Magnet #7

It’s coming home. Need we say more?

 

Enjoy.

 

Data: Euros viewings stats:

 

England v Ukraine

England’s  4-0 win over Ukraine was watched by an audience of 20.9 million people on the BBC in the United Kingdom on Saturday– a record for 2021.

The peak audience figure made it the most-watched live TV event of the year in the country on Saturday. A share of 81.8 per cent of the possible audience tuned in to the match.

A combined figure of 26.1 million for TV viewers and online streams would put the game into the top 10 most-watched UK broadcasts ever.

England v Denmark

 

However, Wednesday’s game trumped those figures; more than 25 million viewers watched the final five minutes of England's dramatic victory over Denmark in the semi-final of Euro 2020.

Figures from audience measurement company BARB, reported by BBC correspondent Lizo Mzimba, reveal that 23.86 million viewers watched the match on ITV or ITV+1.

These numbers place the hard won  2-1 victory as the most watched non-news broadcast since England's last semi-final at a major tournament, when they were beaten by Croatia at the 2018 World Cup. With the figures increasing with each English victory, we can only imagine how many viewers Sunday’s match will bring in. It’s coming home.

 

 

More football: UEFA Women's Champions League: We All Rise

 

DAZN, the leading global sports streaming platform, has recently acquired global rights to broadcast the UEFA Women’s Champions League for the next four seasons- from 2021-25.

 

To further the hype and interest in the Women’s Champions League, DAZN has also entered a ground-breaking partnership with YouTube to show matches live and free for fans around the world for the first time.

 

This marks the first time UEFA has centralised all Women's Champions League matches globally, and it’s a good step forward. Furthermore, it also fits with the direction the UEFA are going in as they partnered with TikTok for Euro 2020. They know there’s a big sports community online, and they’re making use of that in a forward-thinking way.

 

 

In TV campaigns: Pret brings back Christmas in July

The sandwich shop franchise is bringing Christmas forward by 6 months by releasing its beloved Christmas sandwich in high summer. Yes, that’s right.

Pret made the decision after being inundated with messages from customers who missed out on their Christmas range last December.

So, as an act of kindness, Pret is bringing back the seasonal sandwich for a limited time only.

It’s on sale throughout July and only July, and the sandwich features turkey with a port and orange cranberry sauce, herby pork stuffing squashed into thick-cut bread with baby spinach, mayo and crispy onions.

Pret worked with Kode Media to launch it and they brought in Slade frontman Noddy Holder for the ad; featuring him dressed in summer get up as Slade plays in the background of a Pret store. Anything Christmas related would capture your attention in July, but the reasoning  behind the seemingly odd ad is truly wholesome and feel-good. All in the Christmas spirit.

 

In technology: cookies

Last week, Google announced that it will delay plans to phase out third party cookies in its Chrome browser,

In the place of cookies, Google is going to implement its own Privacy Sandbox system which will still allow websites to show targeted ads while reducing the amount of information users share.

Google cited the complexity of removing cookies and implementing Privacy Sandbox

Chrome Privacy Engineering Director Vinay Goel said in statement  that the delays will at least allow the company to continue discussions with regulators, and also allow time for the advertising industry to migrate their services to the new platform.

While browsers like Firefox and Safari have already taken moves against third party cookies it is Chrome’s market dominance, with almost 65% of global market share, that will have a major impact on digital advertising.

As part of its new timeline, Google said that it aims to deploy the technologies by late 2022 to give time for developers to start adopting them. The company can then begin phasing-out cookies over a three-month period, starting in mid-2023 and ending in late 2023.

 

Just for fun:

 

Tesco attempted to make shoppers laugh with their tweet ahead of Wednesday’s game, but it didn't quite go down as they intended.

They tweeted: "For anyone who ever wondered about the origin of our name... #ItsComingHome"

And shared a photo spelling out "Ites coming home."

 Dozens of people then mocked Tesco's tweet - including rivals Sainsbury's, Co-op and Ocado.

But it also resulted in hilarious responses in the good spirit of football, with many companies coming up with their own "It's Coming Home" tweets.

Pizza firm said Chicago Town said: "Nice try, but we all know #ItsComingHome is an anagram of Chicago Town"  Co-op kept it sweet and simple with: "Step aside... it's Cooping home, surely?"

Heinz also got involved, tweeting back: "We've got this one.. IT'S COMING H(ome)EINZ! #Euro2020 #ThreeLions #ItsComingHome”