14%), desktop video (11%), and Facebook (8%).
- 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend fell by 62% from $6m in 2021 to $2.9m in 2022.
- Ad location: It placed 97% of these ads directly onto sites such as youtube.com, instagram.com, facebook.com, maxpreps.com, and twitch.tv. It placed 3% of these ads indirectly through Google AdX+AdSense and an unknown channel onto sites such as 247sports.com, scout.com, maxpreps.com, cbssports.com, and drphil.com.
Agency analysis:
- Opportunity: CMO hires are the number one sign of upcoming agency reviews, so reach out now to be top-of-mind.
- Current roster:
- MERGE: PR
Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics.
