What a Post-Pandemic Advertising Market Looks Like

From Main Street to Wall Street, the COVID-19 pandemic shook up the world, and the reverberations are still echoing. High-flying growth stocks related to software and cloud communications have cooled down since late in 2020 as people return to offices and unlock houses to go outside again. Sure, there is still talk about delta and other variants of SARS-CoV-2 wreaking havoc, but market participants are now also talking about what a post-coronavirus world is going to look like. Certain markets — the hospitality sector for instance — will steadily return to normal after more than a year of lockdowns. Others, such as media spending, will never be the same. Trends away from television and radio toward digital channels have accelerated and quite likely will experience a boon in the coming months and years as ad budgets increase will full economic reopenings. As advertisers look for solutions, they will continue to turn to social media influencers and content creators as sophisticated strategies to sway consumers toward their products and services. That's right in the wheelhouse of Clubhouse Media Group Inc. (OTC: CMGR) (Profile), a company aggregating an impressive portfolio of influencers and content creators from sports stars and entertainers to niche experts that have the ear of millions of followers and the platform technology to effectively target any demographic. Coming out the other side of the pandemic, top companies like the Trade Desk Inc. (NASDAQ: TTD), Magnite Inc. (NASDAQ: MGNI), ViacomCBS Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAC) and Roku Inc. (NASDAQ: ROKU) are knee deep in the advertising evolution, making adaptations that will continue to see the companies thrive going forward.

• eMarketer forecasts $455.3 billion in global digital ad spending in 2021, up 20% from 2020 with a bias towards display spending over search.

• Clubhouse Media Group has 200-plus content creators across four professionally run content houses and a network that reaches more than 400 million followers.

• CMGR also offers proprietary Magiclytics software, a robust platform for analyzing social media campaign effectiveness.

• Clubhouse just inked a joint services agreement with Rick Ware Racing, an American motorsports team that competes in the NASCAR. 

$455 Billion in Digital Ad Spending

During the pandemic, people were forced into digital channels to shop, work, communicate and entertain. Advertisers know this and believe that many will maintain the digital lifestyle now that it's part of their life as evidence by eMarketer forecasting total digital ad spending of $455.30 billion in 2021. That's up about 20% from 2020, but a look under the hood shows that analysts are calling for 55.2% of the total spend to go to display advertising compared to 40.2% for search, widening the gap between the two by 5 percentage points, or $68.12 billion in dollars, from 2020.

Hungry for meaningful return on investment, advertisers are increasingly looking to the emerging market of social media influencers and content creators in combination with next-generations machine learning and artificial-intelligence technologies for the results they desire. Armed with these types of marketing tools, a juggernaut such as Nike can reach its global target audience as easily and precisely as a homemade, gluten-free cookie maker in southeastern Ohio can hit its target in Athens. Results that both are willing to pay for, as noted by a Business Insider market report estimating companies will spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing in 2022, pushing it passed parity with local TV ad revenue.

Clubhouse Media Group Inc. (OTC: CMGR) is in front of the trend, already building a global network of four professionally run content houses, with each hosting in excess of 50 content creators. All four content houses have their own brand, group of influencers and production capacities to keep cranking out content to entertain and inform followers. Clubhouses' portfolio of services available to those handpicked influencers include management, production and deal-making. The business model is designed for Clubhouse to reach out in all directions, not only offering services to corporate customers but also via management services to individual influencer clients, as well as operating an investment business specializing in M&A or investments directly related to social media markets.

CMGR's flagship content house is emblematic of the brand. Clubhouse Beverly Hills operates from a massive 12,000-square-foot, seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom, $23-plus million gated house in the glamorous 90210 zip code. A complete production team and chosen group of content creators live in the house, constantly collaborating and producing content that is pushed out through all the group's social media channels. Other Clubhouse content houses include Clubhouse Europe, located on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean; DanceDome LA, which includes a custom dance studio; Society Las Vegas, located just 10 minutes from the world-famous Las Vegas Strip; and Dobre House, the newest clubhouse, also located in Beverly Hills.

With content houses of this caliber and content creators such as Indy car superstar Lindsay Brewer as part of the team, the reach is expansive. The network has more than 400 million followers in total and has delivered more than 1.5 billion monthly social impressions. The company defines its total followers as a sum of all followers across all social platforms, inclusive of Clubhouse influencers and corporate-owned social media accounts. TikTok's video platform is the single biggest driver of followers for the group at roughly 290 million, followed by 51.7 million on Instagram, 56 million on YouTube, 2.6 million on Snapchat and 2 million on Twitter.