New Numerator Data Shows Which Brands Spend TV Ad Dollars on Racial Justice

CHICAGO, June 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Numerator, a data and tech company serving the market research space, is launching a new Social Equality and Awareness Flag enabling brands to track socially responsible ad messages as they are happening. The flag covers Gender Equality, Racial Equality, Socio-Economic Equality and Financial Equality topics. 

Numerator is launching this capability in time to understand advertising support of the racial justice conversation that swept the country in June. While many brands actively engaged on social media, some brands have also allocated higher cost, high visibility TV advertising to racial justice messaging. Seven brands included racial justice messaging across the 24 months in 2018 and 2019. Brands featuring racial justice messaging tripled in the 30 days ending June 23, 2020 with 21 brands allocating TV creative and media spend to it. Note: for the purpose of this analysis, racial justice messaging is defined as including the terms Black Lives Matter, Racial Equality, Racism, Juneteenth, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and/or Ahmaud Arbery.

"While many brands were quick to take stands in social media, there has been less inclusion of racial justice messaging in high visibility TV campaigns," said Eric Belcher, CEO, Numerator. "While TV support of racial justice messaging tripled, it's still just 21 brands. Brands that have taken the immediate step of social media should anticipate that investment into broadcast creative and media spend supporting racial justice messages will grow."

Racial justice messaging and spend highlights for TV advertising from the period studied (30 days ending June 23, 2020, versus full year 2018 and 2019) include:

• TV ad spend carrying racial justice messages had a 5.5x increase to $1.6 million in the 30 days ending June 23rd, up from just $293,000 across the 24 months spanning 2018 and 2019.
• 21 brands shared racial justice messages in 30 days in 2020, triple the 7 brands across 2018 and 2019.
• 12 of the 21 brands were in the Entertainment / Media category -- likely indicating broadcasters allocated available inventory toward racial justice messaging. 
• NASCAR accounted for 12.5% of all racial justice TV spend on June 14th alone, the day of the Dixie Vodka 400 race, with a signature ad running 46 times
• P&G, Dove and YouTube joined NASCAR as the largest spenders
• McDonald's broke out as the only QSR supporting this message
• 7 brands invested early in TV supporting racial justice (2018, 2019): Amazon, Credo Mobile, Girl Scouts, Huntington Bank, M&T Bank, Nickelodeon and YWCA

Brands are able to further understand messaging tied to specific terms (e.g., Black Lives Matter, Juneteenth) or by category such as advocacy and actions; holidays and events; and individual recognition, both of victims and advocates. TV advertising messaging for the 30 days ending June 23, 2020 breaks down as follows (with some ads covering multiple categories):

• 67% Advocacy & Action: Black Lives Matter, Donating to organizations, Names of victims of oppression
• 14% Holidays & Events: Juneteenth, Black History Month, March on Selma 
• 19% Speaking out against Racism: Acknowledgement of the issue, Plans to educate on the topic, Empathy 

About Numerator

Numerator is a data and tech company serving the market research space. Headquartered in Chicago, IL, Numerator has 1,600 employees worldwide. The company blends proprietary data with advanced technology to create unique insights for the market research industry that has been slow to change. The majority of Fortune 100 companies are Numerator clients.

SOURCE Numerator