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REPORT: 89% UTILIZE THEIRS WHILE SHOPPING For U.S. food shoppers, the smartphone has joined carts, multi-use bags and kiddie seats as indispensable tools at the supermarket. Nearly nine out of 10 U.S. grocery shoppers (89%) now use a smartphone at the store, up from 67% in 2015, new research from CPG sales and marketing firm Acosta reveals. What’s more, 58% of consumers polled report being comfortable using digital and online tools to help with food shopping, compared with 42% in 2017 and 35% in 2015, according to Acosta’s The Mobile-ization of Grocery report, released this week. Overall, the U.S. has more than 260 million smartphone users, the study said. Unsurprisingly, younger consumers are more apt to use a mobile device at retail, with 93% of those 18-39 saying they use a smartphone when shopping. That also goes for the grocery store, Jacksonville, Fla.-based Acosta said. Seventy-one percent of Millennial/Gen Z customers (ages 18-39) indicate they’re comfortable using digital/online tools when grocery shopping, compared with 66% for Generation X (ages 39-55), 44% for Baby Boomers (ages 55-74) and 35% for “Silent Shoppers” (ages 75 and older). “Smartphones have grown to become a huge part of daily life, so it’s only natural that retailers and shoppers are connecting this technology with the grocery buying experience,” Colin Stewart, executive vice president of business intelligence at Acosta, said in a statement. “We saw increased ‘mobile-ization’ numbers this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The shopping experience has significantly changed, and many consumers are limiting their trips to the grocery store and being as efficient as possible with their time in the store. To do this, they are looking to mobile solutions more and more.” Indeed, this year, 34% of shoppers said they view their grocery store circular online, and 26% access the digital circular via their grocer’s mobile app. Similarly, 30% of the nine in 10 respondents who use a grocery shopping list (paper, mental or mobile) indicated they opt for a mobile list, up from 23% in 2015. More than seven in 10 shoppers report using a grocery retailer’s app, Acosta’s report said, adding that consumers use the technology to place online orders, find products in and participate in loyalty programs, among other tasks. Coupons, too, have decidely gone the digital route. According to the study, 30% of grocery shoppers redeem online/mobile coupons downloaded to their smartphone, up from 24% in 2017 and 19% in 2015. Forty-four percent redeem electronic coupons downloaded to their shopper loyalty card, versus 35% in 2017 and 28% in 2015. At the same time, redemption of coupons printed from a coupon website has declined to 26% in 2020 from 32% in 2017 and 35% in 2015.

ACOSTA: IN-STORE GROCERY CONSUMERS USING PHONESADVERTISER NEWS Amazon is expanding its use of palm recognition technol-ogy at three stores in the Seattle area. The technology en-ables Prime members to pay for in-store purchases without having to go through a traditional checkout... Meanwhile: Amazon.com has issued a recall for more than 350,000 Ring video doorbells after 23 cases were reported in which the devices caught on fire... Chipotle is opening a “digital-only” restaurant in Highland Falls, N.Y., that will fulfill on-line orders for pick-up or delivery but will not offer sit-down service. Roughly half of the chain’s sales in the last quar-ter were made via its app or website... Bluestar Alliance is set to acquire the Justice brand from Ascena Retail Group after winning a bankruptcy auction for the tween

brand. Bluestar — which owns the Hur-ley, Bebe, Tahari, Brookstone, Limited Too and Nanette Lepore brands — won Justice with a $71 million cash bid that ul-timately values the brand at $90 million, including assumed liabilities... Bed, Bath

& Beyond is expanding its Black Friday and Cyber Mon-day deals. The retailer will have various holiday promotions online and in-store Nov. 26-28 for Black Friday, with online Cyber Monday deals continuing Nov. 29-30. The retailer will also feature a gift of the week through Dec. 23 and a daily holiday deal through Dec. 24... Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown says the retail expansion plans for the brand include entering 7,000 CVS stores in the U.S. and starting production at its first plant in China by January. The com-pany is also working with McDonald’s on the fast-food res-taurant’s new plant-based burger line... Lowe’s will open a nearly 650,000-square-foot warehouse in Denton, Texas, next year to create a fulfillment center aimed at speeding up delivery times of e-commerce orders. The new facility is part of a three-year, $1.7 billion investment plan by the home improvement retailer... Whole Foods Market is join-ing with Progressive Insurance on a plan to insure against Thanksgiving “bird blunders” that can ruin a holiday meal. The Thanksgiving Turkey Protection Plan is available to anyone buying a Whole Foods brand turkey before Nov. 22, and it offers a $35 Whole Foods gift card to the first 1,000 people who file claims after overcooking, undercook-ing or otherwise botching their turkey preparations... Gen-eral Motors is halting production of its Chevrolet Corvette for the rest of this week after the Mexico supply chain was impacted by new coronavirus restrictions, according to an alert sent out by the automaker and obtained by The De-troit News. This is the second time in the last month that GM has had to halt production of its mid-engine Corvette for a supply issue... Southeastern Grocers has opened four new Winn-Dixie stores in Florida. Grand openings were held yesterday in Boynton Beach, Gainesville, Jack-sonville and Lakewood Ranch. Southeastern Grocers said the openings are the first of eight new Winn-Dixie stores scheduled to launch across Florida.

