With brief, occasional, italicized and sometimes gratuitous commentary…
• Advertising Age reports that "Amazon in 2022 powered up worldwide advertising and promotion spending by 22% to $20.6 billion, breaking a record for annual spending by any marketer.
"The spending spree came as net sales rose 9% in 2022, the slowest growth since Amazon opened its online bookstore in 1995.
"The company had double-digit percentage increases in ad and promotion spending every year from 2004 through 2022 except for 2020, when Amazon trimmed spending by 1%."
• From the Washington Post:
"Amazon has added a 24/7 sports gambling network to its Prime Video offerings that will be available to consumers Wednesday. The deal with gambling network SportsGrid comes as the e-commerce giant is weighing the creation of a stand-alone sports app.
"SportsGrid also will be available as part of Amazon’s free bundle of channels on its FreeVee platform, which previously was known as IMDb TV.
"A gambling network is just the latest sports content push by Amazon. This NFL season, it broadcast its first year of “Thursday Night Football” games after shelling out more than $1 billion per season over 11 years for the rights. The company also has exclusive rights to a number of English Premier League games in the United Kingdom and is a part-owner of YES Network, which broadcasts New York Yankees games. In November, Amazon beefed up its sports programming by launching a 12-hour block of sports talk shows, including ones hosted by former ESPN anchor Cari Champion and Master Tesfatsion, previously of Bleacher Report."
I'm not entirely sure that Amazon should be getting into the sports betting business, but I'm sort of old fashioned about this stuff. That said, if it makes money from this new network, it should use some of the funds to clean up the Freevee streaming platform - as it exists now, it is one of the clunkiest, least user-friendly, hard to navigate platforms out there.
• From Variety:
"Roku and food-delivery service DoorDash inked a partnership under which DoorDash will be the exclusive marketplace ad partner for DoorDash U.S. restaurants and grocery stores that buy interactive shoppable ads on Roku. Fast-food chain Wendy’s is the first to buy ads on Roku through the DoorDash pact, offering a $5 discount on orders of $15 or more purchased through Roku’s streaming platform, an offer available through March 12 at participating Wendy’s restaurants in the U.S.
"In addition, Roku and DoorDash are offering Roku account holders (who have a linked streaming or smart-home device) six months free access to DashPass, the ecommerce company’s membership program that waives delivery fees on eligible orders."
Here's how the new partnership is being promoted:
