Chess.com taps AOR amid spend increases (Score 7)

Sales lead: Reach out to offer ad space & inquire about other agency opportunities. 

• Chess.com appointed Endeavor's WME as sales AOR in December 2023.
• The agency is tasked with promoting Chess.com through content development, brand partnerships, events, media rights, and licensing opportunities. 
• WME will also handle experiential marketing.

Target demographic: Gen-Zers & millennials

The company will likely:

• Keep ramping up digital spend
• Build out agency roster
• Experiment with new marketing channels 

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

• YTD spend: Chess.com has not aired a national TV since spending $8k in 2021. 
• 2021 ad programming: It placed ads during programming such as Chess and European Champions Cup Rugby. 

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

• YTD spend: Chess.com spent about $87.4k on digital display ads YTD, a significant increase from $8.1k spent in this channel during the same time period of 2022. 
• YTD data: 18.4m impressions via desktop display (71%), Instagram (24%), Facebook (2%), mobile display (1%), and YouTube (1%). 
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend fell by 60% from $93.4k in 2021 to $37.4k in 2022. 
• Ad location: It placed 55% of these ads through multiple indirect channels onto sites such as chess.com, football.fantasysports.yahoo.com, mail.aol.com, eenadu.net, and signupgenius.com. It placed 45% of these ads directly onto sites such as instagram.com, chess.com, netzero.net, facebook.com, and typing.com. 

Agency analysis:

• Opportunity: Agency appointments tend to follow one another, so reach out to see if you can pick up some of Chess.com's business. 
• Current roster:
  • VME: sales AOR

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