Verizon remained at the forefront of the wireless industry in terms of spending on TV advertising. And the company's messaging continues to focus on its new unlimited data plans.
Verizon last month added a new data plan called Above Unlimited and said it will also allow customers to use multiple unlimited plans on one account. And, according to advertising monitoring company iSpot, during the month of July the carrier spent millions of dollars working to tell users about it.
That's one takeaway from iSpot's latest ranking of carriers' TV ad spending. FierceWireless has partnered with iSpot.tv, the real-time TV ad measurement company with attention and conversion analytics from more than 8 million smart TVs, to bring you a monthly snapshot of the wireless industry's advertising spending. The results below are from July 1-31.
Overall, there were 21 brands that spent an estimated $222.5 million on 126 commercials that aired over 56,900 times and generated 13.5 billion TV ad impressions during the period measured.
Here’s how the top brands allocated their national TV advertising budgets:
1. Verizon
- spent an estimated $54.8 million on 25 spots that ran over 11,100 times
- generated 2.9 billion TV ad impressions
- prioritized spend on these networks: Fox, NBC and ABC
- prioritized spend on this programming: the 2018 FIFA World Cup, FIFA World Cup Today and Copa Mundial de la FIFA 2018
The Verizon ad with the most spend (est. $15.6 million): “Big Scoop,” featuring Thomas Middleditch
2. Sprint
- spent an estimated $38 million on 16 spots that ran over 7,900 times
- generated nearly 2.1 billion TV ad impressions
- prioritized spend on these networks: Telemundo, ABC and NBC
- prioritized spend on this programming: Copa Mundial de la FIFA 2018, Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
The Sprint ad with the most spend (est. $13.1 million): “Rooftop”
3. T-Mobile
- spent an estimated $35.5 million on 10 spots that ran over 6,700 times
- generated nearly 1.9 billion TV ad impressions
- prioritized spend on these networks: NBC, Fox and ABC
- prioritized spend on this programming: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and The Bachelorette
The T-Mobile ad with the most spend (est. $17.9 million): “Hats Off,” featuring Bryce Harper
4. AT&T Wireless
- spent an estimated $30.6 million on four spots that ran over 6,300 times
- generated almost 1.5 billion TV ad impressions
- prioritized spend on these networks: CBS, Fox and NBC
- prioritized spend on this programming: Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and Copa Mundial de la FIFA 2018
The AT&T Wireless ad with the most spend (est. $27.1 million): “More for Your Thing: Delivery”
5. Boost Mobile
- spent an estimated $18.7 million on eight spots that ran over 5,900 times
- generated over 1 billion TV ad impressions
- prioritized spend on these networks: Fox, NBC and ESPN
- prioritized spend on this programming: NBA Summer League Basketball, MLB Baseball and the 2018 MLB All-Star Game
The Boost Mobile ad with the most spend (est. $7.5 million): “Free Phone, Fast Network”
iSpot's data do not include copromotions or local market data. Click here for more information on iSpot.tv's methodology.
The company's software leverages proprietary audio and video fingerprinting algorithms to automatically identify and extract TV commercials, movie trailers and show promotions.
The company tracks hundreds of millions of explicit interactions with TV ads across roughly 100 million unique consumers. These interactions include video plays, searches and social activity. The company also analyzes online views across YouTube and iSpot.tv; searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo!; and social activity on Facebook (including Facebook private views) and Twitter.
iSpot.tv tags over 40 different dimensions of metadata, including brand, agency, actors, products, songs, moods, URLs and other pertinent data to create its results.