Via iSpot.tv, the real-time TV measurement company. Rankings are by share of TV ad impressions, for new episodes only.

College football’s biggest bowl games helped the sport deliver the largest share of TV ad impressions from December 26-January 1. Major contests like the Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl, and thrilling College Football Playoff semifinal matchups in the Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl, totaled 20.64% of TV ad impressions — up from 2.04% the previous week.

Among the many insights included in iSpot’s upcoming 2022 TV advertising report is a look at the most likeable ads of the year. Data from iSpot’s Creative Assessment survey reveals pet-centric ads were a hit, with Chewy.com, PetSmart and Chevy’s cat-focused “Walter in Winter” all among the top 10 by likeability score.

The impressions were down 3.5% and the spending was off 8.1% in a year challenged by cord-cutting, inflation and a weakening market.

"And yet traditional linear TV still delivered a massive amount of reach and engagement to advertisers: trillions of ad impressions, hundreds of thousands of new commercials, thousands of brands and hundreds of industries all found their way into the homes of viewers," iSpot noted in a year-end report.

B+C has partnered with always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company iSpot.tv to bring you a weekly chart we call Promo Mojo: exclusive data showing TV’s most-promoted programming ranked by ad impressions. Our data covers the seven-day period through January 1.

NBCUniversal has a similar partner setup for advanced audience guarantees, but it counts VideoAmp, iSpot.tv and Comscore among its partners.

But still, this year could be, if not the year, then more than another setup year. NBCUniversal convinced some undisclosed number of ad buyers to adopt iSpot.tv as a currency in their upfront deals last year while persuading 40% to move away from traditional age-and-gender-based metrics, and the media conglomerate will likely look to further accelerate those shifts this year.

By now every major media company has struck deals with other measurement firms (like VideoAmp, EDO, Comscore, and iSpot) to supplement Nielsen’s data, and that is unlikely to change even with Nielsen’s new suite of products, as companies grapple with a rapidly-changing ad and consumer environment.

Email continues to be an effective marketing tool. Of consumers surveyed by CM Group last year, 45% made a purchase based on email engagement, versus 33% who acted on a banner advertisement and 22% who acted on an SMS message, writes Tim Glomb, vice president of content at CM Group.

Based on the campaigns conducted on its platform, CM Group saw a 62% increase in open rates in the first quarter. Unique opens grew by 92%, while total clicks rose by 5% and unique clicks increased by 9%.

However, the measurement giant’s woes have allowed other measurement alternatives to come into the spotlight. Besides VideoAmp, Comscore, iSpot and Samba TV have all partnered with publishers for test-and-learns.

Email is only a format. The key to effective email marketing is in the message delivered, says CM Group's Tim Glomb.

Don’t call it a comeback. Email may be an old format, but it continues to be one of the most effective marketing channels brands can use to drive revenue - if used correctly (and that’s a big if).

Other competitors in the space include Comscore, as well as startups like iSpot.tv and Samba TV.

NBCUniversal announced iSpot as a currency in March. It recently created The Currency Council, where top brands such as Marriott Bonvoy, PepsiCo and State Farm will transact on new currencies.

Which means that when NBCU announced that it was using iSpot and Conviva data as currency for some of its deals earlier this year, it did not seem as if the sun and the moon had suddenly traded places.

National TV movie advertising totaled $1.01 billion across all studios, according to iSpot.tv, delivering 85.6 billion impressions.

The eighth most-read automotive story, Automakers' National TV Spending Drops 41%, features data from iSpot.tv showing how, with a massive uptick in TV spend in 2021 after being curtailed by the pandemic, automotive spending was settling back to normal levels.

David Cancel, the co-founder and conversation marketing leader behind Drift Inc., announced he was stepping down from his role leading the company this year. Into his place came Scott Ernst, a leader with more than three decades of experience in marketing technology and consumer data. He is the former CEO of Tubular Labs and of Macromill, a Tokyo-based global marketing research business.

You can watch the 2022 Lume commercial with Mrs. Smith and her CAS Syndrome here on iSpot.tv

iSpot.tv raised $325 million from Goldman Sachs Asset Management in April, part of the company’s broader effort to loosen industry stalwart Nielsen’s longtime hold on the market for measuring TV ads across broadcast and streaming platforms. The deal gave Goldman Sachs a “significant minority stake” in the Seattle-area company, which was believed to be valued at more than $1 billion at the time.

Every manner of deal went down in March:iSpot/Tunity

Nielsen’s 2022 woes have given room for other measurement companies to carve out space. Comscore, VideoAmp, iSpot and Samba TV have all partnered with publishers for test-and-learns, and it’s a race to the finish line when it comes to measurement and alternative currencies.