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sales@spotsndots.com Copyright 2017.The Daily News of TV Sales Monday, October 9, 2017

STARBUCKS: KING OF RESTAURANT LOYALTYSMALLER CHAINS CAN SCORE WELL ALSO In a business where sales results have been soft for several straight quarters, earning loyalty from your best customers has become vital. And in the challenged restaurant business, a new study from Foursquare finds that Starbucks leads the top 50 chains in gaining that loyalty. The Quick-Service Restaurant Loyalty Index is based on foot traffic trails, not customer perceptions, with data coming from a panel of users that have been active on Foursquare apps for at least a year and have opted-in to provide location awareness. Loyalty is measured in four metrics: visit frequency, market penetration (the percentage of quick-serve customers measured for regions where the chain operates), share of wallet (the percentage of total QSR visits the chain captures) and a “fanaticism threshold,” the number of visits required to be in the top 1% of a chain’s customers. While big chains took all the top five spots in the rankings (Starbucks, McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Tim Hortons, and Chick-fil-A) Foursquare found that size does not guarantee success. Regional brands such as Whataburger (number six of the 50 brands studied) and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (number eight) each made the top ten along with Sonic Drive-In, Taco Bell and Panera Bread. Restaurants known as breakfast brands generally scored high, proving how crucial that daypart has become in a chain’s success, especially as other research recently conducted in the industry has found the dinner daypart dropping considerably in diner frequency. (The NPD Group recently determined per capita dinner visits averaged 57 in the past year, down 8% in just four years). It’s been found that afternoon customers are not as likely to return as often as morning customers, helping produce impressive loyalty indices for big chains like Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and Tim Horton’s as well as smaller banners such as Peet’s Coffee, Krispy Kreme and Einstein Bros. Bagels. QSR notes businesses understand it’s much easier to grow a business by getting the existing customer base to come back rather than attracting new customers, and given the habitual nature of breakfast and the frequency and loyalty it drives, the morning daypart may play a more important role in building a restaurant’s business than previously thought. That inclination to the morning may have provided the impetus to Bruegger’s being named “The Fanatics’ Favorite” by Foursquare at number 15 overall, an impressive ranking given the chain ranked only number 46 in market penetration. Taco Bell was named “The Mover,” climbing two rank placings, helped by menu innovations and “some offbeat marketing tactics.” But a brand seen as being in trouble was Steak ‘N Shake, which dropped in fanaticism, penetration and frequency, falling ten rankings in just one year.

ADVERTISER NEWS Costco is on an October-September fiscal year, so the numbers from last month also complete quarterly and yearly numbers. Excluding gas (which had caused total comps to jump in September), same-store sales were up 7.1% in September, 5.8% for the fiscal fourth quarter, and up 3.7% for the full year……Sears is getting another loan from CEO Eddie Lampert’s hedge fund, this time another $100 million for “general corporate purposes.” The loan carries an 11% interest rate……The strike against General Motors in Canada continues and Automotive News reports Chevrolet dealers are starting to feel the

pinch on Equinox inventories. As of 10/1, there were 43,453 available Equinoxes in the U.S., down from 74,400 in June. Equinox is one of the top-10 selling vehicles in the country……Kellogg is buying protein-bar maker RXBAR for $600 million, joining other foodmakers in efforts to diversify by picking up healthier options. RXBAR’s CEO said the company will continue in business as a separate unit of Kellogg, but hopes to benefit from the parent’s distribution, research and

development capabilities. Marketwatch notes the top 25 food and beverage companies have lost billions of dollars in market share in the last couple of years, with smaller companies seeing the gains……After giving up a curbside pickup initiative last year, Target is trying again at about 50 locations in home state Minnesota. Drivers use a Target app to tell the store they are on the way and get designated parking spots for store employees to make the transfer……Walmart has bought Parcel, a New York-based delivery system to handle deliveries both from physical stores and its Jet.com online site. The plan is to utilize Parcel just for the Big Apple initially, but of course it could be expanded if successful……On a different Walmart note, one of its holiday commercials will take a direct shot at Amazon over shipping costs. Walmart will offer free shipping for orders over $35 and says “We just don’t think you should have to pay $99 a year for the privilege of free shipping”……Although the usual practice is for Alimentation Couche-Tard to rebrand acquired convenience stores into the Circle K banner, the acquirer will make an exception when it takes over Holiday Stations and will allow locations to keep the Holiday brand. The chain consists of 522 c-stores (148 franchised) in 10 states……With water now producing higher volumes than carbonated drinks for beverage companies, Coca-Cola is adding another mineral water brand to its portfolio. It’s buying Mexican premium sparkling mineral water Topo Chico which is currently available in parts of 35 states but does 70% of its business in Texas. Coke’s plan is to “extend its reach while preserving its heritage.”

