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Evolve Bank & Trust dropped Synapse as a partner in 2022 to work directly with a D2C fintech but was still stung by its own failures. In June, Evolve was slapped with a Fed enforcement action due to alleged extensive safety and soundness shortfalls distinct from its tie-up with Synapse.

If Disney鈥檚 standalone D2C ESPN app ever comes to fruition, it would likely become a disruptive player very quickly. People who watch Netflix love it. Netflix鈥檚 active users are deeply engaged, and its user base is so large that it also leads in time spent for the whole country.

So this is early on in the D2C days and I just looked at it and I said, "Look, there is something promising here, but the way this is being executed, it's not going to work. We can fix it. I think this has got potential, but we have to do some things before this launches because this will fail straight out the gate.". You didn't know what to do.

This year鈥檚 festival highlighted a maturing creator economy, a reality check for AI, and bigger and bolder brand activations and marketing trends.

On today鈥檚 podcast episode, we discuss how department stores are getting on, how they鈥檙e evolving, and what the contemporary department store needs to do to stick around. Listen to the conversation with our Senior Analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts Vice President of Content Suzy Davidkhanian and Senior Analyst Carina Perkins.

But attempts to reign in D2C drug advertising as well as anti-vaccine rhetoric won鈥檛 go over well with Big Pharma. We鈥檒l be closely monitoring the confirmations of Trump鈥檚 picks for key federal health agencies in early 2025.

The final word: To that end, Walgreens decided to expand its direct-to-consumer virtual healthcare services to reach consumers in 30 states. The retailer launched Walgreens Virtual Healthcare last year in nine states. 3. Walgreens is considering a sale of the company to a private equity firm. The announcement comes as Walgreens closes out 2024 with a net loss of $8.6 billion鈥攁 177% YoY increase.

Meanwhile, WBD鈥檚 Max and Discovery+ platforms added 6.4 million global subscribers, contributing to the company鈥檚 first full year of direct-to-consumer profitability. However, WBD is pulling live sports and CNN from its ad-supported tier, which could challenge user retention. Traditional TV鈥檚 decline is accelerating the industry鈥檚 restructuring.

The news: Amazon鈥檚 direct-to-consumer (D2C) telehealth business expanded its services to include upfront, fixed pricing for the treatment of five conditions鈥攕kin care, hair loss, erectile dysfunction (ED), eyelash growth, and motion sickness. Why it matters: The new offering places Amazon One Medical Pay-per-visit in direct competition with D2C healthcare companies such as Hims & Hers and Ro.

High-income consumers are more likely to discover new brands or products in-store, but they typically make the final purchase online.

Direct-to-consumer ARPU: $11.99 for US and Canada; $4.05 for other markets. Global D2C ARPU for the quarter increased by 1% YoY to $7.84 but was lower than last quarter鈥檚 $8.00. Overall financials: Total revenues declined 4% to $9.62 billion as theatrical revenues plunged 40%, and adjusted EBITDA for Warner Bros. Discovery鈥檚 entire business dropped 19% to $2.41 billion.

While this allows pro sports franchises to launch their own D2C streaming services and put games on free over-the-air stations to reach more viewers, it has created uncertainty over their TV revenues. For a moment, it looked like Diamond鈥檚 RSNs would be made available in Prime Video after Amazon decided to invest in the company as it emerged from bankruptcy.

Our forecast was up, and Magna鈥檚 was even more bullish鈥攊ncluding consumer goods, driven by a D2C shift. With all of that spending, waste was a major topic, and avoiding overspending on channels like CTV and MFA sites was consistently in focus. To facilitate more dollars moving to digital channels, players like Google began launching features like AI chatbots to create ads more effortlessly.

Similarly, traditional CPG companies continue to spend heavily on social media to compete with D2C and white-label players. The link between display and video advertising is tight. The industry ranking for display as a share of social roughly replicates the industry ranking of video as a share of digital ad spend. The correlation between display and video is much higher than between mobile and search.

Juice Media, which represents DSC and other direct-to-consumer brands, said shoppable ads could take up as much as 20% of budgets. Many buyers noted their interest and uncertainty, saying the format still needs to prove its value before securing further budget commitments.