Here's What the Marketing Industry Lost and Gained After 1 Year in the Pandemic

March 11, 2020 was a day for the history books. In a single day, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 virus a global pandemic, the NBA suspended its season, the White House suspended nearly all flights from Europe and Tom Hanks announced he'd contracted the virus while filming in Australia. There were only 647 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the U.S. on this day one year ago. One year later, we've seen 360 million people infected and 2.6 million dead worldwide. Adweek had already begun tracking cancellations and suspensions in the advertising, marketing, technology and media industries. We updated that list until mid-April when it became clear the pandemic would be with us far longer than anyone anticipated. There is additional data that has marked this past year tied more directly to marketing, media and tech. Adweek editors and reporters share their insights to look at how much has changed. Restaurants were closed, theaters shuttered and travel ground to a halt, which led brands to take a deep breath and reconsider their advertising. As a result, ad-supported TV took a hit. The year-to-year advertising revenue losses for the four media company behemoths—Disney, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia—was a combined $4.69 billion. — Jason Lynch, convergent TV editor Homebound consumers streamed more content than ever, and advertisers followed. By the end of 2020, The Trade Desk, ad-tech’s largest independent demand-side platform, saw more than 1,000 brands spend at least $100,000 on connected TV (CTV) through its platform. "2020 will, without a doubt, go down in history as a tipping point for TV,” Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk, said during the company’s Q4 earnings call. -—Andrew Blustein, programmatic reporter As millions turned to trusted media brands for news and information, subscription-based publishing companies grew revenue by 16% in 2020, according to subscription management platform Zuora. Despite this growth, the last year has been devastating for the media industry, which shed nearly 37,000 jobs in the early days of the pandemic: 56 newspapers, three digital outlets, five magazines and one radio station shuttered last year, according to Columbia Journalism Review. —Mark Stenberg, media reporter The two largest U.S.-based advertising agency holding companies, Omnicom and IPG, cut approximately 2.7 million square feet of office space: 1.7 million at IPG and more than 1 million at Omnicom. The pandemic accelerated the transformation of how and where people work. For the entirety of 2020, national demand for office space was down 61%. —Minda Smiley, deputy agencies editor Homebound consumers gave a boost to CPG sales. From March 2020 through February 2021, both in-store and online sales of consumer packaged goods (CPG) were up 14% compared to the previous 12-month period, according to CPG measurement insights firm NCSolutions. —Paul Hiebert, CPG reporter As the pandemic wreaked havoc and devastated brick-and-mortar businesses, the virtual world flourished. On Jan 1, 2021, Amazon’s stock was 74% higher than Jan. 1, 2020. The pandemic has been a financial wonder for internet giants. —Scott Nover, platforms reporter In the U.S., there were 8,741 store closures by major retailers in 2020, equivalent to more than 138.5 million square feet of retail space, according to data company Coresight Research. On the flip side, major U.S. retailers opened 3,304 stores in 2020, spanning an area of more than 52 million square feet. —Richard Collings, retail reporter Adweek’s Retail Tracker As consumer shopping migrated online, ecommerce sales at U.S. retailers hit $861.1 billion last year, marking a year over year increase of 44%. That’s according to retail analyst Digital Commerce 360, which also found that online spend was 21.3% of total retail sales in 2020, up from 15.8% in 2019. —Lisa Lacy, commerce editor The National Restaurant Association found that between March 2020 and January 2021, restaurant and food service sales were down $255 billion from expected levels. But in a signal of return, restaurant sales rose in January for the first time in four months. —Richard Collings, retail reporter The National Restaurant Association also found that 110,000 restaurants have closed permanently or for the long term. Restaurants are still down 2 million jobs, which is down 16% from pre-Covid levels. —Richard Collings, retail reporter Out-of-home advertising fell by 29% last year, according to IPG's Magna Global. The category was impacted by the decline in consumer mobility, traffic and audience, in addition to the fall in demand from local and national advertisers. "Out of home is forecast to experience a significant uptick in 2021, leading all media in gains, including digital," said Out of Home Advertising Association of America, Inc. (OAAA) CEO Anna Bager. —David Kaplan, performance marketing editor In lockdown, streaming took off. For the first week of March 2020, Nielsen found that Americans spent a combined 116.4 billion minutes watching TV from streaming services. By the first week of March 2021, that figure jumped to 134.5 billion minutes. The most popular streaming service, Netflix, has lost some of market advantage, moving from approximately one-third of overall streaming usage in 2020 to about one-quarter in 2021. —Kelsey Sutton, streaming editor What Next? Adweek’s 2021 Outlook for Media, Marketing and Tech