PAGE 2 The Daily News of TV Sales @ www.spotsndots.com

NETWORK NEWS Saturday Night Live served as a bit of a tribute show Saturday night. The program kicked off with an appearance by Jason Aldean, who was onstage at the Route 91 Harvest musical festival as the Las Vegas shooting began. After speaking about the tradgedy, Aldean performed I Won’t Back Down, a hit by Tom Petty, who died on October 2nd....Step Dave, a comedy from Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner’s Hazy Mills, All3Media America and Universal TV, has been put in development at NBC. The project is based on a New Zealand format and centers around a romance between and a 24-year-old bartender and a 36-year-old single working mom that has a ripple effect on all the people around them. Emily Cutler (The Odd Couple, Community) is on board as writer and executive producer. This is the first major broadcast sale for All3Media as part of their push into original scripted programming. The initiative was launched with the hire of Nina Lederman at executive vice president……NBC has also purchased a script from Simon Cowell for a music-industry scripted comedy. The Universal Television-produced project entitled A&R tells the story of a young, hip music label, along with its young, hip boss. Its thrown into disarray when the owner brings back a hard-partying middle-aged “mastodon” from the industry’s past to help guide the label into the future. A&R is the first scripted sale of the season for Syco, Cowell’s production company. The script is written by Josh Lieb, who is an executive producer alongside Cowell with Scott Bernstein and Peter Samson……Kenya Barris, the creator of the Emmy-nominated ABC hit sitcom Black-ish, has teamed with three writers from his Black-ish spinoff Grown-ish for Bright Futures, a 20-something comedy for ABC. The project is written by Hale Rothstein and the team of Danny Segal and Isaac Schamis. It revolves around a group of friends who are stumbling through the transition from the clueless, immature 20-somethings they are now, to the successful professionals they have the potential to become. Barris is an executive producer through his production company Khalabo Ink Society, along with Rothstein, Segal, and Schamis……The Thursday night final season of ABC’s series Scandal debuted to a 1.4 rating and 5.6 million viewers, which is a premiere low for the series. It was down from last January’s debut of a 2.1 rating and 7.6 million total viewers. It was up from its May finale and on par with the Season 6 average. The second week’s episode of NBC’s Will and Grace was down 31% from last week’s premiere. The rebooted comedy had a 2.0 18-49 rating and 7 million total viewers. It tied with ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy which delivered a 2.0 rating in the demo and 7.9 million total viewers. Fox’s Gotham was up a tenth in the demo from the previous week with a 0.9 demo rating and 2.8 million total viewers. Thursday Night Football on CBS was up in metered-market households and is expected to win the night.

AVAILS WRGB (CBS) and WCWN (CW 15) in Albany, NY seeks an enthusiastic, highly motivated Sales Marketing Consultant. We’re looking for someone who can connect with clients and help them achieve business objectives through effective TV and digital advertising. The ideal candidate will possess excellent communication skills, have an enthusiastic and outgoing personality, and a drive to succeed. Most importantly, we are looking for a hard-working salesperson who wants to have FUN at work, make money, and help local businesses

grow. CLICK HERE to apply. EOE Cox Media Group’s KIRO, the CBS affiliate in Seattle, along with KIRO7.com, and other digital services seeks a National Sales Manager. The NSM must identify and drive national sales strategies in order to achieve, then exceed, revenue and share goals while balancing overall station revenue and share goals with the LSM and DSM. The NSM will work with CoxReps to accurately forecast revenue and share

– weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually. 2+ years of sales management experience or 5+ years established television sales experience required. CLICK HERE to apply. EOE. NBC7 San Diego is looking for a Local Sales Manager to lead a team of AEs. The successful candidate will work with the VP of Sales to formulate sales strategies to grow station revenue and share. The LSM will supervise a team of AEs who will develop a solid understanding of our ad products and have strong consultative selling skills to be able to best develop solutions to meet client needs and close deals. Minimum of 5 years of previous broadcast/radio/print advertising experience. CLICK HERE to apply. EOE. WGAL, Hearst Television’s NBC affiliate in the Harrisburg-Lancaster, PA market is seeking a skilled Account Executive. Best candidates are driven to make a difference and possess an insatiable desire to help businesses grow. Media sales experience is desired with a skill in negotiating win-win solutions. Accelerate your media sales career by joining a prominent broadcast station with a progressive portfolio of resources to fuel your success. CLICK HERE for more info or to apply now. EOE Take the next step in your broadcast sales career by joining a winning station in a top 10 market! KPRC-TV, the Graham Media owned NBC affiliate in Houston, TX is seeking a salesperson early in their career to assist management and AEs in reaching annual budgets for TV, Digital and New Business. 1-2 years of related work experience in internet marketing, and a Bachelor’s degree preferred. If you have what it takes, shoot your resume and a line or two summarizing your experience to jobs@kprc.com. EOE

CLICK HERE to place a job in Spots n Dots!