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AVAILS WJET, Erie, Pa., is seeking a dynamic Local Sales Manager with a minimum of three years of sales management experience. We’re looking for a sales leader who creates a positive culture for success through leadership, clear direction, teaching, motivating and evaluating the sales efforts of our Local team; develop and execute sales strategies that result in exceeding revenue targets for Local and Digital Sales. Top candidates will have excellent leadership and

forecasting skills, as well as a successful track record of generating new business and servicing existing clients and agencies. CLICK HERE to apply. EOE. WPBF 25, the Hearst-owned ABC affiliate in the beautiful West Palm Beach, Fla., market, has an incredible opportunity for you! WPBF 25 is looking for a dynamic sales superstar to join our phenomenal sales team. The ideal candidate will bring both broadcast and digital sales experience and will

possess the drive and ability to thrive in a fast-paced, highly competitive market. Your creativity, originality and passion for developing new business will be encouraged and rewarded! CLICK HERE to apply. EOE. The 4Q forecast for Myrtle Beach, S.C., is sunny and 75 degrees! Wouldn’t you like to be here? WMBF-TV, the NBC affiliate, is seeking another experienced media seller to join our team. This position will grow existing accounts and develop new partnerships while being rewarded with fantastic commission rates. Are you self-motivated, with a desire to succeed, while having fun? Then apply ONLINE at gray.tv/careers and attach a resume to start the process. EOE.

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SURVEY: DIGITAL EXPECTATIONS ON THE RISE Customers have been going online more since the pandemic began, but retailers cannot take their digital business for granted, Chain Store Age reports. According to consumer credit reporting platform Experian’s latest Global Insights Report, 60% of surveyed consumers have higher expectations of their digital experience than before COVID-19. One in three respondents are only willing to wait 30 seconds or less before abandoning an online transaction. While half of the businesses surveyed have either mostly or completely resumed operations since COVID-19 began, only 24% are deliberately making changes to their digital customer journey. The study also found that two-thirds of consumers globally have remained loyal to their favorite brands during the pandemic. In other findings, 61% of consumers surveyed now regularly order groceries or food delivery online. That’s a seven-point increase since July 2020. Additionally, 77% said they feel most secure when using physical biometrics, and 62% said it improves their customer experience when managing finances or payments online

NETWORK NEWS Season 5 of action drama MacGyver, Season 3 of detective drama Magnum P.I. and Season 11 of multigenerational cop drama Blue Bloods return to CBS on Friday, Dec. 4. The dramas join other CBS series in starting their season in a year that has seen production upended due to COVID. Dramas NCIS, All Rise and FBI, among others, have begun their new seasons, as have comedies The Neighborhood, The Unicorn and Young Sheldon, among other sitcoms... Lego Masters has been renewed for Season 2 on Fox. The second season of the brick-building competition series starts in 2021 and Will Arnett returns as host. Based on the British series of the same name, Lego Masters sees two-person teams of enthusiasts compete with an unlimited supply of Lego bricks. Tyler and Amy Clites won Season 1... Kathleen Robertson (Murder in the First) is set as a lead opposite Parisa Fitz-Henley and Michael Ealy in Triage, ABC’s second cycle medical drama pilot. Triage is a character-driven medical drama that follows pioneering surgeon Finley Briar (Fitz-Henley) over three distinct decades at the same hospital. With the evolution of medicine as the backdrop, the show explores the interconnected careers, friendships and romances of Finley and her colleagues, and their tenuous relationship with time... NBC will air a two-hour production of Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical! on Wednesday, Dec. 9. Staged at the Troubadour Theatre in London, the musical production will star Glee’s Matthew Morrison as the small-hearted Grinch and Denis O’Hare as his hapless mutt Max (with Descendants 3’s Booboo Stewart as the younger Max)... Dolly Parton and CBS are coming together for A Holly Dolly Christmas. Broadcasting on Sunday, Dec. 6, A Holly Dolly Christmas will see the music and pop culture icon perform an intimate, candlelit set off faith-filled hymns and holiday classics. The singer is also set to feature numbers from her new holiday album A Holly Dolly Christmas. A Holly Dolly Christmas will air on CBS and stream on CBS All Access from 8:30-9:30 PM (ET) and 8-9 PM (PT)... Adam Goldberg has been tapped as a lead opposite Queen Latifah in The Equalizer reboot, which has a straight-to-series order at CBS to launch this season. A reimagining of the classic series, The Equalizer stars Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall, an enigmatic woman with a mysterious background who uses her extensive skills to help those with nowhere else to turn. The series, which recently started production, also stars Chris Noth, Lorraine Toussaint, Tory Kittles, Liza Lapira and Laya DeLeon Hayes.

