Gen-X, Millennial Opps: Ancestry picks up media AOR, kicks off campaign (Score 23)

Sales lead: Get in touch to offer ad space & agency assistance. 

• Ancestry appointed Publicis Vita as its global media AOR.
• The agency will handle global media strategy, planning, partnerships, and buying.
• Medialink handled the review, which replaced incumbent shop OMD.

In other news: 

• Ancestry just launched a campaign called "It's a Family Thing."
• The push includes multiple spots that will be supported across Hulu, YouTube, ABC, NBC, CNN, Peacock, and Eye!. 
• Ancestry's new creative AOR, Wieden + Kennedy, which we told you about in March, created the campaign. 

Target demographic: Gen-Xers & millennials

The company will likely:

• Review its other agency relationships (two reviews so far this year)
• Revise media strategy
• Ramp up ad spend

Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)

• YTD spend: Ancestry spent around $27.2m on national TV ads YTD, a slight (5%) decrease from $28.6m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2022. 
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend fell by 12% from $57.7m in 2021 to $50.8m in 2022.
• Ad programming: It placed ads during programming such as ABC World News Tonight With David Muir, Dateline NBC, NFL Football, NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt,  and Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)

• YTD spend: Ancestry spent about $16.5m on digital display ads YTD, a 26% decrease from $22.4m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2022. 
• YTD data: 2.4b impressions via Facebook (60%), Instagram (20%), desktop display (11%), YouTube (7%), mobile display (2%), and desktop video (1%). 
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend fell by 18% from $35.3m in 2021 to $29m in 2022. 
• Ad location: It placed 97% of these ads directly onto sites such as facebook.com, instagram.com, youtube.com, legacy.com, and rootsweb.com. It placed 3% of these ads indirectly through Google AdX+AdSense and Display & Video 360 onto sites such as whitepages.com, legacy.com, onlinesearches.com, classmates.com, and zabasearch.com. 

Additional channel insights  

• Vivvix: Ancestry also utilizes local broadcast.
• Top podcasts sponsored: The Ben Shapiro Show, The Matt Walsh Show, Morbid, My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark and The Megyn Kelly Show. 

Agency analysis:

• Opportunity: This company has tapped two new AORs this year, so keep reaching out to see if you can pick up some of its business. 
• Current roster:
  • 1000heads: social
  • Weber Shandwick: PR
  • Wieden + Kennedy: creative AOR
  • Publicis Vita: media AOR