10/09/2017

Jimmy Fallon

Google made a pair of headphones that can

translate 40 languages instantly. They say it’s a great way to travel to a new country

and find out everyone’s making fun of you.

The Daily News of TV Sales @ www.spotsndots.com PAGE 3

BUSINESS BYTES - Costco is expanding its home delivery of food in order to stay competitive with Amazon and all other retailers that are rushing into that activity. The warehouse club has started to offer two-day delivery on items from its website along with expanding a partnership with Instacart for one-day delivery. But Costco has been seen as being slow to embrace online shopping as it knows customers will spend more when they come to stores. “At the end of the day we would love you to just come in and buy and take it home,” Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said. But “we would rather lose it to ourselves” than have other online sellers take away business, he added. - You might not think online sales would be important to a company like PepsiCo, but you’d be wrong if that’s what you thought. Bloomberg reports the beverage/snack foods company actually has a 200-person unit headquartered in New York City that’s dedicated to developing business by focusing on marketing and packaging for online sellers as well as traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers that are trying to grow their own online business. The two-year-old unit is on pace to hit $1 billion in annual sales this year and PepsiCo Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston says “That business is really growing like crazy. We run it more like a tech company than we do a consumer-products company, and it’s a real star of the portfolio for us right now.” - Just how big a threat is Tesla to existing automakers and especially to dealerships, as Tesla avoids the existing franchised dealer system? Despite “production bottlenecks” that caused the company to miss goals for its Model 3, the company delivered 26,150 cars and SUVs during the third quarter, mostly Model S sedans and Model X crossovers. Company founder Elon Mush had earlier warned the first six months of production of the new sedan could be “manufacturing hell” as the Fremont, California factory learns how to make the vehicle, but the company now says “We understand what needs to be fixed and we are confident of addressing the manufacturing bottleneck issues in the near-term.” Tesla does not use dealers to sell its vehicles—it instead utilizes company-owned showrooms and online sales and is building a string of charging stations for owners to utilize to re-charge its vehicles. Earlier this year, Tesla’s stock “market cap” surpassed both Ford and General Motors for a while.

ECONOMIC NEWS The monthly jobs report from the Labor Department was “predictably awful” according to one analyst as the total amount of jobs in the country fell by 33,000 (the first time in seven years the monthly change was a decline). But the loss was clearly hurricane impacted with the leisure and hospitality category down 111,000 jobs alone as hotels and restaurants in Texas and Florida were closed. Retailing was also down but there were gains in transportation and warehousing, seen by Associated Press as a positive sign ahead of the holiday season that’s likely to rely increasingly in online shopping.

ACCOUNT ACTIONS Jack in the Box has named Dentsu Aegis Network’s Carat L.A. as its media agency of record for traditional and digital media buying and planning for the fast-food chain, which has over 2,200 locations. The selection follows a review launched this summer and ends a 15-year relationship with incumbent Horizon Media, which participated in the review along with six other agencies, according to AdWeek. Kantar Media says Jack in the Box spent around $24.5 million on measured media in the first quarter of the year, and nearly $92 million in 2016.

THIS AND THAT LocusPoint Networks has retained Patrick Communications to sell its two Class A television stations, WDVB-CD in New York and WLPD-CD in Chicago. Good timing; with the completion of the Broadcast Incentive Auction, the number of television stations in Chicago was reduced by six while in New York the number was reduced by ten, leaving significantly fewer outlets available to

reach these top markets. Reach Patrick Communications at (410) 799-1740….The American Action Network is launching a $2 million national television advertising campaign pushing Congressional action on tax reform. The 30-second spot, Paycheck to Paycheck, urges Congress to approve tax reform that gives a “simpler, fairer tax code,” closes loopholes and helps working families. The commercials started airing last Friday in 28 congressional districts nationally…Before there was Twitter or Facebook or Snapchat or MySpace, there was AOL Instant Messenger—the ‘social network’ of choice for many millennials and Gen Xers throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. AIM is shutting down after 20 years, on December 15....By 2022, most people will consume more false information than true information, according to the study from research firm Gartner, and reported at NYPost.com. This trend will be fueled, in part, by “confirmation bias,” that “leads all people to seek out, select and value information that parallels what they believe and expect to be proven true,” the study’s authors, Magnus Revang and Whit Andrews, found. Generating false information will always cost less than the cost of detecting it. “False information will consequently outpace true information where there is economic or political interest to purvey it,” Revang and Andrews wrote.

10/09/2017

Seth Meyers

According to reports, Netflix is raising its prices next

month. Wow, that is gonna be quite a burden on whoever’s

password I’m using.

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