ACCOUNT ACTION WPP is merging two of its leading agencies, AKQA and Grey, to form AKQA Group, Campaign US reports. WPP is the world’s biggest agency group. Bringing together digital shop AKQA and creative network Grey fuses two different disciplines, following a pair of similar internal mergers in 2018 when WPP united Wunderman and JWT to form Wunderman Thompson and VML and Y&R to create VMLY&R. It also brought the sub-brands of Ogilvy under a single P&L in 2017.

11/12/2020

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FUBOTV SEES Q3 LOSS, EYES SPORTS BETTING Sports-oriented streaming service fuboTV reported a third-quarter loss as it grew subscribers by 58%, and said it plans to move into the online sports betting business. The company’s Q3 net loss was $274.1 million compared with $7.166 million a year ago. Revenue rose 47% to $61.2 million. fuboTV said it saw an opportunity to combine a sports wagering service with its live sports streaming packages. “Our goal with wagering is to develop a new revenue stream for fuboTV, and one which we believe will be an important

contributor to our business,” the company said in a letter to shareholders. In the shareholder letter, the company said it expects the new premium Epiix and Starz channels to launch before the end of the year. fuboTV said Q3 subscription revenue increased 64% to $53.4 million as paid subscribers at the end of the quarter rose to 455,000, up 58% from a year ago. Advertising revenue increased 153% to $7.5 million.

DEG: Q3 HOME ENTERTAINMENT SPENDING JUMPS Fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, consumers spent nearly 18% more on home entertainment in the third quarter of this year than in the comparable period of 2019, according to numbers released yesterday by DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group. DEG numbers do not include spending on premium video-on-demand (PVOD), which would have taken the home entertainment spending total much higher. With theaters shuttered due to the pandemic, studios chose to release several high-profile films digitally, at a premium price. Even without PVOD, spending rose to an estimated $7.3 billion from $6.2 billion in Q3 2019, DEG says. As expected, consumer spending on subscription streaming surged during Q3, rising nearly 39% to an estimated $5.5 billion, or 75% of total consumer spending. With no fresh theatrical product, spending on home entertainment purchases slipped 24.4% during Q3 to an estimated $1.1 billion.

11/12/2020

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NEW HOME BUYERS IN NEED OF NEW FURNITURE A September 2020 Morning Consult survey found 28% of Millennials and 20% of Gen Zers said they’re more interested in buying a home because of the pandemic’s impact. Consumer surveys from The Media Audit show people buying a new home are twice as likely to be in the market for new furniture. The Media Audit’s 60-market aggregate of its 2020 consumer surveys reveals adults 18–34 planning to buy new furniture during the next 12 months spend 234 minutes with TV during an average day, more than any other traditional media. Adults 35–49 who plan to buy new furniture during the next 12 months spend even more time with TV daily, or 236.8 minutes. “Unsurprisingly, adults 18–34 spend slightly more minutes per day (246.7) with the Internet than TV while adults 35–49 spend slightly less (233),” said Beverly Lalonde, VP-Northeast, The Media Audit. “Multiple studies have found the combination of TV and the Internet are the most complementary advertising media.” A 2020 study from effectv (Comcast)/Media Science showed ads to adults 18+ on digital channels only (YouTube and Facebook) and then ads on those channels plus TV. There were three-fold increases in visual attention time and unaided recall and a 6-point increase in lift of purchase intent. Although the continuation of the real estate boom is difficult to forecast, furniture retailers can use the combination of TV and the Internet to reach a maximum number of new furniture buyers.

SOME RESTAURANTS TO CLOSE FOR WINTER Congressional inaction on COVID-19 relief combined with rising coronavirus cases is prompting more restaurants to close up shop for the winter and go into hibernation until warmer weather returns, The Hill reports. Many restaurant owners, faced with the prospect of daily financial losses, are choosing to lay off employees until spring when customers can sit outside in settings where the risk of spreading the coronavirus is minimized. The job losses are adding economic pain to an industry already hard hit by the pandemic, raising concerns about whether many of these restaurants will be able to reopen next year without government assistance. “Shutting down a restaurant temporarily is never going to be a perfect or elegant solution, there is still going to be workers or suppliers that rely on that restaurant’s operations that are going to be left short. No restaurant owner is excited to announce they are shutting down for the winter,” said Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs at the National Restaurant Association. Fifteen percent of restaurants in the U.S. are seasonal under normal circumstances, meaning they are designed to close for the off-season, according to the National Restaurant Association. The 85% of establishments that typically operate year-round now face a new reality with the first COVID-19 winter.